Dave Duncan - The Alchemists pursuit

Fedele smiled thinly. "Priests learn many strange things in the course of performing the Lord's work, Filippo. Do you remember Pietro Vercia?"

The Maestro nodded. "The forger?"

"A forger you exposed. The night before his execution, I heard his confession, but then I spent the rest of the night just listening to him talk. Condemned men tend to talk a lot as the noose approaches. He told me how you had never left your house, but you had sent your apprentice around asking questions, gathering the information you needed for your spells. So I knew you would send Zeno in your stead and I saved time by summoning him directly."

"Spells? That was why you delayed sending for me until it was too late?"

Fedele rose, tall and stark. "That was why. Giovanni had made his last confession and I could not allow him to taint his soul by contact with black magic. I do urge you to repent your ways, Filippo. Eternity is a long time to burn." He raised his hand to bless.

"Have you heard about Marina Bortholuzzi?" Nostradamus asked brightly.

"Who? No." The hand dropped.

"Another courtesan murdered. Last night in the Campo San Zanipolo."

"I shall pray for her," the friar said, and muttered a quick blessing.

He headed for the door. The nun rose. I rose. But then Fedele wheeled around as if he had reached a decision. His voice seemed to resonate with the baleful reproach of fearsome Old Testament prophets. "Murderers usually have some reason for killing their victims, Filippo, even if it is only to lift their purses. Have you discovered yet why our father was stabbed to death?"

"Not yet, Brother," the Maestro replied.

"Then I shall tell you before you make even more of a fool of yourself. This is not exactly a secret, just something unknown to the general public. Everyone in his family knew, and I know that the Council of Ten did. Two days before our father died, he announced that he was so disgusted by his youngest son's debauchery that he was going to disown and disinherit him. He would cut him out of his will and ask the Great Council to strike his name from the Golden Book for conduct unbecoming a nobleman. Now you know the motive for that terrible crime."

Without another word, the priest spun around and stalked out of the atelier. His sister followed. He unlocked the outer door for himself and departed. I bowed the nun out. She paused long enough to bob me a curtsey, and then floated away like a black ghost. I locked up behind her.

"Very interesting," the Maestro murmured as I returned. "So Zorzi had a motive and access to the weapon. Are you convinced now of his guilt?"

"No, master." Could any man learned in the classics have been so stupid as to kill his father only two days after that dramatic denunciation and with an identifiable weapon? Someone who wanted both Gentile and Zorzi removed could have done so, two birds with one stone. I could imagine the pious brother disapproving of the lecherous brother's lifestyle, but San Francesco would not approve of double homicide as a way of registering protest. Cui bono? as the lawyers say-"Who gains?" Well, the two older brothers had split the family fortune between them, hadn't they?

"As for motive," I said, "I told you what Celsi said: 'He and his father fought like cat and dog all the time, with the old man always threatening to disinherit him if he didn't reform his ways.' So what was special about the last time?"

"Why did you offer the paper to the friar with your left hand, apprentice?"

The sly old devil had noticed!

"So that it was directly in front of him, master. He took it with his right hand."

"And why did you want to know whether he was left- or right-handed?"

"Because the blade penetrated Gentile Michiel's tippet, which hangs over the left shoulder. That is why you think Zorzi did not kill him."

Nostradamus leered at me. "No bad at all! You are learning."

"Thank you, master."

Gentile had been stabbed in the back on his left side, possibly a misdirected attempt to find his heart in near darkness. An assassin in a crowd will try to position his own body to shield his actions from other people, which in this case suggested a left-handed killer getting directly behind his victim. Zorzi was left-handed, and that might well have been another factor that influenced the Ten in reaching their verdict. But Gentile had been reunited with his wife. He would not have been wearing a sword in church, but a man normally offers his left arm to his lady, the origin of that custom being to leave his sword arm free. Donna Alina had said she was pushed aside by a tall man, and even if she had dropped back a little as her husband forced their way through the crowd, the killer would not have pushed her with the hand that held his knife. More likely the killer had held the dagger in his right hand.

"It isn't proof, you understand!" Nostradamus said. "The Basilica was packed with people, so determining exactly where everyone was would have been impossible even then, let alone eight years later. But it is suggestive of a right-handed killer."

"Yes, master."

"Which hand did the fake friar use to slash you last night?"

"His right, master."

An hour or so later the knocker summoned me again, and this time it was Violetta, radiant as the sun clearing away fog. We shared a brief kiss while I was closing the outer door, and another as I ushered her across to the atelier. Nostradamus almost seemed pleased to see her. He did not rise, but he did apologize for not doing so, and he did invite her to sit in one of the green chairs. I, of course, went to the chair on my side of the desk.

"Alfeo," he said. "A report for my client, if you please." Polite preliminary chitchat is not one of his skills.

I said, "Yes, master," and reported, starting with the Maestro's foreseeing, my attempt with Fulgentio to block the killing, and our failure to do so. Violetta was in her Minerva persona, the brilliant one, and her gray eyes hung on every word I spoke, analyzing, remembering.

When I mentioned that I had called on Alessa and she had revealed the true name of Honeycat, she merely nodded, as if that were not news to her.

"You knew Zorzi Michiel, madonna?" the Maestro inquired softly.

She nodded again. "We met socially and then he invited me to a spend a few days on the mainland. He was to come for me on the very day he fled from the city. Lucia vouched for Zorzi as very generous and excellent company, cultured and witty. I did not recognize the name earlier because nobody had told me he was the celebrated Honeycat."

"A birthmark," I said. "Only very close friends were in on the joke."

"Am I on his list now?" she asked. She was still under the shadow of the tarot's Death reversed.

"Who knows?" Nostradamus said. "We do not know the killer's motive for so many killings. You must be careful and Alessa even more so. Did Zorzi wear a beard?"

"No. Why?"

"Tell her why, Alfeo."

We had not discussed this, of course, but I knew the answer.

"Because the Basilica is the doge's private chapel and the Christmas service would be by invitation only. A nobleman in borrowed black robes might have bluffed his way in, but nobles are required to wear beards."

"It was dark," she said. "Beards are fairly easy to fake."

"True," the Maestro said, "and it may be that a fake beard turned up among his possessions. We absolutely must find out what evidence led the Ten to find him guilty. Go on, Alfeo."

So I described my visit to Palazzo Michiel and the death on Campo San Zanipolo that I failed to prevent. I finished with the warning from Friar Fedele and then waited to see what Minerva made of it all. So, significantly, did Nostradamus. She sat and frowned for a long minute.

"The lack of alibi makes no sense at all," she declared. "Zorzi was not the sort of boy to sit at home alone reading Dante. Surely someone could have testified that he had been elsewhere that night? Surely he was not stupid enough to use a dagger that could be traced back to him? Would the Ten convict him on that alone? Who tipped him off that the Ten were going to arrest him? If he didn't kill his father, who did? And whether he committed patricide or not, who is going around killing courtesans now, eight years later? And why?"