Dave Duncan - The Alchemists pursuit

"You mean that literally?"

"Literally, she threw a tantrum."

"Hysteria?" the Maestro said sadly.

"I am not familiar with the word."

"Extreme emotional agitation caused by a disorder of the uterus. This is Tuesday. I have good reason to believe that the diary was removed on Sunday. She cannot be a very keen diarist."

Jacopo uncrossed his legs uneasily. "I have never seen her write in it. Her fingers are so swollen now… I've never seen inside it. She called it her diary, that's all I know. And if that is what you are holding, then you are in possession of stolen property, Doctor Nostradamus."

"Not necessarily. I was given it as a gift, by Sister Lucretzia."

I almost jumped out of my chair. Why had he revealed that? It was a shocking breach of faith.

Jacopo frowned suspiciously. "I don't believe it! Why would my sister do a thing like that?"

"I don't know why."

"I tried to get into the convent to ask her," Violetta volunteered. "But I was turned away. I wrote a letter, but so far she has not replied." She sighed. "The abbess may have intercepted it, of course."

"She stole it!" Jacopo insisted, still staring at the book. "Her mother would never have given it to her, or even let her look at it."

The Maestro flashed a glance at me to see if I was keeping track of lies. I nodded. "Who else in the Palazzo Michiel keeps a diary?" he demanded.

"I think Bernardo does, just political stuff I think. No one else."

"Do you get much time off, signor Fauro?"

"Me?" Jacopo laughed. "If I ever do get an evening to myself, may I call on you, donna Violetta?"

She gave him a smile that promised all the pleasures of the Sultan's harem. "I would love that, but my evenings are mostly spoken for well in advance."

"I am told," the Maestro said quickly, before the conversation could slip away from his control, "that you are a ladies' man."

"Far from it," Jacopo said. "I am not quite a virgin, but kitchen maids are the extent of my experience, and few of them."

The Maestro sighed. "Alfeo? How many have you detected so far?"

"I have lost count, master. According to Domenico, 'He sows enough wild oats to feed the Cossack cavalry.' Donna Alina's hands look extremely healthy and she moves them naturally. Signor Jacopo says that she never goes out, but she spoke to me of furniture she had seen in friends' houses. He claims ignorance of the book's contents, yet he says it was not suitable for his sister the nun. He says he was a gardener, but he knows enough of the Greek Classics to refer to the maenads. He told me he is a partner in the family business, but he eats in the kitchen and the rest of the family call him a servant. I don't know if anything he ever says is true."

"Jacopo," the Maestro said, demoting him to servant status, "this book contains the names of many courtesans, including all four who were murdered in the last month."

The cords in Jacopo's neck tightened. "They were not murdered by me!"

That was certainly true of the last victim, Marina Bortholuzzi, because the killer I had tackled on the grass of the Campo San Zanipolo had not been Jacopo Michiel.

"You dress like an Ascension Day parade," Nostradamus said contemptuously. "Are you suggesting that donna Alina Orio showers gold on you just for reading to her and cutting her toenails?"

Jacopo seemed to swell, making me think of a young bull being tormented by a scrawny old rooster.

"Yes! Yes! I'm the only one who cares for her at all. Her own children keep her locked away and ignore her. I'm all she has, and I think she likes to make believe that I'm Zorzi come back to her. I'm about the age he was when it happened. What if she is deluded? It's her own money and if she wants to spend it on me so I can dress up like a young nobleman, what crime is that? Did you drag me here just to accuse me of dressing well?"

The Maestro ignored the outburst. "The first time Alfeo called at Palazzo Michiel to speak with sier Bernardo, he was kept waiting more than two hours. When he was shown the door, you were waiting outside for him. How did you know who he was and that Bernardo was not going to receive him?"

Jacopo unfolded his arms, spread his palms. "One of the footmen pointed him out to me. That was Alfeo Zeno, he said, helper to the great clairvoyant Nostradamus…"

"So you went and told donna Alina?"

"I was on my way to her already. Yes, I told her. I remarked that it seemed very strange that sier Bernardo would snub him so."

"You did not think to ask Bernardo why?"

"Rugs do not question feet."

"But then?" Nostradamus said. "Then, after Alfeo had been received by donna Alina, and you were showing him out, you said… Alfeo?"

"He told me," I said, "and I quote, 'Your mention of the Honeycat name was tactfully done. We were all terrified that you would tell the old bag about the murdered courtesans and make her convulse.' "

Jacopo had twisted around to look at me. He turned back to snap at the Maestro. "That was last week! You expect me to remember the exact words we were speaking?"

"Alfeo does, and I recall him telling them to me, because they made little sense then and less now. Either you are lying about the footman or you were conspiring with Bernardo and possibly Domenico. Which was it?"

"I don't remember trivia," Jacopo said sulkily. "I'm not your precious Alfeo."

"No. I think you are getting very tangled. Try telling the truth for a little while."

"I did tell you the truth. I just tidied it up a little in order to be tactful. If you want the raw facts, I was helping Domenico when Bernardo received your letter and came to show it to him. They agreed that you were an interfering busybody charlatan, that you were probably hoping to blackmail us, and that your gutter-feeding barnabotto messenger boy was a disgrace to his ancestry and did not deserve an answer. And they ordered me to have nothing to do with him, either."

Nostradamus beamed. "Splendid! See how refreshing it is? Keep it up. So you went and told donna Alina?"

"Of course. She's been driven crazy by a lifetime in captivity. She told me to intercept him outside. It made her day."

"What changed in December?"

"December?"

"Why did donna Alina suddenly decide she needed a cavaliere servente two weeks before Christmas? She had lived eight years a widow without one?"

Jacopo shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Yes. I don't know. She took pity on me, maybe. I told you they were going to throw me out at the end of the month."

"You don't know? Her decision saved you at the very edge of the precipice and you didn't make it your business to find out why? You snoop and sneak and eavesdrop. You spy and pry and lie. What changed in December?"

"Nothing I know of except I got a job."

"Who killed Gentile?"

"Zorzi."

"Rubbish! He would never have used a family heirloom as a weapon. According to what you told Alfeo, it was you who informed the Ten that the khanjar dagger was missing-not the Ten directly, perhaps, but you blabbed it out in front of witnesses. What witnesses? Why were you present? Who put you up to it?"

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" Jacopo said. "I don't remember. I was twelve years old and had just lost my father. The family was being brutal because he was no longer around to protect me. The servants were sneering that I would be sent away. I'm told that I told someone, but I don't remember doing so. I was only a kid."

"You knew that someone in the family had killed your father with that dagger. Obviously it was his wife, because she was never allowed out and had to use the only weapon she could find. Zorzi fled into exile to protect her."

Silence.

"Why don't you answer?"

"You didn't ask a question. If she killed him, why has she hired you to prove that Zorzi didn't?"