Chapter 4 Messer Corrados Proposal #4
That night Ravenna seemed full of departures.
The company bought provisions that would keep at sea: hard bread, onions, dried beans, smoked fish, a little cheese, wine watered for ordinary use.
Naldo argued with Pietro Bellan over rope quality until Pietro told him to steal better rope if he disliked the price.
Orsino wrapped his files in oiled cloth and constructed a padded case for the keys in his custody, then changed his mind and divided them again.
The Warden's Key returned to Lucetta only long enough for her to inspect the wrapping before Bertran insisted it remain with Orsino until they boarded.
The Treasurer's Key stayed hidden among Orsino's tools.
The Notary's Key remained against Bertran's body.
“Ships burn, sink and get searched,” he said. “Nothing important lives in one chest.”
The following day Pietro Ziani came ashore.
He was not the grand sea captain Lucetta had half imagined from the number of papers his world touched.
He was a lean man near sixty, weather-browned, with grey in his beard and two fingers missing from his left hand above the first joint.
He walked with a sailor's balanced impatience, as though floors that did not move were a minor defect of architecture.
Adelasia met him in Bellandi's warehouse court.
For three breaths they looked at one another.
Then Ziani said, “Paolo still owes me for a barrel of Greek pitch.”
Adelasia answered, “Paolo has been dead seven years. Present the claim to God.”
“I did. The priest wanted a fee.”
“Then Heaven has adopted commercial practice.”
Only after that did they embrace briefly.
Ziani listened to the name Santa Marta without visible surprise. “There were three vessels called that in the northern Adriatic within ten years, and another with a name close enough that clerks wrote whichever saint they preferred. Which master?”
“We do not know.”
“Which year?”
Lucetta gave it.
“Better. Which partnership?”
Corrado's abstract named the shares imperfectly.
Ziani frowned, asked for three names, rejected one spelling, and finally said, “I knew the vessel.
Not well. Rounder-bodied than a galley, mostly cargo, though armed enough not to invite every pirate with a boat.
She ran salt, timber, cloth, sometimes pilgrims when merchants discovered pilgrims pay for space otherwise wasted.
Her master for part of that period was Andrea Miani.
Later a Dalmatian took her. If your casket went aboard under Miani, there may be records in a warehouse south of Cervia or with his widow's kin. If under the later master, your road crosses water farther east.”
“Can you tell which from the date?” Lucetta asked.
“Within a year, perhaps. Not from memory I am willing to swear upon. Bring me the abstract aboard and I will think with the sea under my feet. My memory behaves better there.”
Bertran asked about Stella Maris.
Ziani's expression became professional. “Sound enough. Master is cautious, which merchants call slow until a storm. Crew twelve. Cargo not dangerous unless cloth learns to bite. Two horses can be carried comfortably, four badly, more foolishly. If you insist on taking every animal, take the road instead.”
Bertran looked at the company. “Two horses.”
Ysoria said, “One should be mine.”
“Yes.”
“And the other?”
“Pack animal until we need it.”
Lucetta said, “You are not taking your horse?”
“I can buy another horse more easily than I can buy Ysoria another week of distance if we must send a message.”
It was a small sacrifice, but Lucetta knew what his current horse meant: an animal chosen after the Alpine journey, trained to his hands, tested in bad ground. He saw her notice. “Do not make a funeral of it. I am not killing him. Bellandi can stable him.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“Perhaps I was about to praise your sensible arithmetic.”
“Then I am glad I stopped you before illness took hold.”
Ziani looked between them, then at Adelasia. “Are they always like this?”
“Worse when frightened.”
Lucetta turned back to the documents before the warmth in her face became visible.
Departure was set for the following morning on the falling turn of tide and wind that Ziani judged favorable.
They would transfer by smaller boat to Stella Maris where she lay beyond the shallower approach.
Corrado's man Niccolo arrived before dusk, carrying a copy of the agreement and enough merchant humility to know that everyone disliked him on principle.
Beatrice sent word that she would leave by road at dawn.
Agnese sent no blessing, only a warning that if anyone found Roncaglia property and failed to inventory it, she would outlive them out of spite.
Lucetta slept little.
Before sunrise she stood in Bellandi's yard with her travelling chest closed and corded.
The city around them had not yet fully awakened.
A cart creaked somewhere beyond the wall.
Bells marked the hour through damp air. Naldo was already at the canal steps, arguing cheerfully with a boatman.
Orsino checked the wrapping around his tool case for the third time.
Odelin muttered a prayer over his luggage and then over Naldo, perhaps judging the latter more likely to leak.
Ysoria tightened her saddle girth. Adelasia counted purses. Bertran counted people.
Lucetta put one hand against the document case beneath her cloak.
Before Rovigo, her life had been ordered by rooms: her father's table, a client's chest, a notary's shelf, the distance between one bundle and another.
Now papers did not end questions. They opened roads.
A line about a shipmaster had drawn them from inland rain toward Ravenna.
A widow's receipt had turned inheritance into custody.
A ledger had moved the casket to the coast. Corrado's abstract had put a ship beneath their feet before they had even seen it.
Bertran came beside her. “You are counting papers.”
“People?”
“Already counted.”
“Keys?”
“Also.”
“Enemies?”
He looked toward the pale eastern sky. “Not enough information.”
“That has never stopped anyone else.”
“No. That is why they make bad counts.” He took her travelling chest from the ground before she could object. “Come. If Ziani leaves without us, Corrado will become unbearable.”
“More unbearable.”
“True.”
They walked toward the water.
Behind them, Ravenna kept its mosaics, its merchant quarrels, its widow-controlled houses, its ledgers and lies.
Ahead lay the low coast, Cervia, a vanished receipt, the old trail of Santa Marta, and a sea road already being watched by men whose names they did not yet know.
The fourth key remained absent. But for the first time since Ferrara, the company knew not only whom it had passed through, but how it had left the land.