Chapter 4 Messer Corrados Proposal #3
Corrado folded his gloves again though they did not need folding.
“Original debt instruments. Pledged valuables.
Accounts of advances made to Saint Aurelia.
Possibly money. Possibly nothing recoverable.
My clients' interest is not a story of treasure. It is the difference between claims that can be enforced and claims that have spent forty years becoming family legend.”
“And the supply accounts?” Adelasia asked.
His gaze went to her. “Those interest you because of Paolo.”
“Yes.”
“I know his name appears. I do not know whether that harms or helps him.”
“You know more than that.”
“I know he asked questions about certain eastern deliveries before his death. I know one of my senior partners called him troublesome. I know troublesome men are sometimes honest and sometimes merely competing. If we recover the relevant accounts, I will not conceal his entries from you under this agreement.”
Adelasia's face did not soften. “Put that in writing.”
“I expected you to ask.”
The negotiation lasted nearly two hours.
It became the sort of dialogue Lucetta had once believed only notaries enjoyed and now understood could be as dangerous as an armed road.
Every word needed edges. “Share information” became “share information materially bearing upon the route, custody, or immediate danger concerning the Shipmaster's Key,” because Corrado would not disclose unrelated creditor intelligence.
“Do not interfere with witnesses” gained an exception for witnesses under household authority who refused access voluntarily.
“Documents” had to mean originals and unique copies, not every abstract a clerk produced.
Physical custody of Key IV, if recovered, would remain with Lucetta's company for thirty days or until arrival at a mutually agreed secure place, whichever came first, without prejudicing ownership.
No existing key would be surrendered. No party admitted the other's claim.
Corrado's representative could witness an inventory but not remove items. Information concerning threats had to be disclosed promptly if delay could cause bodily harm or loss of the key.
Adelasia demanded the clause concerning Paolo.
Bertran demanded that Corrado identify his men before any joint movement.
Lucetta demanded that any copy of Saint Aurelia documents be marked as copy and record its source, because she had already seen later generations treat abstracts as originals.
At one point Corrado sat back and said, “Mistress Verani, if you ever decide to practice as a procurator, half the men in Padua will pray for your marriage merely to remove you from business.”
“Then the other half may pay me better.”
Adelasia gave a satisfied nod.
Bertran contributed less often but cut deeper. “If your man sees Hugues Feraud?”
Corrado's expression changed for the first time in a way Lucetta could not immediately read. Recognition, certainly. Dislike, perhaps. “You have connected Feraud to this?”
“We have connected him to men who want the keys.”
“I have not employed him.”
“That was not the question.”
“I know of him. Former sergeant, takes private work, patient enough not to drink away instructions. He has worked for Proven?al interests and for men farther east. I do not know his present master.” Corrado held Bertran's gaze.
“If I see him, I tell you. If you see him, you tell me. That clause costs neither of us enough to dispute.”
Lucetta noted the word Proven?al but did not yet understand its importance. Many men worked for Proven?al interests. The Mediterranean was full of merchants and landholders whose money crossed farther than they did. She wrote the clause.
They drafted the agreement on paper Corrado's servant carried, then made two copies.
Odelin was not present to witness, so Corrado suggested the chapel priest. Bertran objected to involving a local priest in knowledge he did not need.
Adelasia solved it by having the priest witness only the signatures and seals without reading the commercial terms, a common enough arrangement.
Corrado sealed his copy. Adelasia signed for herself and as witness to Lucetta's mark of agreement, though Lucetta insisted upon writing her own name.
Bertran did not sign as claimant; he added a line acknowledging the security provisions and identifying Corrado's two riders by description once the merchant supplied their names.
When it was done, Corrado stood. “Now for the part you will dislike because it proves I intended to make myself useful before you agreed.”
Bertran's hand moved near his belt. “I already dislike it.”
“A coastal vessel called Stella Maris is taking cloth, timber fittings, and two merchants' consignments south from the Ravenna roadstead, then calling at Cervia before continuing.
Pietro Ziani is aboard as supercargo and adviser to the master.
He owes my partnership no loyalty, which is why I recommend him.
He does owe Adelasia a conversation, if Paolo's old letters mean what I think.”
Adelasia's eyes narrowed. “Paolo knew Ziani?”
“Enough to quarrel over freight twice and drink with him afterward once.”
“That sounds like Paolo.”
“The vessel leaves in four days if weather holds. I can reserve space for your people and animals only as far as Cervia without raising questions. After that, passage depends upon what you learn.”
Lucetta said, “Why animals?”
“Because Ser Albaric will refuse to place the entire company's movement in one hull without a way to leave at the next port.”
Bertran looked almost offended that Corrado had predicted him. “Correct.”
“And because I have no wish to strand you where my own man cannot follow.” Corrado smiled slightly. “We should continue being honest where honesty is cheap.”
They found the salt store outwardly unchanged. Carts still moved. Workers still shouted measures. Yet tension had tightened every face belonging to their party. Orsino met them at the door with the old lock plate in his hands.
Pietro followed, furious. “He removed it.”
“With permission,” Orsino said.
“With my grandmother's permission, which she gave through a messenger who does not own my door.”
“Your grandmother frightens you more than I do. That is why the permission worked.” Orsino turned the plate over for Lucetta.
“See here. Old mounting holes. And here, later filing. The alteration was made from inside. Whoever changed the bolt wanted the outside to remain the same. We knew that. Now we know the old key would still enter, turn partway, and fail. That is deliberate discouragement. A man comes with a key he believes opens the room, discovers it no longer does, and must decide whether to reveal himself by asking why.”
“Could the Saint Aurelia key have opened it?” Lucetta asked.
“No.” Orsino's answer was immediate. “Do not marry every lock to our iron because you want seven weddings. The size is wrong. The old key for this plate would be smaller. But the principle matters. These people lived among hidden custody and expected old holders to return.”
Odelin approached with Beatrice. “And we found something else.”
The missing receipt had not appeared. Instead the white-haired clerk remembered a place where obsolete private-account packets were sometimes sent when the Bellan store no longer needed them: a coastal warehouse at Cervia associated with the same partnership that handled sea carriage.
The memory was weak, but now Corrado's abstract independently pointed to Cervia.
The practical question became who would sail.
Stella Maris could not carry an unlimited expedition.
Bertran wanted the company together but insisted the three existing Saint Aurelia keys remain divided.
Orsino refused to leave his tools behind if they expected him to inspect a shipmaster's strongbox later.
Odelin argued that island and coastal religious houses might become essential if the sea route failed.
Naldo considered the question already answered by the existence of a ship.
Ysoria disliked being confined to a vessel because her value lay partly in independent movement, yet recognized that a coastal passage could outrun mounted couriers over poor roads.
Adelasia had to go because Pietro Ziani might speak more freely to someone connected to Paolo.
Lucetta could not be excluded from the records.
Bertran could not be excluded from the dangers. The result was everyone.
Beatrice surprised them by saying she would not board the same vessel immediately.
“If I sail with you, every Roncaglia claimant will say I joined your company and abandoned an independent claim. I will travel to Cervia by road with Gervais, inspect the warehouse rights through my own authority, and meet you there. That gives us two routes. If one is watched, the other may still move.”
Bertran looked at her with new respect. “Good.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I am relieved to have passed examination.”
“You passed when you asked about access instead of miles.”
“That almost sounds like praise.”
“Do not rely on it.”
Agnese's representative would return to Ravenna.
Giuliano would send a clerk toward Cervia but not join the voyage.
Corrado promised one factor aboard Stella Maris, a man named Niccolo Ferretti, whose task would be to witness and communicate, not command.
The agreement required him to identify himself openly.
Bertran made Corrado's servant describe Niccolo twice.
By late afternoon the formal inspection ended.
No casket had been found. No missing receipt had returned.
Yet the company left with more than they had brought: a ledger entry proving the casket had departed Bellan's store by sea carriage; Corrado's abstract pointing to Cervia and Santa Marta; a passage arrangement; and evidence that another party was moving information east at speed.