A Death in the Venetian Quarter

by Alan Gordon

  I had my fill of both food and advice, thanked the provider, and waddled back up the Mese to Blachernae. There were hordes of people blocking the way. I learned from a soldier that they were getting ready to cheer the entrance to the city of the boy Alexios. I wonder how many of the cheerers had hurled stones at his ship only a few days before.

  I thought I could get a better view from the monastery on top of the Fifth Hill and started up the familiar road to the top. I decided to drop by the house of Bastiani’s lady. I was curious to see how she had fared.

  I arrived at her gate. It was open, which surprised me. I peeked through, and saw with horror that the house no longer stood. Instead, there was a pile of charred timbers and stones, a thin wisp of smoke rising from it.

  I heard the sound of a shovel breaking ground and turned to see the gardener working, despite the ruin behind him. Then, on closer look, I saw that he was shoveling dirt onto a grave beside the garden. I walked up, making sure that he could see me well before I got to him. He stopped shoveling and waited for me.

  “She’s gone,” he said, tears running down his cheeks.

  “How?” I said.

  He could read lips, apparently, for he responded.

  “I sleep in that shed in the corner,” he said. “I didn’t hear the fire. I didn’t smell the smoke in time. When I did, the flames were already reaching the sky. The house collapsed like it was made of twigs. It happened so fast. By the time I got help, she was dead.”

  He resumed filling the grave.

  “She once told me that she thought she would not live past this year,” he continued. “She wanted no priest, no ceremony. Just to be buried by her garden. It was the last thing she kept of all her finery.”

  “What was her name?” I mouthed.

  He looked at me. “I called her Lady,” he said.

  I looked around. All of the other houses on this street were untouched by the fires that had raged across the base of the hill. And this fire had happened at night, after the others had been doused.

  I picked up a clod of earth and crumbled it over the grave.

  “Good-bye, Lady,” I said softly. “I hope, wherever you are, that you find him.”

  We met briefly with the troubadours once things had settled down a bit. It was at this meeting that we learned that Tantalo had died in the battle at Galata.

  “So, I will be assuming the leadership of the Guildmembers,” asserted Raimbaut haughtily.

  Feste shook his head. “I am the Chief Fool in Constantinople,” he said quietly. “Nothing has changed that. As far as I am concerned, the three of you are cowards and traitors to the Fools’ Guild, and I will see to it that you are expelled.”

  “But—” spluttered the troubadour.

  “But nothing!” shouted Feste, standing abruptly. “Did you cover yourself in enough glory to impress Montferrat, Raimbaut? Have you drenched your sword in enough blood to win his eternal subsidy? There is peace here, no thanks to you. Peace because we worked for it. You’ve done nothing to call yourself our leader.”

  “It won’t last, Feste,” said Gaucelm.

  “Then when it’s threatened, we’ll think of something else. If we need you and think we can trust you, then maybe we’ll get in touch. Until then, stay the hell out of our city!”

  He stormed out of their tent, Plossus and I trotting after him. I noticed a knight staring after me. He removed his helmet.

  “Sebastian!” I exclaimed.

  Feste and Plossus stopped and turned to watch. My twin looked back and forth at the three of us. I took a few steps toward him. He shook his head, replaced his helmet, and walked away.

  It was an uncharacteristically gloomy trio of fools who gathered in the Hippodrome a few days later. We had come to rehearse for the games to be given in honor of the coronation. Apart from that, there had been little call for our services as entertainers. Plossus had picked up some extra pocket money by giving guided tours to small groups of awestruck Crusaders.

  “I swear you could tell the French the most outlandish tales, and they will believe them,” he said. “I tell them that the figures in a frieze will move when no one is looking, and they will stare at it, waiting. I tell them that the scenes on a column foretell the fate of the city when all they really show are stories from the Bible, and they will gasp, ‘I’ faith? ‘Tis so?’ If they ever get the money they claim they’re owed, we shall be able to do quite well.”

  “But until that happy day, let’s do what we are supposed to do,” said Feste as we passed through the stables and waved to the boys exercising the horses.

  We had performed at the Hippodrome before several times, of course, but it was somehow eerie to be doing our routines when there was no one present to observe us except for the statues. The statues were everywhere, ringing the top level of the stadium and fighting each other for space on the euripos, the lengthy oblong divider in the center of the course. On each end were a pair of enormous columns, and in the center was the fabled Serpent Column that once stood before the Oracle of Delphi, the three carved snakes intertwined and supporting a massive bowl.

  We sat on the edge of the euripos, opposite the Kathisma, the two-story royal box from where our new co-patrons would be watching. It was hard to summon up any enthusiasm for rehearsing. We were all still weary, even emotionally spent, from our exertions during the last battle. I found myself regretting not having made more efforts to help Bastiani’s lady. Feste, in addition to everything else, had been morose since learning of Tantalo’s death.

  “But you said yourself that they had betrayed the Guild,” argued Plossus, continuing a debate that had raged between them since morning.

  “I said it, and I meant it,” said Feste. “But Tantalo is someone that I’ve known for years. I can forgive him for being weak in these circumstances.”

  “Only because he’s dead,” retorted the younger fool. “If he lived, you would want to kick him out of the Guild along with the other three.”

  “Maybe,” said Feste. “But he was the best of them.”

  He leaned back against a bronze lion, his eyes closed.

  Plossus leapt to the dirt track.

  “This is no mood for a revel,” he growled. “How are you going to entertain the multitudes when you can’t even crack a smile?”

  “Enough, boy,” muttered Feste, his eyes still closed.

  “What is bothering you?” Plossus persisted. “This should be our triumph as well. We brought about an end to the war before it got completely out of hand. I’m sorry about Tantalo for your sake, but I don’t see why you need to mope about for so long.”

  “Who killed Bastiani?” asked Feste abruptly. “Who killed his lady? It irks me that we haven’t found out the answer.”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters anymore,” replied Plossus. “Bastiani was probably killed by Viadro or Ranieri.”

  “They said that they didn’t kill him,” said Feste.

  “Have you considered the possibility that someone capable of murder is also capable of lying about it?” said Plossus.

  “Yes, of course,” said Feste. “But I don’t think that they were. And they both died before his lady was burnt.”

  “Which could have been an accident or coincidence,” said Plossus. “In any case, it never was the Guild’s problem to begin with, and now that the world has changed, even our Lord Treasurer has lost interest in pursuing it.”

  “That’s true enough,” I said.

  My husband looked at me. “Do you think that his lady was the victim of an accident?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “But I have no idea how to find her killer, and I am no longer certain that it’s worth the effort.”

  Feste stood and stretched, then dove over Plossus’s head, flipping through the air and landing on his feet behind him.

  “There,” he said to him. “Better?”

  Plossus grinned.

  “You know, O chieftain, there is a method that you have not considere
d,” he said. “And it stands here before you.”

  “What is that, my lad?” asked Feste.

  Plossus capered over to the euripos and held his arms up before the Serpent Column.

  “Behold,” he cried. “The Oracle of the Ancients, whose powers of divination surpassed those of mortal men such as we. I suggest that we invoke them, rouse the spirits from their centuries of dormancy.” He sank to his knees. “Hail, Oracle! We beseech thee, answer our most fervent prayers. Grant us some augury to relieve our master’s mind.”

  “This is heresy,” I scolded him. “I want no part of it.”

  “Besides, you’re doing it all wrong,” said Feste, smiling for the first time in days. “There was supposed to be some kind of oil or incense burning in the bowl, and a crowd of vestal virgins undulating in a state of frenzy.”

  “Like this?” said Plossus, wiggling before him.

  “Not bad,” observed Feste critically. “But do you qualify as a vestal virgin?”

  “That’s personal,” said Plossus. “But I can reveal to you that—”

  He stopped. Feste was staring over his head, his eyes thoughtful.

  “I’ve seen this before someplace,” he said.

  “Where?” asked Plossus.

  “Quiet,” I whispered. “I’ve seen that expression before.”

  We watched as he walked around the euripos, looking at the column from every angle. Then he stopped again, a slow smile spreading across his face.

  “You’ve figured something out, haven’t you?” I said.

  “I think that I have,” he said. “And I think that you were right all along.”

  “Well, good,” I said, pleased. “It’s about time that you came around to my view of things. I’m delighted to hear it. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Now, if you please, dear husband, explain to me exactly what I was right about.”

  “Figure out the how, and you figure out the who,” he said. “Are the two of you free for a little expedition?”

  “Right now?” said Plossus.

  “Right now.”

  “But what about our rehearsal?”

  Feste sighed. “We’ll do the Two Suitors, the Shepherdess and the Sheep, you do a few minutes on stilts, then we’ll finish with three-man juggling, clubs, axes, and torches. Good enough?”

  “Could I be the First Sheep this time?” asked Plossus.

  “Yes, you can be the First Sheep,” said Feste wearily. “Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Back to Bastiani’s.”

  TWENTY

  Ravelli: Yeah, it’s a my own solution … Captain Spaulding: Come on, let’s go down and get the reward. We solved it, you solved it. The credit is all yours.

  —ANIMAL CRACKERS, GEORGE S. KAUFMAN AND MORRIE RYSKIND

  I walked toward the quarter at such a brisk pace that Plossus had to pluck at my motley to slow me down.

  “What’s wrong, lad?” I snapped. “Can’t keep up with the old man?”

  “Primus, you’ll draw attention to all of us, barging through the city like this,” he said. “Secundus, I seem to remember that one of our party is pregnant, although it escapes me at the moment which one it is. I don’t have a tertius.”

  I slowed down until my wife caught up with us.

  “Considering we’ve done damn little to catch this person, it’s rather odd to rush now, don’t you think?” she said.

  “I want to get there when he’s not there,” I replied.

  “Now, there’s a strategy,” commented Plossus. “Your average murderer-catcher would want to catch the murderer when he is there. But you have always been one for the subtle approach.”

  We came to the house of Vitale around noon. The landlord was not about, fortunately. I glanced up at the front of the house and saw no sign of stirring.

  “Good,” I said. “Come with me. Keep your weapons handy.”

  They glanced at each other. Aglaia grinned and Plossus shrugged, then they followed me inside.

  Bastiani lived and died on the top floor, but I stopped on the middle one and listened for a moment, making sure that no one was about. Then I approached the middle room of the three in back and knocked softly on the door. There was no response, so I quietly opened it.

  The room was used by Vitale for storage, with linens stacked neatly on shelves to the right, lumber, old furniture, and some tools on the left. I lit a lamp and held it up, looking around until I saw what I was looking for.

  “Very good,” I said. “Come with me.”

  I led them across the hall to the opposite room where John Aprenos and Tullio stayed. The huntsman and the carpenter were not at home, but the remnants of their professions were still scattered about the room. I took the three spears from their mounts on the wall and handed them to Plossus, then I took his shield and gave it to my wife.

  “Are we hunting something?” asked my wife.

  “And what are you going to carry?” asked Plossus.

  I picked up a small metal tool by the head of Tullio’s pallet. “Back to the other room, if you please,” I said.

  They followed me, puzzled looks on their faces.

  “The problem has always been how was Bastiani killed, if no one gave him poison at his meal and if his lady did not administer it before she left,” I said. “And what type of poison would have been strong enough to kill him but leave him enough strength to first bar his door and shove the blanket against the crack at the bottom to seal off outside noise? Right now, we’re underneath his room. Aglaia, where would you say the head of Bastiani’s bed would be, given the identical proportions of the two rooms?”

  “About here,” she said, pointing to a spot by the left wall.

  I took the three spears from Plossus and rested their points on the floor. “Look,” I said, holding the lamp near the floor. There were three small holes on the spot she had indicated.

  “Someone has done this before,” said Plossus.

  “I think I’m beginning to understand what you’re doing,” said Aglaia.

  I placed the spear points in the holes, then rested the shafts against each other, tying them together in the middle with a piece of string. The ends stopped just below the ceiling. I held the lamp up and pointed to what I had observed before. There was a lattice of tiny holes cut through the boards that made up this room’s ceiling and Bastiani’s floor. The wood here was blackened compared to the rest of the ceiling.

  “What worms bored those holes, I wonder?” said Plossus.

  “Worms with tools. This augers well, I should think,” I said, holding up the tool I had taken from Tullio’s bedside. It was a small one, with a fine, thin blade the size of the holes in the ceiling.

  “And this?” Aglaia asked, holding up the shield.

  I took it and slid it carefully over the tops of the spears. It nestled snug between them and the ceiling, covering the scorched spot completely.

  “There’s your tripod,” I said. “Let’s see what burnt offering they made.”

  I took the shield down and inverted it, then rubbed its interior with the tip of my finger. It came away black. I sniffed it, then passed the shield back to the others, who repeated the process.

  “Charcoal,” I said. “They placed burning charcoal in the shield and kept it pressed against the ceiling. The fumes had nowhere to go but up. They knew about Bastiani’s peculiar habit of keeping the doors sealed tight. That habit sealed his fate as well.”

  “That’s what killed him?” exclaimed Plossus. “Fumes from burning charcoal?”

  “I got the idea when you drew my attention to the Serpent Column. Bastiani died in a stuffy, airless room, and when his neighbors broke the door down, Vitale had a coughing fit and nearly fainted. I have heard tell of foolhardy blacksmith apprentices dying in such a manner by working with burning charcoal indoors. I would bet that that was what killed the merchant and gave him that odd pink complexion as well.”

  �
�Then you’re saying that Tullio killed him,” stated Aglaia. “Or Tullio and Aprenos. But why?”

  “We’ll have to ask them,” I said. “And unless I miss my guess, that’s the huntsman coming now.”

  It was Aprenos’s mutterings floating up the stairs as he stumbled home from another midday bout with a barrel of ale. We watched the doorway as he entered his room. There was a pause, then a burst of expletives as he realized his gear was gone. He started to rush out of the building, then saw us in the opposite room.

  “And just what the hell are you doing here?” he demanded belligerently. Then he stopped, the blood draining from his face as he saw the tripod standing by the wall and the auger in my hand.

  “We’d like to talk to you,” I said.

  He nodded, then bolted down the stairs.

  “Plossus, fetch!” I said.

  He nodded, but instead of pursuing Aprenos down the stairs, he ran to the opposite room, stood by the window for a moment, then jumped through it.

  There was a cry and a thud, then the sound of a man being dragged up a flight of steps. Plossus appeared, his arms under the huntsman’s and his hands locked around Aprenos’s chest. He brought him into the room and unceremoniously deposited him on the floor.

  “I wanted him conscious,” I said.

  “Well, be more specific next time,” replied Plossus as he rolled Aprenos onto his stomach, tied his hands behind his back, then sat him up in the corner of the room and slapped him a few times until his eyes finally opened.

  “What do you want?” he asked when he saw us bending over him.

  “I am willing to make a deal with you,” I said. “Tell us who hired you to kill Bastiani.”

  “Who says I did?” he said defiantly.

  “I do,” I said. “And your reaction to seeing the tripod set up confirmed it. Tell us who hired you.”

  “And in exchange?” he said.

  “We let you go,” I said.

  “Tempting, but no go,” said Tullio, standing in the doorway. “Hello, Feste. Are you buying us that drink that you promised?”