The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

After a particularly exhausting night of pleasure, she seemed pensive, almost impatient with my attempts at light-heartedness. Normally Caterina Dolfin looked flushed and healthy after a tumble in my bed, but this morning she was pale and wan-sickly even. I tried to laugh it off.

‘What’s the matter? Can’t you take the pace any more? Maybe you should ease up on the wine, my dear Caterina.’

She always tried to match me goblet for goblet, but I was too practised at drinking to be beaten by a mere woman. Even if that woman was Caterina Dolfin, scion of one of the case vecchie -the aristocracy of Venice. If her father had known she was romping with a mere Zuliani, a merchant and a penniless one at that, he would have had me whipped out of La Serenissima at best. At worst, murdered in a dark alley and my body dumped in the lagoon. Still, I could not resist the excitement and allure of our assignations. Caterina Dolfin was a beauty, dark-haired and brown-eyed, with a rare figure that shone through the heavy folds of her richly embroidered bliaut over-gown. So, once again I had lured her secretly into my bed, and come the morning, I was caressing her voluptuous naked breasts, as I taunted her about her drinking. But this particular dawn she appeared to have something else on her mind, and she responded distractedly.

‘Oh, leave over, Nicolo.’

This made me suddenly wary. She only used my full given name, instead of calling me Nick, when she was annoyed. I tried on my simpering look as she carried on.

‘You should buy something more palatable than that cheap Rhenish you are so fond of when I dine with you. Maybe that’s what disagreed with me. Unless it was the fish. God knows what they feed on in the lagoon.’

I guffawed. ‘I don’t need to be God to know what is washed from the Serene Republic’s sewers and on to the feeding grounds where the lazier fishermen ply their trade.’

Caterina’s eyes narrowed, and she held a petite hand to her mouth at the thought. She began to look even greener than before, her eyes almost pleading. I wondered again if she was expecting me to propose marriage, and I almost did at that point. But though I longed for Caterina, I thought of my own parents’ stormy marriage. So I just couldn’t bring myself to encompass such a commitment right then, and the moment was lost. Instead, I sounded her out on my small embarrassment with colleganza funds. She snorted in disdain.

‘If you think I can lay my hands on any of my father’s money, you must be mad. He didn’t get rich by ignoring the pennies.’ She rolled over on to her stomach, presenting her arched back and rounded, bare buttocks to my adoring gaze. ‘You should try Pasquale, he’s mad enough to risk money on you.’

I tore my eyes from her divine arse. ‘Pasquale? Fish-face Valier?’

In truth, I had not considered Valier-he of the bulging eyes, and receding chin-but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Pasquale liked to mix with the same drinking crowd I did. And although you couldn’t say we were friends, we had exchanged a few drolleries over some good wine. Moreover, like Caterina, he was also of the case vecchie , which meant he was loaded. And gullible enough to be taken in by my flattery. I would woo him like I had the Widow Vercelli. Just as long as he didn’t hope to end up in my bed like the widow had. Hoped that is-my bed I reserve solely for the beautiful Cat. With that thought bringing me back to the present, I ran my fingers down her sensuously curved spine, and over her remarkable arse. And then further on.

If I had been able to foresee the future, I would not have left the question of marriage so unfinished. But then, I had no idea that time was running out for me. That I would only see her one more time, as murder came between us. Back then, I had reckoned there was all the time in the world to settle down. And for the time being, I was content to enjoy myself like any man should. I didn’t really want to admit to myself that I was avoiding marriage because I feared ruining it all like my father had done. That was a thought I could not entertain, even while sober.

‘Did you hear that there is talk of an election? And Doge Renier Zeno still firmly ensconced with no intention of resigning.’

Pasquale Valier was outraged that any such idea should be contemplated. He drank deep of the good Gascon wine I had supplied him with, spending some more of my precious few coins in a desperate attempt to raise the few thousand I still needed for my colleganza . His fishy eyes bulged even further at the thought of tradition being so usurped. These old families hung on desperately to the ways that had served them well. Myself, I thought the ducal election was rigged from the start in favour of the old families. Since when had a Zuliani had a chance to get voted in? Still, I needed to keep Valier sweet, if I was to tap into his money supply.

‘Outrageous,’ I murmured.

I had been more than a little surprised that he had accepted my invitation so easily. My lodgings were not the most salubrious of accommodation, being close to canal level, and consequently damp and rather smelly. Maybe it was the fact that they backed on to the fabulous Ca’ da Mosta, and that I used the palace to describe how to reach my own more humble abode. The Ca’ looked out majestically on to the Grand Canal. My quarters squinted blearily on to no more than a dingy alley of mud that you wouldn’t dignify with the word canal. I prayed the interior would convey more a sense of modest simplicity to Valier than the reality. That of shabby poverty.

I had no need to worry. Once in his cups, Valier was blithely ignorant of the damp walls, and down-at-heel furniture. All I had to do was to keep refilling his tankard. And listen to him banging on about politics, which interested me little except when it affected business. Since last year, when the Greeks had retaken Constantinople, Venice’s influence in that region had been blighted by our old enemy, Genoa. The doge’s old title of Lord of a Quarter and Half a Quarter of the Roman Empire had suddenly become increasingly hollow-sounding. It had been won sixty years ago, when Doge Dandolo-the old, blind wheeler-dealer himself-had conned the leaders of the Fourth Crusade into conquering Constantinople instead of aiming straight for Outremer. They had owed the Republic a lot of money, and could do little else, mind you. With a puppet installed on the throne in Byzantium, Dandolo had picked up vast chunks of the newly made Latin Empire, and that lordly title. But now it was gone again, and apparently some blamed the present doge for the inconvenience. Including the erstwhile governor of Constantinople, Domenico Lazzari. Valier continued to blether on about it.

‘A properly elected doge is for life, or until he decides to step down himself. How can anyone suggest he should be forced out?’ He poured another potful of good Gascon red down his throat, and clutched my shoulder. ‘What do you think, Nicolo, old chap? You’re an honest fellow. What do you think we should do?’

Sweating a little at the thought he might run through my slender supply of wine before I had parted him from his money, I stared sombrely into his bleary eyes. I found myself using his own drawly accent back at him.

‘It’s an outrage, Pasquale, old chum. That’s what it is. It makes a fellow want to make his money and run before the whole fabric of society falls apart.’

He nodded eagerly, then a puzzled look slowly crept over his blotchy face.

‘Make his money…and run?’

I could see on his drink-sodden face the sly look of one who had been hooked. I fed him the line before reeling him in.

‘It so happens I have a proposition to put to you. It can’t fail…’