The Alchemist's Code aa-2

by Dave Duncan

  Danese and Grazia were locked in eye-to-eye adoration, out of the conversation. I rose to the occasion.

  “I don’t imagine you see very much of him just now, madonna.”

  She pouted, obviously not for the first time. Despite her comparative youth, her mouth was settling into mean lines. “Not much more than I saw of him when he was ambassador in Constantinople! The Signoria ’s schedule is brutal! At least sier Zuanbattista only has to put up with it for eight months; I cannot imagine how the poor doge stands it as a lifetime ordeal. The Collegio in the morning, the Senate most afternoons, and the Council of Ten in the evenings, not to mention all the purely ceremonial functions, the Great Council on Sundays, and many diplomatic meetings.”

  Then she glanced past me and brightened like fireworks over the Grand Canal. I turned, expecting to see her husband striding through the doorway in his scarlet counselor robe, but it was merely the nondescript Girolamo in his ministerial violet.

  There were many emotional crosscurrents in Ca’ Sanudo just then, and that new one sent a shiver down my backbone, followed by several other shivers in tandem. I remembered Violetta drawing my attention to Giro and Eva at the theater, not two weeks ago yet, although it felt like a lifetime. Why? She had never explained her real interest in them. I responded automatically to Giro’s greetings, apologies for not being there to greet me, and protestations of gratitude for services rendered, while part of my brain spun like a windmill trying to work out relationships. If Giro was his stepmother’s lover, as Violetta had hinted…That would hardly be surprising, when he was older than she was and she was thirty or forty years younger than her husband, who had been away for years anyway. These things can happen anywhere, not only in Venice. But if Giro and Eva were lovers, why had Danese lied to me about being her lover as well as her cavaliere servente? Could the lady have two lovers? At the same time? Day shift and night shift?

  And what went on at night in the house now that Zuanbattista was back?

  Giro had returned from the regular morning meeting of the Collegio with the rest of his day free, likely. He hurried off to shed his formal robes and we went into dinner as soon as he returned. Madonna Eva smiled like Medusa as she saddled me with the job of squiring her aunt, who gripped my arm in one claw and a silver-topped cane in the other, and moved like a glacier.

  The dining room was adequate, but far from Ca’ Barbolano’s palatial grandeur. The food was better than Venetian average, but not a patch on Mama Angeli’s-the Risotto di Go e Bevarasse was overcooked and the Branzino al Vapore in Salsa di Vongole practically raw. It was served by the child Noelia and a fresh-faced youth addressed as Pignate.

  I like risotto. The Maestro denounces rice as a newfangled foreign fad and forbids Mama to serve it. She does, quite frequently, which doesn’t matter because he never notices what he is eating. He often eats more than usual when there is rice in the dish.

  Ca’ Sanudo conversation was infinitely duller than any of the Maestro’s table monologues. Politics was a forbidden topic, of course, as was anything to do with sex. Madonna Eva discoursed at length about the wedding plans, lamenting the haste required and the limits this imposed on the scale of the celebration. I hung on every word-with the rope cutting into my neck. Old Fortunata mercifully remained silent, poking listlessly at the tiny portions put in front of her but rarely eating anything. Danese and Grazia stayed in their locked-eyeball trance, smiling inanely. Giro was as colorless as always, rarely speaking, watching his stepmother’s lips move, but with so little expression or interest that I rejected my earlier suspicions. No one could love a snowbank like Giro. Or perhaps one could and the snowbank could not respond?

  Mother and daughter ignored each other throughout the meal. There could be no question which of the two had the better face or finer figure or greater experience, yet youth could trump all of those. Madonna Eva’s lover had been stolen by her own daughter, and a certain amount of acrimony was understandable. If she had cherished secret hopes of one day wearing cloth-of-gold as dogaressa, they had been trampled in the dust of dead ambitions. One might even permit a small amount of rub-your-nose-in-it jubilation from Grazia. But where was Girolamo in all this? Whose side was he on? I could not hazard a guess.

  Then Danese flashed his perfect teeth at me and asked how I had enjoyed the play. What play? of course, and I had to explain how he and I had met outside the theater the previous week.

  “I understand that some of the dialogue was on the racy side?” he said blandly.

  That was an understatement, because Violetta, always unpredictable, had chosen a bawdy Rabelaisian farce performed by a traveling company from the mainland, a rehash of the adventures of Captain Fear. No woman in Europe is better educated than Violetta, able to quote Ovid or Dante or Sappho at the flicker of an eyelash. She can sing, play the lute, and dance well enough to dazzle men who have known the courts of Paris or Milan. She might have made her selection to spare the strain on my threadbare purse, but she is a woman of unbounded variety and had enjoyed the vulgarity, laughing as loud as any of the groundlings.

  “We do not need to discuss that,” Giro said. “Did Father tell you, Mother, that the tallies of the grape harvest are in?”

  Eva smiled blissfully and I saw that one of Giro’s virtues in her eyes was that he could squelch his new brother-in-law. That did not mean that he had no others, of course, but evidently the lady needed his support against the triumphant Dolfin duo. I could easily imagine Danese throwing off three years’ humility and the rags of obsequious cavaliere servente to swagger in the finery of son-in-law and heir. Every smile must rub salt in the wounds of Eva’s humiliation.

  Giro expounded on the grape harvest from the mainland estates; Danese went back to glowing at his bride in wordless rapture. He held all the cards now.

  Eventually I asked about the Tintoretto on the wall opposite me, although even at that distance I was sure that it was a School of Tintoretto Tintoretto.

  “Oh, my father is the collector,” Giro told me. “He has a great eye for art.”

  He glanced at his stepmother as if this was one of those in-jokes that all families share, and for once there was a hint of a smile in his eyes. It was instantly reflected in hers. That was far from proof of guilt-of course a woman and her stepson are allowed to share a joke about her husband’s foibles! But by then my imagination was running riot and seeing double meanings in everything.

  The meal ended at last. I thanked my host and hostess, congratulated the happy couple again, and was assigned to Fabricio to be rowed home to the Ca’ Barbolano and my afternoon’s labors, whatever they might turn out to be.

  I had more immediate plans, though. I had sensed something far wrong at Ca’ Sanudo and if anyone could reassure me about that noble house, it was Violetta. I asked Fabricio to let me off at the watersteps between Ca’ Barbolano and Number 96, as if I intended to go along the calle to the campo. I tipped him more generously than usual, proving to myself that I was not Danese Dolfin. He flashed me an angelic smile as he thanked me. Not another, surely? My conscience roared at me for being an evil-minded prude.

  I went into the alley, then retraced and emerged. I watched Fabricio row away as I walked along the ledge to the door of 96 and knocked, not having brought my key. If someone in the Sanudo family fancied handsome youngsters on principle-or lack of principles-then Fabricio was a logical choice. The serving girl, the gondolier, the cavaliere servente…madonna Eva herself. Saints! Even the cherubic footman, Pignate! Messer Zuanbattista Sanudo had a great eye for art, his son said. Had he meant beauty?

  Draped in a gown of silver and violet silk, Violetta was seated at her dressing table while Milana brushed out her hair, but she twisted around to offer me a hand. She was Niobe, whose eyes are a gentle hazel, brimming over with pity.

  “Alas! Alfeo, my poor darling! I do wish you’d come sooner, but I cannot dally with you now, or I’ll be hopelessly late. Late even for me, I mean.”

  Seized with guilt for
causing such distress, I knelt so I could continue to hold her hand without standing over her. “I’m already late and I have all the time in the world for you. I need to ask you some questions.”

  No matter what persona she happens to be wearing, Violetta can read me like a public inscription. A trick of the light, perhaps, but it was the shrewd gray eyes of Minerva that then appraised me. “Still on about the Sanudos? Ask your questions, clarissimo.”

  “Why the Sanudos?”

  “Because it is not like you to miss a hint, Alfeo.” Minerva’s eyes twinkled with deadly humor. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

  “Why did you point out Giro and Eva to me at the theater two weeks ago?”

  “Because I had found you talking with Danese Dolfin and wondered if you knew who or what he was. You didn’t.”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t like to gossip,” she announced with a coquettish toss of her head that Milana did not appreciate. “Is it important?”

  “Of course it’s important! Zuanbattista is one of the senior men in the government. Is he not vulnerable to blackmail?” I could not mention Algol, of course, but I was starting to wonder if there was a connection.

  Violetta made a moue, considering. “I don’t think so. The whole city is laughing at his wife but Zuanbattista himself is well liked and the seduction, if it happened, occurred while he was away on government business, so he gets a lot of sympathy. Girolamo doesn’t seem to care about politics.”

  “He is not one of your clients, is he? Or any other lady’s?”

  She chuckled. “His preferences do seem to lie elsewhere. He keeps his emotions under tight control, from what I’ve heard.”

  “A cold fish,” I agreed. Sodomy may be punished by burning at the stake, but in practice is usually ignored or awarded lesser penalties, such as exile. “So, about three years ago, Zuanbattista goes off to Constantinople, leaving wife, daughter, and son behind in Venice, or at the country house at Celeseo.”

  “Both. Mostly the mainland, but they came and went.”

  “Both, then. Knowing his son’s inclinations, he was probably not worried about Eva, and at his age he may not worry much anyway, as long as there is no scandal. Giro is in charge of the household. To discredit rumors of his illegal tendencies, he pretends to be having an affair with his beautiful young stepmother, who is younger than he is.”

  “You’re putting it too crudely, dear. Come around to the other side and hold this hand instead. He was seen squiring a beautiful woman. As long as proprieties are observed, nobody really cares.”

  “But then he instals his catamite, Danese Dolfin, as his stepmother’s cavaliere servente?”

  Minerva regarded me under lowered lashes. “Or Eva hires Danese and Danese takes on additional responsibilities? It would be dangerous to make either statement in public.” Sarcasm dripped slow as syrup. “Or Giro stole his stepmother’s gigolo for other uses?”

  “Then who was Eva’s lover? Danese or Giro? Or,” I added with a gulp, “did she have two?” This was Venice, where almost anything is tolerated, but even the canals seldom get as murky as that.

  Violetta laughed. “Oh, my, darling Alfeo! Who are you to judge them? You claim you love me, yet you know how I earn my crusts. Forget Eva and wonder about young Danese. In whose bed did morning find him-Eva’s or Giro’s?” Her lashes fanned my fevered brow. “In my profession, one sees everything conceivable, or otherwise, but I am inclined to guess that Dolfin was the busy one of the three. Remember what Cato said about Julius Caesar?-‘Every woman’s husband and every man’s wife’?”

  And now Dolfin had Grazia also. I could see why Eva had regarded him as an unsuitable match for her daughter. Poor Grazia! When would her gorgeous eyes be opened to the lecher she had married?

  “I must go,” I said, rising. “Tomorrow?”

  “Tonight,” Violetta said. “My evening is free. You can come any time after sunset and stay until dawn-unless you believe that overindulgence will be injurious to your health?”

  “Madonna,” I said, kissing her ear, “I won’t care if it kills me. Until tonight, then!”

  12

  G et him to tell you the one about the sea monster,” I said as I went past.

  The vizio was sitting in the salone telling stories to a pack of Angeli youngsters-Piero, Noemi, Ambra, and Archangelo. No prize for guessing who would be the hero of all of the tales. His eyes measured me for a gibbet.

  The Maestro was at the desk, studying a manuscript folio of Sun of Suns and Moon of Moons by Abu Bakr Ahmad Ibn Wahshiyah, his favorite ninth-century alchemist, known to me as Abu the Confusing. There were no other papers in sight, other than the pile of cryptography books on my side of the desk. Since they had not been disturbed, I concluded that the Maestro was no longer working on the Algol cipher. He might still be working on Algol himself, though. Demons live a long time; Abu might have met him.

  The room was suffocatingly hot. All the windows were open, but not a breath of wind came or went. I could hear the cries of the gondoliers on the canal below as clearly as if I were a passenger.

  “You’re late,” the Maestro said without looking up.

  “I was following up a juicy piece of scandal. It seems that the Sanudo family is vulnerable to blackmail.”

  That got his attention. “Blackmailing a member of the Ten would be a dangerous career. Are you suggesting that Zuanbattista is the traitor, Algol?”

  That was what I was trying not to worry about. I liked Zuanbattista! He had been more than generous to me and unusually kind to his daughter. But it was possible. He had just returned from the Sultan’s court, and a really suspicious mind, like mine, might wonder if his trumpeted success there had been contrived by the Porte to foster his political career here.

  “I hope not,” I said. “He seems to be the injured party. His wife employed Danese, but everyone knows that already. His son probably has uncommon tastes, so he might be vulnerable.”

  My master pouted, took a sheet of paper from under his book, and passed it over. “A fair copy, quickly.” Fair means legible.

  I sat down, opened my inkwell, and then froze. The writing was even worse than his usual scrabbled hand, all badly spaced capital letters, but it was the meaning that stopped me cold:

  …GRAVE SCARS ITADI CORDE ETAST ENUOV EDALL IADAL MAZIA RISOL TAINE

  STATE MACER COREM ATORI…

  I made that: “…grave scarsita di corde et aste nuove dallia Dalmazia risolta in estate ma cerco rematori…”*

  It went on to discuss powder and shot, caulking, and raw linen for sails.

  I gulped. “Master, is this a report on the Arsenale?”

  He was back in his book again. Still not looking up, he said, “Quite a detailed survey, it seems. The Ten will know whether or not it is accurate and how much damage such knowledge of our navy yard will do in the hands of our foes. Regrettably, that page does not identify the writer. ‘Quickly,’ I said.”

  I opened my pen box and chose a quill. I so often see the old rascal work wonders that I have come to expect them of him, but if he had broken the Algol cipher from the evidence of a single sheet, after the Ten’s renowned experts had failed to crack twenty-four pages in God-alone-knew how many weeks or months, then that miracle would top them all. I passed over the fair copy.

  As he read it, he held out a tiny hand for the original. “Now bring your friend in.”

  His crabby tone suggested that he was pleased with himself. I went to poke my head around the door and whistle for Vasco, then went back to my chair.

  The Maestro laid a ribbon at his page and closed the book. He puckered his thin cheeks in a close-lipped smile. “Ah, Vizio! I have a problem. Sciara dropped a broad hint that the spy known as Algol may have agents within the Ten. He instructed me to report progress to the chiefs, but even they must be to some degree suspect until we know otherwise, right?”

  “I am not privy to such information, Doctor,” Vasco said stuffily.

  “
No, you wouldn’t…I have some progress to report already and no further need of those papers you guard so diligently. Which reminds me.” The Maestro opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper. “This was on the floor in the dining room. It is yours, I think. Now, where was I?”

  Vasco angrily restored the lost sheet to the others in his satchel. He did not look at my smile, which was a masterpiece worthy of extended admiration.

  “When you take the documents back to the palace,” the Maestro continued, “to whom will you deliver them?”

  Smelling traps now, Vasco was wary. “I shall report to Missier Grande, of course. He will probably send me to return the documents to Circospetto, but that will be his decision.”

  Nostradamus nodded. “But Sciara reports to the Grand Chancellor. I must be confident that my information will not disappear in some unfortunate accident. Take a chair. No, on second thought take Alfeo’s, where I can see you more easily. My neck, you know…”

  I never heard him complain of his neck before, but he was certainly up to something. Suppressing outrage at being evicted from my rightful place, I yielded it to Vasco and then stood over him to watch.

  “Alfeo, give the vizio a sheet of paper and a pen. Good. Now, if you please, lustrissimo, write the alphabet along the top. Capitals are easier.”

  “May I help him?” I murmured, but Vasco managed to win through on his own:

  A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T U V X Z

  The Maestro had even worse torment in store for him. “Now, write B under A and the rest of the alphabet until you reach Z again, and complete the row with an A.”

  I was already flipping through Giovan Batista Belaso’s La cifra del Sig to find the illustration.

  “You see where you are going?” the Maestro said. “The next row would begin with C, yes? You would end by listing all Caesar alphabets possible with an alphabet of twenty-three letters. If you were to include some of the barbaric runes that northern tribes like the English and Germans use, you would have more.”