The Alchemists pursuit aa-3

by Dave Duncan

  He may have meant the question rhetorically, but Violetta answered. "Two. Lucia was still living in the same house as she had in his day. And Alessa is. We are also warning against any man who asks questions about specific courtesans and where they live now. Alessa or I will be notified right away."

  Nostradamus grunted. "Alfeo?"

  "Master?"

  "Does the tax office in the palace keep a register of courtesans?"

  "I expect so, master. It keeps records of everything else."

  "Doctor," Violetta said, "you are taking a risk by even investigating this, are you not? The Ten have forbidden you to meddle."

  He shrugged his narrow shoulders. "The Republic reserves the right to investigate crime, but it is every citizen's duty to prevent one, which is what I am seeking to do. I have not taken much risk so far, but I am afraid that the next step may be dangerous. And it could be much more costly than my normal investigations."

  Violetta's eyes glinted gold. "You want another expense advance? How much?"

  "I am not sure. Alfeo will try to learn that tonight."

  "And what for?"

  The Maestro chuckled. "To elect a doge. Alfeo told us how to do that at dinner on Friday, remember?"

  "I fail to see the relevance," she said coldly.

  So did I.

  "You are happier that way, madonna," he said smugly. "And now if you will excuse us, my apprentice and I have work to do. I know this is the Lord's day, but even my learned friend Isaia Modestus will break his Sabbath to save a life, and that is what we are attempting to do."

  Toward sunset I set Archangelo Angeli on the balcony to watch the Rio San Remo, then went and gobbled an early supper in the kitchen. Giorgio was there, doing the same, having been warned that I would need him. Mama Angeli, who can smell trouble like a tigress scenting meat, knew right away that I was unhappy about what I was about to do that evening. She started asking questions that I would not have answered even if we were alone. As it was, her children were wandering in and out all the time. I told her that the Maestro was sending me to elect a doge. The youngsters laughed, but she was not amused. I was saved from her interrogation when Archangelo rushed in to say that he had seen two nobles going past in a gondola and a senator walking along the fondamenta on the far side. So the Great Council had adjourned. I nodded to Giorgio and we both rose.

  We went downstairs, carrying his oar and the gondola cushions, and only when he pushed off from the loggia did I tell him I wanted to call on Carlo Celsi. He looked relieved, for there was nothing subversive about visiting a senior and respected patrician. It was the subject of our discussion that would be dangerous for me. By then the Maestro had explained his warped humor.

  Twelve elect twenty-five, reduced by lot to nine; the nine elect forty-five, reduced to eleven… So on and so on. Why all that rigmarole to elect a doge? Alessa had said it was to prevent the Great Council dividing into factions. Violetta had suggested almost the opposite, that it was to keep the inner circle in power and the fringes out. The truth, as the Maestro saw it with his cynical eye, was closer to her view than Alessa's, but he went further. It was much cheaper to bribe five or six nobles than hundreds, he said. Once a few "sound" men had won control of one of those tiny committees, their friends would hold a majority in all subsequent committees through to the final forty-one that made the actual choice. In other words, a doge was elected by bribery and that was what I was going to attempt that night.

  My noble parentage and legitimate birth entitle me to take my seat in the Great Council when I reach the age of twenty-five. Many youngsters are admitted sooner, through various loopholes, but at twenty-five all I shall need to do is grow a beard, buy a gown, and turn up at the broglio. There I shall wait for some nobile homo to invite me in and introduce me to his companions, which should be no problem because so many of them already know me. That assumes that I behave myself until then and have enough money to buy the clothes. Manual labor would disqualify me; a serious scandal or conviction for a major crime like graft would. Graft is rife in the Great Council, but it is kept secret. I am especially vulnerable to a charge of corruption because I have no powerful family to back me and my apprenticeship to Nostradamus falls into a shady area on the edge of the permissible. Many narrow-minded patricians might welcome an excuse to strike my name from the Golden Book.

  Nostradamus must know that, but he hadn't mentioned it when he told me what he wanted me to do. I might have refused but hadn't-I had failed Marina Bortholuzzi and couldn't bear the thought of more women being stabbed or strangled because I was too proud to get my hands dirty. I had spent the afternoon writing out two copies of the proposed contract with donna Alina Orio and then memorizing a long list of questions the Maestro wanted me to ask in the Palazzo Michiel if I got the chance. Now he was attempting more clairvoyance and I was going to dabble in the truly black art of subornation.

  As always, Vittore greeted me with the cryptic smile that implied he had been expecting me. Celsi himself was standing at his desk, scribbling busily as he recorded the Council's decisions. He had not yet removed his patrician robes and bonnet; his tippet lay on a chair. He beamed gap-toothed.

  "Alfeo! How wonderful to see you! How timely!"

  "You are busy, clarissimo. I should wait upon you another day." I wanted an excuse to run all the way home and hide.

  "Not at all, not at all. Wine, Vittore, wine, for my lovely friend. Sit, boy, and tell me all about your narrow escape last night."

  "What narrow escape? Me?"

  "Oh, it was all over the broglio this afternoon! Another woman murdered and there had been a scuffle. The killer escaped without anyone getting a glimpse of his face, but a young man was injured and ran away. 'That sounds just like my beloved Alfeo Zeno,' I thought to myself when I heard it. After all, you were the one who told us of Nostradamus's prediction…"

  So he prattled. I settled in the chair, sipped more of his fine wine, and cursed myself for ever mentioning that foreseeing. It had done no harm to my master's reputation for omnipotence but it must have attracted the notice of the Council of Ten. It might even get us both convicted of murder-apprentice sent to fulfil prophecy.

  "So what can I do for you tonight?" Celsi concluded, taking the other chair. He rubbed his hands. "Name it and it's yours."

  "Two things, one little, one big. Why did messer Giovanni Gradenigo give up politics?"

  For a few moments Celsi just stared at me like some puzzled gnome, but I was fairly sure that he was trying to work out why I was asking, rather than trying to answer my question.

  "Why do you think that had anything to do with the Michiel case?"

  Delighted to be right, I had no difficulty grinning from ear to ear. "Why do you answer a question with a question?"

  He laughed and heaved himself to his feet to go in search of a book-two books, in fact, and he needed several minutes to find what he wanted in each of them. At last he laid them aside and folded his hands over his paunch.

  "I don't know. Nobody ever found out-which is very unusual in the Republic! It was three months after the Michiel case, but I agree that that isn't very long, so there might be a connection. Old Marco Erizzo died and there was speculation that Gradenigo would replace him as a procurator of San Marco, but he just resigned from the Council of Ten and went into seclusion." He pulled a face. "I knew his wife's brother quite well, and he said even she couldn't get an answer out of him!"

  So had there been a miscarriage of justice? Had the Three convicted the wrong man? Had that burden of guilt provoked a deathbed confession?

  "If I can't even answer your small one," Celsi grumbled, "what's the big one?"

  I drew a very deep breath. "I need to know on what evidence the Council of Ten convicted Zorzi Michiel of patricide."

  The old gossip muttered, "I don't think it ever…" He clambered off his chair again to retrieve yet another book from the shelves, peering at the spines to find the right one. Then he laid it over one on the desk, whe
re the light was better. After a moment he returned to his chair, shaking his head.

  "Thought so. What I heard… just hearsay, of course. It always is with the Ten. What I heard was that the Three just informed the Ten that they all agreed the boy was guilty, but he had fled abroad."

  No outsider was supposed to know even that much about the innermost workings of the government.

  "The Three, then," I said. "I need to know on what evidence the inquisitors convicted Zorzi Michiel of patricide."

  Celsi waggled his dewlaps at me. "Such a shame! I told you yesterday: if you'd asked me just a week ago, dear boy, I could have appealed to old Giovanni Gradenigo, but he's gone now. Agostino Foscari would have told me, but he went last year and his memory wasn't all that it should be by then anyway. That only leaves the other black, Tommaso Pesaro, and he's hopeless, tight as a coffin lid in a warm climate."

  So I said it. "There are files."

  Sier Carlo leaned back in his chair and gazed very hard at me. "Your master is supposed to have safer ways than that of learning things. Safer in this life, anyway. We mundane mortals have to resort to such dealings, but he talks with the angels."

  "He still needs ordinary information to know what to ask for."

  "What of yourself, lad? Too many patricians disapprove of one of us running around after a leech. You, especially, should not take this risk, Alfeo."

  "Risk?" I said angrily. "Last night he slit my ribs. If he'd had a clear stroke at me, he'd have put the blade in my lung and I'd have bubbled to death in a few minutes. Even yet I may die of wound fever or lockjaw. Women are being murdered every day, almost, and you talk of risk, clarissimo?"

  Still he hesitated, chewing his lip. Finally he nodded. "Very well. It will cost you a fortune."

  "How much?"

  "At least two hundred ducats, maybe more. Only Circospetto has access to such files and he does not come cheap."

  I squirmed, because I had tangled with the Ten's chief secretary before. Although I had survived so far, he and I have no liking for each other. His relations with the Maestro were even worse, and we had never before tried to corrupt him.

  "Sciara takes bribes?"

  "They all do. He's cheap compared to the Grand Chancellor."

  "How do I go about it?"

  "Midnight," Celsi said, almost whispering. "It must be midnight or soon after. Calle Spadaria in San Zulian. About five doors in from the campo, you'll see a door with a grille in it but no knocker, no name or number. You knock two slow and three fast. Hold your light so your face is visible. If no one answers, you are refused. And take a sizable down payment with you."

  "I'll be there," I said. "Thank you."

  "Be careful, lad," he said wistfully. "I'd hate not to have your cheerful smile around here any more."

  19

  As Giorgio expertly slid the boat up to the loggia of Ca' Barbolano, I broke the news that we'd be going out again, close to midnight. Boatmen for public hire are foul-mouthed hyenas and the privately employed ones are often not much better, but Giorgio never argues or complains.

  "Far?"

  "Near San Zulian. You decide where to let me off." San Zulian parish is just north of the Piazza, in an area so congested that there is little water access and the campo itself is almost nonexistent. Raffaino Sciara, chief secretary to the Council of Ten, would naturally want to live close to the Doges' Palace, where he spends most of his waking hours. At two hundred ducats a handshake, he could afford to.

  I carried the bow lantern upstairs while Giorgio stacked the oar and cushions in the androne under a barrage of Luigi's aimless chatter. The Maestro had gone to bed, no doubt with a raging headache, but he had left a prophecy whose writing and syntax were both much better than average. The meaning was as cryptic as ever.

  Why hazard in far lands when all you need lies close?

  Why seek distant enemies when death is near at hand?

  Be not so proud as to spurn help at your feet,

  Nor too humble to seek salvation from on high.

  I fetched the book of prophecies and selected a quill to transcribe this one. As always, it was ambiguous, haunting the borderlands of meaning, but the first line looked like a hint that Zorzi Michiel had returned from exile, or wanted to. The second could be a reference to bounty hunters or the Ten's assassins seeking him out wherever he tried to hide-the risk of discovery in Venice might be no greater. The third and fourth lines, I decided, would have to wait upon events.

  This was Sunday, and the sixth commandment is definitely my favorite, but I couldn't settle to a book with my visit to Circospetto hanging over me, so I decided to catch up on my cleaning duties. I fetched a rag, the broom, and the feather duster.

  That night I cleaned half the wall of books and the alchemy bench. I do not lift out the books-that takes me a couple of days when the Maestro decides it needs doing-so the bookshelves are little problem. But all the mortars, pestles, beakers, funnels, alembics, and other vessels have to be polished, all the reagent bottles wiped and their shelves also, so by the time I had come around to the door, it was too late to go any further.

  Meanwhile I was worrying over Celsi's instructions to take a cash deposit with me. Having no experience in such matters, I should have asked him how much would be appropriate. Knowing better than to try and waken Nostradamus after a foreseeing, I decided to err on the high side, for to offer too little would get me and my proposal spurned. Fifty ducats would be ample, I decided, roughly a year's wages for a married journeyman artisan. I raided the secret cache for eighteen gold sequins, which I weighed carefully, then placed in a money pouch that I hung around my neck, inside my shirt. I also took some small change to buy off muggers if they were too many to fight. I entered the total in the ledger as expenses.

  Back in my room to collect my sword and cloak, I decided I had just enough time to try a fast tarot reading. Of course urgency and apprehension make the worst possible state of mind to obtain a clear augury, so I should not have been surprised that the results seemed very mixed at first glance. Some cards made sense, others did not. I tucked them away in my memory and the deck under my pillow, then went to tell Giorgio it was time to go.

  The night was quiet in San Remo, the sounds of Carnival far away and muffled. Even the Grand Canal was still when we reached it, reflecting the stars. The gibbous moon was close to the rooftops and blurred by haze as we glided through the night, and I sat in lonely silence in the felze, still searching for inner calm and understanding.

  Tarot is limited in scope because it is restricted to seventy-eight cards, and only thirty-eight have pictures on them. The numbered cards can drop hints, of course, such as the three of swords to represent the state inquisitors, but the more pictures that turn up, the more explicit the reading. Although mine had been all in pictures, I could make very little sense of it.

  The first card, representing the subject or the question, had been the knave of coins reversed, and that I could take as reference to my forthcoming efforts to suborn Circospetto, probably meaning that he would not be able to obtain the information I needed.

  The lowermost card of the cross, for the danger or problem, was trump number eight, Justice, displaying a woman with a sword and scales. Had the card been reversed, I could have hoped that it was telling me that the inquisitors had wrongly convicted Zorzi Michiel. Since it wasn't, I had to take it as a warning that I was on my way to commit a major crime.

  But the left-hand card, the helper or path, showed the second-highest trump, Judgment, with the angel blowing the trumpet and the dead rising from their graves. What sort of help was that? Did it mean I must wait until Judgment Day to learn the answers I sought? Again, I'd have preferred to see it reversed to indicate that Zorzi was innocent, or that he was figuratively returning from the dead. Again, the card was obstinately upright.

  The right-hand card was from the minor arcana, the jack of swords as the snare to avoid. I have known that card to refer to me, which made no sense in this co
ntext, but it can also mean my old foe, Filiberto Vasco, the vizio-the king of swords would imply his superior, Missier Grande. I had no need of tarot to warn me to beware of Vasco. If he as much as caught me wearing a sword after dark he would turn me in to the night watch.

  Which brought me to the most confusing card of the tarot deck. The top card of my spread had been trump number two, the Popess. Violetta's reading had shown the same card reversed as the snare to avoid, and here it had shown up again in mine, upright, showing the objective or solution.

  What the Popess was doing in my reading I could not imagine. I knew of only three women involved in the case. Donna Alina Orio ought to be represented by the queen of coins, because she had wealth of her own. Possibly the Popess's religious implications might be stretched to indicate her daughter, Sister Lucretzia. It could not apply at all, so far as I could see, to Dom's wife, Isabetta Scorozini. If one of the murdered courtesans was intended, I could not see a connection yet.

  I was still baffled about the tarot when Giorgio delivered me to watersteps on the Rio di San Zulian. I was no closer to understanding the Maestro's quatrain, either.

  "If I'm not back in an hour go without me," I told him with the best attempt at cheer I could manage. "I'll be home in the morning."

  "Give her my love, too," he said, which was a surprisingly suggestive remark from him.

  As I disembarked, I heard the clock in the Piazza chime midnight. I set off toward the church like a ghost, for my boots made little sound on the stones and I had brought a half-lantern, rather than a torch, so its glow lit the pavement below me and not my face. Carnival is a bad time to wander the streets alone, for the riotous gangs of revelers can be dangerous. Almost every window was dark and I met no one except a quartet of merrymakers, fortunately all too drunk and aroused even to notice me. They went staggering by, sniggering and arguing, with the men blatantly pawing their companions, obviously prostitutes.