Well, he couldn’t think about her now; he had a ticklish job ahead of him.
Matteo chuckled at Marco’s blush, not knowing what had caused it. He was about to toss another jibe in his direction when Christophoro Ventuccio stalked through the outer office on the way to his inner sanctum, and all four clerkly heads bent quickly over their assignments.
For the next bit of information, Marco had to wait until the appropriate book came into his hands legitimately—though he’d agreed to take on the lengthy Albiona inventory with the notion of getting at that book in mind. This East-run round ship had sprung a leak in her hold and had as a consequence sustained a bit of spoilage to chalk off on the loss sheets. And that was the book Marco wanted in his hands; the “Spoilage, Refund, and Salvage” book—because if he was the captain covering tracks, that’s where he’d have hidden those little spice casks.
And sure enough—there they were; and no one else ever seemed to have quite as much spoilage in such a specific area as Captain Alessandro Montello of the Jaila.
It looked legitimate; all properly logged, and with no loss on the Ventuccio ledgers. The only thing that the captain had forgotten—were the casks themselves.
The miniature barrels that spices were shipped in were unlike any other such containers in that they were not tarred to make them waterproof. Tar ruined the delicate flavor of the spices. They were very carefully waxed instead; caulked with hemp and coated with beeswax, inside and out.
This made them very valuable, no matter that they were so small. Cooks liked them to hold flour and sugar and salt. For that matter—a good many used the casks, with the wax coating burnished into their wood until it glowed, as workbaskets, and for a dozen other semi-ornamental purposes.
So even if the spice inside had somehow spoiled, through leakage, or rot, or insect contamination, the cask had a resale value. Yet none of those casks from the Jaila’s inventory ever appeared on the “Salvage” side of the blotter.
And no one seemed to be interested in claiming back part of the value from the company that imported the spice for them. And that was very odd indeed.
And it was in the “Spoilage, Refund, and Salvage” book that Marco found out who had ordered and paid for the “spoiled” spices—and who had apparently been so careless, or generous, as to absorb the entire loss.
Casa Badoero. Spice merchants on Murano.
The next day, and the next, Marco kept strictly to legitimate business, waiting for an opportunity for him to get at the packets of tax-stamps.
The Venetian tax-stamps, placed on an article that had had its duty paid in full, were distributed by a small army of officials, Capi di Contrada, who had to report to the Doge and the Council of Ten. The stamps themselves were green paper seals, signed by the officiating capi, and each was wax-sealed and stamped twice with a unique number. They were intended to be split into two parts, each half bearing the same number. The first part was sealed with lead and wire to the taxed goods. The second part was torn off and returned, after counting at the Doge’s palace, to the appropriate importer as evidence that he had paid his tax-duties to both the Republic of Venice and the Doge. The stamps came in from the Doge’s palace in bundles and were kept in the cubbyholes of the tax desk, one hole for each day of the month. At the end of the month some luckless clerk got to check them against the warehousing inventory and file them away. Marco was too junior to be entrusted with such a task—but Matteo Feruzzi wasn’t.
Sure enough, at month’s end Matteo got stuck with the job. And Matteo never had lunch at his desk. Marco waited until lunchtime, when Matteo had gone off to lunch with Rosa and the office was deserted, to make his move.
He slid over to Matteo’s desk, counted the little packets and purloined the one representing the twelfth of the month, the day the spice shipments from the Jaila had been collected by the Badoero representative. He thumbed through the little slips as quickly as he could, not daring to take the packet out of the office, hovering over in a corner next to the filthy glass window where the light was best. Finally he came to the Badoero slips, and got the name of the officer in charge puzzled out.