The water trickled steadily into the rock bowl. Not in all the thousands of years that the faithful had tended the shrine here in the caves in the cliff, had that spring run dry. The holy pool remained full and still and drifted with the offering of flower petals.
Tonight there were more devotees than ever. The priestess looked around. The women from the Little Arsenal, smuggled in and hidden, were here in numbers. She was not surprised. The cult was mainly Greek, these days, although—as she proved herself—it did not make objection to foreign worshipers. The great Mother considered them to be women first; nationality was a secondary and unimportant thing. In troubled times, the Goddess knew that women came back to the old religion.
The priestess noticed that the devotees were looking thin and pinched—not starving, yet, but starvation was not going to be far away. She sighed. The women and children were always the first to suffer in sieges. And the women hiding away would be, if anything, worse victims than those who were legitimately within the walls. After the rite she would move to speak to them, to see if anything could be done.
The rite soothed her, and even seemed to give some comfort and courage to the other women. Enough so that when the priestess drew one aside as the rest left, she did not even get a token resistance to her questions.
"There are two of the guards," the woman said wearily. "They found where we women were hidden and now they demand some of the men's rations and money to keep their silence. They are selling food to those who have money. They were demanding sex, too, but some of the men said they would kill them, even if it meant discovery."
The priestess frowned. "We will see what can be done. Do you know the names of these two?"
The women nodded.
On the small black altar the half almond lay, unwithered, still waiting. The priestess looked at it and sighed again. There was power there. But it was not hers. It was not anyone's . . . without a price.
Stella had come over principally to gossip, but officially to see if Maria would sell her a few eggs. They were sitting in the kitchen because it seemed the place where Stella's smaller two could do the least damage. Maria looked on Stella's younger children—who were now engaged in an exercise in seeing how far they could try everybody's patience—as an experience that would put most women off motherhood. They were both little boys, and Stella let them get away with the kind of mayhem she plainly didn't tolerate in her older daughters.
There was a furious bleating from the goat, followed by a polite knock at the door. Maria went to it. Stella peered curiously around her shoulder—and gasped to see who the visitor was.
Contessa Renate De Belmondo did turn up on her charitable missions at any place she chose. Still, she was the first lady of the island, and this was a tiny Scuolo house—not where you would expect to find her.
She smiled as brightly as if this was a Case Vecchie mansion, while Stella made big eyes and backed up. "Maria, my dear, may I come in?"
Maria was more than a little flustered too, but she had her pride. With Stella watching, she had little option but to behave as coolly as she could, as if she entertained the governor's wife in her kitchen every day. She made her best attempt at a curtsey. "Certainly, milady. I am very glad to see you again."
Renate De Belmondo smiled and came in. "My dear, what a gorgeous rug. Where did you find it?"
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 Sultanína glykó. "Ah. I love the flavor the arbaróriza—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.
Stella snorted. "It must be those Corfiote women hidden down in the Arsenal."
Maria gaped at her. "How—?"
Stella shrugged. "The contessa is forever helping women. So it had to be a women's problem, and if it involves Umberto and the Little Arsenal, then that must be it."
"But how did you know about it?"
"I have my sources."
Maria scowled at her. "I need to know."
Stella looked mischievous. "If you must know, Alberto found them. He went up to the top sheds to look for some missing tools a few days ago. They've got lookouts, and they hide if someone goes to the timber-stores. But Alberto took a shortcut up the wall. He's lazy, and it saved him a walk. So he came up to the upper gate very suddenly. A couple of the big porters tried to head him off, but you know Alberto, he's like pig after truffles when he gets onto something. And he speaks Greek so he gets on with the boys. So . . . because he was a friend of theirs, they put off hitting him over the head until it was too late. There was a bit of a scuffle, but my Alberto is quite solid."
He was indeed. A very large, amiable man. "And what happened then?"
"Well, you know what Alberto's like. Soft as goose grease with children. Of course he promised he wouldn't tell a soul." Stella smirked. "I had it out of him in two shakes. He's like you, Maria. A terrible liar."
"And so? Does the whole town know?"
"Not from me. It's all very well saying they shouldn't be there, but what kind of person would leave them outside the walls? The Croats and Hungarians—" She shuddered. "They're like wolves with two legs, Maria. But somebody else has found out about them. I've heard two juicy rumors about it already, as I said to Francesca."
Well, then. "I think you should take me down there to meet them. The contessa's right. This is going to blow wide open soon, and I'll need to work on Umberto about this. The scuolo need to stand by them."
"Most of the guildsmen don't like the Corfiotes much," said Stella doubtfully.
"But they like the Case Vecchie trespassing on their areas even less," Maria pointed out. "The scuolo are touchy about their rights and privileges. The porters and laborers at the Little Arsenal are ours. And if I can convince Umberto of this, and you get Alberto to back him up, we'll be able to sway the rest of them."
Stella pulled a wry face. "Especially if that idiot Tomaselli puts all their backs up like he usually manages to do." Her eyes lit up. "The latest malicious gossip is about Sophia, believe it or not. She's been slipping out of the fortress to come and see a lover down in the old town!"
Maria snorted. "I didn't think anyone was that desperate."
Stella giggled in a worldly-wise fashion. "Honey, there are some men that would make love to a hole in the wall. And others, like Alberto, who would just fall asleep. I'm going to ration his wine soon."
"If you take me down to meet the women hiding out in the wood-store, I'll give you a drop of this perfume to put behind your ears." Maria showed her the bottle. "It was given to me by the contessa. She guaranteed it would even wake her old man up."
Stella chuckled throatily. "If it can wake that old man up, it should be called resurrection juice, not perfume. You're on, sister."
When Maria went down to the wood-store with Stella, she was shocked by the thinness of the women, and by their obvious desperation.
"We can't go on like this, kyria," said one young girl—barely sixteen and trying to nurse a pair of twins. "I just don't have milk for them any more."
Maria took a deep breath. "We're going to sort this out. By tomorrow. Nobody should have to starve like this."
"We expected the siege to be over in a few weeks at most. When will help come from Venice?" asked an older woman bitterly. "Are we only worth keeping as expendable serfs, and not worth protecting?"
Maria looked her straight in the eye. "Venice had to be told before they could mount a rescue. And the Island is blockaded. You know that. I can tell you this much—a messenger has gone over to Italy, taking word to Venice, a clever messenger, who can get past anything."
She wondered just where Benito was, and uttered a silent prayer for his well-being. "The Republic won't fail you. And the scuolo won't fail you either. Your men work for us. It's up to us to care for you."
She was surprised by the hastily hushed cheers.
That evening Umberto arrived home a little late and looking worried. He didn't even notice Maria's belladonna-widened eyes at first. He was just looking gray and stooped. He took the cup of wine gratefully from her hand, then swallowed a long, appreciative draft. And then blinked at his wife. "You're looking beautiful tonight, dear. And your hair is done up in that way I like so." His nose twitched. He smiled tiredly. "I'm a lucky man. And I don't appreciate you enough. And how is our little girl tonight?"
Maria felt truly guilty. Like a complete slut. "She's fine, asleep now," she said gruffly. She decided that directness and honesty suited her better than feminine wiles. She was better at those than seduction anyway. "Umberto. I need to talk to you about the wives of the Corfiote laborers."
"They're hiding in the back sheds at the Little Arsenal," he replied conversationally.
She didn't need the belladonna to widen her eyes. Had everyone known except her?
"I'm sorry dear," he said apologetically. "That's what kept me. There was a fight between one of the Illyrians and a Corfiote—something to do with the women. I'm afraid both of them are with the hospitalers. I had to see to it."
"Oh, hell!" she said in dismay. "Will this mean fighting between the Illyrians and Corfiotes?"
He actually laughed. "Not unless they both don't recover from being hit by me with a cladding plank."
She stared, seeing a man she hadn't known hiding in Umberto's very ordinary frame.
"I had to do something," he said, uncomfortably. "The Corfiote accused the Illyrian of betraying the women to the guards. But Guildmaster Grisini asked the guard to organize more food, quietly."
"Two guards called Oliviolo and Nona."
It was Umberto's turn to gape at her. "How did you know—?"
"Because far from organizing more food, the pair of bastards have been extorting money and food from the Corfiotes," she told him with savage satisfaction. "The Corfiotes blame the Illyrians, which is where your knife-fight came from."
Umberto shook his head. "I don't understand them. They're our people. Why didn't they come to us? The scuolo looks after its own."
Looking at him with a mixture of pride and love, Maria realized that the perfume probably wasn't wasted after all. And she realized that—just as old women always said—you didn't have to be in love with the man you married to learn to love him. "Can I get you some supper?" she asked, rubbing his shoulders.
He looked at her. Speculatively, with a shy smile. "Maybe . . . later."