Maria felt herself glow. The woolen rug was one of the few luxuries she had bought for Umberto and herself during their stay in the forestry region of Istria. It glowed with bright peasant colors, but was also beautifully woven. "I bought it at a fair in Istria. It comes from Dalmatia somewhere. The Illyrian women make them."
"It's a beautiful piece. We get some southern Illyrian goods here, but nothing nearly so fine." The contessa allowed herself to become aware of Stella, and the two children peering around her skirts. "Good morning. Signora Mavroukis, is it not?"
Stella did her best to curtsey with two clinging children. "Milady! Do you know everybody on Corfu?"
The contessa shrugged and laughed. "No. But I try. Signora, I hate to interrupt, but I need to talk to Maria. Can you spare her to me for a little while?"
Stella was plainly dying of curiosity, but could hardly say "I'll stay and eavesdrop." So she made as polite an exit as possible while, the moment that Renate De Belmondo turned her head away, miming to Maria: I'll talk to you later. I want to hear all about it.
When the door was firmly shut, and Maria's curiosity also fully aflame, she still felt she had to go through the niceties. "I have some of the local spoon-sweets, milady."
"Thank you. That would be delicious. And perhaps a glass of water?" Lady De Belmondo fanned herself with her hand; somehow, it was not an affected gesture. "I'm not getting any younger, and it is so hot already for walking. By August the full heat will be with us, and I'm really not looking forward to that at all. The first rains of autumn are always such a blessing."
So Maria fetched out the spoon-sweets and cool water from the earthenware ewer in the shade around the back of the house. They talked polite nothings while the contessa sampled the Sultanina glyko. "Ah. I love the flavor the arbaroriza—the rose geranium—gives to the grapes. Delicate yet definite."
"You speak Greek, Milady?"
"Fluently." She nodded her head gravely. "You really have to learn it, if you are going to live here. It's one of the greatest mistakes so many of the Venetians make. If you can't talk to people you can't get along with them, or really understand them."
"I am determined to learn," Maria said decisively.
The contessa smiled. "You will find the local people happy to teach."
Finally Maria could restrain herself no longer. "Milady, why have you come to see me?"
The contessa half hid a small smile behind her hand. "Because I need your help. Your husband is fairly senior in the Little Arsenal, and I hope less set in his ways than old Grisini. I want, through you, to enlist his aid."
"I can try," said Maria doubtfully. "But the truth is, milady, Umberto is not the most flexible man in the world either. He's a good man, but he's a senior guildsman, and you don't get to be a senior guildsman without being very set in their traditions and ways."
The contessa nodded with understanding. "I have something of a problem with the wives and children of the Greek workers."
Maria made a face. "They're out there," she said, waving her hand vaguely in the direction of the rest of the island. "Their husbands must be distraught. Why did the men come in to the fortress when the siege threatened? They could have run away like the peasants did. They would have at least been together and a little safer."
Renate De Belmondo looked speculatively at Maria. And then said calmly: "They did one better. They brought the women in here. They're hiding in the sheds at the back of the Little Arsenal. There are more than sixty women and an uncertain number of children there, at least double that number. They're living on the men's rations, and a couple of the guards have found them and are exploiting the situation. According to my informant the men think the Illyrians must have informed on them. They're ready to kill the guards . . . which would be trouble. And the Illyrian workers too."
"Which would be more trouble," said Maria, grimly. "Those Illyrians are keen on using their knives, according to Umberto." She sighed. "The trouble between the Illyrians and the Corfiotes goes way back, he says, and both sides hold a grudge. The Corfiotes complain the Illyrians are stealing their work, the Illyrians say the Corfiotes are stealing their places."
"Oh, it goes back a lot further than that," chuckled the contessa dryly. "Further than you may think. Corfu has had waves of settlers for many thousands of years, but the original people of the region came here when there was no channel between here and the mainland, just a broad marshy valley and big bay. Then the invaders came; they were not the Illyrians . . . or even the Illyrians' forefathers, but they came from the same general direction: Thrace. The Illyrians are merely the inheritors of that hatred. Anyway, the point is that the hatred goes back so far that there is no counting the years. So far that there is a peasant belief among the women, that a desperate priestess of the Earth mother gave herself to be the bride of the lord of the under-earth to save her child. It's one of those things about the magic of Corfu I was telling you about. He moved the earth to drown the armies and forever put the sea between the invaders and this place."
Maria stared in puzzlement at the contessa. One minute she was telling Maria about a mess that could end in rioting—the next telling her about some ancient myth.
"How do you know all this, milady?"
The contessa shrugged. "It's a very old story. Or do you mean about the Greek workers' wives? People tell me things. I don't betray confidences, but I do sometimes act. This time I think I shall have to act. They can't remain a secret, but if the guild supports us in this . . . Well, it will be very difficult for the captain-general to make a fuss. I know Nico Tomaselli. He is likely to try to expel them, and certainly won't feed them. Now, the guild is in control of those sheds, and the Arsenalotti are not an inconsiderable force. Any attempt to throw the women out could cause a riot or even a breaching of the walls, if the Arsenalotti get involved."
"Besides, they're our own," said Maria resolutely. "You leave this with me, milady. I'll talk to Umberto."
The Contessa smiled. She took a small crystal bottle out of the pouch hanging from her chatelaine. "You may find this helps with your . . . talk." She laughed. "Sometimes men need to be distracted before they'll listen. I find a dab of this behind my ears even these days has the power to obtain my husband's full attention."
Maria blushed. "Milady. It is not necessary."
The contessa stood up. "I know. But I think you will enjoy it."
Another thought occurred to Maria. "Milady. I . . . am friends with Francesca de Chevreuse."
Maria expected disapproval. Instead she got another little laugh. "She has all the respectable matrons of this town in a terrible state! Mostly self-righteousness tinted with envy, I think. Do tell her that her attempts at information gathering have been reported to my husband."
That was more than a little alarming. But Maria persisted. "I could get her to ask the Knights to help."
The contessa shook her head. "This really is our own affair, Maria. We should handle it."
* * *
The contessa was scarcely around the corner when Stella reappeared.
"All right," she said with a terrier look on face. "Tell all. What has she got you to do?"
Maria hadn't thought of a good story yet. "Ah. Well she wanted to ah . . . ask me to get Umberto to organize something down at the Little Arsenal. Nothing important, but she did ask me to keep it a secret. And Stella, I can't tell you and keep anything a secret. It'll be a nice surprise for her husband." Maria thought that was a good touch. The podesta was a renowned naturalist, collecting everything from butterflies to eggs. Surely Stella would assume it was a special cabinet or something.