The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

Zuliani’s instincts told him the man standing before him wasn’t going to let him leave the warehouse alive, despite what he was saying. But he decided he would go along with him for the time being, until he could find a moment to get under his guard. And he also had Katie to think of.

‘It’s very tempting – what you are suggesting, Rosso?’

Rosso’s laughter echoed around the warehouse. ‘I knew you were a man after my own heart.’

He put his hands on his hips, in a way he hoped would demonstrate his friendliness. But Zuliani could see it put his right hand closer to the dagger in his belt. Zuliani wondered if he could draw his own dagger as swiftly as the younger man. But then Rosso was asking him a question.

‘How did you guess it was I who carried out the killings?’

Zuliani pointed at the rings on the hand that was held loosely on Rosso’s hip. They sparkled in the light.

‘I saw your hand when you tried to stab me, just after you had killed Baglioni. All those rings gave you away. And then there was that ring on your thumb that looks as though it swivels round, leaving the stone on the inside.’

Rosso threw a glance down at his hand, already knowing what Zuliani meant. It was a nuisance, that ring.

‘So that’s why you were shaking everyone’s hand at the Doge’s reception earlier. But what of my thumb ring?’

‘It matches a bruise I saw on Saluzzo’s neck where you held him and choked him as you slid the knife in his heart.’

Rosso looked startled for a moment, then grinned rapaciously.

‘So it was you in this place that night. I thought it might have been, but you disappeared without trace before I could get a look at you.’

Zuliani silently thanked God that Rosso and his men hadn’t seen him. It meant they were also ignorant of Katie’s presence that night. All he had to do now was get out of this alive, and make sure Katie did, too. He saw that Rosso was unconsciously twisting the ring on his right thumb with the fingers of his left hand. It was his moment to strike, while both his opponent’s hands were occupied. He slid his dagger out, and lunged at Rosso. But the younger man was quicker, and when Zuliani’s stiff right knee gave away slightly, he danced backwards, drew his own dagger and thrust out.

Zuliani grunted in pain as he felt Rosso’s dagger skitter across his ribcage and dig into his flesh. His stumble turned into a fall, and he cracked his head hard on the stone floor, dropping his dagger. Rosso smiled coldly as he looked down at Zuliani’s prone figure, blood already seeping out from underneath him. He dashed over to the hessian sack he had set by the door, wrapped the loop of rope that tied the neck off around his wrist for safety, and stepped out of the narrow wicket gate into the night.

Katie had been stunned by the swiftness of the attack on her grandfather, but as Agnolo Rosso disappeared, she came to her senses. With a groan of anguish, she ran over to Zuliani’s body and grabbed his dagger, which still lay on the ground. She was determined to avenge her grandfather, and the three other men that Rosso had killed. She skipped over the sill of the wicket gate, and saw Rosso walking away along the quay. She ran after him and, just as he turned on hearing her light footsteps, swung a murderous blow with Zuliani’s dagger. She missed Rosso’s body completely, but as he dodged the blow, he lost his balance and fell backwards off the edge of the quayside. There was a loud splash as he hit the water in the great basin of the Arsenale. Katie looked down into the water, and saw Rosso flailing with one arm, splashing the water around him. She watched in horror as he struggled to disentangle his wrist from the rope binding the sack’s neck. Unfortunately, he was unable to get his arm free, and the heavy sack of gold dragged him beneath the waters. A few bubbles broke the surface, and then there was nothing except a ring of ripples growing out from where his body had gone under.

Katie Valier looked round her audience as she concluded her tale of greed.

‘You may have guessed that the young girl was me, and I witnessed the price that greed extracts from sinners.’

Every eye was on her, and the fire had been left to turn to a glowing redness. She leaned down and tossed another log on to the glow. It broke the spell, and the old man with the long white beard spoke up.

‘I am sorry that your grandfather died, too.’

Katie smiled.

‘Oh, Grandpa Nick didn’t die. You see, Rosso’s knife was diverted by his ribs and left him with just a flesh wound. Hitting his head on the ground knocked him out temporarily, but he was soon by my side to witness Agnolo Rosso’s demise.

‘“The reward for greed is death,” he said to me in a rather satisfied way. “Too much gold is a burden that only served to drag you down.”’

‘And what of Perruzzi?’ asked the old man. ‘Did he pay too for his greed?’

Katie had to admit that the banker Perruzzi had escaped any blame for the three murders. Someone on the edge of the group of pilgrims, who was sitting outside the circle of light cast by the fire, made a comment on that.

‘Is it not always the way, that the rich escape punishment, while the poor are ground down?’

Katie had an answer to that.

‘But then, as you all probably know, justice came to those who were driven by greed to try to accumulate great wealth at the expense of others. It is only a few years ago that your King Edward reneged on England’s debts, and drove the Florentine banks to a collapse. Antonio Perruzzi was a very old man by then, but he lived to see his world fall down around his ears, and died destitute. The sin of greed found him out in the end.’

It was not long before the old man who had expressed his regret – rather prematurely – about Katie Valier’s grandfather, and had asked about Perruzzi’s fate, had another question for her. He moved closer to her, and with his eyes strangely not on her but on the glowing fire, spoke quietly so that only she should hear.

‘Is it true that your grandfather travelled in the East?’

‘Oh, yes. He had many adventures there, and made his fortune. Though that was soon gone when he returned to Venice, for he cared little about keeping it. The fun was in the making of it for him.’

The old man nodded, and stroked his long, white beard.

‘I understand that perfectly. But tell me, you said his name was Zuliani?’

‘Yes, and he was nothing if not a true Venetian. But he was also proud that his mother was English. And that is why I am in these parts. I am looking for any of his family that might remain in England. They were from Bishop’s Lynn, and were called de Foe. The plague has interrupted my journey, but I shall get there eventually.’

‘So you are not, like me, on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham? Well, I will pray that you are spared this horror. And that the family of your grandfather are, too.’

He reached out his hand as if wishing to reassure her but seemed to grope a little in the air before finding her arm. Before she could say anything, though, he moved on.

‘But there is another question I would like to ask. You see, my father and mother travelled in the great empire of Yuan and I was born there.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘I don’t know if I am English, like my father, Jewish, like my mother, or Chinese by birth.’

Katie Valier was surprised at his confession that his mother had been Jewish. The Church expressly forbade any sort of relations between Christian and Jew on pain of death. She wondered if that was why his parents had travelled far away from England. She was also curious about something this old man had said earlier.