“By all means, mistress. But I wonder if a grope is not what you wanted all along. After all, you have been following my every move so slavishly.”
The girl blushed, and pulled her cloak around her, hiding the immodesty of her boyish garb.
“Let me explain.”
*
“You wanted to know about what it was like to live in the East?”
He was seated opposite the girl in his attic room, and, though she had kept her cloak drawn around her, she had removed the sugarloaf hat she wore. Her hair had tumbled down, and Zuliani could now see it was blonde but with traces of red that turned it into gold. Her face had the roundness of a young girl – she could be no more than fifteen – but her angular cheek bones and aquiline nose told of a beauty emerging from a chrysalis. He found her looks disconcertingly familiar, but he put that down to his knowing her family well. She had given her name as Katie Valier, and Zuliani recalled an old adversary of his from that family. Pasquale Valier had been a rat-faced little squirt though, and now long dead. This pretty girl could not be one of his brood. He realized he was drifting, and tried to concentrate his wandering thoughts.
“If you wanted to know about the East, why didn’t you just come and talk to me. God knows, I have a tale or two to tell.”
In fact, when he had returned to Venice after a long time serving Kubilai and his sons, people were disinclined to believe his stories. Some had laughed at him behind his back, accusing him of weaving fanciful travellers’ tales. But he knew they all were the God’s honest truth. By and large.
The girl shrugged at his question, and pouted.
“You are so great a man, and I’m just a child. You wouldn’t have paid me any attention.”
Zuliani grinned.
“Now I know you are lying. Someone your age thinks they know everything, and is full of bombast.” He peered closely at Katie.
“Are you spying on me for the Doge?”
It was the girl’s turn to laugh.
“Do you really think the Doge would employ a child to check on you? Besides, you’re not so important that you would worry so great a man.”
Zuliani was taken aback by the girl’s poise. It reminded him of someone from his distant past, at a time when he had to flee Venice under a cloud. He recovered himself quickly.
“So you are of the Gradenigo faction. The Valiers always rolled over for those in power.”
The girl’s face reddened at this scornful criticism of her family, but she was not thrown as much as Zuliani had hoped. She merely returned his gaze, and tossed a question back at him.
“Where were you going this morning? To the Doge’s palace to split on the Tiepolos?”
Zuliani knew he would not like to have this child as a business opponent. She was too canny for her own good. If she – a mere child – knew about his involvement in the conspiracy, who else did? She saw the wary look in his eyes, and reassured him.
“Don’t worry, no one else knows. Though it was easy enough to get your servant drunk and have him tell me who had been visiting you.”
Zuliani cursed Vettor under his breath, and resolved to fire the man. Or slit his throat. He felt as if he was trapped in a vice, neither knowing if he should betray the plot or ride it out and pray no one would link him to it. The girl smiled at his discomfiture.
“I can help you, if you like. You don’t want the Doge to know you were even linked with the Tiepolos’ plot, do you? So you can’t tell him about it without implicating yourself.”
Zuliani shook his head in bewilderment. Was this a girl or a demon?
“What do you suggest I do, Katie Valier?”
The girl settled back in her chair, letting her cloak fall open. It revealed the short, boyish tunic she had worn to fool Zuliani in the first place. A little ashamed of himself, he admired the long legs that were encased in tight leggings. She was enjoying her triumph, and didn’t notice his lascivious look.
“I have a cousin – Marco Donato – who is close to the Gradenigos. He can warn the Doge, and even put in a good word for you as his source of information.”
“That sounds like an excellent idea, mistress. But why would you do this for me? What is your reward?”
The girl sighed with pleasure.
“In return, you can tell me all about your sexual exploits at the court of Kubilai Khan.”
*
It was Monday the 15th of June, the Feast of St Vitus, and the conspiracy was in motion. Two groups, led by Bajamonte Tiepolo and Marco Querini, made their move at first light, crossing the Rialto Bridge and advancing towards the Piazza and the Doge’s Palace. They were supposed to have been supported by a third group led by Badoero Badoer from the mainland. Unfortunately, on the night before, there had been a violent summer storm, which whipped up the waters of the lagoon. Badoer and his party were unable to cross to the city. Not knowing this, and unaware that the Doge had been informed of their intentions by a certain Marco Donato, the others galloped through the narrow streets in driving rain to shouts of “Liberta, e Morte al Doge Gradenigo”.
Bajamonte Tiepolo might have pulled it off, but his arrival in the Piazza had been delayed slightly. Zuliani had received a message from Marco Donato by the agency of his new friend Katie, who was at his door at some unearthly hour of the morning. She had merely said that the Doge wanted Tiepolo held up – minutes would suffice. A reluctant Zuliani had pulled his heavy, fur-trimmed cloak around him and braved the rain. He suspected the ruse was a way of the Doge showing the conspirators that Zuliani was a turncoat. He didn’t like it, but the die was cast. He hovered by the great elder tree outside the front of San Zulian Church until Tiepolo and his men approached. He held up his hand, and the impatient Bajamonte reined in his steed.
“Zuliani, what now? Not having second thoughts, I hope.”
Zuliani grimaced.
“Indeed no, Tiepolo. I just wanted to wish you success.”
Impatiently, the leader of the conspiracy pulled on the reins of his dancing horse, eager to be off. What was this old fool playing at?
“Thank you. Liberty, citizen.”
“Liberty, Tiepolo.” Zuliani now had his own hand on the horse’s reins, preventing Tiepolo from proceeding. “This is a necessary deed … isn’t it?”
Tiepolo let out a cry of rage at the old man’s prevarication. Thank God they had not involved the dodderer any more deeply into the conspiracy. Age had robbed him of his former clear thinking, and he could not come down from off the fence. He wrenched his reins free, and rode off. Zuliani’s eyes lost their vacant stare, put on for the dumb show, and he grinned at Tiepolo’s disappearing back. His task was done.
Even as Bajamonte imperiously threatened the Piazza, the local populace failed to rise in support. Instead they hurled insults and imprecations. One old lady even resorted to tipping a heavy piece of stone parapet out of an upper window. It missed Tiepolo, but struck down his standard-bearer. The banner, emblazoned with the word Libertas, lay in the mud. The insurrection was over almost as soon as it began, and the conspirators scattered throughout Venice.
*
The Avogadori – the representatives of the justice system of La Serenissima – had a field day following on from the disaster that was the Tiepolo/Querini uprising. Or, more properly, a number of field days. Over the next week, many of the Querinis were summarily murdered, whereas the lucky Bajamonte negotiated his banishment from Venice. Francesco Tiepolo and his closest lieutenant, however, disappeared entirely, even though all the Querini and Tiepolo family houses were ransacked in the search for the two men. Doge Gradenigo became increasingly irritated by the fact that one of the primary conspirators had escaped his net. The following week, the search spread wider, and the Signori di Notte examined every nook and cranny in every calle, and every refuge on every rio. No alley, canal, bridge or cellar was left out of the trawl for the great traitor. Slowly it was moving towards San Zulian, but Nick was unperturbed by all this disturbance. He had had the daily pleas
ure of the company of Katie Valier well away from Venice.
On the day of the insurrection, she had delivered her message and he had acted on it. Then he had convinced her that it was prudent not to be on the streets for a while. He had shown her his collection of artefacts from the Mongol Empire of Kubilai Khan – the Greatest Khan of them all.
She had politely sat through his well-rehearsed speech, and his tales of derring-do, then suggested they leave Venice and all the disturbance. They crossed the lagoon to Torcello, and hid away for a few days. There, Katie had got him talking again, only on a different tack.
“They say the girls at Kubilai’s court were the prettiest in the world.”
Zuliani had laughed, and touched Katie’s rosy cheek.
“But not as pretty as you.”
Which was true. Abandoning her boyish garb with which she had stalked Zuliani, Katie now had emerged as a true beauty. Her golden hair was set off perfectly by her blue gown that clung to her shapely thighs and bosom. Zuliani recalled clutching her breast when he had thought her a boy. He could almost feel the firmness of it still. He had avoided talking of the women he had known in the East on that first occasion. But on the next day, and the one after that, Katie had skilfully turned the conversation round to the same topic.
Finally Zuliani reckoned it was safe to return. The day was sunny, and they had stopped outside the dark and damp confines of Zuliani’s house under the great elder tree next to the church. It was the scene of Zuliani’s Judas kiss with Bajamonte Tiepolo, but, just now, he didn’t care about that betrayal. He had a pretty girl by his side. He knew Katie was young enough to be his granddaughter – or even his great-granddaughter – but he liked the feel of her warm thigh against his own. The sun shone on his face, and he gave in to her persistent demands for salacious gossip about his conquests in the East. He closed his eyes, leaned back against the smooth trunk of the tree, and smiled.
“There was one girl, actually. Well, there was more than one, but this one was special. Gurbesu had long, black hair, a dark complexion, and curves in all the right places.” He sketched the shape of her body in the air with both hands. “She had brains to go with her body too, and helped me with my duties as Kubilai’s chief crime investigator.”
Katie laughed out loud. It was like the tinkling of a small bell.
“You were an avogador?”
“Yes. What’s so funny about that?”
“My grandmother said you were the biggest rogue in Venice.”
“Well, your granny was wrong.” He paused for effect. “The biggest rogue in Venice is the Doge. But I ran him second best.”
They laughed together, their treble and bass blending like a peal of bells in a tower.
“Anyway, you know what they say. Set a thief to catch a thief.”
Katie leaned against his shoulder, her long tresses draping over his arm.
“About this Gurbesu. Did you love her?”
Zuliani waved his hand dismissively.
“Love? What’s that? She was beautiful, mind you. All Kungurat girls are – the Khan gets a hundred of them every year for his harem. Virgins all. That’s why Gurbesu had to be smuggled away. You see, before she got to the Khan, she had lain with me. But as for loving her …” He shook his head. “There’s only one woman I loved.”
“Really? Who was that?”
Zuliani stared off into the distance, and pictured the woman he had been forced to abandon almost forty years earlier. His crooked deals and an untimely death had caused him to leave Venice abruptly. Leaving behind the incomparable Cat, love of his life. Her true name was Caterina Dolfin – she of the peach complexion and pale blonde hair – but he called her his Cat. Her slender but muscular body moved like a cat too when they made love. There were tales of her giving birth to a child while he had been in the East. But her family had spirited her away to the mainland and, when he had returned many years later, he had been unable to trace her. He sighed.
Katie prodded his ribs with a slender finger.
“Who was she, this love of your life?”
Zuliani was looking at her eager, young face, and about to tell all, when he heard a piercing cry. He looked up and saw his neighbour, old Justinia, waddling across the square. He had never seen her move so fast. She was waving her hands and screaming. And he could hardly believe what she was saying.
“Signor Niccolo, your house is on fire.”
Stunned, Zuliani remained seated under the elder tree, until Katie took a firm hold of his hand and hauled him to his feet. Together, they ran down the west side of the church, and towards his house. They could both hear the crackle of the flames before they could even see the house. Reaching the canal, they looked up. Flames were shooting out of all the lower windows, the shutters merely shards of burnt timber already. Zuliani gasped.
“I don’t believe it. The place is so damp. How could it have gone up like this?”
Katie just gazed in horror at the sight.
“Nick. All your precious things from the East.”
Zuliani knew what she meant. It was a lifetime – his lifetime – going up in smoke. Even as they watched, the flames found their way up to the next floor, only one below his attic rooms. And all his memories. Tongues of fire burst from the shuttered windows, and smoke billowed out across the canal. Suddenly, Katie pointed upwards.
“Look!”
Zuliani followed where she was pointing, and saw a face at an upper window. Someone was inside – but who? Zuliani had left the house bolted and barred. Vettor, his servant, had been sent off to visit his family at Malamocco. Surely he could not have returned yet? If he had, he was in dire trouble now. The figure at the window leaned out, waving his arms. Zuliani’s eyesight wasn’t so good, but Katie recognized him.
“It’s Francesco Tiepolo.”
“Tiepolo? What’s he doing in my house?”
Even as Zuliani spoke, the terrible cries of the traitorous conspirator carried over the roar of the flames.
“For pity’s sake, help me. I am roasting to death.”
Zuliani called up to him.
“Is there anyone else trapped with you?”
For a moment, Tiepolo seemed to look fearfully back into the room, and Zuliani thought there was someone. But Tiepolo must have just been looking at the encroaching flames. He now turned back to the horrified onlookers, terror in his eyes.
“No one. Please, help me. The stairs are on fire.”
Zuliani thought of the beautifully carved oak handrail he had slid down as a boy, only to be faced with wrath of his father, Agostino, at the bottom. He had slid off before encountering the iron escutcheon on the newel post, cast in the shape of a lizard. That would have been painful. But his father’s beating had been just as painful. Now the staircase was in the middle of a raging fire. Zuliani felt infinitely sad, but called up to Tiepolo all the same.
“I will try and open the door. Can you reach it?”
“I will try.”
By now, two or three enterprising neighbours had arrived with wooden buckets, and were ferrying water from the canal to the site of the fire. Zuliani could see their efforts were useless. Each bucketful turned into steam even as it was thrown in the ground floor windows. Somehow, the fire must have taken a strong hold in the accumulated junk he had stored on the lower floors of Ca’ Zuliani. His childhood home was burning down before his eyes. Zuliani edged closer to the doorway, holding his cloak up as a shield against the heat. He leaned against the iron-bound door. The wood was hot and the metal straps even hotter. It was no use. The lower floors were already an inferno.
As he scuttled back from the heat and flames, a horrible scream pierced his heart. He looked up to Tiepolo, and saw the man’s face disappear from the upper window. It was replaced with a sheet of flame. Francesco Tiepolo was gone.
*
The representative of the Avogadori de Comun was a fat, ponderous man who lifted his long, fur-trimmed robe to keep it clear of the blackened, water-damaged debr
is in the shell that once had been Nick Zuliani’s home. His name was Matteo Mocco, and he would have preferred to have avoided entering the house. Especially as he could still feel the heat of the fire through the soles of his fine leather shoes. But it was necessary for him to see in situ the charred lump of flesh that was all that remained of Francesco Tiepolo, traitor to the Serene Republic. Zuliani had found it on the second floor, one level below the top rooms where Tiepolo had last been seen alive. It had been a while before he could get back into his home, and he had cautiously tested the stairs and each floor level before venturing into the recesses of each room to find out what had happened to Tiepolo. On the top floor, he had found that most of his collection had been destroyed. The lion skin was merely a burnt jawbone, and the wonderful almanac a pile of papery ash. Even his old companion, the suit of armour, was unrecognizable. He had hung his head, and descended to the next floor down. There, he had found the body.
Now Mocco was poking the husk cautiously with the toe of his shoe. It stirred in a way that suggested it was as light as the ashen remains of a burnt log. The avogador shuddered and wiped the black smear on the tip of his shoe on the back of his leggings. He snorted.
“Good riddance.”
“What am I to do with the body?”
Mocco shrugged at Zuliani’s question.
“If it was me, I would throw him out with the rest of your fire-damaged rubbish. But I suppose he warrants a Christian burial. If there are any of his family left after recent events, tell them to come and collect him.”
Mocco departed, leaving Zuliani staring at the blackened remains.
“Is that him? Tiepolo?”
The question had come from Katie Valier, who now stood in the doorway of the room that was Tiepolo’s last resting place for the time being. As ever, she did not take much care of her fine clothes. Zuliani could see a layer of soot and ash on the dress’s hem. There were dark marks on the front of her gown too. She must have got soot on her hands, and had wiped them clean on the sumptuous material. Zuliani wondered if her grandmother, of whom Katie spoke a great deal and with adoration, would approve of her granddaughter’s careless attitude. Even as he looked at her, he saw her move her hand from the door frame, where it had come to rest, down to the side of her dress. Another black smear ensued. Endearingly she also had a sooty mark across her brow.
The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction Page 23
