The Dragon Done It (58 page)

Mascoli shook his head. "Looking at the blood, Signor Carlo. It is not enough, if the man bled to death. Of course he may have bled internally."

"Hmm. It's an odd place for a man to sit alone, for no reason," said Carlo, stumping over to the table. "What was he doing in here?"

The innkeeper tried to look blank but only managed to look evasive. "I do not ask," he said, throwing his hands up. "It is the customer's business."

"Perhaps you should go and wash those hands, Pontius," said Brother Mascoli allowing his thoughts to escape his lips. He would have to do penance for that, but it was obvious something was awry here.

He took four candles from his frayed pouch, and began to carefully set them out at the cardinal points. If some dark magic had left its residue here the wards would provide some protection.

The innkeeper blinked at him. "My name is Paolo, not Pontius."

"Well, Paolo-Pontius," said the soldier, "get along with you and see how that woman of yours is doing with a plate of food for us. How long will you be, master monk?"

"It will take but a short while," said Mascoli, and began to chalk the seven lines of enclosure, chanting from the psalms as he did so. But even as he did it, he knew it for a waste of labor. Nothing more magical than a dried salamander being struck into flame had ever happened down here, he'd warrant. There was none of the faint taint to the air that magic always brought to his nostrils. A smell not unlike that of a tinker's solder, which he had been told that most people were unaware of.

A little while later he knew the definite truth. None of the telltale signs of magical workings were here. But he was still left with the feeling evil had been done in this room.

"He did not die by magic," he said to Carlo and two or three of the tavern louts who had sneaked down the passage to gawk.

Carlo nodded. "I assume that that's why someone removed the body."

Brother Mascoli found himself nodding in reply. He knelt, soaked up a little of the blood onto a shred of linen, and put it into a small bottle in his pouch. He caught the questing gaze of the soldier. "There may be someone with hunting dogs," he explained.

"Clever. I had not thought of that. Of course it will depend on the victim dripping blood. I'll see to it in the morning. Let's get some food into you."

Brother Mascoli followed him to a hot plate of bollo misto. His companion ate too, in silence, as they listened to the inn's patrons telling increasingly grisly stories about what was behind the locked door. The large, simple key, Brother Mascoli noted, Carlo Palinni had carefully put in his pouch. The wine, an inky Barbera, was too like the blood on the floor for comfort. After he had eaten, one of the locals escorted him to the sacristan, who took him to a truckle bed that had been prepared for him.

He knelt, prayed and gratefully lay down on it. He'd walked a long way that day. He could have come all the way by boat, but such a passage was beyond his slender means. There were other, better uses for the little bit of silver he had with him. He was tired, but sleep was far from him. He wondered if it had occurred to anyone, his crippled escort or anyone else, that the missing body implied that the murderer had had at least one accomplice. The woman had not killed the fellow by magic, if she had killed him at all. Troubling thoughts about Carlo Palinni crossed his mind, too, until he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

His rest was disturbed in the gray predawn by someone sitting on the bed. He opened his eyes to find Palinni at the foot of it. "Good morning, my clerical friend," said the soldier, scratching a stubbly scarred chin.

"You are up early." Mascoli rubbed sleep from his eyes.

"And to bed late, too. A few people to talk to, and a large number of fruitless hours spent tapping walls and floors in a cellar."

Mascoli blinked. "I had wondered . . ."

"I thought you might. It was quite obvious that the real murderer might have hidden there and screamed false accusations. Through a thick oak door one screamed voice is much like another. The bad news is that there is no hidden chamber. I am especially good at finding them."

The monk had to wonder why. "He could perhaps have hidden behind the door, and joined the press of onlookers?"

The grizzled old soldier shook his head. "I am before you there. I questioned all of those who were on the scene. Most of them were too full of wine to be holding anything back. Three of them were there at the front, when the door broke. Big fellows all, charging it. They fell into the room—and the door bounced back and closed behind them. They were sweating freely just telling me of it, being in that candle-lit room with the dead man."

"They could have been accomplices . . ."

The soldier shook his head. "I don't think so. Their stories were are slightly different."

"Meaning they lied."

The soldier shook his head. "Meaning they told the truth. If their stories had all been exactly the same, then I would know they'd colluded. The stories were close enough, just slightly different as to the details. No, this Vincente was all alone in that locked room with no secret chambers or exits. It does look like the magic you say could not have happened, did. And what's more, he was known to have had a very public dispute with the woman in the street, two days ago, in which she threatened him with 'consequences.' "

"And what does she say about this?"

"Nothing. She has decided that she will not talk to me. I wondered if she might talk to you."

"Me?"

"You. She trusted you yesterday. And you are not from this little nest of rogues. They'll lie like flat fish to protect each other. I don't trust them at all."

"You are going to a great deal of effort, Carlo Palinni," said Mascoli, getting up. He was wondering if all of this was true—and if so, why the old soldier was pursuing the matter with such diligence.

"I have my own axe to grind," explained Palinni, with just a hint of implacable grimness on his broad, scarred, and patently untrustworthy visage. "Come down to the cells. Please."

Mascoli nodded. "I will be there, shortly."

In the pale light of dawn the little town looked much like any other fishing village on the marshy fringe of the great lagoon. It smelled a little better though. The wind was blowing across the sandy scrub-covered sandbar from the Adriatic only a few miles away, bringing the salty tang of the open sea with it. Brother Mascoli took a deep lungful of sea air and knocked on the door leading to the cells. The same Schiopettieri, Karg, opened it for him. The plump German did not look as if he had slept. He yawned. "Through here, Brother."

The town had two cells, which was probably more than it needed most of the time. The woman did not look as if she'd slept either.

"Blessings, sister," said Mascoli.

"Spare me the religious prattle. When are they coming to kill me?" There was both pride and fear in her voice. She stood straight and defiant holding onto the bars.

"Sister, I could find no trace of any magic being used in the cellar where this man was killed."

She looked at him, incredulously. And then burst into tears.

Mascoli reached through the bars and took her hand, gently squeezing it. He let her cry for a little while. "It is said that you threatened him."

"I . . . I did it just to frighten him." She sniffed, and then said defiantly, "He called me a
puttana
and fraud on the street. I am used to respect. You may as well know that they believe that I am a witch. Everyone believes it. Even the Podesta, when he's sober enough to believe anything."

"And are you, daughter?" asked Mascoli, calmly.

She sighed and nodded. "Sort of. I suppose. What they might call a witch. They're going to kill me anyway. It is no use pretending. I have done no evil. No black magic or sacrifice, Brother. Or traffic with the Devil. Just remedies and rituals that I learned from my mother, and she learned from her mother. I swear upon my soul. It is just herbs, the old gods, and . . . using their fear. Understanding them. Knowing how people think."

"You abused this gift a little, I think," said Mascoli, gently. "But not to kill."

She shook her head violently. "Not to kill. Never."

"Then we will have to find out just who did kill him."

"And why," said the gravelly voice of the old soldier, from just around the corner. " 'Why' usually answers all the questions."

Mascoli sighed. "I suppose eavesdropping is another thing you had to learn in the army."

"It's useful. You know which parades to avoid," Carlo said calmly, stumping towards them. "Now let's get a crust to eat and a glass of wine, and we can talk about the latest development."

He looked at the woman. "Your magical skills are greater than you realized. You made a body vanish last night. Or at least that is what they're saying on the street."

"What?" She peered owlishly at him.

"Vincente's corpse. You made it disappear into thin air."

"And I would stand here behind bars if I had such powers?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

"It does seem a little unlikely, doesn't it?" he said dryly. "But it was a choice of that or admit that you might have an accomplice, or that someone else murdered him. It would seem that this Vincente wasn't a great candidate for resurrection."

She shuddered and held herself. "No. He owed me money, though."

"It seems that he owed everyone money. What did he owe you money for?"

She held her tongue.

"They'll either burn you or hang you, you know," he said conversationally. "You might as well tell us."

"Blue lotos."

It was a mild narcotic, introduced from North Africa to the swamps and cultivated in secret there—unlike the black lotos, its far more powerful and addictive cousin, which was still smuggled in. The blue was illegal, but Brother Mascoli himself had several medicines that contained it. The Venetian authorities turned a blind eye to the blue, but they would hang traffickers in the black.

"Not the black?" asked Carlo mildly, raising an eyebrow.

She shook her head. "It's filth. No one should deal in it."

But then, she would say that.

Carlo nodded. "True. Come, Brother. Karg is bringing something for the lady. We also need to eat a morsel before the huntsman gets here. I hope his dogs are more promising than he is."

The dogs came in a variety of shades and sizes and their barking was obviously not sitting too well with their owner's patently sore head. "Too much new wine. Dottore Sarbucco was celebrating buying a new farm last night. Before the murder," he explained.

"Can the dogs find a blood scent?" asked Mascoli looking at the motley pack.

"They usually do," said the owner laconically. "But that's a boar, or a buck, not a man."

They put the dogs to the blood scent and followed them as they ran off barking down the road. The trail did not lead them very far . . . to a dogfight and a newly butchered hog, being turned into pancetta, salami and some fine hams.

"Fine dogs," said Carlo, feeling his painful knee.

The owner shrugged. "Vincente was a bit of a pig."

Carlo bit his knuckle. "There goes my last throw. We need the body."

They walked back towards the town, more slowly, past an inlet of the lagoon. The road was raised a little above the water on ancient stones from the Roman days. The stones on the water's edge were carved, being plainly part of some old shrine. Time had etched most of the carvings away but Brother Mascoli could make out the form of a triton. It stirred some thoughts in his head. "The murderer didn't have much time to bury a body or take it very far."

"No."

"Maybe he threw it into the water?"

The soldier shrugged. "Very likely, but that would be even harder to find. We could spend a year dragging, especially if they used a boat and dropped him off in the middle of the lagoon. There'd be nothing but eel-gnawed bones in a few days. That woman doesn't have even a few days."

Mascoli looked at the water, and around at the empty landscape of reedy marshland. "You believe that she is innocent?"

"Not as clean as driven snow, but innocent of
this
murder. Mark my words, if we solve this murder mystery, it will be tied to the smuggling of the black lotos."

"You think she is involved in that evil trade?"

Carlo shrugged. "Maybe. But most likely not. She made her money from selling the blue. That I knew before she confessed. But this little village is the entrepôt for the black. I am sure of that."

Brother Mascoli looked doubtfully at his companion. What was he? Why did he know so much about a dark trade? He looked like a rogue, but he did not behave like one. And he seemed to be genuinely trying to solve this murder, even if he was doing it for reasons of his own, and not to save an innocent. That, Brother Mascoli knew, was his duty.

"I have . . . contacts," he said quietly. "Nonhuman ones. They could find the body for us, if it was dumped into the water."

"So I had been told," said the old soldier, with a broad smile. "I sent a messenger to Venice during the night. It appears that you are highly regarded by certain very powerful people, for a humble monk. They gave you a glowing character reference."

Mascoli raised his eyebrows. "The Podesta's assistant and a receiver of messages from the Republic in a place too small to be properly called a town, and you sent messengers during the night? All the way to Venice and back? You are not the common soldier that you pretend to be."

His large companion leaned on his crutch and smiled sardonically. "I give orders too easily for a start. I never said that I was a common soldier. I never said that I was once a condottiere either. I never lie if I can help it. I let my appearance deceive those who wish to be deceived."

"And what are you doing here?" asked Brother Mascoli carefully. Carlo did have an injured knee. But he was still a powerful man, and the water was very close.

"That is for me to know. But for now our purposes run in tandem. Call up your undine friends, Brother. I'll keep watch."

So Brother Mascoli prepared his summonsing. And with a faint mist on the water, they came. Juliette, whom he had treated, healed from a savage cruel gash that would have marred her inhuman beauty if not taken her life, and the triton Androcles. The tritons preferred the open sea, but, well, it was perhaps best not to ask questions about the physical relationships between the creatures. Juliette smiled at them, her teeth like pearls. "Cleaner waters, healer," she said.