The Alchemist's Code aa-2

by Dave Duncan

  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 Ca’ Barbolano unprotected.

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

  Someone rapped the front door knocker.

  33

  F orce 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 gra
teful 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 preside 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.

  I settled down to starve. Nothing of importance would be discussed until the Barbolanos were dismissed and possibly not even then, because the purpose of the gathering was merely to demonstrate to Ottone Gritti that the Signoria was not in favor of combusting the doge’s personal physician.

  34

  F ood was eaten with enjoyment, wine drunk with happy results, gossip and small talk tossed to and fro. Eventually the doge brought it all to an end by dismissing the Barbolanos.

  “We have serious business to discuss with Maestro Nostradamus,” he proclaimed. “Your tenant is an esteemed servant of the state, clarissimo. Sometimes I wonder what we should do without him.”

  That wrung a return flow of compliments from old sier Alvise. Not only was our tenancy safe now, he had probably already forgotten threatening it. Fulgentio escorted the Barbolanos out. I should have been at the front door to bow them on their way, but I stayed where I was. Now the meeting would get down to business.

  “Now, Doctor,” Moro said, leaning back. “Your message said you would introduce us to the man we have been seeking. I take this to mean that you have identified the notorious Algol?”

  The Maestro beamed, bunching cheeks and very nearly showing his teeth. “Identified and delivered, Your Serenity. Inquisitor Gritti has him locked up already.”

  Eyes turned to Inquisitor Gritti, who alone looked as if he had not enjoyed the meal. “We have detained a man named Francesco Guarini, sire. He is charged with using violence against the vizio, who very nearly bled to death. He-”

  “-would have bled to death, had Alfeo not known what to do,” my master said.

  The doge grunted annoyance at the interruption. “Sounds like Zeno. Continue, Inquisitor.”

  “We still have no evidence,” Gritti said, “that Guarini and Algol are one and the same. Nostradamus refuses to justify his claims.”

  “It is fairly obvious.” Taking silence as an invitation to lecture, the Maestro laid his forearms on the table and put his hands together, fingertip to fingertip. “Espionage, if I may be permitted to belabor the obvious, is a form of theft. It takes information belonging to A and transfers it to the buyer, whom we may call Z. Your Excellencies have not entrusted me with Z ’s identity, although you must know it because your own agents stole the information back again, albeit still in encoded form and therefore not identifiable with complete confidence until I broke its cipher for you. One report I saw was dated so recently that Z cannot be located far away, in say Paris or Constantinople. Most likely Z is an ambassador right here in Venice, and I shall assume for the sake of this discussion that he can be found in the Spanish Embassy. Which embassy does not matter, because my point is that espionage requires middlemen. It would be quite impossible for a senior magistrate to stroll along to any embassy without his own government knowing it.”

  The audience shifted uneasily at this allegation that the Ten spied upon its own, but none of them wasted breath to deny it.

  “The same would be true, messere, if he sent his gondolier with a letter-very soon the Three would invite him in for a chat. It would be true also of the illustrious citizens who serve the Republic in high office and are privy to its secrets. So we must postulate B, who steals or buys the information from A and then delivers it, most likely to another middleman, C, who in turn passes it to D, and so on until it reaches Z. Of course Z probably hides behind one of his own subordinates, whom we may call X. Communication is the weak point in any espionage system, as you well know. Even on Thursday, when you entrusted me with the task of unmasking Algol, I was sure that the person I would catch would turn out to be a middleman, not a traitor within the government. The next day I learned that he was an amateur, not-”

  “How?” barked Gritti.

  The Maestro turned to him with an expression of bland surprise. “From the cipher, Excellency. He was using a most sophisticated method of enciphering-more subtle, I am certain, than the system used by La Serenissima herself-and yet he was using it very stupidly. A key only five letters long is absurd! Instead of VIRTU, he should have used something much longer: LA SERENISSIMA, or the paternoster, or a verse from Dante. He should certainly have employed a different key for each dispatch. Beginning every dispatch with a date is another incredible incompetence, a gift to the code breaker, but all ciphers are eventually betrayed by human stupidity.

  “So B had to be an amateur, a local whom X had enlisted and taught to encipher. Fortunately, in spite of B ’s hamfisted, incompetent enciphering, the product was good enough to baffle most people.” That was a nice dig at Circospetto and his minions. “As long as B continued to supply valuable information, X was content not to interrupt the flow. An alternative possibility was that B had taught himself the rudiments of enciphering by reading a book, and I admit that I found this theory attract
ive because Alfeo had located a great library associated with a certain distinguished magistrate, but I discarded that as improbable as soon as I identified B as Danese Dolfin.”

  “What?” The wintery blast came from Zuanbattista Sanudo. “You dare suggest that I gave state secrets to that slimy little thief? Or that my son did?”

  “No, messer, I certainly do not.” The Maestro shrugged. “It is a complex story, which will be best understood if told in a logical sequence. I may…?” He accepted Zuanbattista’s silent glare as assent. “The next link in the chain from B to X was Francesco Guarini, of course, but I do not know which of them masterminded their squalid conspiracy. I suspect Dolfin, but Guarini may enlighten you, messere, when he is motivated to explain.”

  I shivered. Gritti was showing his teeth, biding his time. The Maestro might talk all he wanted, but he was not going to escape the charge of necromancy.

  “Dolfin’s murder,” Nostradamus said, “was in a sense a lucky break for me as investigator, and for the Republic itself, although the Algol espionage was already ended before that. The murder was bizarre. Why was the corpse brought to Ca’ Barbolano and left in the watergate with the impaling sword still in place? Why not just drop it in a canal? We have many murders in Venice, but few are deliberately advertised as this one was. Why was he murdered at all? One obvious motive, if sier Zuanbattista will forgive my even mentioning it to dismiss it, is that someone in his family resented the way Dolfin had inveigled himself in by seducing madonna Grazia. But the last thing Ca’ Sanudo would want would be publicity, so the grotesque spectacle made of the corpse was not the work of any family member.”

  “I am so relieved to hear that!” Zuanbattista growled.

  “Nor could his death be a random slaying during a robbery,” the Maestro continued unabashed, “because the killer would not have known to bring him here, to Ca’ Barbolano. It could not be an effort to distract me from investigating the espionage case by involving me in murder, as I speculated at first, because publicity is the last thing a spy ever wants. For the same reason I do not believe that Dolfin was slain to silence him. Besides, the espionage was ended. Dolfin not only would not continue his treason, he could not, as I shall demonstrate. So why did his killer make an exhibition of him, a public scandal, the talk of the town?”