by Dave Duncan
“I would certainly consider murder if anyone tried to force me into a monastery,” I said. “I would negotiate on a nunnery. She had two aunts who were nuns, according to Alessa.”
I should have known better. It was like asking the Pope about Martin Luther. Or vice versa.
“It’s disgusting!” Aspasia said. “Do you know that at least half the noblewomen of this city are banished into convents and never marry? A family’s accursed honor forbids a girl to marry down the social ladder, and very few families rank higher than Bianca’s. That same stupid honor would require that she bring her husband a gigantic dowry, tens of thousands of ducats!”
“The law forbids huge dowries.”
“But who obeys the law? No family can easily part with that sort of money. So the girl is cloistered and the family wealth stays with the sons.”
And sons brought in dowries. I bear a noble name. Someday a wealthy citizen may offer me a thousand or so ducats to marry one of his daughters and sire patrician grandsons for him, a gaggle of little Zenos.
Violetta was in full flood now. “Then they wonder why their sons have trouble finding noble brides. Of course it’s all right for men to marry beneath them, just as long as the brides have money and not too many brothers. Pasqual’s father applied for permission to marry a citizen’s daughter and the Great Council held its nose and approved. The marriage restored the family fortune and hasn’t even hurt his political career. But Pasqual is an only child. His parents are nagging him to marry and produce an heir.”
A few of the old clans have grown enormously, so there can be fifty members of the Great Council with the same family name-some fabulously rich and some mouse-poor, like me. Others trimmed the herd too small and died out.
Violetta had not done. “Do you know that some fathers have forced their daughters to take their vows at knife point?”
Yes I did, but such things are better not discussed. A mere courtesan should not speak ill of her betters. Alarmed, I said, “Beloved, just what did you say to Bianca in your tete-a-tete yesterday?”
She shrugged as if the question was completely unimportant. “I just told her a few things she did not know. She has no one to turn to, you know, no one at all. No mother or sisters to advise her. All her childhood friends are still in the convent. The Church and the state and the men in her family are all against her.”
“Merciful God, woman, if you advised a procurator’s daughter to take up a career as a prostitute, they will pillory you! They’ll brand you, deport you…I don’t know what all they’ll do to you!”
“I did nothing of the kind,” Aspasia said stiffly. “I told you she was trained in a convent! What do you suppose she knows about Ovid or Boccaccio? She knows no songs but psalms. There is only one way she could entertain a man, and that is the least part of a courtesan’s repertoire. I told her that she was crazy to prefer marriage, that many noblewomen are confined even more strictly than nuns. They are assigned husbands for dynastic reasons, usually much older men, and they often lack even the benefit of company.”
“Thank Heaven!” I said, convinced that I was not hearing the whole truth.
“Of course I did have to agree with her that most, or at least many, young wives acquire a cavaliere servente to brighten their lives while their husbands are occupied with business affairs.”
I shuddered.
“I also listed,” she conceded, “some of the more liberal houses, like San Zaccaria, where the sisters’ habits are of attractive cut and decent fabric, not just sackcloth bags, where the diet and the prayer regimen are not too tyrannical. Where they allow music and so on.”
“That’s all right, I suppose,” I said doubtfully.
“Or San Lorenzo, Maddalena, San Secondo, and some on the mainland and outer islands that are even more forgiving, like San Giovanni Evangelista di Torcello-”
“A common brothel!”
“It has unusually relaxed views, but there are many where the sisters are allowed to entertain friends in the parlor, even friends with whiskers. And so on.”
“But you did not suggest she become a courtesan, did you?”
“I answered all her questions,” Aspasia said evasively. “She asked me how I got started and what sort of money one could earn. I told her about secret marriages, which the Church recognizes and the state does not, and what an outraged father can or can not do about it afterwards-especially to the bridegroom, of course. About how a girl might find a trainer and a protector…Useful information that she wanted to have.”
I shuddered even harder. “Did you mention pox and pimps and turning tricks in alleys?”
“I told her that few were as successful as I am. Do you honestly suspect that sweet child of murdering her grandfather?”
“She had the best opportunity,” I said, happy to return to the safer subject of murder. “Who else knew that he was drinking retsina? She must have been close enough to hear him choose it. The servant said he laughed. Doesn’t that suggest a family joke and an audience to appreciate it?”
“How distinctive is the poison’s taste?”
“We don’t know,” I admitted weakly. “We assume it had a strong flavor and therefore the fact that he chose that wine was important.”
“If you are going to argue that way,” Minerva said, “then you must explain how she knew that retsina would be available. It’s rarely served even in the great houses, and I would not expect to see it offered at a party given by a citizen attorney.”
“You know more about that than I do.”
“Or Nostradamus.”
“He doesn’t get out much,” I agreed. She was right, as always. The murderer must have carried the poison to the reception, so the crime was premeditated, but then to count on the victim drinking or eating something with a very powerful flavor seemed strangely hit-and-miss. “Who, apart from Imer and Karagounis knew there would be retsina available?”
“Let’s ask Bianca,” Violetta said as the gondola nudged against a mooring post.
I gripped her arm. “You wait here! It’s far too dangerous for you to go around masquerading as a nun. Suppose we run into her father?”
“Her brother would be more dangerous.” Medea struck my hand away, scorching me with a warning glare. “Just how do you think an unknown, unattached young man like you is going to get in to speak with an unmarried girl of her lineage and upbringing? On the very day of her grandfather’s funeral? You are not usually so stupid, Alfeo Zeno.”
“Ah, flattery!” I stepped ashore and handed her up beside me. She turned to the nearest door, and I said, “No, this way.”
“You have been here before?”
“Two years ago. I delivered the procurator’s horoscope.” Then I had been sent around to the tradesmen’s entrance, but I had argued my way up into the state rooms by refusing to deliver the scroll to anyone other than the great man himself. I had been tantalized by glimpses of marvelous paintings that I had not been able to examine properly.
This time I expected a tomb of a house, draped in mourning and silent as the streets of Atlantis, but a barge tied up at the steps was half full of furniture. Two workmen came out carrying a chest. On our way upstairs we passed a team bringing down a wardrobe.
“The family has three days to move out,” Violetta told me.
“That seems cruelly soon.”
“It is usual. Funeral this morning; tomorrow they will accept condolences in the palace courtyard. The Great Council will elect a new procurator on Sunday. You can be certain that vote buying and arm twisting have already begun.” That was Aspasia speaking, of course.
“Surely the family will have already gone to the Ca’ Orseolo?” I said.
A line of workmen ran up past us to fetch more furniture.
“She said not yet.” Helen wafted her lashes at the harassed young doorman who accosted us. “Sister Maddalena and sier Alfeo Zeno, to see Madonna Bianca.”
He had certainly expected me to speak, not her, and was perhaps star
tled to discover that nuns even had eyelashes. Confused, he mumbled, “The family is not receiving visitors today, sister.”
“Madonna Bianca agreed to receive us this afternoon.”
Understandably, he went and fetched the majordomo, who frowned suspiciously at me, as if trying to remember where he had seen me before. He was older and less susceptible to eyelashes, but Helen had already lowered her veil and yielded place to Aspasia, who explained about her friendship with Bianca and their appointment for this afternoon. We were shown into a reception room overlooking the Piazza. Violetta swept forward to look out the window, while I followed unhappily, squirming at intruding on a family’s bereavement-we were not even wearing mourning! Half the room had already been stripped of furniture. Two men followed us in and left with a bundle that probably contained a harpsichord. I had mad visions of being left behind, locked up in an empty apartment with Violetta.
Outside, the Piazza was being swept by damp gusts of February. Official mourning had also helped reduce the usual bustle, but the mountebanks at their stalls were still hawking their quack nostrums. The beggars were still in evidence, the hawkers, porters, priests, nuns, monks, and, of course, the inevitable crowds of aimless foreigners from all corners of the world. I could not hear their voices, but I could guess at many of the costumes-Egypt, Turkey, Dalmatia, Spain, France, Greece, England.
Leaving the depressing wintery sight, I went to admire a large Titian, a family group adoring the Virgin: two men and five youngsters, no wives and mothers allowed. Titian died when I was a toddler, so even if this were a late work, as the fashions suggested, the old man on the right was the wrong generation to be our murdered procurator. I recognized the martyred Bertucci in the heavy-jawed central figure who dominated the composition, the suppliant who would have paid for the painting. He was wearing the robes of a ducal counselor. The children were his brood as listed for us by Alessa-two youths destined to die abroad, two girls to burn in a convent fire, and Enrico. After so much tragedy, it seemed macabre to keep the picture hanging in full view. My mental image of the late Bertucci Orseolo was not yet clear enough to tell me if he had been a maudlin romantic who enjoyed weeping at the sight of his dead children, or the exact opposite, a Spartan with a marble heart and the hide of a crocodile.
Violetta joined me and went through the same reasoning. “That must be Enrico,” she said, pointing to the youngest boy. “The only one of the lot still living.”
The workmen had cleared the last of the furniture and were rolling up a rug at the far end of the hall, ignoring us. From the noises I could hear, the entire house was infested with them.
I was just about to head for another picture-a mythological free-for-all between centaurs and armed nudists-when a rapid tap of heels made me turn, knowing that whoever was coming was not Bianca. He was about my age; tall, self-assured, and holding his chin high as befitted a man whose ancestors had helped rule the Republic for nine hundred years. He wore a black robe of mourning with a train, a black bonnet, and a sling supporting his right arm, all of them beautifully tailored, even the sling.
“Sister Maddalena? May I ask what business you have intruding on my sister’s-” Silence.
Violetta had folded back her veil again. His face turned ivory-white. My heart dropped like an anchor.
She curtseyed. “My most sincere sympathy on your loss, Bene.”
“You are no nun!”
She smiled. “As you well know.”
“What do you want with my sister? Why does a harlot force herself on a girl of patrician rank? She says you were here yesterday, too.”
“I came to help her, Benedetto.”
“Help her? Help her in what way?”
He had recovered from his first shock and was moving swiftly to anger. Had I been alone I might have taken to my heels, but I was much more frightened about what might happen to Violetta than I was about any danger to me.
Aspasia remained serene and confident. “How are you enjoying Padua?”
“What business is that of yours?”
“Who suggested you go there?” Her smile would have dissolved the stoniest heart. “Be fair, Benedetto! Admit that you have benefitted from my help in the past. When I made you welcome in my bed, you called me courtesan, not that other word.”
He colored. “State your business!”
She sighed. “May I present sier Alfeo Zeno? Will you listen to what he has to say, please, Benedetto? Then you will see why this is important.”
At a glance Benedetto assessed my best outfit as rags and me as poor trash, probably her pimp. He barely nodded to my bow.
“ Clarissimo,” I said, “my sympathy on your sad loss. The news I bring can only increase the pain. Your honored grandfather,” and I pointed up at the painting, “was murdered.”
He bristled. “I give you two minutes to justify that remark.”
“One will suffice. You have no doubt heard gossip that the procurator’s death was prophesied in a horoscope prepared for him by Maestro Nostradamus. Your sister may have told you that the doctor Nostradamus who came to his aid when he took ill at the supper party was the same man. He immediately recognized the symptoms of a certain poison. Whether you believe in astrology, as your grandfather did, or scoff at it like His Serenity Pietro Moro, you must acknowledge that Nostradamus is a celebrated doctor. He says that your grandfather was poisoned. I am helping him discover who did this terrible thing.”
Sier Benedetto rallied. “On whose authority? Is the Grand Council so desperate for candidates that it is electing boys as state inquisitors?”
“I was instructed to make these inquiries by a close friend of your grandfather’s, Pietro Moro himself.”
He glanced at my sword and then said, “Rubbish! Have you tried to tell my father this? You expect me to believe it?”
Actually I did not, but I was determined to keep trying, because the alternative was excessively unappealing. “I assure you, clarissimo , that His Serenity granted me not just one, but two, audiences on this matter yesterday. You have heard of the Greek, Alexius Karagounis, who was selling the books?” Receiving a nod, I forged ahead, trying to seem as assured as Violetta. “This morning I called upon Alexius Karagounis, being assisted in my inquiries by the vizio, Filiberto Vasco.”
“So?” But Vasco’s name had sown a seed of doubt.
“Rather than answer our questions, Karagounis leaped out a window to his death, clarissimo. ”
Workmen with ladders had started taking down the paintings and propping them against the walls, ready for carpenters to come and crate them. I should have preferred a more private meeting place, but there probably wasn’t one in the house.
Under happier circumstances, the turmoil of conflicting emotions in Benedetto’s face would have been amusing. “So you consort with the vizio as well as the doge?”
“Reluctantly. Missier Grande and Circospetto are also cooperating. I have no official standing, but the Republic is backing my inquiries.” And all of them would deny me if asked.
“Sier Alfeo is being modest, Bene,” Violetta said. “This morning he was set upon and almost murdered by a gang of bravos.”
“I am not surprised to hear it.”
Wearing a sword carries certain obligations and I had taken as much as I could reasonably be expected to stand. Despite the throbbing pain in my leg, I laid a hand on my sword hilt. “Messer, you hide behind a claim of injury or of nervous prostration brought on by grief?”
He paled. “You dare?”
“My name is written in the Golden Book. Yours does not deserve to be.”
“Stop that, both of you!” Medea’s eyes flashed fire. “Bene, you should withdraw your remark.”
He bit his lip. “I spoke without thinking, clarissimo. ”
“And I in haste.” We bowed to each other. My standing had improved.
“I have good reason to believe that the attack on me was related to the matter of your grandfather’s murder.”
Young
Benedetto was visibly drooping under the load we had just piled on his shoulders. He made an effort to straighten them. “My father must be informed of all this. And the first thing he will ask is why the state inquisitors are employing a…” He looked at me in disbelief. “This nobleman to conduct their inquiries for them.”
“It is a tribute to the esteem in which your late grandfather was held,” I told him. “Do you really want your sister interrogated by the Three? Everyone is trying to head off formal proceedings that must be a harrowing experience to those involved. For example, where were you on Saint Valentine’s Eve?”
His outrage did not convince. “You dare suspect me?”
“You think the Three will not?”
“I don’t care if they do.” That was juvenile bravado and unbelievable. “I was not even in the city. I was in Padua-in jail. There was a duel and I was accused of drawing first.” Hence the sling, of course. It was probably a sound alibi and I would get nowhere by asking to see his wound.
“I hope you killed him?” Helen asked sweetly.
He turned to her in anger, but her smile can melt any man. It won a tiny, shamefaced grin. “I didn’t get near him. But I will next time.” Then he swung back to me. “If what you say is true, clarissimo , the Greek’s suicide was an admission of guilt.”
I shrugged. “My master has good reason to believe that it was not, strange as that may seem. But you are undoubtedly right if you think that the Ten are likely to accept that explanation. And in that case your grandfather’s killer will escape to enjoy the benefits of his crime. Is that acceptable to you and your honored father?”
Before he could answer, I continued. “Obviously if you were in Padua that night, you were not the killer. Your father was not in the Imer house either. But your sister was. No!” I raised both hands to hold back an explosion. “I am not suggesting that she poisoned your grandfather. But she may have seen something vital. I beg you, clarissimo, to allow us to ask her a few simple questions. It will not take long.”