Post by ST Alex on Jul 17, 2011 16:50:13 GMT -8
A nervous dockhand is placed firmly before the harbormaster in open report…
“Tell the Harbormaster what you told me boy, and no harm will come to you.”
“O-of course Sire. I-I was swimming, in the canal see, to see what fish I could catch for breakfast and…and…and I came across the body.”
The gruff and capable Harbormaster commands of the boy what he did then.
“I-I…I marked the spot with my catching stick, Sire, and I…I went and got the nearest Captain I could find. He and his men took the body out of the water, it took some doing too, for the body was…it was wrapped and weighted, the men said. And while they were doing it, they…they found another body. A woman, wrapped and weighted the same way.”
A continue gesture.
“The men swore that his throat had been cut, but the Captain said he was dead before that happened. And and…his tongue had been cut, Sire! The men said he had to have been in a fight, for his hands were all cut up, like someone had been at him with a knife and he had to fend them off. But he had coins in his purse, a good many of them. The woman’s eyes had gone and her poor throat was cut too, but the Captain said she was also dead before that happened. Broken neck, he thought. Her hands were the same as well.”
Again the gesture.
“The Captain and his men managed to find someone nearby who recognized the dead man, as one Serafin Patretto, gondolier. They located his gondola at a mooring round the corner from whence his body was found. The woman remains unidentified.”
The Harbormaster fixes the boy with a baleful honest glare. “Is that aught, and but all true boy?”
The boy quails under the gaze, but manages a determined nod. And for his courage and the information he brought, is paid a gold ducat, and sent on his way.