Sword of Shame (19 page)

Crossing the floating bridge at the Rialto was a bit chancy, but as luck would have it, some merchant was arguing the toss about the toll he should be paying to cross. As he was being stiffed by the guardian of the bridge, I pulled my hood down and hurried across, making the sign of the cross for good measure. He even let me cross without charge, probably aiming to get double out of the unfortunate merchant. On the other side, I avoided the main streets, and detoured through some vegetable gardens, and a nasty muddy
campo
where several pigs were rooting for fodder. Not all was beauty and elegant architecture in Venice, even now.

Finally, after wiping the pig-shit off my boots on a couple of wooden piles jutting out from the side of a
rio
, I made it to where Old Man di Betto's house stood. It was opposite the church of San Pantalon, inside which there seemed to be an unusual amount of activity. It was already dusk, and the light of scores of candles cast a yellow glow on to the beaten earth of the small square before the church doors. More strangely, the street door to di Betto's house stood wide open. Venice isn't such a safe place that you can leave your doors open, and expect your property to still be in place when you return. The unusual circumstances made me instantly cautious, and I just poked my head round the door. A female servant stood weeping at the foot of a spiral staircase. I pulled back, but she had spotted me already.

‘Oh, father. Have you come for the funeral ceremony? It's in San Pantalon across the way. Your presence will be such a comfort to the master. Though he hardly knows what's going on, actually…'

I laid my hand on the woman's shoulder in what I hoped was a fatherly gesture, and expressed my sorrow at old di Betto's death. Silently, I cursed my ill-luck. With the old man's death so recent, it would make my inquisition of his son all the more difficult. The servant prattled on about the tragedy.

‘Yes, father, it is so cruel when a son precedes his parent to Heaven.'

‘A son…?'

‘Yes, father. Who would have thought little Lorenzo would die so soon?'

I quickly made the sign of the cross over the servant woman, and hurried across the street, and into the interior of San Pantalon. The groups of candles cast deep shadows in the arcades and recesses of the church, throwing the little huddle of people sitting below the altar into stark contrast. Before them, on trestles, lay a coffin, its interior open to view. I felt an urge to run across the tiled floor to see who was inside, but restrained myself enough to keep my pace down to an urgent trot. But soon I gathered pace, and a few heads were lifted in surprise, as I finally passed the mourners at a gallop to come to an abrupt stop at the coffin. I grasped the sides, and peered in at the sightless face that lay within.

‘Damnation.'

It wasn't the old man. It was the son, Lorenzo di Betto. The man who had accused me of murder. It was the worst of all situations for me. His witness statement couldn't be retracted now, and I had missed my chance to get the truth out of him.

‘Father? Why did you say he was damned?'

It was the quavering voice of Old Man di Betto. The poor bastard was confused at the best of times, so now was not the time to cast doubt on the integrity of his only son. I dipped my head down so he would not recognize me, and kept my voice low and spoke with a heavy Paduan accent.

‘I was damning the man who did this to your son. He was murdered, I presume?'

A heavy-set man with thinning white hair separated himself from the group, and grasping my arm, took me to one side. Lorenzo's father remained standing by the coffin, his mouth hanging open. Saliva dripped down the front of his mantle, and incomprehension stood in his eyes.

The heavy-set man spoke. ‘I am Carlo di Betto, Lorenzo's uncle. Come, it would be better if my older brother does not hear us.'

We walked side by side back down the nave of the church. In contrast to my arrival, the pace was now stately and solemn. After all, I had nowhere to go now. Carlo di Betto took a deep breath, and then explained what had happened, insofar as anyone could fathom.

‘It seems Lorenzo received a message two days ago that caused him a great deal of agitation. But he would tell no one what the content of it was. Nor can we now find the message anywhere. It must, however, have requested a rendezvous, because at some point that evening, Lorenzo left the house alone. We can only assume he didn't ever come back, because his bed lay untouched the following morning. Then around midday yesterday, his body was brought to my brother's door on a pallet. He had been strangled, and stabbed with a dagger. Whoever did this to him surely wanted to be sure he was dead.'

‘And does anyone know who did it?'

The man laughed bitterly. ‘That is obvious. If
Lorenzo had not happened to witness the murder of Domenico Lazzari, he would still be alive today. And if my brother had not wasted his money on a stupid
colleganza
, Lorenzo might still be with us. No, father, it is obvious as the nose on your face who did it.'

I instinctively buried my face further in the folds of my hood, guessing what was coming next.

‘The man who killed my nephew was the man who swindled Lorenzo's father. The same man who connived with, and then fell out with, Lazzari and murdered him. Nicolo Zuliani.'

Di Betto turned back to go inside the church, leaving me standing on the steps leading back down into the square. The door to di Betto's house still yawned blankly open, and I could sense only darkness and sorrow inside. I felt the same emptiness in my heart. My final lead had been snuffed out like a votive candle.

At a loss as to what to do next, I hovered by the church doors, keeping to the shadows in case someone recognized me. It was lucky I did, because who should emerge from San Pantalon but a very familiar figure. Fish-faced Pasquale Valier. I couldn't imagine that he was acquainted with Lorenzo di Betto, or anyone else in that family of merchants, so I was instantly curious as to why he was there. And it may have been the moonlight, shining down cold and silvery on the scene, but I could swear his face looked very pale and washed-out. There was also something furtive about his movements. Though I could hardly comment, lurking secretively as I was in the shadow of the church's portico in the garb of a Franciscan.

As he scuttled past me, he muttered a plea for benediction. I bowed low to be sure he didn't recognize me, and made the sign of the cross. I watched him cross the square, and go over the
rio
, before realizing he was going in the wrong direction for his father's
palazzo. On the spur of the moment, I decided to follow him. I had no other plan up my capacious Franciscan sleeve.

As we both passed the building site that was the Frari, he looked anxiously over his shoulder. So I turned left towards the steps of the half-finished building, and through the archway. Pausing for a few moments, I then abruptly turned back on myself. I peered round a rough-hewn column just in time to see Valier make for the imposing street doors of one of the fine palazzos whose water frontages lined the Grand Canal. Deciding my disguise was a hindrance now, I discarded the robe on a pile of stones, but still hung back in the shadows. I tried to figure out on whose door he was knocking, and it was quite a shock when I realized.

More used to seeing the palazzo from the canal side, it was only when the door was opened, and I heard a familiar broad accent, that I saw he was gaining admittance to Palazzo Dolfin. A million questions buzzed around my fevered brain. Had Caterina and her family returned unbeknownst to me? Had they ever been away? If neither, what business would Valier have with the lone servant left behind to look after the house?

I stood on the other side of the small square, and watched the passage of the servant and Valier as they ascended the staircase inside the palazzo. The shutters were still closed but, being old and worn, the candlelight spilled through each set of slats as they passed. The light finally stopped outside an upper room where the shutters stood open, though the room was in darkness. The servant's light now illuminated a figure that had been standing looking out of the window. The silhouette resembled the shape of a woman, but one with a belly big with child. This had me puzzled for a moment, for I knew of no member of the Dolfin family who might be about to give birth. Then the figure
turned her face towards the candlelight, and the people who had just entered her room. It was Caterina's face. As I stood watching in confusion, she took a step towards Valier, and embraced him.

 

I had been tossing and turning in my bed for hours, when the next thing I knew Caterina Dolfin was leaning over me, stroking my brow.

‘Caterina! How did you get here?'

She didn't reply, and I saw it was a changed Caterina. Her finely chiselled features were now slack and heavy, her cheeks distended, her hair hung down in lank ropes, and worst of all, as she rose from me, I could see that she was as distended as a ripe melon. Huge with child. I moaned and called out her name, reaching for her.

‘Caterina!'

But when I touched her grotesque belly, I could feel it pulsating underneath my palm. Her lips parted in a black-toothed grin then, with the coarsest of leers, she lifted her skirts. Her legs parted, and out from her belly marched a column of little replicas of Pasquale Valier, each with a little knife in its hand. They scrambled up my prostrate form as I tried to rise, killing me with pin-pricks. My leaden limbs would not respond to my commands, and I was unable to swat them off. They climbed over my face, and I couldn't breathe. I was being smothered by an army of Valiers issuing from Caterina's loins. I tried to call out but my frozen vocal cords refused to come out with more than a high-pitched squeal. It was a merciful release when death and darkness came.

I woke up to find myself fleeing from something unknown. But the faster I tried to run, the slower I went. I was wading through the mud of the great lagoon. And the clinging silt sucked at my legs making
each step an inhuman effort. I was sinking deeper and deeper into mud as the sound of my pursuers rang out across the open expanse. Voices carried easily in the way they do at sea, the hunters sounding closer than they really were. I struggled, and yanked my legs out of the sucking mud, staggering on at last. I didn't dare look back in case the
Signori
really were as close as they sounded. Then, when I did finally chance a look over my shoulder, I stumbled, and measured my length in the mud and rising waters. I floundered, and some unseen impediment–an ancient log, or fisherman's rope–pinched my leg and held me fast.

I woke up. Tangled in something heavy and clinging. I panicked, called out, and tried to pull free. My thrashing only made my entanglement the worse, and soon I was exhausted, flopping weakly like some beached flatfish on the shore. Only I was not on the shore, but drowning in the middle of a muddy lagoon with the waters rising. My movements were getting slower and slower as some unspeakable pursuer gained ground with every step. Until finally I could feel hot, devilish breath on my neck. I didn't dare look back, for I knew if I did, the demon would grasp me. I heard his voice.

‘Barratieri! It's me, Malamocco. Wake up, you're having a nightmare.'

I struggled to wake up, and realized I was wrapped in a hopeless tangle of bed-linen. The boy was sitting on my back, breathing down my neck, and trying to waken me.

‘Get off me, you little monster,' I growled. ‘And go and get me some wine to drink. My mouth is like a Saracen's armpit.'

‘No wonder. You drank as if the end of the world had come last night. I doubt there is any wine left in your uncle's cellar.'

I held my head, which felt as though someone had exploded that new gunpowder stuff inside it.

‘It has. The end of the world, that is. My world anyway.'

I recalled the affectionate way that Caterina–the bitch–had stepped into Pasquale Valier's embrace. It showed the child she bore was certainly his. Which meant she had been whoring with him while she had been with me. And I could now see what had happened to get me into the fix I was in. I had been right royally set up.

My thinking went this way. The murderer had been identified by the unique sword he had used. Who had given me that sword? Caterina Dolfin. Who knew I had that sword? Only Caterina and my drinking companions on that fateful night of the wager, amongst whom was Pasquale Valier. Who got me mixed up in the vote-rigging scam? Pasquale Valier. Who introduced me to Domenico Lazzari in the most public place possible? Pasquale Valier again. Who was rutting with Fish-face Valier? Caterina Dolfin. That was the fact that hurt most. Don't get me wrong–I couldn't have cared less if she was whoring with Valier; what hurt was that I had been outwitted and out-scammed by a woman. What's that? You don't believe me? At the time I didn't care.

Defeated, I took the pitcher Malamocco offered me, and drank deeply before realizing what he had given me.

‘Yeeeugh. It's water. Are you trying to poison me?'

The boy grinned as I spat it out. ‘No. Just trying to sober you up. Besides it's the best rainwater collected off the roof. Fresh as…fresh as…'

‘Fresh as your sweaty crotch, you urchin. You would do better to use this…' I threw the pitcher, and the rest of its contents, at Malamocco. ‘…to wash yourself in.'

He dodged, and the pitcher shattered on the stone floor, splashing water over his bare feet. He yelled in horror, and sat down on the floor, wiping his feet on the shabby sleeve of the mantle I had provided for him. But he had made his point. I had wasted precious time in getting drunk last night, and sleeping most of today away also. What I should have been getting on with was finding Valier. And if I couldn't have the truth from him, I would at least have vengeance.

 

The trouble was, Pasquale Valier was nowhere to be found. Close to curfew, and in the shadows of dusk, I had sneaked around most of his usual haunts. Where I couldn't show my face for fear of being identified, I sent Malamocco to enquire on my behalf. No one had seen Valier for almost three days. His brief excursion to Lorenzo di Betto's funeral must have been the only occasion he had shown his face in public in all that time. Although I had been putting it off, I knew I would eventually have to try at the Palazzo Dolfin.