The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

‘What is there to get wrong? I told you…’

He paused because the next person to come onto the rear deck was the oarsman Stefano. Galuppi stared at me angrily, and then waved a dismissive hand at the man.

‘What are you doing here? Get below where you should be. You stink.’

In fact, Stefano had taken some care to wash the sweat of below-decks off his body. His hair was wet and droplets of water glistened on his face and arms. I guessed he had scooped up a bucket of sea water and poured it over himself before climbing to the upper reaches of the ship. Still, he hung his head and was about to turn away, when I stopped him.

‘I requested his presence, Messer Galuppi, by the same fair messenger who gave you your summons. I got permission from the ship’s captain first, naturally. We don’t want the ship going round in circles because one of the oarsmen is not pulling his weight. But seeing as his evidence is somewhat compromising, perhaps we can have him speak now, and then I can dispense with his services before the domina comes on deck.’

Galuppi tried to give me an intimidating stare, but the sun behind me simply made him squint like some poor idiot. He mustered as much authority in his voice as he could.

‘If we are talking about Querini’s death, you know we have talked over this man’s evidence. And it does not need to go beyond the three of us.’

I put on as cynical a voice as I was able. ‘Oh, you are referring to Stefano’s assertion that he killed Niccolo Querini?’

Stefano winced, and looked over his shoulder to see if anyone else had heard me. Galuppi too was disconcerted by my clear statement.

‘Keep your voice down, man.’

I pressed on regardless. ‘He told you this in the tavern over a few goblets of Xinomavro, no doubt. And you believed him.’

A look of uncertainty came over Galuppi’s face.

‘What do you mean – believed him?’ He turned to the red-faced Stefano. ‘What does he mean?’

Before Stefano could speak, I intervened, looking Galuppi straight in the eye.

‘You told me that you plotted with this man to murder Niccolo Querini.’

Galuppi foamed at the mouth at my accusation.

‘You know at whose instruction it was.’

‘I know who you said it was, and you might have even believed it. Though I think you read more into the words of… this person of note… than were there in the first place. But that is neither here nor there. What is clear is that what Stefano told you was untrue.’

Galuppi rounded on the embarrassed oarsman, who flinched and shook his head.

‘I only told you what you wanted to hear, messer. And I figured that, if Querini was dead, I might as well claim it was me did it, so you would pay me.’

I smiled beatifically. ‘So you see, Galuppi, you have nothing to tell the Doge after all.’

Galuppi wasn’t giving up, however.

‘The man is lying now. You have persuaded him to lie to thwart me. Of course he did away with Querini.’

I shook my head as though chiding a troublesome youth. ‘Not so. You see, I went down to the oar deck to talk to Stefano earlier. I asked to see his knife. It was a wide-bladed dagger, and quite short in length. It is a slashing knife, not an assassin’s blade. Nothing like the murder weapon at all. And when I professed to admire his killing skills, and asked him to tell me how he did it, he told me a pack of lies about stabbing Querini in the gut three times and twisting his knife so.’ I made a twisting motion with my hand held in a fist as if thrusting with a dagger.

‘Needless to say, there were no such marks on Querini’s body.’

Galuppi growled and demanded his money back of Stefano. He would have struck the man if I hadn’t stopped him.

‘No. You have been taken for a fool, and the loss of money will serve to teach you a lesson. Stefano, you can go.’

Mumbling his thanks, the oarsman returned to his nether world, and left us gentlemen to ours. There were a few moments of awkward silence between Galuppi and myself, but then the others arrived. Katie was leading, and Domina Speranza was relying on the sturdy arm of Brother Hugh to prevent her from falling as the ship rolled in the rough seas.

‘I hope you will make this brief, Zuliani. I would rather lie on my bed than try to stand upright in such weather.’

Speranza Soranzo’s words were peremptory, and to my ears bore no sign of the forbearance due from the follower of a Christian martyr. But then I had my doubts about Beornwyn anyway. The daughter of a nobleman – which the saint had been – was not someone used to self-sacrifice, as the domina herself clearly exemplified. I thought Beornwyn was as false a virgin as Speranza was, despite the stories spread by her faithful maidservant. She herself, whose name I had forgotten, would have had a vested interest in creating the myth of her mistress. She probably made a lot of money from pilgrims and the like. It was such a good scam I wondered why I had never tried it myself. Maybe because I was never in the company of virgins. This thought made me look guiltily at my granddaughter. A man who had spent his life enjoying the company of a certain type of woman, and coming late to family obligations, had little to judge a good woman by. But I knew that, virgin or not, Katie was, like her grandmother, the best of women. And far and away above Speranza Soranzo in nobility, even though she had a ne’er-do-well for a grandfather. Oh well, time to pull the final threads of the unravelling tapestry that was Niccolo Querini’s death. I took a deep breath, and began.

‘Before we arrive in Venice, I must conclude the matter of the murder of Domina Speranza’s husband.’

The woman in question opened her mouth to speak, but I raised my hand and surprisingly she remained silent, contenting herself with a deep sigh. I went on.

‘Firstly, there is no truth in the story that he fell to his death accidentally.’ Galuppi glared at me, but I pressed on. ‘It has also been suggested that he was killed in a… brawl – shall we say – between colleagues embarked on a private venture.’ I almost said the word ‘pirate’ but held back to spare the domina’s embarrassment. ‘This I have dismissed because of lack of evidence of a struggle on the body. His hands and knuckles were not-’

This time it was the monk who tried to intervene.

‘Messer Zuliani, does the domina need to be subjected to these intimate and disturbing references? It is her husband’s body to which you are referring, after all.’

I tilted my head to acknowledge his concern. ‘As you wish. I will not go into detail. Suffice it to say that none of the inhabitants on Sifnos, or the servants in the Querini mansion, were guilty of murder. Similarly, none of the crew on this ship were involved.’

I stared hard at Galuppi and defied him to object to my raising this point. He merely stared off to the horizon, which was beginning to tilt alarmingly as the ship rolled on the growing sea. Of course, I had not excluded Galuppi specifically from my list of suspects when I mentioned the crew. But it was to Hugh that I next turned.

‘Brother Hugh, I know you profess to be a man of God, and I have no reason to doubt your sincerity.’

The monk’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as to where my speech was leading.

‘I am glad you acknowledge the nature of my vows, messer. But I detect a note of caution in them. Where is this going?’

Hugh took a step or two away from me as he spoke, leaving Speranza reaching out for support to a rope that angled up to the ship’s mast. Hugh stood with his back to the handrail around the edge of the deck, and he clutched at it as he staggered a little on the lurching deck. I stood with legs apart and my knees flexed as my father had taught me when a boy. Father had been a cruel and harsh man, but he had passed on all I needed to know about ships. I carried on with my investigation of Hugh’s recent behaviour.