The Alchemist's Code (18 page)

“Just what do you imply, then?” the big man demanded angrily.

“That there is some cursed item in your house that is spreading evil as the miasma of a fetid marsh spreads fever. It is a talisman in reverse, a source of misfortune instead of good. Whatever it is, it should be hunted down and destroyed. Alfeo can at least identify the source of the evil for you.”

Zuanbattista's beard writhed in disbelief. “And how does he do that?”

I raised my chin so I would look competent and fearless, instead of just bewildered.

“He knows what to look for,” the Maestro said. “He will be guided by the man from Vicenza.”

I still did not understand, but I could guess that he wanted a free hand without Filiberto Vasco underfoot, and the only way to get rid of him was to get rid of me. I just hoped the separation would not be too permanent.

Sanudo glared at me, dropping his patrician inscrutability. “When was Zeno consecrated bishop or elected state inquisitor? Have I not enough troubles that I have to put up with him again?”

“There is no harm in letting the lad try,” Ottone Gritti said with a benevolent smile. “I shall be most interested to see how he goes about it.”

Sanudo sighed. “Very well. If I must carry the camel, I will not count the fleas.”

D
own at the watergate, Ottone Gritti was still very much in charge. He bid farewell to the Sanudos, promising to follow them shortly. Had he written it in fire, the message could have been no plainer:
If you murdered Dolfin, fly for your lives.
A less-exalted family would not have been given such a chance, but some senior patricians guilty of major crimes have been allowed to go into voluntary exile and return when the fuss has died down, after having negotiated a massive fine. There were extenuating circumstances when the victim had been a gigolo and legally a rapist. There was a second message, too. Treason was much worse than murder, and Gritti would not extend such mercy to suspected traitors. He must be very sure that the Sanudos were not involved in espionage. What did he know that I did not?

After we had bowed the Sanudos away along the canal, he turned to me.

“
Sier
Alfeo, I should have asked the good doctor this, but he has obviously trained you well, so give me your expert opinion. You mentioned internal bleeding. How much external bleeding occurred, would you estimate?”

For a man in his position to flatter a youngster like me in this way was so out of character it was almost farce. It alarmed me greatly.

“I am no expert, Your Excellency! I am certainly not a doctor. Your own opinion on such matters would be worth far more than mine would. But since you honor me by asking, I note that the corpse's garments were drenched with blood, so whatever surface he was lying on must have been stained at the very least. The mud on the rest of his clothing indicates that he died outdoors, so the storm may have washed away the evidence by now.”

He nodded gravely, as if my words were a promulgation from the University of Padua. “That is a danger, certainly, but the matter is important.” He turned to one of his
fanti
, the same Marco Martini who had summoned the Maestro two days before. The other, a taller man of about the same middle years, I later learned was Amedeo Bolognetti.

“Marco,” Gritti said, “I want you to scout the parish. Search the
calli
and
campi
for bloodstains. The dead man bled to death a few hours before the rain started. Amedeo, deliver this letter to the
Signoria
and then find out from the chiefs if any bloodstains have been reported in the city. Report to me at Ca' Donato Maddalena.”

They boarded the government gondola and their boatmen pushed off, letting Marco disembark at the end of the
calle
. That left Gritti, Vasco, a surprised-looking Giorgio, and me.

The old man smiled fondly. “You will not mind company when you call on madonna Corner?”

Of course I bowed acquiescence. “Your support is welcome and an honor, Excellency. Campo San Barnaba, please,” I told Giorgio.

Gritti boarded and placed himself in the
felze
. When I tried to join him he waved me forward. “You sit there. The
vizio
is too conspicuous.”

That left me out in the drizzle, of course, facing Gritti and a smug Vasco under the
felze
, but in truth the rain was a relief after the long months of heat. Soon we were gliding along, as Giorgio's oar stroked the rain-dappled waters. On either hand the centuries flowed by—a fourteenth-century building, a fifteenth, then a twelfth, a modern sixteenth. Soon we should start on the seventeenth, which would seem odd. Gondolas passed us and followed us. Even on such a drab day, gondoliers sang on the water and canaries in high windows.

“I should explain,
clarissimo
,” I said, “that I never counted Danese Dolfin among my friends. He certainly never behaved like a friend to me. Why he told his wife otherwise I cannot imagine. He must have lied about his mother's name and address, too.”

“Some liars need no reason, alas,” the inquisitor said. “They seem to feel they have failed if they have to speak the truth.” Probably nobody knew more about the subject than he, but he was still playing his jocular, grandfatherly role. “Tell me how one goes about identifying a jinx. Should you not have brought some equipment with you? A bible? A trained cat?”

No scribes stood ready to write down my words. If I asked him, he would assure me that they would not be quoted against me, but that would not stop him from asking the same questions again in more stressful circumstances—as, for example, when my wrists were tied behind me and taking my weight as I dangled on the strappado.

Fortunately I had worked out by then what the Maestro had hinted. I wanted to strangle him for not telling me sooner, because he had known something I had not, but perhaps he was not as sure as he had pretended.

“If my master meant what I think he did, Your Excellency, then I can just point and you will understand. If I am wrong, then I won't be able to identify anything. Nostradamus is often needlessly cryptic, as you know.”

He chuckled. “I think you are picking up the habit. Tell me about the fire elementals.”

Warning bells rang.

“According to theory, Your Excellency, one would identify the source of evil by invoking fire elementals, which are—”

“Morally neutral. I read your master's testimony. I am not certain Holy Mother Church agrees with his interpretation, but carry on. What is involved?”

“Much hocus-pocus, but basically it meant sitting in front of a fire and daydreaming.”

“And what did you see?”

He sounded genuinely interested. I am sure he was, because almost anything I said could be taken as an admission of witchcraft. I reminded myself that I was dealing with a fanatic. “I saw many things. Shoes and olive trees, galleons and bell towers. Women. Just daydreams. No demons, no Algol.” To confess that I had seen the murder before it happened would be fatal: Exodus 22:28, Deuteronomy 18:10.

“Who killed Dolfin?”

“I have no idea,
clarissimo
.”

“But you have suspicions. Tell me.”

I was flattered that he thought my opinion worth listening to, but a friendly chat with Ottone Gritti was a romp with a full-grown leopard. “Any man can be stabbed in the back. But the sword that killed Danese was his sword, legally mine of course; I mean he was wearing it. Only an agile and strong opponent could disarm him in a hand-to-hand struggle. When he stole my rapier, he should have taken my dagger as well!” I patted it, dangling at my right side. My sword was back in place on my left, and comforting. “The sword was left behind, so the motive was not theft, and a random killer would not have known to dump his body at Ca' Barbolano.”

Gritti was listening with flattering attention. “So?”

“A hired bravo seems most likely,
clarissimo
, and there are many such ruffians to be had. So the question becomes, who hired him? Just about anyone in the Sanudo family had a motive.
Sier
Zuanbattista and his wife have been made laughingstocks, politically and socially.
Sier
Girolamo to a lesser extent, but there are rumors that his interest in Dolfin was less than honorable. Any of them may have wished to rescue Grazia from a potentially disastrous marriage. And she may have realized her mistake, although I see no practical means for a lady of her age and station to go out and hire a killer. As you said yourself, Your Excellency, Dolfin was a lecher, so even the servants might have had motives.” I waited for comment, and when there was none continued, “I would like to know where Girolamo was at the time of the murder.”

“Ask him.”

Puzzled, I said, “Your Excellency?”

“Ask him. I mean it!” The inquisitor smiled with secret amusement. “He will tell you the truth. Your list of motives leaves out the one that interests me most. If either Zuanbattista or his son is Algol, then Danese may have stumbled on the secret and been killed to keep him from revealing it.”

Gritti was playing games with me. He was very sure that neither Sanudo was the spy, and by then I had worked out why. It made sense and it complicated things. If the Sanudos were not traitors it was much harder to see them as murderers.

“It would have to have been done very quickly,” I said, “because Danese was no hero, as I told you.
Sier
Zuanbattista grabbed him,
sier
Girolamo disarmed him and stabbed him? There should be traces of blood somewhere in their house. Why did he come for his sword? Why did he steal mine? Was the agitation that Giorgio reported just impatience because he was keeping a gondola waiting?”

I persisted, because murder was a safer topic than pyromancy. “I have read only one page of the Algol documents and that dealt with naval matters. I know another began by naming the Council of Ten, but I don't know what came after. Perhaps it went on to report nothing more earthshattering than last month's edict on men's clothing. Yet I must assume from your own interest in these events, Excellency, that the dispatches contained significant leaks of state intelligence.”

The grandfather mask slipped slightly. “Assume anything you like, but be careful whom you tell it to.”

“I do not make so terrible an allegation against such honored noblemen,” I protested. “Indeed it is obvious that they are not guilty. No one would dream of suspecting them were it not that
sier
Zuanbattista is a ducal counselor and
sier
Girolamo a minister of navy. I don't suppose that combination occurs in any other family in the Republic at the moment.”

Gritti sighed, but continued to watch me closely. “It doesn't. Why do you say that they are obviously not guilty?”

“Because you clearly do not believe they are or you would have used the murder as a pretext to arrest them and search their house. I wonder if perhaps the information in Algol's dispatches, although basically correct and damaging, also contained some errors that neither Sanudo would have made?”

The old villain could not be trapped so easily. “The inquisitor asks the questions, Alfeo.”

I squirmed. “Yes,
clarissimo
.”

“
Vizio
, are you quite certain that Nostradamus did not decipher more than one page and the opening words of two more?”

“Quite certain, Your Excellency.”

The deceptively benevolent gaze came back to me again. “Are you by any chance one of those tricksters who can memorize pages of text at a glance, Alfeo? Is Nostradamus?”

“He is much better at it than I am,” I said. “But memorizing a page of text is easy compared to memorizing a page of random letters. Neither of us could have done that, not even one page. I know, because I tried.”

Our boat turned into the Rio di San Barnaba and the old church loomed up on our left, with the
campo
beyond. The rain made it less busy than it would normally be and the gossip crowd around the wellhead smaller.

I said, “The
campo
watersteps please, Giorgio. Madonna Corner used to live over there, Excellency—the brown house, top floor.”

The old man had already drawn the curtain. “It would have to be the top floor, of course. The
vizio
and I are too conspicuous. We shall remain under cover while you find out where she is now.”

H
ad I needed to visit the group gathered around the wellhead, I might have been detained there all day, but I had the good fortune to cross the path of old Widow Calbo, who remembered me very well. She had never tolerated idle chatter and still did not, so I soon returned to the gondola to report that madonna Agnese Corner still lived where she had when I had left San Barnaba and she took in lodgers. I offered a hand to help Gritti disembark.

“You fetch a priest,” he told Vasco. “But very slowly. Zeno, come with me.”

No stranger in patrician robes and elongated Council of Ten sleeves could cross the
campo
without attracting attention, but the sight was not rare enough to attract a crowd. The
vizio
heading for the church drew more stares, distracting attention from Gritti and his apprentice companion.

I knew those stairs. A dozen years ago I had run errands up and down them and scores like them all over San Barnaba. I knew every worn and cracked step, every broken pane in the windows, every tilted landing. Long-forgotten smells still lingered; the cough on the second floor had not killed its owner yet. I could almost feel the handles of the ancient water buckets I had carried biting my hands. Gritti trod a slower pace than my young self had used, and he halted a few steps from the top, although he did not seem breathless.

“You go ahead, Zeno. I hate the sight of women's tears.”

But not the sound of men's screams? I went on alone. From there he would be able to hear what was said.

There were four doors. I knocked on the one I remembered as hers. I could hear water dripping from a leaky roof and the air was still unpleasantly warm, despite the rain. This attic would have been an oven for the last six months.

After a while I began to feel hopeful that the lady was not at home and I could escape the terrible duty. I knocked again, louder. A door creaked behind me and I knew I was being watched, but that is normal and even commendable.

“Who's there?” asked a voice I recalled at once, a deep voice for a woman.

“Alfeo Zeno, madonna. Remember me?”

A bolt rattled and she opened the door. I remembered her as a tall and grand lady, flaunting the fine clothes she wore when her husband held office on the mainland, although in retrospect I suppose they had been remarkable only by the standards of the
barnabotti
. She was shorter than me now and the fine garments had no doubt long vanished into the pawnshops of the Ghetto Nuovo. She had the light at her back as she inspected me, but I could see the sagging flesh of her face and the hump of age only too well.

“Yes, I remember you. It won't be good news brought you, I vow.”

“No, madonna. It is not.” My conscience rebelled at the prospect of letting Gritti continue standing there, eavesdropping on her sorrow. “May I come in?” Let him reveal himself if he wanted to hear.

“No,” she said. “I have work to do. Tell me and begone. What has he done now?”

I opened my mouth to ask
Who?
and the contempt in her eye stopped me. “He…was in a fight, madonna. Danese was.”

“He's dead you mean?”

I nodded. “God rest his soul, ma'am.” I crossed myself; she did not.

Indeed she shrugged and I thought she was going to try to close the door in my face. Clearly she was not going to weep, certainly not where I could see her and perhaps not at all. She was a daughter of one of the great families, but of an impoverished branch. Life had long since wrung all the weeping out of Agnese Corner that it was ever going to get.

“How?”

“We don't know. He was stabbed with a rapier,” I said. “It must have been very quick,” I lied. “He…You do know that he was married?”

Finally I won a reaction from her—she laughed. “To a wealthy widow three times his age?”

“No, madonna. Wealthy, yes, but young. Grazia Sanudo, daughter of
sier
Zuanbattista and madonna Eva Morosini. You did not know this?”

She shook her head as if trying to rid her mouth of a bad taste. “I have not heard from my son since the day I found out where he was getting his money and how he earned it, and that was before he was shaving. I don't know if any of his sisters stayed in touch because I forbade them ever to mention him in my presence. So don't expect me to pay for his funeral. Nor mourn him, either.”

She could not have known that Gritti was listening. She must have known that neighbors were; she wanted them to hear. Her words roused ten years' sorrows like ghosts in the dusty hallway.

“His wife's family will attend to the rites. Danese did tell them that he had told you of his marriage.”

She laughed again.

“He did not come to see you last night?”

“He did not knock at my door and I would not have opened it if he had.”

I was sweating. I had never had a worse conversation with anyone and the knowledge that a state inquisitor was lurking just around the corner was not making me feel better. “Madonna, do you know anyone who might have had reason to want your son dead?”

“Any husband, father, or brother in Venice. Any woman or mother. I've heard good things of you, Alfeo. Thank you for coming.”

I removed my foot before she discovered it was there and the door closed.

The one behind me closed also. Bolts were shot simultaneously.

I went down three steps and found Gritti blocking my way.

“She already knew?” he demanded.

“I don't know,” I admitted. “I just don't know.”

“It's possible?”

“Yes,” I said. “It's possible. Please let's go before the priest comes.” I was in no state to face Father Equiano's reproaches.