The Alchemist's Pursuit

by Dave Duncan

  He sighed. “Many laws still define a cleric as a person who can read and write, Alfeo. Not a day passes but some illiterate person asks me to write a letter for him.”

  “Brother, you are still doing it! Do you honestly expect me to believe that you wrote out a virtual death warrant for your own brother without insisting that the true author’s name be included?”

  Fedele was silent, staring blindly along the great nave toward the faint candles on the main altar beyond the choir and screen.

  “You composed that note!” I insisted. “Why, why? What motive could you possibly have had to bring a false accusation against your own brother in full knowledge of the horrors that might result?”

  How could a man of God have lived with that guilt all these years? And for the last week he had lived with the awful knowledge of how Zorzi had died, and the certainty that he had sent his brother to the most terrible of deaths.

  “Motive?” He lowered his gaze to the cat, but I did not think he was seeing the cat. He was seeing the past. “Motive . . . ? The human soul is a noisome pit, Alfeo. Priests know that better than anyone. I have had to listen to confessions even worse than my own. In that note I lied about who I was and what evidence I had, but I honestly believed Zorzi to be guilty. He was a fiend from hell!

  “I took my vows at fifteen. I thought I could resist the temptations of the flesh. Zorzi was two years younger than I, and even then he laughed at me and said I would regret my decision. He was right, so right! I was wrong. The fires burned up far hotter than I had dreamed they would.

  “Zorzi mocked me for it. At sixteen he was promiscuous. At nineteen he was a rake, a compulsive fornicator, and proud of it. He would brag of his sins to me, tell me he was taking my share also. Our father was a moral, upright man. Yes, he strayed sometimes, but we all do that. He supported the church and gave alms generously. He had tried to bring up his children to be good Christians and he succeeded with all but one of them. I adored my father!”

  His mother adored Zorzi.

  Timoteo swore an oath of chastity; Zorzi was a lecher.

  Timoteo swore a vow of poverty; Zorzi wallowed in his mother’s wealth.

  Fedele swore absolute obedience; Zorzi did anything he wanted.

  “Why did you denounce him?” I demanded.

  “Because he killed our father!”

  “He told you that?”

  The priest raised his pain-racked eyes to mine. “Yes. No. Not quite. He swore he had a very good alibi, because he had been in bed with two harlots at the time, one for him and one for me. He was laughing at me! Yes, he did tell me he was guilty, but not in words. With smiles, gestures, hints . . . I knew and he knew I knew. I thought the end justified the means and so I brought him to justice. He fled into exile, we thought, and that seemed an absurdly lenient sentence, far less than he deserved. I did not know about Tonina Gradenigo!

  “For eight years I felt no guilt. Then, not a week ago, I learned that I had been wrong! wrong! wrong! I betrayed my brother and I betrayed my mother, who had needed my help for so long. I had blamed her, not my father, for everything.” He shook his head and started to gather himself, as if to rise and stalk away, back into his lonely, private hell.

  “Zorzi died proclaiming his innocence and protecting his mistress, you think?” I said.

  “Isn’t that what you have been telling me?”

  “No. He may have been protecting your mother. Can you not see the pattern, Brother?”

  Fedele slumped back on the stool and stared at me. “Pattern?”

  “Alina has been murdering women with Jacopo’s help. Jacopo did the dirty work beforehand, the legwork. He found the victims and made all the preparations, even writing the notes that would lure the fallen women to their deaths. But when the time came, he would always arrange a good alibi, and she wielded the knife or the silken cord. That was how she had worked with Zorzi, Brother. She was repeating the pattern. Who do you think gave her the dagger eight years ago? Who put her up to it? Who suggested she save her poor baby from his daddy’s wrath?”

  “Zorzi was guilty all along?” The friar’s eyes widened in sudden hope.

  “Oh, yes. They were both guilty. Your mother you can see tomorrow . . .” It was my turn to stare at the cat, which had barely moved a whisker through all this long conversation. “But Zorzi? Could you forgive him now, Brother? If your brother were truly repentant and trying to make amends and came to ask for your blessing, could you give it?”

  Fedele shouted at me, raising echoes in the huge church. “If God gave you wings, would you fly, Alfeo? Do not ask such sacrilegious questions, such blasphemy! What happens now? You have called me Cain and I have not denied the charge. You will denounce me?”

  “I could not. The only evidence that could be produced in court is the note and I ought never have been shown the note. In any case I would not, and neither would my master. In effect, although you lied, what you said was true. Zorzi was an accomplice in your father’s death, as guilty as your mother and with far less excuse. But I would never denounce you, because of the cat.”

  Friar looked down at cat as if he had forgotten it. The cat stared back.

  “Oh yes, the cat. Your familiar, I suppose?”

  “No, Brother. Please understand that my master’s first objective always was to prevent any more murders. He is an avaricious man, but a good Christian in spite of it. I happily do his bidding. Throughout this case, that cat has been helping me. I first saw it last Friday, when it blocked my way. I thought it must be rabid, so I went by another road, and that turned out to be a very fortunate decision. On Saturday I tried to stop your mother from killing Marina Bortholuzzi and was chased by a mob that thought I was the killer. The cat showed me a refuge. On Sunday it saved me from arrest. Tonight it intervened to save a woman’s life. This is no ordinary cat, Brother.”

  Fedele crossed himself. “It is possessed by a demon!”

  “A strangely cooperative, right-thinking demon. A honey-colored cat?”

  It was, of course, the last of the tarot predictions. The card showing the helper had been Trump XX, Judgment, the dead rising from their graves. I said, “Do you believe in ghosts, Brother?”

  The staring match continued.

  “Well? Do you, Brother?”

  Fedele whispered, “I suppose . . . Yes.”

  The cat shot into his lap. He almost fell off the stool, hands raised so as not to touch the animal. He must be even less of a cat person than I had been.

  The cat cuddled itself in tidily, curled its tail around, and began to purr, staring up at the friar’s anguished face.

  I rose. “You can try an exorcism if you want, Brother, but perhaps you should just offer your blessing. He died unconfessed, remember. By the look of him, I think he is ready to give you his forgiveness and accept yours. Then he can be on his way.”

  At the door I looked back. The friar was embracing the cat and it seemed to be licking his tears.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In the course of writing these stories about a parallel historical Venice, I have collected a personal library of over forty books, and borrowed many others from libraries. To acknowledge all of them would be tiresome and also unfair, because I have improved certain facts and made some accidental mistakes also.

  For this story, though, I should acknowledge my debt to three books in particular. First, The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice, by Robert C. Davis, Oxford University Press, 1994. Matteo the Butcher is my invention, and I have changed the dates slightly, but otherwise I have followed Davis’s account of a unique and astonishing custom in a city that has always been unique and astonishing. The Ponte dei Pugni is still there in San Barnaba parish, although nowadays it has parapets to keep people from falling off.

  A book I have borrowed much from is Coryat’s Crudities (1611). (I have the Scolar Press facsimile edition of 1905.) Thomas Coryat journeyed from London to Venice and back in 1605, mostly on f
oot, and thus invented the “Grand Tour.” On his return he wrote what may fairly be called the first travel book since Pausanias’s Description of Greece in the second century AD. Coryat includes vivid descriptions of much of the Venice of his day—although some of his observations are clearly wrong (he describes the nude statue of Mars in the Doges’ Palace as representing the goddess Minerva). It is thanks to him that I know that the Campo San Zanipolo was not yet paved.

  Another valuable eyewitness, an exact contemporary of my imaginary events, was Fynes Moryson, another English-man. Moryson visited Venice in 1593, 1596, and 1597. I have a collection of extracts from his records published as Shakespeare’s Europe: A survey of the condition of Europe at the end of the 16th century, edited by Charles Hughes, published 1903, reissued 1967 by Benjamin Blom, Inc., New York. I used Moryson’s eyewitness description of the doge’s procession to San Maria Formosa and the Christmas Mass in the Basilica. I have had a private tour of that church, which included sitting in darkness until those glorious, incredible golden mosaics appeared, gradually being illuminated. It is an experience one could never forget. Nowadays the trick is done with electric lights, of course, so I was fascinated to discover that it was done with candles back in Alfeo’s day. But the Venetians have been managing the tourist trade since before the Crusades.

  GLOSSARY

  altana a rooftop platform

  androne a ground-floor hall used for business in a merchant’s palace

  atelier a studio or workshop

  barnabotti (sing: barnabotto) impoverished nobles, named for the parish of San Barnaba

  Basilica of San Marco the great church alongside the Doges’ Palace; burial place of St. Mark and center of the city

  broglio the area of the Piazzetta just outside the palace where the nobles meet and intrigue; by extension the political intrigue itself

  ca’ (short for casa) a palace

  calle an alley

  campo an open space in front of a parish church

  casa a noble house, meaning either the palace or the family itself

  cavaliere servente a married woman’s male attendant (and possibly gigolo)

  Circospetto popular nickname for the chief secretary to the Council of Ten

  clarissimo “most illustrious,” form of address for a nobleman

  Constantinople the capital of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, now Istanbul

  cortigiana onesta a courtesan trained in art, music, literature, etc.

  Council of Ten the intelligence and security arm of the government, made up of the doge, his six counselors, and ten elected noblemen

  doge (“duke” in Venetian dialect) the head of state, elected for life

  ducat a silver coin, equal to 8 lira or 160 soldi, and roughly a week’s wages for a married journeyman laborer with children (unmarried men were paid less)

  fante (pl: fanti) a minion of the Ten

  felze a canopy on a gondola (no longer used)

  fondamenta a footpath alongside a canal

  fraterna under Venetian law, brothers held family property in common unless they agreed otherwise; a joint-stock company in modern terms

  giovane (pl: giovani) a youth or young man (note: Giovanni = John)

  Great Council the noblemen of Venice in assembly, the ultimate authority in the state

  khave coffee (a recent innovation)

  lira (pl: lire) a coin equal to 20 soldi

  lustrissimo “most illustrious,” honorific given to wealthy or notable citizens

  magazzen a tavern that does not sell food and stays open around the clock

  marangona the great bell in the campanile San Marco, which marked the main divisions of the day

  messer (pl: messere) my lord

  Missier Grande the chief of police, who carries out the orders of the Ten

  Molo the waterfront of the Piazzetta, on the Grand Canal

  padrino (pl: padrini) literally a “godfather”; in the War of Fists, a leader and also umpire

  Piazza the city square in front of the Basilica of San Marco

  Piazzetta an extension of the Piazza, flanking the palace

  riva a broad quay or street flanking water; literally a “shore”

  salone a reception hall

  salotto a living room

  sbirro (pl: sbirri) a police constable

  scuola (pl: scuole) a charitable confraternity open to both citizens and nobles

  sequin a gold coin equal to 440 soldi (22 lire)

  Serenissima, la the Republic of Venice

  Signori di Notte young aristocrats elected to run the local sbirri

  soldo (pl: soldi) see ducat

  Ten see COUNCIL OF TEN

  Three the state inquisitors, a subcommittee of the Council of Ten

  traghetto a permanent mooring station for public-hire gondolas; also the association of gondoliers that owns it and ferries that dock at the station

  Veneziano the language of Venice

  vizio Missier Grande’s deputy

  Dave Duncan is the author of more than forty books of fantasy and science fiction. He and Janet, his wife of more years than they care to admit, have three children and four grandchildren. They live in Victoria, British Columbia, the only city in Canada with a bearable climate. You can find him at www.daveduncan.com.