The Deadliest Sin (10 page)

He was indeed homeless, and had been for some time. Since, that is, his own house had been burned down in a fire set by a man seeking to mask his deliberate disappearance. In that conflagration,
Zuliani had lost almost everything he possessed, including most of the wonders he had brought from Cathay. Still, at the time it had been a boon, in that it had resulted in him finding and moving
in with his long-lost love, the aristocratic Caterina Dolfin. At the same time, he had also discovered the existence of his granddaughter, Katie.

He cast his mournful gaze on the still slim and attractive woman, who as a young lady he had left pregnant when he had skipped Venice over some misdeed or other. His only excuse at the time was
that he had not known of Cat’s delicate state when he had fled. Cat returned his soulful look with a steely one of her own. She pursed her lovely red lips.

‘Don’t push your luck, Niccolo.’

Then she sighed, knowing what was behind his irritating behaviour. He needed to be busy, and the only thing that truly excited him was the pursuit of trade and the growth of money.

‘Oh, very well. I will loan you some money, just so that you can lose it on some hare-brained scheme, like you have with your own money.’

Zuliani flashed her a smile.

‘A promissory note will be enough, and I shall be out from under your feet and on my way to the Rialto in an instant.’

She quickly picked up a quill before he could change his mind.

‘So this is about a Venetian’s greed for money,’ said one of the pilgrims gathered in the Angel tavern in Norfolk. Katie frowned, annoyed that the thread
of her story, so soon started, had been broken already.

‘Not at all. There is no sin in honest trade, as any Venetian will tell you. Listen, and you will soon learn what sort of greed I am telling you about.’

It was not long before Nick Zuliani found his way to the Rialto. The great wooden bridge was at the centre of the early settlement, and was now the commercial heart of La
Serenissima. On its sturdy planks strode impecunious merchants seeking the funds for trading ventures that they could not afford on their own. Any Venetian with a little money to invest could have
a share in such trade. Artisans and widows, even the aged and the sick, could enter into what was called a
colleganza
. This might take the form of a simple partnership between two merchants,
or that of a large corporation of the kind needed to finance a trans-Asiatic caravan. It might run for a short, agreed period or might be an
ad hoc
, ongoing arrangement that would be
dissolved automatically when the venture was complete. Whatever the constituent parts of the partnership, it was founded on trust and was inviolable. Even one involving an immense initial outlay,
or several years’ duration and considerable risk, could be arranged on the Rialto in a matter of hours.

Zuliani walked up and down for a while assessing the merchants who were on the bridge. They were mostly young men such as he had once been. He too had stood here, eager-faced and keen to find
someone past their prime who could afford the money but not the time or effort to travel to the corners of the globe for profit. Now he was on the other side of the fence – one of those aged
men too weary for long journeys in pirate-infested waters. He listened in on a couple of merchants who were already trying to persuade the people around them to take a chance on making their
fortune.

One, a raw-boned man with a face that looked as though it had been chiselled out of rock and been around the world, was expounding the virtues of trading salted North Sea cod, Rhenish and
Bordelais wines, and Breton salt with oil and rice from ports in the Mediterranean. Zuliani knew such a
colleganza
would provide steady profits, but what he sought was excitement, even if it
was of the vicarious sort. The other merchant he turned to was a fresh-faced youth with long, black hair that kept blowing across his eyes in the wind that swept up the Grand Canal. He spoke of
cotton from Syria and North Africa, and silks from the East. Zuliani’s heart began to beat a little faster. He moved closer, the eager eyes of the young trader spotted him and his spiel grew
more expansive.

‘Remember that at sea there are no toll duties as there are on routes overland. A sea route costs a twentieth of an overland route, and all we have to fund is the basic cost of fitting out
a ship, freight charges, and sailors’ wages – which are precious little.’

As he said this, he nudged the well-dressed man standing next to him and laughed. The man did not respond, his face keeping its solemn cast as he twisted the ring on his thumb, so the trader
swallowed his joke and pressed on.

‘The more valuable the cargo, the greater the profit. I am proposing a
colleganza
that will sail as far as Antioch and Tyre in order to benefit from the silks that come from
Cathay.’

At the mention of that far distant empire, Zuliani was won over to this young man’s proposition. Memories of his own travels around Cathay at the instigation of the Great Khan, Kubilai,
flooded his mind. He elbowed his way to the front of the crowd that had gathered around the young merchant.

‘I will have some of that trade, young man.’

The trader eagerly grasped his hand.

‘You are a wise man, sir, and I shall not let you down. My name is Bernardo Baglioni, and yours is . . .?’

Zuliani hesitated, fearful that his name and reputation would draw too many into the venture and dissipate the profits. He produced the note signed by Cat.

‘Let’s merely say I am acting on behalf of the Dolfin family.’

Baglioni’s smile broadened. It was not often that someone from the
case vecchie
– the old aristocracy of Venice – got involved in trade.

‘Then I am honoured at such an association. Come, let us adjourn to a taverna and seal the deal.’

The well-heeled and solemn man with the thumb-ring also stepped forward. In an accent that suggested he was not Venetian, he also proposed part-funding the deal.

‘My name is Agnolo Rosso.’

Zuliani was surprised that someone so formal and reserved should wish to participate in the sort of risk suggested by Baglioni, but he wasn’t worried. There was enough profit in it for at
least two big partners. Besides, the trader no doubt already had a few small investors in his pocket too. He nodded at the other man, and all three strode off the bridge and towards the nearest
hostelry.

A week later, over a meal prepared by Cat’s cook, and in the presence of both Cat and his granddaughter, Katie, Zuliani expanded upon the brief report he had given on his
drunken return to Ca’ Dolfin the day of the business deal.

‘Baglioni now has a large galley commissioned with a capacity of over a hundred and fifty tons and more than a hundred oarsmen to speed it on its way. He will be loading soon with goods
for the outbound trip. Now that he has my money . . .’

Cat gave him a sharp look, and he corrected himself.

‘Now he has your money and Rosso’s, he can fund the whole trip all the way to Antioch. Though when I saw him yesterday in the evening, he seemed a little nervous. It was as if he
didn’t want to speak with me.’

Katie thought that must be normal for a young man on his first big
colleganza
, and told Nick so.

He shrugged. ‘Maybe so. But his captain, Saluzzo by name, behaved in the same way, avoiding me like they both had something to hide.’

Cat ignored his caution. She was more interested in the other big investor.

‘This Agnolo Rosso, he is a Florentine, did you say?’

Zuliani nodded. ‘With a name like that he has to be. And he certainly doesn’t speak Venetian.’

‘And he put up a matching sum to mine?’

Again, she got a nod of agreement from Zuliani. Katie put down a sweetly honeyed chicken leg, sucked her fingers, and asked Cat what she was puzzled about.

‘Oh, nothing, Katie. It’s just unusual for a Florentine to get involved in a
colleganza
. Though I suppose that, where there’s money and a profit, they are not far behind
us Venetians.’

She plucked a grape from the large bunch on the table and popped it in her red-lipped mouth. Zuliani gulped down the last of his wine and yawned in an ostentatious way.

‘Time for bed for an old man like me.’

He cast a meaningful glance at Cat, which Katie saw too. It made her laugh.

‘I’m not too young to know what you adults get up to when you retire early. Just don’t keep me awake by making too much noise.’

Cat pretended to be scandalised, and chided Katie for her coarseness. But she still gave her a wink as she and Nick left the room arm in arm.

Zuliani looked dishevelled the next morning, and his eyes were red-rimmed. It must have been a good night, but he was determined to be up early. Baglioni’s galley sailed that very morning,
and he wanted to be on the quay to see it off. He explained his superstition to Cat.

‘See it off, and you will see it back safely. That’s what I say.’

He grabbed a hunk of fresh bread, and hurried out, his fur-trimmed robe flapping round his legs. Katie secretly followed him at a more demure pace. The sun was just coming up over the sea where
the galley was soon to go, and the morning mist turned it a rosy red. A few people stood on the quay to watch the oars dipping and swinging in rhythm as Bernardo Baglioni’s galley set off
into the lagoon. Zuliani shaded his eyes against the sun, and nodded with satisfaction. An old man stood leaning on a stick only a few yards away. He commented on the trim nature of the vessel.

‘A good ship with a fine crew, though she looks heavy in the water.’

Zuliani cast him a sharp glance. ‘Laden with goods to make my fortune, I hope.’

The old man grinned, the lines on his face creasing up like crushed paper.

‘Mine, too. Though I dare say, looking at that fine robe of yours, you will have more at stake than I do.’

He stuck out a hand made rough and knotted with manual labour.

‘Marco Baseggio, retired shipwright.’

Zuliani took the offered hand and, squeezing it firmly, felt the calluses that years of carving wood had worked on to its surface.

‘No matter how much, or how little, you have invested, if it’s all you’ve got, it’s an awful lot. Here’s wishing us both good luck.’

The old man nodded, and made off down the quay, relying on his stick to steady him on the cobbles.

The months of waiting for the merchant galley to return would have been anxious ones for Zuliani, if it hadn’t been for a curious event that took place some weeks after
the galley set off. Katie was seated in her room reading a work by a new Florentine poet called Dante Alighieri. Some might have thought she was reading his love poems, being a girl of no more than
seventeen. But
Convivio
–
The Banquet
– was about the love of knowledge, and what is more it was written not in stuffy Latin but a local dialect of Italian. The language
of the people. It is difficult to imagine how that excited Katie’s young soul. She was so engrossed in the book that she didn’t hear the visitor to Ca’ Dolfin arrive, and closet
himself with Zuliani. It was only when her grandfather was leading him back out that she heard their voices echoed in the reception hall. There was an entreaty from the visitor that what he had
spoken about should be kept secret. This aroused her curiosity immediately. She put her precious copy of Dante upside down on the table to preserve her place, and moved to the door of her room,
which gave out on to the reception hall and the doors to the water gate. But by the time she looked, the visitor was out of the gate and in his boat. She waited until the sound of an oar slapping
through the water of the Grand Canal told her that he had gone, and then dashed out to speak with Nick.

‘A secret. Do tell.’

Zuliani took her arm, and they strolled back towards her room.

‘The trouble with telling a secret is that it’s then no longer a secret. So you end up destroying the very thing you are charged with keeping.’

Katie tugged on his beard, which was more grey than red by this time.

‘But I know you can’t keep a secret long, Grandpa. So you might as well tell it to me now.’

He laughed that deep, throaty laugh of his. They were now in Katie’s room, and he saw the book carelessly laid with its pages open facing downwards. That was bad for its spine and he
picked it up. He read out a few lines from the place she had been reading, chortling as he did so.

‘“Since knowledge is the highest perfection of our soul, in which our supreme happiness is found, we are all by our very nature driven by the desire to attain this.” Dante
Alighieri shouldn’t be the one to lecture on perfection of the soul. He was at the head of the White Guelph faction after they defeated the Ghibbelines in battle, you know, and was as greedy
for power and influence as any Florentine.’

Katie knew Nick was talking about the struggles between those who supported the Pope and those on the side of the Holy Roman Emperor. But she didn’t want to know about Dante’s
allegiances. Only what the mysterious visitor had told her grandfather in secret, and she wasn’t going to be diverted by a discussion about the greed of a poet. He could see the determination
in her eyes, and knew she was as stubborn as he was. He sighed heavily, knowing he would have to tell her eventually.

‘Very well, it will be our secret. They want me to be on the Council of Ten.’

Katie couldn’t believe her ears. The Council of Ten had been set up after the failed coup of a couple of years back purely as a temporary measure to ensure public safety. There had been a
fear that in its anxiety to avoid a concentration of power in one man, the republic had ended up with an unwieldy bureaucracy. Almost all the Doge’s decisions had to be ratified by the Great
Council, which numbered around a thousand people. It was so cumbersome a process that it could not make decisions quickly, and the coup had almost succeeded because of this. That it had failed was
mainly due to its own incompetence, and some underhand work by her grandfather. The Ten was then set up so that urgent matters could be resolved more swiftly and decisively. But the Council was
still an elected body.