The Alchemist's Apprentice (15 page)

The answers were: me, nobody, me, and not likely. Considering all the factors involved, it did seem that no one had any better right to those papers than I did. I slipped them into the pocket of my cloak and set off to limp down all those stairs, one step at a time.

I
had no sooner paid off the gondolier outside the Ca' Barbolano than the Marciana horde swarmed around me to point out that I was bleeding. By the time I had finished explaining that I had just been oozing a little but had now stopped, two of the largest size had lifted me between them to chair me upstairs. Holding my leg straight out while they were doing this took enough effort to start it bleeding again. I thanked them and hobbled into the Maestro's apartment. Corrado shouted that I was hurt. His mother came flustering out of the kitchen…You would think none of them had ever seen blood before, let alone mine.

I went briefly to my room to shed my cloak. Then I went to report.

When I limped into the atelier, the Maestro was seated by the fireplace. To my amazement, the visitor in the green chair opposite was a nun. I blinked twice before I recognized Violetta, alias Sister Chastity, and remembered that she and I had a date to call on Bianca Orseolo.

The Maestro is enough of a prude to rank courtesans with prostitutes and despise men who pay women for sex when they could buy books instead, but he is not a misogynist—he finds almost everybody stupid and boring, regardless of gender. Violetta is well aware of all this and goes out of her way to charm him. Nobody is less boring or stupid than she when she wants to be. He eats out of her hand and would not notice if she fed him rocks.

I detoured by the desk because there was a letter lying on my side of it. It had been opened, of course.

That testimony would hang Ottone Imer now, if the Ten got hold of it.

On the Maestro's side, the
Midrasch-Na-Zohar
had been closed and pushed aside, but Nettesheim's
De Occulta Philosophia
lay open beside it, so he had not given up on cabalism yet.

I headed for the tête-à-tête, collecting a chair on the way. Somehow Violetta seemed much less outrageous in her nun's costume than she had the previous day. Had I grown used to it, or had Milana altered it for her? Her sun-bleached hair was well tucked away and she wore no face paint, but it was equally possible that Violetta was merely acting
nun
so effectively that I failed to find her display of ankle and bosom as outrageous as I should.

“Bishop takes pawn.” She lifted her lips to offer me a kiss, but she was Aspasia, so it was a Platonic, political kiss. Besides, bending was awkward for me at the moment. “You are bleeding, Alfeo.”

“Just another jealous husband.” I sat down between them, facing the fire.

“Rook to king's bishop five,” the Maestro said.

“Ah, disaster!” Violetta said. “I should have seen that! It will be mate in three, won't it? I should know better than to try to match wits with one of the greatest minds in Europe, but I do thank you for the game, doctor. You look very pleased with yourself, apprentice. Shall I leave, so that you men can talk business?”

“Maestro?”

He said, “Not at all, madonna. I know Alfeo tells you everything anyway.”

He does this just to rankle me, because he knows I will leap to her defense like a dog chasing a stick.

“I do
not
tell her everything! I tell her nothing. In this case I questioned her because she was one of the witnesses, and a very observant one. She led me to valuable information about Enrico Orseolo, who had to be a prime suspect because he will be the old man's heir. Other than that, she knows no more than the public at large.”

He pulled a mawkish smile. I had brought back the stick. “Would you tell her what you did with that mirror last night?”

“I haven't done so, but if you give me permission I will.”

Courtesans have to be the most secretive of people, and he knows that.

“Do so, then.” He leaned back to watch.

“I invoked a fiend last night, love,” I said. “Dangerous but necessary. That's why I went to the church this morning.” I knew she would have heard about the fight that was the talk of the parish. “The demon showed me the face of the poisoner, and today I went calling on him with Filiberto Vasco. The spy was Karagounis, not his servant. When we questioned him he saw the game was up and jumped out a window. About now the
vizio
must be trying to explain why he brought in a dead spy. I wish him luck, very bad luck. But the case is closed. The would-be assassin was a Turkish agent. The procurator's death was an accident, when their glasses got switched. The real plot was to kill the doge, who had been cleverly lured to the meeting.”

“Well, I'm sorry about the old man,” Violetta said softly. “I am glad we don't have to suspect poor Bianca.” She was Niobe, an aspect of her I rarely see, the sorrowing mother. Bellini or del Piombo would have taken one look at her and painted her at the foot of the cross for all eternity to admire.

“We need not bother Bianca,” I said happily. “The case is closed.”

“Indeed?” the Maestro murmured.

I almost fell off my chair in alarm. “Am I missing something?”

“You missed something last night,” he said with quiet satisfaction. I detest that sleepy look he puts on. He was going to make me look stupid in front of Violetta.

I spoke through clenched teeth. “Instruct me, master.”

“You are looking for a simple solution after I warned you the matter was complex.” He bunched his cheeks into a mocking smirk. “Evil is rarely simple. Yes, I've told you that often enough, but you must also remember that, while fiends are not as clever as certain nuns, they do know their business. A fiend making a mistake would be very unlikely to commit a lesser evil instead of a greater, and yet you are telling me that the fiend-ridden Karagounis poisoned a harmless old man instead of the Republic's head of state. How very curious! A demon would be much more inclined to err the other way, like a dog spurning fresh meat in favor of a stinking heap of carrion. If the fiend had the chance—by design or by accident—to poison
Nasone
and did not do so, then the fiend must have been on the track of some greater evil. We must hope that today's incident has balked it.”

Violetta was silent, watching us both without expression. She must see how the old scoundrel was baiting me.

I said, “You are telling me that Alexius Karagounis did not murder Procurator Orseolo despite what the other demon showed me?”

He nodded smugly. “The logic is inescapable. How exactly did you command the fiend?” He knew that. I had reported every word.

“First, a negative—to go away ‘if there was no murderer present on San Valentine's Eve last in the room in…' Oh, confound it!” What I actually thought was
Damn you!
which is what Putrid had said to me.

“You have it now?”

“Well, I don't!” Violetta said loyally, probably lying to make me feel better.

“A murderer,” I said, “is a person who has murdered another. The old man did not die until the following day, so the poisoner was not a murderer until then—unless he had killed someone else previously, I mean. Until Orseolo actually died, the crime was merely attempted murder. I should have specified
poisoner
, not murderer.”

The Maestro picked it up. “Alfeo's tame fiend would normally have taken him exactly at his word and gone away, to mislead him into thinking that there had been no killer present. But there
was
a murderer present, one of the sultan's assassins. The demon would undoubtedly have preferred not to betray that one, because the man had the potential to do much greater evil in the future, but it had to obey Alfeo's command.”

“What greater evil, Maestro?” Violetta asked anxiously.

“Hell alone knows,” I said. “Karagounis was setting himself up in the city, planning to marry so he could stay here. He had Ottone Imer in his pocket. He organized the book sale so he could meet rich and important people. He must have had some long-range plan. In a few years he might have become truly dangerous.”

He had already been dangerous enough to shed some of my blood that morning. He had known my name and face. Who else but his demon could have warned him about me and told him to send
bravi
after me? Or tracked me down in the church, a place I do not go as often as I should.

Violetta looked from me to the Maestro and back again. “So who did kill Procurator Orseolo?”

We both shrugged.

“It is no longer our concern,” I said. “The Ten do not know about the demons. They may suspect that our information was unholy, but the Maestro's skills are often useful to them, so they prefer not to ask, and they do keep the Inquisition away. Vasco recognized Karagounis's name, so he was already under suspicion. The Ten will accept that he tried to poison the doge and failed to…”

My master was smirking again. “But the doge was not there, was he?”

“Not officially,” I admitted. “But a man who was there later jumped out a window before the
vizio
could ask him questions. Won't the Ten accept the Greek's guilt?”

He stuck out his goatee stubbornly. “I won't! I have my reputation to consider. The real culprit committed a murder in my presence, and I want to see him die between the columns! Besides, you haven't told me why Karagounis killed himself.”

Puzzled, I said, “To avoid being tortured?”

“Why should that bother a demon? Surely the fiend that possessed Karagounis could have prevented him from giving away any secrets? It would have enjoyed his agonies.”

Violetta frowned. “It sacrificed the pawn for some later advantage?”

The Maestro drew back his lips in his implied smile, but I could see he had wanted to reveal this himself. “You are a much better chess player than Alfeo, madonna. Whatever the Greek was up to, and Alfeo may be right on that, I don't believe that he poisoned the procurator.”

“You know who did?” Aspasia demanded.

Again he smiled. “I have known for some time, but I want to find out what more evil remains to be uncovered and I must have evidence to convince the council of Ten.”

I held back an angry comment. Either he was just strutting to impress Violetta or he had let me invoke a fiend when he already knew the murderer's name.

Aspasia glanced at me and then said, “Maestro, I understand why you won't tell me who poisoned the procurator, but why won't you tell Alfeo?”

He shook his head so hard that his wattles flapped. “Alfeo's face gives him away every time. Look at him now—he's angry and can't hide it. He would speak quite differently to the murderer than he does to the innocent witnesses. Alfeo, you must visit with Bianca Orseolo. If anyone saw the murder committed, she did. And we still don't know why Pasqual Tirali went to the book display, do we? That was quite a detour if he was taking his companion to the Lido.”

Violetta did not rise to the bait.

I said, “I need dinner first. Can't you see just by looking at me how hungry I am?”

G
iorgio did not approve of a courtesan dressing as a nun; he rowed us in angry silence. I did not approve either, although I pulled down the blinds of the
felze
to enjoy the guilty fun of cuddling her. I could kiss her freely, because nuns do not wear face paint to smudge, but my talk was not romantic.

“If you are discovered, you will be whipped!” I told her. The thought of her flawless body being ripped and bruised by the lash made me feel ill.

“Nonsense!” she said. “It is Carnival! I brought a mask I can put on if I need to. And why are you wearing a sword? You can't fight on an injured leg.”

“I can if I must.” My calf had stopped bleeding at last—fortunately so, because I was going to run out of clothes soon. Bruno was sleeping off his laudanum, but I was resolved to go nowhere without my sword until we had all the fiends and murderers accounted for. “You would wear a Carnival mask in a house of mourning?”

She laughed and kissed my cheek. “Or I can claim to be a spy for the Ten.”

I shivered. “Don't joke about it.”

“I'm not one,” she said, “although I suspect many courtesans are. Would it put you off your game if you thought I was taking notes for
Circospetto
?”

Of course it would, but the idea that Raffaino Sciara might spend his days perusing hundreds of pornographic score sheets made me laugh out loud. I said, “It would inspire me to even more heroic efforts.” It was time to change the subject, and also the entertainment or I would become too distracted to think about business. “A question, love—Yesterday I asked you about the book viewing and you told me the foreigners' names. You even knew their address.”

Suddenly I was in grave danger.

“You dare ask him and I'll tear your eyes out.” Medea bared her teeth at me. She meant it, too.

“Pasqual?”

“I told you that in confidence, and only because you already knew who escorted me that night. I
never
discuss my patrons!”

“I won't mention it, I promise!”

She mellowed slightly, into a still-angry Aspasia. “He is no friend of theirs, so far as I know—and I would know. He told me about them afterwards. He said they've been turning up at auctions and making fools of themselves.”

“I didn't know Pasqual collected old books.”

“He doesn't. He collects antiquities—King Cheops's mummy or busts of Julius Caesar. Have you ever noticed how many famous Romans had no noses?”

I laughed and changed the subject by asking about Bianca Orseolo. One of the rewards of being a procurator of San Marco is being housed at state expense in the Procuratie, the long building along the north side of the Piazza. Although it is less than a hundred years old, it is already being called the Old Procuratie because they are building a Procuratie Nuovo on the south side. We were almost there.

Aspasia said, “She's about sixteen, and a complete innocent, reared in a convent. Her mother was called to the Lord last year and since then she has lived with her grandfather as a companion and, I suppose, hostess, although I doubt if the old man entertained at all. Her father lives at the Ca' Orseolo and her brother is off on the mainland. She must be terribly lonely. Likely her duties were just to keep an eye on the old man, because he was unsteady on his feet. And in his head. I got the impression that he had become very difficult, but she seems to mourn him deeply.”

“Too deeply?”

Hesitation…“I don't know her well enough to say.”

“How old is her brother?”

“Benedetto? Early twenties. Neither he nor his father was at the Imer party, so neither could be the murderer, right?”

“I'd think so. You said Bianca had a motive.”

“I did not say she committed the crime, though.” Aspasia made a moue of disapproval. “The old man wanted…was
insisting
that she return to the convent and take her vows. Bianca's a lively child, or would be if she got the chance. She did not want to. Now her father is head of the family, and he may be more understanding.”

“I would certainly consider murder if anyone tried to force me into a monastery,” I said. “I would negotiate on a nunnery. She had two aunts who were nuns, according to Alessa.”

I should have known better. It was like asking the Pope about Martin Luther. Or vice versa.

“It's
disgusting
!” Aspasia said. “Do you know that at least
half
the noblewomen of this city are banished into convents and never marry? A family's accursed honor forbids a girl to marry down the social ladder, and very few families rank higher than Bianca's. That same stupid honor would require that she bring her husband a gigantic dowry, tens of thousands of ducats!”

“The law forbids huge dowries.”

“But who obeys the law? No family can easily part with that sort of money. So the girl is cloistered and the family wealth stays with the sons.”

And sons brought in dowries. I bear a noble name. Someday a wealthy citizen may offer me a thousand or so ducats to marry one of his daughters and sire patrician grandsons for him, a gaggle of little Zenos.

Violetta was in full flood now. “Then they wonder why their sons have trouble finding noble brides. Of course it's all right for
men
to marry beneath them, just as long as the brides have money and not too many brothers. Pasqual's father applied for permission to marry a citizen's daughter and the Great Council held its nose and approved. The marriage restored the family fortune and hasn't even hurt his political career. But Pasqual is an only child. His parents are nagging him to marry and produce an heir.”

A few of the old clans have grown enormously, so there can be fifty members of the Great Council with the same family name—some fabulously rich and some mouse-poor, like me. Others trimmed the herd too small and died out.

Violetta had not done. “Do you know that some fathers have forced their daughters to take their vows at knife point?”

Yes I did, but such things are better not discussed. A mere courtesan should not speak ill of her betters. Alarmed, I said, “Beloved, just what did you say to Bianca in your tête-à-tête yesterday?”

She shrugged as if the question was completely unimportant. “I just told her a few things she did not know. She has no one to turn to, you know, no one at all. No mother or sisters to advise her. All her childhood friends are still in the convent. The Church and the state and the men in her family are all against her.”

“Merciful God, woman, if you advised a procurator's daughter to take up a career as a prostitute, they will pillory you! They'll brand you, deport you…I don't know what all they'll do to you!”

“I did nothing of the kind,” Aspasia said stiffly. “I told you she was trained in a
convent
! What do you suppose she knows about Ovid or Boccaccio? She knows no songs but psalms. There is only one way she could entertain a man, and that is the least part of a courtesan's repertoire. I told her that she was crazy to prefer marriage, that many noblewomen are confined even more strictly than nuns. They are assigned husbands for dynastic reasons, usually much older men, and they often lack even the benefit of company.”

“Thank Heaven!” I said, convinced that I was not hearing the whole truth.

“Of course I did have to agree with her that most, or at least many, young wives acquire a
cavaliere servente
to brighten their lives while their husbands are occupied with business affairs.”

I shuddered.

“I also listed,” she conceded, “some of the more liberal houses, like San Zaccaria, where the sisters' habits are of attractive cut and decent fabric, not just sackcloth bags, where the diet and the prayer regimen are not too tyrannical. Where they allow music and so on.”

“That's all right, I suppose,” I said doubtfully.

“Or San Lorenzo, Maddalena, San Secondo, and some on the mainland and outer islands that are even more forgiving, like San Giovanni Evangelista di Torcello—”

“A common brothel!”

“It has unusually relaxed views, but there are many where the sisters are allowed to entertain friends in the parlor, even friends with whiskers. And so on.”

“But you did not suggest she become a courtesan, did you?”

“I answered all her questions,” Aspasia said evasively. “She asked me how I got started and what sort of money one could earn. I told her about secret marriages, which the Church recognizes and the state does not, and what an outraged father can or can not do about it afterwards—especially to the bridegroom, of course. About how a girl might find a trainer and a protector…Useful information that she wanted to have.”

I shuddered even harder. “Did you mention pox and pimps and turning tricks in alleys?”

“I told her that few were as successful as I am. Do you honestly suspect that sweet child of murdering her grandfather?”

“She had the best opportunity,” I said, happy to return to the safer subject of murder. “Who else knew that he was drinking retsina? She must have been close enough to hear him choose it. The servant said he laughed. Doesn't that suggest a family joke and an audience to appreciate it?”

“How distinctive is the poison's taste?”

“We don't know,” I admitted weakly. “We assume it had a strong flavor and therefore the fact that he chose that wine was important.”

“If you are going to argue that way,” Minerva said, “then you must explain how she knew that retsina would be available. It's rarely served even in the great houses, and I would not expect to see it offered at a party given by a citizen attorney.”

“You know more about that than I do.”

“Or Nostradamus.”

“He doesn't get out much,” I agreed. She was right, as always. The murderer must have carried the poison to the reception, so the crime was premeditated, but then to count on the victim drinking or eating something with a very powerful flavor seemed strangely hit-and-miss. “Who, apart from Imer and Karagounis knew there would be retsina available?”

“Let's ask Bianca,” Violetta said as the gondola nudged against a mooring post.

I gripped her arm. “You wait here! It's far too dangerous for you to go around masquerading as a nun. Suppose we run into her father?”

“Her brother would be more dangerous.” Medea struck my hand away, scorching me with a warning glare. “Just how do you think an unknown, unattached young man like you is going to get in to speak with an unmarried girl of her lineage and upbringing? On the very day of her grandfather's funeral? You are not usually so stupid, Alfeo Zeno.”

“Ah, flattery!” I stepped ashore and handed her up beside me. She turned to the nearest door, and I said, “No, this way.”

“You have been here before?”

“Two years ago. I delivered the procurator's horoscope.” Then I had been sent around to the tradesmen's entrance, but I had argued my way up into the state rooms by refusing to deliver the scroll to anyone other than the great man himself. I had been tantalized by glimpses of marvelous paintings that I had not been able to examine properly.

This time I expected a tomb of a house, draped in mourning and silent as the streets of Atlantis, but a barge tied up at the steps was half full of furniture. Two workmen came out carrying a chest. On our way upstairs we passed a team bringing down a wardrobe.

“The family has three days to move out,” Violetta told me.

“That seems cruelly soon.”

“It is usual. Funeral this morning; tomorrow they will accept condolences in the palace courtyard. The Great Council will elect a new procurator on Sunday. You can be certain that vote buying and arm twisting have already begun.” That was Aspasia speaking, of course.

“Surely the family will have already gone to the Ca' Orseolo?” I said.

A line of workmen ran up past us to fetch more furniture.

“She said not yet.” Helen wafted her lashes at the harassed young doorman who accosted us. “Sister Maddalena and
sier
Alfeo Zeno, to see Madonna Bianca.”

He had certainly expected me to speak, not her, and was perhaps startled to discover that nuns even had eyelashes. Confused, he mumbled, “The family is not receiving visitors today, sister.”

“Madonna Bianca agreed to receive us this afternoon.”

Understandably, he went and fetched the majordomo, who frowned suspiciously at me, as if trying to remember where he had seen me before. He was older and less susceptible to eyelashes, but Helen had already lowered her veil and yielded place to Aspasia, who explained about her friendship with Bianca and their appointment for this afternoon. We were shown into a reception room overlooking the Piazza. Violetta swept forward to look out the window, while I followed unhappily, squirming at intruding on a family's bereavement—we were not even wearing mourning! Half the room had already been stripped of furniture. Two men followed us in and left with a bundle that probably contained a harpsichord. I had mad visions of being left behind, locked up in an empty apartment with Violetta.