The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

‘Then it could have been a tragic accident, after all.’

Baglioni shook his head vigorously, his dark hair flopping over his forehead.

‘Never. He was silenced, and I will be next.’

It was obvious to Zuliani that Baglioni didn’t know about the old man, Baseggio. And yet he had still come to the same conclusion Zuliani had. He wanted to know more from the trader.

‘What reason have you both to be silenced? And who are the “they” that you keep referring to?’

Suddenly, Baglioni glanced nervously back towards the sunlit entrance to the alley where he and Zuliani stood like a pair of thieves. Zuliani could see the indecision on his face. Baglioni was so scared of someone, he was going to backtrack. When he spoke, his voice broke like a boy’s.

‘Maybe I was mistaken and you were right when you said it was a tragic accident. Saluzzo had to miss his footing as some point, being as overconfident as he was.’

All of a sudden, he was suggesting the ship’s captain was not as sure-footed as he had first imagined. Baglioni was now anxious to convince Zuliani of this incontrovertible fact.

‘Yes, that’s it. A simple accident that I have blown up out of all proportion.’

He even puffed out his cheeks and laughed, as though he had convinced himself of his mistake. Not quite making eye contact with Zuliani, he waved his hand in apology and strode back out of the dark alley. However, Zuliani noticed that it was not without looking edgily both ways first that Baglioni walked into the sunlight. Zuliani would have left it there, and planned another strategy to get the truth out of Baglioni, if he had not seen a dark shadow suddenly flit past the end of the alley. His immediate reaction was that someone was walking purposefully after the trader. Someone who had waited for him to come back out of the darkness where Zuliani now stood.

He ran to the end of the alley and looked in the direction Baglioni and his tail had gone. The street twisted to the left only a few yards away, so he didn’t see Baglioni. But he did see the end of a dark cloak, flapping in the breeze, before it too was lost round the corner. He hurried in pursuit. The street he was now in ran straight towards the Franciscan friary of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Zuliani cursed his old legs as he tried to close the gap between himself and both Baglioni and his dark pursuer. He had a bad feeling about what was happening before his eyes. The man in the cloak was closing rapidly with Baglioni, and there was no one else around to see what might happen.

Zuliani called out a warning to Baglioni, but it only served to aid his attacker. The trader turned round, stopping in his tracks and allowing the man to fall upon him. There was a flash of a blade in the morning sunlight, and Baglioni fell. The attacker ran off diagonally across the small square beside the friary, but Zuliani was close on his heels, cutting him off at the bridge over the canal that ran behind Santa Maria. From under the hood of his cloak, the man snarled, feinting one way, then dodging the other. Zuliani was too slow, and as he twisted round, he felt a sharp pain travelling across his chest. He looked down, and saw that the sober jaqueta was slashed from one side to the other. Wondering how he was going to explain the ruined coat to Cat, he fell to his knees and blacked out.

When he came to, he found himself being bathed solicitously by the very person he had last been thinking of. He realised the offending jaqueta had been removed, and Cat was washing his bare chest. He smiled and looked up at her, but her face was set in a grim mask.

‘Don’t think you are going to get away with ruining that coat just because you have been wounded.’

He tried to look down at his chest.

‘Wounded? I thought I had died and had gone to Heaven, where beautiful handmaidens were attending to my every need.’

‘No, it’s just me making sure this cut doesn’t turn bad.’

With his chin tucked in, he could now see what Cat was referring to. A red line ran across his chest, bisecting his nipples. She had washed away the blood and little was now oozing out. She proceeded to pour an oily liquid along its length. Zuliani struggled to sit up, howling at the pain. Cat laughed and pushed him back down.

‘Don’t be such a baby. It’s just oil, wine and vinegar, but if it was a good enough remedy for the Greeks, it’s good enough for you.’

‘I would much rather have taken one of those ingredients internally.’

Cat pulled a face, and proceeded to bind some clean linen around his chest.

‘You can do that shortly. When you have spoken to the Signori della Notte. One of them is waiting outside to speak to you.’

Zuliani groaned. The Signori della Notte were a shady bunch who looked into all disorder and crime in Venice. He had fallen foul of them when a youth, being accused of a murder for which he was not responsible. He had been wary of them ever since. It had been only his prolonged absence from Venice, and his subsequent return rich and famous that had resulted in the accusation being shelved. But the Signori had long memories and an even longer reach. They could easily dust down his alleged criminal act. And now he would have to explain to them his presence at the attack on Baglioni. Suddenly recalling what he had seen, he asked Cat to enlighten him.

‘Baglioni?’

Cat Dolfin shook her head.

‘Dead.’

Zuliani cursed his luck. The trader could have given him a lead on the matter of the mysterious cases of golden ballast, and now he had been killed. Along with Baseggio and Saluzzo. With much more to do, he decided that now was not the time to tangle with the Signori. They could embroil him in a prolonged debate about what he had seen, and who the killer had been. They might even accuse him of making up the presence of another person, and imprison him for the crime. After all, he had been accused once before of murder. It could end up being weeks before he could prove his innocence, and in the meantime, the true killer could disappear, along with the gold. He sat up, feeling the bandages pull tight across his chest.

‘Tell whoever is waiting that I am too weak to be interviewed. I am after all over seventy, and this has been a great shock to me.’

‘Hmm. I am not sure that will keep them from seeing you. But you do have one other means at your disposal.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I will explain to them that you are shortly to be elected to the Council of Ten, and your friend the Doge would not take very kindly to you being badgered at this crucial time.’

Zuliani was not accustomed to using an elevated position in society to avoid the Signori. He was more used to ducking and diving like the common man he was. But he liked the idea, and grinned suddenly.

‘Excellent. You can put on your most patrician face, and send them on their way.’

Cat laughed at his drawing her into the scheme.

‘I am glad you see the sense in my suggestion. At least it beats what you used to suggest I do to protect you.’

‘And what was that?’

‘That I used my feminine wiles to distract them.’

Zuliani’s smile turned wolfish. ‘Well, your attributes are manifest in that area.’

She gave him a playful slap in the arm and turned away, giving him a view of a wiggling bottom as she went about her errand.

Ruefully, Zuliani picked up the garment ruined by his attacker, and poked his hand through the long slash. The quilted nature of the elaborate stitching was probably what had saved him from a worse injury, but it meant the jaqueta was beyond salvation. He bundled it up, and tossed it aside carelessly. He had never liked it anyway, preferring his old fur-trimmed long gown with its patterned cloth. It had been his favourite garb in distant Cathay, and reminded him of other, more carefree days. Days when he didn’t have to kowtow to the wealthy in order to gain their favour. Then, he had been an agent of the Great Khan, with his personal passport and badge of office – the paizah . The gold bar, etched with the Khan’s command, had been his means of access to officialdom wherever he went in Kubilai’s empire. It had been lost in the fire that had engulfed his home recently, along with most of his other treasured possessions from Cathay.