The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

‘Malamocco, are you there?’

At the first two windows, my call only elicited a rustling that may have been rats, or the shifting of the starved body of some long-incarcerated prisoner. At the third window I received a reply.

‘Who’s there?’ came the timorous reply. It was a boy’s voice, but one that from fear and hunger no longer sounded like that of the cocky Malamocco I had trained in sleight-of-hand.

‘It’s me-the card-sharp. I’m going to get you out.’

His eager face appeared at the bars, a little paler and a lot gaunter than when I had seen it last. But the gleam in his eyes told me the cockiness was not completely lost. I pushed my boat pole in the mud to secure the little barge in place, and drew my sword. The boy recoiled from the bars in horror.

‘Barratieri! What are you going to do? Cut me into little pieces so I can pass through the bars?’

‘Don’t be silly, or I will go away again.’

I pulled on a pair of stout leather gloves and held the sword in both hands by the sharp-edged blade, my right hand close to its tip. I apologized for the misuse I was going to make of such a fine weapon.

‘Forgive me, sword-maker, whoever you were, for mistreating your blade so,’

Then I began to dig at the crumbly stonework round one of the bars. The boat bobbed with my exertions, and because of that the effort proved more awkward and more difficult than I had hoped. But eventually the hole in the stone grew to a shallow groove, and then a deep furrow. Malamocco pushed at the bar, as I pulled, and with a groan that I feared may alert someone, it came free. The gap thus created was big enough for Malamocco to squeeze through. I just gave thanks that he had not put on more weight while eating at my expense. I sheathed the sword, swearing I would have the tip re-sharpened, and helped the boy down into the bottom of the flat barge. Where he lay shivering until we were back at my uncle’s house, and relative safety.

A few hours later, I was beginning to wish I had not rescued him. Once he had regained his spirits, he had only stopped talking long enough to stuff most of the contents of my uncle’s larder down his throat. Most of what he said was unlikely tales of his own bravado.

‘And do you know, Barratieri, I told them nothing. I insisted I did not know anyone called Lazzari, or Zuliani. As indeed I don’t, do I, Barratieri?’

At this point he either had his tongue firmly in his cheek, or he was still chewing on my uncle’s best smoked ham. I swiped at his tow-head, and he laughed. I knew his incarceration would have been terrifying, and allowed him his little show of braggadocio.

He babbled on. ‘Any more than you know a boy called Polo, eh? But what I did learn was the name of the man who denounced this Zuliani fellow to the Signori de Notte .’

My ears pricked up. If I was to start on the hunt for who killed Lazzari, I could best begin with the name of the person who had landed me in the shit. I half-expected the boy to say Pasquale Valier’s name. But he didn’t.

‘They thought I couldn’t hear. But once, when I was being questioned, I heard them whispering to each other. They spoke of a man called Sebenico.’

I could almost have stepped into Sebenico’s silversmithing workshop on the Merceria from my uncle’s front door. But that would have given him the opportunity to see me coming. So that night, I once again slipped out of the back door, and down to the boat moored on the local narrow rio . This time I steered the boat in the opposite direction to the previous night. This took me under the Merceria, and round the rear of some of the workshops and living quarters on that very street, including those of Sebenico. At one point a street crossed the water, near a sottoportego , or archway, running under the buildings. I quietly moored my boat at this subterranean passage, and stepped on to dry land. Above me and to the left side were the workshop and domestic quarters of Sebenico the silversmith. My denouncer. I still wasn’t sure if he himself was Lazzari’s killer. I knew only that Sebenico had been the most displeased with his return on the Syrian colleganza . Which must have been why he did what he did.

With so much valuable silver on his premises, I knew the doors would be stout and well-barred. But sometimes, the wood that formed the ceiling of a sottoportego was thin and rotten from damp. I climbed on to some barrels that had been discarded in the passage, and put my hand to the wooden beams above my head. Over me would be a corridor, or even a room in Sebenico’s apartments-I had no way of knowing. I listened for a while, but could hear nothing. It was a risk, but one worth taking.

Once more, I unsheathed my sword, and set it to another task for which it had not been designed. The creator of such a pure sword must now be turning in his grave at my abuse of his blade. I pushed the tip that I had scratched on the doge’s prison window arch in between two planks of wood, just where the length of timber ended, and twisted. I was fearful that the blade would snap with such abuse, but instead the wood creaked and one of the short lengths of timber gave way. Sliding the sword back in its sheath, I heaved upwards, pushing the plank out of the way. Sometimes I act without too much forethought, and this was one of those occasions. Having gained access to Sebenico’s home, I was not too certain as to my next move. I need not have worried.

No sooner had I pushed away the floorboard, than a startled face, illuminated by a tallow lamp, stared down at me. It was wall-eyed Sebenico himself, roused by my none-too-quiet breaking and entering. Well, I suppose it wasn’t really entering, because I didn’t get that far. All I did was grab the surprised silversmith by the loose folds of his nightgown, and pull him down head-first into the hole at his feet. Suspended virtually upside-down above my head, he was in no position to resist my swift and brutal interrogation.

‘Zuliani!’ he gasped, as his inverted features turned a bright shade of red. ‘I shall call the Signori , if you don’t release me immediately.’

‘I think you have done that already once before, Sebenico. As I am already on the run, I have nothing more to fear from that quarter. Squeal as much as you like, I shall be gone before they even know I have been here.’

I could hear his feet banging on the boards above my head, but my grasp was firm, and his struggles only served to make him more red-faced and dizzy.

‘So tell me, good sir, how you came to denounce me, and what you know about the death of Domenico Lazzari. Tell me now, or I might be tempted to draw my sword, and use your head for target practice.’

His mouth gaped in horror, and saliva dribbled from its corners, as he grappled with the realization I knew what he had done. I could almost see the fervid calculations going on in his head, as he calculated how much he had to divulge. I yanked again on his gown, and he squawked as his shoulders wedged firm in the jagged hole in his floor.

‘Ahhh! Let me go. Yes, yes, I denounced you for the murder of Lazzari. But that was not my idea. I merely wanted to find some misdemeanour to land you with. To make things hot for you, after you swindled us over the colleganza . We both did. But then he said we should stick you with a far more serious matter, and said as how you were already up to no good with Lazzari. So the Quarantia would believe it, if you were blamed for his death. He said as how it was likely you were responsible for it anyway, even if it could never be proved. So I would only be helping the truth along. I had heard nothing of Lazzari’s murder before he told me, I swear it.’

‘He, he? Who are you talking about?’