The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

‘They say the monk convinced her to deny Querini his rights as her husband, and to play the virgin.’

That amused the Greek, and he chortled deeply in his phlegmy throat.

‘She’s a fake virgin, if you ask me. But it’s true, what you say. Querini always used to boast how wild she was in bed, but recently she had denied him. He used to come here and drink the jug dry and bemoan his fate. He said he wasn’t getting anything from her purse either, though he always paid his bills here.’

We were back to Querini’s illegal business again, and I felt there was nothing more the man could offer. So as I had learned all I was going to from the tavern-keeper, I gave him a coin in way of payment for his information. He got up and shambled back to the corner of the room and his wine barrel, from where he presided over his domain. I too started to get up, but I had been sitting so long, my knees were stiff. They almost gave way under me, and I had to grip the edge of the table for support. It was a toss-up between whether it was infirmity or the effects of the Xinomavro. Whatever, I stayed where I was for a moment, and that slice of pure good luck meant I was not crossing the tavern floor when Galuppi entered. He had a black cloak on with the hood thrown over his head, but I recognised him all the same. No one else in Kamares had the gait of a man with a rod up his arse. I sat back down sharply, and leaned over my jug like some drunken Greek, hoping Galuppi wouldn’t spot me. I watched out the corner of my eye as he spoke briefly to the tavern-keeper. Then he was ushered through a door that presumably led to the owner’s private quarters. I waited to see what would happen next and was rewarded by the swift arrival of another familiar face. It wasn’t a local, but the debtor who was working off what he owed by being an oarsman in the galley that had brought us here. I racked my brain to recall his name, cursing age and poor memory, until it came. What was a common labourer like Stefano doing meeting up with the patrician Galuppi in an anonymous Greek tavern?

I didn’t want to be in the tavern when Galuppi or Stefano came out of the back room, so I got up, paid my bill, and went out into the coolness of the early evening. Walking past the boatyard, I watched idly as a gnarled old man worked on the beginnings of a boat. He drove long nails into the overlapped planks, then bent the nails’ end back into the plank on the inside. I ambled past and, further along the quayside, I noticed a burly figure that I recognised. It was a ship’s captain I had used on a few colleganze – business enterprises overseas to you. I called out his name.

‘Captain Doria! What are you doing here?’

The grey-bearded, old sea dog looked up furtively from making a written record of the goods being loaded on his boat. He looked very concerned that someone had recognised him. Then he realised it was me.

‘Niccolo Zuliani, by the Devil. I might ask the same of you. I noticed that sleek vessel in the harbour, but I would hardly have associated it with you.’

His own vessel was patched and the wood grey and worn. But I knew it to be seaworthy, having trusted my money in it more than once. I gave him a vague explanation of my apparent improvement in fortune.

‘I wish it were mine. It’s borrowed, as I’m on some business for a big man in La Serenissima. But why all the muscle on your ship?’

I had noted the two finely honed men staring disdainfully at me, as if I were a dog turd on the sole of their boots.

Doria cocked a thumb at them, and whispered in my ear, ‘Oh. I’ve got quite a lot of gold on board. The deal has been to buy cheap gold from the Saracens with silver coins. The Doge is behind most of it.’ He tapped the side of his nose, and laughed. ‘Soon, there won’t be any coins to buy goods with anywhere in Europe. It will all be in the hands of the infidels. Not that it will matter to the English. They say the English king is so far into debt with the Peruzzi and Bardi banks, he won’t be able to pay them in the end anyway.’

Doria’s chatter sent a shiver down my spine. What money I had was in those banks, and he had just told me a good recipe for their crashing soon. I asked him to do me a favour when he returned to Venice, and took the quill from his hand. On his bill of lading, I quickly scrawled him an authorisation to arrange the removal of my money from both banks. I cursed the Doge for engineering the crisis, and for keeping me in Sifnos when I most needed to be home.

‘Take this and hold my money for me until I return. There will be a percentage for you.’

Puzzled but compliant, Doria took my note and strode back to his ship. I hoped to God he realised the urgency of the document I had given him. So, what with all that distraction, I think I must have missed Galuppi and Stefano’s emergence from the tavern. I hovered by the end of the cobbled street where the tavern lurked, but it got later and later with no sign of either man. Finally, even the boat-builder gave up his work for the day. The sun was sinking, and I had to get back on my donkey and make for the other side of the island before it got completely dark. I didn’t want to fall over a cliff like I had been told Querini had. My late arrival at the Querini mansion meant that I didn’t know that Katie had not returned until the following morning.

I got anxious when she didn’t appear for breakfast. I thought she would be up promptly in order to tell me what she had found out the previous day from the domina and Brother Hugh. So when she wasn’t, I became concerned. So concerned that I didn’t even talk to Galuppi about being in Kamares the previous day. That would have to wait until I discovered where my precious granddaughter was. And the obvious place to start was the monastery at Mongou.

I hurried across the open fields surrounding the monastery, sweating in the morning sun that was already getting hot. The sound of a doleful bell carried across the valley, and despondency clenched my heart tight. I had a bad feeling about what I might find at the monastery of St John the Theologian. The bell had stopped ringing when I reached the main gateway to Mongou, but it still swung backwards and forwards, and the rope that worked the bell was swinging too. Someone had just left it and disappeared. The doors to the church inside the walls of the monastery were open and I could hear monotonous chanting coming from inside. I peered into the gloom, and saw for the first time the black-clad monks that occupied the monastery. For once they weren’t avoiding me. The heavy aroma of incense hung in the air, and clouds of it drifted on the breeze through the open doors. As a Venetian, I was familiar with the Orthodox heresy. I was old enough to remember tales of Venice’s role in the shambles that was later called the Fourth Crusade, when the Latin Church invaded Constantinople and ousted the Roman Empire and its faith. Venice profited mightily from its fall. That state of affairs didn’t last long, though, and in my youth the Greek Emperor and the Orthodox Church took it all back. Being Venetians, we made deals with the Emperor in the same way we had with the Latin crusaders sixty years earlier. So the bearded black monks were a familiar sight to me, but I had not seen such fervent prayer as was presented to me that morning. I felt awkward about disturbing them, even though I feared that they might be praying for Katie’s soul. I turned away to try and find either Brother Hugh or Domina Speranza, but was blessed instead by the happy sight of Katie Valier rushing across the open courtyard towards me. She almost bowled me over, and hugged me hard.

‘Grandpa, you must have been worried when I didn’t get back to the mansion yesterday.’ To my surprise she then scowled at me. ‘I thought you might have come searching for me last night.’