The Alchemist's Pursuit

18

An hour or so later the knocker summoned me again, and this time it was Violetta, radiant as the sun clearing away fog. We shared a brief kiss while I was closing the outer door, and another as I ushered her across to the atelier. Nostradamus almost seemed pleased to see her. He did not rise, but he did apologize for not doing so, and he did invite her to sit in one of the green chairs. I, of course, went to the chair on my side of the desk.

"Alfeo," he said. "A report for my client, if you please." Polite preliminary chitchat is not one of his skills.

I said, "Yes, master," and reported, starting with the Maestro's foreseeing, my attempt with Fulgentio to block the killing, and our failure to do so. Violetta was in her Minerva persona, the brilliant one, and her gray eyes hung on every word I spoke, analyzing, remembering.

When I mentioned that I had called on Alessa and she had revealed the true name of Honeycat, she merely nodded, as if that were not news to her.

"You knew Zorzi Michiel, madonna?" the Maestro inquired softly.

She nodded again. "We met socially and then he invited me to a spend a few days on the mainland. He was to come for me on the very day he fled from the city. Lucia vouched for Zorzi as very generous and excellent company, cultured and witty. I did not recognize the name earlier because nobody had told me he was the celebrated Honeycat."

"A birthmark," I said. "Only very close friends were in on the joke."

"Am I on his list now?" she asked. She was still under the shadow of the tarot's Death reversed.

"Who knows?" Nostradamus said. "We do not know the killer's motive for so many killings. You must be careful and Alessa even more so. Did Zorzi wear a beard?"

"No. Why?"

"Tell her why, Alfeo."

We had not discussed this, of course, but I knew the answer.

"Because the Basilica is the doge's private chapel and the Christmas service would be by invitation only. A nobleman in borrowed black robes might have bluffed his way in, but nobles are required to wear beards."

"It was dark," she said. "Beards are fairly easy to fake."

"True," the Maestro said, "and it may be that a fake beard turned up among his possessions. We absolutely must find out what evidence led the Ten to find him guilty. Go on, Alfeo."

So I described my visit to Palazzo Michiel and the death on Campo San Zanipolo that I failed to prevent. I finished with the warning from Friar Fedele and then waited to see what Minerva made of it all. So, significantly, did Nostradamus. She sat and frowned for a long minute.

"The lack of alibi makes no sense at all," she declared. "Zorzi was not the sort of boy to sit at home alone reading Dante. Surely someone could have testified that he had been elsewhere that night? Surely he was not stupid enough to use a dagger that could be traced back to him? Would the Ten convict him on that alone? Who tipped him off that the Ten were going to arrest him? If he didn't kill his father, who did? And whether he committed patricide or not, who is going around killing courtesans now, eight years later? And why?"

"I regret," the Maestro said testily, "that as yet I can offer answers to none of those questions, madonna. But I am trained in the metaphysical, and so is Alfeo, although still to a limited extent. We are both convinced that the recent murders are connected to the death of Gentile Michiel, but we can produce no evidence except our intuition, which would not be accepted by a court."

Violetta smiled. "I have no legal training, but I may be able to offer a little assistance." Her eyes were bluer, her voice drier, and I recognized the political Aspasia. "I have been making inquiries among some of my fellow workers, both at the wedding yesterday and here in Venice. We compiled a list of those who belonged to what we called the Honeycat club, those in on the joke, as Alfeo puts it. As well as Alessa herself, my informants agreed that they included Lucia da Bergamo, Caterina Lotto, Marina Bortholuzzi, and probably Ruosa da Corone. We know of another six so far, although there must be many more. Our inquiries shall continue."

The Maestro sighed. "He was a busy lad."

"There are ten thousand prostitutes in Venice," Aspasia said. "But Honeycat could afford the cream, the cortigiane oneste. He was a skilled musician himself and wrote promising poetry. He demanded sex, certainly, and a lot of sex, but he expected much more. As Alessa puts it, nobody slept with Honeycat."

"How many hundred in total?"

"Several dozens," Aspasia said coldly. "But he did have favorites. We are spreading the word, and for the warning we have to thank you and Alfeo."

"I hope we can provide more than just that," the Maestro said, now sounding quite snappish. He would naturally feel upstaged by a client who started her own investigation. "Yours is an excellent idea, madonna, but you did not go far enough. We need to know how messer Honeycat, if he has returned to the city after eight years, is finding his victims so easily. We know that Caterina Lotto had changed her place of residence at least once, but how many of the others had?"

He may have meant the question rhetorically, but Violetta answered. "Two. Lucia was still living in the same house as she had in his day. And Alessa is. We are also warning against any man who asks questions about specific courtesans and where they live now. Alessa or I will be notified right away."

Nostradamus grunted. "Alfeo?"

"Master?"

"Does the tax office in the palace keep a register of courtesans?"

"I expect so, master. It keeps records of everything else."

"Doctor," Violetta said, "you are taking a risk by even investigating this, are you not? The Ten have forbidden you to meddle."

He shrugged his narrow shoulders. "The Republic reserves the right to investigate crime, but it is every citizen's duty to prevent one, which is what I am seeking to do. I have not taken much risk so far, but I am afraid that the next step may be dangerous. And it could be much more costly than my normal investigations."

Violetta's eyes glinted gold. "You want another expense advance? How much?"

"I am not sure. Alfeo will try to learn that tonight."

"And what for?"

The Maestro chuckled. "To elect a doge. Alfeo told us how to do that at dinner on Friday, remember?"

"I fail to see the relevance," she said coldly.

So did I.

"You are happier that way, madonna," he said smugly. "And now if you will excuse us, my apprentice and I have work to do. I know this is the Lord's day, but even my learned friend Isaia Modestus will break his Sabbath to save a life, and that is what we are attempting to do."

Toward sunset I set Archangelo Angeli on the balcony to watch the Rio San Remo, then went and gobbled an early supper in the kitchen. Giorgio was there, doing the same, having been warned that I would need him. Mama Angeli, who can smell trouble like a tigress scenting meat, knew right away that I was unhappy about what I was about to do that evening. She started asking questions that I would not have answered even if we were alone. As it was, her children were wandering in and out all the time. I told her that the Maestro was sending me to elect a doge. The youngsters laughed, but she was not amused. I was saved from her interrogation when Archangelo rushed in to say that he had seen two nobles going past in a gondola and a senator walking along the fondamenta on the far side. So the Great Council had adjourned. I nodded to Giorgio and we both rose.

We went downstairs, carrying his oar and the gondola cushions, and only when he pushed off from the loggia did I tell him I wanted to call on Carlo Celsi. He looked relieved, for there was nothing subversive about visiting a senior and respected patrician. It was the subject of our discussion that would be dangerous for me. By then the Maestro had explained his warped humor.

Twelve elect twenty-five, reduced by lot to nine; the nine elect forty-five, reduced to eleven… So on and so on. Why all that rigmarole to elect a doge? Alessa had said it was to prevent the Great Council dividing into factions. Violetta had suggested almost the opposite, that it was to keep the inner circle in power and the fringes out. The truth, as the Maestro saw it with his cynical eye, was closer to her view than Alessa's, but he went further. It was much cheaper to bribe five or six nobles than hundreds, he said. Once a few "sound" men had won control of one of those tiny committees, their friends would hold a majority in all subsequent committees through to the final forty-one that made the actual choice. In other words, a doge was elected by bribery and that was what I was going to attempt that night.

My noble parentage and legitimate birth entitle me to take my seat in the Great Council when I reach the age of twenty-five. Many youngsters are admitted sooner, through various loopholes, but at twenty-five all I shall need to do is grow a beard, buy a gown, and turn up at the broglio. There I shall wait for some nobile homo to invite me in and introduce me to his companions, which should be no problem because so many of them already know me. That assumes that I behave myself until then and have enough money to buy the clothes. Manual labor would disqualify me; a serious scandal or conviction for a major crime like graft would. Graft is rife in the Great Council, but it is kept secret. I am especially vulnerable to a charge of corruption because I have no powerful family to back me and my apprenticeship to Nostradamus falls into a shady area on the edge of the permissible. Many narrow-minded patricians might welcome an excuse to strike my name from the Golden Book.

Nostradamus must know that, but he hadn't mentioned it when he told me what he wanted me to do. I might have refused but hadn't-I had failed Marina Bortholuzzi and couldn't bear the thought of more women being stabbed or strangled because I was too proud to get my hands dirty. I had spent the afternoon writing out two copies of the proposed contract with donna Alina Orio and then memorizing a long list of questions the Maestro wanted me to ask in the Palazzo Michiel if I got the chance. Now he was attempting more clairvoyance and I was going to dabble in the truly black art of subornation.

As always, Vittore greeted me with the cryptic smile that implied he had been expecting me. Celsi himself was standing at his desk, scribbling busily as he recorded the Council's decisions. He had not yet removed his patrician robes and bonnet; his tippet lay on a chair. He beamed gap-toothed.

"Alfeo! How wonderful to see you! How timely!"

"You are busy, clarissimo. I should wait upon you another day." I wanted an excuse to run all the way home and hide.

"Not at all, not at all. Wine, Vittore, wine, for my lovely friend. Sit, boy, and tell me all about your narrow escape last night."

"What narrow escape? Me?"

"Oh, it was all over the broglio this afternoon! Another woman murdered and there had been a scuffle. The killer escaped without anyone getting a glimpse of his face, but a young man was injured and ran away. 'That sounds just like my beloved Alfeo Zeno,' I thought to myself when I heard it. After all, you were the one who told us of Nostradamus's prediction…"

So he prattled. I settled in the chair, sipped more of his fine wine, and cursed myself for ever mentioning that foreseeing. It had done no harm to my master's reputation for omnipotence but it must have attracted the notice of the Council of Ten. It might even get us both convicted of murder-apprentice sent to fulfil prophecy.

"So what can I do for you tonight?" Celsi concluded, taking the other chair. He rubbed his hands. "Name it and it's yours."

"Two things, one little, one big. Why did messer Giovanni Gradenigo give up politics?"

For a few moments Celsi just stared at me like some puzzled gnome, but I was fairly sure that he was trying to work out why I was asking, rather than trying to answer my question.

"Why do you think that had anything to do with the Michiel case?"

Delighted to be right, I had no difficulty grinning from ear to ear. "Why do you answer a question with a question?"

He laughed and heaved himself to his feet to go in search of a book-two books, in fact, and he needed several minutes to find what he wanted in each of them. At last he laid them aside and folded his hands over his paunch.

"I don't know. Nobody ever found out-which is very unusual in the Republic! It was three months after the Michiel case, but I agree that that isn't very long, so there might be a connection. Old Marco Erizzo died and there was speculation that Gradenigo would replace him as a procurator of San Marco, but he just resigned from the Council of Ten and went into seclusion." He pulled a face. "I knew his wife's brother quite well, and he said even she couldn't get an answer out of him!"

So had there been a miscarriage of justice? Had the Three convicted the wrong man? Had that burden of guilt provoked a deathbed confession?

"If I can't even answer your small one," Celsi grumbled, "what's the big one?"

I drew a very deep breath. "I need to know on what evidence the Council of Ten convicted Zorzi Michiel of patricide."

The old gossip muttered, "I don't think it ever…" He clambered off his chair again to retrieve yet another book from the shelves, peering at the spines to find the right one. Then he laid it over one on the desk, where the light was better. After a moment he returned to his chair, shaking his head.

"Thought so. What I heard… just hearsay, of course. It always is with the Ten. What I heard was that the Three just informed the Ten that they all agreed the boy was guilty, but he had fled abroad."

No outsider was supposed to know even that much about the innermost workings of the government.

"The Three, then," I said. "I need to know on what evidence the inquisitors convicted Zorzi Michiel of patricide."

Celsi waggled his dewlaps at me. "Such a shame! I told you yesterday: if you'd asked me just a week ago, dear boy, I could have appealed to old Giovanni Gradenigo, but he's gone now. Agostino Foscari would have told me, but he went last year and his memory wasn't all that it should be by then anyway. That only leaves the other black, Tommaso Pesaro, and he's hopeless, tight as a coffin lid in a warm climate."

So I said it. "There are files."

Sier Carlo leaned back in his chair and gazed very hard at me. "Your master is supposed to have safer ways than that of learning things. Safer in this life, anyway. We mundane mortals have to resort to such dealings, but he talks with the angels."

"He still needs ordinary information to know what to ask for."

"What of yourself, lad? Too many patricians disapprove of one of us running around after a leech. You, especially, should not take this risk, Alfeo."

"Risk?" I said angrily. "Last night he slit my ribs. If he'd had a clear stroke at me, he'd have put the blade in my lung and I'd have bubbled to death in a few minutes. Even yet I may die of wound fever or lockjaw. Women are being murdered every day, almost, and you talk of risk, clarissimo?"

Still he hesitated, chewing his lip. Finally he nodded. "Very well. It will cost you a fortune."

"How much?"

"At least two hundred ducats, maybe more. Only Circospetto has access to such files and he does not come cheap."

I squirmed, because I had tangled with the Ten's chief secretary before. Although I had survived so far, he and I have no liking for each other. His relations with the Maestro were even worse, and we had never before tried to corrupt him.

"Sciara takes bribes?"

"They all do. He's cheap compared to the Grand Chancellor."

"How do I go about it?"

"Midnight," Celsi said, almost whispering. "It must be midnight or soon after. Calle Spadaria in San Zulian. About five doors in from the campo, you'll see a door with a grille in it but no knocker, no name or number. You knock two slow and three fast. Hold your light so your face is visible. If no one answers, you are refused. And take a sizable down payment with you."

"I'll be there," I said. "Thank you."

"Be careful, lad," he said wistfully. "I'd hate not to have your cheerful smile around here any more."