The Alchemist's Pursuit (20 page)

“Thought so. What I heard . . . just hearsay, of course. It always is with the Ten. What I heard was that the Three just informed the Ten that they all agreed the boy was guilty, but he had fled abroad.”

No outsider was supposed to know even that much about the innermost workings of the government.

“The Three, then,” I said. “I need to know on what evidence the inquisitors convicted Zorzi Michiel of patricide.”

Celsi waggled his dewlaps at me. “Such a shame! I told you yesterday: if you'd asked me just a week ago, dear boy, I could have appealed to old Giovanni Gradenigo, but he's gone now. Agostino Foscari would have told me, but he went last year and his memory wasn't all that it should be by then anyway. That only leaves the other black, Tommaso Pesaro, and he's hopeless, tight as a coffin lid in a warm climate.”

So I said it. “There are files.”

Sier
Carlo leaned back in his chair and gazed very hard at me. “Your master is supposed to have safer ways than that of learning things. Safer in this life, anyway. We mundane mortals have to resort to such dealings, but he talks with the angels.”

“He still needs ordinary information to know what to ask for.”

“What of yourself, lad? Too many patricians disapprove of one of us running around after a leech. You, especially, should not take this risk, Alfeo.”

“Risk?” I said angrily. “Last night he slit my ribs. If he'd had a clear stroke at me, he'd have put the blade in my lung and I'd have bubbled to death in a few minutes. Even yet I may die of wound fever or lockjaw. Women are being murdered every day, almost, and you talk of risk,
clarissimo
?”

Still he hesitated, chewing his lip. Finally he nodded. “Very well. It will cost you a fortune.”

“How much?”

“At least two hundred ducats, maybe more. Only
Circospetto
has access to such files and he does not come cheap.”

I squirmed, because I had tangled with the Ten's chief secretary before. Although I had survived so far, he and I have no liking for each other. His relations with the Maestro were even worse, and we had never before tried to corrupt him.

“Sciara takes bribes?”

“They all do. He's cheap compared to the Grand Chancellor.”

“How do I go about it?”

“Midnight,” Celsi said, almost whispering. “It must be midnight or soon after. Calle Spadaria in San Zulian. About five doors in from the
campo
, you'll see a door with a grille in it but no knocker, no name or number. You knock two slow and three fast. Hold your light so your face is visible. If no one answers, you are refused. And take a sizable down payment with you.”

“I'll be there,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Be careful, lad,” he said wistfully. “I'd hate not to have your cheerful smile around here any more.”

A
s Giorgio expertly slid the boat up to the loggia of Ca' Barbolano, I broke the news that we'd be going out again, close to midnight. Boatmen for public hire are foul-mouthed hyenas and the privately employed ones are often not much better, but Giorgio never argues or complains.

“Far?”

“Near San Zulian. You decide where to let me off.” San Zulian parish is just north of the Piazza, in an area so congested that there is little water access and the
campo
itself is almost nonexistent. Raffaino Sciara, chief secretary to the Council of Ten, would naturally want to live close to the Doges' Palace, where he spends most of his waking hours. At two hundred ducats a handshake, he could afford to.

I carried the bow lantern upstairs while Giorgio stacked the oar and cushions in the
androne
under a barrage of Luigi's aimless chatter. The Maestro had gone to bed, no doubt with a raging headache, but he had left a prophecy whose writing and syntax were both much better than average. The meaning was as cryptic as ever.

 

I fetched the book of prophecies and selected a quill to transcribe this one. As always, it was ambiguous, haunting the borderlands of meaning, but the first line looked like a hint that Zorzi Michiel had returned from exile, or wanted to. The second could be a reference to bounty hunters or the Ten's assassins seeking him out wherever he tried to hide—the risk of discovery in Venice might be no greater. The third and fourth lines, I decided, would have to wait upon events.

This was Sunday, and the sixth commandment is definitely my favorite, but I couldn't settle to a book with my visit to
Circospetto
hanging over me, so I decided to catch up on my cleaning duties. I fetched a rag, the broom, and the feather duster.

That night I cleaned half the wall of books and the alchemy bench. I do not lift out the books—that takes me a couple of days when the Maestro decides it needs doing—so the bookshelves are little problem. But all the mortars, pestles, beakers, funnels, alembics, and other vessels have to be polished, all the reagent bottles wiped and their shelves also, so by the time I had come around to the door, it was too late to go any further.

Meanwhile I was worrying over Celsi's instructions to take a cash deposit with me. Having no experience in such matters, I should have asked him how much would be appropriate. Knowing better than to try and waken Nostradamus after a foreseeing, I decided to err on the high side, for to offer too little would get me and my proposal spurned. Fifty ducats would be ample, I decided, roughly a year's wages for a married journeyman artisan. I raided the secret cache for eighteen gold sequins, which I weighed carefully, then placed in a money pouch that I hung around my neck, inside my shirt. I also took some small change to buy off muggers if they were too many to fight. I entered the total in the ledger as expenses.

Back in my room to collect my sword and cloak, I decided I had just enough time to try a fast tarot reading. Of course urgency and apprehension make the worst possible state of mind to obtain a clear augury, so I should not have been surprised that the results seemed very mixed at first glance. Some cards made sense, others did not. I tucked them away in my memory and the deck under my pillow, then went to tell Giorgio it was time to go.

The night was quiet in San Remo, the sounds of Carnival far away and muffled. Even the Grand Canal was still when we reached it, reflecting the stars. The gibbous moon was close to the rooftops and blurred by haze as we glided through the night, and I sat in lonely silence in the
felze
, still searching for inner calm and understanding.

Tarot is limited in scope because it is restricted to seventy-eight cards, and only thirty-eight have pictures on them. The numbered cards can drop hints, of course, such as the three of swords to represent the state inquisitors, but the more pictures that turn up, the more explicit the reading. Although mine had been all in pictures, I could make very little sense of it.

The first card, representing the subject or the question, had been the knave of coins reversed, and that I could take as reference to my forthcoming efforts to suborn
Circospetto
, probably meaning that he would not be able to obtain the information I needed.

The lowermost card of the cross, for the danger or problem, was trump number eight, Justice, displaying a woman with a sword and scales. Had the card been reversed, I could have hoped that it was telling me that the inquisitors had wrongly convicted Zorzi Michiel. Since it wasn't, I had to take it as a warning that I was on my way to commit a major crime.

But the left-hand card, the helper or path, showed the second-highest trump, Judgment, with the angel blowing the trumpet and the dead rising from their graves. What sort of help was that? Did it mean I must wait until Judgment Day to learn the answers I sought? Again, I'd have preferred to see it reversed to indicate that Zorzi was innocent, or that he was figuratively returning from the dead. Again, the card was obstinately upright.

The right-hand card was from the minor arcana, the jack of swords as the snare to avoid. I have known that card to refer to me, which made no sense in this context, but it can also mean my old foe, Filiberto Vasco, the
vizio
—the king of swords would imply his superior,
Missier Grande
. I had no need of tarot to warn me to beware of Vasco. If he as much as caught me wearing a sword after dark he would turn me in to the night watch.

Which brought me to the most confusing card of the tarot deck. The top card of my spread had been trump number two, the Popess. Violetta's reading had shown the same card reversed as the snare to avoid, and here it had shown up again in mine, upright, showing the objective or solution.

What the Popess was doing in my reading I could not imagine. I knew of only three women involved in the case. Donna Alina Orio ought to be represented by the queen of coins, because she had wealth of her own. Possibly the Popess's religious implications might be stretched to indicate her daughter, Sister Lucretzia. It could not apply at all, so far as I could see, to Dom's wife, Isabetta Scorozini. If one of the murdered courtesans was intended, I could not see a connection yet.

I was still baffled about the tarot when Giorgio delivered me to watersteps on the Rio di San Zulian. I was no closer to understanding the Maestro's quatrain, either.

“If I'm not back in an hour go without me,” I told him with the best attempt at cheer I could manage. “I'll be home in the morning.”

“Give her my love, too,” he said, which was a surprisingly suggestive remark from him.

As I disembarked, I heard the clock in the Piazza chime midnight. I set off toward the church like a ghost, for my boots made little sound on the stones and I had brought a half-lantern, rather than a torch, so its glow lit the pavement below me and not my face. Carnival is a bad time to wander the streets alone, for the riotous gangs of revelers can be dangerous. Almost every window was dark and I met no one except a quartet of merrymakers, fortunately all too drunk and aroused even to notice me. They went staggering by, sniggering and arguing, with the men blatantly pawing their companions, obviously prostitutes.

I turned south along the Calle Spadaria, walking slowly so I could scan the doorways. Celsi had not said right or left.

My rapier flashed into my hand, for the sound had been close and—yes!—two golden eyes shone in front of me, on the edge of my puddle of lamplight.

“Arghrraw . . .”
it said again, more softly.

Find one rabid cat and of course you must expect many more, for they will bite one another. The city might be infested with them, although I had not heard anyone mention such a problem. I backed up a step.

The eyes advanced.
“Arghrraw!”

“Now look here, Felix,” I said sternly, having visions of needle teeth sunk in my ankle . . . But my mind must still have been grappling with the tarot and the quatrain because then I heard an inner voice that sounded much like the Maestro's:
“Be not so proud as to spurn help at your feet.”

A cat had led me to Alessa when she was ready to talk. A cat had found me refuge when the mob was after me. I backed up three steps.

“Arghrraw . . . Arghrraw . . .”
The cat followed, softer still, but more urgent.

A door opened not ten feet ahead of me. Although the light escaping from the entrance was in truth very faint, it seemed to flood the alley. It was not even bright enough to illuminate the man emerging, but I knew his voice.

“I will tell them. Good night to you,
lustrissimo
.”

“And to you,
capitano
,” Sciara replied.

By that time I had closed my lantern and was backed into a doorway, trying to make myself as flat as paint. If the departing visitor turned in my direction he would be certain to see me, even in the dark
calle
, for it was so narrow I would be within arm's length of him. He would hear my heart thundering like a charge of heavy cavalry.

No. Saints be praised,
vizio
Filiberto Vasco went the other way, toward the Piazza and the Doges' Palace. His boots tapped off into the night, the puddle of light from his lantern danced around his feet, and Raffaino Sciara closed his door.

I stood where I was until I stopped shaking, which took several minutes. My tarot had warned me of the jack of swords, the quatrain had told me to accept help at my feet. Had the cat not delayed me, I would have rapped on that door while Vasco was standing on the other side of it, and I had no imaginable reason to be calling on Raffaino Sciara even in broad daylight, let alone at midnight. Had I been betrayed? Had Celsi reported what I planned? Or his servant? I assured myself that there were a dozen reasons why
Missier Grande
might have sent his lackey to ask Sciara something or tell Sciara something, and none of them need have anything to do with me.

For a third time cats had helped me—except that it must obviously be the same cat and more than just a cat. It might be a demon from hell, but I was going to give it the benefit of the doubt from now on. I opened my lantern and saw the cat sitting in the middle of the
calle
, watching me and licking a paw.

“Thanks, Felix.”

“Arghrraw . . .”
It stood up and paraded southward, tail high, until it stood in front of the door with the grille,
Circospetto
's door, the door that
vizio
Vasco had just left.

A
cat
was telling me that it was safe to proceed and I was crazy.