The Alchemist's Code

by Dave Duncan

  “Then we may just have to be patient a little longer, beloved,” he said.

  I leaned forward and closed the curtains on them.

  So we returned to the Ca’ Zuanbattista Sanudo. Giorgio tied up alongside the family gondola and I left the lovers hidden in the felze while I set off to face the music for them. A footman opened the door, but he was young and broad shouldered, and I recognized yesterday’s gondolier…Fabricio.

  I gave my name and was escorted upstairs and to the same salotto as the previous day. Zuanbattista stood with his arm around his wife. Her antediluvian aunt had been moved to another seat, but did not as much as twitch at my entrance, or indeed during my stay. Girolamo hovered in the background.

  I bowed. “Messere, madonna—Grazia is safe and I can go and fetch her directly. I must inform you that yesterday she performed the sacrament of holy matrimony with sier Danese Dolfin.”

  Eva’s mouth hardened like cement.

  Zuanbattista sighed. “Your news is welcome. I hope no daughter of mine would sleep with a man without the blessing of Holy Mother Church.”

  At their back, Giro merely shrugged, which for him was a wild display of emotion. I gathered that the decision had already been made.

  “I confess,” I said, “that I exceeded my instructions. By coincidence, Danese and I knew each other as children. He drew on me and I had to disarm him. I gave him my word that I would not turn him in to the authorities. If you will give me your word likewise, messer, then I can bring him here also.”

  Eva showed her teeth and looked up at her husband as if daring him to do any such thing. She had been made the laughingstock of the Republic, the woman who lost her daughter to her cavaliere servente. Dreams of being dogaressa clad in cloth of gold had been dashed by a child’s romantic delusion.

  “We do not want a galley slave in the family,” Sanudo told me. “You have my word as a Venetian nobleman, messer. Go and fetch them both.”

  Good for him! I resisted the temptation to slap him on the back, and bowed instead. “I brought them both with me.”

  The old man had guessed I would say that. I returned to the watergate with the Sanudos trailing at my heels. To my surprise, they even followed me out to the fondamenta, which was conveniently deserted. The felze blinds were still down, but as I approached I heard a girlish snigger, followed by a deep male chuckle. For the moment, at least, Grazia was happy.

  “You can come out,” I said. “The pasta is ready and the fatted calf won’t be long.”

  Danese handed her ashore and watched her tumble into her mother’s arms in an orgy of mutual hypocrisy. He followed and bowed warily to his father-in-law.

  Feeling unwanted, I stepped aboard. “Home, Giorgio, please.”

  “Wait!” Zuanbattista’s command knelled in the manner of one that must be obeyed.

  “Clarissimo?”

  He parted his jungle of beard long enough to display a smile. “I shall make arrangements to pay Maestro Nostradamus his fee. Meanwhile, this is for you, messer, for a job well done.” He tossed me a purse, whose weight astonished me.

  Noble is as noble does. I bowed so low I almost fell out of the gondola. He had my vote for doge.

  6

  And that, I thought, was that. The Sanudo affair was closed. When I got home I noted it in the casebook and entered one thousand ducats in the ledger under accounts receivable. Many members of the nobility, even the richest, are notoriously reluctant to pay their bills, and this fee was so outrageous that I could imagine myself haunting the Ca’ Sanudo for months trying to collect it. I asked the Maestro if he thought he would ever see a soldo of it.

  He scoffed. “Certainly! You think they want a lawsuit? It would cause the very scandal they tried to prevent. Besides, if word gets around that daughters in Venice are so valuable, half of them will disappear in the next month.” So would he, if the Council of Ten decided he had extorted money from emotionally vulnerable parents, but I did not tell him so.

  Although I feel I have risen a long way in the world, San Remo is not far from San Barnaba, and my encounter with Danese had reminded me of old friends I had not seen in too long. On impulse I walked over to attend Mass in the old church. I met numerous acquaintances, and in particular Father Equiano, who baptized me—many years ago by my count, just yesterday by his. He is elderly now, getting a little forgetful. Most of the parish work is done by younger men, but he is still well loved—and not least by those former youngsters, whether commoner or noble, in whom he recognized a spark. A priest has little time to call his own, but Father Equiano cheerfully sacrificed his leisure to introduce us to letters and start us on the long climb out of the pit of ignorance. For many he found promising apprenticeships, too.

  I invited him back to Ca’ Barbolano for dinner, as he is one of the few people whose company the Maestro enjoys and Mama’s cooking is a great treat for him. While we walked I told him what I had been doing, without mentioning names. He smiled tactfully at the happy ending to the story. He did not state that it was he who had performed the marriage. There are many priests in Venice and I would have been astonished if Danese had even approached this one. They knew each other of old, and Equiano would not have been taken in by a slick smile and a mellifluous voice.

  The thousand ducats had put the Maestro in a remarkably good mood. All through the meal he and Father Equiano discussed astrology, in which they are both expert, and in particular the strange heliocentric theories of Niclas Kopernik. I do not know if the earth turns, but those two soon had my head spinning. I left them still hard at it, and the Maestro did not mention the work notes I had to transcribe.

  I went to visit Violetta. She was so pleased to hear how Grazia’s wishes had carried the day that her demonstrations of gratitude lost me whatever divine credit I might have earned at church.

  My euphoria was short-lived.

  At supper that evening the Maestro kept peppering me with questions about the Sanudos, so I could barely get a bite to eat. When I mentioned that I had recognized Nicolò Morosini in the portrait, he looked startled and demanded an explanation. I reminded him about my unforgettable first day as his apprentice.

  He shook his head sadly. “It seems only yesterday that he died.”

  It seemed like a very long time ago to me, but I didn’t say so, and he was distracted enough to start reminiscing about the publisher as a book collector, which gave me a chance to eat. From there he wandered to the subject of art. He rarely shows any interest in either painting or sculpture, but he can talk knowledgeably on both of them when he wants to, which is quite typical of the man. Geniuses can be very wearing.

  Then he took it into his head to instruct me, as he does sometimes, and in this case he chose an excessively obscure tract by Albertus Magnus. I would struggle to translate it, sentence by sentence, and then we would discuss what it actually meant, he quoting centuries of commentaries and analyses by half the sages of Europe. As an evening’s entertainment it did not compare for excitement with watching the tide come in. It also gave me a raging headache, but I knew that I was receiving the finest education in the occult that the world could offer. Who knows when I may need to exorcize a kobold from a silver mine?

  Nevertheless, I have seldom been happier to hear the downstairs door knocker. Three hours after sunset, when the curfew rings, the Barbolanos’ antiquated watchman, Luigi, shoots the night bolts on the watergate. About the same time I do the same for our front door, but that night I had not yet done so, and Giorgio would be up in the garret, helping Mama stack children in beds. I excused myself and went out to peer down the stairwell while Luigi spoke through the hatch. If the caller wanted sier Alvise or one of the Marcianas, Luigi would go and tell them, but most late visitors want the Maestro, in which case the old man looks hopefully upward and waves if I am there. He waved. I waved back.

  Trouble came plodding up the four flights of stairs, carrying his bag in his left hand. My face must have shown him just how pleased I was to see him, beca
use his smile was uncertain.

  “I brought a first instalment on your master’s fee,” he said hastily. “Sier Zuanbattista asked me to explain that he does not keep enough bullion around the house to pay it all at once.”

  “Very reasonable,” I said, impressed to see any money so soon. “I can congratulate you on being welcomed into the family?”

  Even his efforts to look modest turned out smug. “They’re making the best of a bad job. The old man’s being a little stingier than I had hoped on the dowry. That’s Giro’s doing, of course, but Grazia is working on them. I won’t be going back to watermelon and polenta! There will be an intimate wedding, just a few dozen guests. October seventh. That’s as soon as they can reasonably arrange it.”

  Even that was indecently short notice, socially speaking, but after the previous night there might be good reason to move things speedily along.

  “Congratulations.” Since his hand was in a sling I did not have to shake it. Danese had every excuse to be satisfied. Life stretched out before him as an unbroken paradise of silk sheets and gelado—San Barnaba boy makes good. From boy toy to wealth and influence; his future was assured.

  “They’ll get me into the Great Council right away and organize a political career for me—I’ve no talent for commerce. Rhetoric and elocution lessons.”

  “You certainly have the voice for it,” I said, stalling for time. “You’ve seen the Hall of the Great Council?”

  “Giro said the same thing. I’ve been told about it.”

  “About seventy paces long.” Many good men have failed in Venetian politics because they could not make themselves heard in such a vastness. My mind shied away from an image of a thousand or more nobles sitting there listening to Danese Dolfin pontificate.

  “I’ll see you and the Maestro are invited to the wedding.”

  “He won’t come, but I certainly will.” I would take Violetta and bask in the massed jealousy of all the other male guests.

  Having given the Maestro enough time to disappear, I led the way into the atelier. The second door, the one through to the dining room, is not exactly secret, but it needs a sharp eye to see it. Danese counted out ten gold sequins and I fetched the scales. The coins were full weight, so I made out a receipt for twenty-seven ducats, four lire. I wrote it in my finest Cancellaresca Formata hand, just for a change, and sealed it with the Maestro’s signet.

  “Very pretty!” he said. “You ever need a job as a scribe, just let me know.”

  “Thank you.” I would rather jump off a bell tower. “Anything else?”

  “Well…Yes, there is.” Danese turned on his most unctuous smile, cute as a shampooed puppy.

  My heart sank like the doge’s wedding ring. As far as society knew, Danese and Grazia were not yet married, so propriety would not allow them to live under the same roof before the wedding. It was late on a Sunday evening, although that was his fault, not mine. I put on my stupid face and waited attentively, so he would have to ask. Ask he did. Shyness had never been one of his faults.

  I shuddered to think what the Maestro would say, but the request was not unreasonable. I admitted we had a spare bedroom. It is a luxurious twenty-foot cube and, like everywhere else in the Ca’ Barbolano, is opulently endowed with art and treasures. I refrained from mentioning that I kept a detailed inventory of its contents. Nor did I tuck him in and hear his prayers.

  I always wake at dawn, just moments before the marangona rings. By the time I had dressed and reached the kitchen in search of hot water, Mama Angeli was already baking bread and feeding six or seven offspring gathered around the big table. I warned her that we had a houseguest.

  Any apprentice is expected to keep his master’s work area clean, and early morning is almost the only time the Maestro is not anchored in the atelier. Monday is my day to wash the floor, a job I rarely manage to finish before he appears; then I have to postpone the rest until after he goes to bed. That day I completed it, though, and had fetched a tray with my usual breakfast of cheese, hot rolls, and a steaming cup of kahve. I was hard at work deciphering the illegible work notes when he came hobbling in, but he disappeared into the red chair with a book, saying nothing. Obviously he had not yet learned about Danese.

  I rarely speak before he does in the morning. It is not his best time. About an hour went by before he suddenly said, “Forget about those notes. Throw them out. I was wrong. I need more sulfur.”

  “The Lord be with you this fine day, master.”

  “And with you. I need it right away.”

  I rose. “Swift as the stooping eagle.”

  He grunted. “I meant send Giorgio. The Donà horoscope is urgent.”

  I took some money from the cash cache and went in search of Giorgio. Giorgio, I learned, was presently delivering sier Danese to the Ca’ Sanudo. Before leaving, sier Danese had eaten a large breakfast, so Mama informed me in unusually cool tones.

  “Did he take his bag when he left?” I asked hopefully.

  Like any first-class servant, Mama can make her feelings known without a word or expression that could possibly cause offence, but the way she shook her chins clearly indicated that she shared my opinion of Danese. Fortunately Giorgio walked in just then, saving me from having to break the bad news to the Maestro so early in the day.

  I explained about the sulfur. I walked him to the top of the stairs, so we would be alone when I asked, “Did he tip you for the ride?”

  Since Mama has all the spare flesh in the family, Giorgio has only one chin. He wears a neatly trimmed beard on it. The beard bristled. “No.”

  “You amaze me,” I said. Danese had not rewarded Mama for his breakfast, either, although guests are expected to tip their hosts’ servants liberally. Perhaps he really was broke, if he had not yet gotten his talons into Grazia’s dowry, but I suspected that the new Danese Dolfin was the same old scrounger I had known back in San Barnaba. I went back to start wrestling with aspects, ascendants, conjunctions, and ephemerides—casting a horoscope, that is.

  Near to dinnertime, I explained the situation. The Maestro’s reaction was as negative as I had expected, although he stopped short of turning me into a toad. There are very few people in the world whose company he enjoys, and freeloading guests belong in the nether circles of hell.

  “Get rid of him!”

  “Yes, master. If I know Danese, though, he will turn up after dark and pull his lost-waif act again. He cannot defend himself with his arm in a sling, so turning him out in the streets at night would be unfair. I can tell him that tonight is the last night.”

  “Pack his bag and put it outside the door.”

  “He may bring another sack of sequins with him.”

  Grunt. Scowl. “Take the money and then throw him out.”

  “Yes, master.” Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I assumed he did not mean that.

  I copied out the horoscope in fair. The Maestro approved it with barely a glance, and I went out on foot to deliver it, wanting the exercise. The lady whose future I had foretold did not thank me in person, being less than a month old.

  Supper came and went with no sign of Danese, but if he turned up late again he would have to be given a second night’s shelter.

  Monday being my fencing night, I retrieved my rapier and dagger from the top of the wardrobe, made sure Giorgio knew exactly what to tell Danese, and trotted happily down the stairs. As I neared the piano nobile, I heard voices. There, just inside the doorway, stood our landlord, sier Alvise Barbolano, chattering happily to sier Danese Dolfin. Danese had a lute slung on his back and a very large leather portmanteau at his feet.

  Sier Alvise is older than San Marco, gaunt and stooped and toothless. He moves in a senile fog much of the time, with disconcerting flashes of shrewd cunning, and he can throw the entire Nostradamus household out on its collective ear at any time without a moment’s notice. We are all, even the Maestro, very nice to sier Alvise. I cast horoscopes for his ships, mix rat poison for his rats, and audit the Marc
ianas’ ledgers for him so they do not cheat him unreasonably.

  He beamed his gums at me. “Ah, er…Zeno! You didn’t warn me you would be entertaining sier, er…”

  “Dolfin,” murmured Danese.

  “Dolfin. I knew his father, er, Domenico, when I was wha’ch’m’call’it at Padua! Or was it Verona?”

  “Both, clarissimo. My grandfather.”

  “Quite. And, um, Danese has promised to play his lute for us as soon as his arm heals. Wonderful young fellow, his father, er, Domenico! Wonderful singing voice…” And so on.

  Eventually I managed to make my excuses and creep back upstairs to warn everyone that Danese had arrived to stay.

  My fencing that night was terrible. I learned nothing except some spectacular invective, which Captain Colleoni must have picked up in his campaigning days during an especially nasty siege. Even my friend Fulgentio Trau hammered bruises all over my chest and shoulders. I can usually give him as good as he gives me, which is reasonable, as we are exactly the same size and weight and were born only a few days apart.

  Fulgentio lives in San Remo also, so we strolled home together through the hot and moonless darkness, our way lit by two Trau servants walking ahead with torches. That saved me from having to light my own torch, but it was a sad reminder that the Traus, although commoners, are richer than Croesus ever was. Fulgentio’s only fault is that he tries too hard to share his good fortune and cannot see how humiliating that can be to us deserving poor. In bad weather he arrives by private boat and gives rides home to three or four of us. That night the air was so unbearably steamy that I wondered why he had chosen to come on foot and why he had not invited others to walk with us. I am suspicious by nature; Fulgentio is not.

  The doge’s equerries are always chosen from the citizen class, but usually from those in humble circumstances, so Fulgentio’s appointment had been a surprise. Some members of the Senate had grumbled that they normally worried about the equerries accepting gifts, but now they had to worry about this one offering them. The doge himself had risen to point out that equerries are appointed for life, or until they reach sixty, and most of his were holdovers from previous reigns. One of the equerries’ duties, he had added pointedly, was to guard the ducal bedchamber at night and he had chosen Trau because he was an excellent swordsman—an exaggeration, but one I could take as a personal compliment when I heard about it.