Chapter 13 The Shipmasters Strongbox
Orsino did not touch the keyway at once.
He crouched before the coffer with his head bent, one broad hand braced on his knee, and studied the iron as if a careless glance might alter it.
Outside the lower room, the harbor groaned with the labor of men hauling at the boom chains.
Every few moments a bell struck from the wall, answered by a horn farther inland.
Dust trembled from the arch above them when carts rattled across the quay.
Yet inside the stone chamber no one spoke until Orsino raised one finger without looking up.
"If any man tells me again that a lock is merely a hole into which a key is put, I shall make him sleep with a chest under his head until he learns better," he said.
"This plate is older than the repaired hasp, but the left rivet has been reset.
The right lock has been opened more often than the left.
See the polish at the mouth? That comes from iron passing there, not from a thief's pick.
The left keyway carries a burr on its lower edge.
Someone tried a key that did not belong, perhaps years ago, and twisted hard enough to wound the plate without springing the wards.
If we force either side now, we may learn nothing except how expensive impatience can be.
Give me light, a thin wire, and the smallest hammer in my bag.
And if the city falls while I work, have the courtesy to tell the soldiers that I objected to the timing. "
Naldo, seated on an overturned basket with his injured foot stretched before him, gave a breath that might have been a laugh. "I shall stand at the stair and explain that Master Orsino has not yet consented to conquest."
"You shall sit where you are and keep that foot from becoming twice its present size."
"Then conquest must arrange itself."
Bertran stood at the broken water-door passage with Ysoria, listening to the warehouse rather than the room. "How long?" he asked.
Orsino looked over his shoulder with deliberate outrage.
Bertran lifted both hands. "I withdraw the question. Tell me instead whether the coffer can be moved if we must leave before you finish."
"Yes, if four men carry it and none decides that oak is lighter because he is frightened.
No, if you drop it down the quay stair. No, if you put it in a cart and let the wheels strike every stone between here and the gate.
Perhaps, if we wrap the iron and lash it properly.
But if you move it before I know how the lock sits, and something inside shifts against a spring or catches under the lid, you may turn a closed box into a sealed tomb for its own contents. "
Bertran nodded as though Orsino had given him the most welcome answer in the world. It was not welcome; it was simply usable.
Niccolò had spread his writing board on a barrel.
Brother Paolo stood beside him, his hands folded beneath his sleeves.
Beatrice remained nearest the coffer after Orsino, though she kept the distance they had agreed.
Giuliano Trevisan had posted two household men at the upper stair and another by the quay entrance.
Adelasia moved between them all with the cold purpose of a merchant trying to save a cargo while every owner shouted a different valuation.
Lucetta knelt by Niccolò and read back the witness instrument from the beginning.
The description of the coffer was exact.
The names of those present were exact. The account references that tied the coffer to Belluno obligations and Varesi settlements were exact.
Beatrice's authenticated inventory copy was described, not absorbed into the instrument as if its claim were settled.
Brother Paolo's testimony from the hospital house was stated as testimony.
Giuliano's custody was stated as custody.
Corrado's interests were represented through Niccolò without being treated as title.
It was cumbersome. That was why it mattered.
"Add the condition of the repaired hasp," Lucetta said. "Not merely that the metal is newer. Say that Master Orsino Malvezzi, locksmith of Ferrara, identifies a replacement hasp fixed with rivets of different workmanship from the original straps, and that he has not yet opened either lock."
Beatrice said, "And add that my copy describes the same repaired hasp. Otherwise we create the appearance that the resemblance was noticed only after the coffer stood before us."
Niccolò glanced between them. "If I write every condition each of you fears someone may dispute, the harbor will reopen before I finish."
"Then write quickly," Beatrice said.
"Lady Beatrice, you have discovered the same method of encouraging clerks that soldiers use upon craftsmen."
"If you prefer, I shall praise your hand while the gates close."
He bent over the board again. "I prefer abuse that is concise."
Lucetta might have smiled if the sound from outside had not changed. The bells continued, but beneath them came a distant burst of shouting, too many voices together to be ordinary harbor work. Bertran turned his head. Ysoria went up the stair without waiting to be told.
Orsino inserted the thin wire.
His face altered almost imperceptibly. The room narrowed around the movement of his fingers.
Lucetta watched him because there was nothing else she could do.
She knew the shape of the Shipmaster's Key from fragments: a practical iron key, corroded by salt, associated with maritime custody, probably older than the coffer in which it had later been hidden.
She knew how Saint Aurelia officers had divided access so that no one man could open the great chest alone.
She knew how many lies had accumulated around those simple facts.
Yet the truth before her was not an argument.
It was the minute resistance of metal beneath a craftsman's hand.
Orsino withdrew the wire and held it toward the lamp. "Dust. Old grease. Nothing broken loose. The right lock is sound enough."
Giuliano said, "Can you open it?"
"A lock can be opened by its key, by knowledge, by force, or by destruction. Those are not the same answer. I can probably defeat this one without ruining it, given time. I would rather find its key."
"There is no key."
"There is always a key until someone proves it lost."
Giuliano stared at him. "My father kept the warehouse keys on one ring. I have them. None fits this."
Orsino sat back on his heels. "Then your father did not own this coffer. That conclusion seems to trouble everyone except the iron."
Adelasia said, "What about the room? If Varesi or Belluno stored the coffer under obligation, the key might have been kept separately. Warehouse chests are often entered in accounts apart from the keys that govern them."
Lucetta looked at the old Belluno settlement entries spread beside Niccolò. "There was a line we dismissed as household expense. 'Two small irons delivered to the upper clerk after settlement.'"
Beatrice's gaze sharpened. "You think 'irons' meant keys?"
"I think it might. The entry was too small to be tools and too vague to be hardware for a ship. But if the clerk received keys separately after a transfer—"
Giuliano interrupted. "The upper clerk's room was rebuilt before I was born."
"Where did its contents go?" Adelasia asked.
"Into whatever room my grandfather found empty. This house has been repaired after two fires and one roof fall. Do you imagine we possess an inventory of every rusted nail?"
"No," Adelasia said. "I imagine your family possesses exactly the sort of forgotten box that every merchant family swears does not exist until a dispute requires it."
Giuliano's mouth tightened.
Lucetta knew that expression. It was the look of a man remembering something he did not wish to remember in front of rivals.
"What?" she asked.
"There is a clerk's cupboard upstairs. Old ledgers, broken seals, dead account weights, keys without labels. My father forbade the servants to throw them away because one year a useless key proved to belong to a warehouse we still owed rent upon. After that he kept everything."
Orsino rose so quickly his knee cracked. "At last, a sensible dead man."
Giuliano called for a servant.
Bertran stopped him. "Not alone. If there is someone still inside the warehouse, we do not send boys searching rooms."
He took one of Giuliano's men and went upstairs with him. Naldo protested when Ysoria returned and told him to remain seated. She ignored the protest, crouched beside his bandaged foot, and checked the wrapping with the severity of a courier inspecting a damaged girth.
"You can complain after you walk without leaning," she said.
"I can complain while doing both. It is a skill."
"Then use it quietly."
The servant came back with Bertran carrying a small wooden tray blackened by age.
A dozen keys lay in it, together with seal matrices, iron tags, a bent weight, three bits of chain, and a spoon with no handle.
Orsino's eyes brightened in a way Lucetta had seen only when presented with something other people considered rubbish.
"Put it down. No one touches anything."
Giuliano said, "They are my keys."
"Then you may enjoy owning them while I determine whether one is useful."
He sorted by size first, then by shaft, then by the geometry of the bits. Four were plainly door keys. Two belonged to small boxes. One was nearly eaten through with rust. Another carried a square bow and a long narrow bit that made Orsino pause.
He held it beside the right lock without inserting it.
"Old enough," he murmured. "Workmanship not from the same hand as the coffer. That means nothing. Keys are lost and replaced."
Lucetta felt everyone lean inward without moving.
Orsino inserted the key a finger's depth. Stopped. Withdrew it. Rubbed a trace of dark grease from the shaft.
"This one has entered before."
Giuliano whispered, "Then open it."
"You have learned nothing in the last hour."