The Alchemists pursuit aa-3

by Dave Duncan

  Unobserved, I went on, into the brothel. There it seemed that the news had not yet arrived. Matteo loomed enormous on a stool between two young hostesses wearing what could only loosely be described as clothes. From the somber expressions on all their faces, I guessed that he was telling them about Caterina's murder. The women jumped to their feet to greet me with enormous fake smiles. Matteo looked hard at me, taking in my alarm.

  There was another guard present, leaning against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and him I did not know. He was armed.

  "Has a woman come in?" I shouted.

  "Who's asking?"

  I started to explain, and was drowned out as Matteo and the two women both started to tell him who I was.

  "The killer is a woman!" I yelled. "Has a woman come in?"

  I moved closer.

  The guard whipped out his sword.

  "Yes." Matteo came in on his left and punched him once on the side of the head.

  Once was plenty and I dodged him as he fell. Then I went up the stairs as if shot from a mortar, three steps at a time, hearing the pounding of boots as Matteo followed. I was relieved to see that Luigi was one of the two men guarding the door to the piano nobile, but they both drew their swords.

  This time I did not shout. "The killer is a woman! A woman's in there?"

  Luigi nodded and reached for his keys. "A widow lady. Arrived just a few minutes ago. Sent in a note. Violetta said to let her come up, it was all right."

  "It is not all right!" I said, pushing past him and leading the way to Violetta's door. I moved gently, though, for Venetian terrazzo floors tend to bounce slightly and might alert the intruder that a Crusader army was on the way.

  Luigi turned his key very quietly in the lock. The door did not move.

  "It's bolted!"

  Matteo slapped us both aside with a two-armed gesture, clearing a path. He backed up to the wall behind, then hit the door like a war galley ramming. The door shuddered, as well it might. He backed up again, and slammed it again, and that time I think he would have gone through a brick wall. Nine two-inch screws ripped out of seasoned timber and the door flew open. He stumbled through with Luigi and me right on his heels.

  Hearing a stream of oaths, curses, and abuse from Violetta's salotto, we ran that way. And there they were, Violetta and donna Alina, down on the floor, both screaming, wrestling for possession of the khanjar dagger. Alina was on top and the dagger was hovering over Violetta's face, but Violetta was holding it away from her. Fortunately I did not have my sword with me, or I would have killed the madwoman on the spot. Instead I grabbed her by the forearms, heaved her off her intended victim, slammed her right wrist against the edge of a table to make her drop the knife, and then threw her into a chair.

  Then I turned to comfort Violetta, but she wanted no aid from me.

  "Bitch!" she yelled. "She-devil! Who is she?" Spewing abuse, she scrambled to her feet and went for Alina with fingernails drawn. "Hell cat! Madwoman! I'll rip her face off…"

  I grabbed her and discovered that the tarot had meant Violetta, not Matteo, when it predicted a need for strength. Fortunately, if embarrassingly for me, Luigi came to help and between us we pulled her away.

  "Hippolyta!" I shouted. "Calm down!"

  I had uncovered a new Violetta persona. Between us, Luigi and I forced the Queen of the Amazons into a chair, where she continued to simmer, still snarling and spitting.

  Meanwhile Matteo was standing over Alina to make sure she stayed where she was. She was screaming with fury and pain. "You broke my arm! I'll see you hang for this! Animals! Do you have any idea who I am?" And so on. She was dressed in black, yes, but in the weeds of a respectable widow, not a nun's habit.

  Luigi chuckled. "Loud, aren't they?"

  Already the room was filling up-girls, guards, customers, madams. There had been a scuffle in a brothel and it must not be allowed to become any more than that. I caught Violetta as she tried to spring out of her chair again; I persuaded her to sit down and accept a glass of wine that happened to be handy. Then I found the dagger and its scabbard and took possession of them. A sheet of paper on the table looked to be in Alina's handwriting but signed as being from Sister Lucretzia, so I appropriated that and the envelope also.

  By then Antonio had appeared and was ordering everyone out. The belligerents had fallen silent, except for sobs of pain from Alina.

  "I know this woman," I announced loudly. "And her sons happen to be visiting Nostradamus in Ca' Barbolano at this moment. The doctor there can attend to her arm. Missier Grande is there also. Let's get her out of here."

  "And what about me?" Medea yelled, green eyes blazing.

  "You hurt?"

  "No, but no thanks to you and your crazy charlatan wizard!"

  "All thanks to you," I said. "I'll come back with those as soon as I can. Antonio, can you nail up that door for the night? Matteo, bring the woman."

  Medea melted into Helen. "You're just going to leave me?"

  "For now." I risked bending to kiss her cheek and didn't lose my eyeballs, as I would have done a moment ago. "I'll be back as soon as I can unless they throw me in jail."

  I retrieved donna Alina's hat and veil from the floor and dropped them on her head any-old-how. "Your sons are waiting, madonna."

  32

  Antonio led us down to the loggia-me and a grinning Matteo shepherding donna Alina. She had refused to let him carry her, but she had fallen silent and was trembling violently, close to shock.

  There were still only four boatmen there and I recognized all of them as Michiel employees. A quick peek out between the pillars confirmed that Missier Grande's boat was still tied up outside Ca' Barbolano.

  I recalled some names from my experience of servant fare in the Michiel kitchen. "Zaneto, isn't it? Alfeo Zeno."

  He scowled at me and my companions. "I remember you. What do you want?" He could not possibly recognize donna Alina under her veil in that light and I did not want to reveal who she was.

  "This lady is a real lady, not a worker here. She fell and injured her arm. A doctor lives in that house where your masters are visiting. Would you be so kind as to ferry us to the watergate?"

  "There are other visitors there, messer."

  "Missier Grande, yes. But I need to talk with him also."

  Left with no further argument, he helped us load our patient aboard, which was hard to do without jostling her injured arm.

  "Business as usual now?" Antonio asked.

  I hesitated only a moment. Vasco had wanted me to give him the book, so Missier Grande had come for the book, so the chiefs of the Ten had sent him for the book, and if the chiefs knew about the book, then they had Jacopo Fauro under lock and key.

  "Business as usual," I agreed.

  Our voyage took only moments, but that was long enough for me to work out the timing. Had Jacopo been arrested, he would have been left to meditate on his sins for a while before he was questioned, and even then, being Jacopo, he would very likely have tried to lie his way out of the mess. The chiefs must have learned of the book from him and their very fast response indicated that he had almost certainly turned himself in, confessing everything, fast and furious. The Maestro had predicted that the Ten would be lenient on him if he did that, a prophecy I hoped would prove to be one of his good ones.

  A couple of sbirri eyed us suspiciously as we disembarked in the Barbolano loggia, prepared to prevent our entry.

  "I am sier Alfeo Zeno and I live here. This lady is in need of medical attention and I have some evidence to hand over to Missier Grande."

  They accepted that, but one of them escorted us upstairs.

  Three more sbirri were standing near the atelier door and moved aside to let us in. Bernardo and Domenico were still in the green chairs. Isabetta sat in the red one and Nostradamus at the desk, she wearing a bandage around her head and he a puckish grin. Missier Grande stood in the center with the package under his arm. He seemed to be still asking questions, as if h
e had not been there long. Everyone looked around when we entered. Then the brothers recognized our veiled companion and leaped to their feet in alarm.

  "The lady claims she has a broken wrist or arm," I said. "I haven't examined it." I nodded respectfully to Missier Grande. "She was attempting to kill the courtesan Violetta Vitale with this dagger, which I recognize as coming from Palazzo Michiel. This is the note she used to gain admission, written by herself and signed with her daughter's name."

  By then Bernardo and Domenico were helping their mother over to the examination couch.

  Gasparo Quazza, Missier Grande, is a large and inscrutable man, whose very impassivity is intimidating. One glimpse of his red and blue cloak can disperse a riot faster than gunfire. No one could like him, but I respect him and he has always played fair with me. Once, very early in my apprenticeship with the Maestro, I did him a great favor by rescuing his infant daughter. That would not stop him from hoisting me on the strappado if the Ten so ordered, but they haven't done so yet.

  "And the accused's name, sier Alfeo?"

  "Donna Alina Orio, these noble lords' mother. May I assist my master while he attends to her injury?"

  I fetched splints, scissors, and bandages from the medical cupboard. Quazza began questioning Matteo to get his side of the story. Missier Grande is not an inquisitor. He merely carries out the orders of the Ten and might have been told little about the Michiel case. He had been sent to fetch the book and no more. He could not ignore dramatic accusations of attempted murder, but he certainly would not arrest a noblewoman on his own initiative, nor me either, unless I had blood on my hands.

  Looking alien and scared, Agnesina was huddled behind the door, in what I now thought of as Sister Lucretzia's chair. Isabetta remained hunched in the red chair, looking old and haggard, with a bandage around her head. Seeing that Nostradamus no longer needed my assistance I moved out of the way of Domenico and Bernardo, who were anxious to crowd in and fuss. I went to Isabetta and dropped to one knee. She looked at me with distaste.

  "How do you feel?"

  "Sick. I hate brandy."

  "If that's all, you were probably very lucky." Her pupils were the same size and she did not seem sleepy; both good signs.

  "When you held your family council of war on Sunday, why was donna Alina not invited?" I began with a question about Alina because Isabetta obviously did not want to talk with me and I knew that there was no great affection between the two ladies in Palazzo Michiel.

  Sure enough, she wrestled her headache aside long enough to say, "She was indisposed."

  "What sort of indisposed?"

  "She had taken a fall."

  "Nasty bruises?" I said. "The previous night I threw her to the ground in Campo San Zanipolo and fell on top of her. How did she dispose of the blood stains on her habit?"

  Missier Grande was well within earshot and had stopped his whispered interrogation of Matteo. Isabetta showed no signs of being aware of him, but I noticed that she was speaking louder.

  "I suspect she burned it in her fireplace, piece by piece. I noticed an odd smell in her room that afternoon."

  "What was decided at Sunday's meeting, anyway?"

  "Nothing!"

  "You decided nothing, or you decided to do nothing?"

  She pouted and for a moment I thought the spring had dried up. Then she said, "All we could agree on was that Fedele would visit Nostradamus and explain the folly of his ways."

  Agreed maybe, but I suspected that Isabetta and Lucretzia had been two dissenting voices, if they had been allowed to speak at all. The point was immaterial now. I dearly wanted to find out how Bernardo had described Zorzi's death to the family, but I dare not ask that near our silent listener.

  "One thing bothers me still," I said. "I didn't see the feet of the fake friar who stabbed Marina Bortholuzzi, but the one who killed Caterina Lotto had bare feet. To walk city streets without shoes requires either courage, stupidity, or years of practice."

  Silence. I tried again.

  "Jacopo always made sure he had an alibi, and Alina could slip down that secret staircase by herself, but how did she travel across the city? Did she dare hire a gondola? Friars carry no money and own none. It would be a long walk to San Zanipolo or Cannaregio for her, even with shoes on. I mean, when does a Venetian lady ever go for long walks?"

  Isabetta eyed me like dog droppings on a doorstep, but again she couldn't resist the opportunity to tattle on the woman who had ruled her life for so many years.

  "Oh, you'd be surprised. I know of one very respectable lady who used to slip out at night and prowl the city disguised as a friar. She started doing this during Carnival once, she said, but she enjoyed a wander in the moonlight so much that she began doing it quite regularly. Eventually her sons found out and tried to stop her. She went on a hunger strike until they relented. There was no danger, she said. No one would try to rape a graybeard friar and everyone knew that it would be no use trying to rob one. They gave her back her friar's robe and tried following her. They discovered that wandering was all she did: no secret liaisons, no dens of vice. So from then on they turned a blind eye."

  "I am very grateful to you for that little story, madonna. Have you any thoughts on how Sister Lucretzia came to leave that incriminating book here?"

  "I prefer not to speculate on that."

  "Quite understandable. What puzzles me is, who could have known what the diary contained, other than the person who wrote it? A resident who had lived in the house for many years would have more time to, er, explore the owner's bedchamber, shall we say, than servants who come and go so often. Jacopo is the obvious culprit, but a woman would have had easier access to the donna's bedchamber than he would."

  Isabetta nodded. "This is true, sier Alfeo."

  "And poor Alina, on Sunday, resting her bruises. Had she perhaps taken a spoonful of laudanum that day to ease the pain?"

  The lady came very close to smiling. "Two spoonfuls."

  "And you checked to see that she was resting comfortably. And when Fedele said that he would visit Nostradamus and try to scare him into abandoning his investigation, you took Sister Lucretzia aside and suggested…?"

  "Nothing at all! What will they do with her, do you think, sier Alfeo?"

  "Donna Alina? The woman is deranged. A convent, I expect. It may look like a jail cell but it will be called a nun's cell. I don't think anything more than that. As for Jacopo… I think he has gone to the Ten and confessed. If so, I hope he may have saved his life." I also hoped that he was telling the inquisitors everything imaginable. They would rather send a strong young man like him to the galleys than to jail, and in that case they would not want to wreck his shoulders on the strappado.

  Isabetta nodded. "That's about what I was thinking."

  Then she uttered a cry that was almost a scream and I leaped to my feet.

  Vizio Filiberto Vasco was standing in the doorway. He was mobile, although leaning on a sbirro's shoulder, but he was a terrifying sight, his clothing soaked in blood and his face ripped to a wasteland of blood, hair, and raw meat. His eyes seemed to have escaped damage, for they burned black and white in that horrible gory mask. They were staring at me.

  Missier Grande muttered an oath and strode over to him. The sbirri reported in low voices. I heard my name several times and saw other faces glance in my direction. One of the men pulled over a chair for the victim.

  Another sbirro was holding a honey-colored cat by the tail. It had been almost blown apart by a firearm at close range, so that only its backbone still held its two halves together, and both were badly burned. It was, needless to say, very dead. It stank up the room.

  Missier Grande beckoned me and I went across to them.

  "Is this yours?" He pointed at the dead cat.

  "Emphatically not, capitano. I have seen it around this area before, though, or another like it. Last Friday a cat blocked my way at just about the place we met it tonight. It was behaving so oddly that I knew right away it
was rabid, so I retreated and went by another route."

  "You did not report this to the priest, or a sbirro?"

  "No doubt I should have done, but it happened very late at night, and I assumed that the animal would be dead by morning." I could not resist asking Vasco, "Did it bite you?"

  He raised bloody hands as if he wanted to leap up and strangle me, but a sbirro's grip on his shoulder restrained him.

  "Witch!" he said. "You set your familiar on me! Witchcraft!" His lips were so torn that his speech was badly distorted.

  "Not I," I told Missier Grande. "I saw something out of the corner of my eye and looked up. I shouted a warning and jumped back. I regret that he did not react fast enough."

  Some of his own men were nodding.

  "I charge him with witchcraft!" Vasco mumbled.

  I sighed. "There was no witchcraft. I was running to Number Ninety-six because I had a very urgent message to deliver-that a woman might seek to commit a murder there. As it happened, I did arrive there just in time to prevent that dreadful crime. But on my way there, your vizio stopped me and demanded a book. I assured him that I had no book with me, and if he would just accompany me to the door of Ninety-six, so I could deliver my warning, then I would gladly come back here with him and give him the book I thought he wanted. And then… What was it were we talking about after that, just before the cat attacked you?"

  Vasco did not answer. His men began to grin, because that had been when Vasco threatened to strip my clothes off in public. Dark alley or not, he had no authority to make such an obscene threat to any resident of Venice, whether nobleman or lowly beggar.

  Missier Grande raised his eyebrows at the silence.

  I have never reminded him of the debt he owes me and I never will. I have never seen him waver in his duty because of it-except maybe then. Or perhaps he was merely acknowledging all the priceless information I had just extracted from Isabetta Scorozini for him. Whatever the reason, that night he gave me the benefit of any doubt he may have had.