Chapter 14 The Closing Harbor
The alley behind Giuliano Trevisan's warehouse was too narrow for a horse and too crowded for fear to move cleanly through it.
Porters abandoned handcarts against walls.
A woman with two children dragged them toward an arched passage while a watchman shouted that the passage was closed.
Somewhere beyond the roofs, men answered one horn with another.
Smoke had begun to rise from the direction of the western gate, not yet a great fire, only a dirty plume that could have come from a cart, a shed, or a house unlucky enough to stand where armed men had discovered torches.
Bertran looked once to the right, once to the left, and chose left.
"Not the market," he said. "Too many people. We take the cooper's lane to the fish quay, then cut behind customs."
Giuliano caught his arm. "My house."
Bertran turned.
The merchant's face had gone gray with divided loyalties. His old coffer, his servants, his ledgers, his warehouse, and whatever claim he had just inherited by discovering danger beneath his own floor all pulled him backward. Yet the lane behind them carried the first hard footfalls of pursuit.
"Go back by another street if you must," Bertran said. "Do not use the door we left. Send for the watch. Say armed men broke lawful custody under witnesses. Brother Paolo can support you."
Brother Paolo nodded. "I will go with him. The hospital house has men the watch knows, and I have seen enough of this coffer to swear what was done."
Lucetta looked at him. "The instrument—"
Niccolò tapped the document case beneath his coat. "With me."
Beatrice said, "I have my copy of the earlier inventory."
"Then Giuliano and Brother Paolo can testify to what remains," Lucetta said. "Do not open the coffer again unless authority requires it and witnesses are present."
Giuliano gave her a look of exhausted disbelief. "Mistress Verani, if I survive this day, I shall spend the next month deciding whether I am grateful to you or whether I wish never to hear your name again."
Adelasia answered, "Those feelings are not incompatible."
A man appeared at the mouth of the alley behind them.
Bertran saw him before Lucetta did. He shoved Giuliano toward Brother Paolo and drew his sword, not advancing, only making the width of the lane suddenly costly.
He was not a watchman. He wore no livery Lucetta recognized, only a leather jack beneath a travel-stained coat and a sword at his hip. A second man appeared behind him, then a third.
"Go," Bertran said.
They went.
Ysoria had one arm beneath Naldo's. He used the staff in his other hand and placed his injured foot with careful brutality. Every third step twisted his mouth.
"We split," Ysoria said. "He cannot keep this pace."
Naldo swore.
Lucetta looked back.
Bertran had retreated from the alley mouth without striking. That was the important thing: he had made pursuit hesitate, then used the hesitation. He came after them now, sword still drawn.
"Fish quay," he said. "There are two men behind us. Perhaps more."
"Ysoria says we split," Lucetta answered.
Bertran looked at Naldo's foot, then at the streets ahead. "Yes."
Ysoria said, "The hospital route?"
Naldo shook his head violently. "The key."
Lucetta remembered with a jolt that Key IV lay in Ysoria's courier belt.
Bertran remembered too.
For half a heartbeat all their careful division of custody had become a new problem.
"Give it to Lucetta," he said.
Ysoria did not argue. She pulled the wrapped iron from beneath her belt and placed it in Lucetta's hand. Lucetta felt its rough weight through cloth. The fourth key was heavier than a piece of evidence should have been.
She tucked it inside a second inner pouch beneath her bodice and tied the cord twice.
Naldo watched. "Now we may be discarded."
Ysoria struck his shoulder with the flat of her hand. "Say that again and I will make your injury symmetrical."
Even Bertran's mouth moved.
He pointed toward a lane rising away from the water. "You two take that. Reach the hospital house or the church square. Do not return to the harbor unless the road is clear."
Naldo looked at Ziani's deckhand, who had remained with them since the warehouse. "Tell the captain I am not dead. He will complain if someone else has to coil my lines."
The deckhand said, "He will complain if you are dead because death is no excuse for leaving work unfinished."
"Good. Then he remains himself."
Ysoria pulled Naldo away before pride could reopen the argument.
Lucetta watched them disappear uphill, and for the first time that day the company ceased to be one body. It frightened her more than the armed men behind them.
Bertran touched her elbow. "Move."
Stella Maris was no longer at her berth.
Ziani's deckhand pointed. "There."
Between them and the vessel stood a customs barrier.
Not the same customs house that had delayed them earlier, but a harbor checkpoint where officers were stopping anyone carrying chests, bundles, or goods toward departing ships. Under ordinary conditions it would have been irritating. Under present conditions it was a wall made of law.
Beatrice said, "We cannot wait in that line."
Niccolò answered, "If we evade it while carrying disputed documents and a key removed from a warehouse, we shall turn every later accusation into a gift."
"If we stand here until the boom closes, every later accusation may be delivered to us in prison."
Adelasia looked at the queue. "Half those people have no papers. The delay is not examination; it is confusion."
Lucetta studied the officers. One sat behind a table, writing names.
Another inspected bundles. Two watchmen controlled the entrance.
A third officer shouted at a grain merchant who insisted his cart had already paid dues.
The city was trying to prevent theft and flight while simultaneously preparing for attack.
That made the procedure harsher and less precise.
"We go through," Lucetta said.
Bertran looked at her.
"Not around. Through. Niccolò has the witness instrument. Beatrice has the older authenticated copy. Brother Odelin has ecclesiastical standing. We are carrying papers, not taxable cargo. The key is personal custody under dispute, not merchandise."
Beatrice's brows rose. "You have become fond of procedure again."
"I am fond of doors that can be made to open without swords."
They joined the line.
Behind them, a shout came from the cooper's lane.
Bertran did not turn. "Two men. Same ones."
Lucetta's pulse hammered. "Will they attack here?"
"Not unless they are fools."
"Are they?"
"Not so far."
The line moved one person.
Orsino muttered, "I could open the barrier faster than this."
"Do not," four people said at once.
He looked offended.
When they reached the table, the customs officer held out his hand without looking up. "Names. Ship. Goods."
Ziani's deckhand gave the ship. Niccolò began the names.
The officer looked up at Beatrice and became more attentive. Rank did not abolish procedure, but it changed the speed with which a clerk feared making a foolish decision.
"Purpose of departure?"
"To leave before your harbor is closed," Beatrice said.
Lucetta stepped in before the answer became an argument. "We arrived lawfully aboard Stella Maris. We have concluded an inquiry into property held in this port. We carry personal baggage, documents, and one iron key under witnessed emergency custody. No merchandise."
The officer's eyes sharpened at "property."
"What property?"
Niccolò produced the fresh instrument.
The officer read the first lines, then the custody clause. His gaze moved to Lucetta. "Where is the key?"
"On my person."
"Show it."
Bertran shifted almost invisibly.
Lucetta said, "I will show it to you under witness, but I will not surrender it unless you produce an order establishing authority over the disputed custody described there."
The officer looked astonished that an unmarried woman in travel-stained clothes had answered him in the language of authority rather than obedience.
"Mistress, I can detain whatever leaves this harbor while the watch determines whether it is stolen."
"You can detain us if your office possesses that power under the present emergency.
I do not dispute it because I do not know your order.
But the instrument names the current warehouse custodian, a noble claimant, a creditor's representative, a hospital witness, and the purpose of removal.
If you take the key without recording that chain, you become the next custodian in the dispute.
I do not think your captain wants that burden added to a closing harbor. "
The officer read Niccolò's instrument again.
Beatrice said, with flawless calm, "My name is there.
I assert a hereditary claim to property associated with the coffer, but I consented to the key's temporary custody for the stated purpose.
If your office means to supersede that custody, write your name beneath mine and give me a copy before sunset. "
Niccolò added, "I represent interests of Messer Corrado Salviati under a written cooperation agreement. He will also require notice of any seizure."
The officer's expression changed in the way Adelasia had taught Lucetta to recognize: not fear, exactly, but the sudden discovery that a small decision might create correspondence.
Odelin completed the pressure gently. "A charitable house has witnessed part of the chain. There may be ecclesiastical interests among the associated documents. I do not say that to challenge your authority, master, only so that no one later says you were not told."
The officer looked from one face to another.
Behind them the pursuing men had entered the quay but stopped when they saw the checkpoint.
Lucetta could feel Bertran counting distance.
The officer thrust the instrument back at Niccolò. "Show me the key. I do not take it."