CESCA SPREAD THE SHROUD on the bed. By rolling the corpse back and forth she managed to position it in the middle. She folded the shroud into the shape of a triangle, tucking in the ends so that no part of Leon showed.
A few steps across the hallway was Leon’s study. On the table was the promissory note Cesca had seen Foscari sign, leaving behind as a pledge a ewer that Cesca could see at a glance was merely plated silver. Leon had bent over his strongbox, counted out Foscari’s money, and then slid the ducats across the table, averting his eyes as though it pained him to see the gold pass from his hand to Foscari’s. At the time, Cesca had wondered why Foscari sought out a moneylender in Rome rather than in Venice where he lived, but she had given the matter no further thought. No doubt nobles had to be discreet about going to Jews for money.
Cesca dragged out Leon’s strongbox. Using the key Leon kept tucked under the corner of the carpet, she undid the lock. There, next to a bag of crimson powder, she spied it—the canvas purse. A shroud has no pockets. If she did not act now, when would God place such an opportunity before her again? It would be churlish to spurn His offer. She snatched up the pouch. But there was no delicious heft, no merry tinkle of coins, no shiny ducats straining the seams. She loosened the twine around the neck of the pouch and turned it upside down, shaking it like a cat toying with a dead mouse. The crinkle of parchment and two sheets slipped out and drifted to the floor. She kicked the worthless sheets out of her way. Had there been a fire burning in the grate in the study, she would have flung them in. Where were her gold coins?
She pawed through the strongbox, pitching items to the floor—a cheap garnet ring, a glass brooch, a small pair of scales for weighing gold, a jeweller’s loupe, letters tied with a silk ribbon, a tattered yarmulke. She had planned this moment down to the tiniest detail, going over it in her mind so often it was as though Leon’s ducats were already snug in her pocket. She felt the righteous anger of a woman who has been robbed. Rage gathered at the back of her eyes and moved to her forehead, and travelled to her arms, her torso, her legs—like a forest fire gathering momentum as it burned downhill—until it consumed her whole body. Her dream, which had seemed so attainable—take the ducats and sail off on the next ship—was shattered. She snatched up the empty canvas pouch and threw it to the floor and ground her heel into it. Have my ducats sprouted wings and flown into the sky? Have they grown legs and run off down the road?
She picked up the first of the two sheets of parchment off the floor. The tiny script was probably Latin, that much she could figure out. Once, Leon had explained that all merchants and moneylenders wrote commercial contracts in Latin so that a trader in, say, Venice could read without difficulty a contract from a merchant in Constantinople, Amsterdam, or Leghorn.
Cesca had learned to tally figures but never to read. For the first time in her life, she could see the sense of learning to decipher ink squiggles on a page. She shook the parchment and held it to the light, twisting it this way and that, as though by scrutinizing it she could force it to reveal its secret. It seemed to be a promissory note. Foscari had signed a pledge document much like this one. It also had a motif of oak clusters on the top. She had glimpsed it as it lay on the table, the ink drying. She smoothed the paper out and held it to the light from the window, noticing something she could understand—numbers.
There in the middle of the page were the figures 100, written in numerals in Leon’s precise hand. The signature at the bottom of the page was a maddening scrawl. Even an educated person could not have made it out.
Cesca was about to pick up the second document, which had a border of peacocks in blue and green ink, when she heard voices and the rattle of the bolted door. She dropped the documents in fright. For a moment she could not think what to do. Her mind had been so focused on the money, she had forgotten the mourners outside. They had come to collect the body for burial! Hastily, she shoved both parchments into the pocket of her skirt. Later, she would find those ducats. She gathered the scattered items from the floor and thrust them into the strongbox. When she tried to slam the lid, the yarmulke caught in the hinge, preventing the clasp from closing. Yanking it out, she tossed it under Leon’s desk. She slammed the top closed, replaced the strongbox on its platform, and slipped the key back under the corner of the carpet.
Assume an appearance of calmness, Cesca thought. She brushed some dust off her skirt and smoothed her hair. She forced herself to breathe more slowly as she opened the door and proceeded down the hall to admit the mourners. Her instincts told her that in some obscure way these two indecipherable documents held the secret of what had become of her ducats. All nobles could read. Foscari was a nobleman. He could explain what the papers signified. With her hair arranged prettily, she would go to him. She had no one else to turn to. Had there been more to Foscari’s relationship with Leon than she realized? Could she trust Foscari not to betray her to Grazia?
With his aid, she would find her ducats and when she did, she would buy a dress of Atlas silk, a prosperous farm, and a respectable husband. Never again would she be hungry.