Silence embraced the dark garden outside the church. Cecilia’s arm shook beneath my grip and I quickly loosened my hold. Her breathing was ragged and her face seemed pale. She wore a simple gown and her fair hair cascaded around her face, neck, and shoulders.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.” She stared pointedly at my hand, and I released her arm completely.
“One of my friends was abducted. I’m looking for information. You?”
She swallowed and rubbed her arm. “My uncle heard something in the middle of the night. When he went to investigate, Signor Querini had disappeared, and the state of his chamber suggested he was taken against his will. My uncle was afraid we might be taken too, so he told me to find sanctuary in a church.” She glanced back at the building we’d just left. “But a church does not seem so safe when it is dark and empty.”
“The same group is behind both abductions.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “How can you know that?”
“A friend saw Madonna Marinelarena and one of the Venetian signors leaving Thebes in company with a large number of armed men. They weren’t leaving by choice. I intend to find my friend, and it would help if I knew who took her. Who are your enemies?” Perhaps some were the same as those who might threaten Eudocia.
“I don’t have enemies, unless you count the enemies of Venice. Then you can consider the Genoese and the Turks and some of the Greeks and the Florentines.”
I nodded. “Who were Signor Querini’s enemies?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, other than those I already mentioned. He is an important man, a member of the Grand Council. His family is listed in Venice’s Golden Book of Nobles, and he has many connections.”
“You are betrothed to him, yes?”
“I am.”
“Then you ought to know his enemies.”
Cecilia glanced away. “We are not well acquainted. Until a fortnight ago, we had never even conversed.”
“And you are betrothed already?”
“We were betrothed prior to our formal introduction.” She spoke the words meekly, but I detected a hint of resentment, and I didn’t blame her. Agreeing to marry someone before meeting them sounded like a sure way to unhappiness. It was common enough, but so was misery.
“I’m sorry I was not more gentle when I grabbed your arm. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Concern for my friends has made me desperate.” I forced my hand to relax. Desperation made a poor excuse for handling someone so delicate with roughness.
“I imagine, with the woman taken.”
“Her husband was also attacked and injured.”
Cecilia looked up with a quiet gasp. “Is he . . . Did he survive?”
“Yes, he’s recovering. But we don’t know who’s behind the abductions. We had hoped to learn more from you or your uncle.”
Cecilia looked past me, and I turned when I heard footsteps. Sebastie. He handed me the weapons I’d left in the church.
“We need to talk to your uncle,” I said. “Where is he?”
* * *
Signor Bertaldo hadn’t told his niece his intended destination. Neither he nor Cecilia had given their host any information, not about their leaving or Querini’s disappearance. But soon after we brought Cecilia back to the home where she’d been sleeping, her uncle appeared with reinforcements: five men armed with swords and sleepy countenances. We all stood in the villa’s courtyard, lit by torchlight.
Sebastie and I rested our hands on the hilts of our swords, but we didn’t draw our weapons. We didn’t know how skilled Bertaldo’s men were, and we faced a common threat—cooperation was wiser than battle.
Signor Bertaldo recognized me immediately. “Do you know anything about Signor Querini’s disappearance?”
I answered him in level tones. “He was seen leaving the Cadmea earlier this night in company of irregular soldiers, a dozen to a score of them. He did not seem to be with them voluntarily. Do you know who might have taken him?”
Bertaldo frowned. “I assumed it was you, that we’d made an enemy when we tried to hire you. If that’s not the case, then I would guess the Turks or the Florentines.”
The Turks had no reason to capture Eudocia, and the abductions were related, so it couldn’t be them. Nor did Nerio Acioli, the Florentine lord of the Duchy of Athens, have cause to take her. At the moment, Nerio and the Turks were aligned, along with Nerio’s son-by-marriage, the Greek Despot of the Morea. All had embraced a coalition that would weaken rival powers in the Duchy—especially the Venetians. But why would any of them consider Eudocia an enemy?
“Where did you hear the legend of how Thebes passed from Catalan to Navarrese hands?” I asked.
Bertaldo seemed reluctant to give out any information, but Cecilia didn’t share his hesitation. “The Florentines, though naturally, they did not volunteer that information to us.”
Bertaldo gave his niece a look of disapproval. “Must I remind you again not to interfere with the affairs of men? It’s too dangerous for you to be involved.”
Cecilia looked away. “They should know. They, too, have been attacked.”
Bertaldo’s expression softened, and he switched his focus to me. “Is this true?”
“Madonna Marinelarena has been abducted. She was seen with the group escorting Querini.”
Bertaldo asked the guards to step back, away from our conversation. Then he whispered, “And Madonna Marinelarena was a slave before she married? And her husband was a Basque spy?”
I nodded, admitting to all that we’d done our best to deny only the afternoon before.
Bertaldo kept his voice down. “I will go after Signor Querini. He will soon be family. And if the Florentines have abducted him, I do not imagine they have done so for the good of Venice. I suppose you will go after the former slave?”
“We will.”
“Rumors tell me you have skills I do not possess. I have resources that you cannot easily pull together, and delay will hurt our chances of recovering Querini or the madonna. Venice and the Navarrese Company are currently in alliance. You once fought with the Navarrese. Perhaps you could accept an alliance with me?”
Not long ago, Bertaldo had stood in my bathhouse with the intention of hiring me and my friends to work against his supposed allies in the Navarrese Company, but much had changed since then. We both needed help. I glanced at Sebastie.
“What resources?” Sebastie asked.
“Enough horses to give us all multiple mounts. And a galley. If the Florentines are behind this, then I image they intend to go after Nerio Acioli. They will either have the former slave rescue him, or they will use Querini to bargain for him. Acioli is being held in the castle of Listrina. The fastest way to get there is across the Gulf of Corinth. We could make it to the Sea Maiden in a day.”
Cecilia frowned at the mention of the ship, but I didn’t want to ask her about it while her uncle listened.
“You will give us a few moments to discuss it?” I asked him.
“Yes.” He turned to his men and began giving them orders.
Sebastie and I walked to a corner of the courtyard where we couldn’t be overheard.
“We’d be outnumbered,” I said. “Unless he intends to leave some of his men behind. But finding our own passage could take days, and going overland would be even worse. I think we should accept.”
Sebastie folded his arms. “Yes. Work with them but don’t trust them.”
“Agreed.” Bertaldo had already plotted betrayal of allies, so we’d treat him with caution.
I walked back across the courtyard, but not to Bertaldo. Cecilia looked at me with wide eyes when I approached. “May I ask you a question?”
She glanced at her uncle, who stood several paces away in deep conversation with his men. “You may.” She shifted her focus to me.
“When your uncle mentioned the galley, you seemed unhappy. Why?”
Cecilia’s lips pulled into a frown. “Because my father commanded the Sea Maiden, and I spent many years on board. Had I been born a man instead of a woman, it would now be mine.”
“You sailed with your father?”
She nodded, and memory touched her face with bittersweet emotion. “Few members of my family survived the war with Genoa. Not my mother. Not my brothers. Just my father and me. He didn’t want to leave me behind with relatives, and a cabin girl is just as useful as a cabin boy, so he took me with him. My uncle looks so much like him that I sometimes forget how different they are.”
“And your father?”
“He died a year ago. And when the Sea Maiden passed to my uncle, he insisted that my days as a sailor were over and it was time for me to take on my proper role as a lady and help the family through an advantageous marriage. It seems adjusting sails and charting courses for the Sea Maiden and helping my father with his other work was not sufficient service to the family.”
“I am sorry that your uncle does not appreciate your talents.” Her eyes studied my face so intensely that I wondered if I had said something wrong. “Signorina Bertaldo, is your uncle trustworthy?”
She nodded. “I have never known him to lie.”
“Thank you, Signorina.” I approached her uncle next.
“We’ll travel light,” he said. “But we’ll want extra horses so we don’t tire the mounts.” Bertaldo sent his last armed man off and turned to me.
“We accept your offer,” I said. Cecilia’s good opinion of Bertaldo’s honor wasn’t sufficient to make me trust him, but desperation was strong enough to push me into a reluctant alliance.
He nodded with satisfaction.
“We planned to begin our pursuit at dawn,” I said.
“Meet here. We might not be ready quite so early, but I will do my best.”
Cecilia walked up the stairs from the courtyard to the bedchambers. Would she be coming? I didn’t think it wise to ask that question directly, so I asked indirectly instead. “How many will you bring?”
“The five you saw, myself, and my niece.”
“She is used to hard riding?” Something about Cecilia intrigued me, but I didn’t want her to slow us down.
Bertaldo scowled. “Yes. My brother, God rest his soul, had three sons, then Cecilia. It seems he only knew how to raise boys, and he did little to differentiate between her upbringing and theirs. When he lost the boys to war, he was too sentimental to leave Cecilia in Venice, where she belonged. He dragged her all across the Mediterranean with him. She can ride as well as most men.” He glanced at the men moving about the courtyard. “How many in your party?”
Sebastie and I would go. Gil would want to come, if he was able. Michali would be useful, but someone had to run the bathhouse, especially if Gil insisted on helping to rescue his wife, as I was sure he would. Aban, maybe. I hesitated to bring someone I trusted only marginally—the group already included too many in that category. I didn’t even know if my brother could ride a horse or use a sword, but from what he’d told me of events back in Valencia, leaving him to help with the bathhouse under Michali’s guidance sounded unwise. “I’m not sure yet. No more than four.”