The Alchemist's Code

by Dave Duncan

  “Our prima colazione is ready, master,” I said hopefully.

  “Your Excellency,” Missier Grande said, “I should see the vizio home.”

  “Not just yet.” Gritti walked over to one the green chairs and turned it so he could include Vasco in his field of view. “First I want answers to a couple of questions.”

  “As you please,” the Maestro said with unusual amiability.

  He hobbled to his red chair, leaning on furniture because he had left his staff there. I went to my side of the desk and sat. Missier Grande remained standing. The two fanti were out in the androne, watching through the open door and within easy hail.

  “Doctor Nostradamus,” Gritti said, staring intently at him, “yesterday you did not know who Algol was. Do not interrupt me! If you had known you would have said so, and you didn’t. You merely said you would tell me today, and this morning you sent your boy all the way to the Giudecca to accost a man who had not previously been mentioned in this case. To the best of my recollection, the name of Francesco Guarini has never been brought before the Ten. I grant you that his reaction to Zeno’s summons was suspicious and his violence against the vizio will send him to the galleys, but where is your evidence that he has anything to do with either the Algol matter or the death of Danese Dolfin? Explain.”

  The Maestro leaned back, rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, and put his fingertips together, five and five. That almost always means that he is about to start lecturing, but for once it did not.

  “The revered and mighty Council of Ten does not reveal all its methods, Your Excellency. I have my own professional secrets and need them to earn my living. I assure you that you have your man and a couple of witnesses are available. With a little encouragement, Guarini will confess to everything.”

  Inquisitors do not take kindly to defiance. Indeed, they take very cruelly to it, and Gritti’s smile clotted my blood like butter. “But it is you I am presently encouraging. You will tell me how you learned his name. I will know who told you, and when. I am prepared to go to great lengths to get the truth.”

  There was the ultimatum. We were back to the question of how much torture a frail octogenarian could stand, and who else might be questioned in his stead. Gritti meant what he was saying. He was clearly prepared to accept as a working hypothesis that Guarini was Algol and would solve both the espionage case and the murder for him. Now he was investigating the problem of black magic. He had the scent of witchcraft in his nostrils and a true fanatic sees witchcraft as much worse than espionage.

  “I am not prepared to tell you at this time,” the Maestro said calmly, making as if to rise. “After we have eaten I may say more on the topic, but I believe it is irrelevant.”

  “It is relevant if I say it is!” The inquisitor’s rubicund face darkened a few shades.

  “But I know the details and you do not.” If the Maestro was deliberately trying to get both himself and me arrested, he was certainly proceeding in the correct manner.

  “Filippo Nostradamus, I am aware of your international reputation as a doctor. I am also aware of your reputation as a philosopher who dabbles in the dark arts, and I fear that this time you have dabbled much deeper than any Christian should, or can without selling his soul to the Enemy. I am aware that you have served La Serenissima well in the past, but I will not and cannot tolerate Satanism. How did you learn that Algol was Francesco Guarini?”

  “Black magic,” said Filiberto Vasco.

  Heads turned. Now who was the life of the party?

  “You have our attention, Vizio,” the inquisitor said.

  Judging by his gleeful expression, Vasco was rising above his pain. “When Zeno knocked on Guarini’s door, Guarini called out to ask who he was.” His voice was muffled and slurred by all the wine that he had consumed, but he was not too drunk to know what he was saying, and he was looking at me, not Gritti, gloating over worse tales he had yet to tell. “Zeno wouldn’t tell him. First he asked for Guarini by name. Then he asked for ‘Mirphak.’ And finally he said that the dead man sent him!”

  “Mirphak?” Gritti looked to me.

  I hope my smile was debonair and not grotesque. “A shot in the dark, Your Excellency. Algol is the second brightest star in the constellation of Perseus. Mirphak is the brightest. If one was a code name, then the other might be. I was hoping it might provoke a guilty reaction.”

  Undeceived, the inquisitor shook his head contemptuously and looked back to Vasco, who probably tried to smile, because he winced with sudden pain.

  “But when Zeno said, ‘Danese Dolfin sent me,’ Guarini threw the door open and attacked him.”

  “That one worked,” I explained brightly.

  And that one worked for Gritti, too. It would have been a believable ruse for me to try, and it had produced a convincing indication of guilt. He shrugged.

  “It was true,” Vasco protested. “Dolfin did send him! That was how they learned the name. Last night, Nostradamus and Zeno raised the ghost of Danese Dolfin and made it tell them who murdered him.”

  “Head injuries,” the Maestro muttered sadly. “Difficult prognosis. Prolonged rest is indicated.”

  “No, he’s just drunk,” I said. “He never can hold his liquor. After all that lost blood, he’s sprung his timbers.”

  “Over there?” Vasco pointed. “There’s a spyhole beside the mirror. I watched from the dining room. I saw it all! I heard the ghost speak in Dolfin’s voice!”

  Missier Grande strode over to inspect. “That is correct,” he announced. “There is a spyhole and the cover is currently open.”

  I felt as if I had been clubbed between the eyes. How had he done that? Someone might have opened it that morning, but I was certain I had seen it closed last night before we began our séance. Had Vasco himself used occult means to open the shutter so he could spy on us?

  “Necromancy?” Gritti declaimed. “In all my years I have never heard a more terrible accusation. “Missier Grande, take Nostradamus and Zeno to the palace and lock them in separate cells. They are to be charged with practicing Satanism.”

  “I’m ravenous,” I said. “Providing first aid to critically wounded comrades is very hunger-making work and I need my breakfast. Mama Angeli has prepared a marvelous prima colazione in your honor, Excellency. Can’t we eat first?”

  The inquisitor stood up. “No,” he said. “I will not sup at the table of a man I believe to be an agent of the Fiend.”

  “This is ridiculous!” roared the Maestro. “That boy is confused by concussion and also quite obviously drunk, and yet you accept his wild allegations as reliable testimony? Am I an idiot that I would perform forbidden rites where he could overlook me, when I knew he was in the house? Do you think we don’t know the spyhole is there? If you think I am so senile that I would forget about it, do you believe Alfeo would? Your Excellency, you are running a travesty of an investigation!”

  Ignoring the tirade, Gritti had beckoned in the two fanti, but I reached the Maestro first and helped him up. I handed him his staff and gave him my arm to lean on. If he was going to be humiliated by being carried off like baggage to jail, then the least I could do was help him postpone the indignity as long as possible. Besides, I did not have my sword with me, so I couldn’t put the time to better use by sending Vasco to hell with a warning I was coming.

  I had always overestimated that dog’s human qualities.

  We shuffled out into the salone. The Angelis were emerging from the kitchen, just about all of them, and Bruno was with them. Bruno was going to be a problem. Already he was sensing the tension and frowning. The fanti would have to carry the Maestro downstairs and the moment they laid hands on him, Bruno was going to charge along the hall like my father’s galley at Lepanto.

  “Can you manage the stairs?” Missier Grande asked Vasco, eyeing the group of us. The Maestro must be carried, I must be watched, he had only two able-bodied men to assist him, and he must realize that Vasco would be in danger if he stayed around C
a’ Barbolano unprotected.

  “Do let me assist,” I said. “I’ll give him a helping foot.”

  Someone rapped the front door knocker.

  33

  Force of habit sent me to open the door and nobody moved to stop me. Outside, beaming, stood sier Alvise Barbolano in his formal nobile homo robe, or as much of it as the moths had left. At his side simpered madonna Maddalena compressed into a puce brocade gown that had been the fashion and perhaps her size about when I was born. She was ballasted by a display of jewelry that would have surprised the Sultan.

  “We are not too late, I hope?” sier Alvise demanded.

  I stopped gaping and bowed low to stimulate blood flow to my brain, but all too soon I had to straighten up and speak. “Right on time, I’d say, clarissimo. Oh, madonna, what a tragedy that Titian did not live to paint you!”

  “He did,” Alvise said, leading her past me. “Twice. So did Jacopo Palma il Vecchio. Ah! Clarissimo!” He swooped at the nonplused Ottone Gritti and embraced him fondly. “I did not expect you also, messer. My dear, of course you remember Orlando Grimani?” Despite his notorious savaging of names, the old aristocrat seemed unusually spry, worked up about something that totally escaped me.

  Gritti kissed the lady’s hand with a murmured pleasantry. But then he fixed a rapier stare on Barbolano. “I understood that you were planning to evict your tenants, clarissimo. I was informed that Nostradamus would be thrown in the canal on Tuesday.”

  I caught the Maestro’s eye and we exchanged slight nods. Vasco had been present when Barbolano gave me that ultimatum but had not had a chance to report it to Gritti. Renzo Marciana must have overheard it also, and would certainly have told the news to the rest of the Marciana tribe. At least two of them spy for the Council of Ten.

  “What?” Alvise blinked. “Did I say that? Of course not! Have they arrived yet, Doctor?”

  “They seem to have been delayed, clarissimo,” the Maestro said. “But if you would care to wait over here, I—”

  “They’re here!” yelled Corrado Angeli, coming racing up the stairs.

  I think Inquisitor Gritti guessed right away who they were, for he muttered something angrily under his breath, but I was still somewhere off in the paddy fields of Cathay. The Maestro was having trouble hiding a smirk. Had all his deliberate baiting of Gritti been merely a delaying tactic? A near-suicidal one, if it was. And I still could not see whose arrival could save us from the Three at this late date, except possibly the entire Turkish army’s.

  Nevertheless, moving with complete assurance that I knew what I was doing, I released the second flap of the double doors and swung them both wide. Let the Sultan ride through!

  No. The head of the procession came into view on the first landing down, and the men leading it were Fulgentio Trau and another ducal equerry. Many voices drifted up to me. I turned and surveyed the reception party lining up to greet them—Alvise Barbolano and his wife, burning with excitement, savoring one of the greatest moments of their lives, perhaps the greatest; the Maestro leaning heavily on his staff, but smirking at my nod of appreciation as I came to understand the majestic coup he had pulled off; and State Inquisitor Ottone Gritti, who was now redder than ever and chewing his beard in fury. And Vasco blinking in drunken confusion.

  The equerries reached the top and took up position by the door, Fulgentio flashing me a wink. I wanted to fall on my knees and weep all over his feet in gratitude. He must have done some very fast talking.

  Then Nasone himself, Il Serenissimo Doge Pietro Moro, a grizzled bear of a man in his ermine cape and cloth-of-gold robes, with the horned corno on his head, pausing in the doorway to catch his breath. Venetians live with stairs all their lives, but he is old enough to be forgiven a little puffing after a long climb. We all bowed; republicans do not kneel to their head of state.

  “Sire, you are most welcome to our humble home,” old Barbolano bleated.

  “The pleasure is mine, sier Alvise.” The doge strode forward, leading in his six scarlet-clad ducal counselors, most of them about as old as he. These seven were not quite the full Signoria, for that includes the three chiefs of the Quarantia, but they are the seven who also belong to the Council of Ten. Granted that seven is not a majority of seventeen, it is very difficult to imagine the other ten overruling the doge and his counselors when they have agreed on something, and that day they had clearly agreed to sup with Maestro Nostradamus. That may not be an unheard-of honor, but it would be the talk of the city for weeks.

  Gritti refused to eat at the table of a man he believed to be an agent of the Fiend, but so would the Signoria. Therefore they did not believe that Nostradamus was a witch. One of the counselors now embracing sier Alvise was a co-member of the Three with Gritti.

  I was certainly not part of the reception line, but a few joyful minutes later I found myself eye to eye with Pietro Moro. I must be the only apprentice in Venice the doge knows by name.

  “What have you done to your face, Alfeo?” he inquired softly.

  “I fell downstairs, sire.”

  “And what happened to the vizio’s face, mm?”

  “He was at the bottom of the stairs.”

  The ducal beard twitched as if trying to cover a smile. “Unfortunate! We shall hear more of this event, I trust?”

  “I am sure my master will explain if you wish him to, sire.” And probably if he didn’t.

  “I heard some curious rumors about books bursting into flames. I have warned you before, Alfeo, that chicanery like that would get you into trouble.” He had not yet heard about Baphomet and I hoped fervently that he never would. His eyes twinkled. “But I admit I’m curious to know just how you pulled that one off.”

  “Well, sire…How would you suppose I did?”

  “A silk thread to make the book move and a burning glass hidden in your hand?”

  “It was very overcast yesterday, sire.” Seeing his frown, I summoned my most mysterious smile. “The paper was incredibly old and dry, and both the vizio and I swiped at it with our rapiers a few times.”

  Now his eyes gleamed. “And the steel point scratching the terrazzo floor struck a spark?”

  “It is good that everyone isn’t as shrewd as you, sire.”

  Pietro Moro is shrewd enough to know that I could be lying by misdirection, but I am shrewd enough to know when he doesn’t want to know any more. Although he is a total skeptic about magic, he is a good Christian, too, and aware of borderlands that should be left unexplored. He shook his head disbelievingly and turned away.

  Terrazzo is made from powdered marble, cement, goat’s milk, and a few other things, but steel will not strike a spark from marble. It needs a harder rock, like flint. Oh, well…

  A lowly apprentice should never presume to lead a conversation with his betters, especially a better so very much better than I than the doge is, but I could not resist whispering, “I am very grateful for your presence here today, sire.”

  He paused and eyed me narrowly. “There’s more?”

  “No, it’s just that thanks to you, sire, I am confident that my chances of going up in smoke have just gone up in smoke.”

  The beard twitched again…this time accompanied by a ducal glare. “But those of a severe flogging have just increased dramatically!” Then he guffawed and moved on.

  Moments later I found myself looking up into the jungle-thick beard of sier Zuanbattista Sanudo. That had been how the case had started, right here, just eight days ago. He acknowledged me with a nod. There might be a few more lines in his face and a droop to his eyelids, but he was bearing up amazingly under his burden.

  “Well, sier Alfeo? Is your master going to denounce me as a traitor to the Republic?”

  “I am certain he is not going to do that, clarissimo. Is the Council going to burn me at the stake for witchcraft?”

  He snorted. “Of course not.” He turned away to follow the doge.

  Watching him going into the dining room, I remembered that he was due to pre
side over the Great Council that afternoon and was filled with admiration for his courage. His daughter had run away with a gigolo and now the gigolo had been murdered, so the opportunity for ridicule was obvious. His popularity would be severely tested. I wondered if he had tried to resign and the doge had insisted he stay on and fight. Or perhaps his wife had.

  Not everyone dines with the doge. Missier Grande does not, nor his vizio, nor fanti like Amedeo Bolognetti and Marco Martini. Nor, alas, do astrologers’ apprentices like Luca Alfeo Zeno, but some apprentices are quicker than others. As the dignitaries filed into the dining room, I slipped away to the atelier and locked myself in before Missier Grande could notice what I was up to or move to stop me. Quazza had been told to take the Maestro and me to jail, but he couldn’t do that while the Maestro was with the doge, and he probably would not have taken his instructions so literally as to remove me only, because things had changed since Gritti issued those orders. Quazzo knew about the peephole, but I gambled that he would not interrupt the meeting to warn Gritti that I might be eavesdropping.

  My stomach complained bitterly that I should have gone to the kitchen and found food, but I told it that fasting was good for our soul. Instead of eating, I watched as the guests settled in at the long table. The doge invited madonna Barbolano to sit at his right, the place of honor, and she looked ready to swoon. Alvise went on his left, of course, and the Maestro opposite, flanked by Gritti and Sanudo. The rest of the counselors were left on the edges, but the table could have held another forty. The two equerries stood in the background, in attendance.

  Giorgio and Christoforo in their Sunday best acted as footmen. I could not see what they were serving, but it smelled wonderful and I marveled that Mama had managed to assemble a worthy repast at such short notice. She and her brood had fled the house right after her scream, you will recall, and on Saturday afternoon there would have been little left to buy on the stalls. Likely she had borrowed supplies from her enormous family and from Giorgio’s, which is even larger. When the tale of the doge’s visit got out, they would all bask in reflected glory.