Chương 7: The Rent and the Road

"Please forgive the hour, Quaesitor Vale." Ser Palladio Vene stood on my landing with his satchel held against his chest, taking his spectacles off and polishing them. Just what I needed, I thought, already knowing why he was here. I had paid my Novembre rent last week, and there was only one other reason for a landlord to visit.

"Ser," I said in response, nodding to him as I extracted my keys from my pocket, already doing the calculations and knowing I could save on coal this winter if I worked longer hours at the Misericordia.

"A late day today?" he asked me, and I only nodded. He went on, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"I come so late because you keep the hours you keep. Better to talk here, than to find you at the Misericordia." Why must you hunt men at all? I almost said it out loud, but the fight was not in me tonight.

"Come in, then." He came in, and I offered him the only chair I had, and he declined.

"Show me then," I said and reached out my hand. Without comment, he put the paper in my hand and waited for me to read it, before speaking.

"It is the Foundation, Quaesitor. I tried to argue against, but they were adamant. The schedule has been revised."

"Again."

"The third revision in two years, yes. It is not so bad. I know some tenements adjust every half-year." He pointed to the paper in my hand.

"Your two rooms were assessed at eleven florins the month when you took them. The first revision made it twelve and a half. The second, thirteen and a half. The present assessment is fifteen."

"Fifteen. That is a florin and a half more. Show me this assessment you speak of."

"Ser," he said, uncomfortably.

"I cannot do that, you know that. The assessments are confidential, the property of the foundation."

"Right. So, how can I know they are fair. This does not look fair to me."

"The assessors. The Foundation appoints them." He gestured in the general direction of the foundation's headquarters.

"There is a proposal, in writing, to the Foundation's own chamber, where all assessments are validated against general living expenses, general monetary inflation, and Varenza's economic forecasts."

"So, assessors hired by the Foundation write a report that is validated by the Foundation. If only they also assessed my salary," I muttered. Then louder, "my wage has not moved in six years. Do their forecasts consider that?"

"I know it has not. You are on a city official level sixteen if I am not mistaken. I find myself on level twelve, which also has not moved. This is Varenza, Ser, this should… It is what it is." Then he added, his voice lower as if sharing a secret of the state.

"May I tell you what the fifteen does, Examiner? I am not supposed to share, but you should know what you are paying for."

"I know already," I said, trying to mobilize more outrage and protest than I had energy for.

"It's in your charter. Clause nine, if I remember correctly. It says something like, the foundation can decide to take florins from tenants at will, so that the Family does not need to increase its subsidies, leaving ample funds for expensive wine."

"Ser," he said, attempting offence.

"If you know the charter, you know that is not right. The Foundation houses the indigent at below the ward rate. Two hundred and forty places, at four florins each month. Those places are funded from the at-rate tenancies. That is just how things are done." His eyes left mine for a moment as he recalled from memory.

"Clause nine of the foundation charter: the burden of the poor shall lie upon the roof that shelters them, and not upon the poor themselves. A tenant who pays the assessed rate is performing a charity, Examiner. We all need to do our part, so that our sisters and brothers in poverty have a place to live."

"And nothing about adjusting the subsidies?" I would not take the guilt he was offering.

"By my reckoning, since I moved in here the relative portion paid by the subsidies has gone from one in seven, to one in nine." He had not expected the figures.

"You cannot argue this, Quaesitor. This is what it is, and I am sorry to point this out, but you would not argue the poorest should bear it instead. I know what you do, and you wash them and you dress them for the carts. You are not a man who would hand them a bill."

"Not my argument, Ser. You know that."

"Well, then." He put the spectacles away and closed the satchel.

"Fifteen, from the first. I will tell the chamber you asked, if you want it on the record."

"Put it on the record." He went, and I stood in the room with the paper still in my hand. Living in Varenza can be like living at the bottom of the ocean, engulfed and oppressed by something inevitable. I knew myself, and I knew my temper. Give me a man, a functionary or a bureaucrat. Give me a face, which I can direct my will towards, and I will need to watch myself to keep my anger in check. Those bubbles in my chest were more common when I was a young man, and for many years I considered it a weakness of mine.

Recently, I hold on to that anger when it arrives as something to cherish, letting it build and bubble. It replaces the flatness of my blue mood with something tangible and fiery, something that gives my thoughts solace from the emptiness. But now, I breathed out slowly and turned towards my cupboard, finding some bread and some cheese and some ham. Eating dinner, I spent my thinking time going over my household budget rather than flail uselessly against the ocean of bureaucracy surrounding me.

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That same night, just before midnight, at a time when I would normally spend a few minutes in my chair thinking, I put on my coat and headed back to the Misericordia. Corso had gone home already before I left earlier, and by now Sinon should also be gone. Nello Barzi would still be there. He would have questions when I returned in the middle of the night, but I was not concerned.

The story of the beggar in the arcade had taken on a life of its own these past few days, and everybody in the Misericordia knew of my obsession. The streets had been washed by the evening rain, and I crossed the little piazza where the fishmongers would be shouting by dawn. By now their stalls were shuttered up, but a faint smell of the day's catch lingered as I made my way across, ducking under a laundry line which had been left out when the rains came.

It dripped down on me with a faint scent of soap, mixing with the fish. The old guild halls rose on either side of the narrow lane, their ground-floor arches bolted and dark, coats of arms worn soft by centuries of hands and weather. I knew that these streets were once favoured by the elite, but they had long ago relocated to the areas surrounding the Palace Hills, to be closer to the new seats of power. Somewhere a bell tolled the hour from a campanile I couldn't see.

It would be the last bell of the day, marking midnight. The smell of the river followed me from my door to my destination, green and silty, and came up through the gratings and off the walls, now also bringing a chill that reminded me that winter was close. Finally, I turned into the piazza fronting the Misericordia, noting the man leaning against the well in the centre. Old Faro had worked the Misericordia piazza since before I started working here.

"Bit late, Vale."

"Evening, Faro. Black-day tomorrow, and I am behind," I said.

"And someone over there," I gestured towards the Palace Hills, "has strong opinions for this batch."

"Ah." He chewed.

"Not good, when their opinions reach down to us, is it. And those dead of yours, they should at least know better and let a living man sleep. Go on, then. Mind the stones, they're greasy." I nodded to him in thanks and soon reached the doors to the Misericordia, where I unlocked the main doors and entered the hall, smelling the first faint note of my other home: lye, cold stone, and that strange sweetness of death. My footsteps echoed from the marble walls around me.

The Misericordia is a very different place by night; during the day it is more a place of business than of sacrament and the processing of the dead, as we receive and count and analyse and write down our reports and update our ledgers. By night, all the necessities of efficiency are forgotten. The dead can be just that, dead; filling these halls with their quiet contemplations. And those of us still lucky to be alive can—"Ser Vale?" Nello rose from his chair in the hallway, grinning at me with a lamp in hand.

"You are back?" The last came out as a question, which seemed unnecessary to answer. I gave him a nod.

"Master Barzi, how are the rats doing?"

"I was just down there, Ser. In the tavern. I heard some scuffling in the walls, but the dead were left to their peace."

"Good boy," I said.

"I will be there for a little while now, so no need to check. I will let you know when I leave."

"You want the good lamp, if you're working? Is it about that beggar with the teeth?" He waited a moment, but continued when he saw I would not indulge him.

"The office lamp's no good. I'll lend you mine and sit in the dark, I'm half a cat by now."

"Keep your lamp, Nello. I have my lantern."

"You're sure. Well. Come back past, if you have the time. Tell me about him!" Nello grinned at me, face full of curiosity. I could see he had not forgotten our earlier conversation, and I wondered, again, if I was making a grave mistake. He was a good boy. Doing his job, as best he could, and a year later he stood under oath and told the magistrates what time the quaesitor had arrived on the night of Novembre the Eighth.

I first went to my office, lit my lantern from the office lamp, and found the reports I had prepared for black-day. For tomorrow. A relatively small stack of papers which I would later file into the monthly ledger, and even later add to the annual records. But for now, a few pages backed by a wooden board sufficed, and something about holding the firmness of that board strengthened my own resolve. My knife roll went into my coat. And that resolve was in need of strengthening.

Although I knew within myself that I had made a firm decision, there was still a full trial happening in my thoughts. It had been running for three days, and the advocates on both sides were still making their arguments. I only hoped that the trial would conclude soon, aligning my reasons with my impulse. On my way down to the coemeterium I grabbed a bucket of coal which someone, Corso probably, had prepared earlier in the evening. The beggar had been moved from where I had left him.

The coemeterium, or the tavern as we called it on account of every bench being full, was their last stop before the wide doors at the end of the room and the carts beyond them. Each body wore a strip of coloured cloth at the ankle, and the strip was the destination. Ochre went to a family sepulchre or a faction cemetery, painted and dressed up, prepared for the date when the dead were invited to their own funerals. Red went to the parish, and each parish sent its own cart on its own schedule.

Black went to the lime pit, once a week, the last day of the week. That was tomorrow, and the beggar was on the list for it. I walked down glad I had not changed out of my work clothes. The smell of this room was unlike anything else in Varenza. It was the reason I rarely stopped at a tavern on the walk home, and when I did, it bought me a bench to myself by the second cup. I had learned to use that. My eyes found him quickly. One of four wearing black, which was right according to the list on my board.

I crossed to the brazier at the end of his bench, emptied the small bucket of coals into it and stoked it, stealing a moment to warm my hands. Kneeling down next to his bench, I did as I always do without thinking, setting my three middle fingers against the back of his hand and muttering the words to a prayer I learned many years ago.

Then I drew the sheet back from him and carefully uncovered the arm, folding up the sleeves on the simple sackcloth shirt to expose the place where the strange object had been hidden, before setting down the lantern I had brought and leaning it on the bench, pointed at the arm. Next, and before anything else, I opened the tavern's own ledger and added a line to the bottom of the page, idly noting that Sinon had already signed it off as completed earlier that evening.

Unidentified male, intake of the fifth of Novembre. Foreign object detected beneath old scar tissue, lower left forearm, metallic, seated. I dated my entry and signed it. Documentation first. Whatever happened after, the record would say I had looked, and when, and what I found. In writing it down, I could continue the pretence of lawful processing. As long as I did not think too hard about not adding a time of day to the entry. That is what I told myself, anyway, alone at midnight with a scalpel.

The ink took a moment to dry. Then I picked up the knife. The scar was even older than I had thought by lamplight that first day, the tissue around it gone the colour of old linen. I set the edge against it and my hands stopped. Process him fast, Vale. I heard Sinon's voice echoing from when we brought the old man in.