The Alchemist's Pursuit

by Dave Duncan

  An hour after I had left the Maestro, I peeked into the atelier. He was still staring into the crystal, which made strange lights dance on his face; his hand was moving jerkily, as if the chalk were directing it instead of the other way around. Normally he writes with his left hand, but in trances he uses his right and never remembers afterward what he has seen or has written. I went to fetch a bottle of wine and a glass. Tiptoing, I put them by the red chair and then departed as quietly as I could, although he was totally engrossed in what he was doing.

  Fulgentio arrived a few minutes after that, burdened with two foils and his sword, followed by a grinning Archangelo carrying two fencing masks. Fulgentio and I practice together quite often, although only rarely at Ca’ Barbolano. The Angeli pack gathered around excitedly and muttered in angry disappointment when I ushered him into my room and closed the door.

  “Why my sword?” he demanded. “You feeling suicidal?”

  “Three courtesans have been murdered in the last three weeks. Haven’t you heard?”

  He stared at me narrowly. He has backed me up a few times and knows what it is like to play for the top stakes. “It’s the talk of the town. There’s muttering about a fourth, but that’s not confirmed. Nothing’s confirmed.” He grinned. “Blank looks all round. And don’t waste your breath asking me if the Ten are looking into it. I’d assume so, but even Missier Grande may not know for sure.”

  “I know for sure.” I savored his startled expression for a moment before explaining about the vizio’s message. “It sounds to me as if the Ten know who did it and are protecting him.”

  Fulgentio drew his sword and tossed it on the bed. “If you’re planning to defy the Ten, my friend, you’ll do it alone. They say the galleys are quite fun in summer, but when it snows—”

  “The Maestro is trying to foresee the next murder.”

  That startled him. “And stop it? Tell you how to stop it? Can you stop a foreseeing?”

  “Not if that would create a paradox. But if we were there to see it happen, we could make sure there would be no more. And if the Maestro foresees an attempted murder, then we could fulfill that prophecy.” My turn to grin. “Don’t get too excited. We have no special reason to think that tonight’s the night. Let me go and see what the old devil has produced this time.”

  Another glance into the atelier revealed the Maestro slumped over the crystal, exhausted. Clairvoyance always smites him with a fearful headache. Between us, Fulgentio and I helped him to the chair by the fireplace. I poured him a glass of wine and he took it in shaky hands.

  “What’d I see?” he demanded as he usually does.

  “Haven’t looked yet,” I said.

  I went to the slate table, where Fulgentio was already staring at the quatrain.

  “This is meant to be writing?” he whispered.

  “This one happens to be surprisingly legible and coherent,” I said, “which is usually a sign that it deals with something imminent. Wait a moment.”

  In a minute or so I had it deciphered:After what once was holy and is not now

  Three saints cannot foreclose blind vengeance.

  Where the holy in firelight is unholy in shadow

  The man of blood sees blood upon the grass again.

  “And what does all that mean?”

  “Another murder, I think.”

  “Man of blood?”

  “Honeycat, likely. But Honeycat is a strangler, so there’s other violence involved.” With luck it would be my rapier disabling the monster so that Missier Grande could come and cart him away to justice.

  “Three saints?”

  “That’s a puzzler. Go ask Giorgio. He knows every brick and door in Venice.”

  Fulgentio strode out. The Maestro mumbled something.

  I went across and crouched, “What?”

  “Tomorrow. ‘When’ is tomorrow.”

  “So it is! But where is ‘where’?” No answer. “You want me to call Bruno?”

  He grunted agreement, so I went and fetched our porter, who carried the old man to his room. Between us we put him to bed. This was the worst rheumatic attack I had known Nostradamus to suffer, and it raised the horrible prospect that he might soon be unable to walk at all.

  By that time Fulgentio was giving Corrado a fencing lesson at the far end of the salone, to an accompaniment of massed jeering from the boy’s assembled siblings. Mama was watching with eyebrows at half-mast, because the sword is the weapon of either the gentleman or the gutter bravo, and she does not want any of her sons to have anything to do with it. I edged around to Giorgio.

  “Three saints?”

  “It’s a tough one.” He scowled like a man caught out in his professional expertise. “Two saints are common enough. Or a gang of them hanging around on the outside of a church, fine. But exactly three—the church of San Trovaso is on the Rio San Gervaso e San Protasso. That’s the best I can think of.”

  “Possible. Keep thinking.” I couldn’t recall any grass around San Trovaso.

  I went back to the fencing lesson.

  “Let me revenge your shame,” I told Corrado, and took foil and mask from him. Then I went to guard against Fulgentio and got thoroughly whipped, suffering four hits in a row. My mind was on more serious things, you understand, and fortunately it came up with an answer in time to justify my inattention. I threw down my foil and tugged the mask off.

  “The Piazza itself!” I told him. “The two columns on the Piazzetta? The saints on top are San Teodoro and San Marco, right? And the church of San Geminiano at the far end of the Piazza, facing the Basilica! That makes three.”

  Fulgentio was still protesting about grass as I dragged him and Giorgio downstairs. I had wrapped myself in my winter cloak and, needless to say, we wore our swords and daggers. We took an armful of torches, for the moon had already set behind the rooftops.

  Venice is built like an ants’ nest of narrow, twisting alleys and canals because of the wind—corners and turns slow down the gusts. But when we emerged onto the choppy Grand Canal, we took the full brunt of the storm, and rain had begun. Huddled in the felze with Fulgentio, I explained my reading of the quatrain.

  “It’s really two statements. The first line tells you when, and that’s after a day that was once holy and now isn’t, at least not to us. Tomorrow is Saturday, which is the Jewish Sabbath. Our Christian holy day is Sunday, so we no longer keep Saturday as holy. Got that?”

  “This’s still Friday.”

  “I know. The Jews start their days at sunset, so their Sabbath has begun.”

  “And we look for a friar, who is holy in firelight but murders in shadow?”

  “You’re coming along nicely, lad. Yes. The second line tells us that three saints are watching where the man of blood will strike. May they help us!”

  “Amen!” Fulgentio said. “But what’s ‘blind vengeance’? Does that mean that we kill the wrong man?”

  I had no answer to that. “Let’s start by finding three saints and grass.”

  Giorgio rowed us across the Grand Canal and into lesser but more sheltered ways. We disembarked behind the Old Procuratie, and I told him to go home and help Mama pigeonhole the children. Fulgentio and I walked through the arch to the north side of the Piazza. The smaller Piazzetta, abutting the Grand Canal, is normally closed in the evening for the nobles’ broglio, but that night it was deserted. The great square itself was as bare, and the only lights came from torches. No one would dare light a bonfire on such a night, lest it burn down the Doges’ Palace. Hawkers, pedlars, musicians had vanished and merrymakers were in short supply.

  And so was grass. I had been hoping that some tableau might include turf, or there might be animal stalls with hay, for you can find almost anything in the Piazza during Carnival, but nothing came even close to being grass.

  We soon decided that our cause was hopeless there, and so far neither of us had thought of an alternative to Giorgio’s suggestion of San Trovaso, so we set off on foot. The walk warmed us,
but we met with no more success. The only grass we located was behind the walls of the rich, and if the murder was to take place on private grounds, we could not hope to intervene. Fulgentio and I abandoned the hunt by mutual consent and set off at a brisk pace, back to San Remo.

  We reached the Trau mansion first and he invited me in for a nightcap. I declined because I still had work to do and I knew that he must be up early to attend to his duties in the palace.

  Leaving Ca’ Trau, I crossed the campo and entered the calle that leads to the back door of Ca’ Barbolano. After one house length it branches. The main branch continues with a single, minor jog, leading to the bridge over the Rio San Remo and the accompanying watersteps; the entrance to Number 96 is there, easily accessible from both land and water and well illuminated to attract customers.

  I turned to the branch going off to my left, which is dark, narrow, and bends several times before reaching the courtyard gate to Ca’ Barbolano, from which it continues somewhat uselessly to the canal. A stray puff of wind blew out my torch.

  Torches don’t do that. Wind makes them burn brighter. The Word is a simple spell for creating fire—a morally neutral one, according to the Maestro, although the church may not agree with him—but even the Word requires the user to be able to see his target. Fortunately I could just make out a faint glow where the tip was still smoking, and no one could see what I was doing on that moonless, cloud-shrouded night. I transferred the torch to my right hand, made the required gesture with the left, and spoke the Word. Blue fire ran over the charred end and yellow flames followed it.

  A voice ahead of me said, “Arghrraw!”

  Low on the ground ahead of me, two eyes glowed golden. Holding my torch high, back in my left hand again, I drew my sword and inched closer.

  “Arghrraw . . .”

  Venice has several million cats, but they are usually not as loud as that one. Lions and leopards are unknown. So why was I standing around in the cold listening to a cat? It could eat or fight or mate to its heart’s content, so far as I cared. I moved forward again.

  “Arghrraw . . .”

  Now I could see it better—tail up, back arched. Cats rarely contract rabies, but they are especially vicious when they do. A bite from a rabid cat must be one of the least pleasant ways of going to one’s eternal reward, and I did not trust my swordsmanship against feline reflexes.

  “And a fine evening to you also, sier Felix,” I said. “Sorry to have disturbed you.” I backed cautiously away and it did not follow.

  10

  The wider calle brought me, of course, to the watersteps and Number 96, whose welcoming lantern still burned, for it was not yet midnight. The land door opens into the waterfront loggia, where half a dozen boatmen sat huddled around a brazier. Their gondolas nodded among the mooring posts outside the arches. Ripples slapped.

  Violetta would not be back yet from the musical salon at Ca’ Grimini, and she would not return alone anyway, so normally I would have gone right on by, walking to the far end of the gallery and then negotiating the ledge to the narrower calle and Ca’ Barbolano. That would have required me to run the gauntlet of the boatmen’s foul ribaldry, of course, but anyone who worries about gondoliers’ manners should never visit Venice. What made me hesitate was not fear of ridicule but the thought of Alessa. Although she had refused to share information with us over dinner, she had now had many hours to reconsider. Ignoring several boatmen’s offers to row me to much better establishments, I opened the door and went in.

  The entrance is a cosy parlor, illuminated by numerous lamps and warmed in winter by a toasty fire, mainly for the benefit of skimpily dressed hostesses. The decor is heavy on red and gold and gilt-framed paintings of nudes that never saw the inside of Titian’s studio. The air was weighty with wine and perfume, and sounds of drunken revelry were audible beyond the door at the back, which leads through to ground floor rooms for those who are short of either time or money and thus cannot afford to linger. The staircase in the corner leads to the owners’ apartments on the piano nobile and then on up to a second commercial area, of higher delights and much higher prices.

  Uttering cries of joy, two girls on duty jumped up to greet me. I rewarded them with a polite smile and headed to the stairs, where scar-faced Antonio perched awkwardly on a stool. On my admittedly rare visits to the brothel when it is open for business, I had never seen the chief guard displayed so prominently. Obviously security was tighter than usual at Number 96 and perhaps at every brothel in the city. Word gets around. Because of the temperature, he was stripped down to a shirt and breeches, which made him look even meaner than he does when respectably dressed, while the contrast with his two delectable companions emphasized his nightmare ugliness. He knows me, but he eyed me distrustfully on principle.

  “She’s still out?” I asked.

  Antonio nodded.

  “With someone known to you? Not masked, I hope.”

  “Of course,” he growled. “Think I’m stupid? And we don’t admit friars.”

  So many words had gotten around, and perhaps Honeycat would have to hunt outdoors from now on, as the Maestro’s quatrain suggested.

  “I need to speak with Alessa.”

  He frowned and then shrugged. Antonio’s shrugs create drafts. “She’s upstairs. I’ll ask.” He went, striding two treads at a time.

  “You’re Violetta’s doorman aren’t you?” asked the taller of the two seminudes. She advanced predatorily.

  “You should try a little variety,” the other suggested, starting a flanking maneuver.

  “You’re much too cute to waste on just her.”

  “Beware!” I cried, retreating into a corner. “Think what Violetta will do to you if you molest my innocence.”

  “On, now I have heard everything!”

  “Shameless! Who’s going to tell her?”

  “I’m here on business!” I protested.

  “So are we.”

  I was saved from an unmentionable fate by a blast of cold air from the outer door, wafting in a couple of drunken sailors, masked for Carnival and eager to open negotiations. While the girls were deftly removing the men’s masks and boosting their ardor, Antonio came clattering down the stairs and beckoned me. I followed him up to where a second bravo guarded the door to the piano nobile.

  Antonio introduced us while he fumbled for the key. “Luigi . . . Alfeo . . . Alfeo’s all right. A friend.” Once inside, he led the way along a dark corridor to Alessa’s door, where he paused, as if suddenly uncertain. “She’s not herself.”

  “What way not herself?”

  “She’s pretty drunk.”

  “Violetta would murder me.”

  The big man chuckled. “So she would.” He stalked away.

  A faint wedge of light showed under the door. As Venice sinks slowly into the mud of the lagoon, its doors and windows—even its walls—forswear right angles in favor of ideas of their own. I tried the handle and went in. Alessa lacks Violetta’s flair for artistic arrangement and her apartment is overly cluttered with expensive knickknackery. I picked my way in near darkness through this forest of glass, ceramic, and plaster until I found her in an armchair in her salotto , huddled close to a dying fire and clad in a loose robe that no respectable lady would wear even when alone. Her hair was unbound, dangling everywhere, her face paint messed. Fortunately the single lamp on the mantel shed very little light on her shame, but the reek of wine confirmed what Antonio had told me. First Matteo and now Alessa—Honeycat was doing good things for the vintners of Venice.

  With the poker and a couple of logs from the scuttle, I gave the fire new life. Then I pulled up a chair, laid my forearms on my knees, and looked across at Alessa. Her eyes had been following me, but so far she had not spoken a word.

  “Well?” I said. “Violetta isn’t here. You are ready to tell me Honeycat’s name.”

  She shook her head and held out her goblet. I confirmed that the bottle on the floor beside her was empty, found another, open
ed it, poured her a drink, and returned to my post. “Well?” I said again.

  “He didn’t do it.” She spoke with the fastidious care of the very drunk. “Not Honeycat I knew. Ish a common enough pet name.” She turned her gaze on the fire and fell silent.

  “Tell me about the Honeycat you knew.” In vino veritas.

  “He was lovely,” she told the fire. “He was young and dish-gush-tingly rich. He was fun. He was joy. Very few giovani we look forward to, Alfeo, but I adored Honeycat. We’d fight over him, us girls. Rich, noble, handsome. Knew his classics: Ovid, Plato, and all the rest. He was a lover. He lived to make love. Never tired. Mosht greedy men are rough—bang, bang, bang. Not Honeycat. Was patient, clever.

  “He had a red birthmark. Down here . . . Looked like a cat, so ’course he wash known ash Honeycat. He’d arrive in his gondola at noon, take me to a dinner, then a ball. Senators, procurators, and their wives. Dance till midnight. Oh, he could dance! Then back here and row the boat till dawn. Over and over. Don’t know how he did it. Felt I ought to be paying him, not him me. Sometimes we’d throw parties for him—two, three girls, and he’d go all night, never sleep. Always left a present, diamond ring, pearls . . .”

  “Go on,” I said. “I want to hear more about this prodigy.” His name! What was his name?

  “Getting old, Alfeo.” She sighed. “Even the nights were bright back then. Did I ever tell you about the time the doge—”

  “Tell me about Honeycat, Alessa.”

  “Ashk Violetta.”

  “She never met him.”

  “Lucia in’rodushed them.”

  “Yes?” I clamped my lips shut because they were trying to snarl. This was what I feared most.