The Medieval Hearts Series

by Laura Kinsale

  "I weep with you," Il Corvo said, in response to Morosini’s lament about his poor circumstances since the storm. "I see now that my visit is inopportune. I have no wish to burden you with my demands at this time. Let us not dwell upon such things."

  The old man’s reaction to this sudden generosity was profound. Instead of becoming gladdened, his face melted into deeper caverns of sorrow. He groaned as if some angel of lamentation had touched him. "Nay, but I owe you a sum, and you demand it," he said unhappily. "I will not have it said that the House of Morosini does not honor its debts."

  "We agree upon the lesser sum, then," Il Corvo said. "If you can spare me the first half of it, I shall send my envoy—let us say, at the Christmas fair, for the remainder. The galleys from Constantinople will have returned then, by God’s grace. Will that lighten your burden?"

  Morosini gave a deep sigh. "You are a saint among men, Il Corvo."

  Not a flicker of mockery or humor altered either of their faces at this avowal. The pirate bowed his head courteously. "It is ever my object to serve you, Signor."

  "But it is I who can serve you—there must be some errand I might perform on your behalf. Some pitiful return for your immeasurable generosity."

  "I am in need of nothing, thank God. We are on pilgrimage in very gratitude for the fortune that spared my force and brought me great good chance."

  Morosini nodded, showing no sign of shock at the idea of an ex-communicate pirate on Christian pilgrimage. "The merciful Lord be praised. I should do the same. I will, when my health allows it, I swear I will go to Compostela, or even Jerusalem! But your lady—I have some pretty things that you would enjoy to adorn her beauty." He glanced up at Federico, lifting a finger. The burly man turned and left the room.

  The pirate looked at Elayne as if a sudden inspiration had come to him. "Nay—Signor, a small favor does enter my mind, if you might be inclined to please a lady."

  "Be certain that all the powers of my household and my strength are at your service in such an agreeable endeavor!"

  "My beloved Elena here is the scion of a great Lombard house. We are but newly wed, since several weeks past."

  "Excellent!" Morosini swept a deep bow toward Elayne. "I had not yet been honored by this great news. All of Venice rejoices in your happiness! What Lombard house?"

  Il Corvo lowered his voice. "She is the last principessa of the green and silver," he murmured.

  The old man drew in a slow, audible breath. Elayne held her hands still in her lap. She felt him look long at her. "Spirito Santo!" he whispered. "We had heard that she perished on her journey."

  "She was saved from the sea," Il Corvo said calmly. "By my men. She was brought to my island, and by the grace of God she has recognized and returned the ardent love and affection that I conceived for her."

  Elayne bit her tongue between her teeth, lowering her face.

  "Was she not betrothed to the house of Riata?" Morosini asked very softly.

  "Was she?" the pirate said. "Verily, it was not made known to me. Ours is a love match."

  The old man began to chuckle quietly. He washed his fingers together, laughing like a child. The cool room picked up the sound and echoed with his smothered mirth.

  "What favor could be done?" Morosini said at last.

  The pirate smiled indulgently at Elayne. "I can dress her and adorn her like a queen, but I have no power to make her great again in name and rank."

  "Nor I. I have no power to restore that throne."

  "Of course. You will understand—I have enemies." The Raven gave a shrug of apology, as if this were a personal flaw in his character. "I do not yet feel safe for her to be known abroad for who she is, in truth. But while we travel, I should like to clothe her with some likeness of the eminence of her rightful titles. To present her by letters that assure she is treated with due reverence, according to her high station among ladies."

  Morosini nodded slowly. "I believe I comprehend you. A designation of honor. Letters of introduction, from trustworthy friends who know her merit."

  "The Case d’Morosini of Venice is a name of respect and power in all lands. The honor of such a family would assure my dear Elena is not ignored or mortified on our journey."

  Morosini’s bony little hands plucked at a corner of his account book. "May I be honored to know the object of your blessed pilgrimage?"

  "I would be remiss to hide it from you. We are bound for the north. The place we seek is not far from the city of Prague—it is called Karlstein."

  Elayne lifted her head, looking quickly toward him.

  "That is a fortress." Morosini squinted at the pirate. "Do not the Imperial regalia lie there?"

  He smiled slightly. "Aye, in a sacred site. The Emperor’s chapel of the Holy Cross."

  "That can only be a place of pilgrimage for the chosen Emperor himself!"

  "My lady had a dream." The Raven reached for Elayne’s hand—a light touch that made her feel as if the floor beneath her feet stood in sudden danger of collapse—and held it between his.

  "As she floated half-dead, before her rescue from the waters, she dreamed that the Holy Virgin bade her seek out the thorns and nails from our Savior’s crucifixion. She was shown a white castle in a deep forest, and a cross of gold." He looked down at her as she stared at him in outrage at this falsehood, and then back at the Venetian. "We sought counsel of the hermit at Leukas, and were told we must go to Karlstein. You may comprehend our amazement."

  These lies were so bald and blasphemous that Elayne started up from her seat to object, but his fingernails dug deep into the back of her hand. She remained on her feet, glaring at him.

  "A wondrous vision," the Venetian said, with a smile that suggested he did not believe a word of it. "Let us retire to my closet, and speak of what aid might best speed you and your bridegroom, my lady."

  * * *

  In a chamber on the highest floor of the mansion, Morosini swept about closing shutters, sealing off the breeze, leaving only thin watery reflections from the canal below to dance on the ceiling for light. He did not invite Elayne or the Raven to sit.

  "The house of Morosini will lend no assistance to any attempt to steal the Imperial regalia," he said straightly.

  "Signor," Il Corvo said, "you know I am no such fool."

  Morosini stood very still, his bright eyes fixed on the pirate. "It is true I do not know you for a fool."

  "I am the son of my father. My chief object is no secret to you. The Imperial jewels are as dust to me in comparison."

  The Venetian nodded. "I do not quarrel with your ambition. The Riata are poor friends to Venice—they sit astride their mountain passes too greedily and try to cheat us of the silver we’ve contracted from the mines. But all men are subject to error in their judgment." He paused. "There were rumors of some alarm in Monteverde in recent weeks."

  Il Corvo lifted Elayne’s hand and bowed over it. He smiled down at her, his face strikingly handsome, under-lit as it was by the cool glow from the water’s reflections. "I can well believe that this fortune given to me has caused unease in certain quarters."

  "You are fortunate indeed to receive the favor of such a virtuous and illustrious maiden!" Morosini said, bowing also to Elayne. "But it was of more warlike motion that we had intimation." He sighed regretfully. "I suppose that it is not so."

  "Rumors!" Il Corvo said with an apologetic opening of his hand. "How often they mislead. If the common knowledge whispers that I am poised to make war on Monteverde, you may be sure that is the unlikeliest of my intentions."

  The Venetian seemed thoughtful. Elayne did not think he entirely accepted the pirate’s vague account, but he did not press further on the subject. "Indeed," Morosini said, "it would confound the gossips to hear that Il Corvo is upon a pilgrimage of devotion."

  "None would believe it," Il Corvo said simply.

  The old man chuckled. "Forgive me, I must confess to doubts myself."

  "I take no offense. For my lady, it is a pilgrima
ge of devotion. For myself, a pilgrimage in search of knowledge."

  "Commendable," Morosini said. "What variety of knowledge do you seek in the Emperor’s chapel?"

  "Nothing in his chapel, of course; I could hardly expect to enter there. But among the old Emperor’s collections—" He wriggled his fingers. "Charles was a fool for any holy relic. He would buy a tanned goat’s udder if he thought it was one of Mary Magdalene’s breasts." He gave a bland smile. "So I was moved to sell one to him, having no use for it myself."

  The two men appeared to find this irreverence against God and Crown to be a fine jest. But Morosini managed to stifle his glee, offering an effusive expression of regret for offending Elayne’s goodness. The Raven only flicked her cheek carelessly and said no doubt his wife would make him a better man.

  "A task of staggering proportions," she said tartly.

  Morosini had been about to speak—he closed his mouth and looked as if he had just seen her standing there. Elayne knew that in spite of his accomplished courtesies to a lady, until she spoke he had not given her personally any more thought than he would to a bedpost. She stared back at him in a manner that Cara would have certainly labeled as the behavior of a deplorable strumpet.

  The Venetian’s brows drew together. She could almost see into his mind: he would not tolerate his own wife or daughters to speak so bold. At that look she felt her eternal impulsive willfulness take hold of her tongue. "Do you think I can accomplish it, Signor?" she asked mildly.

  Il Corvo gave Elayne a shameless flash of heat beneath his lashes. With one of his wicked lazy smiles, he touched his shoulder. He smoothed his open palm over it as if he only brushed a wrinkle. " ’Tis certain no one else can," he murmured.

  Elayne felt herself grow crimson at this barefaced intimation. He had warned her sharply against any discourtesy, but he did not seem dismayed now at her impudence. Nay, he looked at her as if he would take her up against the wall where they stood—a thought that made the air seem so close and hard to breathe that she thought she might well smother of it. "If you do not make me far worse instead," she replied, spreading her skirts in a mocking bow, looking down to hide her desperate flush. "My lord."

  " ’My lord pirate,’ you mean to say! But the goodness of your nature prevents you."

  The Venetian grew distressed, fluttering his hands. "Let us not speak too much in jest, I beg you!" He had recovered his civility. "Indeed, I have been remiss to keep her here, wearying her with our business trifles, when she ought to be entertained by my wife and her attendants. Do forgive an old fellow, Lady Elena."

  "I have not been wearied at all," she said. "I find Il Corvo’s explanation of our affairs to be—amazing. What is it that we seek in the Emperor’s collections, besides a goat’s udder? I’m greatly agitated to discover."

  The Raven bowed to Morosini. "My wife is uncommonly learned for a woman. She delights in diverse knowledge."

  Morosini did not commend her for that. "I pray she does not become overly excited by such activity," he said seriously.

  Il Corvo took an impatient step, leaning his head against a window shutter and gazing out. Light from the narrow slats made bright lines across his face. "She’s made of stronger fiber."

  "Nay, but heed. The physicians are united in their advice on this topic! For a woman of advanced age, or a nun, it may do, but it is not healthy for a young maid of—of nubile years—to engage heavily in mental exercise."

  The pirate lifted an eyebrow, looking toward Elayne. He might have been smiling, but in the laddered strips of sunlight she could not be sure.

  "We can only hope that my husband will reveal his object before my poor brain is overheated," she said, with another courtesy.

  "It is not your brain that concerns me, my dear," Morosini said kindly, turning to her. "It is the diversion of life fluid from the womb. The ladies of the green-and-silver have often made this mistake, I fear, allowing mental exertion to weaken their bodies for breeding. Princess Melanthe herself spent her vigor in too great study, and bore only one sickly daughter, you must know. It was a great tragedy for Monteverde. You want to please your husband with a fine son, do you not?"

  "Very true!" the pirate said, before Elayne could respond with a heated denial of Lady Melanthe’s inability to bear sons. He stood straight. "Madam, from this moment you are forbidden to read anything but recipes for lasagna."

  Morosini nodded. "Wise of you. It would not do to create too abrupt a change in her habits."

  The pirate smiled serenely at Elayne. "Certainly not. We will decrease her by degrees to instructions for sweetmeat," he assured their host.

  The old man’s face wrinkled into a deep smile. "Excellent. But we have kept her standing too long, I must insist. You have had enough exertion for this day, my lady." He rang a bell, and in a few moments two young pages hurried into the room. "Inform the Signora that we have an honored guest. Quickly now! Quickly!"

  * * *

  Il Corvo’s business had not made her brain boil, but an hour in the company of Signora Morosini and her devout ladies was enough to make Elayne fit for a lunatic. The Signora in particular was liable to take offense at trifles, the pirate had warned her. He had cautioned her to take great care. Elayne knew she had already skimmed dangerously close to the behavior of a deplorable strumpet. So she sat in an upright chair next to Margaret’s stool in the dim, shuttered room, enduring the slow conversation. It seemed to consist entirely of ponderous commentary on the imperfect morals and lewdness of young women in these latter days, and the punishment that awaited them in the Inferno.

  Margaret kept her face lowered. Elayne did not hide, but held her hands still in her lap, saying nothing, thinking of the Raven, thinking of the underground room, thinking thoughts so immoral that they were near beyond comprehension.

  There had been no opportunity for confession since the night in his secret room, and no repeat of the act—in the stifling, close quarters of the magician’s ship, it was Zafer or Dario who kept watch over her as she slept, while the Raven seldom came into the cabin at all if she were there.

  But the return to utter chastity between them had merely closed the door on a hidden furnace. Elayne labored in a state of sin that would have astounded the Signora. On the galley she had sat in the place prepared for her under a swaying canopy and pretended to occupy herself with gazing at the dolphins that escorted them. But when the Raven was not looking, she had watched him stand beside the deck rail, taking the motion of the ship easily, his hair tied back under a knotted sash. She thought of the sound he had made as he shuddered inside her; she felt his arms about her and the taste of his bruised skin on her tongue.

  He kept a distance from her: a deliberate, taunting distance. Elayne affected not to notice him. She watched. She relived it again and again in her mind. And she knew that he was conscious of it, that he knew every moment where she was and what she was doing, as he knew the reach of his daggers. She held her breath and thought that when next he touched her in that way, she would shatter like a glass vessel into a hundred razor-edged shards of desire.

  Signora Morosini lifted a pale hand, turning her beads to tell an Ave on her lady’s Psalter, then launched a measured discourse on the tortures to be meted out to unchaste whores who lured men into fornication and adultery for money. Concluding with a remark on the blessed sanctity of marriage, she nodded at Elayne with an air of compliment. A tiny motion caught Elayne’s eye. She glanced aside at her maid and saw that the girl was weeping without a sound.

  Signora Morosini noticed it also. She looked at Margaret with a faint, satisfied smile. The girl’s quiet tears were a clear betrayal of her history, but instead of showing pity, the Signora resumed her sermon with renewed force, raising fresh specters of the agony in store for harlots. Finding a victim to address seemed to give her slow voice new energy.

  When the Signora heavily advised Elayne that it was a peril to her own chastity to keep a servant who had sinned in such a way, Elayne came to the limits
of her fortitude. She reached over and took Margaret’s hand, rising without a word. Without taking leave of the Signora or her ladies, without even a courtesy, she led Margaret from the chamber.

  The pages leaped to open the doors and close them on the shocked silence that Elayne and Margaret left behind. The maid clutched Elayne’s hand. As soon as they were in the hall, she turned her face into Elayne’s shoulder and began to sob in earnest.

  Zafer stood on the far side of the hall, his white turban gleaming in the dim light. He took an involuntary step forward, lifting his hand, then stopped. He looked up at Elayne, his dark eyes wide with question.

  "They were cruel," she said briefly, holding Margaret’s trembling shoulders. The girl turned her head, saw Zafer there, and put both her hands over her face. She shook her head violently and pulled away, hurrying to the farthest corner of the hall and turning her face to the wall. She huddled there as if she could hide from sight.

  Zafer scowled. He held himself very straight as he bowed to Elayne, a little taller than she, but not as tall as his pirate lord. Then he waited.

  "Il Corvo is still with Signor Morosini?" she asked.

  "Aye, Your Grace," Zafer said. "I can have a message carried to him if you wish."

  "Yes. You may tell him that I have offended the Signora past redemption and await his further instructions," she said, with a light wave toward the closed doors behind her.

  * * *

  Elayne could not tell if he was displeased. He asked for no explanation, but she gave a stiff description of the Signora’s denunciations of corrupt young ladies anyway, daring him to say she should have borne it. But she kept her chin lifted and avoided his eyes as she spoke, gripping her hands in her lap.

  "She is a scourge of prostitutes, is she?" was all he said. He leaned down and flipped Elayne’s veil over her face, then gave a quick command to the pole-man of their gondola as they glided from the small river out into the teeming great canal, saying no more of their swift departure from the Case d’Morosini.