The Alchemist's Code

23

Z uanbattista ushered in his womenfolk. Madonna Eva was magnificent in full mourning, swathed in black lace and taffeta. She had experience of mortality and funerals, of course, and would keep a complete outfit ready in her closet. Black flattered her fair coloring. To Grazia a brush with death must be a new experience, and even to my untutored eye her gown looked as if it had been assembled in haste and fastened on her with pins. We visitors rose and bowed, remaining standing until the ladies were seated, side by side on a divan.

Eva lifted back her veil. After a moment’s hesitation Grazia copied her, revealing the red eyes and pink nose of recent weeping. Her mother had not wept, but any joy she felt at being rid of an unwanted son-in-law was well hidden behind maternal concern for her bereaved child. Even if the romance had been a flash in the pan or puppy love contrived by an experienced seducer, Grazia’s shock and loss must be genuine. I felt truly sorry for her, and perversely happy that at least one woman mourned Danese Dolfin.

“I realize that this is very painful for you,” Gritti said, “and I will be as quick as I can. When your husband announced that he had to go out last night, madonna, where did he say he was going?”

Grazia sniffled. “To visit his mother in San Barnaba.”

“He did not mention anyone else he might see on the way?”

Another sniffle, a head shake.

“She says he did not arrive, and we have reason to believe that he was killed on his way back here, not far from this house, about two hours after he left you. So what was he doing in the meantime?”

She whispered, “I do not know, Your Excellency.”

There was a long pause, while the inquisitor sat as if half-asleep. I wondered if he was about to spring some dramatic catch-them-napping question, as he had with the maids, but all he said was, “Alfeo, have you anything to ask?”

“No, Excellency.”

He smiled without looking at me. “Then why don’t you reveal to us the terrible curse that your master thinks has been laid upon this house?”

If I blurted out my suspicions without confirming them first, I would be dismissed as a lunatic. “We are still one short, Excellency. Madonna Fortunata Morosini is not here.”

Gritti frowned as if annoyed that he had forgotten her.

Still standing by the door, Giro said, “She is having one of her bad days,” as his father was saying, “She could not contribute anything, Your Excellency.”

Nothing could have aroused an inquisitor’s suspicions faster than those simultaneous refusals. Gritti ruffled up his feathers. “Nevertheless, if my precocious young friend wants to try interrogating her, let us humor him.”

He could have been more tactful. Zuanbattista glared at me as if he were about to choke, and Giro marched angrily out of the room, which was his version of a screaming tantrum.

The icy silence remained behind.

“That portrait of your honored brother, madonna,” I asked Eva. “When was it painted?”

Although she had no choice but to put up with the state inquisitor, she was no more in favor of the upstart, busybody apprentice than her husband was. The clefts framing her mouth deepened into canyons. “When they were married, of course.”

“And how long ago was that?”

“Fifteen years ago, just a month before Grazia was born.”

Assuming that the painter had not flattered his subjects too extremely, the woman ought to be in her thirties by now, if she still lived. I was about to ask her name when a cane tap-tap-tapped outside.

Giro entered, walking slowly and supporting Fortunata on his arm. The men rose while he guided her to a chair. Once she was settled, he presented the inquisitor, speaking loudly. She peered at us as if the room was filled with dense fog and perhaps it was, for her. I could imagine nothing in the world less likely than the decrepit Fortunata Morosini wrestling a rapier away from a ruthless young ne’er-do-well like Danese Dolfin. Nor did I expect her to be much help to the inquisitor in the investigation. But the Maestro had been right-her resemblance to the bride in the portrait was undeniable now that I knew to look for it. My scalp prickled.

“Ottone Gritti?” she muttered. “I knew a Marino Gritti.”

The inquisitor sat down again and stretched his legs as if his left hip hurt. “My son, madonna. You have heard of the sad death of sier Danese?”

“Eh?”

Louder: “You have heard of the sad death of sier Danese?”

“Not sad!” She bared a few yellow fangs. “Pretty-boy thief, that’s what he was. Good riddance.”

“Why do you call him thief, madonna? What did he steal?”

In the background Giro was shaking his head.

“Stole my pearls!” she said. “Stole my ring.”

“You mislaid them, Auntie,” Giro said softly. “We found them for you.” She was not expected to hear that and did not seem to.

“When was the last time you saw him?” the inquisitor asked.

“Who?”

“Danese Dolfin.”

She mumbled and mouthed a while, then pointed her cane at me. “When he was here.”

“Yesterday at midday,” I offered.

“Fortunata suffers from terrible headaches,” Giro said. “She retired to her room soon after Zeno left and would not have seen Danese after that.”

Gritti said, “Then I do not see…” He looked at me.

“May I ask first,” I said, “how long the jewels were mislaid?”

Zuanbattista frowned at me, but this time there was calculation mixed in with the resentment. “About a week, I think. Old people get confused. She had hidden them inside one of her shoes.”

“Or somebody else did? I mean someone stole the originals, had them copied, and then hid the replicas there to be found?”

He nodded. “I see what you mean. I will have them appraised.”

That, I thought, had been the source of Danese’s gold, which I could not mention but might manage to discover later if I got the chance to explore his room. I turned to the inquisitor and pointed at the painting.

“Your Excellency, did you ever meet sier Nicolo?”

“Several times. Very tragic. Why do you…” Gritti’s reaction was everything I could have hoped for. He lost his normal high color, his eyes bulged. Then he stared at the wizened crone on the chair.

“How old is madonna Fortunata?” I demanded.

“She has aged a lot recently,” Eva said defensively.

“But how many years?” I persisted. The family frowned at my insolence.

“What possible business is that of yours, apprentice?” Zuanbattista barked.

Fortunata Morosini wore widow’s weeds, but most Venetian women continue to use their maiden names after marriage. She was not a sister of Eva’s father, but of her brother, Nicolo. Not Eva’s aunt but Grazia’s. Zuanbattista had said so on the day he and his wife came to Ca’ Barbolano, but after meeting the old woman I had made the natural mistake, or the jinx had deceived me also. I had skipped a generation in my thinking. She had done worse than that, something unthinkable.

“Call it my business,” Gritti said grimly. “How old is this woman?”

Zuanbattista shrugged. “Thirty-four? No, thirty-three. As my wife said, she has gone down a lot in the last few years. I admit I was shocked when I returned from Constantinople.”

“She looks at least seventy!”

I would have said eighty, but I was engrossed in watching the reactions: Giro’s horror, Vasco’s disbelief, and the overall confusion of the Sanudos as they fought free of the web the jinx had spun over them. Giro muttered, “Seventy?” to himself and dismay crept over his face. Eva, also, and Zuanbattista…and Grazia? Too late! I had missed it, but there had been something wrong with her reaction. Had Grazia approved of her tutor’s misfortune?

Ancient Fortunata herself had caught up with the conversation. Her face had crumpled into a wad of creases and she was trying to clench her knurled fists. “Old!” she mumbled. “Old! Don’t want to be old, old, old.”

Giro crossed himself. “She is younger than I am,” he said, almost inaudibly. “She has failed a lot these last few years. Every time I went across to Celeseo I was…shocked…”

“The curse blighted her and blinded the rest of you,” I said.

“Foul witchcraft!” the inquisitor growled. “Whom do you accuse, Zeno?”

My scalp prickled again. Even in Venice, where the law is fairer than anywhere else, there is really no defense against an accusation of witchcraft. You can be tortured until you confess and then you are put to death. Just by exposing the curse I might have revealed too much knowledge of the Devil’s works. I was saved from having to answer by Fortunata herself, who suddenly exploded, hammering her cane on the floor and shrilling, “The book was cursed! The book was cursed!” After a dozen repetitions she broke off into coughing and weeping.

“Nicolo’s death?” Gritti demanded of nobody in particular. “Is that what she means? Was there such a book?”

Eva was looking much more distressed by this discussion than she had been by Danese’s death. “My brother died of a poisoned finger and he always said it started with a paper cut, but he could not remember which book did it. My brother handled a hundred books a day, maybe several hundred.”

“And what happened to his collection after his death?”

“Most of it is downstairs,” Zuanbattista said, looking much more skeptical, “still being unpacked and sorted. We have added to it, but I don’t believe we ever sold off anything.”

“You accuse a book, Alfeo?” Gritti inquired sourly. “Which book? How do you tell an accursed book from all the rest?” To him an accursed book would be much less satisfying than an accused witch. Venice disapproves of burning books. He would be laughed at if he burned a mountain of books.

Two of my three visions had now been vindicated-Danese had been murdered exactly as I foresaw, and the woman in the painting had been cursed by the same evil influence that had felled her husband. That left Neptune and his seahorse. I would trust the pyromancy and hunt for Neptune, but if I said that I would be asked why.

“An object can be touched by Satan, Your Excellency, just as a person can. There are talismans of good fortune, like blessed rosaries or San Christoforo medallions, and there are evil talismans also. In the days before printing, when books were treasures in themselves, they were often protected by a curse written on the first page, threatening misfortune on anyone who stole the book from its rightful owner. The curse might be worded so that it fell on anyone who possessed the book thereafter. I certainly do not accuse the late sier Nicolo of theft. He might in all innocence have purchased a jinxed book, though, and then the curse would transfer to him and his house.” I fell silent, realizing that I was talking too much.

If I had only one believer in that room, it was sier Ottone Gritti. “And how does one detect such an abomination?” he demanded eagerly.

“I would be inclined to send for a priest, perhaps even the cardinal-patriarch himself. My master has never taught me a specific procedure.” What he had told me often enough, though, was that, Truth must sometimes hide behind a curtain of lies. My Christian duty was to locate and destroy the jinx before it did any more damage. It had killed Nicolo Morosini, blighted his wife, perhaps turned one of the Sanudos into a traitor. It might have brought about Danese’s death. I must do whatever I could to track it down and destroy it, even at risk to myself. I had a brain wave. “Except possibly dowsing,” I added thoughtfully.

All around the room eyebrows rose like pigeons in the Piazza.

“Dowsing?” Giro said.

Even Gritti would have trouble classifying dowsing as witchcraft. Even our skeptical doge might admit that there could be something to dowsing. Dowsing is not practiced in Venice, sitting in the middle of a saltwater lagoon, but everyone knows of and believes in dowsing-except the Maestro. Dig a hole deep enough almost anywhere and you will find some water, he says, so dowsing is a fraud almost without risk. I hoped it would be for me.

“Apple wood would be best, I think,” I mused, looking profound. “The tree of knowledge, of course. The tree of the serpent.”

“We have an apple tree!” Grazia said brightly. “I will show sier Alfeo.” She rose to her feet.

“That is good of you, madonna,” Gritti said with a benevolent smile. “By all means let him try his dowsing for evil.” He nodded to Vasco, who stood up also. I would have my jailer in attendance and a reliable witness, while Gritti could have a private talk with the Sanudos, in the absence of the kiddies.