A Death in the Venetian Quarter Read online

  “And what of your people outside the walls?” I said, sitting by Rico and strumming my lute.

  “Their fault for choosing to live outside the walls,” said Rico. “We can’t save people from their own stupidity.”

  “Precisely,” agreed the Emperor, patting the dwarf on the head. “The farmers will come through all right. They always do. A few fields get burned, some peasant women violated. A small price to pay for the safety of the Empire.”

  “Whatever’s left of it,” I muttered.

  I stood, bowed, and left. Philoxenites collared me in the hallway outside.

  “He’s falling apart,” he said. “He lost all support in the city when he ran. Everyone saw it happen.”

  “Yet relying on the walls to repel the Crusaders isn’t the worst idea I’ve heard,” I said.

  “Strategically sound, but politically insane,” he said. “There’s as much danger from within the city as without. The people want action, not retreat.”

  “You have always been a man of the people,” I observed.

  “What did you find out from your friends?” he asked.

  “That my proposal would probably have the desired effect.”

  “Now, you realize that for me to have any part of this plan would be treason,” he said quietly.

  “But I, on the other hand, have no loyalties,” I said. “Or is it treason for me as well?”

  He smiled. “I’ll let your conscience be your guide on that point.”

  “And your conscience?”

  “I have none,” he said. “Now, before you put whatever plan you have into action, I ask one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Talk to Isaakios. I cannot, and it would be dangerous if even one of my men sees him. See if he’ll be up to the task before you go ahead and restore him to the throne.” He walked away, then turned. “If this works, there’ll be something in it for you.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” I asked.

  “I’ll do my best to get you out of the city alive,” he promised.

  I didn’t go see Isaakios right away. I was still hammering out the details of our plan with Father Esaias. I also didn’t want to have the former emperor sitting in prison with this new hope in his breast. The old fool might babble the secret too soon to the wrong ears and would find himself strangled within hours.

  When some free time presented itself, I decided to satisfy my curiosity as to Ranieri’s visits to the silk factory at the Great Palace. He was up to something, no matter how innocent the ostensible reason for these trips. I covered myself once again with my cloak so as to pass as an everyday citizen and waited outside his home one morning.

  He arose at dawn and went to the embolum, as usual. I spied through the windows from across the street but saw nothing out of the ordinary within. He spoke to Ruzzini for a few minutes, then spent the rest of the morning making entries in a large ledger book, occasionally rising to check on bolts of green and yellow silk that were being carried into his storeroom.

  Around noon, he left and headed toward the gate leading to the rest of the city. I trailed him from a safe distance, but he never looked back until we reached the covered portion of the Mese. I quickly ducked into a stall and haggled halfheartedly with a paper-seller, but resumed the chase as soon as Ranieri entered the Augustaion.

  He went as he did before to the grounds outside of Zeuxippos, but the rabbity man wasn’t there. Ranieri waited, looking around impatiently. Finally, he walked to a door at the side of the building, opened it, and went inside.

  I crept up to the door and listened but couldn’t hear anything. I opened it cautiously, peered inside, and was met with a faceful of steam for my troubles.

  The part of the building that once held the baths was ideal for the silk operation that currently occupied it. The water was heated beyond the bathing level until it boiled, and the steam that rose from it enveloped frames holding stacks of wooden trays, which in turn held the cocoons of the silkworms. The steam softened the protective casings and allowed the silkworkers to begin the delicate process of unraveling the luxurious threads that became the fabrics of the rich.

  As the steam billowed about the room, I felt the sweat pouring through my makeup. I walked between the stacks of trays on narrow planks over the boiling baths, taking care not to go plunging over the sides. Unfortunately, it was the distraction of maintaining my safety that brought me up face to face with my quarry before I realized it.

  “Why are you following me?” Ranieri demanded.

  “I, sir? No, sir!” I riposted. “I am as surprised to see you here as you are to see me.”

  “You followed me from my home this morning,” he said. “And watched me in the embolum. You’re a spy of some sort.”

  “Why would anyone want to spy on you?” I asked. “Sir, you mistake me. I came here to meet a friend for lunch. What could you possibly be doing that would be of interest to anyone?”

  “Certainly nothing that would be of interest to a fool,” he said.

  “Why, sir, a fool has nothing but interests,” I rattled on. “So much to see, so much to learn. It is only men with true callings who can stay with only one occupation. You, sir, are a silk man. Where else would you be but here?”

  “True enough,” he said slowly. “I come down here often to discuss shipments. Not that it matters to you.”

  “No, sir, of course not,” I said. “No doubt there was a shipment in that tiny wicker box you received outside when I saw you here the other day.”

  He flinched, then recovered quickly. “That was merely a gift from a friend, Fool. A token of gratitude for my business.”

  “Then your friend must be grateful indeed, sir,” I said.

  “Why is that?”

  “For he is standing behind you with another token of his gratitude.”

  He turned and saw the rabbity man standing some feet away, holding another small wicker box in his hands. He looked at Ranieri uncertainly. Ranieri turned back to me.

  “You should be careful where you stand, Fool,” he said pleasantly. He nudged the board I was on with his toe so that it rocked gently. “The footing is a bit unsteady. One false step, and they would be serving boiled jester for dinner.”

  “Actually, sir, a fool is usually served as dessert,” I said, bouncing lightly on the board. Then I launched myself into a backflip, landing on the board behind me. “Sir, just the other day I ran the length of the great chain. These planks are good road by comparison. Care to dance?”

  He looked at me, fingering the hilt of his sword.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked.

  “I have some questions,” I said. “Somehow, I think that you may be able to answer some of them.”

  “Why should I?”

  “No reason,” I said. “But it is curious that when given the opportunity to allay my suspicions, you choose instead to increase them.”

  “And what do I gain by satisfying this strange curiosity of yours?”

  “My thanks,” I said. “And perhaps my influence.”

  “How far does that extend?” he asked.

  “I have friends in high places and low,” I said. “You’d be surprised.”

  He grinned suddenly. “All right, Fool. I’ll chance a meeting with you. But nowhere public.”

  “There are private places to be found in this city.”

  “There are indeed. You know the Cistern of the Columns?”

  “Off the Mese near the Hippodrome.”

  “Exactly. Meet me inside at sunset, and you will be satisfied.”

  I bowed and stepped carefully the rest of the way back to the door.

  “It’s a trap,” said Plossus when I told him about it at luncheon.

  “Probably,” I said. “But the fact that he’s willing to set one means there’s something he’s trying to hide. He must think that we know more than we do.”

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Plossus.

  “Go on ahead. Find a good
observation spot, and make sure that he goes in alone. I’ll pass by toward sunset. If there’s anything amiss, signal me. If anyone goes in after me, he’s yours.”

  “But what if he plans to take you by himself?”

  “Let him try,” I said.

  He paused and turned as he reached the doorway.

  “I thought you promised your wife you wouldn’t be getting into any more of these situations,” he said.

  “I promised her I wouldn’t go across the enemy lines,” I said. “But this is taking place at home.”

  “Dead is dead, wherever it happens,” said Plossus. “See you there.”

  As the sun began to set, I walked from the Forum of Constantine to the neighborhood north of the Hippodrome. Under my cloak I held a small lantern with three sides blocked so that the light from the candle within shone in only one direction. I also had an unlit torch thrust into my belt, and the usual deadly precautions within easy reach.

  The entrance to the cistern was at one end of a small square. As I approached it, Plossus passed me, dressed in everyday garb, and muttered, “Ranieri went in a little while ago, alone. I haven’t seen anyone else go through the entrance all day.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The cistern was underground and filled from pipes that ran from some source I did not know. They say it dated from the time of the Emperor Justinian, which was why it was in the oldest part of the city. When it was full, it provided water to drink and douse fires during times of siege. But it had not been filled yet, another of the Emperor’s oversights in planning.

  It was a popular site for travelers. Even the locals did not weary of descending the steps from the small building that marked the entrance. You emerged in a sculpted cavern with hundreds of columns, supporting arches and brick ceilings some thirty feet up. The columns were in regular rows, rising from ornately carved bases. To think, all that elaborate decoration in an underground vault that was meant to be flooded.

  There was still about a foot of water present, and when I lit my torch, the light bounced off the ripples and played across the ceiling. I sloshed slowly through the cistern, listening for any sign of another living soul. It was a beautiful place, but every column could conceal an attacker, so beauty was the last thing on my mind.

  “Fool,” called Ranieri softly from my right.

  I turned, and he stepped out from behind a column a hundred feet away, holding a lit candle. Though he had whispered, the echoes sent the sound bouncing to my ears as if he was standing next to me. I started in his direction, but he held up his hand.

  “I can only trust at a distance,” he said. “Especially now.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied.

  “You have questions, I believe,” he said.

  The light flickered off his face, giving it a slightly demonic cast. The eyes, in particular, picked up the flames. Had I wanted someone to play the Devil, I could not have picked a better actor or setting.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Too general, Fool. Ask me something specific, and I’ll decide whether I can answer or not.”

  “All right. Why was Bastiani murdered?”

  Whatever he was expecting me to ask, this wasn’t it. The question took him off-guard, and he frowned.

  “I was unaware that he was murdered,” he said carefully.

  “But you suspected it.”

  “I thought it possible,” he said. “The condition of his body, the expression on his face—it did not strike me as a natural death.”

  “Were you friends?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” he said. “We had business dealings together.”

  “Profitable ones?”

  “Sometimes, sometimes not.”

  “Any profitable enough to kill for?”

  He was smiling again.

  “Truly, Fool, I was not anticipating this line of questioning,” he said. “A tawdry little matter of murder and money when great events are happening around us?”

  “You expected me to ask about the weapons you have stored in the embolum?”

  “I thought you might know about that,” he said. “Were you our mysterious ambassador from the fleet?”

  I bowed.

  “I thought as much,” he said. “Especially when you didn’t stick around to make contact.”

  “Who was the contact?”

  “Well, as for that,” he began, and something glinted in the darkness behind him. The candle fell from his hand, and in the brief instant before it was extinguished, I saw his head fall from his body.

  I immediately hurled my torch in that direction, but saw nothing. As the torch doused itself in the water, I stepped onto the base of the column by me, then leapt onto the one to my left and held my breath.

  All I heard was the slight lapping of the water. Then, footsteps sloshing through the cistern. I drew my knife from my boot and slid my dagger from my sleeve. I pressed my back against the column and held the weapons down by my thighs, ready to slash in either direction.

  But the footsteps were moving away from me. They were also moving away from the entrance. Then the sound changed from sloshing to steps on dry stone, and in the distance, a door opened and then shut.

  There must have been another way into the cistern, not known to the general public. I wondered if Ranieri knew that. But I don’t think that he knew the killer was there. The brief glimpse I had of the weapon was enough to show that it was an axe. And I had seen an awful lot of axes over the last few days.

  Ranieri had been killed by a Varangian. I was certain of it.

  I stood a while longer in the darkness to make sure no one else was waiting. Even one breath taken in that place would have been amplified enough for me to hear it. But there was none.

  I pulled the lantern from under my cloak. The candle was still burning. It was a weak flame but would have to suffice. Holding it up in my left hand and with my knife ready in my right, I cautiously stepped toward the late merchant.

  Just before reaching the body, I stubbed my toe on something that rolled away a few feet. I recoiled as I realized I had just kicked the poor fellow’s head like a football. Keeping the lantern safely out of the reach of the water, I searched Ranieri’s body, grunting with satisfaction as I found the wicker box.

  There was nothing else to do. I went back to the steps leading to the entrance. Just before I reached them, the reaction hit me and I retched, but I still managed to keep the lantern lit.

  When I reached the street, Plossus was waiting across from the entrance.

  “Nobody went in,” he said.

  “Someone went in,” I replied. “There’s another entrance somewhere. Maybe a well someone dug to reach the water without going over here. By the way, remind me never to drink any water from this cistern again.”

  We went home, and I told them what happened.

  “Do you think Ranieri killed Bastiani?” asked Rico.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Somehow, I don’t think so. He was hiding something, but that didn’t seem to be it. And he was killed while we were talking about the Crusaders’ contact inside the Venetian quarter.”

  “Let’s see the box,” urged Aglaia.

  I pulled it from my pouch and placed it on the center of the table.

  “Care to do the honors?” I asked her.

  She reached forward and gently opened it. Nestled inside was a small, gray, sticky lump about the length of Rico’s thumb.

  “What is it?” asked Plossus.

  “It’s a cocoon,” said Aglaia. “I’m assuming it’s silk, but I’m no expert.”

  “Hardly seems worth all the fuss,” said Rico, examining it. “Sneaking out one cocoon at a time won’t even produce enough thread to make a lady’s handkerchief.”

  I took the cocoon and placed it back inside the box.

  “So, instead of one murder and an answer, we now have two murders and more questions,” said Rico. “Good work, Feste. At this rate, we shou
ld wipe out the quarter by the end of the year.”

  FIFTEEN

  [N]ever, in any city, have so many been besieged by so few.

  ——GEOFFROY DE VILLEHARDOUIN, THE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE

  The following morning, a rumbling from the north sent us running to the rooftop once again. The Crusaders had finished repairing the stone bridge across the neck of the Golden Horn, and the noise came from the mangonels and petrarries rolling slowly across it.

  The army encamped on a hill opposite Blachernae called the Kosmidion for a monastery located there. I do not know who Saint Kosmas was. Perhaps he was the patron saint of sieges.

  The Constantinopolitans did not take well to seeing the invaders cross the bridge unopposed. With so many idled by the shutting of the gates to the outside world, mobs formed, merged, split off and reformed like giant globs of oil throughout the city. The Blachernae complex had been constructed with an eye toward invasion from without and rebellion from within. When the surging crowds began bumping up against the interior wall, the Emperor ordered that the gates to the complex be shut to all but those on imperial business.

  And fools, of course. Rico and Aglaia were Imperial Fools, and I generally had the run of the palace as well. Only Plossus couldn’t get in, but he was needed elsewhere, anyway.

  So, as the Crusaders crossed the bridge and the Greek citizens fetched up against the walled-off home of their leader, I laid siege to an invidious bureaucrat.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” said Philoxenites testily upon opening his door and seeing me.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “I am, as ever, at your disposal,” he said with an ironic bow. He motioned me to a chair before his desk, but I chose to stand, remembering a previous time I sat in that same chair, bound with ropes and with a knife at my throat.

  “You’ve been playing with me,” I said.

  “How so?” he said, folding his hands on the desk.

  “By having me followed,” I said. “And by using me to flush out Venetian insurrectionists so that you could eliminate them.”

  “Not a bad plan,” he said. “I wish that it was true.”