The Alchemist's Apprentice

by Dave Duncan

  The valets had turned away to hide grins. Our beloved doge is an atrocious skeptic, as bad as any Protestant or Freemason. His doubts are not confined to astrology; they extend to all supernatural matters, perhaps even to the spiritual, although even he would not dare admit that.

  I could say nothing except, “I cannot believe it either.”

  “But the rumors have started.” The doge shrugged to adjust the weight of the massive brocade robe his valets had just hung on his shoulders. “I think I can hold the hounds back for three days. No longer. You should be able to get safely away in that time, both of you.”

  “He won’t go.” I spoke automatically. The Maestro was old and almost crippled and stubborn beyond measure. I simply could not imagine him running away from a senseless, trumped-up charge of murder. Wisdom had departed, but I was certain he had not, and never would, flee from Venice.

  The doge was scowling. “Then you’d best go without him, lad, because poisoning is classed as witchcraft. If he burns, you’ll burn too.”

  “How do you know it was poisoning, sire, not just apoplexy? Even if it was murder, there were other people there. Don’t you have to prove my master did it?”

  The old man shook his head scornfully. “It’s obvious because he was the only alchemist present. No, I don’t believe that matters, but many people will, and the Three will certainly investigate any suggestion that a procurator has been murdered. I am one among many in the Ten; I have no control at all over the Three. I am taking a risk even telling you this. You have very little time. Get your master across to the mainland and safely over the border.” He took a lurching step and winced. “Yes, I would appreciate a jar of the unguent as a going-away gift.”

  I bowed. “Today, sire.”

  The doge nodded and took another couple of steps. “Give him a lira, Jacopo.” He spoke off-handedly, because that was his usual tip, then he chuckled. “No, make it a ducat this time. Sciara was a little over-zealous.”

  Before I could express the magnitude of my gratitude, he turned back to glower at me. “But I want my Apologeticus Archeteles returned. It’s mine. I loaned it to him months ago.”

  “You did?” I said bitterly. That was not how the old rascal had told me to catalogue it. “Then I will find it and deliver it to Your Serenity.”

  3

  I hurried along the loggia, down the giants’ staircase to the courtyard, and out through the Porta della Carta, the main gate. The rain had stopped, but a chill wind still blustered across the Piazza San Marco. Clerks were hurrying to work, beggars were already on their stations, and hawkers with baskets on their heads called their wares. It was too early yet in both the day and the year for the gawking foreigners who usually abound. Normally I would have enjoyed walking home, along winding alleys and over innumerable bridges, savoring the beat of the city’s great heart, but that day the situation was critical—had the Maestro truly fled the city? That seemed beyond all belief. The Ten would take it as a confession of guilt. I would be off to the torturers in no time and sier Alvise would hurl everything the Maestro owned out into the canal, cleansing his palace of the taint of murder.

  I headed across the Piazzetta toward the Molo. Public gondolas are expensive. I cannot afford them and the Maestro won’t, as he already owns one of his own and employs a man to row it. That day the expense seemed well justified.

  Besides, I was a ducat richer. The Maestro provides my room and board—very sumptuously, I admit—but he is sparing, even miserly, when it comes to a clothing allowance. Almost all my spending money comes from the tips his clients and patients give me for performing my arduous duties—opening and closing doors, for instance, and bowing them out. That is the reason I do not flaunt my “NH.” Some people are embarrassed to tip the nobly-born a soldo or two, or else consider my rank an excuse not to. You’d think they would reward me more, not less.

  Yesterday’s events now made perfect sense. Bells ring in Venice all the time, but the Maestro, already worried, must have recognized the tolling for Procurator Orseolo and known that his peril was now much greater. He had sent me off to chase wild geese while he consulted the crystal. A very fine prophecy, too—Death the murder causing death the death penalty to break cover but go after the wrong suspect. Venice as La Serenissima, the Most Serene Republic, is feminine. The Serene One, in masculine, would be His Serenity the doge, who had moved to send warning and remained unmoved by my protests. The wise Maestro had departed, leaving the mute Bruno behind. Very succinct!

  There were dozens of gondolas tied up at the Molo. I picked out a man with arms like a Barbary ape and began haggling, accepting his second offer on condition he sing to me the whole way.

  A few strokes of his oar swung us out into the choppy and iron-gray Basin of San Marco, a February desert. At other seasons it teams with great ships swaying at anchor, best seen all sparkly in misty morning light. Here the convoys gather for voyages to distant lands—Seville, Egypt, Constantinople, or far-off England and Flanders—hundreds of galleys, all identical, all state-built and state-owned, rowed by freemen mostly, not criminals, and every one captained by a Venetian nobleman. Here they return with exotic spices, sulfur, wine, olive oil, raisins, currants, timber, and dozens of other cargoes. As a child I dreamed of being the captain of such a ship and sailing to such places. Some days I still do.

  Regrettably that morning there were almost no ships, my gondolier had the throat of a Barbary ape, and I was distracted by my worries about the Ten. I was not convinced that the doge could hold them back as he said he could, and I could see no possibility of persuading my master to flee the city. Nor could I imagine myself ever deserting him and running away. A man has to cherish his self-respect. I was caught in the jaws of a dilemma.

  The quatrain had been magnificently fulfilled, so far as I could see, every line, but it gave no guidance on what was going to happen next.

  When I paid off my gondolier at the Ca’ Barbolano, I found the great doors open, and the Marciana family army busily loading a boat. I slipped by with a few cheerful greetings on the wing. Jacopo and Angelo Marciana are brothers of the citizen class, and partners of NH Alvise Barbolano in a type of arrangement that is quite common in the Republic: sier Alvise provides space in his palace for them and the business, plus certain hereditary trading rights that the nobility reserved to itself centuries ago. The commoners do the work and provide the capital. The Marcianas also supply the muscle power of a dozen sons between them. The profits are divided.

  I ran up the stairs and was again lucky, in that I did not run into old Alvise himself, for he lies in wait for me whenever he wants a medical consultation with the Maestro, or celestial advice on his business dealings, or something to poison the rats, or just something. I must always be on my best behavior for our landlord.

  The only person I did meet before I reached our door was Bruno, coming down with the usual love-the-whole-world smile all over his face. I have rarely seen anything as welcome as that smile. If the Maestro had mysteriously disappeared, Bruno would be out of his mind with worry.

  From the dust on his shoulder, I could tell that he was in the process of ferrying firewood, of which several bales had been lying down at the quay. I have seen him run all the way upstairs with a load I can barely move. As I mentioned earlier, if Bruno were twins, they would still be too big. Sighting me, he grinned even wider and cracked his usual Alfeo joke, which is to pick me up and kiss me on the forehead. Resistance is futile. I have very rarely seen Bruno anything but happy, but when vexed he ranks with the primeval forces of nature. The Maestro invented a sign language for him and a written equivalent, so he can converse with us and even write us simple notes. In consequence, he absolutely worships the Maestro and is delighted to carry him wherever he wants to go.

  When he set me down, he flashed the signs for Happy—you—here.

  I signed Happy—come back. With a further exchange of grins we parted, me up and he down, but I was saddened to think that that was all Bruno co
uld ever know of my midnight adventure.

  Arriving at the apartment, I found Giorgio mopping the floor with the help of two of his sons. Giorgio is our gondolier, but he has many other talents, including an extraordinary fecundity. I have lost count of his children and would not be surprised to learn that he has, also. Some are out in the world making grandchildren already, yet new ones continue to appear regularly. He nodded a welcome to me, his silence somehow conveying relief that I was safe.

  As for his assistants—Corrado and Christoforo Angeli are twins, although not identical, and at that time were engaged in a furious race to see who could produce a real mustache first. Never have so many sneers been directed at so little. Having to help with household chores ranks lower than being flayed alive, of course.

  Corrado produced a lecherous leer. He said, “You had a good night, Alfeo?” and ducked so expertly that his father’s hand whistled uselessly through the space his ear had just left.

  “Very memorable,” I said. “Would you tell the Maestro I’m back, please?

  “And run!” his father said.

  I poked my head in the kitchen. Noemi, a younger member of the Angeli brood, looked up from kneading dough and beamed at the sight of me. The current youngest, Matteo, lay under the table sucking on a bone. Their mother cried out a prayer of thanks and came for me with a bloody hatchet she had been using to chop veal. I returned her hug and bent to endure her kiss. Mama is as wide as Bruno but only half as high. She was due to produce another little Angeli very shortly.

  “You are safe! Luigi said the night watch came. We found your sword on your bed. We were so worried!”

  “No need to be. But I must shave and wash.”

  “Have you had breakfast?”

  Of course not, and food is Mama’s cure for anything and everything. I said, “What do you have ready?”

  Instantly Mama rattled off a dozen choices while Noemi filled a jug with hot water from the kettle on the range. Mama is very efficient; it is she who keeps the Nostradamus household gliding along as smoothly as a gondola. She has been known to produce dinner, twins, and supper in the same afternoon. Settling for a small cup of soup, I headed off to my room to make myself respectable.

  I had barely removed my shirt before I heard a familiar thumping and the Maestro hobbled in, wielding his staff. He avoids all unnecessary movement, so I was touched that he had made the effort to come and inquire after my well-being.

  “Who was ransacking my atelier?” His voice tends to become shrill under stress. Acerbic, brilliant, cantankerous, duplicitous, and encyclopedic, Filippo Nostradamus has a great reputation and a large head, but the Good Lord skimped on the rest of him. Short and scrawny sums him up, and he wears a foolish goatee, which he dyes. His knees and ankles give him much pain, so he would do better leaning on two canes, but prefers an oaken staff taller than he is, inlaid with cabalistic signs in silver and topped by a large crystal. It impresses some people.

  I sighed. “No one ransacked anything. Raffaino Sciara read the letter on the desk and took a quick look at the book shelves. Would you care to prescribe a soothing unguent for the lash marks on my back and the burns under my toenails?”

  “Why did you let him in here?”

  “Because he threatened to arrest me if I didn’t.”

  “And then arrested you anyway? Bah! He was bluffing.”

  “Four swordsmen are no bluff.”

  “Arresting people is Missier Grande’s job. What did Sciara want?”

  “He wanted to tell you something. It can wait.” I turned my back and opened my shaving kit. The oaken staff thumped a few times on the terrazzo, then the door boomed shut.

  I made a fast toilet, washing away as much of the prison frowstiness as I could while considering what I was going to wear. Between yesterday’s rain and today’s jail, I was running out of fresh clothes. I decided to poultice my wounded self-esteem by trying out my newest outfit.

  Venice is the most beautiful city in the world, a fairyland of islands and canals set in an opalescent lagoon; it boasts a hundred great palaces and as many glorious churches, all of them treasure chests of incomparable art. Curious, is it not, that the people dress mainly in black? Lawyers, doctors, and widows wear black, as do the hordes of priests, nuns, monks, and friars. A nobleman wears a black robe, black bonnets, and a strip of black cloth, a tippet, draped over his left shoulder. Admittedly nobles holding high office bloom in reds and purples and everyone dresses up for Carnival. The only real exception to the prevailing drabness, though, are young men.

  I cannot afford to dress in the silks and satins of the true aristocrats, but I emerged from my room resplendent in red knee britches, white stockings, a linen shirt with a modest ruff, puffed sleeves, and lace cuffs, a waist-length doublet striped in blue and white, ornamented with acorn-shaped buttons, topped off with a shoulder cape trimmed with squirrel fur and a bonnet like a gigantic blue puffball. On my way back to the kitchen I had to go by the mop-wielding slave gang, and I noted the gleam in Corrado’s eye as I approached. The moment I passed, he predictably muttered something admiring about buns, and then yelped as the back of my hand cracked against his ear. Christoforo squealed with laughter.

  Even Giorgio grinned. “Let that teach you not to sass swordsmen,” he said. They are all impressed that a mere apprentice like me can take fencing lessons, but the Maestro pays for them because he is physically very vulnerable and works a dangerous trade. I have known him advise wives to stay away from their husbands for their own protection, for example, and that is an excellent way to make enemies.

  Predictably, Mama had provided a bathtub-sized bowl of pidocchi soup and a cannonball of mozzarella cheese, my favorite. When I let myself into the atelier, the Maestro was seated at his desk, peering into a book. Three more were stacked within reach, and I recognized them all as herbals. He scowled as I laid down my tray. He has so little interest in food that I keep track of his meals to make sure he eats at all.

  “I can take it to the dining room if it bothers you,” I said, “but on reconsideration, I think my news is urgent.”

  He pouted. “Sit, then.” He pouted even more as he studied my appearance. “A gift from your friend?”

  “Certainly not!” I pirouetted, to increase his enjoyment. “Most of last year’s income and half of this year’s. An apprentice who fails to flout the sumptuary laws reflects badly on his master.” I sat down and tied a napkin around my neck to protect my freshly starched ruff.

  The big double desk works well for us. We can pass documents back and forth readily. He is left-handed, I am right-, so we can both have light from the windows on our work. Noting that the medicinals I had bought the previous day had been removed, I started in on my delicious pidocchi, made from the sea louse, which is not as bad as it sounds, being a type of shellfish. Soup is easier to eat while talking than most things are—except when it is scalding hot, and Mama does make her dishes hot.

  “So what was this message?” the Maestro demanded.

  “I paid the gondolier five soldi.”

  His eyes glinted. “That’s your privilege if you’re too lazy to walk.”

  “True. But then I can’t be here for another twenty minutes.”

  I spooned soup, smacking my lips to decorate the silence. I’m never quite sure when his crabbiness is genuine and when he’s just staging a fit of pique for our mutual amusement.

  This time he conceded the point. “Enter it in the ledger, then.”

  “Oh, thank you, master! Most generous of you. As you foresaw, we had an important visitor about an hour after midnight. I congratulate you on the quatrain. Admirable personification, antanaclasis, and metonymy.” I gulped and winced my way through my soup and the events of the night while the Maestro never took his eyes off me. He kept his book open and his finger on the place.

  “It was a charade, of course,” I concluded. “The doge is the only permanent member of the Ten and Sciara has been Circospetto for years, so they must know how
to work together. They want to give you a chance to escape before they are forced to open a formal inquiry. Sciara was mad that you were not here for him to bully. That’s all.”

  “If you believe that, you’re even more naive than you look.” My master smiled, meaning he bunched up his cheeks and stretched his lips sideways without showing his teeth.

  With saintly patience, I said, “If you had been home last night, Sciara would have given you the message and left, taking his guards with him. You weren’t, so he made the point more forcibly by scaring me half to death. But the doge is insistent—you must flee!”

  I could guess what was coming from the jutting angle of the goatee.

  “No! I’m too old to start over somewhere else. There is my wealth—” He waved a hand at the bookshelves. “Will you carry them for me? And where will I find a new clientele, a new palace to live in, new printers for my almanacs?”

  I sympathized. I did not want to run away either, to be a homeless vagrant. But the risk was appalling.

  “Can you prove that Procurator Orseolo died of apoplexy or hemorrhage or anything other than poison?”

  The Maestro removed his finger and slammed the book shut. “Of course not. As soon as I examined him I knew he had been poisoned.”

  I burned my tongue and spluttered. “Did you say so?”

  “You think I am an idiot?”

  “Not until now. It wasn’t your doing, I hope?”

  “No, it was not.” The fact that he answered the question at all showed that he was worried. He could see his predicament; it was the solution he rejected.

  I cut myself a hunk of bread and a wad of mozzarella. Needing some chewing time, I said, “If you didn’t poison him, who did?”