Renate De Belmondo, the wife of the Podesta.
* * *
"Welcome, Daughter. The Peace of the Mother, the great Goddess be with you."
And the strange thing was that she'd felt just that. The hurt, the anger, the sadness had all receded, just as in her distant childhood memories, they had on those rare occasions when she'd turned to her own mother's arms.
The rest of the ritual, the soft refrains had not meant much to her. Except the priestess—who was also Renate De Belmondo in another life—had done her best with curse-exorcism.
"It may be best if you could move house, dear. There is lingering evil around you. Someone hates you very much, enough to spend a great deal of time cursing you. She is no witch, I think—but there is a great deal of magic here, and magic—"
She shrugged. "It is a tool. It often comes to the hand of those who do not know how to use it, yet succeed in doing something with it even in their ignorance."
Maria sighed. "Right now I'm living up at the hospital anyway. If Umberto lives . . . well, I'll try. I don't know how possible it will be."
"For your sake, your husband's sake, and for the sake of that lovely daughter of yours, you should."
When they returned to the small building on the north slope that was the monks' hospital, Maria fearfully hastened to Umberto's side.
He was still.
Maria felt as if her heart would stop. She put a trembling hand to his forehead. When she'd left it had been fire-hot.
It was cool.
Not deathly cold. Just . . . unfevered.
Maria didn't know how to thank the Mother. But she did it with all her heart anyway.
* * *
Umberto might have turned the corner, but to start him climbing the steep stair required a sickbed visit from Alberto, with his index finger strapped.
"How do you use a hammer with that?" asked Umberto weakly.
"Um. Haven't much, lately."
"What about the fireboats?"
"Old Grisini had another relapse and he's gone home. And well, Balfo, he's senior master after you, he said he couldn't see the sense of it. We'd never use them."
"What?" Umberto was struggling to sit. "I need to get down there! I'll tear his ears off, I'll—"
"You'll lie down!" said Maria crossly. "I'll tear any ears that need tearing."
"Maria, I've got to get down there! If we can deal with the enemy's fleet while they over-winter here . . . Most of them will have to be here, in the bay of Corfu."
"As soon as you are well enough to even sit on your own, I'll bring some of the lads up from the Little Arsenal to carry you down," promised Alberto. "Then we can carry you home."
Two days later they carried him down the hill. It started off with three big journeymen and Alberto, simply picking up the bed and carrying it out of the door. As they came out of the hospital, Maria realized that nearly every one of the Arsenalotti were there, from the masters to the Corfiote labor. And they weren't content to just carry Umberto. He had to travel shoulder high. Across the channel, across the Spianada, the Hungarians must have wondered just what the besieged had to cheer about.
Umberto didn't even have to tear ears. The issue was simply never raised and the Little Arsenal went back to hammering, sawing and working. In theory, Umberto was in charge of it. In practice he was still too weak and too tired. Maria was his eyes and ears, relaying orders, dealing with problems. The scuolo, as conservative as could be, would never have just taken orders from a woman. But Umberto's orders, relayed and made a lot more caustic by his wife—a different matter.
The only trouble was that Maria was not always inclined to just give Umberto's orders. Nor after the first few times did she say "Master Verrier says." She just told anyone from master to laborer to do it. And as they didn't know whether it came from Umberto or not, the Arsenalotti did it. Before two weeks were up, taking orders from Maria was so normal no one even thought about it. She was good at giving them.
For those first two weeks, Maria had had them knock up a space in one of the work sheds for Umberto. He was certainly not going to get home—or back—without carrying, and he was determined to be at the Little Arsenal. Maria did a trip to fetch Goat and the hens. One hen had disappeared, but the goat found more to eat in the shipyard than she had in Maria's own yard or than Maria had been able to scavenge for her.
PART X
The three light galleys Venice was sending to the aid of Corfu left without fanfare or fuss or any of the normal send-off. They left directly from the Arsenal sometime after midnight, with extremely select crews, a large supply of weaponry—and gold. Some fifteen thousand ducats worth, which would have made the small vessels a tempting target in any pirate's book. Led by the merfolk, the three ships slipped along the Dalmatian coast by night, pulling up, stepping masts and hiding on small islands by day. They laid up for two days with the mosquitoes in a swampy river mouth just north of the bay of Vlores, waiting for the merfolk to return with news of a safe route. The clouds rolled in, along with the triton, eventually.
"The water is clear of ships on this course," said Androcles, "because it's raining fit to raise the ocean level. You could sail within thirty yards of one of the carracks without anyone being the wiser. The galliots are all pulled up on the beaches. You humans don't seem to like getting wet."
They rowed on through worsening seas and squalls of rain. The light galleys had no real shelter for the rowers, and Benito found himself shivering. "Well, at least in this we should be able to land on the island during daylight," said Benito to the triton, who was pacing the vessel in the rolling gray sea.
Androcles shook his head. "No. The rain stops short of Corfu. Any lookout will see you. You'll have to wait for nightfall." He looked up at Benito and chuckled. "The seas are getting heavier. Looks as if you aren't wet enough already, you might just join us soon."
Never was Benito so glad to see landfall as in the lee of that unnamed cape. The Venetian relief force was cold, wet, and bedraggled.
And on Corfu—undetected.
* * *
The hundred and fifty men who had landed there were handpicked as good seamen, with some knowledge of Greek—easy enough, as many Venetians spent time in the Greek possessions. They were all reasonably skilled horsemen, and were all combat veterans. What they weren't . . . was too sure where they were, where the enemy was, and just where they should go. Benito blessed the fact that at least it wasn't raining here.
He went down to the water's edge to bid farewell to the merpeople. Only Androcles had come inshore. "My thanks. We're in your debt."
Androcles grinned, his teeth pearly in the moonlight. "We'll keep it in mind." He looked at the three galleys. "What do you do with the ships now?"
Benito scowled. "I busted my ass building them and now we'll scupper them, rather than let the Byzantines have them."