The Codex Lacrimae, Part 1: The Mariner's Daughter and Doomed Knight

Chapter 6: At the Tavern of the Wayfarer

In contrast to Ibn-Khaldun's feeling of relief and dread at journey's end, four weeks earlier Clarinda Trevisan thought that the quest to find her father might be over before it began.

She sat at a worn oak table in one of Constantinople's most crowded and noisy taverns, Il Viandante ("The Wayfarer"), at the edge of the Harbor of the Golden Horn. Nearby, Alexander Stratioticus argued with Pasquale, the navigator of the Maritina. Pasquale shared responsibility for all decisions about the family fleet without Clarinda's father, and Angelo Trevisan's disappearance had fueled the current argument.

"We don't have time for a 'quick run' up the Bosphorus," Alex repeated, "and certainly not if it's for making a deal with the likes of Kenezki and his friends."

"The last time I checked, Alex," Pasquale took a sip from a tin-lined wooden goblet, "you hadn't been left in charge of the Maritina." He raised a bushy eyebrow at Clarinda. "Nor had you, Bambina. As I recall, your father told you to stay here while he's gone."

"Padre's not just 'gone'—he's in trouble, Pesci," Clarinda called him "fish" in Italian, an endearment she'd adopted at three years' old when she couldn't say his full name.

She checked the front entrance to the tavern. "You know as well as I do that he's in trouble because of those cursed caskets. But, quickly now, before they return. Alex has a point—what was father doing dealing with someone like this Kenezki?"

"Kenezki's not the only one to worry about," Alex interjected. "Paolo Santini and Radulf of Thuringia are known here and in Venice for skirting the boundaries of legality. They're scoundrels and they've been implicated in everything from the Galata Fire that destroyed the Genoese Quarter ten years ago to poaching pheasants in the imperial preserve."

"Children, children," Pasquale said, leaning back so that the sizable bulk of his stomach didn't press so firmly against the table. "Let's not be so hasty in our judgments, eh? I myself am trying to keep the lines straight here, but it seems as if Angelo and Verrocchio cast many nets before we left. At least let me tug a little here and there on each line to see what's what."

He gave Clarinda a hard stare. "You've persuaded me to go to Caesarea, little one, but we have five ships laden with cargo that need to be sold, commissioned, or—at the very least in the case of the glass, fritware, and spices—held over the winter so we can sell the goods in the spring fairs in Scandinavia and Calais. Kenezki's the best contact in the Italian Quarter for the northern countries. Should we throw all that away?"

"Of course, we shouldn't, Pesci," Clarinda said quietly, knowing the old merchant was correct. Her father would go berserk if they sold five ships' worth of merchandise at fire-sale rates. "I'm just worried."

Pasquale rested a reassuring hand on her forearm. "As am I. Let's take each bridge as we come to it, eh? Hush, now—here they come."

Three men pushed their way toward them through the people and tables in the tavern.

Kenezki slipped onto the bench next to Clarinda and waved a hand at the other two men. "Master Pasquale, this is Paolo Santini and Radulf of Thuringia. They're able to handle the kind of transaction we discussed earlier."

Clarinda took stock of the newcomers, wary of any recommendations coming from Kenezki, a self-proclaimed pirate who'd earlier introduced himself with a kiss on her hand that lingered too long and subsequent winks that hoped for too much. She suspected him at an elemental level that she couldn't explain.

Long hair, bound into a ponytail with a thick leather thong, framed Kenezki's lean and swarthy features. His narrow, cleft chin, thin eyebrows, and gaunt face imparted a hungry aspect. Most disconcerting, however, were an intaglio of tattoos that swept upward along both sides of his neck in black and crimson patterns of snakes, vipers, and dragons that obscured half of his face.