The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

‘This is a story often told by my grandfather about a time when I was a young woman living in Venice. Niccolo Zuliani had travelled to the ends of the earth, and seen many wonders. Great palaces where a thousand men may banquet at a time, a robe made of salamander that can resist fire, and a black stone that burns better than logs. Some said he told lies, or at the very least embroidered so heavily on the truth that it would have hardly known itself if it looked in a mirror. I like to think that everything he spoke of was the literal truth. Whatever people may have thought, this story is certainly one I can verify the truth of myself, as I was involved in its unfolding, as you will eventually see.’

The small group of travellers leaned closer to her to hear the tale of…

Greed

Nick Zuliani was bored. Though he was more than seventy years of age, his mind was as sharp as it had ever been. He had recently returned from a small Greek island owned by the Soranzo family, where he had performed a service for Giovanni Soranzo, who was now the Doge of Venice. Since his return, his days had been full of idleness, and he yearned for something to occupy his mind. Even his dearest love, Cat Dolfin, was tired of his sighs and his constant wandering through the rooms of her home, Ca’ Dolfin.

‘You’re like some tiresome ghost, always interrupting my peace, Niccolo. Do stop it.’

Zuliani sighed some more at the rebuke, knowing that if she addressed him by his full name and not as Nick, she was seriously annoyed. Then, seeing Cat’s reaction to his further sigh, he satisfied himself with a silent grimace.

‘Perhaps you are tired of having me around. You should throw me out on the street like some homeless beggar.’

He was indeed homeless, and had been for some time. Since, that is, his own house had been burned down in a fire set by a man seeking to mask his deliberate disappearance. In that conflagration, Zuliani had lost almost everything he possessed, including most of the wonders he had brought from Cathay. Still, at the time it had been a boon, in that it had resulted in him finding and moving in with his long-lost love, the aristocratic Caterina Dolfin. At the same time, he had also discovered the existence of his granddaughter, Katie.

He cast his mournful gaze on the still slim and attractive woman, who as a young lady he had left pregnant when he had skipped Venice over some misdeed or other. His only excuse at the time was that he had not known of Cat’s delicate state when he had fled. Cat returned his soulful look with a steely one of her own. She pursed her lovely red lips.

‘Don’t push your luck, Niccolo.’

Then she sighed, knowing what was behind his irritating behaviour. He needed to be busy, and the only thing that truly excited him was the pursuit of trade and the growth of money.

‘Oh, very well. I will loan you some money, just so that you can lose it on some hare-brained scheme, like you have with your own money.’

Zuliani flashed her a smile.

‘A promissory note will be enough, and I shall be out from under your feet and on my way to the Rialto in an instant.’

She quickly picked up a quill before he could change his mind.

‘So this is about a Venetian’s greed for money,’ said one of the pilgrims gathered in the Angel tavern in Norfolk. Katie frowned, annoyed that the thread of her story, so soon started, had been broken already.

‘Not at all. There is no sin in honest trade, as any Venetian will tell you. Listen, and you will soon learn what sort of greed I am telling you about.’

It was not long before Nick Zuliani found his way to the Rialto. The great wooden bridge was at the centre of the early settlement, and was now the commercial heart of La Serenissima. On its sturdy planks strode impecunious merchants seeking the funds for trading ventures that they could not afford on their own. Any Venetian with a little money to invest could have a share in such trade. Artisans and widows, even the aged and the sick, could enter into what was called a colleganza . This might take the form of a simple partnership between two merchants, or that of a large corporation of the kind needed to finance a trans-Asiatic caravan. It might run for a short, agreed period or might be an ad hoc , ongoing arrangement that would be dissolved automatically when the venture was complete. Whatever the constituent parts of the partnership, it was founded on trust and was inviolable. Even one involving an immense initial outlay, or several years’ duration and considerable risk, could be arranged on the Rialto in a matter of hours.

Zuliani walked up and down for a while assessing the merchants who were on the bridge. They were mostly young men such as he had once been. He too had stood here, eager-faced and keen to find someone past their prime who could afford the money but not the time or effort to travel to the corners of the globe for profit. Now he was on the other side of the fence – one of those aged men too weary for long journeys in pirate-infested waters. He listened in on a couple of merchants who were already trying to persuade the people around them to take a chance on making their fortune.

One, a raw-boned man with a face that looked as though it had been chiselled out of rock and been around the world, was expounding the virtues of trading salted North Sea cod, Rhenish and Bordelais wines, and Breton salt with oil and rice from ports in the Mediterranean. Zuliani knew such a colleganza would provide steady profits, but what he sought was excitement, even if it was of the vicarious sort. The other merchant he turned to was a fresh-faced youth with long, black hair that kept blowing across his eyes in the wind that swept up the Grand Canal. He spoke of cotton from Syria and North Africa, and silks from the East. Zuliani’s heart began to beat a little faster. He moved closer, the eager eyes of the young trader spotted him and his spiel grew more expansive.

‘Remember that at sea there are no toll duties as there are on routes overland. A sea route costs a twentieth of an overland route, and all we have to fund is the basic cost of fitting out a ship, freight charges, and sailors’ wages – which are precious little.’

As he said this, he nudged the well-dressed man standing next to him and laughed. The man did not respond, his face keeping its solemn cast as he twisted the ring on his thumb, so the trader swallowed his joke and pressed on.

‘The more valuable the cargo, the greater the profit. I am proposing a colleganza that will sail as far as Antioch and Tyre in order to benefit from the silks that come from Cathay.’

At the mention of that far distant empire, Zuliani was won over to this young man’s proposition. Memories of his own travels around Cathay at the instigation of the Great Khan, Kubilai, flooded his mind. He elbowed his way to the front of the crowd that had gathered around the young merchant.

‘I will have some of that trade, young man.’

The trader eagerly grasped his hand.

‘You are a wise man, sir, and I shall not let you down. My name is Bernardo Baglioni, and yours is…?’

Zuliani hesitated, fearful that his name and reputation would draw too many into the venture and dissipate the profits. He produced the note signed by Cat.

‘Let’s merely say I am acting on behalf of the Dolfin family.’

Baglioni’s smile broadened. It was not often that someone from the case vecchie – the old aristocracy of Venice – got involved in trade.

‘Then I am honoured at such an association. Come, let us adjourn to a taverna and seal the deal.’

The well-heeled and solemn man with the thumb-ring also stepped forward. In an accent that suggested he was not Venetian, he also proposed part-funding the deal.