The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(109)

"I think he's looking for me." Cinquedea stood in the doorway leading to the upper storey.

At a glance from Cinquedea, the girl threw her scrubbing brush in her bucket and fled the common room.

"So…" Cinquedea drew up a bench and perched on one end, avoiding the wet tabletop. "You are a bold one, signore, coming here after what happened in Rio Tera degli Assassini."

"That was none of my doing," Mal replied, leaning on a neighbouring table. "The ambassador's servant overheard your messenger boy, and merely did his civic duty."

"Still, careless of you to let him overhear."

"I had no idea who the message came from. Perhaps it is your boys who need training in discretion."

Cinquedea raised an eyebrow. "As I said, a bold one. So, you still want passage into… a certain building?"

"No, I have a more urgent need." Mal glanced towards the tavern door and lowered his voice. "I need you to help me abduct the honest courtesan, Olivia dalle Boccole."

Cinquedea stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.

"You think I am Cupid, to help you in your amorous adventures?" He got to his feet.

"Please." Mal stood, ready to block the other man's exit. "This is no lover's whim. She is a dangerous woman. If you wish to work unhindered in this city, you would do well to be rid of her."

Cinquedea shook his head. "Our arrangement concerns the sanuti, not our citizens."

"So does this."

"How so?"

Mal drew a deep breath. Best to keep this simple. "She is not who she seems. She is a New World witch, and the sanuti have agreed to take her home with them."

"Do not lie to me, signore. Olivia dalle Boccole was born in this city. My mother's cousin in Cannaregio knows her mother."

"Olivia has a mother?"

"We all have mothers," Cinquedea said with a smile. "And fathers too, though not all know them."

Mal ignored the slur.

"She didn't mention a mother," he muttered to himself. It had never occurred to him that this scheme might leave an old woman bereft.

"It is hardly a fit subject for pillow talk, eh?" Cinquedea paused in the doorway. "Forget this woman who has wronged you. There are plenty more such. Bring me good information, and you may have your pick of my girls."

"Thank you," Mal replied with as much grace as he could muster. "Good day to you, signore."

He left the taverna in a far less cheerful humour than he had arrived. Why had he let the others talk him into this? Never mind, he could manage without them. All he had to do was kill Hafiz, bind and gag Olivia and bundle her into a gondola. How hard could that be?

Coby's stomach churned as their gondolier rapped on the door-knocker of Palazzo Bragadin. This was never going to work. Not because Gabriel did not look the part; on the contrary, once he had donned gown and makeup and Ned had fastened ribbons in his long pale hair, he made a remarkably convincing woman. But surely a respectable widow like Signora Bragadin would never admit them to her home?
Palazzo Bragadin looked like a much grander version of Berowne's house. The walls were painted a soft terracotta colour that contrasted prettily with windows edged in white stonework, and just above their heads a little balcony jutted out over the water, held up by carved lions and decorated with tiny male busts at intervals along the balustrade. After a few moments the door opened and a servant asked their names.

"Lady Elizabeth Raleigh," Gabriel said in haughty tones.

Coby hid her gasp of surprise with a feigned cough. Well, it was one way to get them through the front door. The servant ushered them inside, and after a short wait they were shown up to the piano nobile.

Signora Bragadin rose to greet them. A thin, handsome woman of forty or so, she was dressed in widow's black that made her look fashionably pale without the need for ceruse.

"Lady Elisabetta!" She chattered away for some moments in Italian, much to Gabriel's bemusement.

"Excuse me," Coby said in French. "My lady does not speak your language."

Signora Bragadin summoned her own maid, and between the four of them they managed a stilted conversation. A manservant brought coffee for the ladies, rather to Coby's surprise; she had seen Mal and Captain Youssef drink it together occasionally, but had not realised it had become a Christian habit. The scent was very enticing but the one time she had tried it, she had pulled a face at its bitter flavour and it had taken all her self-control not to spit it out. Gabriel's reaction was not dissimilar; she spotted him hastily ladling in sugar when their hostess was not looking.

Gabriel tried to keep up the pretence of being Raleigh's wife, but after a while he ran out of plausible answers to Signora Bragadin's questions and fell back on their original story, that he was a friend of Olivia dalle Boccole. Their hostess's expression turned to stone.

"I should have known," she said, looking Gabriel up and down. "Please leave."

"I meant no disrespect," Gabriel said. "Indeed, La Margherita sent me so as not to cause embarrassment. She only wants her necklace back, the one she lent your husband to have valued."

"I know of no such necklace. Now, be gone."

Gabriel rose to his feet and curtsied, and Coby did likewise though, she feared, with far less grace. The maidservant showed them to the stairs and then fled back to her mistress.