The Alchemist's Pursuit

15

Some watermarks show through on a black surface," I admitted. "It was that hideous escritoire that gave me the idea."

"So I saw what you saw. The watermarks were different."

"As they should be, written in different lands, eight years apart. The handwriting is the same, as it should be. However, both watermarks are Venetian, so the letters are forged." Normally I do not reveal information like that to a witness, but Jacopo probably knew it anyway and I wanted to win his confidence.

He chuckled. "I am most grateful that you did not tell her so. Your mention of the Honeycat name was tactfully done, too. We were all terrified that you would tell the old bag about the murdered courtesans and throw her into convulsions."

I had concluded by that time that Jacopo was no true cavaliere servente, because he was no cavaliere. He was only a well-dressed lackey and younger than me. His present chattiness was an effort to seem better than he was. Who paid his tailors' bills?

"Does she have convulsions?"

"Not literally. She has a tongue like a skinner's knife, though."

"Who writes the letters, Bernardo?"

"Domenico." He laughed. "Bernardo may even believe in them."

I wondered if Jacopo had believed in them until he saw what I was doing with the ebony desk. He was leading me out by a different route, not the secret staircase. Now that Bernardo knew I had been allowed in, there was no further need for concealment.

"It is a harmless deception for a bereaved mother and widow," I said, "unless any genuine letters arrived from Zorzi and were suppressed."

"I know of none."

He wouldn't. They would have been burned by Zorzi's brothers, or turned over to the Ten, who would have read them first anyway. The Michiels' mail would certainly have been intercepted for a year or two after the outlaw's flight, and possibly still was.

I said, "The lady must have been very upset when her husband was murdered and her son blamed."

Jacopo said, "Much more upset about Zorzi than…" He shot me a quirky smile. "You are a sly bastard, Zeno!"

No, if he had been around back then, he was the bastard among us. I had Jacopo placed.

"I see a likeness to Bernardo," I said.

We were descending a magnificent staircase to the androne. The splendor of Palazzo Michiel belonged only to the legitimate heirs. By-blows would have no share in it.

"Well done," he said sourly. "Yes. Honor is indivisible. Half is nothing."

"And how old were you eight years ago?"

"I was just the cook's brat back then. Or a page, sometimes. I can remember Zorzi having screaming matches with our father and using me as evidence that the old tyrant was a hypocrite. Oh, how I loved that!"

"Your full name, in case I need to ask for you?"

"Jacopo Fauro, but just Jacopo will do." He stopped suddenly at a landing and looked me over. "You at least got your father's name, Zeno."

"I treasure it. But I got no money."

I was prying again and he knew it. He shrugged. "I got neither."

"You have another half-brother, a priest."

"Timoteo, now Brother Fedele of the Friars Minor. We are a versatile family-politician, financier, saint, patricide, and drudge. Anything else you need to know?"

"And a sister?"

"Sister Lucretzia."

"And who was the lady who was reading to donna Alina when I arrived?"

"Signora Isabetta Scorozini, Dom's wife."

I had detected no signs of overabundant love between her and her formidable mother-in-law. Scorozini is not a patrician name. While marriage with commoners is not forbidden, it requires the Grand Council's approval and I remembered Celsi's caustic comment on the Michiels' practice of limiting the number of heirs. He had mentioned a mistress. More likely Domenico's marriage had been blessed by the Church but not the Grand Council; it would be morganatic, so her children could not inherit.

We were almost at the bottom of the stairs; my sand was running out.

"How many children does Bernardo have?"

"None."

"Who gave Zorzi his nickname of Honeycat?"

Jacopo shrugged again, indifferent. "The family always called him that." His tone implied that he was not family enough to use nicknames.

We started across the androne, toward the main door. "I would offer you a ride home, but ordering boats is outside the limits of my authority."

"No offense taken," I said. I quite liked Jacopo. His bitterness was understandable. Nobility is passed on by the father and he had as much Michiel blood as the others, but he had grown up in their palace, destined to be their servant.

"Although perhaps your guardian angel is watching over you," he added, as we stepped out to the loggia and the riva beyond. His voice had changed and a slight sneer lurked under his beard. A man in the black robes and tippet of a noble was just about to embark in a gondola whose boatmen wore the family colors. He was clearly waiting for us, and Jacopo led me over to him between the passing porters and pedestrians. "Sier Alfeo-sier Domenico."

I exchanged bows with Brother Number Two. It was fairly easy to deduce that either his brother or his wife had informed him of the Nostradamus snake in the household grass. Donna Alina had taken care to proclaim the news of my presence, for some reason I did not yet know.

Jacopo played out the charade. "Sier Alfeo is just leaving and would no doubt appreciate a ride home, if it does not take you too far out of your way."

Domenico was in his thirties, a slighter, lighter Michiel, forged more in the tall, slender form of his mother than cast in the imposing mold of the Bernardo and Jacopo. He had a hook nose, a quiet voice, and a cryptic, sphingine smile.

"Of course. San Remo? It would be my pleasure."

"My honor and my debt," I said.

Rose water was not the only scent floating around the Palazzo Michiel. The place reeked also of conspiracy. I assumed that I would now be interrogated on what donna Alina had wanted and instructed on how she had misinformed me.

Domenico boarded first and handed me aboard, insisting I sit on the lefthand side of the felze, the place of honor, although that did not mean much in this case, because it is easier to direct the boat from that side when there are two boatmen, and I was the one who would name our stopping place. As we glided away from the watersteps, I murmured some platitude about kindness.

"Nonsense," Domenico said dryly. "I just wanted to have a word with you. Jacopo is not a very proficient thespian, is he?"

Set a trap and then expose it yourself? Domenico surprised me. There was something slithery about him, though.

"He is still young enough to learn from a good teacher," I said. "How may I assist you, clarissimo?"

He showed his lower teeth when he smiled, which is rare in a young man. "Tell me what you were up to with my mother, of course. Or rather what she wants from you. She is sometimes not very practical. My brother is worried… Let me start at the beginning. Our father's terrible death was a shattering experience for all of us, of course, but especially for Alina, for she was with him when it happened. The whole city cried out in horror when it heard the news, but she was there! Then, just days later, Zorzi's flight made it all doubly, triply worse. He had always been her favorite. She has never admitted that he was guilty."

"Was he?" I murmured.

"Who knows?" Domenico said, surprising me again. "Zorzi was taller than I am and she always insisted that the man who elbowed her aside was not tall. That was all she recalled of the killer-that he was no more than average height. But the Ten had to find a culprit quickly and Zorzi ran away. Run from hounds and they will chase you." Again that curious smile invited confidence.

"Is he still alive?"

"Of course not!"

That made three surprises and I was starting to feel out-gunned. The family financier had let slip that he knew what parish I lived in, and therefore had most likely seen the letter I brought, but he was coming across as smarter than Bernardo, the family politician, or even the family flunky, who was sharp enough in spite of his lack of theatrical expertise. Perhaps Domenico's soft voice excluded him from politics, for it takes powerful lungs to be heard the whole length of the Great Council's chamber.

"The Ten put a price on his head," he said. "A thousand ducats? A fortune! Were I a gambling man, I should bet that it was less than a month before some bravo turned up at the palace with my brother's head pickled in wine or brine to claim the reward. The Ten never tell."

His face radiated sincerity as he said all this. The man was a master, and I was glad not to be buying real estate from him.

"Then the letters your mother receives are all fakes?"

He could not have known beforehand that I had been told about the letters, yet he never hesitated.

"Of course. She was still in shock from the murder when her son was convicted of patricide; we all feared she would go out of her mind and harm herself. Eventually my wife, Isabetta, and I concocted a letter to console her. We decided to risk this deception, knowing that if Alina saw through it, it would be taken as betrayal and make matters even worse. Zorzi and I had always had similar handwriting and my forgery turned out to be good enough. That letter saved my mother's sanity, sier Alfeo! Perhaps it was a reprehensible conspiracy, but I have no regrets. Ever since then we have supplied a new episode of the drama every few months. We led our phantom brother through several adventures. At present he is a senior aide to the Duke of Savoy, and anxiously awaiting the birth of his second child. Is this a sin?"

Who was I to be his spiritual advisor? "That may depend on whether your brother is alive, clarissimo. Have any genuine letters turned up?"

Domenico studied me for a moment, as if adjusting his evaluation of a property. The roof is collapsing, but the stables are adequate…

"None that I know of. Would you really expect the Council of Ten to allow such a letter to arrive? The Ten watch every piece of mail entering the Republic. Their agents would backtrack it to its source. My brother Zorzi is long dead, sier Alfeo, may the Lord have mercy on his soul."

"Amen," I said. We were making fast time along the Grand Canal and would be at San Remo in a few moments. It was time to counterattack. "And now you and sier Bernardo are worried that donna Alina will fall into the hands of a charlatan clairvoyant, who will milk her of thousands of ducats by preying on her obsession to prove her son's innocence?"

He smiled, snakily. "You put it in starker terms than I would."

"Maestro Nostradamus is not a grifter," I said, even more cold-bloodedly, "but is aware of the dangers of being considered one. If he undertakes to prove your brother's innocence, clarissimo, then he will expect payment only after he has done so. If your brother was in fact guilty, then you will owe him nothing. Suppose he was innocent-then who did kill your father?"

Silence. The oars creaked in the oarlocks. Passing gondoliers yodeled their strange calls. We turned into Rio San Remo. My companion stared at our bow post, or perhaps the forward boatman's legs, saying nothing.

"Messer?" I queried eventually.

Domenico shook his head. "I have absolutely no idea, sier Alfeo. Nobody I know or can think of. My first thought when I heard the news was that Zorzi had committed that terrible, dreadful crime. I kept my opinion to myself, of course, but I never doubted that he was guilty, neither then nor later."

I said, "The next watergate on the right, boatman. I do thank you for the ride, clarissimo."

"It has been a great pleasure, sier Alfeo."

We smiled like fighters ending the first round of a long contest.