The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction

A Fiery Death IAN MORSON

The conspirators slipped out of the house one by one. The moon was up, and it cast a silvery light across the canals of Venice. But the men leaving the house exited by the rear entrance, giving out on to a narrow alley between the house and the Church of San Giuliano. They dispersed silently into the night like fleeting shadows, some south towards the great Piazza San Marco, and some north towards the Rialto Bridge. The old man left behind in the big, damp house pulled his fur-trimmed cloak around him, and toiled up the stone staircase to the attic rooms at the top of the building. Here, he was furthest from the damp that crept inexorably up the walls of the old house from the basement, so the attic rooms were relatively dry. But it still felt cold, and the old man shivered, longing for the flames of a fire, and some heat. His bones ached terribly, and he longed for the warm sun of the East. Once, almost in another life, he had travelled to the ends of the Earth. But now his world was reduced to a few cold rooms in a crumbling palazzo squeezed between a church and a canal that bore the same names. In the Venetian dialect, they were both called San Zulian.

The old man had been born in the house, and had played in these very attic rooms as a child with his English mother. He sighed as he remembered her features — the dark hair hanging glossily around her pale face, and her blue-green eyes that he had inherited. His eyes were a little cloudier now, and his once red hair was less glossy. He tugged at his salt-and-pepper beard, wishing he could pull out the grey hairs and leave the burnished gold. He was approaching seventy. Disconsolately, he reached out for the Tartar bow that he had been fiddling with before the Tiepolo and Querini family members had arrived for their council of war. He had been trying to tension it, using the elastic properties of the horn and sinew strips fixed either side of the wooden core. But it had not been strung for more than thirty years, and he had been afraid the horn would crack if he tested it too far. He now dropped the bow on the floor, and pulled an arrow from the quiver at his side. It was a three-foot long arrow with a tip that had been plunged in salt water when red-hot, to render it armour-piercing. He twirled it in his fingers, and thought of the words that had been exchanged in the great hall below.

Francesco Tiepolo had lost his temper first.

“God damn Piero Gradenigo. He has got us all into this mess.”

Giovanni Querini had patted his arm to cool him off.

“Francesco, have patience. We will rid ourselves of this nuisance of a Doge, and consign him to Hell soon enough.”

The old man stroked his beard, and offered a wry comment from where he sat in the shadows.

“I think you will find the Pope has already ensured Doge Gradenigo will go there. Hasn’t he pronounced an excommunication and interdict on the whole of Venice?”

Francesco Tiepolo had been called on to lead the conspiracy against the Doge. But he was a poor stand-in for the main man, his cousin Bajamonte, who had not yet arrived from exile on the mainland. Francesco had a loud mouth and a fiery temper all the same.

“Shut up, Zuliani. This is a serious matter, and not a time for jests.”

Niccolo Zuliani, the old man in question, leaned back in his chair, and held his hands up in mock submission. The truth of the matter was that he agreed with Tiepolo. The papal interdict was very serious for trade. It had been invoked because Venice had tried to take control of Ferrara when Marquis Azzo had died two years earlier in 1308. The Pope was determined to prevent the takeover, and had declared all Venetian goods and possessions confiscate, all commercial treaties annulled, and all trade and traffic suspended. Anyone could grab Venetian goods and ships with impunity, and the Serene Republic’s enemies had done so with relish. Venice and its commercial lifelines were being stifled, and Zuliani stood to lose as much anyone. But, in his opinion, if you couldn’t see the funny side of a desperate situation, you might as well slit your own throat.

Still Tiepolo had ranted on, with Querini and one or two of the other once-rich merchants trying to pour oil on the waters to no effect. In disarray, they had all slipped away like ghosts, fearful of discovery. The heavy hand of the Signori di Notte — a bunch of nobles and their henchmen who ensured the safety of Venice’s six districts, but who chiefly worked for the benefit of the older-established families — were a sinister mob and to be avoided.

The old man dropped the arrow on the floor, and looked around him at the accumulation of years spent thousands of miles away from his family home. Hanging on a frame was a full suit of armour made of boiled leather. Its looming presence in the dark corner of the room struck fear into any visitor who had not seen it before, lurking like some monster on the edge of their vision. To the old man it was a comfortable friend, ageing along with him. He only hoped he would not get as mouldy as the leather was now. A large black stone lay on the rickety table. Sharp and angular, the old man had seen others like it being set fire to and burning with a fierce flame. He could not remember which part of Cathay he had got it from, and had always refrained from setting light to it himself. It was too precious a memento to him. However, now that the cold struck through him so, he was mightily tempted. Next to the rock on the table lay a large bound book. He had thumbed its pages regularly over the years, checking it against his view of the heavens. The Chinese almanack had always told the truth about the sky, and he marvelled at the magical, predictive skills of the sages who had written it. Thinking of the far distant place where he had acquired the tome, he rose from his chair, and hobbled over to the window.

He stared for an age at the dark, starry sky, wondering why he had embroiled himself in the plot to overthrow the Doge. He knew the conspiracy would fail, and that he would have to extricate himself somehow, even if, by doing so, he blew the whole plot. But as yet he didn’t know how. He sighed, and cast his gaze down to the canal. On the opposite bank he saw a figure standing boldly in the starlight staring back at him. It was the same slender youth whom he had seen the previous night and the night before. In fact, he had had the feeling the youth had been following him for days. He wondered if his part in the conspiracy was already known, and this youth was stalking him on behalf of the Signori di Notte. If so, his goose was cooked. Irritated, and not a little frightened, he called down to the figure on the canal-side.

“You, boy. Who are you? What are you up to?’

For a fleeting moment, the youth ignored his challenge. And then, only after he had shown he did not care whether Zuliani saw him or not, he pulled his cloak around him and slipped away into the darkness.

Zuliani spent a restless night, listening to the wind blowing a storm across the lagoon. He could hear the sea fret crashing against the quays along the edges of the man-made island that was Venice. He even fancied he could hear the creaking of the thousands of wooden posts that had been hammered into the mud banks to create the land on which his and hundreds of other houses stood. It was the very nature of the crazy enterprise that was Venice — a city built on pilings in mud flats in the middle of nowhere — that stirred his and other Venetians’ blood to madcap projects. But sometimes its precarious nature was driven home by foul weather. The chill air of an easterly wind blew through his sleeping chamber, and he could feel the salty spray on its gusts. He huddled beneath the warming lion skin that he had purchased in Kuiju. He had never seen the animal alive, but had grown fond of the skin and its gaping jaws. The head now lay somewhere round his feet, and the tail tickled his icy cheeks until he pushed it away.

The stormy weather would at least have driven the boy who stalked him back to his own home. Zuliani resolved to slip out early in the morning and take action to sever his connection with the plot to bring down the Doge. Why he had aligned himself with the Tiepolos and Querinis he was not sure. They were part of the case vecchie — the Venetian aristocracy, who had always done the likes of the lower class Zulianis down. On the other hand, their enemy, Gradenigo, had over the last few years effectively closed the doors of the Great Council to those whose fathers and other paternal ancestors had not been members in the past. It was a closed society that ran Venice, and Zuliani, the last of his family, stood outside it. So he had been flattered a few days earlier when Francesco Tiepolo, one of the old school, had called on him, ostensibly to view Zuliani’s collection of Eastern treasures. He had taken the overweight, red-faced Tiepolo up to his attic rooms, and brought out part of his collection. Tiepolo had at once picked up a heavy golden bar with swirling patterns on it, hefting it in his hand.

“What is this worth, Zuliani? It must weigh three hundred saggi at least.”

Niccolo smiled politely, seeing that the man only saw the surface value of the item he held.

“To those who possessed it, it was priceless. It was not just a bar of gold, it was a permit that gave the owner access to all corners of the Great Khan’s empire — and power over anyone in that empire. It is called a paizah, and the inscription reads ‘By the might of the Great God and the great grace he has given to our Emperor, blessed be the name of the Khan, and death and destruction to all who do not obey him.’”

Zuliani ran his fingers fondly over the curly writing.

“There were ones wrought in base-metal or silver, but the gold paizah carried the highest authority. It was given to me by Kubilai Khan himself.”

Tiepolo grunted, unimpressed by the old man’s story. He could only see the value of the gold. A Venetian saggio was about one sixth of an ounce, and that made the bar at least fifty ounces of gold. He laid the bar down reluctantly and peered at a pile of fancy clothes. Pushing aside a plain grey cloak of coarse material that lay atop the Chinese garb, his eyes once more lighted on the golden embroidery that covered the robes underneath.

“Who would wear those? The emperor?”

“Oh not these. They are the court dress of his Chinese subjects, and would be considered quite ordinary. That cloak is more interesting.”

Tiepolo listened politely as the old man explained the history of the cloak, though he hardly absorbed what he was being told. And then he even let Zuliani drone on about his collection a little more before broaching the subject of the conspiracy to overthrow the Doge. This was the subject he had really come here to discuss, because he knew that, if he could lure men like Zuliani into the plot, he could bring the ordinary cittadini — citizens, to his side. When he left, he fancied he had been completely successful, later even flattering Zuliani by holding one of his meetings in the man’s home.

Now Zuliani was left tossing in his bed thinking of a way of escaping the coils of the conspiracy. Restlessly, he rose from under the lion skin, and dragged his heavy fur-trimmed robe around him. The only thing to do was to go to the Doge and make it look as though he had only joined the plot in the first place to act as Gradenigo’s spy. Even so, such a betrayal stuck in his craw. Not that he had any worries about offending some sense of honour. God knows, he had served his own ends often enough in the past. No, he merely worried that Gradenigo and his cronies might only see him as untrustworthy in the future, and not give him the preferred status his betrayal should provide. He struck his brow with the flat of his hand, angered by his own indecision.

“Come on, Nick, boy, you would have not hesitated like this twenty years ago. Get it done, and worry about the consequences later.”

He quickly dressed, and descended the winding staircase down to his street door. He avoided the water door because he didn’t want his servant and boatman Vettor knowing of his purpose. Outside, the wind still howled, as he pulled his cloak close around him and hurried down the Calle Specchieri. At the far end of the narrow alley, he should have carried straight on but something told him to turn left. The Doge’s palace was straight ahead, but he again had the feeling he was being followed. It would be better if it was not known where he was bound. Walking swiftly on, he turned left again and crossed the bottom end of the Rio di San Zulian. He knew this maze like the back of his hand, and darted under the porch of a house almost opposite his own, but on the other side of the canal. Soon, a slight figure dashed past his hiding place, and he made a grab at the youth who had been dogging him for days. He shouted out in triumph.

“Got you, you little bastard.”

The boy tried to wriggle out of his grasp almost breaking away, but Zuliani was having none of it. He swung his arm around the lad’s chest, grabbing at his tunic. He was shocked to feel a soft bosom under his hand, and almost let his stalker go. But he had the presence of mind to hold on to an arm as the figure whirled round and slapped his face. Zuliani laughed out loud, as he looked into the soft face not of a youth but a pretty girl. She was furious at being manhandled.

“Keep your hands off my tits, you old lecher.”

“By all means, mistress. But I wonder if a grope is not what you wanted all along. After all, you have been following my every move so slavishly.”

The girl blushed, and pulled her cloak around her, hiding the immodesty of her boyish garb.

“Let me explain.”

“You wanted to know about what it was like to live in the East?”

He was seated opposite the girl in his attic room, and, though she had kept her cloak drawn around her, she had removed the sugarloaf hat she wore. Her hair had tumbled down, and Zuliani could now see it was blonde but with traces of red that turned it into gold. Her face had the roundness of a young girl — she could be no more than fifteen — but her angular cheek bones and aquiline nose told of a beauty emerging from a chrysalis. He found her looks disconcertingly familiar, but he put that down to his knowing her family well. She had given her name as Katie Valier, and Zuliani recalled an old adversary of his from that family. Pasquale Valier had been a rat-faced little squirt though, and now long dead. This pretty girl could not be one of his brood. He realized he was drifting, and tried to concentrate his wandering thoughts.

“If you wanted to know about the East, why didn’t you just come and talk to me. God knows, I have a tale or two to tell.”

In fact, when he had returned to Venice after a long time serving Kubilai and his sons, people were disinclined to believe his stories. Some had laughed at him behind his back, accusing him of weaving fanciful travellers’ tales. But he knew they all were the God’s honest truth. By and large.

The girl shrugged at his question, and pouted.

“You are so great a man, and I’m just a child. You wouldn’t have paid me any attention.”

Zuliani grinned.

“Now I know you are lying. Someone your age thinks they know everything, and is full of bombast.” He peered closely at Katie.

“Are you spying on me for the Doge?”

It was the girl’s turn to laugh.

“Do you really think the Doge would employ a child to check on you? Besides, you’re not so important that you would worry so great a man.”

Zuliani was taken aback by the girl’s poise. It reminded him of someone from his distant past, at a time when he had to flee Venice under a cloud. He recovered himself quickly.

“So you are of the Gradenigo faction. The Valiers always rolled over for those in power.”

The girl’s face reddened at this scornful criticism of her family, but she was not thrown as much as Zuliani had hoped. She merely returned his gaze, and tossed a question back at him.

“Where were you going this morning? To the Doge’s palace to split on the Tiepolos?”

Zuliani knew he would not like to have this child as a business opponent. She was too canny for her own good. If she — a mere child — knew about his involvement in the conspiracy, who else did? She saw the wary look in his eyes, and reassured him.

“Don’t worry, no one else knows. Though it was easy enough to get your servant drunk and have him tell me who had been visiting you.”

Zuliani cursed Vettor under his breath, and resolved to fire the man. Or slit his throat. He felt as if he was trapped in a vice, neither knowing if he should betray the plot or ride it out and pray no one would link him to it. The girl smiled at his discomfiture.

“I can help you, if you like. You don’t want the Doge to know you were even linked with the Tiepolos’ plot, do you? So you can’t tell him about it without implicating yourself.”

Zuliani shook his head in bewilderment. Was this a girl or a demon?

“What do you suggest I do, Katie Valier?”

The girl settled back in her chair, letting her cloak fall open. It revealed the short, boyish tunic she had worn to fool Zuliani in the first place. A little ashamed of himself, he admired the long legs that were encased in tight leggings. She was enjoying her triumph, and didn’t notice his lascivious look.

“I have a cousin — Marco Donato — who is close to the Gradenigos. He can warn the Doge, and even put in a good word for you as his source of information.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, mistress. But why would you do this for me? What is your reward?”

The girl sighed with pleasure.

“In return, you can tell me all about your sexual exploits at the court of Kubilai Khan.”

It was Monday the 15th of June, the Feast of St Vitus, and the conspiracy was in motion. Two groups, led by Bajamonte Tiepolo and Marco Querini, made their move at first light, crossing the Rialto Bridge and advancing towards the Piazza and the Doge’s Palace. They were supposed to have been supported by a third group led by Badoero Badoer from the mainland. Unfortunately, on the night before, there had been a violent summer storm, which whipped up the waters of the lagoon. Badoer and his party were unable to cross to the city. Not knowing this, and unaware that the Doge had been informed of their intentions by a certain Marco Donato, the others galloped through the narrow streets in driving rain to shouts of “Liberta, e Morte al Doge Gradenigo”.

Bajamonte Tiepolo might have pulled it off, but his arrival in the Piazza had been delayed slightly. Zuliani had received a message from Marco Donato by the agency of his new friend Katie, who was at his door at some unearthly hour of the morning. She had merely said that the Doge wanted Tiepolo held up — minutes would suffice. A reluctant Zuliani had pulled his heavy, fur-trimmed cloak around him and braved the rain. He suspected the ruse was a way of the Doge showing the conspirators that Zuliani was a turncoat. He didn’t like it, but the die was cast. He hovered by the great elder tree outside the front of San Zulian Church until Tiepolo and his men approached. He held up his hand, and the impatient Bajamonte reined in his steed.

“Zuliani, what now? Not having second thoughts, I hope.”

Zuliani grimaced.

“Indeed no, Tiepolo. I just wanted to wish you success.”

Impatiently, the leader of the conspiracy pulled on the reins of his dancing horse, eager to be off. What was this old fool playing at?

“Thank you. Liberty, citizen.”

“Liberty, Tiepolo.” Zuliani now had his own hand on the horse’s reins, preventing Tiepolo from proceeding. “This is a necessary deed … isn’t it?”

Tiepolo let out a cry of rage at the old man’s prevarication. Thank God they had not involved the dodderer any more deeply into the conspiracy. Age had robbed him of his former clear thinking, and he could not come down from off the fence. He wrenched his reins free, and rode off. Zuliani’s eyes lost their vacant stare, put on for the dumb show, and he grinned at Tiepolo’s disappearing back. His task was done.

Even as Bajamonte imperiously threatened the Piazza, the local populace failed to rise in support. Instead they hurled insults and imprecations. One old lady even resorted to tipping a heavy piece of stone parapet out of an upper window. It missed Tiepolo, but struck down his standard-bearer. The banner, emblazoned with the word Libertas, lay in the mud. The insurrection was over almost as soon as it began, and the conspirators scattered throughout Venice.

The Avogadori — the representatives of the justice system of La Serenissima — had a field day following on from the disaster that was the Tiepolo/Querini uprising. Or, more properly, a number of field days. Over the next week, many of the Querinis were summarily murdered, whereas the lucky Bajamonte negotiated his banishment from Venice. Francesco Tiepolo and his closest lieutenant, however, disappeared entirely, even though all the Querini and Tiepolo family houses were ransacked in the search for the two men. Doge Gradenigo became increasingly irritated by the fact that one of the primary conspirators had escaped his net. The following week, the search spread wider, and the Signori di Notte examined every nook and cranny in every calle, and every refuge on every rio. No alley, canal, bridge or cellar was left out of the trawl for the great traitor. Slowly it was moving towards San Zulian, but Nick was unperturbed by all this disturbance. He had had the daily pleasure of the company of Katie Valier well away from Venice.

On the day of the insurrection, she had delivered her message and he had acted on it. Then he had convinced her that it was prudent not to be on the streets for a while. He had shown her his collection of artefacts from the Mongol Empire of Kubilai Khan — the Greatest Khan of them all.

She had politely sat through his well-rehearsed speech, and his tales of derring-do, then suggested they leave Venice and all the disturbance. They crossed the lagoon to Torcello, and hid away for a few days. There, Katie had got him talking again, only on a different tack.

“They say the girls at Kubilai’s court were the prettiest in the world.”

Zuliani had laughed, and touched Katie’s rosy cheek.

“But not as pretty as you.”

Which was true. Abandoning her boyish garb with which she had stalked Zuliani, Katie now had emerged as a true beauty. Her golden hair was set off perfectly by her blue gown that clung to her shapely thighs and bosom. Zuliani recalled clutching her breast when he had thought her a boy. He could almost feel the firmness of it still. He had avoided talking of the women he had known in the East on that first occasion. But on the next day, and the one after that, Katie had skilfully turned the conversation round to the same topic.

Finally Zuliani reckoned it was safe to return. The day was sunny, and they had stopped outside the dark and damp confines of Zuliani’s house under the great elder tree next to the church. It was the scene of Zuliani’s Judas kiss with Bajamonte Tiepolo, but, just now, he didn’t care about that betrayal. He had a pretty girl by his side. He knew Katie was young enough to be his granddaughter — or even his great-granddaughter — but he liked the feel of her warm thigh against his own. The sun shone on his face, and he gave in to her persistent demands for salacious gossip about his conquests in the East. He closed his eyes, leaned back against the smooth trunk of the tree, and smiled.

“There was one girl, actually. Well, there was more than one, but this one was special. Gurbesu had long, black hair, a dark complexion, and curves in all the right places.” He sketched the shape of her body in the air with both hands. “She had brains to go with her body too, and helped me with my duties as Kubilai’s chief crime investigator.”

Katie laughed out loud. It was like the tinkling of a small bell.

“You were an avogador?”

“Yes. What’s so funny about that?”

“My grandmother said you were the biggest rogue in Venice.”

“Well, your granny was wrong.” He paused for effect. “The biggest rogue in Venice is the Doge. But I ran him second best.”

They laughed together, their treble and bass blending like a peal of bells in a tower.

“Anyway, you know what they say. Set a thief to catch a thief.”

Katie leaned against his shoulder, her long tresses draping over his arm.

“About this Gurbesu. Did you love her?”

Zuliani waved his hand dismissively.

“Love? What’s that? She was beautiful, mind you. All Kungurat girls are — the Khan gets a hundred of them every year for his harem. Virgins all. That’s why Gurbesu had to be smuggled away. You see, before she got to the Khan, she had lain with me. But as for loving her …” He shook his head. “There’s only one woman I loved.”

“Really? Who was that?”

Zuliani stared off into the distance, and pictured the woman he had been forced to abandon almost forty years earlier. His crooked deals and an untimely death had caused him to leave Venice abruptly. Leaving behind the incomparable Cat, love of his life. Her true name was Caterina Dolfin — she of the peach complexion and pale blonde hair — but he called her his Cat. Her slender but muscular body moved like a cat too when they made love. There were tales of her giving birth to a child while he had been in the East. But her family had spirited her away to the mainland and, when he had returned many years later, he had been unable to trace her. He sighed.

Katie prodded his ribs with a slender finger.

“Who was she, this love of your life?”

Zuliani was looking at her eager, young face, and about to tell all, when he heard a piercing cry. He looked up and saw his neighbour, old Justinia, waddling across the square. He had never seen her move so fast. She was waving her hands and screaming. And he could hardly believe what she was saying.

“Signor Niccolo, your house is on fire.”

Stunned, Zuliani remained seated under the elder tree, until Katie took a firm hold of his hand and hauled him to his feet. Together, they ran down the west side of the church, and towards his house. They could both hear the crackle of the flames before they could even see the house. Reaching the canal, they looked up. Flames were shooting out of all the lower windows, the shutters merely shards of burnt timber already. Zuliani gasped.

“I don’t believe it. The place is so damp. How could it have gone up like this?”

Katie just gazed in horror at the sight.

“Nick. All your precious things from the East.”

Zuliani knew what she meant. It was a lifetime — his lifetime — going up in smoke. Even as they watched, the flames found their way up to the next floor, only one below his attic rooms. And all his memories. Tongues of fire burst from the shuttered windows, and smoke billowed out across the canal. Suddenly, Katie pointed upwards.

“Look!”

Zuliani followed where she was pointing, and saw a face at an upper window. Someone was inside — but who? Zuliani had left the house bolted and barred. Vettor, his servant, had been sent off to visit his family at Malamocco. Surely he could not have returned yet? If he had, he was in dire trouble now. The figure at the window leaned out, waving his arms. Zuliani’s eyesight wasn’t so good, but Katie recognized him.

“It’s Francesco Tiepolo.”

“Tiepolo? What’s he doing in my house?”

Even as Zuliani spoke, the terrible cries of the traitorous conspirator carried over the roar of the flames.

“For pity’s sake, help me. I am roasting to death.”

Zuliani called up to him.

“Is there anyone else trapped with you?”

For a moment, Tiepolo seemed to look fearfully back into the room, and Zuliani thought there was someone. But Tiepolo must have just been looking at the encroaching flames. He now turned back to the horrified onlookers, terror in his eyes.

“No one. Please, help me. The stairs are on fire.”

Zuliani thought of the beautifully carved oak handrail he had slid down as a boy, only to be faced with wrath of his father, Agostino, at the bottom. He had slid off before encountering the iron escutcheon on the newel post, cast in the shape of a lizard. That would have been painful. But his father’s beating had been just as painful. Now the staircase was in the middle of a raging fire. Zuliani felt infinitely sad, but called up to Tiepolo all the same.

“I will try and open the door. Can you reach it?”

“I will try.”

By now, two or three enterprising neighbours had arrived with wooden buckets, and were ferrying water from the canal to the site of the fire. Zuliani could see their efforts were useless. Each bucketful turned into steam even as it was thrown in the ground floor windows. Somehow, the fire must have taken a strong hold in the accumulated junk he had stored on the lower floors of Ca’ Zuliani. His childhood home was burning down before his eyes. Zuliani edged closer to the doorway, holding his cloak up as a shield against the heat. He leaned against the iron-bound door. The wood was hot and the metal straps even hotter. It was no use. The lower floors were already an inferno.

As he scuttled back from the heat and flames, a horrible scream pierced his heart. He looked up to Tiepolo, and saw the man’s face disappear from the upper window. It was replaced with a sheet of flame. Francesco Tiepolo was gone.

The representative of the Avogadori de Comun was a fat, ponderous man who lifted his long, fur-trimmed robe to keep it clear of the blackened, water-damaged debris in the shell that once had been Nick Zuliani’s home. His name was Matteo Mocco, and he would have preferred to have avoided entering the house. Especially as he could still feel the heat of the fire through the soles of his fine leather shoes. But it was necessary for him to see in situ the charred lump of flesh that was all that remained of Francesco Tiepolo, traitor to the Serene Republic. Zuliani had found it on the second floor, one level below the top rooms where Tiepolo had last been seen alive. It had been a while before he could get back into his home, and he had cautiously tested the stairs and each floor level before venturing into the recesses of each room to find out what had happened to Tiepolo. On the top floor, he had found that most of his collection had been destroyed. The lion skin was merely a burnt jawbone, and the wonderful almanac a pile of papery ash. Even his old companion, the suit of armour, was unrecognizable. He had hung his head, and descended to the next floor down. There, he had found the body.

Now Mocco was poking the husk cautiously with the toe of his shoe. It stirred in a way that suggested it was as light as the ashen remains of a burnt log. The avogador shuddered and wiped the black smear on the tip of his shoe on the back of his leggings. He snorted.

“Good riddance.”

“What am I to do with the body?”

Mocco shrugged at Zuliani’s question.

“If it was me, I would throw him out with the rest of your fire-damaged rubbish. But I suppose he warrants a Christian burial. If there are any of his family left after recent events, tell them to come and collect him.”

Mocco departed, leaving Zuliani staring at the blackened remains.

“Is that him? Tiepolo?”

The question had come from Katie Valier, who now stood in the doorway of the room that was Tiepolo’s last resting place for the time being. As ever, she did not take much care of her fine clothes. Zuliani could see a layer of soot and ash on the dress’s hem. There were dark marks on the front of her gown too. She must have got soot on her hands, and had wiped them clean on the sumptuous material. Zuliani wondered if her grandmother, of whom Katie spoke a great deal and with adoration, would approve of her granddaughter’s careless attitude. Even as he looked at her, he saw her move her hand from the door frame, where it had come to rest, down to the side of her dress. Another black smear ensued. Endearingly she also had a sooty mark across her brow.

“You should not be up here. It is not safe.”

He strode over to her and, whilst still reprimanding her, wiped the smear from her face with his thumb. She laughed.

“Nonsense. If the floor can stand the weight of Matteo Mocco, it can bear three of me.”

“Yes, but there are not three of you, Katie Valier. There is only one, and I am sure your mother holds you to be precious.”

The girl pulled a face.

“My mother and father are dead. Of the plague.”

Zuliani apologized for his blunder.

“I am sorry for that. Then it is that blessed grandmother of yours of whom you should think.” Hearing a creak, he cast a fearful glance up at the ceiling. “Let’s get downstairs before this all falls in on us.”

Despite his best efforts, Katie still managed to get a good look at Tiepolo’s body before Zuliani could grab her arm and steer her down the ruined staircase. They stayed close to the wall as the wooden handrail had almost gone, but, at the bottom, the newel post and metal strap still remained. Katie pointed at the lizard shape that adorned the metal, and smiled.

“Look. It must be a salamander to have survived the fire. They do say that the creature can put out fires with milk from its skin.”

Zuliani gave her a sceptical look.

“Then this one failed miserably, didn’t it. Besides, it’s all a legend, and … oh, never mind.”

Zuliani was thinking again of all he had lost in the fire, and he couldn’t bear to contemplate it. Better to forget than get morbid. Besides, he needed to find somewhere to stay. As of now, he was homeless. The same thought must have occurred to Katie.

“I think it is time you met my grandmother. We have a spare room, and you could stay until you sort out your own house.”

Zuliani gratefully accepted the offer. To tell the truth, he didn’t know what else he would have done. His last few years had been spent more or less as a hermit, inhabiting the upper reaches of his now ruined house. His few forays into trading had been with partners who were young enough to be his grandsons, and with whom he had nothing in common, other than the love of a good deal. Most of his old friends and adversaries were long dead. Loneliness was the penalty of longevity. Until Katie had appeared, he had not thought much of his situation. Now he longed for company again, and her company in particular. The idea of staying in the same house as her appealed greatly. But he was not so sure of the grandmother. Would she be some whiskery old lady who harboured suspicions about his motives in relation to Katie? As they made their way on to the Rialto Bridge, Zuliani clutched the girl’s arm.

“Will your grandmother approve of this? It is quite something to foist an old, cantankerous bastard like me on a frail old lady, at a moment’s notice.”

Katie’s tinkling laughter rang out, dispelling any doubts Zuliani had.

“I shall tell her you said that … frail old lady indeed.” She released her arm from his grip, and sped off, lifting her skirts up to help her to run. “Come on, last one over the bridge must pay a forfeit.”

He groaned.

“I am too old for this. Wait for me.”

When she faltered, he laughed and sped past her. Elbowing the crowds of people that thronged the bridge out of the way, he reaching the other side of the Grand Canal first. He cheered his victory, but his heart was pounding in his chest. He leaned forwards with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

“Are you alright?”

Zuliani waved away Katie’s anxious enquiry with his hand.

“Let me get my breath, and I will tell you. In the meantime, lead me to your house.”

He was shocked to be taken to a palazzo he had once been very familiar with in another life. He stood before the heavy oaken doors and frowned. He turned to Katie, who had a broad grin on her face. He could barely speak.

“What is this? This is the old Dolfin palace. But there’s none of the family left.”

The girl made a moue with her lips.

“Except for me. And grandmother. Come and meet her.”

It was a strange feeling for Zuliani to cross the portal he had never been able to as a young man. He had been the lover of Caterina Dolfin, but her father had disapproved of the daredevil trader whose family was not recorded in the Libro d’Oro — the Golden Book of ancient families of Venice. Now, he half-expected the old man to rise from his grave and peremptorily demand he leave. Instead, another voice from the past did quite the opposite.

“Welcome to Ca’ Dolfin, Nick. It’s about time you saw inside those doors.”

Suddenly, his breath was taken away in a far more exhilarating way than when he had raced Katie. He was so disconcerted he managed only one syllable.

“Cat?”

Down the other end of the long-pillared hallway stood a woman, slender and erect. She was in semi-darkness, and for a moment Zuliani thought he had been thrown back in time. It was the Caterina Dolfin of forty years ago — slim, but curvy in all the right places, her exquisitely carved features framed by thick blonde hair that tumbled over her shoulders. He moved towards this vision, hardly believing it as real, and she stepped into the light of three candles set atop a tall stand. Then he saw that his vision was real after all. Of course it was his lover Cat, and of course she was older, just as he was. Closer to her, he saw the wrinkles round the corners of her eyes, but they were the same clear, blue eyes, full of mischief. The blonde hair had strands of silver, but was just as thick and alive. She smiled at Zuliani, and her face lit up just as it used to when he stroked her naked body.

“What do you think of Katie’s old grandma, then?”

Zuliani pulled a face.

“You’ve aged somewhat better than I have, Caterina.”

She reached out a hand, and stroked his weather-beaten, wrinkled face.

“Ah yes, but I like older men.”

Before either of them could say another word, Katie broke into their colloquy.

“Granny Cat, can Nick stay here? Only, his house has burned down.”

A look of alarm crossed Caterina’s aquiline features.

“Burnt down? My God, how did that happen?” She squeezed Zuliani’s arm. “You weren’t inside, were you?”

Zuliani waved her concerns aside, still unable to tear his gaze from her face.

“No, no. I am fine.”

Katie couldn’t contain herself, though, and had to take over the conversation.

“But Francesco Tiepolo isn’t. He burned to a crisp. I saw him.”

Cat turned a stern gaze on Zuliani.

“When I asked my granddaughter to talk to you, I didn’t expect you to show her dead bodies. God, you haven’t changed, have you?”

She turned her back on him and took a few steps away into the semi-darkness. Katie was about to speak, but Zuliani quieted her with a raised finger. He walked over to Cat and, from behind her, whispered in her ear.

“So you sent Katie to spy on me. I thought it was all her idea. Of course, I didn’t know then that she was your granddaughter. I was flattered enough to imagine that anyone of her generation had even heard of Niccolo Zuliani. All my celebrity is in the past, after all.” Then he recalled the fire. “And what was left of it has just gone up in smoke.”

Cat’s face, when she looked at him again, showed her deep feelings. She looked distraught.

“I am so sorry about that. But surely there are friends who can help you? You were always such a …”

“Schemer? I was, but that is the problem. People you get to know only want you for your expertise, or else you con them out of money and don’t want to cross their paths again.” He squinted at Cat as another thought crossed his mind. “Was it your idea that Katie asked about my love-life?”

Cat Dolfin had the good grace to blush at this stage and look away from Zuliani. He laughed uproariously.

“It was, wasn’t it?”

She stamped her foot, and bunched her hands into fists.

“Don’t you laugh at me. It was you who dumped me forty years ago when I was carrying your child.”

That stopped Zuliani in his tracks.

“My child? So Gurbesu was right all along.”

Cat wagged a finger at him.

“Gurbesu, eh? That was your Eastern … trollop, I suppose.”

Zuliani gave her a wry smile.

“One of many, actually. But none so … exotic as Gurbesu.” He leaned forward, and whispered in her ear again. “She reminded me of you.”

Cat pushed him away, but she couldn’t wipe a smile off her lips. This old man with grey hair shot through his red locks was as roguish as he had been all those years ago. She couldn’t help loving him all over again.

“You couldn’t keep your hands off me, could you?”

“Not then, not now.”

He grasped her round the waist, and felt his manhood hardening. That hadn’t happened in a long time. He realized Cat was gazing over his shoulder and coughing. He turned his head to see what had distracted her. Katie stood in the centre of the hallway, a big grin pasted on her face. He had completely forgotten about her. Gently the two lovers pulled themselves apart, and Zuliani apologized.

“Not in front of your grandchild, I suppose.”

Cat shook her head in dismay.

“Has it not entered your thick skull yet? I just said I was pregnant when you left forty years ago.”

Zuliani frowned.

“Yes. I am sure you and your family did well for the child. But it’s too late for me to play the father now.”

Cat grimaced.

“It is. Agostino died five years ago of the plague.”

Zuliani was touched that she had chosen his father’s name for the child he never knew. But that was the point. He had never known the boy — or even the man. So how could he mourn? He reiterated his point about not being a father. Cat prodded his stomach.

“Yes, but not too late to be a grandfather, you ninny.”

Zuliani gaped at Katie, who stepped up to him and hugged her new granddad.

After the three members of the newly united family had eaten their fill, they sat back with some of that famous Dolfin wine that Zuliani had long envied. Over protests from Katie, Zuliani had insisted on watering the girl’s wine judiciously. He was taking his role as grandfather seriously. He was also revelling in the sight of his long-ago lover, who sat curled up in an armchair in a way that brought to mind the creature he had named her after. Cat may be a grandmother, but her body was still as lithe as any feline. He wondered if she might let him bed her later. But there was still one question that nagged at him, and he couldn’t resist asking it of Cat.

“Why have you hidden away from me for so long? And why did you have Katie hunt me out now?”

Cat eased back in the chair, considering her answer. She decided the truth was the best way forward.

“When I sat in this very house, pregnant with Agostino, and my father told me you had murdered someone and fled Venice, I was angry more than sad. I didn’t entirely believe him, but I was angry at you for leaving me in his clutches. I had to endure the ‘I-told-you-so’s’ for months. Then I was even angrier at you for forcing me to marry Pasquale Valier.”

Zuliani sat bolt upright.

“I forced you to marry rat-face Valier?”

“Well, what else could I do? He accepted your child as his own and gave him a name. You weren’t there to do that. You were enjoying yourself living the high life at the fabled court of Kubilai Khan.”

Zuliani thought to intervene and tell her just how hard life had been for him then. But he knew better than to set her straight just now. Uninterrupted, she went on.

“Pasquale was a good husband, and father. And our life in Verona was … settled.’

She stared pointedly at Zuliani at this statement, challenging him to protest. He bowed his head, and took the cheap shot.

“And now? Why now?”

“Because Pasquale died last year.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

She ignored his comment, as if she had rehearsed her story for a long time, and now nothing would stop her telling it.

“And because I yearned all those years to be back in Venice, but I couldn’t bear to come and see you, and not get to know you again.”

Zuliani stirred with excitement in his seat, but Cat held up her hand.

“Let me finish. That is why now, and also because Katie told me you had got embroiled in the conspiracy to overthrow the Doge. I could not bear the thought that I was free to see you again and you were once more risking being expelled. I persuaded my great-nephew Mario to pass on the news of the conspiracy to Gradenigo. And get you off the hook.”

Zuliani should have felt euphoria about his old lover caring so much for him that she had extricated him from the mad enterprise that had been the Tiepolo family’s conspiracy. But a very nasty thought was burgeoning in his head. He had been aware of Matteo Mocco’s look, when the avogador had inspected Francesco’s body. It had been one of sour displeasure. Until this moment Zuliani had imagined it was occasioned by the nasty nature of the fire-crisped corpse. Now, he was fearful that the displeasure had been reserved for himself. Mocco had been wondering why the sought-after Tiepolo renegade had been in his house in the first place. Was he guilty of harbouring a criminal. He groaned, and Cat leaned forward, touching his arm.

“What’s wrong, Nick? Did I do the wrong thing?”

Zuliani waved aside her concern, and was about to keep his worries to himself. But then, looking from the older woman to the younger and back again, it dawned on him he had a family. And what else were families for if not to share your concerns with? He took a gulp of that good Dolfin wine, and explained his quandary.

In order to pull Zuliani’s irons out of the fire — almost literally, bearing in mind what had happened to his home — the three of them agreed to divide up their resources. Cat had suggested she would be in the best position to talk to other members of the case vecchie — the old aristocracy of Venice. After all, she was a Dolfin, and one of the case vecchie herself.

“I will see what the gossip says about Francesco, and if there are still perceived to be any links to you, Nick.”

Zuliani had agreed with this strategy, only briefly wondering what their lives would have been like if they had joined forces forty years ago. With Cat’s connections and his gift for underhand dealing, they would have been unstoppable. He only hoped they would be so now, or he would have to flee Venice for the second time.

“And Katie and I will revisit the scene of the crime, and see what we can dig up.”

Cat started to protest, concerned about her young granddaughter seeing the no doubt ugly corpse again. But Zuliani calmed her worries.

“Have no fears, the body will have gone by now. I sent a message to the family to come and collect it. I said that, if they didn’t, it would be dumped in the lagoon along with all my other burnt rubbish.”

Now, he stood outside the door of his shell of a house with Katie at his side. She prodded him.

“You didn’t send a message, did you? I was with you all the time from when Mocco left to when we got to granny’s house. There was no time for you to send a message.”

Zuliani grinned conspiratorially at his granddaughter.

“I won’t tell, if you won’t. Now, do you want to examine this body or not?”

Katie clapped her hands with delight.

“Yes, please.”

The interior of the house looked even gloomier as the day was drawing to a close. But Zuliani had anticipated this and provided them with a lantern from the Dolfin palace. The wind was getting up, and the candle had almost blown out as they crossed the Grand Canal. Even now, inside his empty house, the yellow flame flickered, casting strange shadows on the walls. They ascended the perilous staircase in order to examine Tiepolo’s body once again before the light gave out altogether. It still lay where Zuliani had left it, and he crouched down, holding the lamp close to the gruesome sight. Tiepolo was nothing more than a blackened shell, his knees drawn up to his chest. Any facial features had been destroyed by the fire. His clothes had largely burned away, though Zuliani could see a belt-buckle adhering to the remains, at the point that would have been Tiepolo’s stomach. What was left of his hands were clenched like the talons of a falcon about to grasp its prey. Zuliani glanced at Katie, who was crouched at his side, holding her skirt in a bunch to keep it from the worst of the mess on the floor.

“What do you think?”

The girl grimaced.

“I think he died a bad death.”

“Whoever he was.”

Katie frowned at this statement from Zuliani.

“What do you mean? It’s Francesco Tiepolo — we saw him at the window.”

“Look at the body again. Then bring to mind what you know of Tiepolo, and what you saw when he was standing at the window waving his arms around.”

Katie pouted, but did as she was told. For a while she didn’t understand, then she smiled broadly.

“Move the lantern over here.” She pointed at the claw-shaped hands. “Closer.”

Zuliani held the lantern so that the candlelight shone where Katie had commanded. She clapped her hands again.

“There are no rings on this man’s hands, and yet when I saw Tiepolo waving his arms out of the window, there were rings on many of his fingers. I saw the light sparkling on them.” She liked this clever deduction, but she still had a doubt. “Might not the fire have melted the gold?”

Zuliani nodded.

“It might. But even if that were so, where are the gems? They would not have been destroyed. The other thing that worried me was when I saw the belt-buckle stuck to this man’s stomach. Despite him being burned to a crisp, there is no sign of Tiepolo’s fat belly. This was a slim man in life.”

Having made this deduction, Zuliani had crouched over the body for too long, and tried to stand. His knees protested, and he would have stumbled if Katie had not taken his arm and steadied him. Grouchily, he thanked her, not relishing showing his infirmities to a woman, even though she was his granddaughter. Katie made as if she was unaware of his annoyance, and eagerly pursued him concerning the riddle of Tiepolo’s demise. She pushed her errant locks from off her face, once again smearing soot on her brow.

“If this is not Tiepolo, then where is his body?” She glanced down at the dead man. “And who is this?”

“That’s what I would like to know — where Tiepolo is, I mean. As for this body, I would say it’s Girolamo Lando, Tiepolo’s lieutenant. He went missing at the same time as Tiepolo.”

“But then why didn’t Tiepolo say Lando was trapped by the blaze too? Why didn’t he call out ‘Save us’?”

Zuliani pointed a finger at Katie.

“Exactly.” He stepped towards the door. “Perhaps it had something to do with Lando being already dead before the fire took hold.”

Katie was stunned.

“How do you know that?”

Zuliani carelessly waved the lantern at the body, almost extinguishing the guttering candle.

“Because there is a crack in the man’s skull that was made by something heavy striking it, not the fire. So, either Tiepolo dragged a dead man into my house or he himself killed his lieutenant on this spot.”

Katie turned back to look at the head of the corpse to see what she had missed. But Zuliani had already left the room, plunging her and the dead man into darkness. She had a momentary sense that the body was moving towards her. Maybe it was only the movement of the shadows as Zuliani left with the lantern in his hand, but she didn’t want to wait and see. Shuddering, she rapidly followed her grandfather upstairs.

When she entered the upper room, she recalled those happier times when Zuliani had shown her the little treasures he had brought back from his travels. The window shutters where they had last seen Tiepolo standing were still wide open, but it was now dark outside and a wind whistled eerily through the opening. Zuliani was picking disconsolately through what remained of his collection. He groaned.

“Even the gold paizah has gone. Melted away in the heat, I suppose.”

Katie looked around.

“And Tiepolo’s body is not up here, either.” She took Zuliani’s hand, dragging him away from the horror of his loss. “Let’s go downstairs. The fire must have started down there in the first place. Perhaps Tiepolo managed to get down the stairs before he died.”

“Yes. Let us look there for him. I told him to try and get to the front door. Maybe he almost made it.”

But there was no hope of finding a body on the ground floor. It was a blackened, wet mess of burned wood. The fire had obviously started here, but Zuliani could not tell how. Katie looked around.

“What is all this?”

“Old furniture from when my parents lived here. I could not use it, but I couldn’t bear to part with it either. So I just piled it up here. What I don’t understand is how it could have caught fire. It was so damp from the closeness of the canal. What is sure is that we will not find Tiepolo in a hurry in this mess.”

Katie stood at the bottom of the staircase rubbing her hand on the cast-iron image of the lizard on the newel post which was all that had survived the holocaust. Thoughts of the salamander emerging from the flames came to her again. Nick might have told her that it was all a myth, but she liked the idea. He wiped the smudges from her face.

“Come. Let us go and see what your grandmother has discovered. When my manservant, Vettor, returns from visiting his family in Malomocco, I will set him to cleaning this up. Maybe he will find the body.”

At the end of Nick Zuliani’s first full day as a grandfather, he sat with his one-time lover, Caterina Dolfin now called Valier, and Katie, the offspring of his unknown son, Agostino. He pondered broaching the possibility of the girl changing her name to Zuliani, but decided first they had more pressing matters to discuss. He told Cat what they had found at his house — omitting the small matter of the body being still there. He made out to her that they had seen the ringless fingers earlier, but had not realized the importance of it until now. The corpse therefore was not Tiepolo’s. Cat was shocked about the identity of the body, and pointed out to Zuliani a matter he would have to deal with urgently.

“As the Tiepolos have already taken the body you say is that of his lieutenant, Lando, you must tell them before they bury it thinking it is one of their own.”

Zuliani and Katie exchanged glances, then he spoke up.

“I don’t think they have had time to do anything yet. It is too late. I will tell them tomorrow. First, tell us what you have learned.”

Cat shrugged her ivory-skinned, bare shoulders, causing a little flutter of Zuliani’s heart.

“I am not sure what I have found out is very helpful. It is mainly gossip. Apparently, Francesco Tiepolo was engaged on a colleganza which aimed to try and break the Pope’s interdict on trade.”

“What’s that, granny? A colleganza.”

Zuliani puffed out his cheeks in astonishment at Katie’s question.

“Call yourself a Venetian, and you don’t know what that is? It means Tiepolo had funded a trading enterprise along with others. He must have had a ship ready to sail just before the rebellion kicked off. In the situation we are in at the moment, that was a very risky thing to have done. He must have been pretty desperate.” He turned to Cat again. “Anything else of use?”

Cat paused for a moment, and then looked Zuliani in the eyes.

“There was something else, but it sounds foolish. Don’t laugh when I tell you.”

“Carry on. Anything, no matter how small or insignificant, could be important.”

Cat looked away, and took a deep breath.

“It is something your neighbour, Justinia Erizzo, said to me. Now, I know she is scatterbrained, and has been a little inclined to get emotional about death since her husband died.”

“Spit it out, Cat.”

“She said she saw Tiepolo’s soul flying away from the fire just at the end when the flames had reached him in the topmost room.”

“What? Out of the window?”

Cat frowned, and swirled the dregs of her wine in the bottom of her goblet. The sediment rose and with a grimace she put the goblet down.

“No. That was the oddest thing. She said she saw his soul fly out of the back door. You know her house faces that alley between your house and San Giuliano Church.”

Katie laughed at the idea of a soul using a door, but Zuliani had a serious look on his face. This wasn’t just a foolish woman’s whimsy. He felt sure there was something of substance about the vision. He waved his hand in the air, trying to urge his tumbling thoughts into some sort of order.

“This vision of a soul. How was it made up? Did she say?”

“Well no. A soul is … a soul. What should it look like?”

Katie stared at her grandfather. She was beginning to understand what he looked like when he was on to something. His body tensed, and he scowled.

“What is it, grandpa?”

Zuliani groaned.

“I hate it when you call me that. Call me Nick like you did before all this family stuff came up.”

Cat hid a smile behind her slender fingers. Zuliani was clearly discomfited by all this personal closeness. He had always preferred to be a free agent. But Katie would soon cure him of that — he couldn’t resist her charms — and Cat herself fancied getting as close as they had been all those years ago. The truth was she yearned to bed him. For now, she concentrated on the mystery of Tiepolo’s death.

“I too know when something is bothering you, Nick. So get it off your chest.”

Zuliani squinted at the two women, and shook his head decisively.

“Not yet. Not until I have verified a few more facts.”

Cat rose from her chair and stamped her foot.

“I swear, Niccolo Zuliani, you are even more exasperating now than you were forty years ago. I am not going to let you out of my sight until I get the truth out of you.”

Zuliani pushed himself out of his chair too, his bones creaking alarmingly.

“Then you must both come back with me to Ca’ Zuliani. But it is too dark now, and Justinia will be abed.”

“You intend to ask her about this nonsense about Tiepolo’s soul?”

Zuliani nodded.

“If it is nonsense, then I will have lost nothing by asking. But if it is not … I will have solved the whole mystery. But first, I need some sleep.”

Katie led him to where he would sleep that night, and then tripped down the passage to her own room. He stepped wearily into the room and was about to close the door, when Cat’s face appeared in the gap. She smiled knowingly.

“Do you need your sleep, old man? Or can you put it off for an hour or two?”

Zuliani grinned wolfishly.

“Only an hour or two? Your appetites must have diminished, granny.”

Cat growled, grabbed his arm and dragged him to her bed-chamber.

Zuliani arose early the next morning and tiptoed to his own room. He had no wish for Katie to know of the carnal nature of her grandparents. But it seemed his circumspection was all in vain. When he descended the stairs having splashed his face with cold water and dragged his fingers through his unruly hair, there she was in the main hall grinning from ear to ear.

“You look tired out, grand … Nick. Up all night, were you?”

Zuliani had no doubts about her meaning, and even blushed a little.

“You should be more respectful to your elders, Katie Valier. I am refreshed and ready to go. Are you?”

Cat entered the room, and yawned.

“So early? It is such a cold morning, why do we have to go now?”

Zuliani grinned at the two mystified women.

“I have a reason, but I can’t tell you now.”

Katie turned to her grandmother with a questioning look.

“Did you get nothing out of him last night?”

Cat withered the girl with a stern look.

“That is not how I brought you up, young lady.” She then paused, and laughed. “But you are correct. I got nothing out of him — from an informational point of view. He always did play his cards close to his chest. That was because, if he told no one his opinions, when he turned out to have got it wrong, no one could tell him so.”

Zuliani was beginning to wonder if he wanted to be bossed around by two women. But then he looked at the two of them and knew, for different reasons, it was worth it. Still, he decided he would string them along a little longer.

“If you ladies are ready, we should get moving.”

“Where are we going?”

It was Cat’s question, and he took delight in answering it in his own way.

“To my house first to look for something that is probably not there. And then to the docks to find something that we thought was no more.”

Before they could ask what he meant, he was out of the door and into the chilly morning where a thick mist swirled around the streets. The two women had to hurry to keep up with him as he crossed the Rialto Bridge and made for his own house in the Castello district. The morning mist made them seem like three wraiths flying through the calles of La Serenissima. Katie giggled, and thought too of Tiepolo’s soul fleeing the fire. There was something about Venice that resonated with death and life. She laughed out loud, and Cat gave her a curious look. But there was no time to stop, as Zuliani suddenly snapped his fingers and turned away from where his house stood. Cat called after him.

“Where are you going?”

His voice carried over his shoulder as he almost disappeared in the mist.

“An urgent errand. You go on to Ca’ Zuliani and I’ll meet you there.”

“Yes, but what are we looking for?”

It was too late. Zuliani was gone. Grumbling at his erratic behaviour, Cat stalked through the streets with Katie at her heels. When they got to the blackened shell that was Zuliani’s home, she turned to her granddaughter

“What the hell are we looking for, Katie?”

The girl shrugged her pretty shoulders.

“Something that won’t be there, he said.”

“Then how are we going to find it?”

“I don’t know for sure, but let’s go up to the top floor. That’s where Nick kept his treasures. If anything is missing, it is likely to be one of them. He showed me everything, so I may be able to recall if one of them is not there.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Cat touched the metal lizard on the newel post. She had the same thought as Katie had a few days ago.

“A salamander, perhaps? It didn’t help put out the fire though, did it?”

Katie gasped.

“Grandmother, you are a genius.”

She ran up the staircase, leaving a puzzled Cat at the bottom.

“Me, a genius? What did I say?”

She followed Katie up the stairs at a more sedate pace. When she got to the top room, she was appalled by the mess. She could now understand why Nick was so devastated by the fire. All his possessions were ruined — blackened lumps in a fire-seared room. But Katie, already covered in soot, was exultant as she bounced around the room.

“It’s not here.”

Cat took in a deep breath, holding in her exasperation. She calmed Katie down with a downward wave of her hands.

“For God’s sake, don’t you start. Just tell me what it is that isn’t here.”

Her answer came from the doorway, where Zuliani now stood.

“The salamander cloak. I should have realized sooner, but I wasn’t thinking then of anyone having escaped the fire.”

Cat was shocked.

“Escaped? How could anyone have escaped the fire? If it was as bad as you described …” She waved her hand around the room. “… as bad as it looks, no one could have escaped. It started on the ground floor and, from what you have said, Tiepolo was driven up the stairs. How could he escape from there? Unless he flew.”

Katie clapped her hands with pleasure.

“Tell her about the cloak, Nick.” She turned to Cat. “It’s made of salamander hair, you know.”

Zuliani laughed at the monstrous idea.

“Where did you hear that? All that is just part of the myth that no one really believes. The reality is that a fire-proof material does exist, and it’s made of material dug from the ground. I have seen it produced, and it is grey when woven. Throw it in a fire and it emerges undamaged, though by then it is white. There is a Greek word used for it — asßest??. Asbestos means unquenchable. I had a cloak of this material, and it should be in this upper room. Even the fire should not have damaged it. So, if it is not here, then someone wore it to flee the fire.”

Cat was catching on quickly.

“Then Tiepolo could be alive. But it doesn’t explain why he was in your house in the first place. Though he should thank his lucky stars that, as he was, he could use this miraculous cloak.”

Zuliani shook his head.

“No. It was not chance that led him here. You see, it was only days before the failed conspiracy that I showed Tiepolo my whole collection in this very room. He was one of a very few who knew about the salamander cloak.”

Katie was bursting to speak, so Zuliani allowed her to complete the curious sequence of events.

“He planned it from the beginning, gran. Once he was on the run, he knew he would be safe if he could fake his own death. Recalling seeing the cloak, he broke into Nick’s house — ”

“When I was conveniently away.”

Katie acknowledged this with a little bow of the head.

“Tiepolo was in luck there — though perhaps not, thinking about it. Perhaps you, Nick, were going to be the body found after the fire. Then no one would have worked out his means of escape.”

Zuliani went pale at the thought that had not occurred to him. Katie was right. Tiepolo would not have left anything to chance. He was to have been Tiepolo’s stand-in body and, when he was found not to be at home, Tiepolo’s lieutenant, Girolamo Lando, had been killed instead.

“It is I who was the lucky one, then.”

Cat rounded off the story.

“Tiepolo’s other stroke of bad luck was his escape. He had thought no one would see him leaving by the secret back door, used only by the conspirators. But he had not bargained on the nosiness of your neighbour, Justinia. What she thought was Tiepolo’s soul flying to Heaven was a very corporeal Tiepolo wrapped in … asbestos.” She sighed. “So he has escaped justice, after all.”

Zuliani raised a finger, and winked.

“Don’t be so quick to despair. Remember, there is one more place for us to call this morning.”

Cat was puzzled.

“You said the docks, didn’t you? What can be there?”

Zuliani grin wolfishly.

“Come and see.”

The morning mist was clearing, though some stray strands of it weaved around the only ship at the dockside. Since the pope’s proclamations on Venice, hardly anyone dared trade — and stand to lose everything to marauders sanctioned by the Church. But one solitary ship was ready to sail, and a group of men huddled on the quay ready to board. Each had his cloak pulled around him and the hood up against the cold wind blowing off the lagoon.

“Whose ship is that?”

Zuliani answered Cat’s question.

“It is Tiepolo’s colleganza, and I see those seeking passage on it are ready to board.”

Cat made a move to walk down to the ship, but Zuliani stayed her with his arm.

“Just watch. My little errand this morning was to ask the captain the time of his sailing. And to ask him a favour — to shake the hand of everyone as they boarded.”

“Why?”

“You will see, Katie.”

They watched as each man was welcomed aboard in the way Zuliani had prescribed. Each man took the captain’s proferred hand and shook it. The last man, well wrapped up from the weather, winced as the captain squeezed his hand heartily. Zuliani whooped in delight, and ran down the quay, his fur-trimmed robe flying out behind him. He grabbed the final passenger by the arm firmly, pulling him back on to the quay.

“Francesco, I think you have a case to face here in Venice.”

As the big man turned round, his hood fell away. His features were reddened by fire, and his eyebrows had been singed off. But it was unmistakeably Francesco Tiepolo. He snarled at Zuliani, and would have aimed a blow at him, had not the captain held him back. Something heavy fell from his cloak on to the quay. Zuliani scooped it up with a whoop of delight. It was the gold paizah that gave him the authority of the Great Khan. Not everything had been lost in the fire after all, thanks to Tiepolo’s greed. Tiepolo cursed Zuliani roundly.

“Damn you. You should have burned in that fire, then no one would have known anything. A perfect crime that could never have taken place before now, as no one knew of the salamander cloak but you.”

“And which can never happen again, now the cat is out the bag. Trade with the East means that more and more will know about the magical properties of asbestos.”

Zuliani snapped his fingers in Tiepolo’s face as the burly figure of one of the Signore di Notte appeared out of the mists. Zuliani had requested their presence earlier. As he and Cat and Katie watched Tiepolo being led away, the girl asked a question that had been burning to be asked.

“Why did you ask the captain to shake the men’s hands?”

Zuliani’s face broke out in a superior smile.

“I wanted to be sure which man was Tiepolo. Tell me something, Katie, what was your natural movement every time you descended the stairs in my house?”

The girl paused for a moment, then grinned.

“I always put my hand on the bottom newel post, where the cast iron lizard sits.”

“Exactly. I always did it, even as a child. I reckoned Tiepolo would have done it too, especially as he was groping through the flames with the asbestos hood over his eyes. He would have reached out for the bottom newel, and the metal would have been very hot. I am sure that, if you looked at his hand, you would see, burned into the flesh, the image of a salamander.”