The Chevra Kaddisha had lifted Isaac onto the hurdle, taking care to stop his head lolling. I wanted to help, but the tenderness with which they were handling the corpse, the way they seemed to have somehow recreated the substance of Isaac from the awkward jumble of bloody rags and flesh that I had found in the street, made me hang back. These folk loved him. No, I would not interfere.
‘Messer Zennorius,’ said the rabbi quietly. ‘I do not know of any man or woman who would cause Isaac to be killed like this. But I will ask. There are not so many of us in Florence, but we hear much, and perhaps … Perhaps.’ He risked a small smile. ‘They are ready. Signor, we will bury him tomorrow morning at nine bells. Come to his house. It is against our custom, but if you wish, you may help carry him to the grave.’
‘I will be there,’ I said, and bowed. He returned my bow solemnly. The six men of the Chevra Kaddisha lifted the hurdle onto their shoulders, and at a nod from the rabbi they moved off. The crowd parted nervously, as if avoiding contagion. I watched them go, the still form of my friend swaying gently above the slowly pacing men, the rabbi walking ahead. Many in the crowd were crossing themselves or flashing devil’s horns at the Jews’ backs. I stood, staring at the pool of blood, already beginning to blacken and clot. Flies were paddling happily. Someone said they would fetch a pail of water and a broom. Ugo cleared his throat. I took a deep breath and pushed through the crowd. I had no idea what I was going to do next, but we were needed at the bank. As I walked on stiff legs back to the Via dei Tavolini, the numbness inside began to burn, and I bit my lip, understanding that I had been taught well, and that the last of those teachers had been Isaac. So I went to work, drowning myself in the scrawled figures of debt and redemption, because it was the only way I could find to honour my dead friend.
The rest of that day, and very deep into the night, I toiled in the Banco di Corvo Marino, of which Iselda and I were now the sole owners. The armed company was set inside and outside the door. I sent Iselda the news by the fastest courier I could buy, just the plain facts and nothing else, because as I sat there in Isaac’s reading room I had nothing else to say. Only very slowly did a plan of any sort begin to form in my mind, for I was constantly interrupted by worried clients who had learned of Isaac’s death, by annoying clients who did not know or care, and by Isaac’s friends and acquaintances, of which there seemed to be many, and that at least made things not so terribly bleak. But when the door was shut and I was left in the dusty quiet, I pondered feverishly. Who would take over the Florence branch? Was there any point in even keeping it open? Was there, indeed, any point in keeping the bank open at all?
Isaac’s murder was the excuse I needed to bring the whole enterprise to an end. Sell it. Take the money and go away somewhere with Iselda. We didn’t even need the money. Could we not just vanish? Why not?
But then the same old answers came back out of the silence: this is yours. This is a responsibility that was given to you. And the worst: a man does not run away. Trying to listen to my heart but hearing nothing except the muttering of dead men, I paced across the tiles in front of the hearth. The captain would not have given up. He would … I squatted down and poked at the cold heap of cinders in the hearth. He would be trying to find those who had killed Isaac, first of all.
What else, indeed, was there to do?
I stood up and opened the door.
‘Blasius!’ I called. The young man appeared from the counting room, looking alarmed. I beckoned him to join me. We sat together as Isaac and I had sat three days ago, talking of marriage and promises.
‘Young man,’ I said. ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-seven, Messer Zennorius,’ said Blasius, sounding a little choked.
‘Good. Young enough, but not … Never mind. How close did Isaac bring you to the meat of our business?’
‘He treated – God rest his kindly soul, he treated me as a younger partner,’ stammered Blasius. ‘I have been his shadow for two years now. Indeed, Isaac allowed me to deal with the French envoy, last time he was here.’
‘And the books?’
‘I am diligent, sir …’ The fellow looked like Marsyas, about to be flayed.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Then you are in charge. I appoint you head of the Banco di Corvo Marino in Florence. You may start immediately. Does that suit you?’
Blasius left his chair so fast it fell back against the wall. He rushed to the window, knocking a sheaf of vellum off the table, leaned out and was copiously and noisily sick. When he was done he turned back into the room, shaking, ashen. He wiped his mouth tremulously, and then gave a cautious smile.
‘I should be very, very honoured, sir,’ he rasped.
‘Good. Blasius, are you married?’
‘Sir?’
‘Are you married? Yes or no, man.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Huzzah. And you are a Christian?’
‘Of course!’ And he crossed himself with vomit-spattered fingers.
‘There’s no “of course” about it. Was Isaac a Christian? Did you care that he was not?’
‘No, sir! Signor Isaac was the kindest man I ever met …’
‘That’s no doubt true. Well, you are a married Christian. Very good. You will do, Blasius. You fit. You will be acceptable.’
‘I’m so glad to hear it, sir,’ he said faintly. For a moment I thought he was, in fact, about to faint, but instead he stooped and picked up the spilled documents.
‘The Mascherati loan,’ he said, glancing at it. ‘Pope Innocent won’t like this one.’ He had calmed down, it seemed, the moment he had touched the vellum. Now he was composed. He looked at me, eyebrows raised sardonically.
‘Won’t he?’ I asked.
‘A Fieschi, wanting the Mascherati to prosper? Ghibbelines in a Guelph city? I hardly think so,’ he chuckled.
‘Well then: should we make the loan?’
‘Of course.’
All the agitation and fear had gone from him like mist struck by the sun. I examined his face, realising as I did so that I had not paid very much attention to him until now. As Isaac’s second in command, Blasius was quiet and efficient enough to be left to his own devices. I had trusted him, and that was good. He was a handsome young man, or would have been if he had spent more time out of doors. He had foxy hair and there were still freckles on his pale face, but his eyes were wide and piercing, and he held his head up. He had been trying to grow a beard but I was pleased to see that he had given up and shaved off the sparse foliage on his chin. He was missing one of his upper front teeth, though the rest seemed sound – a fight? And there was a small scar in the corner of one eyebrow. How interesting. He was not, in fact, the pallid bookworm I had taken him for.
‘Blasius, what about you? Guelph or Ghibbeline?’
He surprised me once again by laughing aloud. I might have been mistaken, but there seemed to be a twinkle in his eyes. ‘As the pupil of Signor Isaac I am, very scrupulously, neither one,’ he said. ‘Outside these walls, though I do not make a show of it, I am a Ghibbeline.’ He had drawn himself up as though to meet, or to make, a challenge, but he had reassured me. By owning up to his loyalties he had shown that he understood me.
‘Excellent. I am neither, Signor Blasius – do not think the worse of me for it. No – I will tell you the truth, which is that I am not a Guelph. Make of that what you will. But like you, as head of this bank I am friend to both camps and to none. Now then, sir. I have a great deal of work to do, and so do you. I shall be leaving Florence in two days at the latest. Can you have the reins firmly in your hands by then?’ He nodded, wordlessly. ‘Good. Send word to your wife, Blasius. You will spend the night here, until we are sure that no one is planning to rob us. Now, do you really have no idea who murdered our friend?’
‘I don’t,’ said Blasius. He came and sat down next to me again, and leaned towards the dead fire as though the cinders could warm him. ‘Isaac was very careful, and, you know, very capable. He wasn’t just an old financ
ier, was he?’
‘Not just that. He came to this life quite late. Capable? He was that.’
‘He was a … a sailor, once?’
‘As was I. You can say “corsair” if you want, Blasius, though it wouldn’t quite explain what we did when the Cormaran was a ship and not a bank. Did he ever tell you about his past?’
‘A little. I found it hard to believe, to tell you the truth, and actually I think he preferred to talk of his studies at Toledo and the scholars and philosophers he’d known.’
‘That sounds like Isaac. But it was all true, no doubt. Let’s call for some wine, and I will tell you a little more about him, and about this bank. On the understanding, mind you, that you don’t change your mind about my offer.’
So we sat and talked, and Pero brought us wine and honey bread, and lit the fire. I tried to bring Isaac back to life, to bring some warmth back to his shade, to feed his bewildered ghost on the warm blood of memory. And to warm my own frozen soul. Away on the other side of the marketplace, past the stinking debris of business done and forgotten, Isaac’s corpse was being prayed over, candles at his head and feet, his friends struggling to keep away dangerous spirits, heathen spirits like mine.
Chapter Four
Isaac was buried in a tiny graveyard that lay, completely overhung by the backs of old houses, at the end of a little alleyway to the north-west of the marketplace. Nothing more than a square of almost bare earth, tufted here and there with yellowing grass, and a family of snakes sunning themselves in the one patch of sunlight. The still air smelled of snake: spoiled garlic and baby piss. There were only ten mourners, for no Christian man would come to the funeral of a Jew, even though that man had been his friend and colleague. The rabbi was there; the six men of the Chevra Kaddisha; Signorina Maymona, swathed in black from head to toe like a Saracen woman; a very old Jewish man whom I did not recognise; and myself, for though I was no Jew, I was no Christian either, and no priest or rabbi could have kept me from Isaac’s farewell. The service was long and as I did not understand Hebrew, I stood and watched the pigeons go about their business in the eaves above us, tears pouring down my face and into my tunic, listening to the strange and beautiful words drift down onto the plain wooden box that held the husk of Isaac, physician of al-Andalus.
The rabbi was waiting for me outside the gate. He was sorry, but he had discovered nothing. I had not expected anything from him. Isaac had not been murdered by one of Florence’s Jews, I was sure, and the rabbi no doubt moved very little outside the tight circle of his community. The other mourners, even the lady Maymona, left without speaking, to me or to each other. So I thanked the rabbi and waited until he was out of sight. Then I went back into the burial ground and knelt by the fresh grave. The earth was mean and full of sharp white pebbles. I gathered up a fistful and let the stones dig into my skin before letting them trickle out again. But no answer came to me, no message from the dead, no inspiration. I dusted off my hands and went back to the bank.
Blasius had already found his feet, it seemed, and he greeted me with that tinge of condescension that talented underlings reserve for their less able masters. All well and good. I asked him to see that Isaac’s estate be made over to the lady Maymona, and that she would receive all that she was due as the widow of a partner in the bank. And then I left him to his new powers and made my way to the Via de’ Lamberti. Ugo had offered to come with me, but I waved him off. I knew something of paid murderers – not that Captain de Montalhac had used them, but there had been a couple of erstwhile killers on the Cormaran at any given time – and I was fairly sure that, if I had been singled out along with Isaac, they would have tried to take me yesterday. Today, the murderer was far away, or had gone to ground. Which made me wonder all the more: why Isaac, and not me? I was the prize: if someone wanted my business, I was the one to put out of the way.
The street where Isaac had died was quieter today. A few old folk were sitting in doorways and an exhausted-looking woman was scrubbing the steps of a modest palazzo. I thought I remembered her from yesterday, and went to speak to her. She looked up in surprise at my greeting: damp, stringy hair plastered across a florid forehead, pale eyes that had surrendered to drudgery. She licked her lips cagily when I produced a silver coin, and stood up, still suspicious.
‘Signora, did you see what happened here yesterday?’ I asked gently. She folded heavy arms across a heavy bosom. ‘I’m not the watch,’ I added. ‘He worked for me, the man who was killed. And he was my friend.’
‘The Jew?’ She examined me, curious now. Her eyes, I noticed, were quick, oddly birdlike in her defeated face.
‘Yes, the Jew. His name was Isaac.’
‘Well, I’d seen him before, of course. He walked past here every morning, same time.’
‘And yesterday?’
‘I don’t remember. Yesterday was the same as every other day, if you take my meaning.’
I did, and showed my understanding with another piece of silver. She palmed it with chapped fingers and sucked her teeth speculatively.
‘I work for Signor Bartholomeo, who lives here.’ She jerked her chin at the half-scrubbed steps. ‘On my way to market, I was, yesterday morning. I’d just shut the door behind me when I saw the Jew come walking along—’
‘Why did you notice him?’
‘Only because he’s so regular – was so regular in his ways, and I used to, if you like, tell the time by him. So I saw him, and I knew I’d be in good time for the man who sells me cotechino, because the best ones go early and it would never do to bring back mouldy ones …’
‘Quite.’
‘So then, just as he walks by, another fellow who’s walking behind him catches up and then down goes your friend. I thought he’d tripped, and that the other fellow, who I thought was catching him up, you know, to speak to him, I thought the fellow would pick him up and dust him off. But he didn’t. He was already running, down that way.’ She pointed in the direction of Santa Trinità.
‘Didn’t anyone try to stop him?’
‘What for? It wasn’t for a moment that I saw the blood. He was lying there, and his legs were moving, and then they stopped. And then the blood – it had sprayed out all over, on some ladies, and they started to scream and yell. That’s when everyone knew.’
‘What did he look like, the other fellow?’
‘Tall, tall and skinny. Long legs – that’s what I noticed. Sort of clumsy, like a lad that’s grown too quickly. But when he ran, he was quite different.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, like all his strings had been tightened.’ She sniffed, thinking. Then she held out a red hand, wiggled her fingers, and made a sudden fist. ‘Like that.’
‘Did you see his face?’
‘No … well, it was pale, I think, but he was wearing a black coif – that’s what I really noticed. Very tight, like a priest – no, not like a priest, but not fashionable.’
I thanked her with another coin, and she smiled properly for the first time. ‘So he was a friend of yours, the Jew?’ she asked, and I saw that I had begun a train of gossip that might well rattle around this street for years. ‘And yourself, you aren’t from Florence, are you?’
‘No, I’m not,’ I said, not unkindly.
‘Not even from these parts – not Sienese, are you? Or a Jew yourself, begging your pardon?’
‘No, my good lady. I’m from much further away than Siena.’ Let her think what she would. She had told me enough, more than enough. Leaving her with a bow, I ducked into the crowd heading south towards the river.
The church of San Frediano was empty, and needed sweeping. There was a faint sweet-rotten smell of dead wasps, and a few crunched underfoot as I walked up to the altar. The door to the cloister was not locked, and I walked through it into a small covered walkway surrounding a little patch of well-tended grass. Pigeons spoke to each other from the roof tiles, but there was no other sound. It took me a while to find anyone, an old monk gently sweeping up
in the refectory who looked up in toothless amazement when I called to him. No, Cardinal John had left two days ago. His servant? The old man’s wrinkled brow contracted into even deeper furrows until he found the right memory. The ridiculous young man! No, gone as well, yesterday. Where? North, to Lyon. He folded his hands in a warm spasm of happy piety. To see the Holy Father! What a joy, what a joy …
Oltrarno crept sluggishly around me in its mid-morning daze. I wandered, overpowered by the need to get out of Florence, and my feet took me ever uphill, until I was in the olive groves that lie like green skirts around the church of San Miniato al Monte. There was an ancient path, scuffed-out earth and old steps of stone dished and polished by generations of toiling feet. Mange-ridden cats basked in the brown drifts of last year’s leaves, and wasps circled the green pendants of unripe grapes, expectantly. So much patience here, away from the city.
Remigius, the cardinal’s dangerous fop, had killed Isaac. It had taken not even a morning’s work and I already had my answer. So I was intended to find out. John of Toledo had caused my friend to be murdered, and wanted me to know it. A big ginger and dirty white tomcat appeared on the path above me. He planted himself in a patch of sunlight and began to lick his balls. I stopped and let him get on with it. A flock of small brown birds was swarming from tree to tree above us. The tomcat paused and ran a yellow eye over the scene. He glanced at me, gave his cods a parting lick, and with a twitch of his manky tail jumped onto the wall that ran alongside the path and disappeared behind it. I began to climb again.
The Fools’ Crusade Page 5
