Read Online A Death in the Venetian Quarter by Alan Gordon - Free Book Online Page A

the funeral?”
    â€œA spell or potion gone wrong?” he said hopefully. “She was trying to make him fall in love with her, and killed him by mistake.” He paused. “I don’t always sound this stupid, do I?”
    â€œNo, not most of the time,” I assured him. “But one thing I know about witches. The ones who are not outright frauds are women without magic but with a vast knowledge of herblore. Which would include poisons. We’ll have to find out more about her. If nothing else, I want to know what she knows about Bastiani.”
    â€œWe’ll add it to the list of things we have no time for,” grumbled Plossus.
    â€œYou’d be surprised how much spare time one has during a siege,” I said. “Lord knows no one will be wanting us for entertainment. I hope you’ve been saving your money.”
    â€œI paid my landlady for another month,” he replied. “She was surprised that I was planning to stick around that long. A lot of people are already fleeing the city.”
    â€œThe more fool they,” I said. “It’s safer here.”
    That’s the sort of completely misguided assertion that I come up with every now and then. Events were to prove me wrong. Sometimes, I really hate events.
    We went our separate ways after lunch. Plossus was off to the neighborhood
by the Hippodrome to sound out the factions. I decided, since I was in the neighborhood, to drop by the Senate and see if I could get a word with my friend, Niketas Choniates.
    Choniates was a senator as well as being Logothete, which made him one of the highest functionaries in the bureaucracy. The Senate, of course, was a completely spurious institution, consisting of a self-important body of wealthy men with no real power. Every time there was an uprising against an emperor, the Senate would back the man in charge until the emperor had him executed, at which point they would hail the emperor and thank God for his miraculous escape and beneficent leadership. The real power and money in this city stayed with the denizens of Blachernae, their relatives and their favorites. But the Senate maintained the trappings of government.
    Choniates was an exception to the rule, however. A smart man, he took his duties seriously. I figured that as Logothete, he would take more than a passing interest in these events, especially given his nominal responsibility for the Venetian quarter. And, most of all, he was one of the finest gossips I had ever known. Gossiping is a skill, truly an art, and to have an ear to events in the largest city the Christian world had ever known was a gift indeed. During my time here, we had become sharers of information, both for its usefulness and for the sheer indulgence of it.
    I passed by the Hippodrome and cut through the Augustaion, the great square by the Hagia Sophia. The Senate House was at the east side of the square, an enormous structure with huge marble columns, a magnificent arch over the entrance, friezes running rampant along the top, the whole thing some 150 feet wide. They say the current building dated to the time of the Emperor Justinian, who rebuilt it on the same site as the one originally put there by Constantine himself. Amazing how a useless institution can endure for so long. It gives me hope for the survival of the Fools’ Guild.

    The senators were all scurrying back after their own noon meals, or their noon assignations with their mistresses. I mingled with the crowd, imitating the gaits of some of them to the quiet amusement of their servants, until I saw Choniates.
    â€œNik!” I shouted.
    He turned and marked me.
    â€œFeste,” he exclaimed in surprise. “I thought we were having lunch next week.”
    â€œI want to talk to you. Something’s come up.”
    â€œI did notice the invasion,” he said dryly.
    â€œSomething local. When are you free?”
    He frowned. “Not right now. We’re debating