The Journeyer

“And only my head,” I said thickly.
“Try not to laugh,” said Mordecai.
“Laugh?!” I cried in anguish—and then I did laugh, his Words were so preposterous. “You are jesting again, old man.”
He shrugged. “One does what one can.”
One day, the monotony of my confinement was interrupted. The door was unlocked to let a stranger come stooping in. He was a fairly young man who wore not a uniform but the gown of the Brotherhood of Justice, and he introduced himself to me as Fratello Ugo.
“Already,” he said briskly, “you owe a considerable casermagio of room and board in this State Prison. If you are poor, you are entitled to the assistance of the Brotherhood. It will pay your casermagio for as long as you are incarcerated. I am a licensed advocate, and I will represent you to the best of my ability. I will also carry messages to and from the outside, and procure some few small comforts—salt for your meals, oil for your lamp, things like that. I can also arrange for you”—he glanced over at old Cartafilo and sniffed slightly—“a private cell.”
I said, “I doubt that I would be any less unhappy elsewhere, Fra Ugo. I will stay in this one.”
“As you wish,” he said. “Now, I have been in communication with the house of Polo, of which it seems you are the titular head, albeit still a minor. If you prefer, you can well afford to pay the prison casermagio, and also to hire an advocate of your own choice. You have only to write out the necessary pagheri and authorize the company to pay them.”
I said uncertainly, “That would be a public humiliation to the company. And I do not know if I have any right to squander the company’s funds … .”
“On a lost cause,” he finished for me, nodding in agreement. “I quite understand.”
Alarmed, I started to remonstrate, “I did not mean—that is, I would hope … .”
“The alternative is to accept the help of the Brotherhood of Justice. For its reimbursement, the Brotherhood is then allowed to send upon the streets two beggars, asking alms of the citizens for pity of the wretched Marco P—”
“Amoredei!” I exclaimed. “That would be infinitely more humiliating!”
“You do not have to decide your choice this instant. Let us discuss your case instead. How do you intend to plead?”
“Plead?” I said, indignant. “I shall not plead, I shall protest! I am innocent!”
Brother Ugo looked over at the Jew again, and distastefully, as if he suspected that I had already been receiving counsel. Mordecai only pulled a face of skeptical amusement.
I went on, “For my first witness I shall call the Dona Ilaria. When she is compelled to tell of our—”
“She will not be called,” the Brother interrupted. “The Signori della Notte would not allow it. That lady has been recently bereaved and is still prostrate with grief.”
I scoffed, “Are you trying to tell me that she grieves for her husband?”
“Well …,” he said, with deliberation. “If not that, you can be sure that she exhibits some extreme emotion because she is not now the Dogaressa of Venice.”
Old Cartafilo made a noise like a smothered snicker. Maybe I made a noise, too—of dismay—for that aspect of the situation had not before occurred to me. Ilaria must be seething with disappointment and frustration and anger. When she sought her husband’s removal, she had not dreamed of the honor he was about to be accorded, and she with him. So now she would be inclined to forget her own involvement; she would be consumed with a desire to exact revenge for her forfeited title. It would not matter on whom she vented her rage, and who was an easier target than myself?
“If you are innocent, young Messer Marco,” said Ugo, “who did murder the man?”
I said, “I think it was a priest.”
Brother Ugo gave me a long look, then rapped on the cell door for a guard to let him out. As the door creaked open at his knee level, he said to me, “I suggest that you do choose to hire some other advocate. If you intend to accuse a reverend father, and your prime witness is a woman bent on vendeta, you will need the best legal talent there is in the Republic. Ciao.”
When he had gone, I said to Mordecai, “Everyone takes it for granted that I am doomed, whether I am guilty or not. Surely there must be some law to safeguard the innocent against unjust conviction.”
“Oh, almost surely. But there is an old saying: the laws of Venice are supremely fair and they are sedulously obeyed … for a week. Do not let your hopes get too high.”
“I would have more hope if I had more help,” I said. “And you could help us both. Let the Brother Ugo have those letters you hold, and let him show them in evidence. They would at least cast a shadow of suspicion on the lady and her lover.”
He gazed at me with his blackberry eyes and scratched reflectively in his fungus beard, and said, “You think that would be the Christian thing to do?”
“Why … yes. To save my life, to set you free. I see nothing un-Christian about it.”
“Then I am sorry that I adhere to a different morality, for I cannot do it. I did not do that to save myself from the frusta, and I will not do it for both of us.”
I stared, unbelieving. “Why in the world not?”
“My trade is founded on trust. I am the only moneylender who takes such documents in pawn. I can do that only if I trust my clients to repay their loans and the accrued interest. The clients pledge such papers only because they can trust me to keep their contents inviolable. Do you think women would otherwise hand over love letters?”
“But I told you, old man, no human being trusts a Jew. Look how the Lady Ilaria repaid you with treachery. Is that not proof enough that she thought you untrustworthy?”
“It is proof of something, yes,” he said wryly. “But if even once I should fail my trust, even on the most dire provocation, I must abandon my chosen trade. Not because others would think me contemptible, but because I would.”
“What trade, you old fool? You may be in here the rest of your life! You said so yourself. You cannot conduct any—”
“I can conduct myself according to my conscience. It may be small comfort, but it is my only comfort. To sit here and scratch my flea and bedbug bites, and see my once prosperously fat flesh shrinking gaunt, and feel myself superior to the Christian morality that put me here.”
I snarled, “You could preen yourself just as well outside—”
“Zito! Enough! The instruction of fools is folly. We will not speak of it further. Look here on the floor, my boy, here are two large spiders. Let us race them against each other and wager incalculable fortunes on the outcome. You may choose which spider will be yours … .”
11
MORE time passed, in dismalness, and then Brother Ugo came again, stooping in through the low door. I waited glumly for him to say something as disheartening as he had the other time, but what he said was astounding:
“Your father and his brother have returned to Venice!”
“What?” I gasped, unable to comprehend. “You mean their bodies have been returned? For burial in their native land?”
“I mean they are here! Alive and well!”
“Alive? After almost ten years of silence?”
“Yes! All their acquaintances are as amazed as you are. The entire community of merchants is talking of nothing else. It is said that they bear an embassy from Far Tartary to the Pope at Rome. But by good fortune—your fortune, young Messer Marco—they came home to Venice before going to Rome.”
“Why my good fortune?” I said shakily.
“Could they have come at a more opportune time? They are even now petitioning the Quarantia for permission to visit you, which is not normally allowed to anyone but a prisoner’s advocate. It may just be that your father and uncle can influence some lenity in your case. If nothing else, their presence at your trial ought to give you some moral support. And some stiffness to your spine when you walk to the pillars.”