"There's no truth in it?" she asked, rocking Alessia's cradle with a foot.
He shook his head. "I doubt it. Some fisherman came in with the story. The man's a notorious drunkard, to hear the locals tell of it. You'd probably find the ships were pink and crewed by worms if anyone bothered to question him properly."
Maria nodded. And resolved to go and buy what she could. As a canaler, rather than a guildsman, she had a lot more faith in what fishermen claimed to have seen. She'd already bought basic household supplies in the first days, being pleasantly surprised by the low prices here, this far from Venice, of things like olive oil, honey and wine. She'd been unable to resist the bargain of a huge crock of olive oil. She had ample flour for a month . . . Salt fish had still been available . . . dried figs. They'd get used, eventually.
"I did think we might buy a goat. There is a pen in the back yard. And a chicken coop. I've never kept these things, but the goat would be useful for milk and cheese. Chickens lay eggs."
Umberto nodded. "So long as you don't spend too much on them."
"Very well. I'll see what I can find. Will you be back for lunch?"
Umberto shook his head. "No. I'll take something with me. There is a sea of paperwork to catch up on." He sighed. "This is not an easy task. The yard is an unhappy place, full of fighting. And the Greeks and the guildsmen are all as lazy as can be. My predecessor made up for lack of method by ordering huge stocks of everything. So: I have several years worth of stock of cladding timber, some keel and mast timbers we'll likely never use and enough pitch to caulk the entire Venetian fleet—but no brass nails, and barely a handful of tow."
When he had finished his breakfast and gone back to work, Maria took her largest basket and Alessia, and walked. There was no point in heading for the market, not when she was looking for living things instead of foodstuffs. But this was not such a big place that she couldn't reach a peasant cottage outside town.
After an hour's walk, Maria was less convinced she'd find what she was after. By the deserted status of the peasant houses, they certainly believed there was trouble coming. She was now away from the coast, and she could see the scallops of azure bay, and Kerkira, white in the morning sunshine. The air was already thick and warm and full of the scent of the fine-leaved shrubs by the roadside. Bees buzzed lazily while collecting their bounty from the flowers. Except for the empty cottages, stripped of everything moveable, it would have been hard to believe there was anything that could go wrong in this Eden.
Eventually she found a man and his wife struggling to remove an iron bedstead from a cottage. There were a couple of hens in the yard.
"Good day."
"Day to you too, kyria."
Maria was startled. Kyria? Lady? She'd dressed in an old dress, a relic of her days as a canaler. Then she realized that she spoke Venetian-accented Frankish, not Greek. The Venetians had been here for more than a hundred years and all the islanders she'd met could certainly understand the language. But Maria had rapidly gathered that there was a strong divide between even the lowliest Venetians and the local people. Among the women of the garrison this seemed to be even more of an issue. Greeks were servants! And one had to keep them in their place. You didn't speak to them. You gave them orders. Besides . . . she wore shoes. That set one apart from peasant women.
Maria set the basket and Alessia down, and took a hand with the bedstead. It was obviously the poor cottage's pride and joy, and the most treasured piece of furniture. A bed and the bedclothes were the one thing that the rent-collectors could not seize for debt, so they were usually the finest piece of furniture in the peasant houses, she'd been told.
The man and his wife nearly dropped it when Maria came to help. Their jaws certainly dropped.
The doorway had two broad buttresses outside. Inside, the door to the room that they were trying to take the bedstead out of was at such an angle that the bedstead just couldn't do the corner without hitting the strut. After a few moments of struggle Maria asked: "How did it get in?"
The man shrugged. "I do not know, lady. My grandfather put it in before I was born. There was only one room then."
Maria's patience was exhausted. Besides, she'd walked a long way carrying a baby on a hot morning. She took charge. There were some advantages to being a lordly foreigner. The peasant wouldn't have taken such instructions from his wife. "Put the end down. It'll have to stand on end to get it out."
At an angle, stood on end and scraping the white-washed clay, the bedstead came through.
The peasants grinned. "Lady, you are clever. And strong too," said the man admiringly. "Where do you come from?"
"Venice."
The peasant shook his head. "Can't be. Eh, Eleni? The women who come to the garrison and villas, they all are weak."
The wife nodded. "Anastasia is in service at Villa Foiri. She says the woman cannot even pick up a dish for herself."
Maria laughed. "They aren't weak, just lazy. Too lazy to do for themselves what they can pay someone else to do!"
This provoked laughter from both. "Why, lady, they say we are the lazy ones!"
Alessia stirred, and Maria went to her. The peasant wife looked longingly and adoringly at the baby. "She is so beautiful, lady."
Maria wondered why people always said babies were beautiful. She loved Alessia more than anything, but she wouldn't have called her baby "beautiful." Plump, yes. Soft and tiny, yes. Adorable, yes. "She is very lovely when she's asleep."
The peasant was plainly keeping out of this women's talk. "Eleni, why don't you bring us some of that young white wine and some food. It has been hot work, but now, thanks to the lady, the worst job is over."
Eleni nodded. "Sit, lady." She motioned to the bedstead. Her husband had already taken up the important task of supporting a tree, by sitting against it in the shade.
"I'll give you a hand," Maria offered. "I was brought up to know my way about a kitchen, never mind what the others do."
They went into the cool, dim cottage. The kitchen was around the back, actually a separate little room—the only light coming either from the hole in the roof or the door. The only "furnishing" was a hearth a few inches high, and a few small soot-blackened shelves. By comparison, Maria realized her little home was a palace.
The young peasant woman had plainly decided that such a person could be trusted with the innermost secrets of the heart. Questions about pregnancy and birthing followed as she took bread, olives and cheese, and a clay jug of wine from places in her kitchen and loaded these onto a board.
"I think I am pregnant," she confided in a whisper. "I have not . . . Yani and I have been married for three years and I have had no children. But this year I have been to the mountains. To the holy place for the dancing." She giggled. "It was very cold without my clothes on. But I will be blessed this year." She touched Alessia with a gentle hand.