Chapter 12 Before the Gates Close
The first thing Bertran did was shut the side door.
He did not bar it. He merely closed it enough that the street could no longer see everyone standing in the counting room.
"No one moves farther into the building until the owner comes," he said. "No one goes outside alone. Ysoria, find out what the horn means. Do not cross the grain square if the watch is pushing people back. Naldo stays here."
Naldo said, "You have become repetitive."
"It is because you have become difficult to educate."
Ysoria had already reached the door. "If the gate is closing, I will know before I return. If it is only a warning, I will know that too."
"And if you cannot return?"
She looked at him as if the question offended her professional pride. "Then I will send someone who can."
She slipped into the lane.
Lucetta listened to the confusion outside and forced herself to look back at the room.
The temptation to follow the noise was strong precisely because the noise was frightening.
Yet the thing they had crossed coast and storm to find stood somewhere behind these walls—or had once stood there—and panic would not make documents clearer.
The counting room itself offered clues. Shelves held current account books.
A rack near the inner door carried keys on wooden tags.
The floor had been repaired in two different woods.
A painted mark on one beam had been scraped away and replaced by another.
Nothing in it proved a connection to Varesi.
Everything in it proved only that commercial buildings survived by changing owners while pretending they had always belonged to the present one.
The inner door opened.
A broad man in his fifties entered with the young clerk behind him. He wore a good wool tunic, ink stains on two fingers, and an expression of controlled displeasure.
"I am Giuliano Trevisan. My clerk says you have come asking about men dead before his grandfather learned to count.
He also says you brought a monk, a lady, a soldier, a smith, a crippled sailor, and a clerk from another merchant house.
I hope you understand why this description did not reassure me. "
Adelasia bowed her head slightly. "Master Giuliano, it would not reassure me either.
I am Adelasia Roncaglia. This is Mistress Lucetta Verani, Brother Odelin, Master Orsino Malvezzi, Ser Bertran Albaric, Naldo Petric, Brother Paolo of the hospital house, and Niccolò, representative under agreement for Messer Corrado Salviati.
We seek information concerning an old sea coffer entrusted through Pietro Varesi and later connected to Matteo Belluno.
We believe this property was once known as the Belluno house. "
Giuliano's displeasure became caution.
"It was."
"And before Belluno?"
"Varesi interests held part of it. That is in the property books. If you have been to the clerk, you know as much as I do."
Lucetta said, "We know that a coffer was received from the Varesi house into d'Orsenna custody, unopened for want of proper warrant, and later moved among goods associated with Belluno.
We know Belluno appears in a hospital instrument concerning the shipmasters' steps.
We do not know whether the coffer remained here, was transferred elsewhere, or disappeared generations ago. "
Giuliano looked at Beatrice's absent place in the room as if somehow sensing her name behind the statement. "D'Orsenna."
"Lady Beatrice d'Orsenna is in the city and has the authenticated inventory."
"Of course she is."
Adelasia said, "You know her?"
"I know the sort of letter her steward sends."
Niccolò murmured, "That may be the nearest thing to acquaintance in commerce."
Giuliano ignored him. "You will not search my warehouse because a noble widow has found a chest in an old inventory."
Lucetta answered, "We are not asking to search without your consent. We are asking whether your house records retain any reference to an old sea coffer, a deposit under warrant, or property held for Varesi or Belluno. If such a record exists, it may establish whether the object ever stood here."
"And if it did?"
"Then we determine what happened next."
"And if it still stands here?"
Lucetta took a breath. This was the point at which people often heard only the answer most likely to cost them property.
"Then no one should open or remove it until the claims are recorded and proper witnesses are present. We have no desire to make your house liable for surrendering another man's goods."
Giuliano's eyes narrowed. "Yet you desire the contents."
"We desire one possible object among the contents: an iron key connected to the Confraternity of Saint Aurelia. We do not claim that any silver, jewels, papers, or private deposits in the coffer belong to us. We do not even know that the key is there."
He looked toward Orsino. "And the smith?"
Orsino replied, "I identify locks. I do not eat them."
Giuliano stared.
Orsino sighed. "I am here because the object is described as iron-bound with two locks and a later repair. If there is such a coffer, I may be able to say whether the work fits the age and description. I will not open it unless the lawful custodian permits it and witnesses are present."
Brother Paolo said quickly, "I can witness that undertaking."
Naldo whispered, "There, Brother. Not adventurous at all."
Brother Paolo gave him a wounded look.
The noise outside rose. A bell rang again, nearer this time. Someone shouted from the quay that the western gate had closed.
Giuliano turned toward the sound.
Bertran said, "Master Giuliano, if trouble reaches the harbor, your best protection is knowing whether strangers are seeking something in this building.
We were followed here. If you refuse us, that is your right.
But I would advise you to inspect your doors, your yard, and the water entrance before you decide the matter is only ours. "
Giuliano looked back at him. "You threaten me?"
"No. A threat says what I will do to you. I am telling you what another man might do while we stand discussing old paper."
That distinction landed.
Giuliano sent the clerk to check the rear yard and called another servant from the warehouse. Then he faced Lucetta again.
"There are old account books in the upper room.
My father kept them because he believed throwing away paper invited lawsuits from the dead.
I have cursed him for it since inheriting the house.
You may look at the indexes and bundles that concern the property before my family's purchase.
You do not open sealed private packets. You do not carry anything out.
Brother Paolo witnesses. If your noble widow arrives, she may wait until I decide I have patience for another claimant. "
Adelasia said, "Reasonable."
Giuliano gave her a flat look. "Do not reward me."
The upper room was hotter than the counting room and smelled of dust, old leather, mouse droppings, and dry ink.
It contained six chests of books, bundles stacked on shelves, and loose account leaves tied by year.
Lucetta would once have found such disorder intolerable.
Years of expeditionary searching had taught her gratitude for anything not actively burning.
She divided the work.
"Odelin, anything marked hospital, church, deposit, testament, or custody. Adelasia, names and partnerships. Niccolò, creditor instruments involving Belluno or Varesi. Orsino, descriptions of boxes, locks, repairs, storage charges. Brother Paolo watches us all and later testifies that we behaved."
Brother Paolo said, "I appreciate having my role defined without peril."
"Bertran?" Lucetta asked.
"I watch doors."
"You always choose the exciting part."
"You have never watched a door when armed men wanted to use it."
Naldo had been carried upstairs in the handcart by two warehouse boys despite Bertran's objections. He sat near the window, where he could see the lower water door and part of the quay.
"And me?"
Lucetta handed him a bundle of porter tallies. "You tell us whether any mark means something a clerk would not know."
His grin returned.
For nearly an hour the city outside threatened them without interrupting.
Bells sounded and stopped. Hooves clattered along the lane.
Once a troop of watchmen passed beneath the window at a run.
The warehouse servants whispered that armed followers of an inland lord had gathered outside the western wall after a convoy dispute.
Another version said the town had seized horses belonging to a noble household.
A third said raiders were coming from the north.
Bertran listened to none of the causes. He cared about movements: which gates, which streets, how many armed men, whether the harbor remained open.
Lucetta found nothing for thirty minutes and then three things in ten.
The first was a storage account from twenty-eight years earlier charging no rent for "one sealed sea chest held under Belluno obligation," because the storage cost was offset against freight services owed to the house.
The second was a later notation beside the same account: "Warrant not produced. Remove to rear stone room after damp."
The third was a marginal mark shaped like two joined triangles with a short cross between them.
She called Orsino.
He bent over the mark.
"Not a lock mark. Could be a warehouse sign. Could be the clerk's private notation."
Adelasia joined them. "The account is under Belluno, but the page heading is Varesi settlements."
Niccolò said, "Then Corrado's creditors may argue it belonged among Varesi commercial assets."
Adelasia did not look at him. "Corrado's creditors may argue that rain belongs to them if it falls on a debtor's roof."
"They would first establish whether the roof was pledged."
Lucetta raised a hand. "Later. Rear stone room. After damp. Is there such a room?"
Giuliano had come upstairs unnoticed. He answered from the doorway.
"There was."
Everyone turned.
"Was?" Lucetta asked.