The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

I was forgetting Marino Michiel was old aristocracy, and to him the idea of consulting the people was tantamount to permitting mob rule. He protested that the system was fair.

‘But it’s all well controlled, so that one man can’t push a name through against the will of the others,’ he whined. ‘They are even trying a new system this time to ensure there’s no hanky-panky.’

My heart lurched, and nearly fought its way out of my throat. Did Michiel know what I was up to? I hoped Valier hadn’t let anything slip to his pals.

‘What’s that?’ I croaked.

‘Oh, when they have got the final set of slips in the voting urn, they are not going to have one of their own draw one out. Just in case they cheat. It seems they are going to pick a child at random from the street, and he-the ballotino -will draw the name.’

Perfect.

Two days later, I still couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. At the time, I had even bought the bewildered Michiel a drink. He was quite unaware that he had given me the best news I could have expected. Only if I had been told of Caterina Dolfin’s immediate return to Venice would I have been more cheerful. Unfortunately, there was no news on that front. In fact, my tentative enquiries revealed nothing-the doings of the Dolfin clan had been shrouded in mystery. Some people repeated the servant’s story of them fleeing rumours of a plague, and yet others spoke of the death of a wealthy uncle in Verona. A few hinted darkly at a family shame that had caused the Dolfins’ retreat from Venice. I believed none of it, only worrying that perhaps Caterina was being kept from me. Or worse, that she herself had chosen to avoid me.

But all that was of passing concern. I had been buoyed up by the new twist to the selection process for the doge. It had played directly into my hands. Now my task involved nothing more complex than training some urchin-preferably one who was already adept at the art of picking purses-in a little sleight-of-hand. And I knew just who could put me on to such a delinquent.

I put the word about, but had to wait until night for my search to bear fruit. Master thieves did not like the full glare of daylight, and Alimpato was a master among masters. It was he who had taught me much of my card-sharping techniques. A skill that had stood me in good stead when I had been short of cash in my early youth. Young noblemen seemed eager to pour coins into my purse for the sake of a game of cards or dice. Of course, even those dimwits realized after a while that my luck held a little too long to be true, and finally I had temporarily retreated, resorting to a tour of the mainland for a while. There were dupes aplenty in Fusina, Dolo, and Stra. But I yearned for Venice, and when I reckoned my reputation was forgotten, I returned. To a life of honest trading-if that’s not a contradiction in terms. However, I still practised with my hands every day, and my manual dexterity was as good as it ever was. You never know when you might need to help Lady Luck along a little. Like now. I was proposing to pass on some of my skills to a young cut-purse, but needed a likely candidate.

Sitting in my damp room as darkness fell, I was impatient for Alimpato to put in an appearance. Time was running out for me. Then I heard a scratching at the door, and leapt towards it, flinging it open. At first, I thought there was no one there-that I had merely heard the sound of a rat gnawing at the rotting timbers. But then I realized there was a darker shadow inside the shadow of the archway opposite. I smiled, and stepped back into my room, leaving the outer door ajar. A few moments later, the shadow entered my dingy room, and sat across from me at my table.

‘Alimpato, you old devil!’

The man pulled the hood of his voluminous cloak back, revealing a cadaverous face beneath a tangled skein of thin, greying hair. Alimpato smiled, revealing a set of blackened, rotten teeth. He more resembled a crippled beggar than what he really was-a prince among thieves. I pushed a flagon of Rhenish across to him, and a cheap pewter goblet. No use putting temptation in his way. Despite our friendship, he would have buried a more valuable vessel inside his roomy cloak.

‘Nicolo Zuliani, as I live and breathe. Still earning your bread honestly?’

I never heard a man put so much invective into the word ‘honest’ as Alimpato. When he uttered it, the word was redolent of shame, stupidity, and absurdity. I laughed and shrugged my shoulders.

‘In so far as anyone can.’

‘Then why did you put out the word you wanted to see me?’

He filled his goblet, and swigged deeply, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. I noticed the fingers were just as supple and slender as they had been when last he had shown me how to switch a set of dice.

‘It is in the way of a little matter that I need to…influence, shall I say. I have a wager on it.’

He nodded, knowing that I would not tell him the details. And that I knew he would not even dream of asking. The less you knew in his world, the easier it was to avoid being implicated, if questioned. I prayed fervently that I would not be discovered, as I could then expect a short stay in the ducal prison, followed by a long death.

‘I need a good cut-purse, who can learn quickly how to palm and substitute…a small item.’

He nodded, and rose from the table, turning the goblet in his hand speculatively. He sighed, and put it down, then made for the door.

‘Wait!’ I called out after him. ‘Aren’t you going to help me?’

He turned in the open doorway, and stared at me.

‘Of course. Walk across the Piazza tomorrow morning on the first stroke of the Marangona bell. Have a heavy purse on your belt.’

He pulled the hood over his face, returning his features to the darkness, and disappeared into the night.

The following morning, still not sure what to expect, I stood in front of the Basilica of St Mark. I waited for the ninth hour, when the great Marangona bell in the Campanile tolled, and started to walk across the old pavement of herring-bone brick laid by Doge Sebastiano Ziani a hundred years ago. I promenaded along, alert for any action, walking towards the quay, where stood the two antique columns brought back from the East by an ancestor of Michiel’s. When I reached the columns, nothing had happened, and I felt very disappointed. Alimpato had let me down. Then an urchin appeared from round one of the pillars, a huge grin splitting his grubby face.

‘Missing something, mister?’

My hand instinctively dropped to my waist, as I realized the weight of my purse was no longer there. Instead there were just a couple of sliced-through cords. The urchin brought his right hand from behind his back, and waved my purse in the air. I didn’t move to retrieve it however, merely clapping my hands in appreciation of his feat. The lad, who looked no more than eight years old, bowed low, then hesitated.

‘Don’t you want it back, mister? Master Alimpato said you would.’

‘Keep it,’ I said generously. The purse strings were cut anyway. I would let the boy find out that the weightiness of the purse was due to several large nail heads at his own convenience. ‘But you can come with me.’

He looked rather unsure at first, not certain what my motives were. So I softened my tones, and suggested we go and find something to eat. By the look of the puny chest that showed through his tattered clothes, I could guess he was half starved. He joined me at my side, and we walked back across the square, like two gentlemen promenading.

‘My name’s…’

I stopped him with a finger to my lips.

‘No names. Just tell me where you come from.’

‘Malamocca.’

It was a small settlement on the finger of land that protected the lagoon from the Adriatic.