Sword of Shame

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘I was on my way to meet Jacopo and a few others to celebrate my good fortune. What a stroke of luck to bump into you, Zuliani. You must join us.’

  He had to be talking about Jacopo Selvo, who though a scion of one of the old families, was an entertaining drinking companion. I had caroused away many a night in his company. I reckoned my ardour for Caterina could be postponed a little while. Especially if it gave me the opportunity to boast about my exploits over a drink or two to a few young aristos with more money than sense. We started out at some low dive on the northern quay close to the Arsenal, meeting up with two other friends of Valier, Vitale Orseolo, and Marino Michiel. The tavern was more often frequented by tarry ship-builders, than members of the case vecchie. But Valier reckoned they would break open the best Apulian wine, if they saw the weight of my purse. He was right–the wine tasted good, and it flowed freely at the sight of my money. We ended up carousing the night away, defying the curfew bell, and lightening my purse more than somewhat.

  From there I think we went straight to the Ca’ d’Orseolo, though my brain was too befuddled to be sure, where young Vitale Orseolo cracked a cask of Malvasia. I hadn’t forgotten sweet Caterina, I promise you. But Pasquale and Jacopo kept leading me astray with more wine. With dawn approaching, and a tankard of sweet Malvasia in my unsteady hand, I tried to break up the party.

  ‘I must go to Palazzo Dolfin now. I promised Caterina I would shower her with riches on my return.’

  Jacopo Selvo giggled, and hung his arm over my shoulder. He slopped red wine over my new mantle, staining it, but it didn’t seem to matter. Then he snorted the odour of ripe Apulian into my face.

  ‘Later, Zuliani, later. You know, a woman gets riper the longer you keep her hanging on. Leave her till later. In fact, you would do well to leave her hanging like a ripe pheasant for a few days. Then she will really be ready to…you know…to…’

  He made a fist over his groin, jerking it up and down, and guffawed in my face. I should have stuck my fist in his florid chops for being so coarse about Cat, but for some reason what he said amused me. I giggled, and grabbed the wine bottle, pouring it straight down my throat.

  ‘Have a care, Jacopo Selvo. You speak of the woman I love.’

  I hauled the shiny sword from the sheath at my waist, waving it in the air in mock combat. I nearly sliced Orseolo’s head off by accident, and he dropped to the ground in a dead faint. The others crowded around, admiring the blade as it sparkled in the candlelight. Valier was the most impressed, his eyes feasting on the perfection.

  ‘That is a mighty blade, Zuliani. And an old one. It must have been drowned in blood in its time. How did you come by it?’

  I feigned indifference to its quality.

  ‘This old thing. I had it from…an admirer.’

  I leaned on the sword like some old Crusader, but spoiled the effect by falling over in a heap. The blade nicked my arm, and added another stain to my new clothes. It was not long after that the three others fell into a drunken stupor, leaving only Valier and myself to finish the Malvasia. We slumped side by side on Orseolo’s couch, and I reluctantly began to count out Valier’s share of my loot. His eyes glittered, while at the same time he bemoaned the hard times that made it so difficult to make money.

  ‘And since you left on your trip, Zuliani, Domenico Lazzari has returned redoubling his complaints about Doge Zeno. He has moaned so much that the doge has been persuaded to stand down. They say that Girolamo Fanesi has thrown his hat into the ring, and expects to win. I mean to say, really! He’s not even a proper Venetian. And all because of this Byzantine fiasco.’

  I was a little slow on the uptake.

  ‘What Byzantine…? Oh, the loss of Constantinople, and the title of Lord of Half-a-quart and a Quart-and-a-half of Roman wine…’

  Pasquale sniggered at the old joke, and bashed my arm with his puny fist.

  ‘Be serious for a moment, Nicolo. You know, I was thinking that if you could sort of influence who was in the Group of Forty-One, you could virtually guarantee who the next doge was. And prevent Fanesi winning.’

  Now, you should know that the method of electing a new doge is involved in the extreme. By a series of lots, the Maggior Consiglio–the Great Council–vote for four of their number. This four from the great and good then nominate forty-one of the council members, each of whom requires at least three nominations, and not more than one from each family. Oh, and don’t forget that to get on the Great Council itself in the first place, you have to be nominated by two representatives from each of the six sestieri, or districts, that make up Venice. So, to get to vote a doge into office, you have to…well, I don’t want to bore you. Let’s just say it’s complicated. Just take it from me that the system goes on and on. For several rounds. Until forty-one names are thus randomly selected. And it is they who elect the doge. So I don’t know why I agreed with Valier.

  ‘I suppose so. Yes and, if you could influence the vote so that a particular name came up, you could make an awful lot of money into the bargain.’

  This was my contribution to the drunken exchange. I cared not, and still don’t, which member of the Venetian case vecchie–the old aristocracy–was elected doge. My family has been around for as long as any of them. It has even been said that one of our ancestors helped drive the pali–the wooden piles–into the sandbanks on top of which the city was built three hundred and fifty years ago. But the Zulianis always made their money by dint of their own labour, and that was enough to keep us out of the inner circle. No, I didn’t care if a Tiepolo, a Morosini, or a Zeno won the election. I just liked the idea of making a killing on the result for one Zuliani. Me.

  ‘But there is no way of influencing such a complex system,’ moaned Valier. ‘And I now have a purse bursting with coins to wager.’

  Valier was old aristocracy himself, which is why, along with his colleganza profits, he had so much money to waste. And why he hadn’t the brains to see an opportunity when it leaped at him. The aristocracy are all inbred, after all.

  I grinned. ‘There is a way, I am sure of it. Even if it comes with a little bribery.’

  Valier’s little, pointy rat-face looked blank at first–but then it always did. Finally, his features squashed up in what I think was supposed to resemble shock.

  ‘It won’t work! You wouldn’t dare!’

  I spat in my fist, and held out a steady hand for him to clasp, and seal the wager. See, I wasn’t half as drunk as poor Pasquale Valier was. In fact, I had seen the opportunity to get all that colleganza profit back from him as soon as he had started talking. Besides, I liked a challenge, and the drink had made me reckless.

  ‘Give me that pile of coins that’s burning a hole in your purse, and I’ll show you what’s possible.’

  ‘OK. But it’s my money against that beautiful sword.’

  I almost didn’t do the deal when he said that. The sword was from Cat, after all. But being a Zuliani, I only hesitated for a second. We shook on it.

  I woke to the booming of the Marangona bell in the Campanile. It calls the tradesmen to work, and tolls the curfew in the evening. Just now, it resonated round my tender skull, which throbbed at every clang. I squeezed open my eyes on a scene of devastation. A pile of empty vessels gave witness to the scale of the binge that Valier and I had indulged in, along with Selvo, Michiel and Orseolo. Those last three were still lying in a tangled heap at one end of the long tapestried room on the upper floor of the Ca’ d’Orseolo. They were dead to the world. I got up and staggered round the room. I noticed one particularly fine drape had a long cut right through Salome bearing the head of John the Baptist on a tray. I thought now at least honours were even, and the maid had had her head separated from her body too, if only in a woven image. I fingered the extensive slash, and remembered something about waving my fine sword above my head, and threatening the life of anyone who stood between me and Caterina Dolfin. Quite obviously, Salome had done so. I nervously twitched the tapestry together, but it was
no use. When I let go, the damaged portion gaped open once again.

  Still somewhat disorientated, I went about looking for Pasquale Valier. Had I not made some wager with him in the early hours? My befuddled brain pondered the problem as I brushed down my clothes. My tunic was creased, and smelled of stale sweat. And my mantle had a muddy boot mark on it to add to the wine and blood stains. I searched for my new sugar-loaf cap, and found it gripped in Jacopo Selvo’s hand. He had obviously been using it to wipe the stains off the floor where he had vomited. I sniffed it, then crammed it on my head anyway, flipping up the brim. It didn’t seem quite as jaunty as it had yesterday.

  Valier was nowhere to be seen, and neither was my sword, I realized. I panicked. How could I meet Caterina without her gift at my waist? I scrabbled under the long dining table, searching for it, and then under the couch where Valier and I had made our pact. And then I remembered our wager. I was to rig the doge’s election so that Fanesi failed, and one particular name would come up. Any name, so long as we could bet on it. At the time, I had been so confident I could do it. Now, in the cold light of day, I hadn’t the faintest idea how I would arrange such a thing. And I still couldn’t find my sword.

  Palazzo Dolfin was one of the newer buildings along the Grand Canal. It’s grand arcade was of red altinelle bricks edged in hard white Istrian stone. The same white stone had been used for the flight of steps down to the water. The whole affair was reflected gloriously in the canal as I approached, until the image broke up with the chop of my ferry boat’s prow. I pulled nervously at my wine-stained clothes, and tried to set the cap squarely on my head to give the impression of a prosperous and serious suitor. My money purse still hung at my waist, though it had been seriously depleted since yesterday. The ferryman bumped his boat against the lower steps, and I passed him a small coin as I stepped on to their pristine whiteness. As he poled away, I noticed for the first time that the palace’s doors were closed. Frowning, I hammered on the forbidding surface to be met only with silence. This was not how my suit for Caterina’s hand was intended to be. I knocked again, noting how the sound echoed hollowly behind the door.

  Then suddenly a shutter screeched open above my head somewhere, and a coarse, female voice called out in a low Venetian dialect.

  ‘Watcha want?’

  I walked back down the sparkling white steps, and craned my neck upwards. From one of the upper levels of the palace, a fat, red face poked out. The woman repeated her abrupt demand, and I was hard put to contain my temper.

  ‘I want to speak to the master of the house, woman. Now come down and let me in.’

  I was sounding more like Pasquale Valier every day. The servant woman, for her part, mocked my snooty tones.

  ‘Ooh, yer do, do yer. Well yer can’t. They’ve all gorn to Padua on account of the fever.’

  The fever? Was Caterina ill, then?

  ‘What I mean is, to avoid the fever. Don’t know when they’ll be back.’

  With that, she withdrew her head, and abruptly slammed the shutter. I had not heard of a fever being rampant, but then many scares ran through the city. We Venetians did live on swampy mud-flats, after all. With Caterina away for an unspecified time, I would have to be patient in my suit. In fact, I felt some relief at not having to face Cat’s father straight away. Maybe marriage was not in my destiny. Besides, her absence would certainly give me some time to work out this voting scam. I didn’t have much time, as the election was only a few weeks away. I waved for a passing ferry boat to stop, and immediately began thinking about how to ensure one particular name was selected.

  In the end it proved stupefyingly simple. I don’t know why I didn’t see it straight away, but I didn’t. I must have been moon-struck for love of Cat. So I wasted days locked away in my musty, dark quarters. I huddled in one corner, seated at a scarred table with parchment and quill. The waters of the lagoon rose–as they do from time to time–and seeped across my floor. I watched the lapping approach of the fetid waters, noting only that this time they did not quite engulf the tidal mark left by the previous aqua alta. I only left my room once to distribute the profits on my colleganza to all the investors. Some of them were not best pleased with the thin margin I gave them. But then I had had to pay off my own debts first, and I also seemed to have lost a considerable amount during that first day of carousing. The silversmith Sebenico was particularly tart, screwing his sharp nose up at the meagre coins I gave him.

  ‘What do you call this, Zuliani? I could have made more out of my investment if I had loaned it through the Jews on Spinalunga.’

  I mumbled something about unforeseen overheads, and pirates off the Dalmatian coast, and hurried away. Thank goodness the Widow Vercelli, and Old Man di Betti were only too glad to see any sort of return on their money, and too dim to realize they could have had more. Back in my dank cell, I wrapped all my clothes around me, and pondered the little matter of the election fraud.

  Getting on for a hundred years ago, the system had been changed from one where the Great Council nominated eleven electors, to a more foolproof method. It was decided to select four of the great and good, who would themselves choose forty names. I began to toy with the idea of bribing the four original nominees. That would be a damn sight cheaper than bribing forty. Oh, except it was now forty-one. Some genius had overlooked the fact that an even number of electors could bring about a tie. Which had happened about forty years ago, forcing the addition of one more elector. The forty-one commissioners operated in a sort of secret conclave, like cardinals electing a pope. Each would come up with a name on a slip of paper. Duplicate names were discarded, until a single slip for each nominee was created. These slips were placed in a vessel, and one name drawn out. A vote was then taken on that name, and if it got twenty-five votes, then that man was the next doge.

  So my first idea was to suborn the four, who could then nominate forty-one people inclined to come up with the right name. But, thinking about it, I knew that wouldn’t work, and I certainly wouldn’t have bet my shirt on them coming up with the right name. No, there was too much chance of a slip-up. Similarly, bribing the forty-one would prove an impossible task. Even if I could get to them when they were locked away, some of those old families are incorruptible, believe it or not. No, I finally came to the conclusion that the trick had to be turned with the mechanics of the voting system. If I could ensure one particular slip of paper came out the voting urn, then I was nearly home and dry. Though this was a contradiction in terms in relation to my own domestic arrangements. The water of the lagoon had nearly reached my toes under the table. I lifted up my chilly feet, and plonked them on the bench opposite where I sat.

  But then, to ensure one slip in particular came out, I had to ensure it went in to begin with. And I was back again to bribery. I felt I was in a maze that kept taking me back to the centre instead of out to the rim and freedom. With my brains nearly boiling, and my feet near freezing, I gave up. I needed to talk to someone, and longed for it to be Cat. But in lieu of my beautiful girl, I would have to make do with my old drinking companions. Grabbing my sugar-loaf hat, and cramming it on my head, I decided to make for the anonymous tavern close to the Arsenal, where the drinking session that had landed me with this problem had begun. I squelched through the damp streets as the rain began to fall, taking care not to fall into a canal. The high tides sometimes made it difficult to tell the difference between a watery rio, and a paved calle. And it was not rare for an unwary Venetian to blithely step into a canal thinking the water was merely a damp sheen on a paved surface. In the nameless tavern, I found only Marino Michiel, his pasty, round face made paler by the weather. I sat down beside him, and ordered the Apulian wine that we had been drinking the last time. When it came, even that seemed to have succumbed to the aqua alta. It had clearly been watered.

  ‘Where are the others?’ I enquired of the sullen Michiel. He waved his gloved hand in a vague gesture of uncertainty.

  ‘Don’t know for sure. All I do know is
that Valier has gone to Padua.’

  My ears pricked up at the mention of the place where my Cat languished.

  ‘Oh, is he fleeing the fever too?’

  Michiel looked puzzled. ‘Fever? Is there talk of a fever? I have heard nothing.’

  Alarm bells should have rung at that point, but I was too engrossed in my problem with slips of paper to take in what Michiel was saying. Instead I spoke of the up-coming election.

  ‘And its all done in secret with a few big names, as if we, the people, don’t have a say. Time was when an arengo was called–a meeting of all the people. Now it’s just a formality.’

  I was forgetting Marino Michiel was old aristocracy, and to him the idea of consulting the people was tantamount to permitting mob rule. He protested that the system was fair.

  ‘But it’s all well controlled, so that one man can’t push a name through against the will of the others,’ he whined. ‘They are even trying a new system this time to ensure there’s no hanky-panky.’

  My heart lurched, and nearly fought its way out of my throat. Did Michiel know what I was up to? I hoped Valier hadn’t let anything slip to his pals.

  ‘What’s that?’ I croaked.

  ‘Oh, when they have got the final set of slips in the voting urn, they are not going to have one of their own draw one out. Just in case they cheat. It seems they are going to pick a child at random from the street, and he–the ballotino–will draw the name.’

  Perfect.

  Two days later, I still couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. At the time, I had even bought the bewildered Michiel a drink. He was quite unaware that he had given me the best news I could have expected. Only if I had been told of Caterina Dolfin’s immediate return to Venice would I have been more cheerful. Unfortunately, there was no news on that front. In fact, my tentative enquiries revealed nothing–the doings of the Dolfin clan had been shrouded in mystery. Some people repeated the servant’s story of them fleeing rumours of a plague, and yet others spoke of the death of a wealthy uncle in Verona. A few hinted darkly at a family shame that had caused the Dolfins’ retreat from Venice. I believed none of it, only worrying that perhaps Caterina was being kept from me. Or worse, that she herself had chosen to avoid me.