The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

‘Later, Zuliani, later. You know, a woman gets riper the longer you keep her hanging on. Leave her till later. In fact, you would do well to leave her hanging like a ripe pheasant for a few days. Then she will really be ready to…you know…to…’

He made a fist over his groin, jerking it up and down, and guffawed in my face. I should have stuck my fist in his florid chops for being so coarse about Cat, but for some reason what he said amused me. I giggled, and grabbed the wine bottle, pouring it straight down my throat.

‘Have a care, Jacopo Selvo. You speak of the woman I love.’

I hauled the shiny sword from the sheath at my waist, waving it in the air in mock combat. I nearly sliced Orseolo’s head off by accident, and he dropped to the ground in a dead faint. The others crowded around, admiring the blade as it sparkled in the candlelight. Valier was the most impressed, his eyes feasting on the perfection.

‘That is a mighty blade, Zuliani. And an old one. It must have been drowned in blood in its time. How did you come by it?’

I feigned indifference to its quality.

‘This old thing. I had it from…an admirer.’

I leaned on the sword like some old Crusader, but spoiled the effect by falling over in a heap. The blade nicked my arm, and added another stain to my new clothes. It was not long after that the three others fell into a drunken stupor, leaving only Valier and myself to finish the Malvasia. We slumped side by side on Orseolo’s couch, and I reluctantly began to count out Valier’s share of my loot. His eyes glittered, while at the same time he bemoaned the hard times that made it so difficult to make money.

‘And since you left on your trip, Zuliani, Domenico Lazzari has returned redoubling his complaints about Doge Zeno. He has moaned so much that the doge has been persuaded to stand down. They say that Girolamo Fanesi has thrown his hat into the ring, and expects to win. I mean to say, really! He’s not even a proper Venetian. And all because of this Byzantine fiasco.’

I was a little slow on the uptake.

‘What Byzantine…? Oh, the loss of Constantinople, and the title of Lord of Half-a-quart and a Quart-and-a-half of Roman wine…’

Pasquale sniggered at the old joke, and bashed my arm with his puny fist.

‘Be serious for a moment, Nicolo. You know, I was thinking that if you could sort of influence who was in the Group of Forty-One, you could virtually guarantee who the next doge was. And prevent Fanesi winning.’

Now, you should know that the method of electing a new doge is involved in the extreme. By a series of lots, the Maggior Consiglio -the Great Council-vote for four of their number. This four from the great and good then nominate forty-one of the council members, each of whom requires at least three nominations, and not more than one from each family. Oh, and don’t forget that to get on the Great Council itself in the first place, you have to be nominated by two representatives from each of the six sestieri , or districts, that make up Venice. So, to get to vote a doge into office, you have to…well, I don’t want to bore you. Let’s just say it’s complicated. Just take it from me that the system goes on and on. For several rounds. Until forty-one names are thus randomly selected. And it is they who elect the doge. So I don’t know why I agreed with Valier.

‘I suppose so. Yes and, if you could influence the vote so that a particular name came up, you could make an awful lot of money into the bargain.’

This was my contribution to the drunken exchange. I cared not, and still don’t, which member of the Venetian case vecchie -the old aristocracy-was elected doge. My family has been around for as long as any of them. It has even been said that one of our ancestors helped drive the pali -the wooden piles-into the sandbanks on top of which the city was built three hundred and fifty years ago. But the Zulianis always made their money by dint of their own labour, and that was enough to keep us out of the inner circle. No, I didn’t care if a Tiepolo, a Morosini, or a Zeno won the election. I just liked the idea of making a killing on the result for one Zuliani. Me.

‘But there is no way of influencing such a complex system,’ moaned Valier. ‘And I now have a purse bursting with coins to wager.’

Valier was old aristocracy himself, which is why, along with his colleganza profits, he had so much money to waste. And why he hadn’t the brains to see an opportunity when it leaped at him. The aristocracy are all inbred, after all.

I grinned. ‘There is a way, I am sure of it. Even if it comes with a little bribery.’

Valier’s little, pointy rat-face looked blank at first-but then it always did. Finally, his features squashed up in what I think was supposed to resemble shock.

‘It won’t work! You wouldn’t dare!’

I spat in my fist, and held out a steady hand for him to clasp, and seal the wager. See, I wasn’t half as drunk as poor Pasquale Valier was. In fact, I had seen the opportunity to get all that colleganza profit back from him as soon as he had started talking. Besides, I liked a challenge, and the drink had made me reckless.

‘Give me that pile of coins that’s burning a hole in your purse, and I’ll show you what’s possible.’

‘OK. But it’s my money against that beautiful sword.’

I almost didn’t do the deal when he said that. The sword was from Cat, after all. But being a Zuliani, I only hesitated for a second. We shook on it.

I woke to the booming of the Marangona bell in the Campanile. It calls the tradesmen to work, and tolls the curfew in the evening. Just now, it resonated round my tender skull, which throbbed at every clang. I squeezed open my eyes on a scene of devastation. A pile of empty vessels gave witness to the scale of the binge that Valier and I had indulged in, along with Selvo, Michiel and Orseolo. Those last three were still lying in a tangled heap at one end of the long tapestried room on the upper floor of the Ca’ d’Orseolo. They were dead to the world. I got up and staggered round the room. I noticed one particularly fine drape had a long cut right through Salome bearing the head of John the Baptist on a tray. I thought now at least honours were even, and the maid had had her head separated from her body too, if only in a woven image. I fingered the extensive slash, and remembered something about waving my fine sword above my head, and threatening the life of anyone who stood between me and Caterina Dolfin. Quite obviously, Salome had done so. I nervously twitched the tapestry together, but it was no use. When I let go, the damaged portion gaped open once again.

Still somewhat disorientated, I went about looking for Pasquale Valier. Had I not made some wager with him in the early hours? My befuddled brain pondered the problem as I brushed down my clothes. My tunic was creased, and smelled of stale sweat. And my mantle had a muddy boot mark on it to add to the wine and blood stains. I searched for my new sugar-loaf cap, and found it gripped in Jacopo Selvo’s hand. He had obviously been using it to wipe the stains off the floor where he had vomited. I sniffed it, then crammed it on my head anyway, flipping up the brim. It didn’t seem quite as jaunty as it had yesterday.

Valier was nowhere to be seen, and neither was my sword, I realized. I panicked. How could I meet Caterina without her gift at my waist? I scrabbled under the long dining table, searching for it, and then under the couch where Valier and I had made our pact. And then I remembered our wager. I was to rig the doge’s election so that Fanesi failed, and one particular name would come up. Any name, so long as we could bet on it. At the time, I had been so confident I could do it. Now, in the cold light of day, I hadn’t the faintest idea how I would arrange such a thing. And I still couldn’t find my sword.