Dave Duncan: The Alchemists pursuit

"Of course Gradenigo told you much the same story as Foscari had told his confessor, except that he went further, because one of Zorzi's women at that time was not a courtesan but a highborn lover, an adulteress by the name of Tonina. That is a rare name, and in this case it referred to donna Tonina Bembo Gradenigo, wife of Marino Gradenigo, Giovanni's son. After the Council of Ten proclaimed Zorzi Michiel's guilt and flight, she went to her father-in-law and admitted that Zorzi had been with her when Gentile was stabbed. Zorzi was innocent, she said, and must be pardoned and recalled. But Zorzi was beyond recall, alas.

"Gradenigo concluded that he had tortured an innocent man to death and blackened a noble family's name. Racked by guilt, he swore his daughter-in-law to secrecy. He abandoned politics and devoted the rest of his life to good works."

Pause. Then Fedele said harshly, "This is unbelievable!"

"There is an alternative," I admitted, "but it is even worse. Zorzi had truthfully said he could not produce an alibi without betraying a lady. Perhaps he was just posturing and believed that he could always tattle if he had to-until he learned, too late, that his lover was the daughter-in-law of one of the state inquisitors, one of the men interrogating him. Had he not known that? Did they break him on the cord so that he blurted out Tonina's name, but Gradenigo and his partners refused to accept the alibi and just kept on torturing him?"

After a moment Fedele mumbled, "Gradenigo was an honorable man."

That was the only answer I would ever get. It seemed that Zorzi had withstood the torment and taken his secret to the grave. Despite his debauchery, he had been no weakling.

"But you have no proof of any of this flummery," the friar said harshly.

"No, Brother? When Gradenigo was dying you blocked his dying wish to speak with Nostradamus. When you came calling on Sunday and the Maestro speculated that the murder weapon had been available in Palazzo Michiel, you encouraged him to think so. You did not actually tell a lie, although you knew very well that his guess was wrong. You did not want the case reopened, although by then you knew that Zorzi had been unjustly condemned. You were hiding something."

"I did not wish my family to suffer more," the friar muttered.

He was still twisting the truth.

"That too, no doubt," I said. "But now I have seen the anonymous letter, and last Thursday you wrote a note to me, if you remember." Of course one could not hang a man on a mere handwriting resemblance and I had compared them in memory only, but Fedele did not know this.

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.