Chapter 12 Before the Gates Close #3
The chamber beyond was low, windowless, and half filled with disused iron.
Broken balances, chains, rusted hooks, a damaged capstan fitting, old nails in baskets, two cracked anchors too small for a sea vessel, and rotting timber lay against the walls.
The floor sloped toward a dark recess where the old water stair had once descended.
And against the far wall stood an iron-bound sea coffer.
No one spoke.
It was larger than Beatrice's little book chest and smaller than the Seven-Lock Chest described in Saint Aurelia records. Oak, dark with age. Iron straps. Two locks. One hasp repaired in metal visibly different from the rest.
Orsino did not approach immediately.
Lucetta heard her own heartbeat.
Giuliano whispered, "That has been in my warehouse all my life."
"You knew it?" Adelasia asked.
"I knew there was an old box under broken iron. My father said it belonged to a dead account and should not be touched because no warrant had ever arrived. I thought it empty."
Lucetta looked at him. "Why?"
"Because men do not leave valuable things in forgotten rooms for forty years."
Adelasia said, "Men leave valuable things wherever law makes touching them expensive."
Orsino finally went forward. He did not touch the coffer with his bare hand. He crouched and studied the straps, hinges, repair, lock plates, wood, and corrosion.
"Old enough," he said. "Repair fits the inventory description. Two locks. Salt damage on the lower left side. It stood somewhere damp before this room, perhaps against a wall."
Lucetta took out the copied island description.
"The record says iron-bound coffer, two locks, carried with sealed letters. No dimensions."
"Then it neither proves nor disproves this."
Brother Paolo said, "And the d'Orsenna inventory?"
Lucetta read the relevant wording aloud.
Orsino touched the repaired hasp with one finger. "This is a strong match. Not proof. If Beatrice's notary saw the original, he may compare it."
Giuliano said, "We open it now."
Lucetta turned. "No."
His face flushed. "It is in my house. Someone broke into my house for it. The city gates are closing. I will know what danger I have stored under my floor."
"And if you open it without Beatrice's witness, Corrado's representative, the hospital witness, and a written inventory, every claimant later says you removed what favored you."
"You are in no position to instruct me."
"I am precisely in that position because I have spent years watching people ruin true claims by handling evidence badly.
If the Shipmaster's Key lies inside and you take it out alone, Corrado says you substituted it.
Beatrice says you removed family property.
Whoever owns the other contents says you stole them.
If the coffer is empty, every absent claimant says it was full before you opened it. "
Niccolò said quietly, "She is right."
Giuliano glared at him.
Niccolò continued, "I would report to Messer Corrado that the coffer was opened before his agreed representative could witness the inventory. He would object. Lady Beatrice would object more loudly. You would gain knowledge and lose protection."
Brother Paolo added, "The hospital house will witness the condition as found. I can state that the coffer was closed when discovered."
Odelin said, "And we should seal the room until all present claims can be represented."
Giuliano's anger had nowhere useful to go.
Bertran stood at the broken doorway listening not to them but to the city.
"You may not have until evening," he said.
Lucetta turned. "What do you mean?"
"If armed men reach the harbor, this warehouse becomes a prize because it has a water door and a quay.
If the town orders warehouses cleared or occupied for defense, strangers come through this room under lawful authority.
If whoever cut the latch has companions, they know the coffer is here.
We cannot sit beside it waiting for perfect procedure. "
Adelasia said, "Then we create procedure quickly."
She began giving orders as if Giuliano's warehouse were her own countinghouse.
"Brother Paolo witnesses condition. Niccolò writes.
Lucetta dictates identification. Orsino describes the metal without opening.
Giuliano names two household men. Send for Beatrice with a runner who can pass before the lanes close.
Send another to Ziani telling him not to depart without us unless the harbor authority orders him.
Bertran decides whether the coffer can be moved within the building to a defensible room without changing custody. "
Giuliano stared at her.
"Master Giuliano," she said, "you may argue with me after you have saved your property."
Something in her tone overrode him.
Ysoria took the first message herself because she trusted no runner to find Beatrice quickly in a changing city. One warehouse boy took the second toward Stella Maris.
Niccolò opened his writing case on an upturned crate.
Lucetta began dictating.
"On this day, before witnesses named below, in the lower rear stone chamber of the house presently held by Master Giuliano Trevisan at the landing called Shipmasters' Steps, there was found one old sea coffer of oak, iron-bound, closed, fitted with two lock plates and one repaired hasp—"
Orsino interrupted. "Say the repair plate is of different iron and fixed with six rivets, two irregular."
Lucetta added it.
Brother Paolo inspected the coffer from a respectful distance and confirmed what he could see. Giuliano named two servants. Adelasia added the account references. Niccolò wrote until sweat darkened his sleeve.
The prisoner remained under guard upstairs. Bertran had bound his hands but had not surrendered him to the watch because the streets between warehouse and watch post were now more dangerous than the man himself.
Half an hour later Beatrice arrived.
She came not in the composed manner Lucetta associated with her but with her skirts gathered in one hand, two servants behind her, and Ysoria at her shoulder.
"If any of you ever again send a note saying only 'coffer located, come at once, gates closing,' I shall consider it attempted murder by suspense."
Adelasia said, "You arrived."
"That does not improve the note."
Lucetta handed her the written description.
Beatrice read it. Then she looked at the coffer.
For once, her expression lost all social armor.
"That is the repair."
Orsino said, "You have seen the original inventory?"
"And a drawing made in the steward's margin. I thought it ornamental until now. Six rivets. The lower two placed badly."
She crossed to the coffer, stopped before touching it, and turned to Giuliano.
"You are the present custodian?"
"It is in my house."
"That is not what I asked."
Lucetta almost smiled despite the danger.
Giuliano said, "My family purchased this warehouse with old accounts unresolved. The coffer has remained here under an account no one discharged. If your family proves title, I will answer. If it proves custody only, then we are both custodians to a dead man's inconvenience."
Beatrice studied him, then nodded once.
"Good. I prefer an honest opponent to a flattering thief."
Niccolò said, "Messer Corrado's claim must also be preserved."
Beatrice turned. "Of course it must. Otherwise he might expire from neglect."
The wall bell rang again.
This time the warehouse shook faintly with a distant impact.
Everyone fell silent.
A second impact followed.
Bertran went to the stair.
"That is not a gate bar."
Ysoria said, "No."
A third impact came, farther west. Then shouting spread along the quay like wind through dry grass.
One of Giuliano's servants ran in from the counting room.
"They are closing the harbor boom."
Ziani's warning returned to Lucetta: a harbor was a town with water for a gate.
Bertran said, "How long?"
"They are calling vessels inward. Patrol boats are moving. The outer chain is being readied."
Naldo swore.
"If they close it fully, Stella Maris cannot leave."
"Can it leave before?" Lucetta asked.
Naldo looked at her. "If Ziani has room, wind, and no officer ordering him back. Those are three different gods."
Giuliano said, "Then the coffer stays."
Bertran answered, "Perhaps. But we need to decide before the street and water routes vanish."
Lucetta looked at the box.
The Shipmaster's Key might be inside. It might not. They had reached the object through records, weather, theft, custody, and patience. Now the city threatened to turn discovery into imprisonment.
Beatrice folded the inventory description and placed it beside Niccolò's freshly written witness instrument.
"We open it," she said.
Lucetta met her eyes.
"Not yet."