Chapter 4 Messer Corrados Proposal #2
They left Orsino, Odelin, Naldo and Ysoria at the store with the claimants, which satisfied no one and therefore was probably the fairest arrangement possible.
Lucetta, Adelasia and Bertran took the north road on three horses.
The old causeway rose slightly above the wet ground, lined at intervals by willow and broken stone.
The chapel of San Vitale proved to be a small roadside building with a faded painted saint above the door, a priest's garden behind it and no settlement close enough to conceal many men.
Bertran inspected the ground before allowing them to dismount.
When Bertran returned, Corrado gestured toward a stone bench. “I suggest we discuss this before every worker at Bellan's store learns that Saint Aurelia has become valuable again.”
Adelasia sat. “It became valuable to your house before today. We found your initials in the receiving ledger.”
“Then you found what I expected you to find.”
Lucetta felt anger rise. “You knew.”
“I knew that a Salviati factor paid carriage charges on a sealed casket many years ago. I did not know which surviving Bellan book contained the notation because our corresponding receipt vanished from our archive before I was born. If I had possessed the destination, Mistress Verani, I would not have spent money following you to learn it.”
“You followed us.”
“Of course. You have three keys my employers believe bear upon assets against which old debts may still stand, you have demonstrated a remarkable talent for turning obscure records into roads, and you have repeatedly declined to provide a full inventory of what you possess. It would be negligence not to follow you.” His tone remained almost conversational.
“You have followed my factors when it served you. Let us not waste a useful afternoon pretending observation is an insult reserved to one side.”
Bertran leaned against the porch post. “The men asking at Bellan's store this morning?”
“One was mine. One was not.”
“Which?”
“The man at the tavern across the canal was mine. The rider who carried a message east was not.”
“You expect us to trust that.”
“No. I expect you to verify it. My man is called Dario Vezzi, has a scar across the left knuckle, and will tell you I instructed him to observe who entered and whether any sealed object left. If your courier catches the eastbound rider, I would be interested to learn whose coin he carries.” Corrado folded his gloves together.
“This is the reason I asked to speak. There is now at least one party following the casket who is not you, not me, and not any Roncaglia branch I can identify.”
Lucetta thought of Beatrice's factor in Rimini. “A man claiming to represent creditors asked after Orsenna pledges.”
Corrado's brows lifted only slightly. “Not mine.”
“You represent creditors.”
“Yes. That is why the disguise is useful.”
Adelasia said, “Or why your denial is easy.”
Corrado inclined his head. “Exactly. Which is why I brought something more useful than denial.”
His servant produced a narrow wallet. Corrado withdrew a copy, not an original, and held it where Lucetta could see without yet taking it.
“This is an abstract from a Salviati partnership account made eleven years ago during litigation over eastern freight. It records a payment by our former factor Carlo Spini—there are your C.S. initials if you prefer a less flattering answer—to move a sealed casket from the Bellan salt store to a coastal warehouse at Cervia, there to await transfer aboard a vessel controlled by a merchant partnership with business in Ancona and Zara. The instruction did not originate with Salviati. We paid because Saint Aurelia owed money under a supply advance and because holding the object as security was considered preferable to letting it vanish.”
Lucetta stared at the abstract. “Carlo Spini.”
“Dead eighteen years.”
“So the initials are not yours.”
“They are mine only by the generosity of coincidence.”
Adelasia took the sheet and read. “Why did you not show us this before?”
“Because until you found the Bellan entry I could not establish that our old abstract concerned the same casket.
My archive contains enough references to sealed chests, pledged boxes and eastern freight to build ten false trails.
Unlike some claimants, I prefer not to spend money proving that every iron object in Romagna contains Saint Aurelia's secrets.”
Lucetta heard the rebuke and could not say it was entirely undeserved. “The vessel?”
“Named Santa Marta in the abstract.”
The name from the rain-stained packet they had opened in Ferrara returned with sudden force: Santa Marta, or Santa Marita, cramped by a careless scribe. Lucetta looked at Adelasia. Adelasia had already recognized it.
Corrado saw the exchange. “You have the name elsewhere.”
Lucetta did not answer.
He smiled faintly. “Good. Then we are no longer discussing whether the trail is real.”
Adelasia handed the abstract back. “Where did Santa Marta go?”
“Along the coast, frequently. Ancona, Zara, sometimes Venice, sometimes farther south. The abstract says only that the casket was delivered to the vessel's master under seal and that a receipt was expected. The expected receipt is among the missing papers.”
“Who owned the vessel?”
“A partnership whose shares changed twice in five years. One share belonged to a Ziani-connected house. Another to merchants now represented through my employers. A third passed by marriage. If you wish for a simple answer, I cannot give one without lying.”
Lucetta said, “Pietro Ziani.”
Corrado's eyes narrowed. “You know him?”
“Only the name.” She did not, not really. She had seen it in notes collected from Adriatic contacts, a shipmaster or master mariner used by several Venetian-connected houses, still active enough to be reachable. “Can he identify the older vessel?”
“Perhaps. He is not young, but he knows families, masters and changes of ownership. More importantly, he can give passage south without requiring you to explain your business at every quay.”
There it was. Lucetta felt the proposal before he stated it.
Corrado rested his forearms on his knees. “I can arrange a meeting with Ziani and passage on a coastal vessel leaving within four days. In return, I want limited cooperation.”
Bertran's face became expressionless. “Define limited.”
“Precisely. We share information concerning the route of the Shipmaster's Key until the key is recovered or the trail fails.
We do not seize documents from one another.
We do not interfere with witnesses merely because the other side spoke to them first. If either side learns of an immediate threat from the unidentified pursuers, that threat is disclosed.
When the key is found, physical custody remains with Mistress Verani's company temporarily, provided an inventory of associated documents is made in the presence of my representative.”
Lucetta almost laughed from surprise. “You would let us hold the key.”
“I do not possess enough men to take three keys from Ser Albaric without bloodshed, and even if I did, I lack your cooperation to interpret half the papers attached to them. Theft would be expensive and stupid. I prefer contracts to stupidity.”
Adelasia leaned forward. “And after temporary custody?”
“Claims reserved. Nothing conceded.”
“Creditors?”
“Reserved.”
“Depositors such as Orsenna?”
“Reserved.”
“Charitable claims?”
“Reserved.”
“Roncaglia inheritance?”
“Reserved.”
“Then your agreement gives us a road and gives you a seat at the table.”
“Yes.”
“And if the key leads to the chest?”
Corrado's gaze did not move. “Then the agreement ends unless renewed.”
At least he did not hide the edge. Lucetta said, “You want us to lead you to the chest.”
“I want no one else to lead a rival there first.” He looked directly at her.
“Mistress Verani, I have said before that possession cannot be decided by whichever traveller reaches a locked chest first. I still believe that.
You believe, or perhaps once believed, that truth written clearly enough will compel men to behave justly.
You have learned better since Rovigo. We are both now standing in the less comfortable place between principle and enforcement.
I cannot make your three keys disappear without harming my own clients' claims. You cannot make my clients' paper claims disappear by riding faster. Cooperation is not friendship. It is recognition of facts.”
Lucetta disliked how accurately he spoke to the change in her. “You also know we do not have the chest location.”
“If I believed you did, I would have proposed different terms.”
Bertran said, “What are you not saying?”
Corrado looked at him. “Many things. Ask more narrowly.”
“Who else knows about Santa Marta?”
Corrado's pause was small but real. “At least one merchant house in Venice. Possibly descendants of the old partnership in Ancona. A church procurator who reviewed eastern claims nine years ago. And whoever stole the corresponding receipt from our archive.”
“Stole?”
“I believe it was stolen. You may prefer ‘went missing.’ Our archive was not burned. The packet did not rot. It was listed in one inventory and absent in the next. Two other Saint Aurelia papers disappeared with it.”
Adelasia's voice lowered. “When?”
“Nine years ago.”
“Who had access?”
“Partners, clerks, a procurator, two visiting auditors, servants, and any thief clever enough to enter a countinghouse. Before you ask, I have investigated. If I had solved it, I would not be mentioning it now.”
Lucetta thought of the repeated inquiries that had caused Tomaso and Rinaldo to move the casket decades earlier.
Someone had searched before Corrado's generation.
Someone had searched nine years ago. Someone searched now.
The trail of danger was not one man's obsession but recurring attempts to reach an object whose value different parties understood differently.
“What exactly do your clients think is in the chest?” she asked.