The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (Five Star Mystery Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

sign of discord, a crowd had started to gather, not unusual in these streets. “What we have,” a man shouted from the throng, “is Turks at our gates!” The mastiff eased up onto his haunches, his dim gaze roaming the assembly.
    Amerigo's hand flew to his cheek. “Turks? No.”
    “There are no Turks in Italy,” said Guid'Antonio.
    A black-gowned woman, as stout as one of the market's empty grain barrels, stabbed her finger in his direction. “You're wrong, Messer Whoever-You-Are in your fine red cloak! They mean to capture us and sell us as slaves, just as they've done to sweet Camilla Rossi da Vinci!” Shouts of alarm underscored the woman's shrill cry.
    Guid'Antonio and Amerigo exchanged wary glances. Fear and half-truths ruled this gathering. Guid'Antonio turned to Luca. “What's this about?”
    The mastiff, shifting his rheumy gaze from Guid'Antonio to the druggist and back again, slid onto his bony ribcage, prepared to listen and wait.
    Luca squared his shoulders. “A little over a week ago, a young woman was traveling out from here when Turks chanced upon her.”
    No way in hell. With Constantinople as his base, Mehmed II had continued his career of conquest with an eye to converting souls to Islam, yes. As part of his holy war, the Ottoman leader had extended his empire in Europe to the Danube and the Aegean and tightened his control over the Black Sea and had also begun a sixteen-year war with the Venetian Republic, the strongest naval power in the Mediterranean, a war that had ended just two months ago. The northern end of the peninsula was as far as the Turks had ever penetrated, however, and they had not ventured into Italy again. If they had, Guid'Antonio would know about it.
    Surely.
    “By whose word?” he said.
    “That of the Lady Camilla's nurse and her attendant. Praise God, the old woman and the boy escaped the Infidels and lived to tell the tale.”
    “ ‘Boy’? Camilla's son, you mean?” All around the piazza, people pushed forward to hear Guid'Antonio and Luca's conversation, their expressions grim.
    “No, no, she's sixteen and married but has no children. I mean the boy from the country of the
teste nere.”
    “A black boy? Come all the way from Ethiopia, then.” Amerigo's eyes shone with wonder. “There's a fair distance. Across the dark green sea to the slave market at Lisbon, probably. Does he speak Italian?”
    “Amerigo.” Guid'Antonio put up a finger, a gentle request for quiet. To Luca, he said, “So the boy's the lady's slave.”
    “Yes.”
    “How old?”
    Luca shrugged. “Twelve or so. The three left Florence and stopped before nightfall in San Gimignano. They were on the road to Bagno a Morba the following day when the Turks attacked.”
    The Baths of Morba in the Apennine foothills. A thought flickered across Guid'Antonio's mind, but he could not contain it. “Why Turks?” he said.
    “They announced themselves with swords flashing and threats in the name of Islam.”
    Preposterous. But not, Guid'Antonio knew, to the people hanging on their every word here in Mercato Vecchio.
    “And her name was Camilla?” Amerigo said.
    “Yes. Camilla Rossi da Vinci. Married to the wine merchant Castruccio Senso of the Green Dragon district.” Across the river in the Santo Spirito quarter of Florence and from the hilltop town of Vinci, Luca meant.
    “They never killed her but made her their slave and whore!” shouted a man in the crowd, a butcher by the look of his blood-spattered apron.
    Guid'Antonio grunted. He thought Camilla Rossi was more likely run away with a persuasive young lover than murdered or enslaved by anyone. “Has there been an investigation?”
    Luca nodded. “Palla Palmieri conducted one but uncovered nothing.”
    Guid'Antonio considered this briefly. If his sometimes ally, if not quite friend, Palla Palmieri, Florence's chief of police, had not turned anything up about the missing girl, chances were good this case was closed and forgotten by the