he said conversationally. "You might as well tell us."
"Blue lotos."
It was a mild narcotic, introduced from North Africa to the swamps and cultivated in secret there—unlike the black lotos, its far more powerful and addictive cousin, which was still smuggled in. The blue was illegal, but Brother Mascoli himself had several medicines that contained it. The Venetian authorities turned a blind eye to the blue, but they would hang traffickers in the black.
"Not the black?" asked Carlo mildly, raising an eyebrow.
She shook her head. "It's filth. No one should deal in it."
But then, she would say that.
Carlo nodded. "True. Come, Brother. Karg is bringing something for the lady. We also need to eat a morsel before the huntsman gets here. I hope his dogs are more promising than he is."
The dogs came in a variety of shades and sizes and their barking was obviously not sitting too well with their owner's patently sore head. "Too much new wine. Dottore Sarbucco was celebrating buying a new farm last night. Before the murder," he explained.
"Can the dogs find a blood scent?" asked Mascoli looking at the motley pack.
"They usually do," said the owner laconically. "But that's a boar, or a buck, not a man."
They put the dogs to the blood scent and followed them as they ran off barking down the road. The trail did not lead them very far . . . to a dogfight and a newly butchered hog, being turned into pancetta, salami and some fine hams.
"Fine dogs," said Carlo, feeling his painful knee.
The owner shrugged. "Vincente was a bit of a pig."
Carlo bit his knuckle. "There goes my last throw. We need the body."
They walked back towards the town, more slowly, past an inlet of the lagoon. The road was raised a little above the water on ancient stones from the Roman days. The stones on the water's edge were carved, being plainly part of some old shrine. Time had etched most of the carvings away but Brother Mascoli could make out the form of a triton. It stirred some thoughts in his head. "The murderer didn't have much time to bury a body or take it very far."
"No."
"Maybe he threw it into the water?"
The soldier shrugged. "Very likely, but that would be even harder to find. We could spend a year dragging, especially if they used a boat and dropped him off in the middle of the lagoon. There'd be nothing but eel-gnawed bones in a few days. That woman doesn't have even a few days."
Mascoli looked at the water, and around at the empty landscape of reedy marshland. "You believe that she is innocent?"
"Not as clean as driven snow, but innocent of this murder. Mark my words, if we solve this murder mystery, it will be tied to the smuggling of the black lotos."
"You think she is involved in that evil trade?"
Carlo shrugged. "Maybe. But most likely not. She made her money from selling the blue. That I knew before she confessed. But this little village is the entrepôt for the black. I am sure of that."
Brother Mascoli looked doubtfully at his companion. What was he? Why did he know so much about a dark trade? He looked like a rogue, but he did not behave like one. And he seemed to be genuinely trying to solve this murder, even if he was doing it for reasons of his own, and not to save an innocent. That, Brother Mascoli knew, was his duty.
"I have . . . contacts," he said quietly. "Nonhuman ones. They could find the body for us, if it was dumped into the water."
"So I had been told," said the old soldier, with a broad smile. "I sent a messenger to Venice during the night. It appears that you are highly regarded by certain very powerful people, for a humble monk. They gave you a glowing character reference."
Mascoli raised his eyebrows. "The Podesta's assistant and a receiver of messages from the Republic in a place too small to be properly called a town, and you sent messengers during the night? All the way to Venice and back? You are not the common soldier that you pretend to be."
His large companion leaned on his crutch and smiled sardonically. "I give orders too easily for a start. I never said that I was a common soldier. I never said that I was once a condottiere either. I never lie if I can help it. I let my appearance deceive those who wish to be deceived."