The Alchemist's Apprentice

15

B ianca entered on her brother’s arm. She was swathed in black, even to a full veil, although I could make out enough of her features through the lace to recall Giuseppe Benzon describing her as “fiery.” In fact she was gorgeous, with a heart-shaped face and eyes the size of cartwheels. She exchanged greetings with Sister Maddalena and curtseyed to my bow.

“Remember,” Enrico said, “that you do not have to answer this man’s questions, none of them.” He scowled unhelpfully at me.

“Madonna,” I said, “I am apprenticed to Maestro Nostradamus, whom you met the other night. There is reason to believe that your honored grandfather was poisoned at that reception, and we are trying to discover the culprit and bring him to justice. I deeply regret intruding on your time of grief, but you will agree that I offend in a good cause?”

She nodded, keeping her eyes downcast even behind the veil. Workmen at the far end of the hall were laying out lumber to start crating up the pictures, as if determined to make the interview even more difficult.

“Did you often accompany him to such social affairs?”

She shook her head. I waited.

“No,” she whispered. “He rarely left the Procuratie any more. He was getting so unsteady…” More silence. “He was forced to use a cane and his right hand was bent. He called me his hands, clarissimo. ”

“That evening, he went straight to the book viewing from this building?”

She nodded again, but this time spoke more strongly. “Yes. We went in the gondola. It is not far. He did not see well in the dark and it was raining a little. But he very much wanted to acquire some of the books. He was quite excited.”

Wonder of wonders!-I had found a cooperative witness at last.

“Did he eat or drink anything before he left here? In the hour or so before?”

“It was not possible. He had been at a meeting downstairs, in the offices. He sent a clerk up to summon me and I went down to him.”

“Excellent! That is very important information! I do not wish to pry needlessly, but did he say anything unusual in the gondola? Was he angry about anything, or upset?”

“No, messer. He spoke about one of the books, a play. He said he was convinced that it was genuine but he wanted to take another look at it. He would gladly pay several thousand ducats for it, he said. But I mustn’t tell any of the other buyers he had said so.”

“And what happened when you arrived at the Imer house?”

“We climbed the stairs together,” Bianca said, and now she was telling the story as if eager to do so. “He was slow. Attorney Imer welcomed us, and presented his wife…He took Grandfather into the book room. I made my excuses to the lady and followed, because I thought he would want me with him.”

“You were offered wine when?”

“Ah, before that, when we arrived.”

“And you chose which?”

“I took malmsey. Grandfather had retsina.”

I waited for mention of a family joke, but it did not appear. But she did! She made an annoyed sound and lifted her veil back, as if it were getting in her way. She did not quite smile at me-indeed she did not even look straight at me, which would have given her brother cause to snap at her-but I found the change a great improvement. The footman, Giuseppe Benzon, had excellent taste in feminine temperature. Pyretic, she was. She was quite nubile enough to be enfolded in my strong arms and comforted by sympathetic words murmured into her shell-like ear.

I bowed low in admiration, provoking scowls from both Medea and Benedetto. “How welcome is sunlight when it breaks through the clouds!” Such talk would be a well-deserved novelty for a cloistered beauty like Bianca. “Tell me about the viewing, then. How many people were at the table when you arrived?”

Her account confirmed the Maestro’s. When she entered, he had been there, and Karagounis, and Senator Tirali, and her grandfather. Then the foreign couple had arrived and started asking the Maestro a lot of questions in a language Bianca did not know.

“And then…another man…”

“I know who you mean,” I said. “An old friend in crimson robes?”

She smiled then, but not right at me. “I thought I was seeing things.”

“Who was this old friend?” her brother demanded.

I could not resist saying, “That is a state secret. He came to speak to your grandfather?”

Bianca said, “Oh, yes, clarissimo. They greeted each other warmly. He asked him…The friend asked Grandfather if his health would let him come to dine at the, um, his house, and he said it would.”

She had been excited by the thought that she might get to visit the palace too.

“Did they discuss the books?” I asked.

She thought for a moment. “I think the, um, other man, asked if they were all the same ones they had seen before. And Grandfather said they seemed to be. And there was one they agreed might be a fake-I’m not sure which. I think Maestro Nostradamus had been saying it was, also.”

I wondered briefly how far those two old friends had lied to each other about the presumed Euripides, and if even my master’s evaluation had been completely honest. Collectors can be as ruthless as hyenas. Yet the doge had withdrawn his bid after that, or so he had said. Had he been dissuaded, or had he decided to let his old friend have the treasure? Or had he lied to me?

“Madonna, can you recollect where everyone was standing?”

“That is a ridiculous question!” her brother snarled. “Bianca, you don’t have to endure this.”

“I am anxious to help sier Alfeo, Bene. They did keep moving around. They all wanted to see the books, understand, but none of them wanted to show too much interest in the ones they thought special, in case they alerted the others to their interest.” Bianca was sharp, obviously. “So they walked back and forth along the table, picking them up and putting them down. The Greek man trotted along beside them, chattering all the time. Lustrissimo Imer came in a few times. And then another man I did not know, a younger man, and spoke with Senator Tirali. He had a lady with him.”

Despite the downcast eyes and carefully flat tone, I realized instantly that Bianca knew perfectly well who Sister Maddalena was. Bianca was a very observant young woman. Whether Violetta’s nun disguise had failed to deceive her the previous day, or Violetta had deceived me, Bianca was now deceiving her pompous brother and enjoying the joke. Maybe San Giovanni Evangelista di Torcello was the place for her after all.

“That was sier Pasqual, the senator’s son. Anyone else?”

“Two footmen came in a few times, offering more wine.” She gave excellent descriptions of both Benzon and Pulaki Guarana. The outing had been exciting for her, and she had observed details that the older witnesses had missed or forgotten. “I refused more, having drunk very little. Grandfather allowed them to top up his glass once. I did not see how much he had drunk, messer. ” She was clever enough to know what I needed to hear.

The workmen were now wrapping the pictures in canvas and rope. At least they had not started sawing and hammering.

“When you all went off to join the other guests,” I asked. “Did people take their wineglasses with them?”

For the first time Bianca turned her eyes full on me. Had circumstances permitted, I could have melted on the spot very realistically.

“I do not know what the others did, messer Alfeo. I laid mine down so I could assist my grandfather. He drained his glass and handed it to me in exchange for his cane, which I had been holding. And he pulled a face.”

“What sort of face?” Benedetto demanded.

Bianca lowered her eyes again. “A grimace. As if he had not liked the taste. He did not say anything. I did not ask him. Sier Alfeo, would it have made any difference if-”

I said, “None at all. There is no known antidote. You could have done nothing. Had you realized he had been poisoned, then a finger down the throat to induce vomiting might have helped at that early stage, but even that could be dangerous to an old man. He might well have choked. You had no reason to suspect foul play. He did not, obviously. Who has not unexpectedly found bitter lees in the bottom of a wineglass? And perhaps that was all it was.”

I doubt she believed me, but she whispered, “Thank you.”

“The wine was poisoned?” her brother said furiously. “The waiters have been questioned?”

“Other people drank from the same bottle,” I said. “Did the procurator set his glass down while he was looking at the books, madonna?”

She nodded. “And when he moved to another, I sometimes picked it up and carried it for him, but usually he did that himself. I am certain I never picked up the wrong glass, and almost certain he never did, either. I was watching, because he was getting forgetful. That was why I was there, to help him.”

Bianca had been the best-positioned witness, yet even she had not seen the killer strike. Had there even been a killer? My hopes of exposing a murderer sank to the bottom of the Adriatic Sea.

“Do not distress yourself with such thoughts!” I said. “Very few people were drinking retsina. He would have known if he had accidentally taken some other person’s drink-would have known by the smell before his first sip. His death was not your fault and it was not an accident. Either his glass was deliberately poisoned or it was switched with one that had been.”

“No, messer! If anyone had tampered with his drink I would have seen.”

“Bianca!” snapped her brother. “Be careful what you say.”

“She is only trying to help,” I said. “Nobody suspects her.” I could not imagine that angelic face belonging to a sinner guilty of anything. “She would not have made that statement if she had poisoned the wine herself! Did your grandfather have anything else to eat or drink? Antipasto?”

She shook her head. “We joined the other guests in the salone, but he refused more wine. At the table he took ill before the antipasto was served.”

The mystery now looked more impossible than insoluble. The Maestro had been mistaken, the procurator had died of natural causes.

“You have been extremely helpful, madonna,” I said. “Did anything else happen in the book room that we should know?”

She smiled. “There was a fight! Well, an argument. Our host discovered the two foreigners and asked them their names. Then he told them to leave, politely at first. The man became offensive and said he had been invited. The illustrious Karagounis was brought into the argument. Maestro Nostradamus had to translate back and forth. At one point the foreign man took out a purse and shook it in Attorney Imer’s face.”

Before I could ask anything more, I heard steps and looked around at the trouble approaching, Great Minister Enrico Orseolo, who had tried to beat me down from ten ducats to three for work already delivered while he was standing under a Tintoretto painting as big as the Piazzetta.

Whenever noblemen over the age of twenty-five appear in public, they wear floor-length robes, a tippet over one shoulder, and a flat, round bonnet like a cake. Magistrates wear color, all others black. As a great minister, sier Enrico Orseolo would wear violet instead of black, but now mourning had put him back in black, a trailing gown like his son’s. Alessa had described him as cold on the outside, warm inside, but I thought of him as cold-blooded. My private name for him was Lizard, because his eyes were protuberant, heavy-lidded, creepily unblinking, while the rest of his face was gaunt and fleshless. He was said to be a politician’s politician, a conciliator, a maker of deals, and I knew he was the sort of man to value agreement for its own sake, not caring whether its terms are honorable-anything was negotiable. His offers to settle the Maestro’s bill had gone up one ducat at a time.

I got the full amount in the end, though.

Enrico Orseolo, the procurator’s son, last survivor of the family group I had inspected earlier, Alessa’s sometime patron, possible future member of the Council of Ten, came to a halt and looked us over with glassy indifference. He did not quite flicker a forked tongue at us, but I imagined it. Today he was not in a mood to compromise.

“Who are these people, Benedetto? What are they doing here?” His gaze fixed on me. “Don’t I know you?”

I bent to kiss his sleeve. “Alfeo Zeno, Your Excellency, apprentice to Doctor Nostradamus, the physician who-”

“The astrologer. Yes, I remember. He took advantage of an old man’s gullibility, and you were an insolent pest. What are you doing here? You, cover your face!” That last remark was directed at Bianca and the next to Benedetto. “You are supposed to be supervising the servants.”

Son and daughter hurriedly departed. His Excellency turned back to me.

I began at the beginning, with his father’s collapse. I did not get very far.

“ Who poisoned his wine?”

“That is what I am trying to-”

“Did my daughter see it happen?”

“Apparently not, Your-”

“Then I am confident it did not happen at all. If your charlatan master thinks he has evidence of foul play, he should take his suspicions to the Ten. I will not tolerate vicious gossip about my family or my late father and the next time you or he meddle in my affairs, boy, I will denounce him as a mountebank to the state inquisitors.”

Now he would turn his reptilian gaze on the nun. Violetta was veiled again, although I had not seen her move, but he might still recognize her as the celebrated courtesan. I had to distract him, which was easy enough. I can tolerate abuse directed at me, but I will not stand by and let people denigrate the Maestro.

“Mountebank, clarissimo? That horoscope you repeatedly described as a worthless piece of parchment would have saved your father’s life, had you or he paid better attention to it. My master warned him to beware the coming of the lover and he was murdered on the eve of the feast of San Valentino. I would have thought ten ducats was little enough to have paid for-”

Sier Enrico was quite smart enough to see the potential for ridicule if he tried to carry out his threat. His eyes bulged even farther. “Get out! Get out of here!” He wheeled around to Violetta. “Who are you and why are you here?”

“I am another charlatan.” She spoke with Medea’s voice. “Your manners may be forgiven on account of your bereavement, for which I offer my condolences and my prayers. Let us go, sier Alfeo.”

Enrico Orseolo snorted at hearing my title. He probably stood and watched us leave, but I did not turn around to look. I hate being seen off as much as any man does, but this did seem a propitious time to leave.

“Pretty girl,” Medea said as we descended the great staircase.

“I suppose so.”

“Suppose? I was frightened someone would step on your tongue, it was hanging out so far. And her father is absolutely charming. You are old playmates, are you, you two?”

“Something like that,” I admitted. “My master has a rule that a horoscope is confidential and must be delivered into the client’s own hand. I often have to talk my way up the chain, from skivvy to footman to majordomo to people with names. And then I have to collect the money, which can take several more visits. I got to know the Orseolo household quite well.”

She squeezed my arm. “In my profession we have other ways of dealing with the deadbeat problem.”

“You send bravos to cut throats?”

“Not yet. So far a discreet threat has always been enough.”

We reached the landing stage. Tethered boats were nodding gently on the Rio di Cavalleto. A gull standing on one of the brightly-colored posts regarded me seriously, but not without sympathy, I thought. Giorgio had tied up at a mooring several doors along, but he saw us and waved.

“I have friends who have rough friends,” Violetta said seriously. “If you want to learn more about the gang that attacked you, I can ask around. I’m sure the Ten will track them down long before I ever could.”

“And if they belong to some nobleman’s workforce,” I said, “the Ten will forget all about them.” When Giorgio pulled alongside, I said, “Back to the convent, please.”