Rafael smiled. “Better safe than sorry, what I say. I’m on my way across to Castello to paint a portrait. It’s not much of a commission but every bit of money helps. I’ll toss it in my paint-bag and deliver it for you. You can stay here in the meanwhile.”
Marco felt his muscles go slack with relief. “That would be fantastic.”
* * *
The relief on Benito and Maria’s faces when they saw him was almost worth missing a day’s pay for. And Caesare was pleased with his parcel too. Benito and Maria did quite a lot of yelling at him, of course.
Chapter 28
Petro Dorma studied the body lying on the kitchen table. The two chirurgeons were still working on the pitifully mangled thing, but it was obvious to Dorma that the shopkeeper was as good as a corpse. The amount of blood spilling over the table onto the stone-flagged floor was enough in itself to doom him—leaving aside the ghastly trail of blood that led from the shop where the merchant had been attacked.
Blood, and . . . other things. Horrid pieces of a half-dismembered human body. Whatever had done this had been as insensate in its violence as in the previous murders. This was now the fourth victim Dorma had examined—assuming that the street urchin killed the first night had been one of them, an assumption which Petro had made long since. All of them displayed the same characteristics. Bodies ripped apart, as if by some kind of huge animal, not simply stabbed or bludgeoned in the manner of a human murderer.
He turned away and walked out of the kitchen, taking care not to ruin his expensive shoes by stepping in the blood. Once in the room beyond, he paused and examined the area once again. He had done so already, but Dorma was meticulous by nature. That was one of the reasons his fellow senators had elected him to the Signori di Notte. The Lords of the Nightwatch who controlled the city’s Schiopettieri were too powerful a group to be given into the hands of careless men. The more so if one of them, like Petro Dorma, was also a member of the Council of Ten—the shadowy semi-official body of the Senate which had almost unrestricted powers to investigate and suppress whatever they saw as threats to the security of the city.
Petro Dorma had the reputation for being judicious as well as intelligent, and not given to factionalism or fanaticism of any kind—exactly the qualities which the oligarchy that controlled the Venetian Republic looked for in its most powerful officials. The Republic had now lasted for a millennium, maintaining its prosperity and independence in the face of many challenges, by being cautious and methodical. Venetian diplomats were famous the world over—notorious, perhaps—for being the most skilled at their trade. The challenges which had faced the city over that thousand years had been internal as well as external. Venice’s secret police were every bit as expert as the city’s diplomats.
Petro Dorma never thought of himself as a “secret policeman,” much less as the effective chief of the secret police. In truth, he never really thought of his status at all. He simply took it for granted. The male head of one of Venice’s most prominent houses, a wealthy and highly respected merchant, very prominent in the Senate. And, also, the dominant member of the Lords of the Nightwatch and perhaps the most influential within the Council of Ten.
So it was. Petro Dorma’s position in Venetian society was as much a matter of fluid custom and tradition as it was of any official title. He did not care much about titles; did not even think of them very often. He was Petro Dorma, and . . . so it was.
* * *
The room was plain, unadorned. The narrow and cramped shop of a simple dealer in linens, nothing more. As with most small merchants in Venice, the shop was simply the front room of a residence. The kitchen adjoined directly; the bedrooms and living quarters were upstairs, accessible only by a narrow staircase leading from the back of the kitchen.