The Alchemist's Code

29

N othing serious happened until after curfew. I went back to the atelier with the book and wasted the rest of the afternoon beating my brains to a pulp trying to make sense of three-hundred-year-old French. When I needed a break, I cleaned my rapier and filed the point sharp again, repairing the minor damage done when Danese was felled. If Vasco tried to arrest me, I would need it.

At sunset I also brought the Head down from the attic, well hidden in its leather bag from the vizio ’s prying gaze. A box of human bones in the medical cupboard is permissible property for a physician, if only barely, but the Head dwells apart, among the Maestro’s collection of curiosities. The Head’s original owner died several thousand years ago, probably of chronic dental caries, and was undoubtedly a high-ranking native of Egypt, worthy of careful mummification. His eyes are closed, his mouth open, and he still sports wisps of white hair. He is quite light, because his brain was removed during the embalming process, but he does not seem to care about that now. The Maestro insisted that the Head would play the role of Baphomet very well, so I stood him on the slate table in place of the usual crystal globe.

Amid all the charges of heresy, blasphemy, and perversion hurled at the Knights Templar were some peculiar accusations that they had worshipped a detached head named Baphomet. No one had ever properly explained why they should have done so, and it is generally assumed that Baphomet was just a wild tale made up by some poor wretch to stop the pain after he had confessed to everything else he could think of. The tale has proved remarkably enduring, though. The name is said to be a corruption of Mohammed.

“Far from it,” the Maestro said that evening as he and I settled down to attempt some major black magic. “Didn’t you read the book?”

The spyhole was covered, the door locked, and Vasco outside. The shutters were closed and the Angelis engrossed in their long duty of bedding down children. Yet I still felt a nervous need to keep looking over my shoulder.

“I tried, but Old French is beyond me, and there’s other script in there that I’ve never seen before.”

The Maestro was huddled in his favorite chair with the Raymbaud manuscript in his lap, dimly lit by a lamp on the mantel. In his black robe, he was almost invisible. He was enjoying himself hugely. He had been evasive when I asked if he had ever tried this procedure before, but he obviously felt that he had a good excuse to try it now.

“Ah, well according to Raymbaud, the technique was very ancient, long predating Islam. The invocation is in Sahidic Coptic, the language of the Pharaohs, and he claimed that the ritual was devised by the embalmers to ask the dead’s permission to prepare their corpses. That sounds unlikely, but a technique for interrogating the recently dead would have been very useful to the Templars when they were defending the Holy Land from desert marauders. If a patrol gets massacred and you can invoke their spirits soon enough, you can ask them who did it, or ask the dead brigands who sent them.”

I shuddered. “Necromancy!”

He blinked with childish innocence. “Not if you define necromancy as the ancients did. The learned Strabo, for instance, relates necromancy to divination and the Chaldeans-”

“Tell me tomorrow, while we’re waiting for the torturers to finish their dinner break.” I was still fidgeting, unable to sit. “What else do we need?”

He peered at the manuscript again. “There are only six appurtenances named but there must be seven. What’s missing?”

The list of ingredients was about the only thing I had managed to decipher. “Salt.”

“Ah, of course! Go and bring some.”

I went out and locked the door behind me, for the Head was in full view. Vasco was still draped like a discarded cloak on the couch. He knew we were up to something but were not about to let him find out what, and he just scowled when I told him we would be some time and he should curl up and catch some sleep. I purloined a nugget of salt from the kitchen and returned to the atelier. The Maestro had moved to one of the green chairs, which I had earlier arranged a safe distance back from the table, facing our elderly accomplice, the Head.

“Put it between the iron and the wood,” he said. “Now read off the appurtenances.”

I named the seven objects I had arranged around the Head: “Iron, salt, wood, amber, cinnabar, copper, and gold.” All of those have been appreciated as having magical virtue since the most ancient times, of course.

“Now light the incense.”

Seven sticks of incense stood in holders around the Head and the ring of appurtenances. I pointed at each in turn and it began to smoke.

He said, “Now I shall…Ah, the hair!”

“Hair?”

“Hair. You must relate the Baphomet to the spirit you wish to invoke, or you might call the wrong one. Fortunately in this case we have a lock of Dolfin’s hair. I put it in the small implements drawer for safekeeping.”

An attending physician stealing a lock of a cadaver’s hair seemed perilously close to desecration of a body to me, but we were well outside moral law already, so I said nothing as I obediently fetched. Just the sight of that blond tress lying there, tied with a ribbon, appalled me. I said a silent prayer of apology to Danese as I followed the Maestro’s directions and draped it over the Head.

“Now!” he said. “Hand me the bell. Sit. Not so close. Now, I shall read the invocation. When the seventh stick has gone out, you will have a few seconds to ask your questions.”

“Me?”

“He knew you better. You should be allowed three and only three questions, but have a couple of extras ready just in case. Find out the murderer’s name and where he lives. Do not pry into matters that do not concern you in this life.”

“No.” I expected to discover those for myself fairly soon.

“Ready?”

“Ready, master.”

He began reciting the Coptic, taking it slowly but rarely stumbling. Repeatedly he mentioned Baphomet, although the way he said it made it sound more like a command than a proper name. After a few lines he rang the handbell once and the first incense stick I had lit stopped smoking. I shivered. A few more lines and he rang twice. The second stick…

The first time in my life that my hair ever genuinely stood on end was after the final, seventh, flame extinguished. There was an awful moment’s pause and then the Head spoke. Yes, a voice emerged from the gaping mouth, soft but unmistakably Danese Dolfin’s sonorous, unforgettable bass scraping at my nerves.

“Who summons me back to this world of sin?”

I swallowed hard on a throat as dry as salt. “I, Alfeo Zeno, do.”

“Alfeo Zeno, why do you dare disturb the passage of my soul?”

“To avenge your murder.”

“Avenge? Or revenge? Would you have me sin even in death?”

How typical of Danese to argue from beyond the grave, even if he wasn’t buried yet. I wiped my damp brow and put the first question. “Danese Dolfin, who killed you?”

The Head moaned as if in pain. “Leave me, leave me!”

“Answer, I command you! Who killed you?”

He sighed and whispered, “Mirphak.”

“What is his real name?”

“Francesco Guarini.”

I heard the Maestro sigh happily. His third bowstring had found the target.

I asked my third question. “Where does Francesco Guarini live?” For a long moment I thought I would receive no reply but then Danese’s voice came again, very faint, as if from a great distance.

“Above the magazzen in San Giorgio in Alga.”

Got him! With both a name and an address, even the Signori di Notte could catch him, let alone the Ten.

“And by what words is he commanded?”

Silence.

“Again I order you to answer! What words command Francesco Guarini?”

This time I heard a sound no louder than a passing mosquito. I said, “What?” several times and tried a few more questions, but nothing more happened. I whispered, “Requiescat in pacem.” The seance was over.

The bell jangled as the Maestro laid it on the floor beside his chair.

“Very satisfactory!” he said. “Before dawn, you will go to San Giorgio in Alga and arrest Francesco Guarini. Bring him back here and I will serve him to Ottone Gritti for his prima colazione.”

“I have no authority to arrest anyone.” Especially not on that testimony.

“But you have the word to command him. Didn’t you hear it?”

“Mirphak?” I said. “Mirphak and Algol? Should I bring in Sirius, Polaris, and Vega also?”

“Keep a look out for all sorts of trouble. You will have the vizio with you!” The Maestro chuckled as he heaved himself to his feet. “Be very careful. He is dangerous.”

“Which is? Or do you mean both?”

“Guarini is. Vasco isn’t, not now.”