The Alchemist's Code aa-2

by Dave Duncan

  To call Maestro Nostradamus pigheaded is an insult to swine.

  “Yes, I know. Tomorrow at breakfast. Can you think of a way to stop him burning me at the stake for witchcraft right after?”

  “You were an idiot to use the Word in front of a witness, especially him.”

  “I didn’t use it in front of Gritti himself, but I agree it was stupid. After all, how much worse could demonic possession make Vasco? And he might have bitten the jinx, instead of the other way around.”

  “I’ll worry about you later,” my master said impatiently. “Meanwhile the most important thing is to preserve my reputation by exposing Algol. I decided there were three ways to proceed-three strings to my bow.”

  “And the first one didn’t work?” I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder at the crystal ball.

  He pouted, which was agreement. “I overshot the mark by at least a century. You’ve eaten?”

  Astonished, for food rarely enters his mind, I said, “Not this week, I think, master.”

  “Well, I am waiting for-”

  Knuckles rapped.

  I raised an eyebrow and, when he nodded, the rest of me also. I went and opened the door to find the twins, Corrado and Christoforo, beaming eagerly. They will never interrupt the Maestro without express orders to do so, so I stepped aside and let them enter. Then I closed and locked the door again, although there was no sign of Vasco out in the salone. The boys were sweaty and puffing as if they had been running, but they had taken time to rehearse, because they reported in counterpoint.

  Corrado began, “Marco Piceno, cobbler…”

  “Marco Gatti, attorney…”

  “Matteo Tentolini, musician…”

  “And Dario Rinaldo, carpenter,” Chris concluded triumphantly.

  The names meant nothing to me, but from the Maestro’s demonic expression, I guessed that they were bad news, so the second of his three bowstrings had just proved as untuneful as the first. Two down, one to go.

  “Very good!” he said. “Alfeo will give you two soldi apiece after he has dined. Meanwhile, I have another errand for you. Fetch Michelina if she is around. Go and eat, Alfeo.”

  Michelina is a year older than the twins and a splendid beauty, engaged to be married. The only reason the Maestro could possibly want her then was to dictate a letter, because she writes a fine secretary hand. I taught her myself.

  “I won’t die of starvation in the next hour,” I complained, resentful that anyone else would sit at my desk and do my work.

  “No, no.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “You must keep up your strength for tonight’s ordeal.”

  When he gets in that mood, he keeps secrets even from me, because he is convinced my face always gives me away when I tell a lie. This is an absurd untruth, but that day we had that historically celebrated snoop Filiberto Vasco underfoot and peering underbed, so extreme caution might be justified.

  “I dread the prospect,” I said and marched off in search of nourishment, ignoring the twins’ wide-eyed stares at this hint of dark deeds ahead.

  28

  I t was long past our usual noon dinnertime, but nothing daunts Mama Angeli and I found Vasco in the kitchen cleaning up a plate of her magnificent Burano-style duckling, Masorin a la Buranella. I asked her to send mine to the dining room, where the company was more appealing, and on my way there I helped myself to one of the few remaining bottles of the Maestro’s hoarded 1583 Villa Primavera. This might be the last decent meal I would ever eat.

  I was not allowed long to enjoy my solitude, of course, before Vasco sauntered in to join me, bringing his raisin fritters dolce with him. He sniffed the wine bottle and pursed his lips.

  “Nice! The condemned man ate a hearty last meal?”

  “Not at all. Celebrating the coming exposure of the false witness.”

  He smiled and leaned back to admire the ceiling art and chandeliers. “Nice place you had here. A pity about your landlord’s little fit of pique.”

  “He laughs best who laughs last.”

  “I entirely agree,” Vasco said solemnly. “And I admit it feels very nice. I have warned you so often!”

  “Nil homine terra pejus ingrato creat.” Violetta taught me that, but she was not applying it to me at the time.

  “The ingrate is certainly the worst of men,” Vasco agreed, “but what makes you think I have reason to be grateful to you? You have always been an upstart, conceited, interfering pest.”

  If I accused him of ingratitude for denouncing me after I had saved him from the jinx, he would claim I was confessing to performing magic, so I ate on in silence. I took comfort from reflecting that I had been in tight corners before and the Maestro had always jumped to the rescue.

  Corrado peered in. “Old…The Maestro wants to know if we have…I mean if he has any henbane and, er, mandrake?”

  “Henbane is the third jar on the second shelf down, labeled Hyoscyamus,” I said. “Mandrake root is in the fourteenth jar, bottom shelf, Mandragora. Be careful with those!” I yelled after him as he ran off. The Maestro knew the answers quite as well as I did, so the purpose of his questions had been to misinform Vasco, who must know those two plants’ reputation for magical powers. Misinform him of what, though? And why? Well, it was an encouraging sign that the old mountebank had something in mind. Or up sleeve, perhaps.

  Later, as Mama was asking me if she should fry up a third plateful of fritters for me and I was regretfully deciding that I would not be able to do them justice, Christoforo appeared.

  “Maestro says he is going to rest, but we must waken him when anything develops. And he says you should rest, too.”

  “Tell him my strength won’t fail him.”

  “And he wants to see you, Mama.”

  His mother frowned and waddled out.

  “Burning isn’t so bad really,” Vasco remarked. He took a swig from the wine bottle. “They strangle you with a cord before the flames get to you. Usually, that is.”

  Could my position be any more desperate if I set his hat on fire right then?

  A scream of mortal agony echoed along the salone, loud enough and long enough to bring Vasco off his chair and startle even me.

  “Mama has a weakness for dramatics,” I explained as my companion bolted out the door, hell-bent on rescue. “Nostradamus probably found a spider under his bed,” I called after him. By the time I had polished off the last scraps of my dolce, drained my glass, and followed the vizio, I was just in time to see the Maestro disappearing into his bedroom and Mama Angeli shooing almost her entire clan out the front door-Giorgio, Corrado, Archangelo, Christoforo, Michelina, and even Noemi. The most junior members were apparently being left in the care of Piero, who is only eleven. Two of them thought they had been abandoned and were screaming in terror.

  “What is going on?” Vasco demanded.

  “Oh, it’s often like this around here,” I said. “Make yourself useful. Practice your babysitting skills.”

  I went back to the atelier, leaving the door open so I could keep an eye on the spy. I had the big room to myself, but some badly trimmed quills were evidence that Michelina had been working at my side of the desk. I tidied that and the medical corner, then set to work on the ugly scrawl beside the crystal globe.

  Working for a clairvoyant is frustrating because you know you will never live to see half your work completed. In Nostradamus’s case, the worse his writing and the more obscure his syntax, the further out the prophecy, and that was why he had told me that this one overshot the mark. At least it was in words, not doodles, so the jinx’s evil influence was no longer evident, but I spent most of the rest of the afternoon trying to read the quatrain before I decided I had done all I could with it. I was still unsure of a few words.

  The [tide] has turned, the sands ebb

  Nine times the [greater] glass turns and only [twice] remain

  When the son of Ajaccio closes the volume

  The mainlander shall uncover.

  I didn’t know the
n what it meant, don’t now, and likely never will. It did not look complete and the Maestro did not include it in his next book of predictions. Who was Ajaccio? Uncover what? Angry and frustrated, I copied the verse into the book of prophecies and cleaned the slate. I could see no sign that the jars of henbane or mandrake had been disturbed. I wished I could jump across the calle and visit with Violetta, but I knew Vasco would either stop me or follow. Besides, I had to stay at my post.

  Vasco had stayed at his, draped on a couch in the salone equidistant from the front door, the atelier, and the Maestro’s room opposite, a natural hunter’s blind. One by one the Angelis returned, all carrying bundles, and none of them would tell him where they had been or what they had brought back. I did the best I could to conceal my mystification; I suppose Vasco was doing the same.

  I was standing in front of the big mirror practicing finger exercises with a silver ducat when I heard the door knocker rap and went to answer it.

  Understandably, Vasco beat me to it, but I knew the page standing there, recognized the livery of the Trau household, and almost lost my temper at the sight of the note he was clutching, because it was sealed with Fulgentio’s signet. I do not grudge Fulgentio his wealth and good fortune, but I cannot forgive the way the Maestro shamelessly takes advantage of our friendship. He has hundreds of influential patients and clients, from the doge on down-why does he have to poach my friends?

  Besides, if he was hoping to appeal to the doge for help against Inquisitor Gritti, he was wasting his time. Foreign born, Nostradamus often has trouble comprehending how powerless our head of state really is, hemmed in by his six counselors in the Signoria and by ten other men as well in the Council of Ten. He has no vote among the Three. There was a loud scandal a few years ago when Venice learned that in some cases the Council of Ten did not just delegate some of its powers to the Three but sometimes all of them. The Great Council failed to forbid that nasty practice, so it is still possible in certain instances for the three inquisitors to reach a verdict and have Missier Grande carry it out before the rest of the Ten even know. What good could Fulgentio do?

  “I have to give this personally to Doctor Nostradamus,” the boy said, “or,” he added with a cheery smile, “to sier Alfeo Zeno.” He handed it to me. “I was told that there would be no reply.”

  “But there will be a gratuity,” I said. “Just a moment.” I removed my silver ducat from Vasco’s left ear and handed it to the page, who gasped and protested that all he had done was walk across the campo. I insisted he keep it and closed the door before he tried to kiss my shoes.

  “Trickster!” Vasco said.

  “Sneak,” I retorted. Reminding myself to enter the ducat in the ledger as expenses, I rapped loudly on my master’s door and marched in without waiting for a response. I locked it behind me.

  The Maestro had changed into his nightgown and nightcap, but he was awake, leaning back on a pile of cushions, peering at a book. He took the letter, read it, and closed it up again without a word.

  My attention had already gone to the manuscript he was consulting. It was obviously old, written in an antique hand on many sheets of bound vellum. I had thought I knew every one of his books, even those hidden in secret compartments, but this one was unfamiliar. He noted my interest and smirked.

  “The Depositions of Brother Raymbaud,” he said. “I expect the Vatican has a copy but I doubt that anyone else does. How would you date it?” He handed it to me so I could examine the penmanship.

  “It’s French,” I said, “written in a littera psalterialis hand. Late thirteenth century?”

  “Close. It is dated 1308, but it was probably written by an elderly scribe, so your judgment is sustainable. Brother Raymbaud did not write it himself. He was testifying.”

  I glanced back to make certain I had closed the door. “Was he a witness or a defendant? I mean, was he Brother Raymbaud of Caron?”

  The Maestro smirked. “Of course that Raymbaud. Preceptor of commanderies of the Knights Templar in Outremer. The last such preceptor, naturally. Outremer was the French name for the Holy Land.”

  “I know that,” I said grimly. This was heading into territory so dark that it would make my use of the Word seem like a minor misdemeanor. In 1307 King Philip the Fair of France broke up the order of the Knights Templar and tortured the senior officers into confessing to every terrible crime the tormentors could think to suggest. “Was Raymbaud one of those burned at the stake?”

  “Apparently not.” The Maestro frowned at having to admit ignorance. “His fate is a mystery. There has been speculation that he bought his way out by revealing certain secrets that even Grand Master Jacques de Molay did not know.”

  “Such as the true nature of Baphomet, perhaps?”

  Nostradamus pouted sourly. “That is a very astute guess! Sometimes you surprise me, Alfeo.”

  “Sometimes you scare me to death, master.”

  “Well, there are some obscure points,” he admitted. “Take the book and prepare the schema. We must be ready to start at midnight.”

  And I had still thought that the day could not get any worse.

  29

  N othing serious happened until after curfew. I went back to the atelier with the book and wasted the rest of the afternoon beating my brains to a pulp trying to make sense of three-hundred-year-old French. When I needed a break, I cleaned my rapier and filed the point sharp again, repairing the minor damage done when Danese was felled. If Vasco tried to arrest me, I would need it.

  At sunset I also brought the Head down from the attic, well hidden in its leather bag from the vizio ’s prying gaze. A box of human bones in the medical cupboard is permissible property for a physician, if only barely, but the Head dwells apart, among the Maestro’s collection of curiosities. The Head’s original owner died several thousand years ago, probably of chronic dental caries, and was undoubtedly a high-ranking native of Egypt, worthy of careful mummification. His eyes are closed, his mouth open, and he still sports wisps of white hair. He is quite light, because his brain was removed during the embalming process, but he does not seem to care about that now. The Maestro insisted that the Head would play the role of Baphomet very well, so I stood him on the slate table in place of the usual crystal globe.

  Amid all the charges of heresy, blasphemy, and perversion hurled at the Knights Templar were some peculiar accusations that they had worshipped a detached head named Baphomet. No one had ever properly explained why they should have done so, and it is generally assumed that Baphomet was just a wild tale made up by some poor wretch to stop the pain after he had confessed to everything else he could think of. The tale has proved remarkably enduring, though. The name is said to be a corruption of Mohammed.

  “Far from it,” the Maestro said that evening as he and I settled down to attempt some major black magic. “Didn’t you read the book?”

  The spyhole was covered, the door locked, and Vasco outside. The shutters were closed and the Angelis engrossed in their long duty of bedding down children. Yet I still felt a nervous need to keep looking over my shoulder.

  “I tried, but Old French is beyond me, and there’s other script in there that I’ve never seen before.”

  The Maestro was huddled in his favorite chair with the Raymbaud manuscript in his lap, dimly lit by a lamp on the mantel. In his black robe, he was almost invisible. He was enjoying himself hugely. He had been evasive when I asked if he had ever tried this procedure before, but he obviously felt that he had a good excuse to try it now.

  “Ah, well according to Raymbaud, the technique was very ancient, long predating Islam. The invocation is in Sahidic Coptic, the language of the Pharaohs, and he claimed that the ritual was devised by the embalmers to ask the dead’s permission to prepare their corpses. That sounds unlikely, but a technique for interrogating the recently dead would have been very useful to the Templars when they were defending the Holy Land from desert marauders. If a patrol gets massacred and you can invoke their spirits soon en
ough, you can ask them who did it, or ask the dead brigands who sent them.”

  I shuddered. “Necromancy!”

  He blinked with childish innocence. “Not if you define necromancy as the ancients did. The learned Strabo, for instance, relates necromancy to divination and the Chaldeans-”

  “Tell me tomorrow, while we’re waiting for the torturers to finish their dinner break.” I was still fidgeting, unable to sit. “What else do we need?”

  He peered at the manuscript again. “There are only six appurtenances named but there must be seven. What’s missing?”

  The list of ingredients was about the only thing I had managed to decipher. “Salt.”

  “Ah, of course! Go and bring some.”

  I went out and locked the door behind me, for the Head was in full view. Vasco was still draped like a discarded cloak on the couch. He knew we were up to something but were not about to let him find out what, and he just scowled when I told him we would be some time and he should curl up and catch some sleep. I purloined a nugget of salt from the kitchen and returned to the atelier. The Maestro had moved to one of the green chairs, which I had earlier arranged a safe distance back from the table, facing our elderly accomplice, the Head.

  “Put it between the iron and the wood,” he said. “Now read off the appurtenances.”

  I named the seven objects I had arranged around the Head: “Iron, salt, wood, amber, cinnabar, copper, and gold.” All of those have been appreciated as having magical virtue since the most ancient times, of course.

  “Now light the incense.”

  Seven sticks of incense stood in holders around the Head and the ring of appurtenances. I pointed at each in turn and it began to smoke.

  He said, “Now I shall…Ah, the hair!”

  “Hair?”

  “Hair. You must relate the Baphomet to the spirit you wish to invoke, or you might call the wrong one. Fortunately in this case we have a lock of Dolfin’s hair. I put it in the small implements drawer for safekeeping.”