The False Virgin

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘Blood?’

  I was chilled by Katie’s revelation. Was Speranza dead too, and the monks’ chanting a Mass for her? Katie grasped my hands tightly with hers.

  ‘She stood in the centre of the room with her arms out-stretched, making the shape of Christ on the cross. And her hands – her palms were oozing blood.’

  Katie’s eyes were wide open, as if she had witnessed some miracle.

  ‘You mean that she was marked with . . .?’

  ‘Stigmata, yes.’

  No wonder the monks were singing. They had a genuine miracle taking place in their own obscure monastery, which could be very lucrative for them. Of course, you would have to put me in the category of sceptic when it came to miracles. Like Doubting Thomas, I needed to see this for myself.

  ‘Come, show me.’ I could not keep the irony out of my voice. ‘Is the domina approachable by the mere mundane?’

  ‘Oh, yes. She has calmed down now, and even let me bind her wounds yesterday. She slept last night, but I have not checked on her this morning yet. We can go and see how she is, if you like.’

  I followed Katie to the range of buildings where the monks’ cells stood. I refrained from suggesting we should be relieved it was merely the Lord’s wounds that marked Speranza. If she had copied the virgin saint’s affliction, she would have been flayed alive. Katie poked out her tongue in response to my scepticism. She knocked on the cell door, announcing herself to the woman within. A muffled voice gave us permission to enter.

  Speranza Soranzo was kneeling beside a simple pallet bed, which was the only furniture in the room. In fact, it was the only item in the room other than the woman herself and a wooden cross on the wall. It was truly a bare, ascetic cell. Believe me. I scanned it carefully, expecting to see something with which the supposed stigmatist could have wounded herself. But there was nothing.

  She turned to look at me, a nauseatingly beatific look on her bland face. I could see a growing crop of boils on her neck, though. The saint had not seen fit to cure her of those. Perhaps I was being too cynical, and decided to ask if I could see her wounds. As if more than willing to display the evidence of her special status, Speranza held out her bound hands, and I noticed the bandage on her left hand was partly unwound. I kneeled before her and took the hand in mine, unwinding the loose bandage fully. There was indeed a puncture wound the size of a finger in the centre of her palm, and it was still oozing blood slightly. I sniffed the wound because it is said that holy wounds, like the bodies of dead saints, exude the odour of sanctity. I could smell nothing. I wrapped the bandage back around her hand, and thanked her for her courtesy. It was a puzzle that I could not explain, and I didn’t like the fact.

  Having retreated back to our bench in the courtyard, I asked Katie where Brother Hugh was.

  ‘I don’t know. I have not seen him this morning. You would think, wouldn’t you, that he would be fussing around his great prize? I mean, he not only has a well-connected convert to St Beornwyn’s cause, he now can parade her as a stigmatist.’

  A voice spoke up from the porch of the church.

  ‘Is that what you think of me? That I am doing all this for fame and fortune?’

  It was the missing Brother Hugh, still worked up about his missing relic. Apparently he had been hunting in the church for it again, when the Greek monks had filed in. He had been trapped in a side chapel, and had to endure the whole service, which was a lengthy one as Orthodox services are. He had only just been able to escape.

  I grunted noncommittally, neither confirming nor excusing my opinion of him.

  ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

  ‘No, but I have not searched the domina’s cell yet.’

  With a determination that I had not seen in him before, he crossed the blisteringly hot courtyard, making for Speranza’s cell. Katie made as if to get up and follow him, but I stayed her with my hand.

  ‘Leave them to it. I have no doubt that Speranza has the relic. It’s just a matter of whether she will give it back to him.’

  Katie nodded, then tilted her head to one side as she watched Hugh disappear round the corner of the dormitory range.

  ‘Did you notice something about Hugh’s robe?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure you have.’ Katie’s young eyes were far better than mine, and I had to rely on my wits and longer time on this earth to stay ahead of her.

  ‘Yes. The hem of his robe, where it brushes the ground, has a faint white mark around it just above the edge of the robe.’

  I frowned, not sure what she was suggesting. ‘Well, I would guess that Hugh has only one robe, and it’s probably been dragging in the dust.’

  Katie clapped her hands together in triumph. ‘No, it’s not dust. It’s more deeply stained in the brown wool than that. It’s like when a man sweats in the heat and then the sweat under his armpits or across his back dries, leaving a white mark. Only that wouldn’t happen to the edge of his robe. It looks to me like sea salt has dried around the bottom where he has got his robe wet in the sea.’

  I suddenly saw what she was suggesting.

  ‘Or on the shoreline at Chlakopo beach, where Querini’s body was found.’

  I clapped my hands on my knees and rose, rather too abruptly for my creaking knees. But I was determined on action at last.

  ‘Katie, tell Brother Hugh and the domina to make ready. I intend to sail for Venice tomorrow, and they will both come with me.’

  ‘You will take her back home along with the killer of her husband?’

  I lifted an admonitory finger in the air. ‘If he is the murderer, then he will face justice in Venice. If not, well . . .’

  I strode across the courtyard grinning, knowing that I would have frustrated my granddaughter with my unfinished sentence. The truth was I didn’t know what the alternative was. There were so many possible suspects for Querini’s murder, and I still needed to talk to a few of them. When I got back to the crusader mansion, I told all who were to travel back with me to pack for a long journey.

  The first man I summoned was Antonio-Antonis. I was troubled by what the tavern-keeper had said about him. He had referred to the manservant’s involvement with Querini’s piracy, and mentioned his ‘pig-sticker dagger’. I had not given Antonis enough consideration, thinking him just a bystander to the death of his master. As I began to pull my spare clothes out of the chest, he arrived in answer to my summons.

  ‘You wanted to talk to me, sir?’

  I looked carefully at his belt. No dagger. Did that mean he had hidden it after sticking his master through the heart? He certainly looked wary at my examination. I had no time for finesse, even if I had been capable of it in the first place.

  ‘Yes. Give me your dagger.’

  I held my hand out with a lot more authority than I felt. If he decided to oppose me, he could easily kill me where I stood. Instead he wavered, and looked around as if for a way of escape.

  ‘My . . . dagger? Sir, I don’t wear one when I am about my duties.’

  That enough was true. I could not recall having seen one at his waist, not even when I had seen him out with the dogs at the scene of Querini’s murder. But I needed to be sure he didn’t have the sort of dagger that could have made the small but deadly wound to Querini. And if he was the killer, I could not leave him free on the island after our departure.

  ‘Except when your duties are standing side by side with your master robbing honest traders of their goods.’

  His face went deathly pale at my accusation.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Never mind who did. I can see from your face that it is true. Where is the bassillard you used to stick in the heart of those you robbed?’

  My reference to the sort of narrow, slender-bladed dagger that could have done for Querini seemed to puzzle Antonis. He fell to his knees, clutching at my fur-trimmed robe.

  ‘I don’t now what you mean, sir. Yes, it’s true my master persuaded me to help him once or twice. But I never
killed anyone. None of us did. It was enough to wave a good heavy sword in the air, and they usually let us take what we wanted. A little bassillard would have had no effect on them, sir.’

  I believed the grovelling servant, and extricated my robe from his grasp. I told him to go, and he would hear nothing more of this. He gasped out his thanks and ran from the room. I felt confident I could eliminate him from my list of suspects, as I had thought all along. Had I not seen there were no signs of a struggle on Querini’s body, and no cuts or bruises on his knuckles? If Antonis had turned on him, he surely would have put up a fight, even drunk as he had been. Querini’s dogs had been another indication of his innocence. Domina Speranza had told me how much they had loved her husband. If Antonis had already been out walking them when he encountered his master and then had slain him, the dogs would have been more agitated around Antonis. And if he had killed Querini without the presence of the dogs, it would have taken a stout heart and great cunning to leave the scene of the murder, walk back to the mansion, collect the dogs and ‘accidentally’ discover the dead body. No, Antonis was off my list of suspects.

  As I was completing my preparations for the return to Venice, Bertuccio Galuppi strode into my room.

  ‘What’s this I hear? We are to return to Venice all of a sudden? Does this mean you have satisfied yourself of the domina’s suitability to present herself before the Doge, her father?’

  I grinned in a way I hoped was enigmatical. ‘Indeed. I am assured of her almost virginal status, in fact.’

  Galuppi didn’t know what I was talking about, having not been a party to the details of Katie and my examination of Speranza Soranzo’s relationship with Brother Hugh. But of course he knew of the monk’s existence after I had made reference to him as the domina’s possible lover. So, unsure whether he was being mocked, he narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

  ‘You mean the monk will be coming back with us, too?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He is an essential part of my plans for Domina Soranzo’s return to Venice.’

  Galuppi shrugged in resignation. ‘Then I shall ready myself for the journey.’

  He turned to leave, and I was tempted to confront him with my knowledge of his trip to Kamares, and his meeting with Stefano the oarsman. But I wanted to face them with that fact together. On board ship and before we reached La Serenissima would be time enough. In fact, I was confident that, with all my suspects on board, all would be revealed before our return. If it wasn’t, I would have failed in my mission for the Doge.

  It was the following day before we got to sea. It took longer than I thought to move all the baggage across the island to the harbour, and then to load it. I noticed that Captain Doria’s ship had left, and hoped that he would carry out my request to pull my money out of the two banks. I would be only a few days behind him, but those days might be all it took for the banks to crash. We were also delayed by a row over the allocation of cabin space. The domina wanted her own quarters, and the best ones too. Galuppi, Katie and myself had to take second best. In the end the captain of the ship reluctantly gave up his cabin, and everything was settled. But by then it was too late to set sail, so we spent an uncomfortable night on board waiting for the morning. The oarsmen, including the debtor Stefano, had gone back ashore and spent the night in various taverns around the quayside. Their pulling on the oars in the morning had therefore been sluggish at best. But at last Sifnos had disappeared over the horizon, and we were on our way towards the southern coast of Greece. Here we would rest and reprovision before heading north for La Serenissima.

  Two days into our homeward journey, I decided it was time to pull at a few threads and see what unravelled. The first person I came across on deck happened to be Bertuccio Galuppi. He was staring out beyond the prow of the ship as if seeking the first sighting of Venice lagoon and its protective shingle bank. We had hardly spoken since getting on board, each of us avoiding the other for whatever reason. Now, I would confront him with his suspicious meeting with Stefano. He was concentrating so much on the vista ahead that he didn’t hear me until I was right behind him. Suddenly realising I was there, he turned to go, much as he had done for the past two days. I grasped his arm abruptly.

  ‘Don’t go, Messer Galuppi. There is something we must discuss.’

  He looked down at my fist crushing the cloth of the arm of his fine jerkin, and tried to release himself from my grip. I was unmoved, and pulled him closer to my face.

  ‘You may think you are something special here, Galuppi, seeing as you are old family and all that rubbish. But I am the person the Doge confided in, and I will be reporting to him when we return. And I may have to tell him about your rendezvous with a common oarsman in some low tavern, and the conspiracy that it no doubt points to. So you’d better listen to me.’

  Galuppi did that sneer that is a part of the armoury of the upper classes. In fact, I was afraid he saw through my feeble reference to a conspiracy, and could tell I had no idea why the two men had met.

  ‘Oh, so I must listen to you, must I, Zuliani? Well, let me tell you something. Your little task for the Doge was only a pretty charade to cover up the real reason we were on Sifnos. I was charged with the task of getting rid of Niccolo Querini by any means available. So while you were stumbling around talking to the domina and that monk, I sought out a likely member of the crew to assist me. The debtor Stefano was ideal. A man who would do anything for money. If you saw us together the other day, it was when I paid him off. He told me he had carried out his orders to the letter. Now, let go of my arm.’

  Stunned by his admission, I did so, and he pushed past me. He was making for the cabins at the stern, but stopped for a parting shot.

  ‘And don’t think of running to the authorities with this. It was all done at the Doge’s behest, so no one will care to listen to you.’

  With that final warning, he went through the door to the cabins, and I was left clutching thin air just as a wave broke over the bow. I would have been swept off my feet and perhaps over the side, had not a firm hand taken hold of me as I tumbled. Down on one knee and staring over the rail at the worsening grey sea, I blurted out my thanks.

  ‘I thank you, sir, for your life-saving timeliness.’

  I heard Katie’s bell-like laugh, and realised the steely grip had been that of my own granddaughter.

  ‘Your eyesight is fading, Grandpa, if you think I am a man. I think I am more offended even than when you grabbed my tits at our first meeting.’

  A passing sailor, sent to trim the sails, gave me a strange look on hearing Katie’s comment. Embarrassed, I hustled her back towards our cabin. I think I have mentioned our first encounter, when Katie had dressed as a boy and was stalking me. I had lurked in wait, and grabbed her roughly round the chest, not expecting a womanly figure to appear under my hands. But the sailor was not to know that.

  ‘You should not say things like that in front of others. That man will think I am some sort of incestuous pervert.’

  Katie laughed. ‘He is probably jealous of your intimate knowledge of my luscious body.’

  ‘There you go again, Katie. Please stop it.’

  She could see I was really embarrassed, and put her solemn face on.

  ‘Sorry, Grandpa.’

  The truth of the matter was that I just didn’t get this parent business. I wanted to be a good example to my granddaughter. But whatever I did, it soon degenerated into the usual fun and games, it seemed. However, Katie did have something serious to tell me.

  ‘I have just been talking to Speranza, as you requested.’

  ‘Did you see the crucifix around her neck?’

  A few days ago, I had noticed the leather thong around Speranza’s neck that disappeared under the front of her dress, and was curious what it held.

  Katie frowned. ‘No. I went to touch the thong as I asked her, and she quickly put her hand over her chest to protect it. She said it was a family heirloom and personal to her.’ Her eyes lit up. ‘You don’t think it is t
he saint’s missing finger, do you?’

  I shrugged noncommittally. ‘Maybe. Now, tell me. Is she all right? Her wounds, are they healing?’

  ‘No, the wounds are open and they are bleeding again. I can’t figure it out, unless they are truly stigmata.’ She said this in such a way that I knew she didn’t believe in the phenomenon any more than I did. ‘But that isn’t what I want to talk to you about. You see, while I was looking at her hands, she said something to me.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘She looked at me, all innocently in that virginal way she has now, and said she thought that Brother Hugh had killed Niccolo in order to ensure her husband did not lead her away from St Beornwyn. She sounded quite sure of it.’

  I pulled a face. ‘That gives us two murderers in the space of a few moments.’

  I explained to the puzzled girl the result of my confrontation with Galuppi. She was as surprised as I was at what he had said.

  ‘Galuppi involved in a murder plot? With direct orders from the Doge? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘What’s so unbelievable? That stiff, strait-laced Bertuccio Galuppi could arrange the murder of a man, if it suited the Republic? Or that the Doge – our noble hero of the Aegean – could order it done in the first place, if it fitted in with his own personal situation?’

  Katie stamped her foot in frustration. ‘Damn it, Grandpa, why are you always so good at seeing through all the sham?’

  ‘Because I have lived a long life surrounded by hypocrites.’ I gave her a rueful smile. ‘I fear it is something you will learn too, if you stick around your grandfather. In the meantime, I need you to tutor me about aspects I find much more difficult to comprehend.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Families and marriage. Now there are two things that completely fox me.’

  As well as Katie teaching me what went on between men and women inside families – a story with which I was completely unfamiliar – I had another task to perform. This occasioned delving deep into the bowels of the ship where the pitching and yawing was more stomach-churning than on deck, and the odours were of men’s sweat and bodily excretions. But it was worth it. Once I had found out what I had all along believed, I was ready to confront the killer of Niccolo Querini. I was glad to get back on deck and breathing in the clean, fresh air coming off the Adriatic, even if it was whipping up to gale force and throwing a stinging spray into my face. Being thrown from side to side, I reeled back to my cabin, and planned my next step. I hoped it would finally serve to unpick all those threads I had been teasing away at for the last few days.