The Alchemist's Pursuit

25

The Maestro appeared earlier than usual that morning; I was still sweeping the floor when he came stumping into the atelier, leaning on his staff. The absence of the canes was meant to show that he had recovered. I opened my mouth to congratulate him and he cut me off.

"What's that?" He pointed to the book on his desk.

I told him. He changed direction and went to sit there, instead of in the red chair, and I knew he really must be feeling better. By the time I had put the broom away and returned, he had laid down both the pornography and my notes and was leaning back in his chair, scowling.

"What did you learn from Sciara last night?"

I sat opposite and told him, quoting the documents word for word, or very nearly so. "We have no case left against donna Alina," I concluded. "I should have realized sooner that Jacopo is not merely a liar but an addicted liar. Apparently he never tells the truth if he can fool you with a good yarn. That's an interesting defense, isn't it-if you are known to be perpetually untruthful, you cannot be caught out in a lie?"

The Maestro's scowl did not change. He tapped the book. "And this sewage?"

"The wheel of fortune turns. We can't use the dagger to make a case against the lady, but now we know for certain that someone in the Palazzo Michiel is killing courtesans. It was written by donna Alina, I think. The writing fits her signature, both on your contract and on the statement I saw last night. I glimpsed either that book or an identical one in the casket where she keeps Zorzi's letters. Seems she gave him money and he repaid her with dirty stories. I doubt that he knew she was keeping a record. Sister Lucretzia left it on your armillary sphere when she was here on Sunday. I didn't notice it until last night."

Neither had my master, so he couldn't scold me for being unobservant.

"It is not the sort of uplifting literature I associate with nuns."

"Nor I, master. She had just come from the family reunion. Either someone gave her the book at the house or she stole it. The casket has no lock, just a ward-you spread both hands on the lid and say, 'My dearest treasure.' That's all; easy enough to spot if you know about such things."

"Why?" he demanded, eyes narrow.

"Why did she steal the book? I don't know."

"Why do you think she stole it?"

I had met all these people; he had not. "Assuming Lucretzia was told about the murdered courtesans-and I think they were the subject of the family gathering-she must recognize the book as evidence that someone in Palazzo Michiel is at least involved and likely the actual killer. Whether she intended to destroy the evidence and changed her mind, or knew that Fedele was going to stop in here and try to prevent you from investigating their father's death… or perhaps Fedele himself put her up to it. What do you think?"

"I need to see her," he muttered.

I refrained from uttering mocking laughter. "Even Violetta couldn't talk her way into Santa Giustina. Probably Lucretzia was allowed out to visit her family only because her brother asked. An abbess won't talk back to a priest, but she'd surely set the dogs on people like you and me."

Nostradamus sat and glared at the offending book. "This thing is poison! I don't see why it hasn't provoked more killings already. I ought to have you take it straight to the palace and give it to the chiefs of the Ten."

"I'll take my rowing clothes with me." I wasn't joking, much. The galleys were starting to seem like a real possibility now.

He did not deign to answer. After a while he started tugging at his goatee, which is a sign that he is thinking hard. I quietly opened a drawer and took out Johannes Trithemius's Steganographia so I could get started on the numerology home-work my master had set me five days ago. The learned abbot of Sponheim instructed us in how to send messages to specific angels, and after about an hour, when I was seriously considering an appeal for help to Gabriel, Nostradamus at last emerged from his reverie.

"Damnatio!"

"Master?" I closed the book on a finger.

"Donna Alina seems to have faith in me. She could have given the book to her daughter to deliver to me."

"If she is not the killer…" I had not quite rid my mind of that assumption. "Why the nun, though? Surely a nun should hurl such smut into the nearest canal?"

"Because Lucretzia is the only one Alina trusts?"

I gulped and said, "Yes, master," humbly.

"Get me the knight of cups!"

"Er…?"

"Vitale's solution was to be the knight of cups reversed, you said? Get him. Bring him."

Somewhere a shutter opened… "Ah! The cavaliere servente?" I should have seen that Jacopo might fit the "solution" card in the reading I had made for Violetta, but I hadn't met him when I did it.

"Of course. Bring him and I'll reverse him."

"How far may I turn the screw?"

"All the way to the headsman's ax."

I pursed my lips in a silent whistle. He rarely gives me so much leeway.

"If he won't come, any second-best?"

"No, it must be Jacopo. And I want Vitale here when he arrives."

"Master, Violetta never rises before noon!"

"Then waken her. This is urgent. Tell her to dress like… provocatively."

"You're not asking for much," I murmured, but I couldn't have been quiet enough, because he glared at me. He expected me to drag a natural-born citizen away from whatever he was doing as if I were a Council of Ten sbirro. And also dictate how Violetta was to dress, which was even more dangerous. Tactics would be important. I marked my place in the thrilling Steganographia, selected pen and paper, and wrote a brief note, which I rolled up and tied with a ribbon.

"I think I'll go armed, if you don't mind."

No reply. I set off to fetch my sword. As I stepped out into the salone, someone rapped the door knocker.

It was early for visitors. It was even earlier to see Fulgentio Trau active in the world, but from the look of him he had been on night duty, guarding the doge's bedchamber. He was clearly a bearer of bad news. He spoke no greeting, smiled no smile.

"The doctor awake?"

I nodded and stepped aside to let him enter, ushered him into the atelier.

Nostradamus moved as if to rise, for a ducal equerry far outranks him.

Fulgentio raised a hand in forbiddance. "Please stay, Doctor. I bring a very brief message to you and to your apprentice. It is from 'a high official,' but I am forbidden to say whom." He glanced at me to make sure I was also listening. "I am instructed to tell you both that this is your last warning, and you are granted this mercy only because of your many past services to the Republic. You must stop asking questions about the death of Gentile Michiel. You will disregard this warning at your peril, both of you."

Fulgentio shrugged, and muttered, "That's all. Sorry."

As he turned away, the Maestro said, "Wait!"

"Doctor?"

"I would take it as a great favor, lustrissimo, if you would deliver a very brief note to the distinguished person who gave you that warning."

Fulgentio smiled sadly but warily. "I will gladly try, of course. But I may not succeed and I doubt very much that it will do any good."

"Understood," the Maestro muttered. "Alfeo?"

I strode across to the desk and readied my pen and inkwell in record time, choosing a sheet of our finest rag paper.

"Two lines should do it," he said. "I give my sacred word that I have no interest in previous crimes and my only intent is to prevent future murders. Sign it for me."

I pursed lips in a silent whistle of astonishment. If the old miser was sincere in abandoning the Gentile murder contract, then he was voluntarily giving up a significant fee for the first time in my experience. I went off to the kitchen for a lighted candle. When I returned, I affixed his signet, then handed the letter to Fulgentio.

"And tell them that goes for me, too, with brass buttons," I said.

He gave me a look that said I was walking on a razor's edge. He bowed to the Maestro and headed for the door. As I let him out of the apartment he said, "For God's sake, make him be careful!" and then trotted off down the stairs.

I went back to the Maestro, who looked as if his fuse had burned down to the touchhole and he was ready to explode.

"Any instructions for today, master?"

"Aargh!"

Not promising. "That warning came from the doge himself, I think."

"I don't."

"Oh! Master, have you any idea why the Ten don't want you to investigate this affair?"

He repeated, "Aargh!" even louder.

"You are keeping secrets from me." I was hurt. I knew everything he did; what had he seen that I hadn't?

"Some things are too dangerous to know. Just because you are my apprentice, you are not required to break the law. The instructions I gave you a few minutes ago still stand, but if you refuse to obey them, then I am helpless."

"I'll get my sword," I said, and departed.

Violetta had only recently gone to bed. Even little Milana's normally unshakable good cheer faltered when I gave her the message I brought.

"It's not an hour since her patron left, clarissimo."

She only calls me that when I am being completely unreasonable. I apologized, assured her it wasn't my fault, and insisted that the matter was urgent, all of which I had done already. Then I made a quick and cowardly escape, down to where Giorgio was waiting for me. I settled in the felze. He already knew where we were bound.

He pushed off. "You look worried."

I adjusted my face to a smile. "I'm just annoyed that I can't see what the Maestro has seen."

"Your whole life must be a misery then."

It would be worse if I finished up chained to an oar. "I think this Honeycat case is about to blow open," I said. "But I don't know who's going to come down in pieces."

"That," the gondolier barked, "is a disgusting expression."

"It's a disgusting case," I said.

The doorman at Palazzo Michiel must have known me by then, but the studied lack of recognition in his expression warned of choppy water ahead. I asked to see Jacopo Fauro.

"I regret to report that I have orders not to admit you, clarissimo. I may accept written communications only."

Congratulating myself on my foresight, I produced the scroll I had prepared. It was addressed to Jacopo and said only, Her dearest treasure is going to the chiefs. The doorman took it and closed the door on me. Declining to take a seat alongside the half dozen other men waiting for audience-several of whom were smirking at the sight of a sword-bearing sprout being refused admittance-I strolled across the riva to stare out at the ships and lighters in the basin. A chilly wind made the morning sunlight dance on the water, but spring would come. I could see Giorgio along at the Molo, chatting with some other gondoliers.

I wondered who would receive the note. The Michiel household had more crosscurrents than the lagoon of Venice itself and Jacopo lurked in the center of it all, a spider in a web of lies. At times he was a flunky, at others a fraternal partner. Sometimes he served donna Alina, sometimes he spied on her for her children. He obviously spied on them for her. Bernardo and Domenico told different stories as the fancy took them. Zorzi had been framed for murder, possibly with his own connivance, but certainly helped along by someone. Now one of the two religious in the family had exploded a mine under it by revealing that odious diary. Mixing metaphors is one way of passing the time.

The door swung open and Domenico Michiel appeared in the opening, red faced and pugnaciously prognathous. "Zeno!"

I strolled in his direction and he vanished back into the dimness of the androne to await me. I entered and closed the door. Apart from Domenico himself, the big hall was deserted. The real estate trader and I could have a good, no-holds-barred, uninterrupted rowdy-dowdy.

He shook my note under my nose. "What does this mean?"

"It means that you read other people's correspondence, clarissimo."

"Fauro is a servant. What do you want of him?"

"He told me he was your business partner."

"Tell that to the Turks. What do you want of him?"

"The truth."

"Go to the ninth circle of hell."

I thought his rage seemed contrived, but if he truly did not know what my note meant, he must have shown it to someone who did and that someone had reacted strongly. I confess I was enjoying myself.

"Then the book must go to the chiefs of the Ten."

"What book?"

I quirked an eyebrow skeptically. "Your lady mother knows what book. Or Jacopo does. Briefly, clarissimo, certain evidence that has come into my master's possession shows beyond doubt that someone in this house is connected to a continuing series of murders in this city. The learned doctor wishes to question Jacopo Fauro concerning the matter. If Fauro is unable to allay his suspicions, my master will have no choice but to deliver the documentary evidence to the authorities. Then it is highly likely that Missier Grande will show up here within hours."

"For Jacopo?" Domenico's shock was more convincing than his previous anger. Had he expected another name?

"Perhaps for other people also. I repeat, clarissimo, that the implications appear damning."

"My mother engaged Nostradamus to learn who murdered our father, on the baseless assumption that it wasn't Zorzi. How can Jacopo possibly know anything that will help? He was only a-"

"My master already knows who murdered your father, messer, although he has not yet assembled a legally admissible case." What was one more small lie in that temple of deception? "His first priority is to prevent any more courtesans being murdered."

"You dare to threaten me? You dare accuse my half-brother of being a murderer?"

Why not, when he had one convicted murderer in the family already? "My understanding is that he is a vitally important witness."

"By Heaven, your master has fancy ideas for an upstart foreign leech! If he wants to speak to anyone in this household, let him come himself. We'll see who questions whom." Sweat gleamed on the bridge of his aquiline nose.

I explained about my master's infirmity. For a moment I was afraid that sier Domenico would decide to return with me in Jacopo's stead, which was not what the Maestro wanted at all. Nostradamus could hope to browbeat Jacopo, but not his older, richer, patrician half-brother. It was not yet time for Domenico.

I bowed. "I shall inform my master of your decision, clarissimo. He will have to make his report to the Ten without your assistance."

My bluff worked.

"Wait! Wait there!" Domenico jabbed a finger toward the bench I had decorated for so long on Saturday, spun on his heel, and disappeared at a very fast walk.

I waited.

And waited.

I was not seriously worried that Ca' Michiel would send word for the sbirri to come and relieve them of that intolerable nuisance, Alfeo Zeno. The book was my defense. The Michiels would dance to the Maestro's fiddle as long as he held the book.

The knocker rapped. The footman emerged from his unseen kennel to admit two artisan-class men, who asked to see Domenico and were told to wait outside.

At last Jacopo came trudging down the stairs, alone. He was dressed much more modestly than I had yet seen him and I judged that he was scared. Not terrified, but more worried than angry.

I smiled. "Good morning."

He scowled at me and said nothing.

Nor did he speak as we walked along the riva, to the Molo where our boat waited. I put him in the felze and sat on the thwart facing him, because I did not trust him within snatching range of my sword or dagger. Still neither of us spoke until Giorgio had rowed us away from the watersteps and started to sing. It's not easy to eavesdrop while singing.

"How did you steal the old cat's diary?" Jacopo asked.

"She hadn't missed it?"

"No. She screamed and spat and threatened to claw Domenico's face off. What's in it to get her so riled?"

"I think you know."

He shook his head. He was recovering his normal insouciant self-confidence already. Some people believe that they can lie their way out of anything.

"I've seen it there in the casket, but never seen it opened. How did you get hold of it?" His eyes narrowed. "Magic?"

"No magic. I can't tell you, but my master may."

"You're not seriously suggesting that I go around murdering whores, are you?" He portrayed the innocence of angels.

"I'm not suggesting anything. Nostradamus does the thinking, I'm just the messenger boy. It might not hurt if you thought back to where you were on the nights they were attacked, though."

He saw the trap right away. "Tell me what nights those were and I'll try." He smirked. Jacopo Fauro thought he was smart and so he was, but he was in for a surprise when he went up against Nostradamus.