Peccati del Figlio, Peccati del Padre
(Sins of the Son, Sins of the Father)

by Tom Rynard

Agostino Mairano bit his lower lip. His eyes teared as he turned away from his son. He looked out the window, one story above the Canale Grande of Venice . It was late morning and the canal was awash with traffic – gondolas, barges, even a small caravelle, for the Ca' Mairano was east of the Rialto bridge. Agostino saw none of it, his mind focused on the problems of his son.

He started to ask the penultimate question but stopped, his training as an avvocato, or lawyer, taking control of his senses. Never ask one who is accused of a crime whether he did it or not. He might tell you he did and as an officer of the court, the attorney would be obligated to tell the court of his client's admission.

No, Agostino thought, that is not why I choked on the question. This is my son, my flesh and blood, and I cannot face knowing. I cannot live with the knowledge if it is true. Agostino knew Venice and understood its justice. It was not something he wanted his son to endure. It was not something that Agostino could endure seeing his son going through. Agostino was also not sure he could endure the aftermath.

But then Agostino reversed course.

“The doctor says Gabriella was poisoned,” Agostino began. He still could not bring himself to ask the question he needed to ask but once these words were out he knew he would work his way to it. It turned out he did not have to, his son sensing the question his father was avoiding and providing him with the answer.

“I poisoned her.” The statement was softly spoken and without emotion. It was a simple statement of fact as though his son had come in from out of doors and announced to the family, “It's raining.”

A pounding started reverberating in Agostino's head as he faced the confirmation of what he knew – no not knew, but suspected, strongly suspected – from the moment the doctor had told him that this daughter-in-law had died from a very strong poison.

“Why?” Agostino asked, the lawyer in him taking over again. If there was no doubt as to guilt, then one had to work on the sympathy of the judges. But those who sat in judgment in Venice were a particularly unsympathetic lot.

“It wasn't working out,” his son explained, “between us . . . me and Gabriella, I mean.”

The pounding in Agostino's head grew louder.

* * *

Two days later Agostino thought back on his conversation with his son. He could have said, “I told you so,” at that time, but he didn't. The problem with the marriage of Marcantonio and Gabriella was that it had not been an arranged one. Marcantonio had ignored his father, Agostino – no, he had defied him – and married that girl Gabriella out of “love,” he had said. There were no negotiations with the girl's family. Neither Agostino nor his wife would have even considered the girl's family as acceptable for ties to the Mairano family, even if she came to the marriage with an overwhelmingly large dowry. Which she did not. The alliance of the two families held no benefit for Agostino or his son and they certainly didn't need the money.

They didn't need the money but, still, there was some principle involved. Agostino asked the girl's father for a dowry after the two announced the marriage. Gabriella's father declared the amount that Agostino demanded as outrageous and refused. Three months of negotiations ensued but also led to no resolution. Agostino was on the verge of bringing suit in the courts, thought better of it (wanting to avoid a public dispute between the families), and ended up suggesting a private arbitration. As far as arbitrations go, it was a good one. Neither side was happy with the result.

But the conviction remained in Agostino's mind that Marcantonio would not be standing trial for the murder of his wife if his marriage had been an arranged one. Marry for love and once the love is gone there is no way out of the marriage except one. That was the law of the church and the law of the comun of Venice , as well. Which meant that unless a person took the matter in his own hands, there was no escape. The person just had to wait out the death of the spouse. Marcantonio had decided not to wait and poisoned his wife.

Marcanotonio had always been somewhat impulsive and bull-headed. Agostino had never had any control over him. At the time that Marcantonio had married Gabriella, Agostino was in the process of negotiating a very favorable wedding to the Vendolino family. Both families would have benefited politically, economically and socially from the wedding. The girl would also have brought an acceptable dowry into the marriage. Marcantonio had vowed never to marry the girl. Agostino was steadfast in his insistence that the marriage would take place if the negotiations were successfully concluded and that there was nothing Marcantonio could do to prevent it. There was one thing, though, that he could do and he did it. He married another on his own. Anger, shame, humiliation, remorse, were all the things the Mairano and Vendolino families went through when negotiations were called off at the surprise announcement that Marcantonio was already married.

“Ser Zane will see you now.” A young man, no more than twenty-three or four, had entered the room from a larger one recessed into the wall. He knows why I am here, Agostino thought as he passed the youth. I must humiliate myself even before the lowly clerks who will likely never be anything more than a clerk of one sort or another in the varied offices of the government.

Agostino Mairano and Ser Zane were a study in contrast. The former was tall, thin, dignified in his deportment, his face angular and firm. The latter was of medium height. Where Agostino's black togata hung gracefully, Zane's togata had a large, round, protruding stomach to accommodate. Not that the togata was ill-fitting. His tailor had done well with what he had to work with. The layers of fat around Zane's throat and his fat jowls were made worse by the man's receding chin. His eyes were too close together and his hair was receding, as well. Nonetheless, it was clear who was seeking favor from whom. Zane did not stand, greeting Agostino from his seat behind the desk. He pointed to a chair opposite him and Agostino sat down.

Agostino nodded in the direction of the clerk who had shown Agostino into the office and who had remained in the room, taking up a standing position to Agostino's left.

“I had hoped we could talk in private,” Agostino said.

“I think it is best to have someone present,” Zane answered. He paused before continuing, “to give witness to what is said and not said between us.”

So this is how it is going to be, Agostino thought. It angered him, although he suppressed the anger, to think that the city's avogadori , the three principal criminal prosecutors, would be wary of a meeting with Agostino. He was here to plead his son's case, to plead for his son's life, not to stoop to bribery. He carried no large sums of ducats with him, would never resort to such a thing. That didn't mean he wasn't willing to trade favors: political, trade, or otherwise.

Perhaps he shouldn't have taken such a direct approach with Ser Teodoro Dinardi, the leading segregario to the Avogadori di Comun , on the previous day. The man was known to be ambitious but coming from a minor nobile family lacking in financial well-being, he lacked the influence to rise to the levels he sought. Dinardi had not been receptive to Agostino's approach. He would do nothing to spare Agostino's son from the executioner. But Dinardi had done more than just rebuff Agostino. He had apparently spread the word that Agostino was going about seeking favors and offering promises in return. The avogadoro in charge of Marcantonio's prosecution – Ser Zane – knew Agostino's business before Agostino got there. The clerk was proof of that. His presence would make it more difficult but Agostino would not back down now. He had abandoned his dignity when he walked through the door to Dinardi's office on the previous day.

* * *

Agostino left Zane's office with no more than he had when he entered except for a growing frustration. Still it was not time to give up. The judges could be talked with, persuaded that justice could be served without taking his son's life. It was not for Agostino to speak to the judges, however. That would be too blatantly obvious, wholly inappropriate. It would also likely bring about the opposite result of what Agostino sought. The best way for the judges to show that they were immune from such personal lobbying would be to rule against Agostino's son and impose the harshest of punishment. A less obvious means of persuading the judges was required. Agostino would have to enlist the aid of another for this task. He needed a lobbyist, a special kind of lobbyist for this task.

“You know your biggest problem, don't you?” Geremia Rabio was not the first person that Agostino had turned to for assistance with the judges. Two others had expressed sympathy for Agostino's plight but each had politely refused, even when Agostino had offered to pay a premium for their services. I deal strictly in grazie , each in turn had told him. Judges were off limits. Grazie , on the other hand, was a practice – a form of pardon in some instances or a grant of favors in others -- that had grown up through the years and involved a multi-tiered system of approvals and consultations that ultimately led to the doge exercising his prerogative to grant the grazie . If your son is found guilty, the two had separately told Agostino, phrasing their advice somewhat delicately, come see us then. But Agostino knew better, knew it would be too late then. Murder would never be pardoned, nor excused. There would be no grazie for his son.

“Yes,” Agostino answered somewhat irritably in reply to Rabio's question, “everyone wants to gloat over my humiliation. They wish bad things for me out of their jealously over my success.”

Rabio was silent, asking himself what had he done to deserve Agostino's ill temper. In the end, he simply chose to ignore it, understanding the stress of Agostino's situation.

“No, that is not your biggest problem, at least not with me. The judges have been assigned to your son's case. The chief judge has assigned himself to sit as the presiding judge of your son's case.”

This was indeed a blow to Agostino and the fate of his son. He could not quite comprehend how such a thing could happen. No, it was easy to see how it occurred. The Chief Judge was Ser Duxini Vendolino, uncle to the girl Marcantonio would have married if the boy had not so impulsively married the girl Gabriella.

“Will you help me?” Agostino asked, pleaded.

“I cannot help you with Vendolino. I will do what I can about the others. But listen to me, Agosto, and take the advice of an old friend and someone you have turned to many times in aid of the interests of your clients. There is little that can be done for your son. The judges will do as they are already inclined to do by their nature. That may or may not mean the death of your son. Talking to them privately can only hurt your cause. There. You have my opinion. I only agree to this because I know that if I do not do this, you will. And if you do it, there is nothing that can save your son. There can be no grazie given if your son is convicted and sentenced to death. One last thing,” the man added. “I will not take your money for this. I do this out of our many years of working together.”

After Agostino left, mollified somewhat by Rabio's agreement to aid Marcantonio, Rabio weighed the merits of what he had agreed to do. It was something he did not want to do, something that he was certain would do more harm than good. Under the circumstances, with anyone else he might have been comfortable with not fulfilling his promise and doing nothing further. Agosto was too good a friend over too many years, though. He would see through the lie if Rabio told him he had been to talk to the judges but he had not. On the following day – now two days before the day set for the trial – Rabio left his apartment to do the thing he believed that was best left not done. His thoughts were less on what he was going to say to the judges and more on his friend Agosto. Rabio prayed that the entire ordeal would not unbalance his poor friend's mind. It is in a very fragile state, he observed in his prayer.

* * *

“The accused, Ser Marcantonio Mairano will stand to receive the sentence of the court,” the Chief Judge announced.

Marcanotonio stood.

“Ser Mairano, you stand accused of the murder of your wife, Donna Gabriella Vendolino Mairano, by poisoning, a deed you have not denied but have openly admitted. We find nothing to justify or mitigate what you have done. You have offended against the comun of Venice and have sinned in the eyes of God. For your crimes, this honorable court sentences you to be paraded through the Sestiere di San Marco and then led back to the piazza outside the Chiesa di San Marco, where you will be beheaded before the good people of the comun .”

It had not been a long trial and it had not gone well for Marcantonio. The doctor, that Jew Zapudin, as Agostino referred to him in his mind, had testified to the cause of death. Poisoned, he told the judges. The avogadoro Zane made him identify the poison and then had him go into detail about what the person taking such a poison would experience as his or her life slipped away. It would not have been pleasant, the doctor answered as he went on to explain the death that would have ensued. Agostino did not blame the doctor for his testimony, notwithstanding his religion. Dottor Zapudin exhibited no eagerness to explain the death, did not embellish on it, and only answered the questions, sometimes reluctantly, put to him by the avogadoro .

Marcantonio was the next to testify, the only person other than the doctor to be called to the witness chair during the trial. His first act was to confirm the authenticity and correctness of the notarized statement given by Marcantonio shortly after his arrest which was offered into evidence. In person, he again confessed to the poisoning of his wife but offered little in the way of a reason, much less an excuse, for what he had done.

The avvocato hired to defend Marcantonio tried hard to steer testimony and to shape it in such a way that it might elicit some sympathy from the judges. But it had been a very lackluster performance on Marcantonio's part. He answered the questions and told his story in an unemotional monotone, as though he himself did not believe what he was saying. Seeing that it was getting nowhere with the judges, the avvocato brought the testimony to an end as soon as he could without appearing obvious that he was abandoning his client's defense as hopeless.

The evidence was closed and it was time for the judges to return to their chambers to decide the fate of Marcantonio. When the Chief Judge asked if Marcantonio had anything further to say before the court adjourned to deliberate, it was not the younger Mairano who rose to speak but Agostino. Rabio, who had attended the proceeding to lend moral support to Agostino and to be there for his friend and Agostino's wife when the judgment was announced, grabbed Agostino's arm. “No, there is nothing you can say now, Agosto, that will help your son,” Rabio pleaded. He turned to Agostino's wife for her help in silencing Agostino but she turned her head away her eyes welling with tears as the whole ordeal overwhelmed her. The three judges sat impassive, the Chief Judge not interrupting the heated, whispered conversation between Agostino and Rabio. I will plead for my son's life, Agostino declared, putting an end to the discussion. Rabio surrendered to the inevitable. Agosto, be careful of what you say, Rabio gave as his final advice. Exercise some prudence. Please.

Recognizing that the debate was at an end, the Chief Judge spoke, “Ser Mairano, do you wish to address the Court?”

Agostino stood erect and faced the three judges.

“I do your Excellency, Chief Judge. I wish to speak on my son's behalf, to plead for his life.”

Agostino fell silent for a second while he organized what he would say.

“A father loves his son,” he began, “and while he may not overlook the wrongs and misdeeds of his child, he does forgive them. He forgives them because of the blood tie and because the father is not so blinded by the wrong that has been done as to not see the good that also exists in his child.

“I do not ask you to overlook what my son has done. I do not ask you to not punish him for what he has done, to not exact the Comun's just due for this breach of her magnificent laws or to not provide recompense to the family of Gabriella for the wrong done them. My son has done wrong, a most grievous and serious offense. There can be no denial of that.

“But I plead with you for his life and ask you to look into your hearts and ask yourself, does this young man's death truly satisfy the wrong done to Venice or is there another punishment, a lifelong one, that can do a greater justice here?

“I ask you for my son's life. I ask you to see the kernel of good that resides in him — the same kernel that I see – and not to be so blinded by the wrong that he has done to overlook his inherent goodness.

“I also ask you not to let your judgment of my son be clouded by . . . .

Agostino stopped in mid-sentence. Rabio had tugged on the back of Agostino's togata , concerned with what was to follow and the danger such a sentiment held for Agostino's son.

“I implore you,” Agostino continued, having reconsidered what he had started to say, “please spare my son's life and condemn him instead to a life of penance and remorse for what he has done.”

It was a beautiful speech, Rabio reflected after Agostino sat down. Beautiful but ineffective. He had watched the judges as Agostino delivered his plea. None looked at Agostino as he spoke, the faces of the judges as though carved in stone and showing no sign of either emotion or reaction to what Agostino had said.

“For your crimes, this Honorable Court sentenced you . . . to be beheaded before the good people of the Comun .” The words kept repeating themselves in Agostino's mind, over and over, and there was nothing he could do to drive them away.

* * *

“Father, there has to be something you can do! I can't face this,” Marcantonio pleaded with his father.

There was nothing Agostino could do. There were no options left to him to see his son's life spared. The Quaranta had heard the appeal of his son's case and found no reason to overturn the judgment of the court or to impose something less than the maximum punishment of death. Agostino's petition for grazie also went nowhere.

On the following morning, Marcantonio Mairano would be executed in accordance with the judgment of the court.

Marcantonio began to sob and Agostino folded his arms around his son and drew him near. He could find no words to say and, other than the muffled sobs of his son against his shoulder, there was no sound in the cell.

Marcantonio calmed. Father and son remained locked in their embrace for what seemed like an eternity for Agostino. It was, however, no more than half an hour.

“Marco, I must go. To your mother,” Agostino finally broke the silence.

“Father is there no one . . .,” Marcantonio began but was interrupted by Agostino as he put two fingers to his son's lips to silence him.

“Papa,” Marcantonio pleaded again. It had been many years, almost too many for Agostino to remember, since his son had called him by this name. “Papa, is there no other way for me to die? I would prefer anything – to cut my own wrists, or poison or to jump to my death – anything would be easier to face than what they will do to me tomorrow.”

Agostino had thought that he had done everything he could for his son, but now he thought that maybe that there was still something he could do, something that would give his son some dignity in his death.

“No promises, Marco, but I will see what I can do.”

* * *

Agostino sat alone in the room of his palazzo. He was dressed for traveling. As soon as the priest returned with news of his son's death, he would leave the city. The funeral and burial were arranged, although the boy's parents would not be in attendance. They would pay their respects to their son later when Marcantonio and the wrong he had done were forgotten – three months, maybe six. Agostino and his wife needed time away from Venice to help heal the wound of what had been done to them by those who had condemned his son. He hoped that six months on terra firma would remove some of the sting but he was prepared to be gone longer, if necessary.

Now he just waited on the final word. He could not force himself to see his son again or to go to the Molo. If things went well, the crowd would have been severely disappointed. Marcantonio would be dead from poisoning before they came to his cell to parade him through the calli before leading him up the stairs of the platform where the final act would be carried out.

It had taken some doing but Agostino had finally convinced Prete Gianbattista to accept the vial of poison from Agostino and agree to sneak it to Marcantonio. Prete Gianbattista had been the Mairano family confessor for years. He would be the one to hear Marcantonio's last confession and to stay by his side praying as the time for death neared. He would also be the one to deliver the boy from the undeserved death the Comun of Venice had arranged for Marcantonio.

“Ser Mairano, Prete Gianbattista is here,” the servant announced, not waiting for the words to finish before beginning to back out of the room. Only two servants remained in the palazzo this morning. Besides Rudolfo, who had served Agostino's father before serving Agostino, his wife had asked one of his maidservants to remain. The rest had been sent away for the day. Agostino had said nothing to them but Rudolfo had been very clear in his instructions on the previous evening. None of them were to go near the execution.

Agostino rose to meet the priest and the two hugged briefly, the priest expressing his condolences to Agostino for the loss of his son. As they parted from their embrace, the priest placed something in Agostino's hand. It was the vial Agostino had given the priest the night before. Agostino looked at the item in his hand, knowing what it was but expecting to find it empty. It was not. It contained the same amount of liquid as it had the previous evening.

“I am sorry,” the priest apologized. “I could not do it. I couldn't let Marcantonio throw his salvation away by committing suicide. Ser Mairano, no, Agostino, I was with Marcantonio until the end. He was at peace with himself and ready to accept his death. He had fully confessed his sins and been absolved of them. He was unwavering and very dignified in his dying.”

The pounding in Agostino's head had never stopped since the time he had first confronted his son over Marcanotonio's responsibility for Gabriella's death. It had faded into the background in the intervening days and while Agostino was aware of it, it was not an overriding sound. As the priest finished speaking, though, it was all that Agostino could hear.

* * *

Three Years Later

Teodoro Dinardi watched as the children played at a game that likely as not had no name. They ran from tree to tree and it was only when they were touching a tree that they were safe from the boy or girl whose duty it was to chase down the others. If he or she was successful in catching someone between trees, the two traded roles in the game.

It was his son that Dinardi paid closest attention to. He was the youngest of the group, only four years of age. Compared to the other children, he was the smallest and not at all the fastest among the group. It didn't matter. He was among family. When he was being chased between trees, his cousins might slow their steps to allow his escape. When he was chasing, a trip might be feigned or an inadvisable turn made and the pursued would be caught by the four year old. When the boy escaped the clutches of a cousin and made it safely to a tree or when he caught one of the cousins he was chasing, the reaction was always the same. He looked over to his father and smiled, the grin on his face seemingly saying, “Papa, did you see that?”

It was a Saturday afternoon in late summer. The family of Dinardi's wife had gathered at the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore to celebrate both the birthday of her brother and the anniversary of his taking the holy orders of the brotherhood. It was a beautiful day, a perfect day, Dinardi reflected as his attention went from watching his son play among the trees in the orchard to watching his wife laughing and talking with her sisters and mother. Occasionally she would look over at him to gauge whether he was overwhelmed by the extended time listening to her father and two brothers. He smiled back at her, “Not yet, but maybe soon.”

It was almost an hour before Dinardi's wife broke away from the group of females and approached her husband. The children had grown tired of their game and Dinardi's son, Maffeo, had grown exhausted from the exercise. He sat on his father's lap.

“Father, brothers. We must take your leave. I promised Teodoro he could spend an hour or two this afternoon catching up on things in his office. And poor Maffeo, here,” at this she reached out and brushed aside the hair that had covered the boy's forehead, “he has had enough for one day.”

It was still twenty minutes before good-byes were said between family members. The group stood alongside the lagoon at the side of the monastery where the gondolas were moored.

“Papa, can I come with you? I don't want to go home,” Maffeo asked, suddenly perking up with renewed energy.

“I must be busy at my desk, son,” Dinardi answered. “There would be nothing for you to do there and I cannot watch you when you grow bored and want to go out. You'd better go . . . .”

“I can watch him Uncle.” It was one of the older boys who interrupted Dinardi before he was able to finish. The boy was ten or eleven, Dinardi could never keep it straight, and was the son of one of his wife's sisters.

Dinardi looked to the boy's mother to see what her response would be, hoping that she would say, no.

“I think it is fine. If you are okay with it, Teo,” she said, disappointing Dinardi but filling the two boys with joy. Dinardi sighed inwardly knowing he would not be the one disappoint the boys. Outwardly he smiled, “Let's be on our way, then,” pointing the two boys to the seat in the gondola.

* * *

“Zio Teodoro.” Dinardi's nephew stood in the doorway to Dinardi's small office. Dinardi looked up from what he was writing. He could not see Maffeo with the older boy.

“Yes, nipote . How can I be of service?”

“It's Maffeo. I can't find him,” the boy answered.

Dinardi had been lost in his work and didn't know how long he had been sitting at his desk or how long the two boys had been off playing. He had been so engrossed that he had even failed to keep track of the bells ringing throughout the city, announcing either the time or some ritual to be performed, or both.

“Were you playing a game? Perhaps hide-and-seek and he is still waiting for you to find him?”

“No,” the boy replied. He was worried, Dinardi could tell, and this nephew was not one to become easily agitated. “We were in the chiesa. Maffeo and I were taking turns telling the stories behind the pictures.” The boy was referring to the mosaics in the chiesa of San Marco which adjoined the Palazzo Ducale where Dinardi's office was located.

“So how did you lose track of him if you were together?”

“I went to the sacristy, thinking Maffeo was right behind me. He must have stopped because when I turned to point something out to him, he wasn't behind me.”

Dinardi put down the pen in his hand and rose from his chair.

“Come along,” said Dinardi, “we'll go find the boy.”

Maffeo was not in the church or any of its many areas. Nor was he in the arcades outside the church with its mosaics and the notables of Venice 's past.

“Let's check the piazza,” Dinardi said, but then, thinking better of it, added, “I will check the piazza. You stay here in case he returns. And don't go anywhere until I return.” The latter comment Dinardi regretted once it left his mouth, not for what he said but for the gruffness of it as it came out.

Dinardi quickly walked around the piazza checking the merchants' stalls as he went. He did not take the time to stop and describe his son to those few who were still working or ask if anyone had seen him. A quick look and he was on his way to the next stall. In no time he was back standing next to his nephew.

“Go back to my office and see if he has returned,” he told the boy. “I will be in the church seeing if there is anyone who can tell me anything.” Dinardi had noticed a priest when he and his nephew had first gone through the church.

The priest had seen the two boys when they first arrived, he told Dinardi. They had been well-behaved, going from one mosaic to another. The priest had left for awhile and when he returned, he saw the younger boy talking to a man by the mosaic of the tree of Jeremiah. The man took the boy's hand and they walked away. “I thought he was the boy's grandfather,” the priest added. “I didn't think anything of it.”

* * *

“He wasn't dressed as a nobile ,” the priest told Reginaldo Morosini. Hours had passed since Dinardi first spoke with the priest and night was settling on the city. As soon as the priest had told Dinardi his story, Dinardi knew that his son was not off on some adventure, as fearless as the boy sometimes was. The vigili of the sestiere of San Marco had been alerted and a search launched in the area. Dinardi had also sent for Reginaldo. Perhaps there was something he could reason out in all this.

“A person may not always dress as he seems,” Reginaldo answered. Reginaldo had not missed the underlying tone to what the priest had said. At the same time, he did not want to put words in the man's mouth.

“He had the appearance of nobile . The way he stood, the dignity in his bearing, even the way he talked. Everything but the clothes said nobile .”

“You heard him talk, then?” Reginaldo said. The priest had already told Dinardi and two separate vigili what little conversation he had heard between the man and the boy. It had been nothing. The man was simply explaining something about the mosaic the two had been studying. The priest had moved off and had not heard anything else. No on knew what he might have said to get the boy to leave with him.

“What made you believe the two were together?” Reginaldo continued with his questioning after the priest finished reciting what little of the conversation that had been overheard.

“They left together. And the man reached down and took the boy's hand as they walked out. It was just a feeling,” the priest answered.

“Like with the man being nobile ,” Reginaldo followed up.

“I guess. No. Not really. It seemed like the man knew the boy, the way he was talking to him. I think he even called him by name.” This last bit of information was new, the priest not remembering it the other times he had told his story.

“The man called Maffeo by name. The priest remembers that now. He didn't remember it earlier,” Reginaldo told Dinardi after he finished with questioning the priest.

“So Maffeo is okay. It's someone who knew him,” Dinardi answered. Reginaldo had spoken in a low voice so only Dinardi could hear but Dinardi had not been so restrained in his reply. His voice carried to his wife who now stood apart from her husband and Reginaldo under the arcade of the Palazzo Ducale. Dinardi's wife came hurrying over.

“No,” Reginaldo said, not wanting to correct Dinardi's optimism in front of his wife but having no choice in the matter. “We don't know that Maffeo knew the man or that the man knew Maffeo. We know for sure only that the man knew your son's name.”

“So what are you saying,” Agnesina demanded. “My son is not okay?” He voice bordered on panic.

Reginaldo audibly let out a breath of air before continuing. What was he going to say would have been hard enough if said only to Dinardi. It would be infinitely more difficult with Signora Dinardi present. Reginaldo spoke to the mother before him, not her husband.

“Signora, I cannot make this something it is not. I don't know what Maffeo's situation is. The fact that the man knew Maffeo by name suggests this isn't someone who preys on little children.” This had been the biggest fear of the boy's parents and Reginaldo, too, for that matter before he had spoken to the priest. It was not something that happened with great frequency in Venice and when it did involve boys, it was usually boys of an older age. Reginaldo continued. “But this doesn't mean the boy is safe. It probably means the opposite. He was after Maffeo specifically. If we can figure out why, we can figure out who, and that will lead us to your son.”

What he did not say was whether he believed that Maffeo would be alive or dead when they found him. The boy was taken for a reason. Payment of a ransom was unlikely. The Dinardis were nobili but not wealthy. Teodoro's family could not be looked to for a ransom payment of any size and Agnesina's family was only slightly better off financially. No, Reginaldo reasoned, the boy was not taken for what money he could bring. It was likely that he was taken for what his father could do for the kidnapper because of his position. Or, it was because of something that Dinardi had already done to the kidnapper.

“So what do you think?” Dinardi asked.

“I think we will hear shortly what it is the kidnapper wants from you,” Reginaldo answered. “That will tell us something about him when he does. But we do not wait for him to contact us. We can begin to try to figure out who he is. Teodoro, what are you working on now? Everything. I do not think it is your money the man is after. But we will know that soon enough.” Reginaldo was silent about the second possibility – that the boy had been taken out of revenge for something Dinardi had done in the past. The kidnapper would have little reason to keep the boy alive if revenge was his motive unless it was to somehow torture the parents with worry. He would have to raise this possibility with Dinardi, and soon, Reginaldo told himself, but not while the wife was present. “Signora, there is little more you can do here. We are going to go through your husband's cases and see if they tell us anything. The best thing you can do is go home and rest and be there if any message comes about your son.”

It was two hours later when Reginaldo walked out of the Palazzo Ducale and made his way across the Piazzo San Marco in the direction of the far side of the square facing the church. Reginaldo agreed with Dinardi. No one stood out from Dinardi's cases as a likely suspect for kidnapping and blackmail. Still the names would be checked out. From previous cases that Dinardi had handled, the two had identified seven names. They also would be investigated. It would begin in the morning.

It was dark but not late. Reginaldo was not surprised by the size of the crowd in the piazza as he crossed it. It seemed there were always people in the piazza except at the earliest hours of the morning. But the crowd was probably swelled somewhat with all the activity around the piazza and the Palazzo Ducale focused on finding Maffeo. Word spread quickly through Venice and would have brought more people than usual to the square. Most were there out of curiosity. Some were there thinking they could help in the search for the boy.

Reginaldo was not sure how many times the voice behind him had called out, “Scusi, Signor,” before Reginaldo realized the voice was meant for him. He turned and found an older man, but not elderly, hurrying after him. He was dressed in the black togata and bareta of the nobili . Reginaldo had the sense that the man had been standing at the arcade near the Porta Carta as Reginaldo had exited the Palazzo Ducale. Reginaldo also sensed that he knew the man but that would not have been unusual. As a nobile , the man would have participated in the weekly meetings of the Consiglio Maggior and held other positions in the government. All nobili were called on to serve the comun in one capacity or another throughout their lives. For Reginaldo, it was not usually a formal position. He was called upon as consultore speciale by the Council of Ten to investigate crimes the Council took a special interest in.

As for the man approaching him, Reginaldo's memory did not improve as the man got closer and his features became more recognizable in the dim light of the piazza. Perhaps he knew the man when I was younger, Reginaldo reflected, for it was a younger man that he pictured in his mind. The man addressing him now was older, worry lines etched in his face and his hair gray, almost prematurely so.

“Scusi, Signor,” the man said one more time. “The boy that has disappeared,” the man made the sign of the cross as he said this as if there was some evil to ward off, “is there word of him?”

Reginaldo did not understand why he was singled out by the man for information. Maybe he had seen Reginaldo exit the Porta Carta . In any respect, Reginaldo saw no harm in answering, especially as he had no information to give.

“Nothing yet,” Reginaldo answered.

“And the father? He must be beside himself with worry, wanting to help his son but unable to do anything.”

“As any parent would be. As both parents are.”

“Yes, both parents. But as a father, it surely must be harder. After all, it is up to the father to protect his son from harm. I will pray. For the son. And for the father. Thank you Signor.”

The man turned and walked away leaving Reginaldo alone among the crowd in the piazza.

* * *

Seven names – two nobili , two cittadini and the remainder popolani . Of the group, two remained in prison, two were banned from the city on pain of death if they returned. Two were serving their punishment as oarsmen in the galleys of Venice plying the Adriatic . The last one had served his time and was back in the city. We must not be merely concerned with the criminals, Reginaldo had told Dinardi as they went through the list of cases on the previous evening. There are fathers, brothers, grandfathers and uncles who are capable of and interested in maintaining the family honor. Armed with the seven names and a description of the man last seen with Maffeo, the polizia guidizaria , the police force working for Teodoro Dinardi, fanned out across the city. All other duties were forgotten for the day.

Reginaldo arrived at Palazzo Ducale early in the afternoon to check on the progress of the investigation. Reginaldo had taught his classes that morning without interruption. That could only mean that the kidnapper had not contacted Dinardi with a ransom demand, as Reginaldo was to be informed as soon as such a contact was made. The absence of a contact was bad news, Reginaldo concluded. It meant that the taking of Maffeo somehow figured into an act of revenge. And if revenge was what the kidnapper was after, Reginaldo saw little value the boy's life would have.

“Nothing from the kidnapper?” Reginaldo asked as he entered the offices of the Avogadori di Comun . Dinardi and two of the avogadori were present. They were gathered around a table. Dinardi held a sheet of paper in one hand while the two avogadori flanked him and read the paper for themselves.

“We think we have something,” one of the avogadori answered. “It was found in a bocca di leon .” “The mouth of the lion”: Venice 's system for bringing matters to the attention of the officials were boxes located throughout the city and in which denunciations or accusations could be placed. Whether the denunciation was acted on or not depended on a number of things, including whether the denunciation was signed or unsigned. Seldom were anonymous denunciations ever followed up by the city's investigators.

“It came to us in the last hour,” the other avogadori explained. “We have been busy investigating the boy's disappearance and no one emptied the bocca until sometime late in the morning. Even then, it wasn't read right away. It was unsigned so it was set aside with the other anonymous denouncements.”

“What kind of demand does the kidnapper make?” Reginaldo asked, focusing on what was truly relevant under the circumstances. The fact that there was a delay in discovering the message was of no consequence unless there was some deadline set out in the message which had passed. However, the actions of the three men around the table did not suggest that a deadline had been missed.

“He makes no demands,” Dinardi said, the rejection in his voice evident. “Here,” he added as he handed the message to Reginaldo.

Your son is not dead but he might as well be. I give him five days to live, maybe less, unless a lack of food and water kills him before the overwhelming death I have planned for him. You will just have to live knowing that whatever your efforts, you could do nothing to help your son. His execution was pre-ordained. You care little for sending others to their deaths. Now you can know what it means to the families of those you have condemned.

“The boy is still alive,” Reginaldo comforted Dinardi. “We must act quickly to identify who has taken Maffeo. Have we learned anything from the cases we identified yesterday?”

The three were going through the files again, all of which were laid out on the table in front of them. The teams of polizia guidizaria , accompanied by vigili from the sestieri and even members of the Signori di Notte , were completing their inquiries into the seven names on the list Reginaldo and Dinardi had compiled the evening before. Reports had been sent back to Dinardi as information was obtained.

“There are four who might match the description given by the priest. We're not ready to bring them in and have the priest see if he recognizes someone. That will come later when we have identified all possible suspects.”

“And of the four you have identified as possible suspects, which involved executions?”

The three men looked at each other and then down at the stacks of paper on the desk.

“None. That's why we are starting over again with the case files,” Dinardi answered this time. Like Reginaldo, Dinardi concluded from the kidnapper's note that the crime which the kidnapper was seeking to revenge had ended in execution.

The four sat down to the table and divided the files between them. It did not take long to separate them between those in which the punishment had been death and those where a lesser punishment had been imposed. The former stack of cases counted eight files, six in which the punishment had been death and two in which the accused had died during the course of the authorities attempting to extract a confession.

Reginaldo moved the eight files to his place at the table and began skimming them. Occasionally he would read a passage or two more thoroughly. Occasionally he would ask a question of the three.

“What of this Marcantonio Mairano who poisoned his wife? The name is familiar.”

“The boy's father is an avvocato . Civilian matters mostly. Or I should say, he was an avvocato . He has gone into a semi-retirement since his son's execution. He even left Venice for awhile after that but shortly returned.” It was one of the avogadori who had answered the question. “But certainly you must know the man, Ser Morosini.”

“You may be right,” Reginaldo answered. “I have probably ran into him a time or two in the courts. I would probably know him if I saw him.”

A puzzled look came over the face of the avogadoro . He started to speak, stopped, then started again. “I was not far behind you leaving last night. I saw you and Ser Mairano talking in the piazza as I passed.”

* * *

In Venice , the appointed positions of the government, such as Avogadori di Comun , are rotated between members of the nobili . It was the administrative positions, usually held by prominent cittadini or an occasional nobile from a poor or non-prominent family, that provided the institutional knowledge, skill and consistency of practice which sustained the functioning of the Republic. Thus, it was no surprise that neither of the two avogadori present, nor the third prosecutor who was not present, had been assigned to the case of Marcantonio Mairano three years previously.

The file before the four men gathered around the table was not complete. One of the polizia guidizaria assigned to Dinardi's team of investigators was dispatched to the judicial archives for a complete file relating to the prosecution, trial and execution of Marcantonio Mairano. When he returned, the group began pouring over the papers. It was one of the avogadori who came up with the startling connection.

“Dio mio,” he exclaimed. “This can't be a simple coincidence.” It was not anything about the case which elicited his comment. It was the names of the principal actors involved in the trial of Marcantonio Mairano which struck a chord with him. “These names, the people involved. Over the past two, maybe two and a half years, I have had to console at least three of them on deaths in their families.

With that, the group began to compile a list of those who had been directly involved in the case. It was as the avogadoro had said. Death had stalked those who had taken part in the prosecution of Marcantonio Mairano. Of the avogadoro who had prosecuted the case, the three judges, Dinardi, and the executioner, there were four known deaths. The Chief Judge, Vendolino, was found floating in the Brenta on the terra firma not far from the summer palace he maintained there. It was never determined whether the death had been accidental or not. It could only be said that he had drowned. The avogadoro who had prosecuted the younger Mairano had lost his son to a slow, debilitating illness. The doctors could not determine the cause and for a time after the boy's death the father had come under suspicion for having poisoned the boy. One of the other judges also lost a son, his eldest son. The boy had contracted smallpox. It was thought that the disease had been carried on a coat which the boy, a young man actually, had won from a stranger while gambling. In what was seen at the time as a strange quirk of fate, the son of the executioner was implicated in activity the Council of Ten had found to be treasonous. He had fled before being arrested but was tried by the Council in absentia and condemned to death. Overcome with shame and fear of himself being implicated in the activities of his son, the executioner had taken his life, or so it was believed at the time.

“This is very disturbing,” Reginaldo said. At least for all except Vendolino, Reginaldo noted a consistency in the other cases, a consistency that was evident in the taking of Maffeo as well. In each of the other instances, it was the sons who had paid for the actions of their fathers but, perhaps more importantly, the fathers had been made to suffer through the agony of their sons. In those instances, there was little, if anything, the fathers could do to prevent their son's fates or to alleviate the pain they were suffering. Agostino's words to Reginaldo in the piazza outside San Marco suddenly took on a new meaning.

* * *

“I am not sure the master is seeing anyone.” The servant stood at the water door to the smaller palazzo, blocking entrance by Reginaldo. He was accompanied by only one person, a man dressed in the uniform of the polizia guidizaria .

“It is official business,” Reginaldo assured the servant. The servant looked past Reginaldo to the uniformed man behind him. Satisfied with the truth of Reginaldo's explanation, the servant stood aside and allowed the two to enter. “Ser Mairano is tending to his garden on the rooftop. It is acceptable to meet with him there?” Reginaldo nodded his assent. With the servant leading the way, the three ascended three flights of stairs and soon found themselves at the door to the building's rooftop.

“I will announce you,” the servant told the two, leaving them standing at the top of the stairs. “Ser Mairano, you have official visitors,” the servant addressed himself to Agostino. The servant continued, “Ser Morosino and a member of the polizia guidizaria . They wish to speak with you.”

Reginaldo heard no reply but the servant turned back to Reginaldo and his companion and indicated they should come onto the rooftop. Face to face with Agostino, Reginaldo recognized him as the man who had stopped him the evening before in the piazza outside San Marco. Reginaldo also looked to the man with him. The man responded with an almost imperceptible nod.

“How may I be of assistance?” Agostino asked as he approached Reginaldo, his arm outstretched, his hand offered to Reginaldo. Agostino made no indication of recognizing Reginaldo from their brief encounter the previous evening.

“It is a discussion better held in private,” Reginaldo said, inclining his head in the direction of the servant who had remained on the rooftop. Agostino nodded his head at the servant, who made a small bow and then made his way down the stairs.

“I have all but given up the practice of law and I rarely appeared in the criminal courts, if that is why you are here,” Agostino said

“We are here to ask you about the disappearance of the boy, Maffeo Dinardi,” Reginaldo began. Agostino was impassive, neither acknowledging nor denying either knowledge or participation in the act. Reginaldo did not wait for Agostino to reply.

“You took him last night from San Marco. If he is still alive, and I pray for your sake that he is, you should tell us where he is.”

At first, Agostino was silent but then he made a reply.

“Why would I do that?”

Reginaldo was unsure whether Agostino was addressing the accusation that he had taken Maffeo or the admonition that the boy's whereabouts should be revealed. Agostino seemed to sense Reginaldo's uncertainty.

“I can assure you,” Agostino continued, “I have no desire for little boys.”

“No, it is not boys you are interested in but sons. The sons of anyone who had a part in the prosecution of your own son for his crimes. You seek revenge. You want those who prosecuted your son to suffer the same pain you felt as your son was tried, convicted and executed.”

“And you have proof of this, I suppose,” Agostino countered.

It was Reginaldo's turn to be silent. There was no evidence tying Agostino either directly or indirectly to the misfortunes that had befallen those who had participated in the prosecution of Marcantonio Mairano.

“There have been deaths under unusual circumstances,” Reginaldo finally answered. “The chief judge at your son's trial. The sons of some of the others involved in the case also met untimely deaths. And now the son of Teodoro Dinardi has been taken.”

“Taken but not dead, I presume,” Agostino said. “You have no proof.”

“The coincidence seems to be proof enough.”

“Bah! You forget who you are talking to. I bid you gentlemen good day. You waste my time and insult me, as well, with your baseless accusations.” Agostino's tone had become indignant.

“I'm not overly concerned with the deaths of the others at the moment,” Reginaldo said. “I just want to save the boy Maffeo before it is too late.”

“And you have no more proof of that than you do of the other crimes,” Agostino answered. “I know nothing of this boy that you are speaking of.

Reginaldo did not reply but turned to the man in uniform accompanying him.

“Do you recognize this man?” Reginaldo asked.

“Yes,” he answered, “he is the man I saw yesterday with the boy. The one who led the boy out of San Marco.” Even if Agostino had noticed the presence of the priest in the church on the previous day, Reginaldo had been counting on his having never looked beyond the priest's robe. Agostino had failed to recognize that the man dressed in the uniform of the polizia guidizaria was, in fact, the priest who had been in San Marco the day before.

Agostino was silent, confused. Then without thinking, blurted out, “This is a trick. There was no polizia . . . .” He suddenly realized his mistake and went silent again.

“The boy. . . Maffeo, where is he Ser Mairano?” Reginaldo spoke softly. “There is no proof as to the others but you will certainly not escape with your own life if Maffeo is not found alive.”

“Again you forget who I am, or how I make my livelihood. I will not escape with my life whether the boy is found alive or dead. And besides, I little care that everyone knows I had a hand in the deaths of the sons of those who had so little mercy for my own son. I killed the others. There. I admit it. And I want their fathers to know that it was I who held the lives of their children in my hand.”

“But why go on killing?” Reginaldo pleaded. “Why seek your vengeance on an innocent four year old boy?”

“They all must suffer for what they did,” was the only response. As he had been speaking, Agostino had been slowly backing towards the edge of the roof which overlooked the inner courtyard of the palazzo . “I know what you are thinking,” Agostino added, “but it's not going to happen. I'm not going to tell you where the boy is of my own accord and I won't give you the opportunity to use the strapado to force me to tell you.”

“Wait!” Reginaldo shouted, suddenly realizing what was about to happen.

Agostino turned away from Reginaldo and lifted his foot to step off the edge of the building. A movement from the doorway leading out to the roof caught his eye and he turned awkwardly to see what it was. Losing his balance, Agostino plunged backwards off the roof of the building. The last thing he saw as he started to fall downward was the terror-stricken look on the face of his wife as she emerged onto the roof. The last thing he heard as he fell was the shriek of his wife's scream.

* * *

For what seemed an eternity, Reginaldo stood motionless atop the rooftop, unable to comprehend what just happened. The avogadoro , Dinardi and the vigili had all advocated arresting Agostino and bringing him to the Palazzo Ducale to be identified by the priest. Reginaldo had argued for a different approach, the one that had just played out on the rooftop. Arresting the man outright would undoubtedly lead to a lack of cooperation and, inevitably, torture to obtain the information needed to save the Dinardi boy. Reginaldo's way, he convinced the others, stood a better chance of getting the information without the time and danger that the strapado would entail. Besides, there was no guarantee that Agostino would tell them the truth under torture. Reginaldo had believed, no, had hoped, that the shock of the priest's identification would be enough to convince Agostino that Maffeo did not have to die. And, Reginaldo had reasoned, the strapado was still available if the man did not cooperate. Reginaldo turned and slowly made his way to the courtyard. Agostino's wife and the priest had preceded him.

The piercing scream had brought Dinardi and the vigili into the palazzo. They had been staked out on both the canal and the landward calle adjoining the palazzo. They, too, were gathered in the courtyard when Reginaldo finally emerged. Agostino's wife knelt beside the broken body, cradling her husband's head in her lap, crying softly, talking soothingly to her husband, and oblivious to the blood that had pooled around the body.

“I . . . . What can I . . . . It wasn't to be,” Reginaldo stammered to Dinardi. He was still in shock over what had happened and what it meant for Dinardi's son. The pain of what he felt was his mistake was clearly etched on his face as he stood before the boy's father. It was the avogodoro who broke the silence.

“Nobody could have foreseen this,” he said. It was true what the avogodoro said but Reginaldo was still in the fog of the moment to realize it. Suddenly, though, Reginaldo became alert to his surroundings and to his purpose for being there. The voice of Agostino's wife had penetrated his consciousness and he realized she was talking to her husband, pleading with him to tell her where the boy was. Had Agostino survived the fall, Reginaldo wondered as he turned towards the woman and her husband. The man's lips moved, the voice too soft for Reginaldo to hear from across the courtyard.

“He's alive,” Reginaldo exclaimed. By the time he had taken the small number of strides to reach the side of the pair, though, Agostino's eyes had taken on the glassy, blank-eyed stare of the dead.

* * *

“He said he loved me and asked me to forgive him for the pain he would bring me,” Agostino's wife told the assembled group. “I'm sorry. He said no more, nothing that will lead you to the missing child.”

Reginaldo's hopes had risen as he made his way across the courtyard to Agostino's side. They were plunged back into the deepest of depths at the words of Agostino's wife.

* * *

An hour later, the group had reassembled in the offices of the Avogadori di Comun , their collective despondency heavy in the air. Silence pervaded the room as each man was lost in his own thoughts.

Since their return Jacopo da Ferrara had joined the group. An instructor at Reginaldo's academy, Jacopo often assisted Reginaldo in his investigation.

“How long can someone survive without food or water?” Jacopo asked. He held the note that had been left behind in the bocca de leon .

Half-consciously, Reginaldo, the only physician in the room, answered the question. “The lack of water is the problem. Depending on the conditions – the temperature, exposure to sun and wind – one could survive probably anywhere from four days, maybe as many as seven.”

“Yes, very little time remains to find Maffeo,” Dinardi said somewhat bitterly. He did not add, although he was thinking the thought, “plenty of time to force Mairano to tell us where my son is.”

Reginaldo was suddenly roused from his self-reflections as he realized what Jacopo was thinking with his question. He moved to Jacopo's side. Jacopo, knowing what Reginaldo wanted, handed him the note. Reginaldo read it again.

“Yes, ‘five days,' I see that now,” Reginaldo said as he handed the note back to Jacopo. “Signor Mairano was not a doctor so he probably had no idea of how long it would take before lack of water or food would cause death. Something was going to happen five days from when the note was written, something that he had control over and something that would surely bring about the death of Maffeo when it happens. It's not much to go on but it is something. It is our only hope.”

* * *

Darkness of the following day was settling in. It had been a busy day, a day of Herculanean efforts but, at the end of the day, an unproductive one. Maffeo had not been found. All of Agostino's properties, and those of his wife, were searched thoroughly. His business dealings were scrutinized. Warehouses, storefronts and ships were turned upside down, all to no avail. Other officers had spread throughout the city, checking abandoned buildings and construction sites. A moment of high expectation occurred when it was discovered that a small building near the Ghetto in the Canareggio sestiere was scheduled to be demolished on the fifth day after the note was written and dropped in the bocca di leon . The building was empty.

The strain proved too much for Dinardi. He left his office, leaving word that he would be either at his home or his parish church. Reginaldo found him at Sant' Eufemia, in the company of his wife and parish priest. There is nothing new to report, Reginaldo updated Dinardi. Agnesina and the priest nodded their heads in understanding. Dinardi said nothing but “Thank you,” in response. Like Reginaldo, he understood that nothing new to report was not good, not even neutral, news. It meant that a full day of effort had produced no positive results. More importantly, it had exhausted most, if not all, the leads. It wasn't a matter of working through a known number of possibilities with an assurance that one would bear fruit. All the known possibilities could be exhausted – if they hadn't already been exhausted – without success.

“I'm going to go speak with Signora Mairano again,” Reginaldo told Dinardi. “I want to pray first to Mary for her intercession but then I will be going.” Mary had always been there for Reginaldo, even working to cure him of a childhood affliction. He honored her every morning for the miracle but he also turned to her for inspiration when he found himself particularly stymied in an investigation. She had never failed him before.

Dinardi's voice was heavy and choked as he said, “I'm at the point now where I don't know if I should be praying for my son's safe return to me or for the safe passage of his soul to heaven.”

“It is too early to pray for his soul, my friend,” Reginaldo comforted him, reaching out and squeezing Dinardi's shoulder as he said the words. “We must continue to pray for his return.”

* * *

Signora Mairano had retired to bed before Reginaldo arrived so he left word that he would return in the morning. Time was running out for Maffeo and Reginaldo could think of nowhere else to turn but to Agostino's wife.

Things looked different in the morning as they often do after a night's sleep. The small palazzo occupied by the Mairanos was located on the periphery of Sestiere di Castello . Reginaldo had not taken note of the neighborhood when he had been there previously but now, alone and approaching his destination slowly by gondola, he took time to study the buildings which made up Agostino's neighbors. It was not a residential neighborhood and Agostino's house was not a true palazzo . Like many buildings in the city, it had been built to serve two masters, business and family, with the bottom floor originally serving as warehouse, store and office. The water doors to the building were not flush with the canal. A portico ran the length of the building, open to the water except for evenly spaced columns that supported the upper floor overhang. The entrance was built for ease of loading and unloading back before the day when the building was converted exclusively to its residential use.

The building fit well with the neighborhood. Reginaldo noted a squero for building gondolas and other small craft, a mill, and a stonemason's yard, along with buildings similar to what Agostino had lived in, built for business and secondarily as a residence or divided into apartments or rooms. It was a commercial area that Agostino had chosen for his home on his return to Venice and it was bustling with the business of commerce in the mid-morning as Reginaldo's gondola glided to a stop at the Mairano residence. To Reginaldo's surprise, Signora Mairano herself opened the over-sized door and greeted Reginaldo in response to his knock.

“Agostino was scarred by Marcantonio's death but I think he was equally scarred by his failure to help his son when his son most needed help,” the woman explained to Reginaldo. The two were seated in a small salon on the piano nobile , facing each other in low-backed cushioned chairs. The signora had graciously offered and Reginaldo had graciously declined any refreshments. The woman continued, “He also may have felt some shame or maybe he was made to feel the shame of what our son did. I don't know. He couldn't face the courts again when we returned. Maybe he lost his faith in what went on there.” The woman had aged since Reginaldo had seen her two days earlier. As her free-form speech suggested, she was still attempting to come to an understanding of what had happened in her life and felt the need to talk it aloud to someone, anyone, who would listen. Time was short, Reginaldo knew, but he let the woman talk in her disjointed manner. In time, after some peace of mind had returned to her, he would direct her where he wanted the conversation to lead.

“The law was his life,” she continued. “My husband was successful at many things but the law was everything to him and when it failed him – at least when he thought it failed him – well, he couldn't think clearly, rationally.”

“Your son's punishment was a shock any father . . . or mother . . . would have trouble accepting,” Reginaldo offered. “The balance of humours is at its most precarious in the mind and is easily lost. Your husband . . . .”

“No!,” the woman's voice was adamant. “Your medicine has nothing to do with either the sins of my son or the sins of his father. I do not excuse what either my son or my husband has done or try to explain it away to make it easier to accept.”

“I am sorry,” Reginaldo apologized, realizing he had touched a nerve with the woman. “You were talking about your husband's love of the law.”

“Yes. He never abandoned it, you know, even when he returned. He didn't go to the courts anymore but here, in the neighborhood,” she swept her hand across the window on the opposite wall from the two to indicate what she meant, “he was charitable and free in his assistance to them. They did not make him feel the shame in what our son did. They might have said some things amongst themselves when we first came but there was no dishonor in being a Mairano, in being the father of a poisoner. Maybe that was why Agostino would go among them so often. To repay them their kindness. Me, well me, you know I said I do not excuse what my son did, but I still feel some shame from it. I have trouble facing people, my neighbors here. I know I shouldn't but I do. Anyway . . . .”

Signora Mairano went on in this fashion for another half-hour before Reginaldo brought her around to her husband's last minutes as the woman cradled his head in her arms and they had their final whispered conversation.

“I told you everything before. I left nothing out,” she assured Reginaldo.

“I know Signora. I do not doubt it, but maybe now that you are no longer under the shock of the moment there might be something you remember differently or something that you might not have remembered before. A boy's life, a very young boy, may depend on it.”

A look of extreme sadness crossed the woman's face as she relived the final moments of her husband's life and also reflected on the life of a little boy she did not know.

“Agostino fell over the side of the building,” she began. Reginaldo noted that the woman did not accept that her husband had stepped off the rooftop on his own accord, or was in the process of doing so, but, then, even Reginaldo was not certain that Agostino was not turning away from the edge at the time of his fall. “I rushed to the courtyard,” she continued, “I didn't know what I would find, but as I came out of the door, his eyes became fixed on me, not in death but in pain and sadness. He hand moved along the stones as though reaching out to me. I rushed to him and put his head in my lap.

“‘Agosto, Agosto, it's all right, everything is all right,' I told him. ‘I love you. God, what pain I have brought you. Forgive me,' he said. He was weakening fast and not all his words were audible to me. ‘Agosto,” I pleaded, ‘think of your soul. Please, there is no reason for this boy to pay for our son's sin. Can he still be saved?' He answered but I could not hear him so I leaned closer and whispered, ‘Please, Agosto, please tell me for my sake. I could not bear living my remaining years alone worrying about your salvation. Please, Agosto,' I pleaded one last time. He squeezed my hand and said to me in a halting voice, much of which I could not understand ‘You are my love . . . the grain . . . gives life . . . away . . . God . . . forgive me my sin.'” The last words the woman spoke in a whisper, imitating her husband's final words. “And that was the last he spoke,” she said. “I held his hand in mine but he no longer squeezed in return.”

There was nothing neither new nor different to the woman's story. Tears ran down her face as she finished. Reginaldo reached out and patted the woman's forearm resting on the arm of her chair. “I am sorry, Signora. I know this has been difficult.”

“My husband. My husband lost his way,” she added. “But he loved me and I can't believe he would not tell me where the boy is. In the end, he realized the wrong he had done. And me, me,” she beat her closed fist on her chest, “I lacked the ability to understand what he was telling me when it most counted.”

“There is no blame on you,” Reginaldo told her. “Your husband was severely injured, fighting for his every breath, lacking the life to make himself heard. You should not find fault with yourself but should take the more proper view. It was in the words you did not hear, the words that impending death made it impossible for you to hear, that your husband sought to make amends. How else could he have asked for God's forgiveness with his final breath?”

* * *

Reginaldo felt a twinge of guilt as he stepped onto his gondola and positioned the oar in the oarlock to begin his trip home. The guilt was twofold: guilt over his consoling statement to Signora Mairano that suggested a forgiveness of Agostino Mairano for the sins he had committed; and guilt for deciding to make his way home rather than to Teodoro Dinardi's side. There was nothing new to report to him, nothing that would bring Maffeo back to his father.

The gondola moved slowly down the canal, past the stonemason working in his yard cutting stone to the precise measurements required by a customer; past a mill where a barge was docking, the grain piled high and soon to be off-loaded into the storage bins; past the squero where caulkers applied their black pitch to two craft resting upside down on sawhorses. Reginaldo could no longer focus on finding the missing boy. He had run out of ideas and, as he thought on it, there had never really been any clues. With effort, he pushed the thought from his mind that kept breaking through to his consciousness: “We are not going to get to the boy in time. There is nothing I can do to save him.”

Reginaldo focused on the buildings he passed, their texture, color and shapes making up the visual beauty of the city. The roughness of the red bricks, the muted tones of the stucco, the deep brown of the wooden doors, the blues and greens of window shutters and other doors, and the varied colors of the clothes hanging from the lines. The rounded arches of windows and doors, the pointed arches of windows that added a decorative flair to buildings but which also had its function as a structural support, the trefoils, quattrofoils, stone balconies, wrought iron balconies. Sleek gondolas of many colors, some open, some with their little cabins or feltre , wider crafts with pointed bows carrying crates, and even larger barges with their deeper drafts. Reginaldo forced his mind to focus on these things as both the failure of the past few days and the meeting with Signora Mairano fought to surface in his mind.

A turn here and a turn there brought Reginaldo's gondola onto Venice 's Canal Grande. The sight never failed to impress Reginaldo. The grand palazzi , the hustle and bustle of crafts making their way in both directions along the canal, the scurrying of activity along the waterfront epitomized everything Reginaldo loved about his home.

But suddenly he saw none of it. A passing craft, activity along the waterfront triggered a connection in Reginaldo's mind, a solution he had not seen before. “I hope I am right,” he said as he brought his gondola to a stop. “I hope I am not too late,” he added as he turned the gondola and began to retrace his route.

* * *

Each passing minute, Teodoro's heart grew heavier. He and his wife arrived at Sant' Eufemia by mid-morning. The memories at home were too much to bear and somehow they felt better in their vigil at their parish church. It just seemed more likely their prayers would be heard sooner and with better effect if they came from within the sacred confines of the church. Dinardi and Agnesina were lost in their prayers, as were Agnesina's sisters who had joined them. A priest from the church stood by, not wanting to intrude on their prayers but wishing to be close by if needed. A special Mass for the boy's return, the third Mass that day, would begin shortly. Until then, the family was lost in silent prayer.

No one heard the door at the rear of the church open. “Go ahead. Go. Go.” Dinardi heard the words but they did not register with him. It was the sound of running feet, a sound heard in and around his house many times, that finally jolted his consciousness. He stood as he turned and had his first glimpse. Dinardi was overwhelmed and, as though the blood had suddenly all drained from his brain, he slowly sank to the floor. The priest, already starting to move in Dinardi's direction, caught him before he fell. The lightheadedness cleared as quickly as it came but before Dinardi could regain his feet, Maffeo's arms were around his neck. Without thought or hesitation, Dinardi's arms encircled his son. His vision blurred, his cheeks wet with tears, Dinardi looked to the back of the church to see what was the source of his salvation. At the rear of the church, in front of the doors and under the large rosette window, stood Reginaldo, his eyes welled with tears, a lump in his throat rendering speech impossible.

* * *

“I heard the signora, but I did not listen to her,” Reginaldo explained to Jacopo. It was a familiar lament of Reginaldo's, usually referencing a shortcoming in others but occasionally being applied to himself. He and Jacopo sat alone in Reginaldo's apartment as Reginaldo set out to explain how he had found Maffeo Dinardi.

“We looked to Agostino Mairano's property, his personal business dealings, but we didn't look to what he might know about other people's businesses and their dealings. We misled ourselves into believing the man had abandoned the law altogether because he was no longer appearing in the civil courts. We didn't know, and we didn't think to ask his wife, whether he was still practicing his craft. It turns out he was. He was giving away his legal knowledge to his neighbors.”

“And that is how Signor Mairano learned that the miller would be receiving a large shipment of grain to grind into flour,” Jacopo anticipated the next step in the story.

“Mairano had worked on the contract with the miller, negotiating the terms for such a large order from the Republic. He knew when the grain would arrive and the size of the shipment. He also knew that the miller had to empty his storage bins to accommodate the shipment he would be receiving. He emptied two of his storage bins into the third and then, since the shipment of grain was not due to arrive for seven days, he left for a week to visit family in Aquiliea. Mairano knew this. Everything was in place for him to exact his revenge on our friend, Teodoro Dinardi. With the miller gone from his mill and the bins empty, Signor Mairano only had to lure the boy away from his family and leave him bound in the bottom of the bin. When the grain arrived and the bin filled, it would only be a matter of time before the boy suffocated.”

It was unlikely the boy would be discovered when the grain arrived and was poured into the storage bin, Reginaldo explained when Jacopo raised the question. There would be no reason to look into the bin, especially in the early stages. The grain was loaded through a small opening in the top of the bin. It was known to be empty and a lot of grain would be needed before there would be any worry of the bin overflowing. Mairano did not just guess this, Reginaldo continued. Mairano had spent time with the miller, talked to him, watched him work. “Who knows when the idea formed in his mind that he could kill someone this way. But at some point, the idea came together and then the opportunity presented itself.”

“But how did you figure it out? What led you to the miller and then to his storage bin?”

“I don't know. I really don't. The pieces were all there and then, as I came into the Grand Canal and saw a barge being unloaded, it suddenly came to me,” Reginaldo explained. “What I had heard from Signora Mairano that morning, what I saw going to and leaving from her house, took on a certain meaning. I looked at the problem from a different perspective. What if Signora Mairano was right? What if her husband could not deny her wish to know where Maffeo was so she could save the boy and redeem her husband's soul? What if the words she heard from her husband in his final breaths were the words he actually spoke and they had an actual meaning?

“I looked at those words from this new-found viewpoint. Suddenly, the reference to ‘grain' had a meaning. He was telling his wife where the boy could be found. Somewhat cryptically to be sure but maybe that was the only way he could remain faithful to the memory of his son and grant his wife her one last wish.

“Suddenly,” Reginaldo finished, “‘grain' meant something when I put it with Mairano's work with his neighbors and the grain barge mooring at the mill. When I arrived back at the mill, they were just preparing to fill the bins. Praise the Virgin Mother, in her kindness and with her guiding hand, I was not too late.”