‘I think we must beard the she-wolf in her den,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow morning we will go and call on the Montemoros.’
‘What, and just ask the Countess to give us back Master Ashby?’ cried Ned.
‘I’m not quite as bold as that,’ said Dr Leone, laughing. ‘No, we will go to the Count as petitioners, and ask humbly for his help in locating our imprudent friend, who was kidnapped by a gang of island pirates while trying to investigate their crimes.’
‘Won’t it look strange, going to the Count for help in a matter like this?’
‘Not at all. He fancies himself as a protector of the city. And pirates are a plague—everyone knows that. Especially wealthy and powerful families. Venice is wealthy from its trade. Pirates threaten that wealth. The Montemoros have never had to suffer directly from them, but I’m sure they hate such people as much as anybody does.
It makes the perfect cover for our enquiries into the Tedeschi case.’ He paused. ‘Besides, it may in fact be the case that Mateo has really been kidnapped by the pirates he was investigating.’
‘But, sir, remember what we discussed! The pirates would surely have killed my master. Think how cruel they are—they haven’t let one crew-member from the seized ships escape death. And they murdered Salerio, just in case he was getting too close. No, he’d be dead if it were them. Besides, you and Master Ashby had just gone to see Dr Tedeschi. And he spoke of wanting to interview the guards about Sarah. So it must be that!’
Dr Leone shrugged. ‘Possibly. Though I’m not sure. Anyway, the pirate angle is what we must present to the Count.’
‘But what if the Countess hears of our attempt to enlist her husband’s help?’
‘What of it? It’ll flush her out into the open. And we can see how she reacts. What’s more, if we can persuade the Count to go looking for Master Ashby’s kidnappers, the Countess will think twice about continuing to hold him—if indeed it is she who holds him.’ He turned to Henri. ‘You might do best staying at my house tonight, young man. We will send a message to your father first thing to tell him where you are. Will that be suitable?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Henri, eyes shining. ‘I wouldn’t miss going to the Montemoros’ for the world.’
‘And no duelling in my house,’ said Dr Leone sharply.
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‘Oh, that will be for quite another place and time, if it happens,’ said Henri coolly. ‘Don’t you agree, Ned?’
‘Mmm,’ said Ned absently. His mind was on other things. ‘Dr Leone, we’ve got to tell Celia and Mistress Quickly what’s happened.’
Dr Leone shook his head. ‘No. Not until we’ve been to see the Montemoros.’
‘Then Celia will want to come with us. She hates being kept out of things. And she’s clever,’ said Ned.
The other two looked at him in some surprise. Dr Leone laughed gustily. ‘My dear Ned, women have to be shown a firm hand, you know. Especially one as reckless as Miss Celia. Don’t tell her where we’re going. Make up a story of some sort.’
Blushing but determined, Ned said, ‘I can’t tell her anything of the kind. I don’t want to lie to her. It’s not fair.’
Dr Leone raised his eyebrows. ‘Such scruples! Very well. We won’t lie to her. We’ll leave very early, long before anyone else is up. Then nobody need lie, except the servants. Now then, I think a little sleep is called for, or our brains will turn to porridge.’
Ned thought he would never be able to go to sleep. So he was surprised when he suddenly started awake out of a dreamless, heavy slumber, Henri shaking him and whispering, ‘Get up. Hurry. It’s time we were going. Dr Leone’s got the boat ready.’
It was a grey morning again, the mist lying on the
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canal, but not rainy. Already there was a good deal of traffic on the waterways, for Venice was a city of business, and business woke early. It was a busy, colourful scene, with boats laden with goods from trading ships anchored at the Rialto wharves; market boats, filled with vegetables and fruit; passenger boats, ferrying people from one part of the city to another; private boats belonging to great families . . .
Like many of Venice’s noble families, the Montemoros had their palace directly fronting the Grand Canal. It was a beautiful three-storey building of marble and stucco, built two centuries before and decorated with rounded windows, delicate balconies, and fresh new frescoes. There was a large arched Watergate down below, the arch prominently emblazoned with the rather sinister emblem of the Montemoros—a black wolf’s head, against a sharp peaked hill. Here, boats could come directly in to moor under shelter. The palace spoke not only of great wealth, but of confident power. It was all very well to talk bravely about going up against such power, Ned thought; it was quite another to actually come up against it. With a sudden shudder, he thought: Here we are y gliding right into the wolf's den.
But the wolf was obviously drowsy that morning, for the gondola got very close indeed to the palace before anyone seemed to notice. Then a small boat, with two guards in it, came out of the Watergate towards them.
They called out a challenge and Dr Leone answered calmly.
‘He’s saying we’re here to present a petition to the Count, that we have been the victims of kidnap gangs and that we crave his most gracious help,’ translated Henri to Ned.
The guards’ boat drew up alongside. Their suspicious glances swept over the alchemist, then the two young men. 7/ nome / one of them barked. Your name.
Dr Leone told them. He added something, in fluent tones. ‘He’s saying the Count knows him well, that he’s the most famous alchemist in Venice and that if they know what’s good for them, they’ll go straight away and tell him we’re here,’ said Henri.
The guards must have been impressed, for they turned around and went swiftly back to the palace.
Within a very short time they were back and spoke to Dr Leone, who nodded, smiling.
‘It’s worked,’ he said to Ned and Henri. ‘He’ll give us a few minutes of his time. We’re in, lads.’
As the gondola sailed in under the arches of the Mon- temoro palace, Ned’s heart gave a little skip of mingled excitement and nervousness. Yes, they were in the wolf’s den now. But they’d better take care. Very great care. For even if the wolf was drowsy, everyone knew that in fact it was the she-wolf who could be the most dangerous enemy.
10 7 •>>■
Part Two
A DARK WEB
v^elia woke that morning with a headache. She’d had an agitated night, with lots of unpleasant dreams, and didn’t feel rested at all. She lay there for a little while, rubbing at her temples, trying to relax enough to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t. A sense of nameless dread filled her. She hated the feeling. She was a practical girl, not an imaginative one. Leave a wisp of dream to Ned and he’d spin a story for you out of nothing. But she prided herself on her common sense. Her calm. Her understanding of real life. And yet underlying the nightmares that had
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plagued her was the sense that something was wrong. Something didn’t make sense. They’d missed something.
And now as she lay there, uneasily, she suddenly knew
what it was. It was a question they should have asked themselves from the beginning.
Why, if his daughter had been accused of witchcraft and then disappeared, had Dr Tedeschi been left free and unmolested? Why hadn’t the Countess had him arrested? Of course, she might not have known Sarah had disappeared straight away. But it was at least seven weeks since her disappearance, and surely in that time the Countess would have found out if she had an informer in the Ghetto, as Dr Leone suspected. A girl can’t just vanish without it attracting attention from her neighbours. And by all accounts Sarah had not been a stay-at- home, but helped her father on his visits to patients. Her absence would have been noticed. Then the first thing the Countess might have done was to haul in Sarah’s father for questioning. She would have suspected he knew where h
is daughter was. But he had not been touched; and that, thought Celia, was surely strange. The woman was apparently obsessed with witchcraft and sorcery— not only had she accused Sarah, but she’d also accused Dr Leone, earlier. She was apparently a fanatic; so why wouldn’t she try all means to run the witch to ground, including leaning on her father?
It could only mean one thing, thought Celia, sitting bolt upright in bed. It must mean that the witchcraft
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accusation was a blind and that the Countess was after Sarah for quite some other reason. There was the obvious solution, of course: the Count had fallen in love with the girl, his wife had seen it, and, insanely jealous, she sought to destroy her. But why in this way? Why not just have the girl murdered by some hired killer, before she even suspected the Countess’s hatred? That would be easy enough for a person in the Countess’s position to arrange. It was true the Jews of Venice were protected by law from molestation, but you could make such a thing look like an ordinary street crime. It wasn’t uncommon for footpads to kill people in the course of a robbery, and the murders were very often not solved, especially if the person concerned had been of no social consequence.
Instead, the Countess had accused Sarah of being a witch. But not to the authorities . If it had been a formal accusation to the Council of Ten, then Venetian justice would have swung into action. The girl would have been arrested, tried, sentenced if found guilty, acquitted if found innocent. Perhaps.
But nothing like this had happened. Sarah had disappeared, but there had been no official hue and cry. Only the Countess, looking for her . . . Therefore it meant there had still been no formal, public accusation. It must have come as a private communication, then, verbal or written. Which meant the Countess must not be quite sure of her ground with the Council of Ten,
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or of making her accusation stick in the full glare of a public trial.
Which then meant first of all, thought Celia, that the Tedeschis were not bereft of influence and not so easily accused. But also that the Countess was gambling on the idea that such an accusation would frighten the young and inexperienced Sarah into precipitous action. Yes, perhaps that was the whole idea —to frighten Sarah into vanishing. Because then she might either vanish for good—might be so scared she would leave the city and never come back—or the Countess would have the leisure to look for her and, if she found her, question her in private and then dispose of her, permanently and quietly. Which meant, thought Celia excitedly as she hurriedly dressed and ran a comb through her hair, that the Countess felt threatened by Sarah, but that she wasn’t sure how much. She suspected Sarah might know something. Something important. Something that directly incriminated the Countess, in some way.
But what? Whatever it was, it could not have been something Dr Tedeschi could know, or he would have been picked up by the Countess’s men. Celia thought hard. The accusation had come the day after the Tedeschis had been at the Montemoros’, seeing to that patient. What if Sarah alone had seen something which incriminated the Countess and the woman had realized that? Dr Tedeschi had said that Sarah had been left alone for a short while at his patient’s bedside while he
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went to mix medicines. This was when she had briefly met the Count. But what if it was nothing to do with the Count at all? What if it was something Sarah had seen while she sat at the patient’s bedside?
The patient had been an elderly woman, some sort of cousin of the Countess’s. On the face of it, thought Celia, not a significant person. What if it was not to do with the patient, though, but the room in which she lay? Could Sarah have seen something out of a window, for instance? Or overheard something she wasn’t meant to?
Yes, thought Celia. That must be why the girl had disappeared—because after she was accused she had realized the significance of what she’d witnessed. She had said she was the ‘victim of a conspiracy.’
That must be what it was about! My God, what a dark web we have stumbled into.
I must tell Father at once, she thought as she went out of the room, headache quite forgotten. We must go and see Dr Tedeschi and ask him questions about that room and what Sarah might possibly have witnessed while she was in it.
Mistress Quickly was already up, having breakfast, when Celia went downstairs. ‘You look rather tired,’ Mistress Quickly observed as Celia sat down at the table. ‘You’d best have a restful day, after all that silly nonsense yesterday.’
‘Aunt Bess,’ said Celia, ignoring this comment, ‘did
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Father say anything to you about whether Dr Tedeschi told him exactly what happened when Sarah was left alone at the patient’s bedside?’
Mistress Quickly stared at her. ‘Goodness me, child, it’s rather early in the morning for this.’
‘But did he?’
‘No, but then why should he?’ She snorted and reached for another piece of bread, which she buttered thickly. ‘This whole business is absurd, it seems to me. Matthew has enough on his plate without worrying about this sordid affair. It’s much more important that he deal with this piracy business, which is dangerous enough without adding to it. Besides, it’s quite clear to me what happened with that girl. The Countess Mon- temoro took a set against her because of her husband’s roving eye. And the girl’s had the good sense to make herself scarce. If she has even more sense, she’s far away from here by now and we’re on a wild-goose chase. Which is Matthew all over, of course. Can’t resist a story of injustice, even more when it’s recounted by a pretty woman like Emilia Lanier.’
Celia smiled at her aunt’s vehemence. ‘But, Aunt Bess, you know Sarah sent her father a note just recently. She’s still around, she’s still in danger from that Mon- temoro woman, and Father still wants to help her.’
‘Exactly. That brother of mine could think a bit more of those closer to him than a pack of strangers,’ said Mistress Quickly tartly. ‘Why multiply your enemies?
Piracy’s a big-enough tangle to be involved in. He is much too fond of rushing into things.’ She gave Celia a sideways glance. ‘He’s not the only one. Your Ned does not look very far before he leaps either.’
Celia stared at her. ‘He’s not my Ned.’
‘Fiddlesticks,’ said Bess Quickly. ‘Yours for the asking. Your worshipful servant.’
Celia went red as suddenly something else fell into place. Something she should have known all along. Something that, quite unexpectedly, made her heart skip a beat. She faltered. ‘No. No. You’re quite wrong. He just sees me as a little girl, as his adopted sister or something. Besides, he thinks I’m frivolous, empty- headed—’
‘Rubbish. He’s head over heels in love with you, silly girl,’ said her aunt. ‘I’ve seen it coming for months.’
‘Oh.’ Celia’s pulse beat fast. ‘I... I didn’t know . . .
I...’
‘Listen to me, Celia. Ned thinks he’s not good enough and that your father wants a wealthy man for you. I don’t think that’s true; but he has been too modest to speak his mind to you, or to your father. Don’t treat him badly, whatever you feel about him.’
‘Why should I treat him badly?’ cried Celia, nettled. ‘He is my best friend. The best friend I could ever have.’
‘That’s a start,’ said Bess. ‘But he wants more than your friendship, my girl. What do you feel about that?’
Celia was silent an instant. This new vision of Ned as
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a possible lover was a kind of shock, but not an unpleasant one. No. There was a strange warmth in her
body, a kind of sweetness in her limbs, that she’d never
experienced before. She said quietly, ‘I. . . I don’t know.’
‘Fair enough,’ said her aunt placidly. ‘Don’t rush into things, that’s my advice. Know your own mind. But Ned knows his, and that I’d wager on, and win. He’s a determined young man, that one, for all his dreams. Now, never mind that for th
e moment. What are your plans for today?’
Still a little shaky, Celia said, ‘I—I thought I’d go over and see the others, ask Father about Dr Tedeschi, and—’
Mistress Quickly made an impatient gesture. ‘Pish, not more of that stuff. We’re in Venice. I want to see it. I thought we could go for a ride down the Grand Canal. The Marinettis have a very comfortable gondola, and the housekeeper said it has been put at our disposal, as has the boatman. She said she can prepare a fine picnic lunch for us and we can go and explore the city from the comfort of a boat.’
‘I thought you didn’t like boats, Aunt Bess,’ said Celia, smiling, remembering her aunt’s seasickness on the ship that had brought them here.
‘I don’t like the sea,’ said Mistress Quickly. ‘I don’t think I’d even like the lagoon much. But the Grand Canal is a different matter. What do you say?’
‘I thought that I should . . . ,’ began Celia, but she saw
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her aunt’s hurt expression and changed tack immediately. ‘Yes, why not? It would be a nice thing to do.’ She hesitated, blushed, and raced on. ‘Could I perhaps—I mean, could Ned come with us?’
Her aunt smiled and patted her arm. ‘Of course, my dear. If that’s what you want. But tell him not to be late. There’s a good deal to see, they tell me.’
‘I’ll go over now to tell him. And I’ll tell him to make sure he’s not late, Aunt Bess,’ said Celia, planting a kiss on her aunt’s cheek. There was a bubble of excitement inside her, a sudden thrill of delightful power.
A quizzical smile on her lips, Bess Quickly watched her go. Had she done the right thing, pointing out the obvious to her niece? She hoped so. She liked Ned. She hoped Celia wouldn’t be a minx and play games with his heart, now the truth was revealed to her. It had certainly taken her long enough to see it. Of course, the child had no imagination to speak of. Feet on the ground, Celia had, and that was good. But a touch of magic was what she needed, so those feet wouldn’t be too earthbound, the heart too solidly full of common sense. And magic that strange lad had, Bess thought, that was certain. A magic she’d wager he didn’t even know he had . . .
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