Chapter 11 The Fortified Harbor #2
Adelasia gave her a look. "No. Prosperous men distribute property. Clerks distribute confusion. Do not blame commerce for another profession's sins."
Niccolò tucked a copied address into his sleeve. "Messer Corrado would say both professions merely preserve opportunities for litigation."
"Messer Corrado believes litigation is a harvest provided by God for factors who know how to count," Adelasia said. "Do not quote him before dinner."
Odelin had remained silent since leaving the archive. Now he said, "The fourth property interests me."
Lucetta turned. "The warehouse by Saint Michael's quay?"
"Not the warehouse. The guarantor. One transfer was witnessed by a canon from the hospital church. If Varesi held property for another person, or received a coffer he did not own, a religious house might have recorded the deposit when secular records did not."
Orsino wiped sweat from his forehead. "Or it might record that he gave three candles and died of a fever."
"That would still be more than we knew this morning."
Bertran had been watching the square rather than the argument. He said quietly, "We are followed."
No one turned.
Lucetta's heartbeat changed before her face did. "Since when?"
"Since the property clerk. Maybe before. One man in a brown hood, another with a red belt. They do not stay together. Brown hood bought fruit he did not eat. Red belt asked directions and then walked the opposite way."
Adelasia said, "Corrado?"
Niccolò shook his head. "Not men I know. That proves nothing."
"Beatrice?"
"Also possible."
Bertran said, "We behave as if we have not noticed. Odelin, how far to the hospital church?"
"Two streets and the lower square."
"Good. We go there. If they follow into ecclesiastical ground, we learn something about their patience."
The hospital church stood beside a charitable house that maintained six beds for poor travelers and sailors.
Its keeper, Brother Anselm, did not know Pietro Varesi but knew where older account bundles were kept and, more importantly, knew that permission to search them belonged to a canon who was away until evening.
Lucetta felt the familiar irritation of arriving at the right archive at the wrong hour.
Odelin accepted the delay with better grace. "Then we ask about the institution rather than the man. Was property ever deposited here by merchants awaiting maritime settlement? Were sea chests stored under witness? Did the hospital accept effects from sailors too sick to manage them?"
Brother Anselm considered. "Sometimes. Not commonly. We are not a warehouse. Yet men dying on ships are brought ashore, and captains prefer a sealed room to leaving valuables beside a bed. If there was a dispute, a notary might be called."
Lucetta asked, "Would those instruments remain here?"
"Some. Others would go to the commune."
"Would a Varesi name be indexed?"
Brother Anselm smiled with the patience of a man who had been asked whether the thirteenth century possessed future conveniences. "Mistress, they are bundles."
Orsino murmured, "At last, an honest archive."
They left with permission to return after vespers.
Outside, Bertran said, "Brown hood remained at the fountain. Red belt is gone."
Lucetta resisted the urge to look. "Does that mean anything?"
"Only that one man still follows us and one does not."
Adelasia said, "Your profession can be disappointingly literal."
"It keeps men alive."
They crossed toward the merchant quarter. At a covered market a servant in Beatrice d'Orsenna's livery found them before they reached the next address.
"Lady Beatrice requests that Mistress Verani and Mistress Roncaglia attend her at the House of the Golden Ram. She arrived an hour ago."
Adelasia stopped. "An hour ago?"
"Yes, mistress."
Ysoria had predicted the possibility, but the speed still displeased Adelasia.
"She has either ridden very hard," Lucetta said, "or knew our destination earlier than we hoped."
The servant said carefully, "My lady prefers not to arrive after the argument has been decided."
Adelasia almost smiled. "That I believe."
The House of the Golden Ram was not an inn in the common sense but a merchant lodging house built around a deep courtyard where travelers of means could hire rooms, stable horses, store chests, and receive visitors without exposing themselves to the public room of a tavern.
Beatrice had taken an upper chamber with shuttered windows overlooking the yard.
When Lucetta entered, she found Beatrice standing beside a table on which lay three folded documents, a wooden document case, a cup of watered wine, and a small iron-bound book chest no larger than a loaf basket.
Lucetta's eyes went to the chest before she could stop them.
Beatrice noticed.
"Not the object you seek," she said. "I brought it because the steward who keeps my family papers possesses a sense of humor. He said if I intended to quarrel about old chests, I should have something proper on the table."
Adelasia sat without being invited. "Your steward has more courage than mine ever did."
Beatrice looked toward Niccolò. "And Corrado has sent a clerk into my room. How intimate this enterprise becomes."
Niccolò bowed. "Lady Beatrice, I am present under the written agreement witnessed in Ravenna. I speak for Messer Corrado only where that agreement allows."
"That is precisely what makes you a clerk. A soldier would have said, 'I am here.'"
Bertran remained near the door. "A soldier who values his pay says less than that."
Beatrice gave him a brief measuring glance, then turned to Lucetta.
"You wrote that Marelli's coffer was delivered to Pietro Varesi under witness.
I have brought the inventory I mentioned.
It is not the original; the original remains with the estate steward because I do not carry thirty-five-year-old parchment through crowded gates for the pleasure of proving I possess it.
This is an authenticated copy made by a notary I trust. Read it.
Then tell me whether you still believe the Varesi coffer belongs to whichever person reaches it first."
Lucetta sat and unfolded the document.
The copy was careful. The formulae were ordinary.
The date matched what Beatrice had claimed.
The relevant entry referred to household and deposited goods held at a collateral d'Orsenna estate.
Among several boxes and sealed bundles appeared one old sea coffer received from the Varesi house, unopened for lack of proper warrant, iron-bound, with two locks, one hasp repaired in newer metal, its contents unspecified.
Lucetta read it twice.
Orsino, standing behind her shoulder, said, "Read the repair again."
She did.
He leaned closer without touching the page. "The island record did not describe a repaired hasp."
"No."
"But a repair can happen in thirteen years. Or a hundred. Useful, not proof."
Beatrice said, "You see why I came."
Lucetta looked up. "I see why the document matters. I do not yet see why it proves your family owned the coffer."
Beatrice's expression cooled. "Because it stood in a d'Orsenna estate inventory."
"So did deposited goods. The phrase does not say purchased, inherited, or granted. It says received from the Varesi house and unopened for want of proper warrant. That sounds less like ownership than custody."
"Custody under my family's roof for decades is not nothing."
"I did not say it was nothing. I said it is not title. If a widow gives a sealed chest to your steward because a road is unsafe, and the steward inventories it among goods under his charge, the ink does not transform her chest into your table."
Beatrice rested both palms lightly on the table.
"Mistress Verani, do not instruct me in the distinction between what a household possesses and what it owns.
Noble houses are accused of forgetting that distinction only by people who have never had to maintain one.
I am telling you something narrower: my family accepted responsibility for an object from Varesi.
The object remained unopened because some warrant was missing.
If that warrant concerned a depositor, a creditor, a charitable house, or a deceased merchant, the burden lies upon those who claim against my custody to show it.
You arrive with copies from an island house and a story of seven keys.
I arrive with a document showing the coffer was entrusted to my kin.
Do not confuse your larger purpose with a superior legal right. "
Lucetta felt the force of the argument because part of it was correct.
She answered with equal care. "And do not confuse long custody with a right to prevent identification.
If the coffer contains nothing connected to Saint Aurelia, your claim and ours need never meet.
If it contains a key that belonged to an officer of a confraternity and was entrusted to Varesi for safekeeping, your family's duty may be to return it to whatever lawful successor can be established.
If it contains private deposits, creditor instruments, or property identified to another claimant, the result may be different for each item.
That is precisely why opening nothing before proper witnesses may protect your family better than secrecy. "
Beatrice's gaze sharpened. "You are asking me to permit an inventory."
"I am asking you not to prevent one if we locate the coffer."
Adelasia said, "And before you answer, consider who benefits if we quarrel until some third party takes the object.
Corrado benefits if he can seize it under creditor claims. Whoever has followed us from port to port benefits more.
Your family title does not improve if the coffer burns in a warehouse. "
Niccolò said, "Messer Corrado has proposed no seizure."
Adelasia turned to him. "Not this morning."
"The agreement—"
"I know the agreement. I helped write the clauses you recite when nervous."
Beatrice looked from one to the other. "Then Corrado is here?"