Dave Duncan - The Alchemist's Apprentice

“And the man with the big nose?”

The attorney’s mouth twitched violently four times. “Let me see that letter!”

I passed it over. It was not sealed. He twitched six times while reading it. “Extortion! If your master wants to come here and ask some questions on a professional matter, I shall try to make time to see him. Ask my clerk to set up an appointment.”

I shook my head. “My master has difficulty walking, sir. My orders are to take you back to visit with him or else drop his letter in the bocca di leone. You may come and watch me do so if you wish. My gondola is waiting.”

“Blackmail, I say!”

“May the Lord be with you, lustrissimo.” I held out my hand for the letter.

“Very well. I will come with you, so I can personally caution Doctor Nostradamus that he is violating serious laws.”

He shooed me out ahead of him in case I tried to rummage through his briefs.

Imer might be doing well for an attorney, but the Ca’ Barbolano overwhelms almost anyone. Sheer size, to start with. In a city squeezed onto a hundred man-made islands, space is the ultimate luxury and the Maestro’s salone is enormous, stretching the length of the building. Huge mirrors alternate along the walls with paintings by Veronese and Tintoretto, chandeliers spread crystal foliage overhead, and the inhabitants on view are built to scale. Michelangelo’s David from Florence stands nearest the door. Beyond him are Sansovino’s Mars and Neptune from the giants’ staircase in the Doges’ Palace, and the Laocoon from Rome. More titanic sculptures loom beyond these. All of them are copies carved in chalk, but the ones I can vouch for are very good copies; the rest are certainly impressive.

Ottone Imer made a cynical effort to shrug off the vista he saw from the doorway, no doubt assuming that Maestro Nostradamus could not possibly own all this and his real quarters were probably some servant’s kennel under the roof. But when I showed him into the atelier, its display of books, charts, quadrants, alembics, globes, armillary sphere, and the rest told him at once whose territory he was on. There was no one there. I gave him a moment to gape at it all. First impressions last, my master says.

Belief begins with the wish, is another of his.

I conducted Imer across to the fireplace and the two green velvet chairs facing the window, the two reserved for visitors.

“The Maestro will be here directly.” I went to the red chair, adjusted its position slightly, moved the candelabra out of the way, looked past our guest, and said, “ Lustrissimo Imer, master.”

“Good of you to come, lustrissimo. My legs are-”

Imer almost jumped out his seat. The door was across the room to his left, in plain view so he knew it had not opened, and the old man had not been there a few moments before.

Another cheap trick, alas. The old mountebank can move quietly when he wants, even with his staff. He would have had Corrado or Christoforo watching for our return. The wall of books is divided in two by a central alcove, which contains a huge wall mirror-a beautiful piece if your taste runs to the syrupy, being oval in shape, with a wide frame of mosaic cherubs and flowers. It turns on a pivot, providing access to the dining room-not truly a secret door, just an inconspicuous one.

He greeted his visitor with a twisted bow. I saw him comfortably seated and leaned his staff against the fireplace where he could reach it. He enjoys deference when we are alone and insists on it when we have company. Then I went to sit at the desk, where I could take notes if required or just watch the visitor’s face.

Imer was scowling. “Trickery!”

The Maestro smiled ingratiatingly. “Of course, but effective.” When he wants to, he can seem very old and small and vulnerable. “My sympathy on your supper party the other night. A most unfortunate-”

“Your apprentice threatened to denounce me to the Ten. I am contemplating lodging a complaint of attempted extortion.”

Without turning to look at me, the Maestro said, “Alfeo, did you threaten the learned attorney?”

“No, master. I asked him if he would help you clear up a mystery before innocent people became involved. He agreed to come and see you.” Just as I had agreed to go with Raffaino Sciara.

Imer’s mouth twitched. “Criminal investigation is the responsibility of the state inquisitors, nothing to do with you!”

“We all have a duty to report evidence of crime,” the Maestro said. “Are you sure there was a crime? Let me explain. When the procurator was overcome, I hurried to his aid as fast as I could. I detected symptoms characteristic of a certain poison. However-” He raised a tiny hand to forestall an interruption. “The substance in question is also a potent physic. The procurator was old and perhaps forgetful. If he accidentally took his medicine twice, or if he had an unusually severe reaction to the drug, which is possible, or if he had just opened a fresh preparation that happened to be a little stronger than intended…then there was no crime. We need to know if the procurator’s own physician had prescribed this particular physic for him. You must know who was sent for that night? So will you tell me the doctor’s name?”

“And then what will you do? Blackmail him as you have tried to blackmail me?”

The Maestro dropped his pathetic-old-man mask, shedding ten years and dropping his voice an octave. “Alfeo, you brought me an idiot. Put him back where you found him and give that letter to the lion.” He reached for his staff.

“Wait!” Imer snapped. “I withdraw that remark. It was uncalled for and I apologize. What exactly are you proposing?”

The Maestro leaned back and studied him with distaste. Eventually he said, “I am proposing, lustrissimo, to wind up the medical case on which I was consulted in your house two nights ago. If I can satisfy myself that the patient died by misadventure, I shall so report to a certain senior magistrate who has already asked me, unofficially, to investigate the matter. It is my hope that the authorities will then be content to let the matter rest. If I do not, a formal inquiry will be launched. Then you, and I, and a great many other people, will be seriously inconvenienced, embarrassed, and disturbed. If that is what you prefer, then go away and stop wasting my time. If you want to have your skull crushed in a vise, you will be on the right track. Otherwise you should give me your full cooperation.”

Twitch…twitch…“I shall answer any reasonable question, but without prejudice and only in strictest confidence.”

My master sighed testily. “In a murder case? You know that you are talking rubbish. What was the name of the deceased’s personal physician?”

Imer’s face shone red with fury. He was a curiously bad actor for a man who must impress panels of hard-bitten judges for a living. Perhaps that was why he had gone into the used book trade. “I do not know. You were there also, so why don’t you know? Senator Tirali took over, you will recall. He ordered me to go and fetch a litter! I sent a man to find one and then tried to calm the ladies, some of whom were very upset. Orseolo was taken home and everyone left.”

“Not helpful.”

“The best I can do. You want me to invent answers?”

“Was anyone else taken ill?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“Who was the servant who poured the wine?”

“There were two-Giuseppe Benzon and a man I heard called Pulaki, a servant of the merchant Karagounis, whom you met. Benzon has been in my employ for four or five years.”

“Indeed?” the Maestro murmured. “Karagounis is from Athens, in Turkish Greece. Is this Pulaki also a Greek native?”

“I don’t know.”

“If so he would be a subject of the sultan. You let a subject of the sultan serve wine to, er, Nasone?”