The Alchemist's Apprentice aa-1

by Dave Duncan

  So I scrambled out on the ledge and then went through the nasty contortions required to replace the bars, for I never leave the window unguarded in the night. That was not the easiest of maneuvers in such weather and the leap in darkness wrung a prayer out of me. Obviously I survived, although I banged my left knee on the tiles.

  A light burned in her room, for she never sleeps in complete darkness-unless her current companion insists on it, I suppose-and I could see that she was alone. She stirred while I was undressing.

  “Alfeo?” she murmured drowsily.

  “Are you expecting someone else?” I asked, hoping the answer was No.

  “No. The nobility are in mourning.”

  I wasn’t. I slid between the sheets, into her arms, her warmth.

  Jolted awake, she said, “ Eek! You are freezing!”

  “Only on the outside. I love you. I need you.”

  “I’m here, love. What’s wrong? You’re trembling!”

  “Rough night. Just hold me.”

  The night fled, the lamp burned out, and chinks of daylight came to smile through chinks in the drapes. My knee hurt. The rest of me felt much better.

  “Time to go,” I whispered.

  “Not yet.” Helen stirred sleepily. “I have something to tell you.”

  “Speak, goddess.”

  The Ten would start asking questions soon. Thanks to Putrid I knew the murderer must be either Alexius Karagounis or his Moorish servant, but finding admissible proof would take time.

  Violetta sighed and rolled on her back. “I went and saw Bianca Orseolo yesterday.”

  I heard Minerva in her voice. “You did what?”

  “You heard me. Ca’ Orseolo is in mourning, so after you left I went calling in my nun costume, to offer comfort.”

  “But she saw you at the-”

  “She did not see me at the supper. She may have seen me, but she did not look at me, because she was busy tending her grandfather and I am a courtesan. Proper young girls ignore such women. She did not recognize me yesterday because I was a nun, completely different.”

  “You think that costume you were wearing would fool-”

  “Stop interrupting. There are nuns who wear habits like that. I got in to see her when nobody else would have done, except other family members, of which she has none. We had a long talk. Bianca had more opportunity to see the crime committed than anyone else did, because she was at her grandfather’s side all the time.”

  “She also had the best opportunity,” I said. “All she had to do was hand him the wrong glass and he would never have questioned. Did she do it?”

  “I don’t know.” Violetta rarely admits ignorance. As Minerva, she is much brainier than I am. As Aspasia, she is unsurpassed at judging people. “She is extremely upset by her grandfather’s death…almost too upset. She wept in my arms. So much sorrow may be a sign of guilt, either guilt because she killed him or guilt because she is glad he died, I don’t know yet. You and I are to go and see her later today.”

  This needed a lot of rational analysis and rational analysis was hard to achieve while cuddling the finest courtesan in the Republic-which duty compelled me to do at that moment, of course, to keep this witness cooperative. It crossed my mind that few men enjoyed better working conditions.

  I made an effort to concentrate. “You told her my name?”

  “No. I said I knew a man who was investigating the possibility that her grandfather had been murdered, and asked if I might bring you to ask her a few questions. The funeral is this morning. We are to see her after that, around noon.”

  I gulped. “You want me to pretend to be an agent of the Ten? I don’t know what the penalty for-”

  “Hope you never find out,” Aspasia said coldly. “I made no such claim and the city is stuffed tight with the Three’s spies, as you well know. If Bianca assumes that you are one of them, her mistake is quite unrelated to anything I said.”

  The doge had asked me to investigate the procurator’s death, but he would deny doing so if the Three asked him.

  “Did Bianca have a motive?”

  Helen’s dark eyes looked at me under divine eyelashes. “I don’t want to talk any more. Kiss me.”

  The Maestro watched with disapproval as I laid a tray on my side of the desk. “Why are you limping?”

  “I banged my knee on a tile.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “Have you eaten?” I bowled a hot roll across to him; he caught it before it went over the edge. “The murderer is a Muslim, presumably an agent of the sultan, and probably the servant who poured the wine. He could be the Greek or, more likely I should say the man posing as a Greek, the book dealer, Karagounis. How old is he?”

  “About forty.”

  “The man I saw was in his twenties.”

  “Start at the beginning.”

  I did. Between sips of my khave -a hot, black drink recently introduced from Turkey, becoming very popular-I continued through the middle and stopped when I got to the end.

  The Maestro did not look happy. “You witnessed an execution. No doubt the general was a janissary, but it wouldn’t matter-any servant of the sultan, from infantryman to ambassador or vizier, is a kapikulu , a slave, and when the sultan sends his chaush with an order that the man deliver his own head, then the order is obeyed without complaint or resistance. The chaush arrives with a bowstring, a sword, and a bag. No matter how high they rise in the state, kapikullari owe their lives to the sultan.”

  “Why did he wash his hands?”

  “I have no idea. You are in grave danger. The fiend that saw you may be much stronger than the guide you were using. It may have managed to open a portal to you. You must go and make confession right away.”

  One of the advantages of living in San Remo is Father Farsetti. Other priests might report me to the Holy Office, but in Venice the priests are elected by the parishioners, subject to the patriarch’s veto, and the good folk of San Remo had chosen a practical, broad-minded man. Even so, I wondered uneasily how long it would take to say a million Ave s. That was what he had threatened me with the last time I confessed to practicing demonology.

  “If you insist.”

  “I do insist! I assume the funeral is today?”

  “Violetta says the service will be held this morning, but I haven’t finished reporting. I have a second suspect to offer-Bianca, the sweet child you overlooked at the book viewing.” I told him of Violetta’s escapade. “My friend is an exceedingly shrewd judge of people,” I finished. “And if she distrusts Bianca, then we should be wise to pay heed. Or do we believe only what the fiend showed me?”

  The Maestro curled his lip. “I see no reason to choose between the two testimonies just yet.”

  “I assure you that the strangler I saw was no blushing Christian maiden, and I refuse to believe that a kapikulu assassin could disguise himself as one well enough to deceive her grandfather, however doddery he was getting.”

  “Faugh! You blather like a lace maker. If this affair were straightforward, I could have solved it in ten minutes with the crystal. By all means fold the fair Bianca to your manly breast and dry her tears. The girl may be unduly upset because she saw the glasses being switched and chose not to intervene. Speak with her father, also, the great minister. Find out where he was on Valentine’s Eve, and his son also.”

  “Benedetto. He’s supposed to be at the University of Padua.”

  “It’s only twenty-five miles to Padua. He would have been sent for as soon as his grandfather fell sick.”

  I failed to see how he could have switched glasses at a party in Venice when he was miles away on the mainland, but a well-behaved apprentice does not make fun of his master’s instructions. I nodded, being well behaved.

  “And you still have to see Senator Tirali and his son.”

  “Pasqual Tirali. Master, I admit I have personal reasons for wanting to send sier Pasqual Tirali to the galleys, but I cannot imagine his managing to poison a wine glass
and switch it with another without Violetta noticing.”

  “Include him anyway.” The Maestro scowled across at his bookshelves. “Bring me the Midrasch-Na-Zohar before you go. You had better start with Father Farsetti. You may be able to catch him about now. And don’t forget what I said about Bruno and your sword.”

  I left him with his ferrety nose deep in the Rabbi Ben Yohai’s masterpiece. If he was willing to try cabalism, he must be really desperate.

  11

  V ioletta and I have a longstanding agreement. I never ask her to give up her career as a courtesan, because I know how much she values the freedom it gives her, saving her from the closeted, subservient life of a “respectable” woman. Housebound boredom would kill her in a month, she says, and I believe her. Her side of the pact is never to offer me money or expensive gifts. The only exception I allow is something to wear, to mark either my birthday or the anniversary of the day we became lovers. She interprets the terms liberally, which is why I could buckle on my rapier and matching dagger of superlative Toledo steel. I covered them with my kidskin cloak, also given by her.

  Bruno is the gentlest and most amiable of men. He beamed with joy when I signed that I wanted him to accompany me. Then he noticed the sword under my cloak and frowned mightily. I signed danger and maybe to tell him I was not going out to pick a fight, but when I told him to bring a cudgel, he glowered down at me like a thunderstorm, folded his great arms, and grew roots.

  We often have this argument. I dropped to my knees and clasped my hands in prayer. He scowled, lifted me bodily, and held me there until I put my feet down; but then he did go and fetch the only weapon he will tolerate-Mama Angeli’s heaviest flatiron in a canvas bag with a shoulder strap. Most men would balk at having to lug something like that around for long, but Bruno barely notices the weight. Why it is a more acceptable defense than a stout stave I cannot understand and he cannot explain. I grinned, he smiled sheepishly, and off we went.

  We could have run down the back stairs and gone out the servants’ door. It never occurred to me to do so. Instead we left by the watergate as usual, carefully negotiating the narrow ledge along the facade of Ca’ Barbolano to the corner of the building and the calle. It was easier for me than Bruno, who takes up much more space.

  Seagulls were swimming on the strangely empty canal. This was the day of the funeral, so the city was in mourning for its procurator, and already I heard bells ringing in the distance. The Marciana porters were not working and the building site on the far side lay silent. Once we had made our way through the maze of calli, we found the morning crowds in the campo much decreased, and few hawkers making their rounds. Even the gossip session around the wellhead was thin, although there were more men than usual. We paused there to chat as neighbors do. I chatted. Bruno just smiled and nodded. Two girls teasingly warned me not to let my companion step on me, but most women are scared of Bruno.

  As befits a small parish, San Remo has a small church. It is old and quaint, but it does have good stained glass and Father Farsetti is a personal friend of Jacopo Palma the Younger, who is the finest painter working in the city at the moment. Two of his early paintings hang in the church and afficionados come in droves to argue over them. There was no one arguing there that morning, but the door to the confessional was closed, so Father Farsetti was about his holy duties. I said a few prayers, including one for Bertucci Orseolo. Bruno wandered around, admiring the pictures and the glass. He does not understand churches and what happens there.

  A woman came out of the confessional and I went in. Father Farsetti probably knew what to expect as soon as he heard my voice. I admitted to summoning a demon from hell and some lesser sins. He demanded to know why I had invoked the fiend, so I told him. He disapproved, of course, but he could see that an attempt to assassinate the doge justified extraordinary countermeasures. As usual, he was more worried about my sinful relationship with Violetta, but every man in Venice has that sort of problem at least sometimes. He gave me a thorough nagging, absolution, and a much smaller penance than I had feared.

  We emerged by our separate doors and bid each other good morning. He gave Bruno his blessing. Bruno, who had been guarding my sword and cloak for me, just smiled politely. There were no other penitents waiting.

  Father Farsetti is a small, birdlike man with a warm smile and an enormous laugh. He isn’t quite up to Isaia Modestus at chess-I can beat him sometimes-but he is incredible at chess without boards, able to take on the Maestro and me at the same time and usually win both games.

  “You must come and dine with us again soon, Father,” I said. “Arguing with you gives my master an appetite, which he sorely needs.”

  He lit his smile. “That is a worthy justification for a personal pleasure. Before you go, though, I have a book on the role of political assassination in Islamic history that I think might interest you.”

  Without asking whatever had given him that idea, I assured him that I would enjoy reading it. And so we crossed to the side door of the church and went out that way, emerging into a small courtyard between the church nave on one side, the priest’s house on the other, with the transept closing off the end. I followed Father Farsetti out.

  “That’s him!”

  There were six of them. One of them had been keeping watch at the corner to alert the others when I came out of the main door. The other five had just been waiting. I couldn’t dive back into the church, because the way was blocked by Bruno, doubled over as he followed me out. Fortunately the bravos needed an instant to react because I had appeared behind them. Had Bruno and I emerged where they expected, they could have come after us and made short work of us in the open. In the courtyard they were going to be hampered by lack of space.

  My rapier flashed out. They produced stilettos, but those blades looked as long as swords to me, and bravos know how to use swords. Luckily I had left my cloak just draped on my shoulders, unfastened. I swirled it loose and leaped into the corner to have my back protected. Father Farsetti was hurled aside, his yells ignored.

  I parried a slash from the man on my right and enveloped the one on my left in my cloak. My riposte took the first man in the face, but by that time numbers three and four had arrived, number two had shaken off my cloak, and Father Farsetti was bellowing for help at the top of his well-trained lungs. I did not expect to be there to welcome it. I had my dagger out and was parrying with both hands, much too busy just staying alive to attempt to injure my opponents. In theory a rapier should keep a stiletto out of range, and even two stilettos should not be an impossible match in daylight. Five most certainly were.

  Fortunately Bruno was in the fight, too. He did not appear to be armed, but he was too big to ignore and when the others closed in on me, one man dallied to deal with him. Bruno swung his weighted bag overhead and smashed the man’s arm before he even got within range-that was probably how it happened, because we found his stiletto and the spectators described one of our assailants supporting an arm as he ran away. Father Farsetti was doing as much as he could to get between the others and me, for even a gutter bravo will not knowingly injure a priest. They shoved him aside with their free hands.

  That still left four young toughs jostling in at me, faces full of hate, steel gleaming, and I should have died, had not San Remo and Our Lady heard my prayers. Bruno must have delivered a backhand sideways swipe at one of the men engaging me, who was later found with the back of his head crushed. He fell against his companions, diverting their attack, and I am fairly sure I wounded another. Then Bruno’s victim toppled face-first into me, smearing blood on my doublet and knocking all the wind out of me. I went down with him, found myself among the boots and was certain I was done for- Eyes and legs a-bleeding on the campo.

  That I survived was again due to Bruno, who felled the third of my attackers with a punch to the back of the neck, dropping him on top of me as a human shield. Father Farsetti witnessed that, and thereafter I was protected by two bodies so that the others could not get at
me. Armed with staves and hammers and even cook pots, men and boys were running in from all directions, answering the priest’s continuing yells. The remaining thugs took to their heels to avoid being trapped in the courtyard. They escaped because other spectators out in the campo were unarmed and naturally did not tackle daggers with bare hands.

  Two bodies were left behind, a flattened skull and a broken neck respectively. So Bruno killed two and wounded one, while I, the celebrated swordsman, merely wounded two. My excuse for such a sorry and unheroic showing is that I was the target and the bravos had not at first registered Bruno as anything but a bystander. He survived only because they did not have time to react to his unorthodox and fearless assault. Had the fight lasted a moment longer, they would have made a sieve of him.

  Fortunately Father Farsetti keeps the ground by the church clear of ordure and garbage. I decided I was alive. Had I been alone and unarmed, the Maestro’s prediction would have been fulfilled exactly-it had certainly come close enough. Although my bruised knee had not hampered me at all in the battle, it was hurting a lot more than it had earlier. I reached down to rub it and discovered the vision had been closer to the fulfilment than I had realized. Fresh blood is always shockingly red, especially when it is one’s own. I had no memory of being wounded in the calf and no idea how it had happened. One of the men falling on top of me must have still been holding his knife when he landed.

  Several voices were asking, “Alfeo?” and “You all right?”

  The two closest were Pio and Nino Marciana from the casa, who had hauled the bodies off me and were now regarding me with worried expressions. Behind them Bruno was having silent hysterics because he had hurt people. Before I could answer, he saw that I was bleeding and uttered a wordless animal cry, one of the very few noises he makes. He swept everyone else aside, scooped me up in his arms, and charged into the jabbering, yelling crowd. Bodies flew in all directions. He crossed the campo like a runaway horse, into the Ca’ Barbolano and all the way upstairs to the Maestro, where he laid me on the desk. There is an examination couch in the corner, but he ignored that. Giorgio and a mob of descendants followed him in to see.