The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

‘This is more than a king’s ransom. It’s enough to buy his whole kingdom. We…’

He stopped and held a finger to his lips. Listening hard, Katie heard what he had. The sound of men calling to each other out on the quay. Their voices carried easily over the waters of the great basin, so they were probably some way away. But it was obvious they were coming their way. Katie was beginning to get nervous.

‘We should go, Grandpa.’

‘Just what I was about to say.’ But he still hesitated.

‘What is it?’

He was looking around again.

‘There just one more thing. This morning I saw what I thought looked like a body being brought in here.’

The voices were getting closer, and she clutched at his sleeve.

‘A body! It’s too late for that. Let’s go.’

But Zuliani wasn’t deterred, and began to look around the darker corners of the storehouse. With a sigh, Katie set about helping him. With two pairs of eyes, the job would be done quicker, and she reckoned they would be on their way sooner. And it was Katie who found it. Behind the crates she saw a blackened sailcloth with a suspicious hump underneath it. She lifted one corner, and revealed a calloused hand, its fingers curled upwards like a dead spider. On the end of the hand was a tattooed forearm. She pulled the sail-cloth further back. The man’s sightless eyes gazed up into the moonlight. Not daring to shout, she hissed out for Grandpa. But he was already at her shoulder.

‘Saluzzo. The ship’s captain.’

He bent to look closer, and then suddenly heard a cry from outside. The men were much nearer than before. And it was obvious they had seen the open door to the storehouse. They were coming their way, and would be on to Zuliani and Katie very soon. Zuliani was still examining the body, and seemed oblivious to the danger. She grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

‘We have to go. But how are we going to get out of here? They are at the door and will see us if we go that way.’

Zuliani seemed unconcerned, and with one look back at the body, beckoned his granddaughter towards the rear of the warehouse.

‘This way.’

It seemed madness to her to be trying to hide in the furthest reaches of the big, gloomy chamber. With a guard set on the door, it would take the other men no time at all to flush them out. But Zuliani was not going to cower in the dark and await his fate. As he paced around close to the rear wall, the sound of his feet on the ground changed. He stamped to make sure, and was rewarded with a hollow note echoing back to him. He kneeled down and wiped the accumulated straw and rope strands from the stone floor, revealing a ring set in one of the slabs.

‘Help me with this. It will be heavy.’

She hurried over to him and helped him heave the slab up by means of the ring.

‘How did you know this was here?’

He grinned at Katie. ‘Did you miss that when you were eavesdropping on my conversation with Domina Este? She told me all the secret exits from the Arsenale, including those used by the dockers to plunder what treasures were stored in here in the past.’

She had little time to marvel at how he had known she had overheard his conversation with the bereaved woman. He was already ushering her down the open hatchway and into the impenetrable dark below. He followed her down but was unable to get the slab back in place and cursed his luck.

‘Damn. We shall just have to hope we have made our escape before they find this hatch. Go that way.’

He pointed to his right where there was a patch of light beckoning. Katie realised they were on a level with the ancient wooden pilings that had been driven ages ago by their thousands into the marshy ground to create a base for building La Serenissima. Sliding over mud and wooden post tops, they slithered towards the beam of moonlight. Finally, they squeezed through some rusty bars and found themselves underneath one of the bridges crossing a canal. She poked my head up, and saw exactly where they were. Close to the rear of the Church of San Martino.

‘Damnation. We are in trouble.’

It was Zuliani who uttered the curse, and Katie looked round at him, fearful that they had after all been followed.

‘What is it?’

He poked a finger through a gaping hole in his new jaqueta .

‘I have torn it. Cat will kill me.’

With only a day to go to the elections to the Council of Ten, Zuliani had to set aside his discoveries in the Arsenale. He first needed to concentrate on convincing those with a vote that he was a suitable candidate. With his jaqueta repaired by Katie’s nimble fingers, he started doing the rounds of the good and the worthy, only stopping short of exchanging money in order to court favour. He would have had no qualms about doing this, but Cat convinced him that the old aristocracy would think it too common an approach to the election process. Instead, he should intimate that favours could be carried out for those who voted for him as soon as he was in a position of power.

‘Isn’t that corruption?’

Cat laughed at such naïvety from her lover. She couldn’t believe that Zuliani of all people had said that. The wheeler-dealer par excellence was questioning the rightfulness of using – or maybe misusing – a position of authority.

‘Merely accepted practice, Nick. You do a favour for them, and when you need one, they will do one for you in return.’

Zuliani’s face darkened, and he scrubbed his freshly shaven cheeks.

‘All the same, it will be me using my status to gain advantage. I’ve never been on this side of the fence before.’

Cat patted his arm. ‘And you still aren’t, yet. So get out there and oil the wheels.’

Still grumbling, he left Ca’ Dolfin for his first appointment. Katie looked at her grandma in surprise. She had never heard her grandmother supporting the ways of the case vecchie before, even though she was one by birth herself. Cat saw Katie’s look, winked and walked off to her room.

The mist was being pushed back out to sea by the sun, revealing La Serenissima in all its beauty. Zuliani poked a finger in the tight collar of his jaqueta , and sighed. Being a public figure was harder work than he had imagined. Everyone thought they owned you, and demanded some of your time. He had not been out his door for more than a few moments, and he could already hear the sound of someone hurrying towards him. He turned, a fake smile plastered on his face. When he saw his pursuer was Bernardo Baglioni, he let his mask drop. He could see that the man was terrified.

‘What on earth is the matter, Baglioni? You look as though you have seen a ghost.’

The trader’s face was indeed pasty-looking, almost green, and his mouth was pulled down in a grimace. His voice came out high-pitched and broken.

‘Saluzzo is dead, killed by a fall, they say, from the rigging. But…’

His voice finally failed him, and Zuliani finished the sentence for him.

‘But Saluzzo was as nimble as a monkey up in the rigging. I myself saw him swinging down from it and landing at my feet with barely an intake of breath. Yes, I know.’

He glanced around, concerned in case someone had been following Baglioni. Though there were several men hurrying about their business, no one seemed to be intent on scrutinising their meeting. Still, it was as well to be circumspect, and Zuliani dragged Baglioni into the dead end of a dark, damp alley that led only to the edge of a canal. In the gloom, Baglioni appeared to regain his composure a little.

‘They didn’t let me see his body, but insisted that the only marks were those caused by falling from the top of the mast on to the wooden deck. His neck was broken apparently.’

Zuliani tested out the other man’s understanding of the situation.