[Nick Zuliani 01] - City of the Dead by Ian Morson

Author:Ian Morson [Morson, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Historical, Detective and Mystery Stories, China - History - Song Dynasty; 960-1279, Zuliani; Nick (Fictitious Character), Mystery & Detective, Murder - Investigation, Mongols, Murder, China, Investigation, Mystery Fiction, Crime
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2008-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

14. SHI-SI

Crows everywhere are equally black

I hurried back to the foreigners’ quarters in the Outer City, deep in thought about what I had been told. And had seen. I had jokingly referred to the problem of trusting people in Xanadu when I had spoken to Lin Chu-Tsai. Now it looked as though he was one of the people I needed to be most wary of. It was a mortal blow, because I needed someone on the inside, and intimate with the workings of the Inner City, if I was ever to find out who had killed Friar Pisano, and why.

Ko Su-Tsung had apparently been frank with me. But I would rather be heading out into the Adriatic in a storm aboard a rotten Pisan hulk than trust myself to his mercies. Only the little silversmith Tadeusz Pyka could help me. He had been here long enough to understand how the place worked, surely. But first I needed to speak to the friar about these crazy letters of Pisano’s. I remembered something about the top letter now. It was an old story of a letter purportedly written by Pope Alexander the Third nearly one hundred years ago. And was itself in response to letters said to have been brought by Philip the Physician from a place that no lesser person than Alexander the Great had seen. The far-off Indies. These letters concerned the existence of an Eastern Christian monarch called Prester John, who it was said, would at some critical juncture invade and liberate the Holy Land. Most Venetians, being of a pragmatic nature, saw that as , pipe dreams for optimists. But if it was real, what had the letter to do with Kubilai?

Though outside our quarters the evening was warm and balmy, inside I soon discovered that the atmosphere was frosty. I had forgotten about Gurbesu’s presence, and the subsequent menage a trois it created. As I slid back the door, and stooped to cross the threshold built for a shorter race than us Venetians, I was hit by the friar’s invective.

‘What do you think you were doing? Are you insane or have your brains descended to your Tartar breeches?’

‘What have I done now, Alberoni?’

‘Her,’ he hissed, pointing at a sullen Gurbesu, who sat on the edge of my cot teasing the ends of her glossy tresses with her fingers. ‘Do you know who she is?’

Before I could concoct a suitably bland response, he provided the answer to his own question.

‘I recognize her, if you don’t. She was on board that cart of Kungurat girls the old woman was escorting. The virgin tribute for Kubilai.’

I grinned knowingly. ‘You singled her out yourself, then, from all the beauties on display?’

Alberoni’s face turned purple. ‘What are you suggesting, Zuliani? It is more likely you singled her out. And defiled her.’

There was no joking with Alberoni. And I could see that if I wished to get Alberoni’s continued cooperation, I had better be more contrite. Striving to pull on a solemn face, I assured him that I had done no such thing.

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