A Death in the Venetian Quarter

by Alan Gordon

  “Mind you, I was a little worried that you would walk right out, leaving me cowering in that crate. I could have been shipped anywhere.”

  “Cheap way to travel, though. Did you find anything interesting while you were in there?”

  “Just some ornamental bush packed up to be sent to somebody’s mother-in-law,” he said. “No weapons concealed among the leaves. But I only was in the one crate. There were still about forty others, and I don’t think we can get away with doing this again. Once they discover someone has been poking his nose in there, they’ll get rid of the contraband and increase the security.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “Let’s go find the others.”

  We strolled back to the embolum, arriving as if we had just passed through the gate to the quarter, and joined our colleagues in time for some eight-handed juggling. We noticed my recent captors come in with Ruzzini, Ranieri, Viadro, and several other silk merchants. Moments later they emerged, looking around wildly, pointing in all directions before scattering.

  We finished with Aglaia standing on Plossus’s shoulders and Rico on mine, while the clubs went back and forth on two levels. Then Rico scooted around the perimeter of the crowd, collecting coins, while Aglaia and Plossus packed their gear.

  Rico returned, his cap filled with silver.

  “A most profitable night,” he said. “At least, financially.”

  SEVEN

  “What’s a drunken man like, fool?” “Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman.”

  ——WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, TWELFTH NIGHT, ACT I, SCENE V

  “There’s something wrong about dividing the proceeds four ways, don’t you think?” commented Plossus as Rico sorted out our Venetian take the following morning. “It seems to me that those who did most of the performing also did most of the earning.”

  “What about those of us risking prison?” asked Rico. “It was a joint venture, share and share alike. If we had gotten caught, would you have volunteered to do a quarter of the sentence?”

  “At least you made it back for the big finish,” said Aglaia. “That was fun. We haven’t done a four-fool routine in a while.”

  “You’re gaining weight, by the way,” said Plossus. “Next time, I’ll take Rico and you can stand on your husband’s shoulders. It’s only fair—he’s the one who got you in that condition.”

  “But you’re stronger than I am,” I said. “So, you get to carry her. Just make sure you don’t drop her, or you’ll have to answer to me.”

  “And if you are going to commit a burglary, couldn’t you at least steal something?” continued Plossus. “All this breaking in just to get information. What’s the profit in that?”

  “In this case, precious little,” I said. “We didn’t even narrow down which of the merchants might be in contact with the fleet. They all showed up.”

  “I think they’re all in on it,” said Rico. “The embolum is the center of the insurrection. Bastiani wanted out, or they figured out he was reporting back to the eunuch, so they killed him.”

  “How?” asked Aglaia.

  Rico shrugged.

  “I keep getting back to how it was done,” she said. “Figure out the how, and you’ll figure out the who.”

  “I’m still stumped as to how go about doing that,” I confessed.

  “I’d like to see his room,” she said. “Any way you could get me in there without drawing too much attention?”

  “Actually, there is,” I replied. “I told the landlord that he might receive a visit from a wealthy and debauched patron who liked to seduce young women in macabre settings. Care to play an impressionable maiden?”

  “That would be a stretch,” scoffed Rico.

  “I vaguely remember what that was like,” she said, glaring at him. “All right, we’ll do that tomorrow night.”

  “I volunteer to play the debaucherer,” cried Plossus.

  “Nonsense,” I replied. “Nobody seduces my wife unless they are me. Are you two off to the palace today?”

  “My liege is afield,” said Rico. “I’ll wander the city and see what I can learn.”

  “And I must make the charitable rounds with my lady Evdokia,” said Aglaia. “Chatting all the while in my foolish feminine way.”

  “I think Plossus and I had better insinuate ourselves into the community some more,” I said.

  “I’ll fetch my stilts,” said Plossus, and soon after, we were back in the Venetian quarter.

  We hit the south end by the larger embolum. Too much performing near the silk merchants would arouse suspicion, and I didn’t see any need for an immediate resolution of this matter. Besides, there were other commercial circles with their own pools of information. We set up outside the seawall near the Great Wharf and began.

  The children gathered first, as was usual, but the halt in the shipping brought about by the raising of the great chain meant that a lot of dockworkers were idle. Soon we were surrounded by a rough, burly group who called out a number of rude suggestions as to our parentage. We reached into our bags of comebacks and soon had them laughing at each other as well as our own antics.

  Working with a young fool always brought out the competitor in me, and Plossus was a particularly skilled colleague, not at all beneath some friendly scene-stealing. And, I must confess, I was feeling a bit jealous after seeing him work with my wife last night. No good reason for it, but I found myself digging for all the tricks that my advantage in years could give me.

  It was a successful performance and soon spilled over into a nearby tavern favored by the dockworkers. The house ale was a lethal concoction with a foul aftertaste. My guess was it had been brewed with water from the Golden Horn itself. This nevertheless did not prevent any of our newfound friends from consuming vast quantities of it, but even with their tongues so amply loosened, we learned nothing to help us further in our search. The main complaint we heard was over the lack of work, but no one seemed eager to blame his situation on the fleet.

  We shifted after lunch to the central wharf outside the Porta Drungarii. As we passed by an open shed, I spotted Tullio putting together a number of crates and stacking them against the wall.

  “So, this is where you work,” I called to him.

  He waved and kept going.

  “I have to get these done quickly,” he said. “Who knows how much longer people will be able to pay me? And I have to pack my tools and move them out of the shop before the invasion comes. Everything on this side of the wall will be fair game.”

  “Do you really expect them to challenge the seawalls?” asked Plossus.

  “They have to challenge them somewhere,” he replied. “I’d rather not take any chances.”

  “How will your friend the huntsman take to having you working in his sleeping quarters?” I asked.

  “As long as he’s drinking like this, he’ll sleep right through anything I do,” said Tullio.

  “Then may his snoring drown out your sawing,” I said. “Godspeed.”

  He nodded pleasantly, and we set up by the wharf.

  “It is a holy profession, carpentry,” commented Plossus as he pulled his clubs out of his bag.

  “Because Our Lord apprenticed to it?” I asked.

  “No, because it is devoted to the making of holes,” he said. “And I am often struck by the fact that Our Lord, who was raised by a carpenter, died on a carpenter’s creation. I wonder if He appreciated the irony.”

  “Careful, lad,” I cautioned him. “You may mock any church in my presence, but show respect for the First Fool, Our Savior.”

  Another crowd, another retreat into a tavern, this one on Drungary Street, just inside the gate. Venetians who still had active jobs poured in for dinner, and we strummed away and led them in increasingly raucous songs.

  I spotted Viadro and nodded in his direction. Plossus followed my glance. The youth was seated on a a stool by the tapster, downing one cup after another.

  I walked over to him and called to the tapster, “My good host,
this fellow drinks with my coin. I will usurp your position and fill his cup from now on.” I tossed some coins onto the bar and snatched a bottle and Viadro’s cup. “This way, sirrah,” I beckoned, and he followed me, puzzled.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Good master, I am attempting to make amends for my behavior the other night,” I said, slurring my speech heavily. “I offended you with my choice of music, it seems.”

  “Odd,” said Plossus. “Normally he offends just by the quality of his voice.”

  “Hush, boy. Sir, you must drink with me.”

  “Drink with a fool?” said Viadro, amused.

  I stood up and slammed my bottle down.

  “Sir!” I bellowed. “I spend my life figuring out ways to get others to buy me drinks. For a fool to buy a drink for somebody else is the highest possible compliment in our profession. I asked you to drink with me, now drink!”

  “Humor him,” Plossus muttered to Viadro as I poured another round. “He gets like this. He’ll get angry, then weepy, then he’ll pass out. It’s all harmless. I’ll take care of him.”

  “A toast!” I cried, holding my cup aloft. “To the memory of your late friend.”

  “He was no friend of mine,” said Viadro.

  “There, you see?” I said. “He offends so easily. I told you what happened the other night?”

  “You tell me so many things, how am I supposed to know which one you’re talking about at any given moment?” replied Plossus.

  “I was hired to play for a dead Venetian at a Venetian wake,” I explained. “So, what would you expect me to play?”

  “Venetian music?”

  “Exactly!” I shouted triumphantly, then I sat down and almost toppled off the bench. “And this gentleman gets angry with me.”

  “Why did he do that?” asked Plossus.

  “I do not know,” I said. “Says the dead man, what was his name again?”

  “Bastiani,” muttered Viadro, staring into his cup.

  “Right, Bastardiano,” I continued, prompting a quick laugh from Viadro. “Says he’s a traitor, or something. Now, how was I supposed to have known that?”

  “I don’t see how you could have known,” said Plossus.

  “So, you see, signore,” I said to Viadro, “the offense was mine, for which I humbly beg your forgiveness, but it was an offense of ignorance, as is usually the case with me, for I am but an ignorant fool.”

  “You are forgiven,” said Viadro, trying to rise, but I grabbed his wrist and poured him another drink.

  “To Venice!” I shouted, and he was forced to join that one. I spluttered and coughed as I sipped, which allowed me to spill most of it onto the floor. Viadro didn’t waste a drop of his.

  “Here’s something else strange,” I said to Plossus. “He thinks that the deceased was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” exclaimed Plossus. “How extraordinary!”

  “Now, sir,” I said, addressing Viadro. “I saw the corpse. I have been to hundreds of wakes and thousands of taverns, so I have seen all manner of dead men who died in every possible way. This Bastamenti did not have a mark on him. Not a bruise, not a scratch, not a drop of blood. How could he have been murdered?”

  “Well,” began Viadro. “It could have been poison.”

  “Well said, signore,” said Plossus. “What say you to that, Feste?”

  I shook my head.

  “Young sir,” I said. “I will endeavor, by a series of proofs that will withstand the scrutiny of the highest of philosophers and the lowest of fools, both of whom are sitting across from me at this very moment, that this merchant could not have been poisoned.”

  “I believe he just called you a fool,” commented Plossus.

  “All right, Fool,” said Viadro, automatically pouring himself another cup. “Proceed.”

  “Primus,” I began, holding up one finger. “His room was undisturbed by the throes of the recently poisoned, nor was there any sign of drink or food that could have been the vehicle of such method.”

  “He could have taken poison outside of the room,” objected Plossus.

  “Exactly!” agreed Viadro.

  I held another finger. “Secundus, if he was poisoned outside his room, then it would have had to have been when he dined. But he dined at your embolum with all of you. Someone would have seen it.”

  “He could have stopped on the way home,” said Viadro, shifting uncomfortably on the bench.

  “Exactly!” agreed Plossus.

  “There’s no place to stop,” I said. “Not a single establishment in between his home and the embolum. No, sir, he had his evening meal and came straight home, walked unaccompanied up to his room, closed the door, barred it, and lay down to his everlasting sleep.”

  “How do you know all this?” asked Viadro. “You weren’t there. This is just idle gossip.”

  “Sir,” I said indignantly. “This is no ordinary, cheap, everyday, secondhand gossip. This is the freshest of gossip, from firsthand observations. It is completely reliable. Bashti died alone in his locked room, resting peacefully on his bed. No one went upstairs with him.”

  “Then what killed him?” demanded Viadro.

  “God’s will,” I said piously, pressing my palms together and casting my eyes upward. “It was his time to depart this crumbling rock.”

  “He could have been poisoned at the embolum,” insisted Viadro.

  “That would explain it,” said Plossus.

  “Where was he sitting?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “At the table, boy,” I said, shaking my head with exasperation. “Who was by him?”

  “He was seated in the middle of the bench by the wall, between Ranieri and … and …” He stopped, the blood draining from his face.

  “Go on,” I prompted him.

  “Myself,” he whispered.

  Plossus and I glanced at each other. I refilled Viadro’s cup. He barely noticed.

  “So the men who had the best opportunity to slip some poison into his drink were a respected merchant who had known him for decades,” I said, “and a tippling stripling who accused him at his own wake of being a traitor. Sounds like a motive to me.”

  “Come, fellow, he’s besting you,” urged Plossus, whispering in Viadro’s ear. “Defend yourself.”

  “If I had murdered him, I would hardly want to draw attention to the fact,” protested Viadro. “I would have kept mum and let him go unmolested to his grave with no one the wiser.”

  “That is a most excellent point,” applauded Plossus. “What say you o that, old man?”

  “Are you saying then that Ranieri is the culprit?” I asked.

  “No, no, it couldn’t have been him,” said Viadro quickly.

  “Why not?” asked Plossus. “If it wasn’t you, then it was him.”

  “And if it wasn’t him, then it was you,” I said. “Tell me more about the dead man. Who would want to kill him? And why?”

  “He was an informer,” said Viadro.

  “What secrets are worth killing for around here?” laughed Plossus.

  “You’d be surprised,” muttered Viadro.

  “You’re bluffing,” I taunted him.

  “Now, Feste,” warned Plossus. “Be kind to the man. If he says there’s something, there probably is.”

  I leaned my face into his, all sweat-grimed, hideous, white-masked monstrosity. Viadro reared back in alarm.

  “Prove it,” I growled. “Or you’re a hollow, loud-mouthed fool.”

  We had him. At that exact moment, we had worked on the precise nexus of arrogance, indignation, and inebriation to bring the answer spewing out of him. I knew it, Plossus knew it, and somewhere inside the youth, he knew it.

  And so did the man standing behind him.

  “There you are,” said Ranieri, clapping Viadro on the shoulder. “I’ve been looking everywhere. We were supposed to dine together.”

  “I had forgotten,” said Viadro, sinking a bit under the force
of his hand.

  “Well, no harm done,” said the older man. “It looks like all you’ve done is drink. Let me get some solid food into you. Good evening, Fools.”

  We bowed as he hauled Viadro away.

  “So close,” I said in chagrin.

  “I learn so much from watching you. Anything left in that bottle?” chirped Plossus. I emptied the dregs into his cup, and he tossed them back cheerfully. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We walked back to my place.

  “Well, we’re getting somewhere,” Plossus called from several feet up.

  “Please do me the courtesy of walking by my side,” I said a bit petulantly, and he swung down from the stilts and shouldered them.

  “So, he was poisoned at the embolum by either Viadro or Ranieri,” he said.

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “Tertius, there is no poison that I know that will take so long to act upon its victim. If he was given it at the embolum, he would have made it to the street, but not all the way home, up the steps, into his room, into his nightclothes, and into his bed.”

  “Then that was all for nothing?”

  “No. There is something there. Something Viadro knows and is scared of revealing, despite his braggadocio.”

  “And it involves Ranieri. I wonder if he suspects us yet.”

  “He might just take us for gossips and fools,” I said. “But watch your back, just in case.”

  “I always do. Here’s a thought. No one saw anyone go upstairs with Bastiani, but what if someone was already waiting for him in his room?”

  I stopped, rubbing my temples.

  “Good thinking, my friend,” I said. “The murderer accomplished his task, then waited for everyone in the building to fall asleep before making his escape.”

  “Or her escape,” he reminded me. “There’s our mystery woman. And a lovely lady lurking in one’s chambers may easily tempt one into sampling a little poison unawares. Then she could remove the evidence afterward.”

  “That would solve the ‘how’ nicely for my lady wife,” I said. “One problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If she waited until everyone was asleep, she would be leaving too late to pass through the gates to the city proper. Plus, she would have to avoid detection by the local patrols.”