Dave Duncan - The Alchemists pursuit

"Zorzi's not in this house, if that's what you're thinking," he said. "I'd know if anyone knew. I'm part family and part servant. There's nowhere and nobody could hide him from me." He sounded proud of that, but I'd marked him as a busybody within moments of first meeting him.

"And don't be surprised," he added, "if the lady has company. Bernardo is spitting musket balls about this Nostradamus idea of hers. He'll want to nip you in the bud."

Interesting! Suspicion stirred. "What bothers him most about it?" I asked. "Just renewed scandal? Or the fee?" Or was it that he feared whatever truth Nostradamus might uncover?

For a moment I thought that I was not going to receive an answer, then my companion said quietly, "The Council of Ten."

"They've been asking questions?" I knew from Sciara that the file had been receiving attention lately, but this confirmation of the Ten's renewed interest made the floor quake under my feet.

"They've asked Bernardo questions-unofficially so far. A fante dropped in not long after you left on Saturday. We had a family conference about it yesterday. They even let me sit in."

"Is that unusual?"

"The rule is that I'm not family when I want to be and vice versa."

"It's worrisome news. Do you know what sort of questions?"

Again there was a pause before he spoke. "He didn't ask about you, clarissimo. I know because Domenico asked Bernardo that. The Ten just wanted to know if we'd heard rumors that Zorzi had slipped back into the city, when we last heard from him, and so on."

"Did you all get your stories straight, then?"

Jacopo laughed. "We had a screaming, rip-roaring row, the best fight we've had since Gentile died and Zorzi left. Accusations of greed, duplicity, and senile dementia volleyed back and forth. Bernardo roared, Domenico sneered, Lucretzia sobbed, Fedele preached hellfire and Christian charity, sometimes in the same breath. Even Isabetta said a few sharp words. I just sat there like a cherub and enjoyed it all thoroughly. At the end, when they had all realized that they were going nowhere, I said that, as my conscience was quite clear and I had no guilty secrets to hide, I intended to answer all your questions fully and honestly. Then they all had to agree that they would do the same."

We had reached a door I knew. Jacopo halted.

"Do you suppose that one of them is a murderer and will lie to you?" he asked.

"That's for my master to decide," I said, although I knew that Jacopo himself had been lying to me like an Ottoman camel trader.

He reached for the handle. "Brace yourself for Venus In Splendor."

I could see no change in donna Alina since my previous visit. The face paint was no thicker, the impressive strings of pearls were the same, and if the black gown and shawl were not, then they were identical copies. Nor did she deserve Jacopo's slurs about her age. In her fifties she could reasonably look forward to another decade or so to spend the money he mentioned so bitterly. This time she was alone, reading a book. I knew it was a stage prop because she was not holding it at arm's length as she had held the letter she read to me the last time, and she made no effort to mark her place before closing it and handing it to Jacopo to shelve.

I bowed, was permitted to kiss her fingers, offered a chair. As before, she left her flunky standing. I admired her Paris Bordone portrait again; I still liked the bronze cherub better than the ebony desk.

Alina wasted no time on small talk. "So your master will do as I ask?"

"He is willing to try, madonna."

"How generous of him."

"He accepts no fees unless he succeeds, so he must be selective in the cases he accepts." I offered the contract.

She ignored it. "How much?"

"Two hundred ducats if he can prove that your son Zorzi did not stab your husband."

"And what else does it say?"

"He needs information, so he requires that all members of your household answer certain questions that he has instructed me to ask."

She hissed and then sucked in her hollow cheeks. "Absurd! You will write it all down and require everyone to sign what you have written. Then the blackmail will start."

"No blackmail, madonna. I will write nothing. I don't need to. 'Near Milan, twelfth January. My most beloved lady mother, it was with deepest sorrow that I added to your burdens by fleeing from the Republic, knowing that my actions will be taken as evidence of guilt and bring calumny upon you and everyone I hold dear. I was warned just in time that the Chiefs of the Ten had ordered my arrest. For reasons known to you-' "

"Impressive! Can you remember every word of a conversation also?"

"Most of them, madonna. You: 'Why is a messenger boy claiming to be a patrician?' Me: 'I am a patrician, madonna, my birth is listed in the Golden Book. I carried only a letter of introduction and-' "

"Jacopo, read me that contract."

Jacopo took the paper from me-with his left hand-and read it out. Once he inserted a mistake to see if I would correct him, which I did. I had been waiting for him to try that old trick. When he had done, donna Alina rose from her chair and strode over to the black escritoire. While Jacopo fussed around producing pen, ink, wax, and sand, she held up the second copy of the contract at arm's length and read it through to make sure it said the same things.

"I will not accept this nonsense about the bocca di leone," she said. "I am hiring your master, he should report to me alone."

"If his search is unavailing, then of course his regrets come to you alone, madonna. But the law is clear that any citizen having evidence bearing on a major crime has a duty to report it to the proper authority, which in the case of murder is the Council of Ten. The Lion's Mouth letter box for the Ten is in the palace, of course, but there are many other drops around the city, and if we choose ours carefully and time the drop, we can be sure it will not be read for several hours. This gives us ample time to report to you."

She pouted, which added five years to her face and ten to her neck. "Who pays the cook eats first. Nostradamus will send his report to me and if it is acceptable, then I shall see that a copy goes to the Ten."

Having had the same argument with clients before, I just shrugged. "If you insist." The Maestro had never had a client turn out to be guilty of a major crime, but he has explained to me that all his contracts include standard wording that they are subject to the laws of Venice just in case this ever happens. Thus he cannot be sued for breach of contract if he turns his client in, although I don't see why a headless corpse would care to argue.

"Then you must say so," donna Alina announced. "Write it in, Jacopo, both copies."

Jacopo wrote left-handed, of course; the trait sinister often runs in families. When he had amended both copies, she signed and sealed them-right-handed-and returned to her favored seat.

"What else do you need to know, sier Alfeo?" She pursed her lips tightly and narrowed her eyes.

"I understand that you were the only one to see the murderer?"

"I did not really see him. It was very dark after the brightness. The Basilica is not an especially large church, you understand, considering its importance, but it must be the most beautiful in the entire world. The whole of the inside, all the domes and the walls and arches, are decorated with gold mosaic displaying the history of the city, and Our Lord with the saints and apostles, his Holy Mother, a most incredible sight."

I have seen the inside of the Basilica several times. What she was saying was not very relevant to her husband's death, but she was talking so I let her ramble on.

"And the Christmas Mass is most special, you know, held just before midnight by an ancient special dispensation from the Pope, with the most beautiful music, and all the senior officers of the Republic come in procession, together with men from the great scuole, the friars, and priests. Truly, it was the most memorable experience of my entire life. And the church was very dim until four men, standing at the corners of a cross, lighted threads, like fine fuses, that spread the light out to hundreds of candles-one thousand five hundred candles, Gentile told me, and some dozens of very large, twelve-pound candles, and they all seemed to light by themselves, all at once, and the entire Basilica blazed up like the sun to greet the day of Our Lord's birth!"