4

Grateful to be free of the wind in their faces, Lady Giulietta’s party were walking away from the salt spray and the bobbing boat of the victors when Roderigo became aware of footsteps behind him.

“My lord…”

Turning, he found the curly-haired boy. “Iacopo, isn’t it?”

The young man was pleased the captain remembered his name. “Yes, my lord. Forgive me. You know Lady Desdaio, I believe?”

Roderigo nodded.

“Intimately, my lord?”

The captain’s scowl was so fierce Iacopo stepped back.

“I have no doubt of Lady Desdaio’s honour,” Roderigo said fiercely. “No one has any doubt about her honour. Understand me?”

Nodding, Iacopo bowed low for causing offence. After which, he chewed his lip and shuffled his feet like the street urchin he’d probably been. His was a face found everywhere in Venice. A curving mouth and knowing eyes framed by curls. His straight, unbroken nose was less usual. It said that either he disliked fights or fought well.

“What about her?”

“She is betrothed to my master.”

Roderigo was not a man of tempers.

He did his job well and both the Regent and duchess used him when they needed a good officer. He’d reached his post as head of the Venetian customs by hard work, having entered as a junior lieutenant. All the same, there was a blackness to his gaze as it swept the herringbone brick of the piazzetta that made people look away.

“When did this happen?”

“Yesterday, my lord… I learnt this morning when preparing for the race. Lord Atilo came to wish me luck.”

“I see,” Roderigo said tightly.

Full-breasted, plump and buxom, Desdaio Bribanzo was his ideal of beauty. Hell, she was the city’s ideal. Only her hair let her down. This was chestnut rather than the reddish blonde Venice favoured.

Unlike other girls, she refused to dye it.

At twenty-three, Desdaio combined huge eyes, a sweet face and sweeter smile with being heiress to a vast fortune. Her father imported more pepper, cinnamon and ginger than any other noble in the city. Obviously enough, she had more suitors than any of her rivals. One of whom was Roderigo. They’d known each other since childhood. He’d thought they liked each other well enough.

“Why tell me this?”

“I’d heard… Your kindness. The coat…” Iacopo stuttered to a halt and went back to shuffling his feet.

“Lord Bribanzo approves?”

“He’s still in Rome, my lord.”

“In which case we’ll see what he says. She wouldn’t be the first to give her heart to one man while her father gives her body to another.”

“This case is complicated.” Iacopo chose his words carefully, keeping his face neutral as he waited for the captain to ask why.

“So tell me,” Roderigo growled.

“She has moved herself into Ca’ il Mauros.”

“My God. Her father will…”

“Be furious, my lord. None the less, if she stays even a single night there unchaperoned. No parental fury can undo the damage that does her.”

“She has gold.” Roderigo said flatly. “It will be enough.”

Iacopo sucked his teeth, as if to say the ways of women, particularly noble and rich ones, were beyond him. And if the brave captain said this was the case, who was he to disagree?

The Ca’ Ducale was built using pillars, window frames and door arches looted from other cities. Its style, however, was unique. Round arches from the Orthodox East combined with mauresque fretwork and pointed windows from Western Gothic; mixed in a fashion only found in one city in the world: this one.

This theft of materials was not the insult.

Nor was the fact that the palace and its basilica both used materials stolen from mosques, synagogues and even churches. How could one expect better of a place where Venetian first, Christian second was said daily?

The insult was more subtle.

The palace said to foreign princes, You hide behind fortified walls in ugly castles. I live on islands in the sea. My power is so great I can afford to live behind walls so thin they could be made from glass. That fact had not occurred to Captain Roderigo until Sir Richard pointed it out to him.

“Sir Richard, perhaps you could…”

Indicating Giulietta discreetly, and then the nearest palace door, Roderigo said, “I have official matters waiting.”

“You’re not dining with us?”

“As I said, duty calls.”

Sir Richard scowled. “I don’t suppose…”

“Me,” said Roderigo, “the duke can manage without. You, he is expecting for supper. Well,” he added, more honestly, “I’m sure the Regent and Duchess Alexa expect you. His highness…”

There was no need to say more.

“This business had to do with the customs office?”

Roderigo jerked his head at a dozen ships moored on a stretch of lagoon reserved for those in quarantine. Since God’s wrath killed half of Venice sixty years before ships now waited offshore to make certain they carried no disease.

“We think one of those might already have taken the glass-blower aboard. We’ll be boarding the ship tonight.”

“Which one?”

“See the last?”

Sir Richard peered into the sleet. After a second, Roderigo realised that Giulietta and her lady-in-waiting had joined them.

“Moorish,” Eleanor said.

Giulietta shook her head. “Mamluk,” she corrected. Seeing Sir Richard’s surprise, she added tartly, “When there’s nothing to do but watch ships you learn their flags quickly enough. Any fool can work it out.”

Sir Richard’s face went blank.

He had to confirm a treaty, collect his king’s new wife and escort her to Famagusta, where she could watch ships headed north for the Venetian ports strung like pearls between Rhodes and the city itself. After this, Giulietta’s temper was the king’s business. Sir Richard didn’t look upset at the thought.

“What did the ship do wrong?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Roderigo told Lady Eleanor. “It arrived, waited as told, and followed our pilot without arguing the price…”

“That’s it?” Giulietta’s lady-in-waiting sounded surprised.

“Paid harbour dues, bought fresh water. They didn’t even try to bribe their way out of quarantine…”

Lady Giulietta snorted. That was suspicious indeed.