‘What are you doing here?’
Katie grinned. ‘I might ask you the same question, Grandpa. But seeing as you asked first, I will tell you. I thought you and Granny would be fully occupied for hours at the Doge’s party, so I decided it was time to find out if there was gold in all those boxes, and get to the bottom of the matter.’
Zuliani was so relieved to find Katie had not been taken hostage, or worse, he became very angry.
‘And you didn’t think to speak to me first?’
Katie pouted. ‘You would have stopped me coming. And besides, I thought you had given up as you seemed so busy with wheedling votes from everyone.’
‘Wheedling?’
Zuliani almost forgot where they were, and had to choke off his annoyed cry.
‘Tell me. Have I ever given up on anything as important as three murders?’
Katie thought for a moment, then shook her head.
‘No. You are right and I was wrong. But now we are both here, what do we do next?’
‘What I do is confront a murderer. What you do is get out of here and go safely back home.’
Katie began to protest, but in so doing managed to knock over an adze that had been left by one of the shipbuilders working in the Arsenale. The loud clunk of the wooden handle echoed down the length of the warehouse, alerting the man they had been spying on.
He grabbed a lantern, and called out. ‘Who’s there? Show yourself now.’
He began to stride towards where Zuliani and Katie were hiding, his face still hidden by the hood of his cloak. Zuliani pressed the crouching Katie down, indicating she should stay in the shadows, and stood up himself. As he moved away from Katie’s hiding-place, he spoke up boldly.
‘I’m here, Rosso.’ He peered beyond the beam of the upheld lantern. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’
The man threw his hood back, revealing himself. It was indeed Agnolo Rosso, who was now lit by the lantern he held over his head. He laughed.
‘Yes, it’s me, Zuliani. Damn you for being such a nuisance. I should have killed you sooner, but I can easily get on with the job now.’
‘Just as you did away with Baglioni, Saluzzo and old Baseggio because they got in your way. Or should I say in the way of Perruzzi, because it is his gold in those chests, is it not?’
Rosso merely smiled enigmatically.
‘I would have thought you of all people understood about making profits. You’re the legendary Zuliani, who came back from Cathay a rich man.’
Zuliani didn’t rise to the bait. It was true he believed in making money from trade, but only in the good old-fashioned way of buying and selling goods. That sort of business always carried with it the thrill of a gamble. Perruzzi and his like did nothing but speculate on money and the fluctuating value of gold and silver. And when the profits were not sufficient, they manipulated the markets. Standard silver coin had been the stable currency of the Holy Roman Empire in Europe since Charlemagne’s time. Now it was disappearing into the East at an alarming rate. Zuliani was beginning to see that the massive export of silver coinage from Venice to the East would create severe problems in making payments in trade. But the Florentine bankers were protecting themselves from any difficulties with chests of gold. They were like dangerous sharks swimming in Venice’s seas. He answered Rosso’s taunt.
‘Yes, but I made my money honestly.’
Rosso pulled a face. ‘Do you really want me to believe that you never cheated anyone?’ He held a finger and thumb a little distance apart. ‘Just a little? Besides, what’s dishonest about using money to make money?’
Zuliani didn’t answer him this time. He prayed that Katie would stay hidden. Rosso took Zuliani’s silence as a sign he was winning the argument, and his stance became more relaxed. But then Zuliani saw the man looking not at his face, but over his shoulder. He risked turning his gaze away from Rosso to see where the man was looking, afraid that Katie had been revealed. What he saw was a hessian sack lying by the door to the warehouse, its neck tied up with a heavy rope that was finished in a loop. Zuliani smiled, knowing instantly why Rosso was alone in the building. He had decided that Perruzzi had not rewarded him sufficiently, and was stealing some of the gold for himself. Rosso also guessed what was going through Zuliani’s mind. He shrugged, and placed the lantern at his feet.
‘Who’s going to miss a sackful from such a large consignment? You could help yourself too, and forget you ever saw me here. You could dismiss your suspicions about the deaths of the three men as mere fancy. What do you say?’
Zuliani’s instincts told him the man standing before him wasn’t going to let him leave the warehouse alive, despite what he was saying. But he decided he would go along with him for the time being, until he could find a moment to get under his guard. And he also had Katie to think of.
‘It’s very tempting – what you are suggesting, Rosso?’
Rosso’s laughter echoed around the warehouse. ‘I knew you were a man after my own heart.’
He put his hands on his hips, in a way he hoped would demonstrate his friendliness. But Zuliani could see it put his right hand closer to the dagger in his belt. Zuliani wondered if he could draw his own dagger as swiftly as the younger man. But then Rosso was asking him a question.
‘How did you guess it was I who carried out the killings?’
Zuliani pointed at the rings on the hand that was held loosely on Rosso’s hip. They sparkled in the light.
‘I saw your hand when you tried to stab me, just after you had killed Baglioni. All those rings gave you away. And then there was that ring on your thumb that looks as though it swivels round, leaving the stone on the inside.’
Rosso threw a glance down at his hand, already knowing what Zuliani meant. It was a nuisance, that ring.
‘So that’s why you were shaking everyone’s hand at the Doge’s reception earlier. But what of my thumb ring?’
‘It matches a bruise I saw on Saluzzo’s neck where you held him and choked him as you slid the knife in his heart.’
Rosso looked startled for a moment, then grinned rapaciously.
‘So it was you in this place that night. I thought it might have been, but you disappeared without trace before I could get a look at you.’
Zuliani silently thanked God that Rosso and his men hadn’t seen him. It meant they were also ignorant of Katie’s presence that night. All he had to do now was get out of this alive, and make sure Katie did, too. He saw that Rosso was unconsciously twisting the ring on his right thumb with the fingers of his left hand. It was his moment to strike, while both his opponent’s hands were occupied. He slid his dagger out, and lunged at Rosso. But the younger man was quicker, and when Zuliani’s stiff right knee gave away slightly, he danced backwards, drew his own dagger and thrust out.
Zuliani grunted in pain as he felt Rosso’s dagger skitter across his ribcage and dig into his flesh. His stumble turned into a fall, and he cracked his head hard on the stone floor, dropping his dagger. Rosso smiled coldly as he looked down at Zuliani’s prone figure, blood already seeping out from underneath him. He dashed over to the hessian sack he had set by the door, wrapped the loop of rope that tied the neck off around his wrist for safety, and stepped out of the narrow wicket gate into the night.
Katie had been stunned by the swiftness of the attack on her grandfather, but as Agnolo Rosso disappeared, she came to her senses. With a groan of anguish, she ran over to Zuliani’s body and grabbed his dagger, which still lay on the ground. She was determined to avenge her grandfather, and the three other men that Rosso had killed. She skipped over the sill of the wicket gate, and saw Rosso walking away along the quay. She ran after him and, just as he turned on hearing her light footsteps, swung a murderous blow with Zuliani’s dagger. She missed Rosso’s body completely, but as he dodged the blow, he lost his balance and fell backwards off the edge of the quayside. There was a loud splash as he hit the water in the great basin of the Arsenale. Katie looked down into the water, and saw Rosso fla
iling with one arm, splashing the water around him. She watched in horror as he struggled to disentangle his wrist from the rope binding the sack’s neck. Unfortunately, he was unable to get his arm free, and the heavy sack of gold dragged him beneath the waters. A few bubbles broke the surface, and then there was nothing except a ring of ripples growing out from where his body had gone under.
Katie Valier looked round her audience as she concluded her tale of greed.
‘You may have guessed that the young girl was me, and I witnessed the price that greed extracts from sinners.’
Every eye was on her, and the fire had been left to turn to a glowing redness. She leaned down and tossed another log on to the glow. It broke the spell, and the old man with the long white beard spoke up.
‘I am sorry that your grandfather died, too.’
Katie smiled.
‘Oh, Grandpa Nick didn’t die. You see, Rosso’s knife was diverted by his ribs and left him with just a flesh wound. Hitting his head on the ground knocked him out temporarily, but he was soon by my side to witness Agnolo Rosso’s demise.
‘“The reward for greed is death,” he said to me in a rather satisfied way. “Too much gold is a burden that only served to drag you down.”’
‘And what of Perruzzi?’ asked the old man. ‘Did he pay too for his greed?’
Katie had to admit that the banker Perruzzi had escaped any blame for the three murders. Someone on the edge of the group of pilgrims, who was sitting outside the circle of light cast by the fire, made a comment on that.
‘Is it not always the way, that the rich escape punishment, while the poor are ground down?’
Katie had an answer to that.
‘But then, as you all probably know, justice came to those who were driven by greed to try to accumulate great wealth at the expense of others. It is only a few years ago that your King Edward reneged on England’s debts, and drove the Florentine banks to a collapse. Antonio Perruzzi was a very old man by then, but he lived to see his world fall down around his ears, and died destitute. The sin of greed found him out in the end.’
The Third Sin
It was not long before the old man who had expressed his regret – rather prematurely – about Katie Valier’s grandfather, and had asked about Perruzzi’s fate, had another question for her. He moved closer to her, and with his eyes strangely not on her but on the glowing fire, spoke quietly so that only she should hear.
‘Is it true that your grandfather travelled in the East?’
‘Oh, yes. He had many adventures there, and made his fortune. Though that was soon gone when he returned to Venice, for he cared little about keeping it. The fun was in the making of it for him.’
The old man nodded, and stroked his long, white beard.
‘I understand that perfectly. But tell me, you said his name was Zuliani?’
‘Yes, and he was nothing if not a true Venetian. But he was also proud that his mother was English. And that is why I am in these parts. I am looking for any of his family that might remain in England. They were from Bishop’s Lynn, and were called de Foe. The plague has interrupted my journey, but I shall get there eventually.’
‘So you are not, like me, on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham? Well, I will pray that you are spared this horror. And that the family of your grandfather are, too.’
He reached out his hand as if wishing to reassure her but seemed to grope a little in the air before finding her arm. Before she could say anything, though, he moved on.
‘But there is another question I would like to ask. You see, my father and mother travelled in the great empire of Yuan and I was born there.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘I don’t know if I am English, like my father, Jewish, like my mother, or Chinese by birth.’
Katie Valier was surprised at his confession that his mother had been Jewish. The Church expressly forbade any sort of relations between Christian and Jew on pain of death. She wondered if that was why his parents had travelled far away from England. She was also curious about something this old man had said earlier.
‘Tell me. Why did you ask about my grandfather’s name?’
‘Ah. That is to do with the question I wish to ask. You see, when I was growing up, I was told tales of a Chinese demon called Zhong Kui, who righted wrongs. It was an old tale, but it seemed to have got mixed up with a real-life foreigner whose thirst for justice meant he was called by the demon’s name too. His real name – to the Chinese – was Zu Li-ni.’
Katie laughed and clapped her hands like a young girl.
‘It must have been Grandpa! He investigated crimes for the Great Khan. He would be so flattered that he was remembered still.’
The old man smiled and nodded his head.
‘My father may even have met him. He certainly knew many stories about him. And my father had no small fund of his own tales too. In fact, your story of Zuliani has reminded me of one of them.’
He turned his head to the group of pilgrims, who still sat close to the fire, too bound up in a fear of their possible fate to fall asleep. The old man raised his voice so all might hear him.
‘My name is David Falconer, and I have a story to tell which, though it is brief, will get you thinking about another of the Deadly Sins. This one is about . . .
Gluttony
More than thirty years ago, I was travelling through the fabled land of Trebizond. Of course, many tales are told of the place, not least that it was the land where Jason and the Argonauts sought the Golden Fleece. But I have another tale to tell – a tale of a land that was all too real, populated by mortal men with similar failings to our own. It is a tale of murder.
The Empire of Trebizond is a splinter of the Byzantine Empire, which has come to rest on the southern shores of the Black Sea. Barely forty miles deep and two hundred miles long, it is, nevertheless, an opulent and secluded paradise made rich by the trade that flows through it. I came to it from the east by following the Silk Road to Erzerum, where several camel trains came together, bringing dyes and spices from Baghdad, Arabia and India, together with raw silk via the Caspian. This single great caravan of a thousand camels, each bearing three hundred pounds of merchandise, then wound its way over the Pontic Mountains, which protect the back of Trebizond, and down into the city that gazes out over the sea that is its lifeblood. Traders from the west venture there by water on a four-month journey that culminates in the protective, curved arm of the harbour wall. We, as I say, had come overland from the east.
Descending on the swaying back of a mule, I felt almost as though I had arrived by sea, with a lurching feeling of sickness in my stomach. My travelling companion and secretary, the monkish Brother Philip, chattered eagerly as we passed along the edge of the western ravine that protects one side of the city with its tumbling waters. I learned later that the eastern side of the city is similarly protected by another natural moat.
‘Master, you cannot imagine the view from here. The city falls away at our feet, and sweeps down to the waters of a great sea. And it is so lush. The trees grow steeply on either side and the colour of the flowers is overpowering.’
Being sightless, I drank in his description. And I shared his excitement, for I could smell the heady scent of pines that grew along the path. That, and the scent of the camel train’s contents – pepper, cinnamon, myrrh and spikenard – mingled with the local scent of fruits and musk and incense. It was the very essence of the city I was going to get to know well. We descended the Zagnos valley, skirting the upper town and the Citadel, and broke off from the caravan train to enter the lower town through a grand gateway. Philip led the way and my mount followed obediently. The monk’s voice piped up with excitement, describing all he saw. He was barely twenty, and his beard was a mere wisp of soft down on his cheeks. Everything he saw was a marvel to him, but I valued his description of the lower part of Trebizond as we rode through its narrow streets. It seemed the arrival of the caravan was an occasion for celebration. The main road that led back up to the
Imperial Citadel was hung with patterned carpets and lined with men in glittering livery. Many walls were covered in holy paintings in ochre and red and dark blue. The inhabitants of this lower town, where the foreign merchants dwelled, were gaily dressed in tight robes quite unlike the loose garments of the West. Their chatter, and the noise of playful children, made it difficult for me to hear what Brother Philip was saying. I asked him to speak up.
‘I was saying that we shall have to dismount soon or we shall trample some child underfoot. It is like swimming against the tide. Everyone is making for the gate we have just entered.’
I called out to someone in the throng, ‘Where is everyone going, pray?’
A woman answered with a voice that had laughter in it. ‘Why, to the Meidan, where there will be games and food stalls to celebrate the arrival of the caravan from the East.’
‘Yes, we came with it part of the way ourselves. But I am seeking an official of the Emperor’s court. He is the keeper of the Emperor’s library, and goes by the name Theokrastos. Do you know where I might find him?’
I had an introduction to this scholar, given me by a Nestorian monk in the Yuan Empire. In truth it was a tenuous connection, for the grimy monk in furthest Tatu had only heard of Theokrastos second-hand through travellers on the Silk Road. But I had heard many stories of the library of Alexios II, Emperor of Trebizond and Autocrat of the Romans, and would use any influence I could exert to get to see it. The woman I spoke to doubted I would see the scholar today, however.
The Deadliest Sin Page 12
