Chapter 13 The Shipmasters Strongbox #2
He tried again, slower. The key went home. Orsino turned it barely enough to test resistance, then stopped.
"Wards answer. Spring moves. But not freely."
Beatrice said, "Can it be cleaned?"
"A little oil. Patience. And silence, which is apparently the rarest substance in this city."
The left lock had no matching key in the tray.
That was worse and better. One lock could be opened without damage. The other still held its history.
Orsino worked the right key until a muted click sounded from within the oak. No one cheered. The noise was too small for triumph and too important for foolishness.
"Right lock open," Niccolò said, writing.
"Write that the key was found among old warehouse keys in the upper clerk's cupboard, produced by Master Giuliano in the presence of witnesses," Lucetta said. "And that Master Orsino opened only the right lock with it."
Niccolò's pen scratched.
Orsino turned to the left plate. "This one I can pick if its wards are ordinary. If they are damaged, I may have to remove the plate. Removing it would show later."
Beatrice answered before Giuliano could. "Pick it. Under witness. If you fail, we decide the next method."
Giuliano gave her a dark look but said nothing.
From above came the sound of running feet. Bertran's hand went to his sword, and Giuliano's men raised staves. A moment later Ysoria appeared at the stair with one of the warehouse boys behind her, white-faced and breathing hard.
"The north gate is shut," she said. "The western gate is admitting only militia and carts under order.
Men from two noble households are fighting near the market road.
The watch is clearing the quay lanes. They have not closed this basin yet, but the boom chain is more than halfway across the harbor mouth. "
Ziani's deckhand swore.
"Captain says?" Bertran asked.
"He sent the boy. Stella Maris is shifting to the outer side of the basin before they pack vessels against her. He will hold as long as he can without losing the ship. If the harbor master orders departure stopped, he cannot openly disobey while still inside the walls."
Bertran looked at Orsino. This time he did not ask how long.
Orsino gave him a thin smile. "You are learning."
He worked.
Lucetta forced herself to read the witness instrument again because staring at the lock would not open it.
The document had become a rope binding incompatible interests together long enough to keep them from tearing the coffer apart.
She understood, suddenly, that this was what Corrado had meant when he accused her of giving virtuous names to possession.
If they left with the Shipmaster's Key, assuming it lay inside, they would not be carrying an object that had become theirs by discovery.
They would be carrying disputed property under emergency custody. That distinction would matter later.
It mattered to her now.
"Beatrice," she said quietly.
The noblewoman turned.
"If the key is there, I intend to take it with the other three until the Saint Aurelia chest is found. I will not pretend that settles title."
Beatrice's eyes narrowed. "You choose an admirable moment to make a demand."
"I choose the moment before the object exists in our hands, because afterward every sentence will sound like justification.
Your family may have a claim to property in the coffer.
Corrado's creditors may have another. Giuliano may have rights of custody or lien.
The hospital may have an interest if any item was held in charitable trust. But the Saint Aurelia key cannot serve any purpose separated from the other keys except to become a prize.
If it is dispersed again, we begin the entire hunt anew. "
Beatrice regarded her for several breaths while the bells sounded outside.
"And when the chest is found?"
"Then every claimant hears the opening and inventory under witness."
"You say that as though you will have power to command it."
"No. I say it because I will refuse to help open the chest otherwise.
Orsino can refuse too. Brother Odelin can refuse to lend ecclesiastical legitimacy to concealment.
Corrado can bring his claims. You can bring yours.
But none of us should repeat what the confraternity did at its worst and make secrecy convenient to whoever happens to hold the door. "
Beatrice's expression shifted, not to agreement but to recognition. "You are very certain that refusal is a kind of power."
"For women who are denied other kinds, it often has to be."
Beatrice looked toward the coffer. "Do not imagine that sentence makes us sisters.
My birth protects me where yours does not.
My widowhood frees me in matters that would bind you.
My family name opens doors before you have finished explaining why you should be admitted.
I know the difference, Mistress Verani, and I will not insult you by pretending otherwise.
But perhaps that is precisely why I believe you when you say you will refuse.
A woman who has less authority learns early what she can withhold. "
Lucetta inclined her head. "Then you understand my offer."
"I understand that it is not an offer. It is a condition."
"Yes."
Beatrice almost smiled. "Good. I distrust generous offers made beside locked boxes.
If the Saint Aurelia key lies there, you may carry it under written acknowledgment that custody does not extinguish my claim or any other proven claim.
Niccolò will write it, Brother Paolo will witness it, and I will keep a copy. "
Niccolò looked up. "You give away my labor with noble ease."
"It is the privilege of rank."
"At last, one honest use of it."
A click came from the left lock.
Orsino froze.
Then he drew his pick out and sat back.
"Both locks open."
The room became still.
Even the harbor seemed, for one impossible heartbeat, to fall away.
Orsino did not lift the lid.
"Niccolò," Lucetta said.
"I have it. Both locks opened in the presence of those named. No plate removed. No hinge forced."
Brother Paolo stepped closer. "I witness it."
Giuliano swallowed. "Open."
Orsino slid his fingers beneath the lid, then paused. "It is heavy. Something catches at the rear. Not a lock. Hold the box."
Bertran came from the door and braced the coffer. Giuliano took the other side. Orsino lifted slowly. The iron hinges complained. A smell came out unlike any dramatic scent Lucetta might have imagined: old wood, dry leather, metal, dust, and the faint sour trace of damp long vanished.
Inside lay no heaps of coin.
There were bundles.
Three packets of parchment wrapped in stained cloth.
A narrow account book with a cracked leather cover.
Two waxed pouches. A small wooden case tied shut with cord.
A rosary with dark beads. A brass weight.
A broken seal matrix. Beneath them, partly hidden by a folded scrap of sailcloth, lay a long iron object mottled red-brown and black.
Orsino saw it first.
He did not reach for it.
Lucetta's breath stopped.
The bow was broad enough for two fingers. Salt had eaten pits into the stem. One side of the bit carried a stepped cut she recognized not from memory of the object—she had never seen it—but from Orsino's sketches made from descriptions.
Beatrice whispered, "Is that it?"
Orsino's voice lost all humor. "Do not call it anything yet."
Niccolò wrote the contents in order as they were exposed.
Lucetta dictated positions before anyone moved them.
The first parchment packet bore a merchant seal too damaged to identify immediately.
The second had been tied with cord and sealed at two points, both broken long ago.
The narrow account book contained shipping tallies.
The waxed pouches held small documents, not coin.
The wooden case contained two rings and a chain, all plainly personal property. None of it could yet be assigned.
Only after the upper layer had been recorded did Orsino lift the iron key.
He held it on his palm.
Water corrosion had roughened its surface, but the shape remained strong. Near the bow, almost lost under oxidation, was a punch mark.
Orsino took a cloth and rubbed without scraping. A tiny device emerged: not a saint, not a cross, not a mystic sign, but a workshop mark formed of three short strokes around a central point.
His eyes went to Lucetta.
"I have seen this family of work before."
She knew which key he meant without asking.
The Treasurer's Key had a different bow and heavier stem, yet when Orsino first examined it he had noted a related workshop practice in the way the shoulders were filed.
The Warden's Key had been repaired by another hand.
The Notary's Key bore a later notch. None matched exactly because none was meant to.
"Does that prove it?" Beatrice asked.
"No single mark proves a history of forty years," Orsino said.
"But the proportions fit the surviving lock descriptions.
The bit is of the right complexity. The age is right.
The corrosion is consistent with long exposure near salt air.
The workshop habit resembles one of the other confraternity keys.
And most importantly, this key was found in a coffer whose custody we traced from Marelli to Varesi through records made before any of us were born.
If this is false, someone forged not only iron but half a lifetime of inconvenient bookkeeping. "
Lucetta said, "Then write that conclusion exactly as a conclusion, not certainty beyond evidence."
Niccolò gave her a weary look. "I had expected treasure hunting to contain fewer distinctions."
"That is because ballads are composed by men who do not keep accounts."
Adelasia had opened the cracked shipping book to its first legible page. "Lucetta."
Something in her tone drew everyone except Bertran, who remained at the doorway.