The Alchemist's Apprentice aa-1

by Dave Duncan

  “Can you move your hand like this? Your fingers?”

  He could and did, once he had worked out the meaning of my questions.

  “You have done no serious harm, just a scratch.” I accepted the handkerchief his sister had brought. “A quill pen and a bucket would be a good idea,” I told her. “And a pitcher of water, if you please.” As soon as I had tied off the bandage, I took one of the wine bottles and smashed it on the fireplace. “You cut your arm on the glass,” I explained, but he was too drunk to understand.

  Bianca efficiently brought bucket and feather. Taking Benedetto by the hair, I pulled his face over the former and pushed the latter down his throat. I steadied his head while he vomited. After a few repeats, when he seemed to have brought up as much wine as he was likely to, I released him and gave him water to rinse his mouth and drink. When he had done, I moved the bucket to a more pleasant distance. I tipped the rest of the water over the bloodstains on the rug. It was already ruined for Ca’ Orseolo, but some humbler family would appreciate it.

  Then I selected a chair. Benedetto leaned back against another, making no effort to rise. Bianca sat down between us. She looked at me and smiled wanly.

  “Thank you, sier Alfeo. I am very grateful.”

  “My pleasure. I wish I could do more to help you both. Are you going to try again, messer? Do we need to set servants to watch over you?”

  “The Ten are going to garrote me,” he mumbled.

  I was surprised that he was still capable of understanding such problems. “No they won’t. The Ten delegated the matter to the Three, or the inquisitor would not have come. And the Three seem likely to let you go. I am truly sorry about your father, but you must not waste his sacrifice.”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “Of course he didn’t, but he did send the bravos to kill me and the penalty for that is death. The two watchmen told the truth. I know Maestro Nostradamus very well, and he would never suborn witnesses.” Quite apart from ethics, it would be an insanely stupid crime.

  I was directing my words to the boy but meant them for his sister, who would remember them in the morning. She nodded; I continued.

  “The Maestro knew that the Feather woman murdered your grandfather. He was there, he recognized the poison, and logic told him that she must have done it while her companion created a diversion by shouting at the host. I should have worked that out for myself. Once he explained, it was very obvious.

  “But the Feathers had no known motive and she had used a very potent and obscure toxin, not some crude rat poison. The logical conclusion was that they were hired killers, acting for someone else. In which case the true murderer was not there that night! ”

  That took him longer, but Bianca understood, and her eyes were wide with horror.

  “In other words,” I said, “the rest of the people present were innocent. Who was not present who had a motive?” A lurid imagination might have considered blaming the Council of Ten or even the papacy, which has had a reputation for using poison ever since the days of the Borgias. I did not bother going up those blind calli.

  “I never asked your father where he had been that evening, and I am sure his duties as great minister could have been arranged to provide him with an excellent alibi, had he known that he would need one. Besides, if he had wanted to kill your grandfather, he would have taken much less risk by administering the poison himself, at home. But you, sier Benedetto, were not only in Padua, miles away, you were in jail that night. Your alibi, clarissimo, was much too good! It could have been arranged very easily, though, at the cost of a dribble of blood and a little pain. You at once became the obvious suspect.”

  He blinked owlishly.

  His sister said, “That’s absurd! He wasn’t in the city. Why did he need any better defense than that?”

  “Because he did not know how the killers he had hired were going to strike. He knew the likely day, but not the means they would choose. He probably expected sier Bellamy to jump out of the shadows and attack the old man with a sword. A fast boat down the Brenta can bring a man from Padua to the lagoon of Venice in a couple of hours. He could kill a man here and be home in Padua by morning. So clever sier Benedetto arranged to spend the night in a Paduan jail, well out of suspicion’s way. I expect he set up an immovable alibi every time the procurator was due to leave the Procuratie.

  “When I worked that out, I was convinced, but such logic would not stand up in court. Having demonstrated that your father had tried to kill me, the Maestro accused him of the murder that did succeed. No doubt he expected the Three to take over the case at that point and discover the real truth by interrogating the Feathers. But your father accepted the blame for both crimes. Obviously his confession was a lie and he was sheltering one of you, his children. Possibly both of you, but if you had wanted to kill the old man, madonna, you could have done so at any time. You could have stumbled on the stairs and tripped him.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I wish now that I had!”

  So did I. “But you didn’t. That left your brother.”

  “Why do you say my father’s confession was an obvious lie?”

  “Because it was ridiculous. A great minister certainly knows all about the Council of Ten, and the Council of Ten most certainly keeps its unwinking gaze on ministers. He could never have hoped to have an affair with a foreigner and keep it secret. Never! At best he would be stripped of his office and sent into exile. At worst he would die as a traitor. I don’t suppose he ever set eyes on Hyacinth Feather before tonight.”

  I also had great difficulty imagining Enrico Orseolo losing his head over a woman like Hyacinth Feather, but love is blind and my opinions were not evidence. No matter-by elimination, the mastermind had been the drunken sot on the rug at our feet.

  “It was me,” he said quietly, staring at the fire. “I found the foreigners in jail in Padua, charged with conspiring to murder a rich old woman. I paid for their defense by selling some jewels our mother left me last year. She did not leave them to Bianca, because Bianca was destined for the convent. I got the foreigners off and promised them more money if our grandsire died before Easter. I told them all about him, everything I could think of.”

  I had guessed that. “Even his taste in wine?”

  He nodded. “But he almost never went out. Not even to the Senate any more, just to sales of books or paintings. I suggested they pose as buyers to meet him. Bianca knew nothing about the Feathers, I swear!”

  “But I kept writing you helpful letters,” Bianca said bitterly. “Day after day. I told you about every chance I got to go out, every trip to the market or the book dealers. I told you everything that was planned. I had nothing better to do than write you letters and dream of the next time Grandsire would take me to an art auction. That’s how that awful woman knew everything, messer -I told Bene and he told her.”

  “When did your father find out?” I asked.

  For a while Benedetto continued to stare into the fire as if he had not heard me. Then he muttered, “The night you went to the Feathers and started asking questions…You scared them. Bellamy came to see me and told me I must pay them right away so they could leave Venice. I had no money with me. I went and wakened Father. I confessed. He knocked me down, he was so furious. I got up and he knocked me down again. He said he would have heard by then if the Ten suspected murder, but he said we must stop Nostradamus. The old man was too clever, he said. If we could just remove you, then the man would be helpless and we would be safe. He paid Feather something to get rid of him. Then he and I went out together, to see some men he knew. It was not an area for a man to go alone.”

  “But why kill old Bertucci anyway?” I asked. “Just because he was getting old and cranky?”

  Benedetto turned to look at me for the first time. His eyes were still bleary but a sudden rage seemed to sober him. “Not for me. For Bianca. Because he was a tyrant! A despot. I could put up with him jerking my strings for a year or two more. But if he forced he
r into taking her vows, that was a life sentence! You know what they would do to her? She has to lie on the floor and be covered with a black cloth, while they sing and pray over her-three times they do that. And they take away anything pretty like embroidery. And then they cut off her hair, while the whole congregation watches. Every nun in the convent comes and cuts off a lock of her hair and throws it on the ground. Snip, snip, snip…They wrap her in sackcloth and put a crown of thorns on her head…” Bene began to weep. “And it’s forever! She’s locked up until she dies. Do you wonder she was terrified? The old man was crazy. He should have been locked up, not her. Father would never stand up to him, no matter how bad he got.”

  So it was all his sister’s fault? What pathetic trash he was! He could not even kill himself properly. Bianca was sobbing too, silent tears flowing down her cheeks. In her place, I would have taken up the fire irons and made a clean sweep of the Orseolo males.

  And that was the unthinkable love of the quatrain. I am certain that there was nothing carnal about it, just brotherly love carried to the point of madness.

  It was time to go, or I would fall asleep in my chair. “Your father is trying to save you. He can only die once, so he took all the blame. I knew he was lying. The Maestro knew he was lying, and Inquisitor Dona knew he was lying-but he accepted the confession. You’ve got your life back, Benedetto Orseolo. Try to put the rest of it to better use.”

  “You mean that?” Bianca whispered. “The Three won’t send Missier Grande to arrest him?”

  “I don’t think so. Dona will have to talk the other two inquisitors into it, but I think they will go along.” The Lizard would make his last deal.

  “You’re wrong,” the boy said. “They won’t hang father for trying to kill you. The Ten will take his money instead.”

  Bianca stared at me, waiting for my comments. This was the crux of the problem. Shamefully, there are precedents. More than one noblemen convicted of murder has offered to pay an enormous fine instead and the Council of Ten has accepted it.

  “That’s impossible now,” I said wearily. “He’s confessed to treason and parricide. They can’t overlook those crimes. If you interfere now, you’ll probably get both of you hanged. Sweat it out, boy. Your penance begins now.” I hauled myself to my feet. “If your gondolier is still awake, madonna, I would appreciate a ride home.”

  28

  N o matter how thick the drapes or what horrible hour of the night I go to bed, I cannot sleep past dawn. It is a curse upon the Zenos-my father had it also, or so my mother used to tell me. It was almost noon before the Maestro came huffing and thumping into the atelier. I had been at work for hours and his side of the desk was papered with examples of my peerless italic hand. Much to my amusement, Mama Angeli arrived right on his heels, bringing a steaming mug of dark fluid. The Maestro refuses to admit that khave is beneficent or even nontoxic, but he indulges when he has to, and this day was one of those days.

  I was tempted to bid him a cheerful good afternoon but he was so obviously in no mood for chaffing that I resolved not to speak until spoken to. I went back to work. After a while he picked up some of the almanac pages, the legible copies I was making for the printers to set.

  He said, “Bah! This is wrong. You are a line out on this table, all the way down the page.” He was restored to his usual self.

  “Good morning, master.”

  “Is it? I shall need all these sheets redone before you break for dinner.”

  “Yes, master. We had a visitor last night after you went to bed-a lady who disagreed with your apportioning of the blame.”

  He gave me the sort of look I associate with spiders, except that spiders’ faces are too small to show details. “I hope you told her to go home and count her blessings.”

  I reported what had happened. He had been looking forward to explaining to me why Bene’s alibi counted against him, and was peeved that I had worked it out for myself. He was disgusted that the boy had not been arrested.

  “I accused the father to try and shame a confession out of the son. I never expected Inquisitor Dona to accept such nonsense! You really think the Council of Three will let the boy get away with murder?”

  “Yes. I think he will be left to live with his guilt.”

  The Maestro shook his head. “I cannot see why they should connive at such a deception.”

  “Family,” I said sadly. “The Orseolos provided some of the first doges, centuries ago, and Bene is the last of the line. His father must have foreseen the possibility of things turning out the way they did and warned him not to interfere if he took all the blame on himself. Inquisitor Dona understood that. Benedetto’s penance is to let his father die and live to carry on the family name.”

  “I will never understand the Venetian nobility!”

  “Neither will I, master. That’s why I work for you.”

  Nostradamus pulled a face. “You almost ended up working for hell. You ought to go and see Father Farsetti again, just to be on the safe side. Think how valuable a boy of your talents would have been to the demons!”

  Now it was my turn to bristle. “In what way?”

  “Oh, many ways. You could have been hell’s man in the Vatican. Or you could have thrown the Republic into chaos by testifying that you supplied the doge with heretical books.”

  “If you mean his Apologeticus Archeteles…” Of course he meant that.

  The Maestro bunched his cheeks in glee. “Why do you think he asked me to look after it for him? And because I told you to record it as mine, did you think I was trying to steal it?”

  He was definitely back on form. “Of course not, master.” I reached for my pen. “Those sheets you are holding are correct. I always double check your calculations. I found two mistakes in May and one in June. That was why your drafts were a line out. I mended them.”

  Where does a story end, exactly? Some stories go on for a very long time, like buildings. The Orseolo saga had been going on for centuries. I just visited for a few days, and this was where I left it. From now on they must manage without me.

  A few backward glances through windows, perhaps-

  Before noon Giorgio rowed Pulaki over to the mainland and saw him safely to his parents’ home in Mestre. The Maestro was confident that the loss of the use of two fingers would not handicap him greatly.

  Two days after that, the bell called the Maleficio tolled in the campanile of San Marco to announce an execution. Corrado and Christoforo were downstairs and out the door in a flash. They returned an hour or so later to describe the proceedings with as much lurid detail as anyone was willing to hear. Having seen the Feathers arrested at Imer’s house, they had now watched them being beheaded between the columns on the Piazzetta. You would have thought from listening to them that they had solved the murder and brought the villains to justice all by themselves.

  The Feathers had been tried in secret, but I draw your attention to the curious behavior of the English Ambassador in the meantime. The English Ambassador did nothing in the meantime. He made no outcry at all-no appeal to the Collegio or the Senate, nothing-so he must have been satisfied that they deserved their fate.

  The following dawn revealed a gallows between the pillars, and a body dangling from it. Giorgio and Mama heard the news in the Rialto market, and I had Giorgio row me to the Piazzetta to confirm that it was indeed the corpse of Enrico Orseolo. I could tell from the stains on his clothes and the marks on his neck that he had been strangled while seated-they tie you in an iron chair, put a silken rope around your neck, and turn a handle. Only then had he been taken out and hung up on display. This form of execution is typical of the secretive ways of the Ten, but at least it is private, and the victim is not exposed to the mockery of the mob. Orseolo had been suspended right way up, so he had not been convicted of treason, as he might have been. My tarot had predicted the Traitor reversed, meaning that the world was upside down, or perhaps even that the hanged man had earned his halo.

  I think that’s a
ll.

  No, not quite. One final backward glance…

  One siesta time a week or two later, Violetta poked me and said, “You asleep?”

  “No, just planning my next move. Pawn takes queen?”

  “Mate in two against any defense.” She snuggled closer. “Did I tell you about Pasqual?”

  “You have never told me one word about that disgusting and hateful man.”

  “I can this time, because it’s not confidential. He is going to marry Bianca Orseolo.”

  I came awake with a start. “I always admired his taste in women. Seriously?”

  “Very. He saw her twice at the attorney’s house and was smitten. He’s agreed to a very modest dowry, considering her station. Everyone else cut the family dead when Enrico was hanged and poor Bene has no experience of running a business. Pasqual will help him.”

  “And help himself too?” Pasqual Tirali was quite clever enough to have worked out the significance of Bene’s excessive alibi and then bleed him of everything he possessed for the rest of his life. Even in bed I can be cynical. Try me.

  “I think he’ll be fair,” Helen said. “And marriage is what Bianca wanted, foolish girl. If I were married, I couldn’t be here with you, could I?”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, you know,” she said vaguely. “The wedding won’t be for a couple of years yet, after the ambassador comes home. Pasqual is still my patron.”

  “I will kill him.”

  “But Lent is over and he has to go to a meeting tonight. You know how bored I get without a man around to amuse me.”

  Of course. I had been attempting clairvoyance with the crystal again that morning. I still could not create prophecies of epic importance as the Maestro could, but I had foreseen myself enjoying a very memorable evening.

  GLOSSARY

  androne a ground-floor hall used for business in a merchant’s palace atelier a studio or workshop barnabotti impoverished nobles, named for the parish of San Barnaba