The Medieval Murderers - Sword of Shame

‘Let’s go,’ yelled an uninjured Malamocco.

I pushed the boy on to the window sill, and he dropped into the darkness of the canal below. I clambered up myself, and looked down. It was a long way, and I am scared of heights. I heard the door bursting open behind me. I jumped.

‘Oooooooooo…’

The landing was uncomfortable but soft. Malamocco’s urgent gestures drew me towards the opposite bank. I told him I was OK, and that he should save himself now. That we would do better to split up. Reluctantly, he took my advice, and slunk off into the dark and back to his own world. I heard the angry voices of the men on the balcony. One, that I recognized as the bearded Gradenigo, gave a cry of frustration that chilled me to the heart.

‘Murdering bastard. You killed him. You won’t escape.’

I waded along the canal until I was out of sight, dragging my boots out of the sticky mud with ever more exhausted steps. After a while I saw a tiny quay that allowed me to clamber out of the icy waters, and continue my escape on dry land. I was surprised at my own exhaustion, and could barely drag myself over the wooden pilings on to the stone quay. I knew exactly where I was-east of the Grand Canal, and south of SS Apostoli church, and just a few hundred yards from the quay on the north side of Venice that looked towards the scattering of islands around Murano and freedom.

I trudged along the narrow alleys, leaving a trail of murky footprints behind me. I had eluded those chasing me, and my tracks now didn’t matter. The day had not turned out as I had expected, but at least I had stuck it to Fanesi, and escaped with my life. One day I would come back for the sweet, foxy Caterina Dolfin. I should now say, the matronly Caterina, and our child. It was best I was not around as he grew up. After all, I was not only a conspirator against the state, but now a murderer for real, it seemed. What had Ranulf de Cerne’s sword made me do?

The sword’s weight is carrying it in a perfect arc. I am ready to release it. Then I have second thoughts. A sword is just a weapon, so how can I blame this one for what has happened to me? Some like to imbue a blade with a personality-consider even that its maker’s own life is somehow hammered and moulded into it. Or that its owners have shaped its destiny by virtue of the way their own lives have played out. But take it from me, it’s just a lump of metal without a life of its own. And yet a very pretty lump of metal with an intrinsic value to the right person.

Standing waist-deep in water, and covered in the stinking mud of Venice’s lagoon, I should not have been able to see the positive side of things. But I am a Venetian, after all. Well, half Venetian and half stubborn Englishman. A combination that guarantees I see the possibilities of every situation. Here I am-destitute, half-drowned and being hunted for murder-throwing my only asset into the sea. Well, that is if you don’t count my considerable talent at making money. But then, only money makes money, and I realize I can sell the sword for a goodly sum. There are plenty of Crusaders and Templars passing through this region on the way to Castle Pilgrim to fight Baybars and his Mameluk army. Most of them have more money than common sense, and I can market the sword as a ‘veteran’ of the Fourth Crusade. Why throw away money?

The weight of the blade is still carrying it to the apex of its arc, as these feverish thoughts run through my brain. I strive to prevent the silver-wired hilt from slipping through my fingers. But my hands are numbed by the cold waters of the lagoon, and it slides free. I yell in frustration as the big disc of the pommel skids over my palm, and I try to clamp down on it with my other hand. I almost have it, but finally, it slips through, and the sword sails free. But, thank God, I have slowed its momentum, and I watch it land with a splash only a few yards ahead of me. I flounder through the turbid waters, plunging my hands blindly into them, and begin to grovel in the bubbling, stinking mud…

HISTORICAL NOTE

Historians will know that no such election took place in 1262, and that Renier Zeno was doge until 1268. But then no one in authority would have liked it known that the voting system could be so easily suborned, and no record of such an abortive election would have been kept. Suffice it to say that the voting system was made extraordinarily complex in 1268, though the system of choosing a child randomly to act as ballotino was used.

At least four people might have seen the body and hadn’t admitted to it before Hob the Miller caught a glimpse of it from the corner of his eye that Monday morning.

He was strolling along beside his tired old packhorse, sacks of flour tied to the beast ready to be delivered to his lord’s little castle at Nymet Tracy. It was a journey he must have completed many scores of times since he took over the running of the mill from his father. At least once a fortnight he came this way. Otherwise he’d take the road north to Bow for his provisions.

This lane, the leaves overhead dappling the nettles and thick grass with shadows, was as familiar to him as the mill itself. He knew all the ruts and potholes, the thin undergrowth where a man who had drunk too much could relieve himself; the denser brambles, which at this time of year were lethal, with thorns that would shred a fellow’s hosen, but which would soon be sought by all the families when the thick, juicy berries were ready to be picked.

The boot lay beneath one of the dense thickets of bramble.

God’s pain, but it was tempting to leave the fellow, just as the others had; there were plenty of footprints all about here to bear witness to the fact. It was not unusual for the man who discovered a dead body to walk away. The first finder would have to pay a surety, and no one wanted to be fined for no reason.

He knelt by the body. It wasn’t as if he had been carefully concealed. Probably some traveller who had been knocked on the head by a footpad and hurriedly dragged from the path. It was common enough. As Hob halted and poked with his staff in the bushes, a cloud of flies rose, and Hob tasted acid in his throat. The murder wasn’t very recent, from the smell. It hadn’t happened today. In this heat…

Hob was conscientious. If a man committed murder, everyone was in danger. Better that good people should learn who was responsible and bring him to justice. So Hob squatted, nose wrinkled against the foul odour, a short, heavy-set man in his mid-thirties, with pale brown hair protruding from under his hood. He had eyes of grey/blue that held chips of ice as they darted about the ground seeking clues to the killer’s identity.

‘Who did this to ’un, eh?’ he muttered. There were savage slashes which had ripped through the man’s cotehardie. Some wounds had toothmarks: wild dogs or maybe a fox or two had come to gnaw at him. The man’s head was covered by a cowl, and Hob, grimacing, took his staff and lifted the front.

In this, the seventeenth year of King Edward II, or as the priests would say, in the thirteen hundred and twenty fourth year of Our Lord, men were well enough used to the sight of death, and Hob could see this poor fellow had tried to defend himself. There was a great blow to his head, which must surely have killed him if all the stabs hadn’t. Even his hands were badly cut, his right hand was cut almost in two, as though a sword had fallen between his middle fingers. Hob looked more closely at the distorted features, then he pushed the cowl back farther, peered closer, and swore.

He had a choice: he could hurry on and ignore it, as others had, or declare it. Grunting, he stood a while, then took his horse and continued on to the castle.

Others had pretended not to see this fellow; Hob pulled a sour face. Damn his arse, he was a Christian, and he wouldn’t leave a man’s corpse to rot in the wilds, no matter how high the fine. No, he’d tell Sir William, and ask for the coroner to be called.