Thirteenth Night

by Alan Gordon

  “Sounds reasonable. By the way, I must say I am impressed with your command of the language,” I commented.

  “Oh, didn’t you know? I was born in Spalato. I speak it fluently, I’m just using the accent for the character, just like you are. You are, aren’t you? That’s one of the reasons Father Gerald picked me for this assignment. That, plus my extreme talent.”

  “Did your extreme talent encompass surveying Claudius’s offices?”

  “Of course. There is an alleyway and a back entrance that should suit our purposes nicely. The Jew left at sundown. I saw an old woman servant leave shortly after that, and then the offices were empty.”

  “Empty? What about Claudius?”

  “He must have left before that or used the back entrance. I couldn’t see both at once. But he was gone, I’d swear to it. There was no fire, no candles, and when I went in back, I peeked through the shutters on both floors. No one stays there.”

  “That was a bit risky, don’t you think?”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “I was up and down in seconds. If anyone saw me, I would have been taking a quick leak in the alley.”

  “All right. No more conspicuous than the two of us breaking in tonight. I’ll meet you in the alleyway an hour after sundown. I’ll bring a lantern.”

  “Good. What are we looking for, exactly?”

  “I haven’t a clue. I’ll see you then.”

  I emerged downstairs to some derisive applause for my late appearance. Claudius was supping at a table and motioned for me to join him. Odd experience. I’ve never eaten with a man I was about to burglarize.

  “Any news regarding your brother?” he asked with a concern that I suspected was feigned.

  “None,” I replied.

  “Not likely to be,” he commented, his mouth full of bread. “Difficult for a ship to make it here this time of year. Winds are all wrong. Who goes north in winter?”

  “Unless he made landfall somewhere in Greece and is traveling by horse,” I said.

  “That would be a foolhardy thing to do,” he pronounced. “The roads are dangerous, and the weather is bad inland as well. Even worse, once he reaches the mountains.”

  “I have faith in him,” I said piously. “He’ll be here.”

  He tore off another piece of bread and scooped up a helping of stew. My stomach was feeling worse than my head, and the sight of him eating so ravenously did not help.

  “Where will you go?” I asked abruptly. He looked up at me, puzzled.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “If you lose your stewardship under the regency. Where will you go?”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t given it much thought. I’ll just disappear with my letter of reference. I’ll find something. Are you offering me a position?”

  “Until my brother comes in, I’m in no position to make any offers. But I will keep you in mind, if you so desire.”

  He finished and stood to leave. “Once again, Signore, we are commencing negotiations without our armies in place. Until that time.” He bowed, and I stood to return it.

  * * *

  I staggered through the gate into the square, blinking in the unforgiving sunlight. The market was a veritable hubbub of trade and amateur theatrics. I saw my colleague instructing assorted devils in basic pratfalls. I restrained myself from dashing over to demonstrate, but I was pleased to note that it was one area of foolery where my abilities exceeded his. He was not supple enough around the waist to execute the full twists and turns of le tour français or le tour romain and, for all his jibes at my age, I still was. Petty, this competition between us, but that’s how it is when fools collide.

  Of more interest was a series of tests run by Sir Andrew and his young assistant Lucius. He listened intently while Sebastian declaimed a speech from the play. At the end of it, Fabian, who was supervising, shouted, “Poof!” Sir Andrew nodded and measured out three strips of linen that he then quickly braided and dipped in a jar. He laid the prepared rope on a metal trough and indicated that Sebastian should recite again.

  As the speech progressed, Sir Andrew took a lit candle from Lucius and touched it to the end of the braid. The flame reached the other end a few seconds after the speech ended.

  “It’s late, Sir Andrew,” Fabian admonished him. “I want it to flare up right on the final syllable. We want to scare the sin out of the town.”

  “Do that, and there’ll be nothing left to do,” muttered Sebastian.

  “One moment,” said Sir Andrew. He measured some slightly shorter pieces of cloth and repeated the braiding and dunking. “The last word in the speech is what?”

  “Doomsday,” intoned Sebastian in a sepulchral voice.

  “Say your piece again,” commanded Sir Andrew. Sebastian went through it, Sir Andrew listening with his eyes closed, counting the beats in the lines. He touched the candle once more to the braid and watched the flame travel along its narrow path. The fire and the speech ended together, and Sir Andrew looked up happily at Fabian and whispered, “Poof!”

  “Amazing, Sir Andrew, you actually got it to work,” needled Fabian. “A veritable Christmas miracle. Good. Now, the second one comes after the gates fall. Sebastian will…”

  “That’s Count to you, you puffed-up turd,” snapped Sebastian. Fabian looked for a moment as if he would strike his master, then breathed in deeply and let it out.

  “My apologies, Count,” he said. “The Count will then enter the mouth of Hell, and that’s when I want the second one to go up, something a little bigger so he can make his way through the scenery and get ready for the debate. A bigger poof, if you will.”

  “It will light the very heavens,” promised Sir Andrew, and Lucius giggled in anticipation.

  I bought some bread and cheese and walked up the steps of the new cathedral to gain a good vantage point for observing the square. The scaffolding was covered with canvas sheeting, which flapped gently in the wind. I peeked behind the façade to see if anyone was there and found the Bishop staring back at me. I bowed.

  “Good day, pilgrim,” he said in surprise. “Were you looking for me?”

  “Not in the least, sir, but I am delighted to find you. I came with the dual purpose of seeing this magnificent structure and gaining some shelter from the winds while I eat. Would you care for some bread and cheese?”

  He brightened. “I would love some. I am also here for two reasons. First, to make sure the coverings are secure, and second, to dream about what it will be like when it’s completed. God grant that I live to see the day. Come, take a look at what will be.”

  We walked through a door to see unfinished burial chambers and buttresses, vaults below and vaults above. The unfinished arches framed the sky like hands reaching and imploring in vain. “Gothic,” I observed.

  He nodded. “It’s the style these days, isn’t it? It won’t be on the scale of your German cathedrals. We just don’t have the population here. But it should be an improvement over the old one.”

  “I like the old one. It brings you in and makes you part of it. These modern structures fall towards the sky and scream at you, ‘Look at the Heavens and cower.’ They make you want to give up any hope of attaining Paradise.”

  He looked at me a bit sadly. “My son,” he said gently. “We attain Paradise by giving glory to God. What could be more glorious than this?”

  I decided not to get into any arguments on that score. We chatted briefly, then I thanked him for the tour and walked back to the front steps. I watched the team working on the scenery for the play. They were daubing red paint on the Devil’s head, making it more Hellish by the minute. Some children were painting their idea of Paradise on a sheet nearby, a nice way of involving them. I sat down and ate, glancing about to see if anyone was watching Bobo. Or me.

  And there was Captain Perun, seated as usual on his horse. I had yet to see the man’s feet touch the ground. He was watching the forced antics of the demons with a trace of a smile on his visage. Actually amuse
d? Could the chief guardian of Orsino be capable of levity?

  What about him as Malvolio? Certainly the steward I knew could have been proficient as a soldier. He lacked neither courage nor strength, and in all the confusion of the combined forces of the last Crusade he could easily have winnowed his way into the Duke’s service undetected as his former self. The position provided the perfect excuse for watching Bobo. He watched everyone, and who was to say if his focus had narrowed?

  Isaac seemed to be a better choice. The beard, hair, and garments made for a more efficacious disguise, and his position placed him in the Duke’s inner circle. At the same time, take away the beard, hair, and garments and an ordinary clean-shaven man could skulk unremarked in the shadows and alleyways of the town. I wondered how he would respond if I addressed him in Hebrew. But Malvolio may have known Hebrew. And I doubted that I could get close enough to the man while he was pissing to see if he was circumcised.

  And yet I preferred the Bishop. The least suspected man in town, and privy to all families, unlike Perun and Isaac. Given the run of the Church, he would have easy access to the catacombs that ran deep underneath the town. But would Malvolio risk possible exposure by another papal emissary? It may not be much of a risk—once dispatched, Rome’s missionaries are rarely followed with any zeal, and by the time anyone may have checked up on the man, their memories of his appearance would have changed.

  As had mine, I realized. It had been fifteen years since I set eyes on the scoundrel, and I couldn’t summon up a picture sufficiently precise to allow me to recognize the man. And who knew how Time had affected him? The strongest impression I had of him was of his voice, but a voice could change or be disguised.

  Maybe it was none of these but Bobo’s mystery lodger who no longer lodged nearby. I was tired of waiting for the man to make his move. I was ready to make one of my own.

  I found a paper-seller and purchased a sheet of a darkly decorated hue. To trim a gift, I informed him, but the setting of the sun spurred me back to my lodgings. I pulled my jester’s bag down from its hiding place. No indication of tampering, a good sign. I pulled a small lantern and several small candles from it. I cut pieces of paper to fit three sides of the lantern and had myself a ready-made thief’s lamp. I dashed downstairs, dined briefly, and had but one glass of wine to the astonishment and financial disappointment of my host.

  I then nipped back to my room, lit a candle, placed it into the lamp, and concealed it under my cloak. The back stairway led me by the stables. Zeus whinnied at me, and I shushed him. He whinnied at me again, perverse beast. I passed through the gate and veered behind the unfinished cathedral, pulling my hood up. No one was following.

  I measured the time by reciting an old story that I knew from experience took an hour to tell, then slipped behind the old church, waited for one of Perun’s patrols to pass, and scampered across to the alleyway behind the steward’s offices.

  I didn’t see Bobo. There were no torches to light the way and little moon. I was about to risk using the lamp when a dark heap by a pile of refuse shifted and rose. I nearly dropped dead on the spot.

  “What took you?” whispered Bobo, raising the hood that concealed his whiteface. I leaned against the wall, catching my breath, while he took a small broom he had brought with him and brushed my tracks clear. “Don’t want the patrols getting curious,” he said. “That’s the door.”

  I opened it slowly and stepped inside. Bobo followed and closed it gently behind him. I removed the lantern from under my cloak. We were in a small room containing a table with a washbasin and several small plates and bowls on it.

  We held still for a while, listening. The wind howled outside, the building’s timbers shifted and creaked, but we heard no sound from a human inside. I pulled out the lantern and peered through the doorway. We were underneath the stairway.

  “Go check the shutters,” I whispered. “I don’t want anyone in the square seeing the light.” He nodded and crept into the room.

  “Wedged tight,” he pronounced. “If the building tipped sideways into the sea, it would float.”

  I followed him in, shielding the lamp with my cloak. Isaac’s ledger sat on his desk, an enormous sheaf of paper bound in black leather. I sat quickly behind the desk, placed the lamp so it illuminated the book, unbuckled the hasp, and opened it. The first page was blank. So was the second.

  “Odd,” I muttered while Bobo came to peer over my shoulder. I kept turning pages until I arrived at one that was filled. Bobo laughed softly. The ledger was written in Hebrew.

  “You started from the wrong end,” he pointed out.

  “I am quite aware of that,” I said, and flipped the ledger over and began from the right side. “A good way to frustrate prying eyes. Let’s hope that he at least had the courtesy to use our calendar. I can never figure out the Jewish one.”

  And he had, as it turned out. His hand was meticulous and neat, fortunately, and the two sets of entries were matched in a very model of clarity.

  “Damn,” I said. “He’s also using some sort of code. I can’t make any sense of these words.”

  Bobo cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but do not the Hebrews use their letters as numbers? That might account for it, especially as I see none of our numbers there.”

  I stared at him for a moment. “You have this very annoying habit of being right all the time,” I said.

  “I apologize,” he said, shrugging. That mystery solved, I skimmed over accounts of olives shipped out, Egyptian cotton shipped in, so much contributed by various consortia, so much paid to sundry ships, until I arrived at April.

  “The Venetian traffic picked up in the spring,” I pointed out. “Quite a bit of activity. Looks like the locals did quite well this year. Wait a second.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think I found the minuscule error.” He glanced at where I was pointing and whistled softly.

  “If that’s minuscule, I’d like to know what they consider real money.”

  The Duke, the Countess, and the rest of the major families of the town were in a consortium for investing in trade. Most of Isaac’s ledger was dominated by this group’s activities, which ranged inland, up and down the coast, across to Venice and Florence, and to Beyond-the-Sea. A sum of money that would have fed the town for a year had been withdrawn in April and paid …

  “… to ‘Aleph,’” I said, pointing to the single Hebrew character.

  “And who is Aleph when he’s at home?” wondered Bobo.

  I read on. There was no further mention of Aleph until I reached the day when I was last in the office. An identical sum was repaid to the consortium.

  “Well, then it all balances out,” said Bobo. “Nothing lost, nothing gained.”

  “Maybe Isaac and Claudius were speculating with someone else’s money,” I conjectured.

  “And maybe you’re speculating now,” snapped Bobo. I looked up in surprise. “Forgive me,” he continued in unrepentant tones, “but exactly what does this have to do with Malvolio?”

  “If Isaac is Malvolio…”

  “Then he is conniving with Claudius to steal from him, then return the money after he kills him? With all due respect, Herr Octavius…” Never had the phrase sounded more disrespectful. “That’s ludicrous.”

  “Maybe the speculation was profitable, and only the original stake was returned to the consortium. As for the connection … Well, I fail to see it, unless it was part of the whole general revenge.”

  “Revenge is never about money,” he argued. “And who knows if that money was even returned? This is just a book with words and numbers in it. Just because it said money was returned doesn’t mean it was. Accountancy is the new father of lies in this world. What we have here is embezzlement, pure and simple, and furthermore it suggests to me that these two would have ample motive to kill Orsino without any need for Malvolio at all.”

  “But the message to me at the Guildhall…”

  “Meaningless. Someone merely wa
nted to tell you about the Duke’s death as a courtesy, but the message was garbled in transit or the messenger was less than reliable. Nevertheless, you immediately leap to the worst possible conclusion and gallop off into a murder investigation. And because of that, I miss my first opportunity to attend the Feast at the Guildhall in years and have to play second fiddle to a fool who’s a few hairs short of a bow and a few sheets to the wind, besides.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “In time I may, but right now I’m wondering what we’re doing here.”

  “Investigating suspects,” I replied. “Let’s continue upstairs.”

  I closed the ledger and buckled the hasp, then ascended the steps to Claudius’s private sanctum.

  It would have been charitable to call it a simple room. It would have been accurate to call it a bare one, an undecorated space encumbered only by a single chair and table. The last supported a slim wooden box about a foot high and eight inches wide. It opened from the front, a divided lid with hinges on either side. I sat down and opened it to reveal the only treasure in the room.

  It was an icon, one such as travelers would carry. The center was a beautifully wrought mosaic of Our Savior, blessing the fortunate onlooker who has released him from this dark prison. The two side panels were painted with miniature scenes from two lives. On the left, a maiden was converted by Saint Paul, saved miraculously from death at the stake, saved again from death at the fearsome jaws of lions and bears. On the right, a scantily clad girl dances before soldiers, then is apparently converted and spends her life in a cave.

  “Saint Thecla, I recognize,” said Bobo. “Who’s the holy dancing girl?”

  “Saint Pelagia, I think. Strange choices. This must have come from Constantinople. Look how long the noses are, that’s Byzantine.”

  “I agree. So what? We know he’s religious. He takes time from making money to come up here and pray. It’s private, and it’s not a Roman church. He’s a Greek, or a Syrian, or even a converted Turk. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything.”