The Alchemist's Apprentice

by Dave Duncan

  Vasco was snarling. “Have you finished?”

  “Certainly. I proved my point, didn’t I?”

  “The truce is ended. Get out of here.”

  “Do I have to report this thief to the Lion’s Mouth?”

  “I will take care of him. Get out!” Vasco repeated furiously.

  Domenico Chiari crumpled to the ground in a dead faint, causing heads to turn. Spectators cried out in alarm, with undercurrents of anger against the bullying vizio. I bowed with an ironic flourish and left Vasco to deal with the situation.

  About ten points to me.

  As I limped back across the campo, I reflected that I should have played my hand a little more subtly. I had not discovered the truth about the Feathers’ visit to Karagounis. They had insisted that the Greek had invited them to the Imer book viewing; he had denied doing so. No doubt Domenico Chiari had arranged that misunderstanding for his own purposes. Well, although Karagounis was beyond questioning, Chiari was not and the Ten’s tormentors would soon strappado the truth out of him.

  “You’re looking happy, Alfeo,” Giorgio said, as he rowed us sedately along the Grand Canal.

  “It’s been such a wonderful morning! I haven’t had so much fun since I was four years old and pulled wings off flies.”

  “Now you pull feathers off the vizio?”

  “Darling Filiberto!”

  “Be careful of him, Alfeo. He’s a dangerous enemy.”

  “He’s a wonderful enemy. He never stops trying.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Giorgio said.

  It was too early to call on Violetta, so I went upstairs to see if the Maestro had opened and read my letter from Ambassador Tirali.

  He had, of course. Then he had used it as a bookmark, so I had to ask him where it was and he had to find it for me. He was still deep in his pursuit of Hermes and Mercury. While reporting on the last couple of hours I tried to bring some order to the incredible clutter he accumulates the moment my back is turned.

  He nodded. “Satisfactory. There are some letters to write, and…About tonight…” He fixed me with a scraggy eye. “Wear your sword.”

  He knows perfectly well that wearing a sword at night is illegal.

  “Certainly, although I wouldn’t be much good with it. My leg still hurts.”

  “I mean for appearances. How much would it cost to dress you like a real noble?”

  “I am a real noble.” I let my annoyance show. “You really did rummage about in my memories last night, didn’t you?”

  He managed to seem surprised. “I asked you only questions relevant to the murder, nothing private. My point is that I can’t shout. I can’t overawe people. I need you to keep control of the meeting tonight. You have to look the part. Clothes talk. How much?”

  “You want me to control Missier Grande, his vizio, a great minister, an ambassador, the ambassador’s son, an attorney, and possibly the entire Council of Ten?” I said, awed. “I am humbled by your trust. Perhaps the doge would lend me his corno? To dress me as a noble from scratch would take at least a week, but the Ghetto’s pawnshops are full of good stuff. I could look there and have things altered to fit. Four or five ducats. Ten would be better. Otherwise it will look pretentious and fake.”

  He swallowed as if it hurt. “Go and do it. Enter it in the ledger.”

  “As what?”

  “Maintaining appearances. Hurry before I change my mind.”

  23

  Bruno has his own strange ways of knowing things, and when I returned to the casa with my worthy apparel, he became excited and asked if the Maestro was going to need him later. When I nodded, he ran to get out the carrying chair and strap it on. For the next two hours he wandered about wearing it, a menace to the Barbolano artwork every time he turned around.

  But eventually I was ready too. Blue has always been my best color. It sets off my sultry good looks, or something. I had chosen a doublet of peacock blue silk, embroidered in gold, with a wide white ruff collar, puffed sleeves tied at points with silver ribbon and frothy white linen peeking out through the slashes. My buttons were nuggets of amber shaped like pears, and amber strawberries decorated my belt. Below a very low waist I sported matching knee britches and white silk stockings tight and sheer enough to reveal every wrap of the bandage on my calf. My fur-trimmed short cloak of silver brocade hung on my shoulders so as not to conceal my sleeves; my bag-shaped bonnet stood half a yard high. I hoped Violetta would be able to control herself when she clapped eyes on such splendor. With a last minute adjustment to the hang of my rapier and dagger, I minced out into the salone in my gold-buckled shoes.

  Christoforo cried out and dropped to his knees. Corrado and Archangelo came running to see what was wrong and were even more overcome, falling on the floor, writhing and moaning. Then came a torrent of younger brothers and sisters, Mama herself, and Giorgio in his best red and black. Giggling at their clowning brothers, the small fry began bowing and curtseying. The merriment stopped when a steady thumping announced the arrival of the Maestro in his black physician robe—even the twins mind their manners near him, having been warned so often that he might turn them into frogs. Which the rest of us think would be an improvement, mind you.

  Bruno rushed over and knelt to offer the chair. I went to assist, moving carefully in case my cloak fell off and shamed me. The Maestro eyed my radiance with intense dislike.

  “How much did all that cost?”

  “About twenty ducats, I suppose. It isn’t brass and glass, you know.”

  He said, “Obscene!” and clambered awkwardly into the chair.

  As soon as he was settled, I tapped Bruno’s shoulder to let him know he could now rise, and the three of us followed Giorgio downstairs. It was a fine evening and Carnival revelers were out already, boatloads of them singing along with their gondoliers, even on sleepy Rio San Remo. The Maestro and I made ourselves comfortable in the felze—I having some trouble managing sword and bonnet, I admit. Bruno sat in the bow to block the view as only he could. Giorgio pushed off.

  “The twenty ducats, master? I can enter them in the ledger?”

  The old miser chuckled. “Enter whatever you spent. But tomorrow you must take the clothes back to the Ghetto and get whatever you can for them. Enter that in the ledger as a credit.”

  I can never fool him. We have played out this farce before, when he wants me dressed up, and I always solve the problem the same way. I went across the campo to the Ca’ Trau San Remo, home of my friend Fulgentio, now ducal equerry. As I told you, he and I are the same size, and fortunately he was home. When I explained that I needed to shine before some important people, he at once rang for his valet and told him to dress me. I refused to cooperate until I had made Fulgentio promise to take the clothes back the next day and not try to make them a gift. He agreed unwillingly, grumbling that he rarely got to wear decent things now, having to spend all his days and half his nights disguised as a gargoyle in equerry rags.

  The Maestro has no idea how humiliating this is for me. I keep promising myself that next time I will take him at his word and actually spend some of his golden hoard. So far I never have. He would weep.

  I got down to business. “Master, I need instruction. You have deciphered the rest of the quatrain? The gold and the eyes of the serpent were about the attempt on my life. But unthinkable love triumphs from afar sounds like a clue to the murder.”

  “It may well be so.”

  Resisting a temptation to grind my teeth or punch out his, I said, “I tried a reading before we came out.”

  “Tarot? Old wives’ nonsense.”

  “It may well be so.”

  “Bah! What did it tell you?”

  “For question, subject, or present I dealt out Fire, Trump XV. That puzzles me. It obviously doesn’t represent me, or you, or a murderer.” Fire shows a tower being struck by lightning, with a man and woman falling from it. “Can it mean danger to the Republic?”

  He chuckled. “Not in this case. I’m glad
you weren’t stupid enough to reject it and start over. Tell me the rest of it.” Obviously he already understood more than he was going to tell me, but at least he was showing real interest and had stopped scoffing.

  “For past, problem, or danger, I turned over the two of cups. That one seems easy. It must represent the two glasses that were switched.”

  “Or the two waiters?”

  I grunted, not having thought of that possibility. “For future, objective, or solution, I got Trump XII, the Traitor, reversed. And that I most certainly do not understand!”

  The Traitor depicts a man suspended from a tree by one ankle. Hanging his corpse upside down is the traditional Italian way to disparage a traitor, but in my deck the Traitor seems alive and happy in his odd position and has a mop of golden hair like a halo. He is not just a convicted criminal.

  “What did I teach you about XII?” my master murmured cautiously.

  “That it may represent a change of loyalty or viewpoint, or a rebirth, because we all take our first breath upside down. But reversed? What does that mean? No sudden change of viewpoint—we were right all along?”

  After a significant silence, my master said, “In this case I think it may be a warning not to jump to premature conclusions. What else did you find?”

  “For helper or path, I turned over the two of staves, which I do not understand at all. And for the warning, the snare to be avoided, I got the jack of swords, which tonight ought to mean me.” Jackanapes of swords, perhaps.

  The Maestro was nodding. “That’s very good! Excellent, an excellent foretelling. You are becoming quite skilled with tarot.” Praise indeed!

  “But why the jack of swords as the warning? Am I going to commit some fatal error?”

  He chuckled like a hen calling her chicks. “I shouldn’t think so. The program seems reasonably foolproof. Perhaps the jack of swords may mean someone else. Benedetto Orseolo, for example?”

  “It would be a lackluster match, even if my leg wound is worse than his shoulder’s. What does the rest of the spread mean?”

  “It tells you who committed the murder and how I shall reveal the truth. Think about it.”

  I resisted an urge to throw the old mummy into the canal. Bruno would just rescue him, and I might get Fulgentio’s outfit splashed.

  At the top of the stairs, Bruno knelt to let the Maestro dismount. Ottone Imer was waiting there for us in his black attorney’s gown, and I was amused to see his mouth twitch a few times when he registered my sartorial apotheosis. I could almost imagine his brain turning from the Apprentice page to the NH page. The Maestro had been right, as usual—clothes talk.

  I granted our host a small bow. “I see you have done us proud, lustrissimo.” The hallway was cramped, but he had not spared on candles. Wine bottles and goblets of crimson glass were arrayed on a table, and the servant Benzon was waiting there. He was staring wistfully at my gold and amber.

  Imer said, “Welcome back to my house, Doctor Nostradamus. I hope this will be a happier visit than the last. May I offer you wine?”

  “No. You did not the last time, not when I arrived. I hope we can duplicate the last time as closely as possible. Of course people will probably not arrive in the same order. I dislike standing…”

  Imer conducted the Maestro into the dining room. Bruno, I noted, had shed the carrying chair and was taking it away to some nether corner of the house, probably the kitchen, where he would wait as patiently as a mountain all night, terrifying servant girls by smiling at them. I saw no reason why I could not try a glass of wine. I went over to Benzon.

  “Blessings on you, Giuseppe. You have the same wines as last time?”

  He nodded. “Yes, messer.”

  “Which one is poisoned?”

  His eyes narrowed. “All of them, Alfeo. Which one would you like?”

  I had told him to call me Alfeo. I laughed. “The arsenic. I’ll try the retsina, please.” As he poured me a generous glassful, I said, “You may have your friend Pulaki back to help you shortly.”

  “He’s no friend of mine,” Benzon said sulkily. “I never saw him before that night.”

  I took a sip and grimaced. “You weren’t joking about the poison.”

  “And I wish you wouldn’t! I didn’t poison anybody!”

  I realized that he was terrified, a midget caught up in a clash of titans. I apologized. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” I assured him.

  “No? You swear that?”

  “Not unless you poisoned the old man. Maestro Nostradamus knows who did and is going to expose him. So you can relax.” Unless the tarot’s two of cups meant the waiters, of course.

  Imer came stalking out of the dining room. “Doctor Nostradamus wants the guests shown into the salone,” he told Benzon, “and not served wine until later.” He noticed my wineglass, but did not comment on it. “How many will be coming, er…clarissimo?”

  I made a graceful gesture with the glass. “I don’t know exactly. There were thirteen in the room on the thirteenth, but two are dead—the procurator and Alexius Karagounis. I doubt if the doge will appear again, but someone else can play his part. I expect Great Minister Orseolo, Missier Grande, and possibly his vizio. Perhaps others from…”

  Imer drew breath sharply; his mouth twitched. In his blue and red robe, Missier Grande was mounting the stairs. Gasparo Quazza is an ominous sight at any time, yet it was his young companion I watched, the Greek’s servant Pulaki Guarana. He moved with difficulty, one hand gripping the balustrade and the other heavily bandaged and held tight against his chest. He wore the same clothes he had worn the previous morning, but they looked the worse for wear. So did he, face pallid under a heavy beard shadow, eyes sunk in deep wells.

  Imer uttered a croak of welcome. I laid down my glass and bowed to Missier Grande.

  “I am only here to observe,” he told Imer. “This man is a state prisoner. He has agreed to cooperate with the evening’s procedure.”

  Pulaki nodded as if he would agree to anything that would delay his return to prison.

  “And I am merely following sier Alfeo Zeno’s orders,” Imer twitched, dissociating himself from anything horrible that might happen and probably would.

  Missier Grande turned his regard on me. It traveled from my cap to my shoes and back up to my eyes. “So what orders do you have for me, clarissimo?”

  I find jokes from Gasparo Quazza unnerving. “I believe that all you have to do is observe, lustrissimo. What action you take is up to you. The meeting will be held in that room there. So far only my master is here. Will Domenico Chiari be attending?”

  “No. He has other business.” I wondered if Quazza’s eyes had always been that cold or if his job had made them so. He turned and walked into the dining room. I heard him greet the Maestro.

  “What did they do to you?” Benzon whispered.

  Pulaki just shook his head, unwilling or unable to say.

  “We don’t need you yet,” I said. “Go and wait in there, please.” I pointed to the salone, and he limped away while the three of us stared after him in horror.

  All states use torture, of course. The confessions it extracts come with no guarantee of truth, so its main value is to incriminate people—either the victim or others—and terrorize all the rest. Was Domenico Chiari even then twisting on the cord with blocks of stone tied to his feet? In the Republic such questions are never answered and rarely even asked.

  Now the suspects were starting to arrive, all determined not to keep the Council of Ten waiting. The Tirali men were first—Ambassador Giovanni in scarlet robes, sier Pasqual in black. They were steadying Violetta between them as she teetered up the stairs on her ten-inch stilt courtesan shoes. She was a grounded angel in a silver brocade gown, glittering with precious gems, her red-gold hair piled in two horns, her low neckline exposing peerless breasts padded to ride high. Her eyes widened when she saw me. I thought I recognized Aspasia behind them, calculating the political significance of my finery. If clot
hes spoke, mine were saying surprising things that evening. I kissed the ambassador’s sleeve. He was too gracious to ask, but he was definitely puzzled, wondering why his intelligence on me had been faulty.

  Pasqual named Violetta to me as if we had never met. A glint of Medea’s smile warned me to be careful, but I had to live up to my debonair persona.

  “I have heard tales of madonna Vitale and thought they were only myths. Now I see that they are legends.”

  Aspasia’s response was instant. “Your subtlety flatters my wits, messer!”

  “Alas, your wits are faster than my wit, madonna.”

  “I keep my wits about me and they introduce me to others.”

  “To wit?”

  “To who? To you, messer.”

  “Can you keep up with this sort of play, Pasqual?” the ambassador asked.

  “Usually.” Pasqual was eyeing me thoughtfully.

  Clothes talk, but mine had run out of funny things to say. I asked the Tiralis to wait in the salone.

  And already the Orseolo contingent was approaching, three figures draped in mourning. I had expected Enrico to escort his daughter, but was surprised he had brought Benedetto. Bene had his sling on again, so perhaps he just wanted to remind everybody of his alibi. Unarmed, he did not look like a good candidate to be the jack of swords. Bianca, alas, was veiled and shrouded. Displayed as she should be, she would give even Violetta competition. I introduced Imer to the men, we both kissed the minister’s sleeve, and I sent them all off to the salone.

  The heady sense of power I obtained from ordering a great minister provoked me to smile broadly when I turned to the stairs and realized that Filiberto Vasco had arrived in time to see me do it. He was escorting the northern barbarians.