The Alchemist's Pursuit

30

I could have outstripped a bat between the dining room and the door, but even before I arrived the caller began hammering again. I had given up trying to guess who might call on us next, but I was fairly certain that Missier Grande would be more subtle than whoever this was. As soon as I clattered the lock, the racket stopped. The visitor pushed on the door and burst through.

"Where is he?" she shouted. "Where are they? My husband? Sier Bernardo?"

Signora Isabetta's head was bare, which is an unthinkable breach of custom and her graying hair was bedraggled. She was gasping for breath, wore a bloody contusion on her left temple, and was not dressed for outdoors. I could hear old Luigi downstairs arguing fiercely with a woman, but of course no lady would leave the house without a companion. Ignoring Isabetta, I strode over to the balustrade and peered down the stairwell. I waved to the watchman to let him know all was well and he waved back. I returned to the salone.

Already Giorgio and Mama had emerged from the kitchen at the far end, anxious to discover what all the ruckus was about. Isabetta, no longer in the slightest bit mousey, had tried the door to the right, discovering the Maestro's bedroom, all dark. As I headed for the atelier, she shot past me and barged right in. Do not doubt that I followed. The men were all on their feet by then, even the Maestro, clutching his staff with both hands, leaning on it for support.

"She's gone!" Isabetta shouted, "She's gone!" She kept repeating it, trying to be understood over the brothers's cries of alarm and the Maestro's efforts to issue medical instructions. Domenico grabbed his wife to calm her. I grabbed a chair and put it behind her knees. Between us we sat her down. I headed for the cupboard where we keep the medical supplies.

It was Bernardo's cannon voice that prevailed. He bellowed for silence and got it.

"Donna Alina?" he demanded. "She hit you?"

Isabetta just nodded, suddenly gasping for air. Her husband was kneeling at her side, chafing her hand; the doctor had only a few feet more to go. I put his black bag where he could reach it, brought another chair for him, and then went back to the cupboard to fetch brandy.

"Just superficial, I think. Pass me that candle. Head wounds often bleed to excess." Nostradamus was trying to calm the patient and everyone else as well. He peered carefully at her eyes.

"What happened, dear lady?" Bernardo demanded. "Relax. Take your time."

"Went in… to put her to bed… room dark… didn't expect… behind the door… clubbed me with the cherub… wearing black…"

At that point a new voice suddenly interrupted, screaming at the top of my lungs: "Did Jacopo tell her about Violetta?"

If you have ever been out on a very dark night during a thunderstorm, you understand how a sudden flash will illuminate the entire world-not just the hands that a moment before you had not been able to see in front of your face, but even distant mountains. That was how it felt. Suddenly it was very clear that we had made a horrible mistake.

Everyone was staring at me in astonishment. Apprentices do not yell like that in the company of their betters. But they all knew what I meant.

Bernardo boomed, "No, we established right at the beginning that Jacopo had just come in. He was brought straight to us, not our mother."

But Isabetta was nodding yes.

He scowled. "And after we had spoken with him, I gave him strict orders that he was not to see her. I forbade it categorically. I warned Agnesina to keep him away from her."

Agnesina was Alina's elderly ladies' maid and I could not imagine her herding Jacopo around even if she were armed with a musket.

"He had been to see her first?" Domenico asked, and again his wife nodded-to the annoyance of Nostradamus, who was trying to examine her head wound. "We should have known he would have gone directly to her. Obviously he went to her first, then went out the stairway and came in again by the front door before reporting to us."

"Where is Jacopo now?" That was me, almost shouting in Isabetta's ear. The others continued to ignore my disrespect.

"If he has any sense," Bernardo said, "he's halfway to Florence already. I told him that our patience was exhausted; that he was to leave our house before noon tomorrow. And I warned him that the only way he could be sure of keeping his head on his shoulders was to get both of them out of Venice with utmost dispatch, and furthermore that it was our intention to cooperate in fullest measure with the authorities."

"Of course he would have gone to her first," Domenico muttered reproachfully. "Why didn't I see that? We should have known he was lying when he denied it."

"No bravo?" The Maestro very rarely loses his air of Jovian calm, but he was close to shouting too, now. "You mean she does her own killing?"

Of course that was what they meant. They could no longer deny it. And that was our terrible mistake. I was an idiot not to have realized it days ago. I had tackled Honeycat on the Campo San Zanipolo and toppled him like a skittle. I should have known that there was something far wrong. A professional killer, a bravo, would have planted his knife in my lungs instead of trying to saw through my ribs. I had been contesting with a woman, and a woman more than twice my age.

The room was frozen. Four men and one woman were waiting for someone else to speak, and somehow everyone seemed to be watching everyone else. The Maestro recovered first.

"Donna Alina killed those four women with her own hands?"

Bernardo hung his head. "She denies it. We do have a secret entrance… She has been known to go out alone at night. This morning we ordered the locks on that door changed and we arranged that she would be closely watched."

"Then Jacopo came home and told her about Violetta?" I said. "Oh, Gesu!" The guards in Number 96 were looking out for a man, not a woman. I bellowed orders to lock up behind me and bolted out the door to the salone.

I very nearly bowled over old Agnesina, Isabetta's companion that evening, who had just tottered in, puffing from her climb. Howling for Luigi, I bounded down four flights of stairs and set to work unlocking the door he had just finished locking. He squawked with annoyance as he came waddling along the androne.

"Lock up behind me!" I ordered.

I hauled the door open and dashed out to the loggia, where the lamp had been lit, although the fog was swallowing most of its light. Only the usual three gondolas were tethered there: the Maestro's and the two belonging to the Marcianas-sier Alvise does not own one and cadges rides on the rare occasions he does go out. I had expected to find two Michiel boats there also, but probably their boatmen had tied up amid the seven or eight craft outside Number 96 so they would have company while they waited. The all-male gathering in the loggia there was laughing uproariously at some witticism. The only traffic on the Rio San Remo at the moment was a single boat about three houses away in the opposite direction, emerging from the fog. It was coming toward me and the red light on its prow showed that it was Missier Grande's boat.

I had to make a decision instantly. I could not believe that our fearsome chief of police was simply taking a shortcut to somewhere else on an unrelated matter. No, he was coming to Ca' Barbolano, and I did not have time to reach Number 96 without his seeing me. Then I might not reach Violetta to warn her that Honeycat was female and was coming for her.

Leaping back, I cannoned into Luigi, and had to grab him to save him from taking a tumble. He swore at me anyway.

I took him by the front of his smock and shook him. "Listen! Lock this door quickly. Then run to the back of the house and pretend you're even deafer than you really are, understand?"

I had never given him orders like that before, or even spoken with such urgency. Alarmed, he nodded and drooled into his beard.

Even the Council of Ten would not force an entry into a nobleman's house, but Luigi would have to open the door eventually. All I had done was gain a little time.

I raced back up the stairs, all four flights, probably faster than I had come down, shouting ahead not to lock me out. I expected all the Marcianas to come pouring out of the mezzanine suites and sier Alvise and his wife out of the piano nobile to see what the fuss was about, but they didn't. Only Giorgio's face appeared over the balustrade at the top, peering down.

I reached the top, told him, "Lock up!" and cornered sharply toward the atelier. There was an argument of some sort going on in there, but it stopped at my sudden return. The Michiels would be even less pleased to hear my news than the Maestro. I gasped it out in one long burst:

"Missier Grande is on his way here and Luigi will delay him a few moments and your boatmen have tied up next door and if they have any sense they'll stay there."

Then I was gone.

My fastest way to 96 was through my bedroom and across the calle, but if I tried that tonight I might be skewered by some over-eager guard. The carpenter might have put bolts on the trapdoor.

I streaked along the salone, all the way to the far end, and out the back door, scooping the key to the garden gate off its hook on my way by. I did not linger to find my sword, for it was not weapons the bouncers at 96 lacked, it was information. Down the stairs I ran. The fog was letting in just enough twilight to let me cross the courtyard without cracking my shins on something or falling into the well.

Out in the calle I turned to the right and sped up again. Faint glimmers from windows provided only a fitful, patchy light, but I know that warren so well that I could run it blindfolded. There are seven turns between the Ca' Barbolano gate and the land door to Number 96.

Left…

Of course Alina would be wearing black; she probably did not own a garment that wasn't black. She could embroider, so she could sew. She could make a Carnival costume, or a friar's habit, or a nun's. Violetta had tried to see Sister Lucretzia and had then sent her a note. I had a sudden nightmare of her sitting alone in her apartment-she who never sat alone in her apartment-receiving word that there was a nun downstairs asking for her. Could even Alina be crazy enough to try to enter a brothel dressed as a nun? Was that what had caused all the laughter I had heard?

Left…

I wished I had a transcript of the family gathering last Sunday. Like the Council of Ten eight years ago, like even the Maestro and me now, the Michiels had recoiled from believing that a woman could commit such deeds herself. The Michiels had closed ranks in the name of family solidarity, all except Sister Lucretzia. Today that decision had been reversed and the senior brothers had driven Jacopo out into the wilderness.

Right…

Where was Jacopo now? In a cell in the palace? Escorting donna Alina? I wished I had brought my sword.

Left…

I raced along the straight to the T junction where I had first met my mysterious cat helper. I swung left around the corner and a lantern was uncovered right in my face, dazzling me. I stopped dead.

"Well, well!" said Filiberto Vasco. "We have a rat in our trap."