by Dave Duncan
“There has been a mistake,” he said with hauteur. “I was expecting a sier Alfeo Zeno.”
“Your prayers have been answered,” I said.
In Venice people are defined by their costumes. A tradesman does not dress like a shopkeeper or a courtesan like a lady. It mattered that I was stubbled, tangled, and rumpled, but it mattered much more that I was dressed as an apprentice, not a nobleman. He, on his part, looked both splendid and ridiculous, because his beard was streaked with white and he had to be at least fifty, yet he was decked out like a youth. His spindly calves were enclosed in full-length silk hose, his gaudy tunic and fur-lined brocade surcoat barely reached to his thighs, and his bonnet bulged almost as high as mine. He was, in fact, clad in the livery of a ducal equerry, a member of the doge’s official entourage who does everything from guarding his bedchamber to showing visitors around the palace and marching in parades. He thought he was magnificent, but he looked silly to me. I knew most of the equerries by sight, but not this one.
“This is the right man, clarissimo,” the guard said.
The equerry shrugged. “Well, His Serenity did mention something about an astrologer. Obviously astrology doesn’t pay well.”
He was sneering. After an unearned night in jail, I resented that. “And obviously you fought at Famagusta.”
Bull’s-eye! The equerry started. “How do you know that?”
“From the stars. Are we keeping the doge waiting?”
He shot a worried glance at the guard and crossed himself. “If you would be so kind, sier Alfeo…” He gestured at the door, very nearly bowing.
I did bow. “Do, please, lead the way, messer equerry.”
A cheap trick, yes, but as my master says, Sometimes a cheap trick is all you can afford. Of course I had been lucky. I do not recall my grandparents, but I had met enough of their friends to hear a trace of Cyprus in the equerry’s Veneziano, and the way he had angled his head when he looked at me reminded me of one of the Maestro’s patients who had suffered an eye injury. The doge had distinguished himself at the disastrous siege of Famagosta, so it was reasonable that he would have given a sinecure job in the palace to a man who had served under him back then, and had since, likely, fallen on hard times.
I followed my chastened guide through another grandiose meeting room and across the third-floor landing of the Golden Staircase. We were now in one of the areas designed to impress visitors and I felt a great deal more cheerful. My arrest had been absurdly unorthodox, I had not been properly charged or booked in as a prisoner, and now the doge had sent a senior equerry to fetch me at such a bleary hour that we were very unlikely to meet anyone on the way. Doge Pietro Moro has a reputation for being impatient with rules.
The entrance to the doge’s personal apartments is through the equerries’ hall, which is large and imposing, furnished with benches and couches and a few tables. In the past I had spent many hours in it, waiting on His Serenity. The paintings had been changed since my last visit, but I could hardly demand time to inspect them. A couple of the inmates-both much younger than my keeper-were sitting by the fire, playing a game of tarot. They looked up and frowned at the squalid company their colleague was attending. I smiled politely as we passed through.
“ Sier Alfeo Zeno, sire.” We had reached our destination. I walked around the equerry into a dressing room where the doge was having his hair cut by a valet. I doffed my bonnet and bowed low. We Republicans do not kneel to our head of state.
“Thank you, Aldo.”
The door closed.
Our most serene prince, Pietro Moro, is large and grizzled; he has a rheumatic back, is of the sanguine temperament as defined by the immortal Galen, and at that time was in his late seventies. It is rare for a man much younger than that to be elected doge-Venetians favor rapid turnover in the supreme office of the state. At the far end of the room stood a row of mannequins draped in different versions of the state robes, one of which was being vigorously brushed by a second valet. The doge goes garbed in white and ermine and cloth of gold; he wears a brocade cap called the corno because it rises at the back in a horn. This protuberance bears a marked resemblance to an oversized nose, so it is regrettable that the present incumbent has been known all his life as Nasone, Big Nose.
Keeping his head still for the scissors, he squinted at me out of one eye. “You seem to be in trouble again, lad.”
“I suspected so, Your Serenity. I don’t know why.”
“An old friend of mine died yesterday.”
I could not see where that led. “I offer my humble condolences. I heard the bell tolling yesterday and was informed that a procurator had entered into grace.” Danielle the apothecary had told me.
There are nine procurators of San Marco. They are state trustees, managing endowments, caring for widows and orphans, supervising trusts. The office is unpaid, but brings such honor and precedence that the procurators are recognized as the “grand old men” of the Republic, the only officials other than the doge who are elected for life and are permanent members of the Senate. When a doge dies, the electoral college will almost always choose one of the nine to succeed him. I had no idea why the death of one of them should imperil me.
“Bertucci Orseolo.”
“I do recall the name, sire.” He was not one of the Maestro’s patients, but he had been a client. I could recall transcribing his horoscope a couple of years ago. I could also recall the trouble I had had extracting payment for it.
Silence, except for the faint snip of scissors. Was it still my turn?
“I have never heard a bad word said about him.” Apart from some I had uttered myself, that was.
“I have!” The doge chuckled. “Many. But he was a great fighter in his youth. And a fine servant of the state, a credit to one of the oldest families in the Republic. Older than yours, even.”
I was never sure whether Pietro Moro was shocked or amused that his doctor’s assistant was listed in the Golden Book.
“I am proud of my descent from the forty-fifth doge, Your Serenity, but my branch blew off the family tree a long time ago.” I stand fourteen generations from Doge Renier Zeno. Although I do have rich relations, they were never close and they all became much more distant after the Turks stole Cyprus away from the Republic and ruined my grandparents.
The doge said, “Hmm!” which needed no reply.
Wealth is not the same as nobility. Most European aristocrats are descended from warrior barons, but the ancestors of our Venetian nobility were all merchant princes-sailors and traders, not fighters. Three hundred years ago the ruling families closed the Golden Book to newcomers, and since then many distinguished families have fallen into poverty, just as some outsider families have grown immensely rich. And yet, as long as a man is of legitimate birth and does not descend to manual labor, he can retain his designation of nobile homo and write NH before his name. The poor nobility are known as barnabotti, after the parish of San Barnaba, where most of them live, and they are numerous. In theory, when I reach the age of twenty-five, I will be eligible to take my seat in the Great Council and begin a career in politics, but a man without fortune or family cannot hope to be elected to office without endless kowtowing to his betters. The prospect held no appeal. One cranky master was better than twelve hundred of them.
The doge said, “I am almost out of the unguent.” His back pains him, especially in damp weather.
“I have a note on my calendar to mix more and deliver it to Your Serenity next week. Should I do so sooner?”
“No. You will have more important things to do. Your master has a copy of Apologeticus Archeteles, does he not?”
“Er…” We were not alone. Either or both of the valets could be a spy for the Three or the Church. Pietro Moro shares the Maestro’s passion for old books, but no one except high church officials may read books by the notorious Protestant heretic Ulrich Zwingli. Was the old man trying to trap me? Or test me? If he was just playing games, juggling sabers would be safer
. Yet only the wiliest politicians ever get to wear the corno. Gruff and overstuffed though he was, Doge Moro was as wily as they come, and he must have some reason for his dangerous question.
Such problems are too complicated to analyze on an empty stomach.
“I do not recall any book by that name, sire. I will look when I get home.” If I get home. “He is always happy and honored to lend Your Serenity works from his collection.”
The valet was reaching under the massive ducal nose to trim minute amounts of hair from the ducal mustache, ending the conversation for a few moments. I was happy to wait. Attending the head of state’s levee was more pleasant than rotting in his jail.
When the scissors had been put away and a comb run through the doge’s beard, he could turn to frown at me. He raised a leg so a kneeling valet could drag a stocking over his varicosis. “Procurator Orseolo took ill suddenly at a private party on Valentine’s Eve.”
Sweet Lady defend me! Orseolo! My memory reported for duty at last.
“And about, er, two years ago I think, the Maestro cast His Excellency’s horoscope…” I write out all his horoscopes in fair. I cast many of them, too, although the Maestro would do that himself for a procurator. “As I recall the problem, there was a conjunction of Venus and Saturn in Aquarius, his birth sign. The Maestro’s exact words were that His Excellency should ‘beware the coming of the lover,’ sire.”
His Serenity snorted. “You are wasted on that old fraud. You ought to be serving the Republic. There are ways to get a man of your age into the Great Council, you know.”
“Your Serenity honors me greatly.” I could also apply for a posting as a gentleman archer on a galley, which would certainly be more pleasant and likely safer than the free-for-all political games of the Venetian aristocracy.
“Bertucci died yesterday.” The doge pushed a massive arm into the shirt a valet was offering.
Saint Valentine’s day. “My master will be chagrined to learn that his warning was not heeded.” I knew he would also be delighted to have his prophecy meet with such a spectacular and public fulfillment, although of course he would not say so, even to me.
“Oh, he knows! He was one of the guests in the Ca’ Imer.”
“A guest, sire?” Mere physicians are not invited to the nobility’s frolics, not even physicians with international reputations. If they were, everyone would still exclude the Maestro, who has the social skills of a porpentine and either insults people or bores them to death.
The doge raised his chin so the valet could fasten his shirt buttons. “He was present, at least. You did not know?”
“No, sire.” I had gone to my weekly fencing lesson and then squired a certain young lady to Carnival on the Lido. The Maestro had not told me that he had been out also, because he hates sharing personal information with anyone. He trusts me, it’s just the principle of the thing. Bruno had not told me because Bruno does not talk.
“Of course,” Nasone said, “when the procurator was stricken, the learned Nostradamus attended him. He advised that the patient be carried home immediately and his own physician summoned.”
“Did he venture a diagnosis?”
“No, but everyone else did.”
I had enjoyed very little sleep in the last two nights, which is my only excuse for being so obtuse that morning. That comment finally blew away my mental fog.
“Lord have mercy!”
“Amen to that!”
“Your Serenity cannot possibly believe-”
“No. No, I don’t,” the doge said grumpily, heaving himself to his feet. “I don’t believe in claptrap about stars and birth signs, either. I do believe your master is the best doctor in the Republic, but he is also an outrageous charlatan with his almanacs and horoscopes-drivel from beginning to end; vague, shapeless, ambiguous, meaningless bombast. I’m sure he swindled dear old Bertucci out of a scandalous heap of gold for a scrap of parchment whose only value was to demonstrate your excellent calligraphy, sier Alfeo Zeno. But I do not believe Filippo Nostradamus would poison a man just to make one of his own rubbishy prophecies come true.”
The valets had turned away to hide grins. Our beloved doge is an atrocious skeptic, as bad as any Protestant or Freemason. His doubts are not confined to astrology; they extend to all supernatural matters, perhaps even to the spiritual, although even he would not dare admit that.
I could say nothing except, “I cannot believe it either.”
“But the rumors have started.” The doge shrugged to adjust the weight of the massive brocade robe his valets had just hung on his shoulders. “I think I can hold the hounds back for three days. No longer. You should be able to get safely away in that time, both of you.”
“He won’t go.” I spoke automatically. The Maestro was old and almost crippled and stubborn beyond measure. I simply could not imagine him running away from a senseless, trumped-up charge of murder. Wisdom had departed, but I was certain he had not, and never would, flee from Venice.
The doge was scowling. “Then you’d best go without him, lad, because poisoning is classed as witchcraft. If he burns, you’ll burn too.”
“How do you know it was poisoning, sire, not just apoplexy? Even if it was murder, there were other people there. Don’t you have to prove my master did it?”
The old man shook his head scornfully. “It’s obvious because he was the only alchemist present. No, I don’t believe that matters, but many people will, and the Three will certainly investigate any suggestion that a procurator has been murdered. I am one among many in the Ten; I have no control at all over the Three. I am taking a risk even telling you this. You have very little time. Get your master across to the mainland and safely over the border.” He took a lurching step and winced. “Yes, I would appreciate a jar of the unguent as a going-away gift.”
I bowed. “Today, sire.”
The doge nodded and took another couple of steps. “Give him a lira, Jacopo.” He spoke off-handedly, because that was his usual tip, then he chuckled. “No, make it a ducat this time. Sciara was a little over-zealous.”
Before I could express the magnitude of my gratitude, he turned back to glower at me. “But I want my Apologeticus Archeteles returned. It’s mine. I loaned it to him months ago.”
“You did?” I said bitterly. That was not how the old rascal had told me to catalogue it. “Then I will find it and deliver it to Your Serenity.”
3
I hurried along the loggia, down the giants’ staircase to the courtyard, and out through the Porta della Carta, the main gate. The rain had stopped, but a chill wind still blustered across the Piazza San Marco. Clerks were hurrying to work, beggars were already on their stations, and hawkers with baskets on their heads called their wares. It was too early yet in both the day and the year for the gawking foreigners who usually abound. Normally I would have enjoyed walking home, along winding alleys and over innumerable bridges, savoring the beat of the city’s great heart, but that day the situation was critical-had the Maestro truly fled the city? That seemed beyond all belief. The Ten would take it as a confession of guilt. I would be off to the torturers in no time and sier Alvise would hurl everything the Maestro owned out into the canal, cleansing his palace of the taint of murder.
I headed across the Piazzetta toward the Molo. Public gondolas are expensive. I cannot afford them and the Maestro won’t, as he already owns one of his own and employs a man to row it. That day the expense seemed well justified.
Besides, I was a ducat richer. The Maestro provides my room and board-very sumptuously, I admit-but he is sparing, even miserly, when it comes to a clothing allowance. Almost all my spending money comes from the tips his clients and patients give me for performing my arduous duties-opening and closing doors, for instance, and bowing them out. That is the reason I do not flaunt my “NH.” Some people are embarrassed to tip the nobly-born a soldo or two, or else consider my rank an excuse not to. You’d think they would reward me more, not less.
Yesterday�
��s events now made perfect sense. Bells ring in Venice all the time, but the Maestro, already worried, must have recognized the tolling for Procurator Orseolo and known that his peril was now much greater. He had sent me off to chase wild geese while he consulted the crystal. A very fine prophecy, too- Death the murder causing death the death penalty to break cover but go after the wrong suspect. Venice as La Serenissima, the Most Serene Republic, is feminine. The Serene One, in masculine, would be His Serenity the doge, who had moved to send warning and remained unmoved by my protests. The wise Maestro had departed, leaving the mute Bruno behind. Very succinct!
There were dozens of gondolas tied up at the Molo. I picked out a man with arms like a Barbary ape and began haggling, accepting his second offer on condition he sing to me the whole way.
A few strokes of his oar swung us out into the choppy and iron-gray Basin of San Marco, a February desert. At other seasons it teams with great ships swaying at anchor, best seen all sparkly in misty morning light. Here the convoys gather for voyages to distant lands-Seville, Egypt, Constantinople, or far-off England and Flanders-hundreds of galleys, all identical, all state-built and state-owned, rowed by freemen mostly, not criminals, and every one captained by a Venetian nobleman. Here they return with exotic spices, sulfur, wine, olive oil, raisins, currants, timber, and dozens of other cargoes. As a child I dreamed of being the captain of such a ship and sailing to such places. Some days I still do.
Regrettably that morning there were almost no ships, my gondolier had the throat of a Barbary ape, and I was distracted by my worries about the Ten. I was not convinced that the doge could hold them back as he said he could, and I could see no possibility of persuading my master to flee the city. Nor could I imagine myself ever deserting him and running away. A man has to cherish his self-respect. I was caught in the jaws of a dilemma.
The quatrain had been magnificently fulfilled, so far as I could see, every line, but it gave no guidance on what was going to happen next.
