Dave Duncan - The Alchemist's Apprentice

“Speak, goddess.”

The Ten would start asking questions soon. Thanks to Putrid I knew the murderer must be either Alexius Karagounis or his Moorish servant, but finding admissible proof would take time.

Violetta sighed and rolled on her back. “I went and saw Bianca Orseolo yesterday.”

I heard Minerva in her voice. “You did what?”

“You heard me. Ca’ Orseolo is in mourning, so after you left I went calling in my nun costume, to offer comfort.”

“But she saw you at the-”

“She did not see me at the supper. She may have seen me, but she did not look at me, because she was busy tending her grandfather and I am a courtesan. Proper young girls ignore such women. She did not recognize me yesterday because I was a nun, completely different.”

“You think that costume you were wearing would fool-”

“Stop interrupting. There are nuns who wear habits like that. I got in to see her when nobody else would have done, except other family members, of which she has none. We had a long talk. Bianca had more opportunity to see the crime committed than anyone else did, because she was at her grandfather’s side all the time.”

“She also had the best opportunity,” I said. “All she had to do was hand him the wrong glass and he would never have questioned. Did she do it?”

“I don’t know.” Violetta rarely admits ignorance. As Minerva, she is much brainier than I am. As Aspasia, she is unsurpassed at judging people. “She is extremely upset by her grandfather’s death…almost too upset. She wept in my arms. So much sorrow may be a sign of guilt, either guilt because she killed him or guilt because she is glad he died, I don’t know yet. You and I are to go and see her later today.”

This needed a lot of rational analysis and rational analysis was hard to achieve while cuddling the finest courtesan in the Republic-which duty compelled me to do at that moment, of course, to keep this witness cooperative. It crossed my mind that few men enjoyed better working conditions.

I made an effort to concentrate. “You told her my name?”

“No. I said I knew a man who was investigating the possibility that her grandfather had been murdered, and asked if I might bring you to ask her a few questions. The funeral is this morning. We are to see her after that, around noon.”

I gulped. “You want me to pretend to be an agent of the Ten? I don’t know what the penalty for-”

“Hope you never find out,” Aspasia said coldly. “I made no such claim and the city is stuffed tight with the Three’s spies, as you well know. If Bianca assumes that you are one of them, her mistake is quite unrelated to anything I said.”

The doge had asked me to investigate the procurator’s death, but he would deny doing so if the Three asked him.

“Did Bianca have a motive?”

Helen’s dark eyes looked at me under divine eyelashes. “I don’t want to talk any more. Kiss me.”

The Maestro watched with disapproval as I laid a tray on my side of the desk. “Why are you limping?”

“I banged my knee on a tile.”

“What did you learn?”

“Have you eaten?” I bowled a hot roll across to him; he caught it before it went over the edge. “The murderer is a Muslim, presumably an agent of the sultan, and probably the servant who poured the wine. He could be the Greek or, more likely I should say the man posing as a Greek, the book dealer, Karagounis. How old is he?”

“About forty.”

“The man I saw was in his twenties.”

“Start at the beginning.”

I did. Between sips of my khave -a hot, black drink recently introduced from Turkey, becoming very popular-I continued through the middle and stopped when I got to the end.

The Maestro did not look happy. “You witnessed an execution. No doubt the general was a janissary, but it wouldn’t matter-any servant of the sultan, from infantryman to ambassador or vizier, is a kapikulu , a slave, and when the sultan sends his chaush with an order that the man deliver his own head, then the order is obeyed without complaint or resistance. The chaush arrives with a bowstring, a sword, and a bag. No matter how high they rise in the state, kapikullari owe their lives to the sultan.”

“Why did he wash his hands?”

“I have no idea. You are in grave danger. The fiend that saw you may be much stronger than the guide you were using. It may have managed to open a portal to you. You must go and make confession right away.”

One of the advantages of living in San Remo is Father Farsetti. Other priests might report me to the Holy Office, but in Venice the priests are elected by the parishioners, subject to the patriarch’s veto, and the good folk of San Remo had chosen a practical, broad-minded man. Even so, I wondered uneasily how long it would take to say a million Ave s. That was what he had threatened me with the last time I confessed to practicing demonology.

“If you insist.”

“I do insist! I assume the funeral is today?”

“Violetta says the service will be held this morning, but I haven’t finished reporting. I have a second suspect to offer-Bianca, the sweet child you overlooked at the book viewing.” I told him of Violetta’s escapade. “My friend is an exceedingly shrewd judge of people,” I finished. “And if she distrusts Bianca, then we should be wise to pay heed. Or do we believe only what the fiend showed me?”

The Maestro curled his lip. “I see no reason to choose between the two testimonies just yet.”

“I assure you that the strangler I saw was no blushing Christian maiden, and I refuse to believe that a kapikulu assassin could disguise himself as one well enough to deceive her grandfather, however doddery he was getting.”

“Faugh! You blather like a lace maker. If this affair were straightforward, I could have solved it in ten minutes with the crystal. By all means fold the fair Bianca to your manly breast and dry her tears. The girl may be unduly upset because she saw the glasses being switched and chose not to intervene. Speak with her father, also, the great minister. Find out where he was on Valentine’s Eve, and his son also.”

“Benedetto. He’s supposed to be at the University of Padua.”

“It’s only twenty-five miles to Padua. He would have been sent for as soon as his grandfather fell sick.”

I failed to see how he could have switched glasses at a party in Venice when he was miles away on the mainland, but a well-behaved apprentice does not make fun of his master’s instructions. I nodded, being well behaved.

“And you still have to see Senator Tirali and his son.”

“Pasqual Tirali. Master, I admit I have personal reasons for wanting to send sier Pasqual Tirali to the galleys, but I cannot imagine his managing to poison a wine glass and switch it with another without Violetta noticing.”

“Include him anyway.” The Maestro scowled across at his bookshelves. “Bring me the Midrasch-Na-Zohar before you go. You had better start with Father Farsetti. You may be able to catch him about now. And don’t forget what I said about Bruno and your sword.”

I left him with his ferrety nose deep in the Rabbi Ben Yohai’s masterpiece. If he was willing to try cabalism, he must be really desperate.

V ioletta and I have a longstanding agreement. I never ask her to give up her career as a courtesan, because I know how much she values the freedom it gives her, saving her from the closeted, subservient life of a “respectable” woman. Housebound boredom would kill her in a month, she says, and I believe her. Her side of the pact is never to offer me money or expensive gifts. The only exception I allow is something to wear, to mark either my birthday or the anniversary of the day we became lovers. She interprets the terms liberally, which is why I could buckle on my rapier and matching dagger of superlative Toledo steel. I covered them with my kidskin cloak, also given by her.