Dave Duncan - The Alchemist's Apprentice

“Good. As it happens, Alfeo was on his way to call on a certain person who may…Or may not.” The Maestro sighed. “We have our suspicions, but no evidence, you understand? No evidence I can lay before the Ten.” Meaningful glances were exchanged. “I dare not make an accusation yet. But the person we suspect may carry his own evidence on his person, and his face may be evidence enough when you have arrested the surviving bravos. Even his reaction when he sees Alfeo still alive may be revealing. Since one attempt has already been made on his life this morning, and since my servant Bruno is too upset to continue providing protection, may I ask that the Republic provide some staunch and trustworthy bodyguard to accompany my apprentice when he makes this visit?”

Quazza is not the sort of man to grab at a deal before he has walked around it a few times and counted its teeth. Especially a deal offered by Maestro Nostradamus. He chewed the nearer edges of his beard and stared hard. “What exactly do you mean about evidence on his person?”

The Maestro pulled back his lips out sideways. He is a superb actor-the justice system lost a great advocate in him. “He may be posing as a Christian and not be a Jew.”

That meant Turkish spy and raised the stakes a lot. It certainly took the matter out of the hands of the sbirri.

Missier Grande chewed for another moment and then accepted the offer. “I will send a man. An hour from now, Zeno?”

“I shall be at your service, Missier Grande.”

“And your memory will improve in the meantime?”

“I shall think very hard, Missier Grande.”

Quazza spun on his heel and marched out. Torre and the sbirri followed like sheep. No one argues with Missier Grande.

H aving attended to my penance and dressed in clean clothes and shoes, one of which was decidedly damp, I peglegged down the stairs with Giorgio hovering alongside. I was waylaid halfway by a mob of Marciana women and children and had to give an expurgated adumbration of my battle outside the church, which was the talk of the parish. I arrived at the watergate at the same time as a gondola glided in to the quay. The curtains on the felze were open and inside sat Filiberto Vasco in his red cloak.

I do not like Missier Grande Quazza, but I respect him; he is tough but honest. I cannot say as much for his vizio. Filiberto Vasco is about my age, which is too young for the high office he holds; his family has too much money and he has far too much ambition. Were I Missier Grande, I should wear plate mail on my back whenever Filiberto Vasco came within stabbing distance. He pays court to all the women, menaces all the men, fancies himself as a wit, and knows everything. His only admirable quality is that he dislikes me as much as I dislike him.

Giorgio’s services would obviously not be needed. The two men rowing Vasco’s boat wore ordinary gondolier clothes, but I should not have cared to wrestle with either of them. Nay, were I triplets, I should’st not. I limped down the steps and boarded, squirming into the felze with heartrending stoicism to seat myself alongside Vasco. We regarded each other with mutual distaste.

“Where do you want to go to, Zeno?”

I gave him Karagounis’s address in the Greek quarter just east of San Marco. He passed it on and we shot away from the quay. The gondoliers started to sing, because they are forbidden to listen to their superiors’ conversation, but they sang surprisingly well, one bass and one tenor. The vizio leaned back and smirked. I wondered if I could have learned to smirk like that if my great-great-grandfather had been a pirate like his. We cross swords almost every week at Captain Colleoni’s Monday fencing class. I am a better fencer than he is.

“I have orders to take you to the Leads, Alfeo, unless you tell me the truth and the whole truth.”

“I will gladly tell you as much as I am allowed by my oath, Filiberto.”

“What oath?”

“I am not allowed to say. But it was sworn to someone much higher than Missier Grande.”

The sneer waxed. If I could do no better than that, Vasco would hear the music of a cell door closing on me.

“The well-loved Procurator Orseolo died two days ago,” I said.

“What has that to do with you?” But a moment of hesitation had told me that the doge was not the only one concerned about that sudden death.

“He was taken ill the previous evening. Maestro Nostradamus was the first physician to attend him, you know, and he suspects poison.”

Vasco’s eyes narrowed to stiletto stabs as he calculated how to use this information for his own advancement. “Keep talking.”

I had my master’s leave to reveal all this. If the Greek’s servant, Pulaki, matched the assassin I had seen in the mirror, then he was a Turkish agent and the murderer we sought. I was sorry that Vizio Vasco would get the credit for arresting him, but the Maestro would be rescued from suspicion and the case closed.

“We have a theory that the procurator was an innocent victim of a plot to poison somebody more important. No, dear friend, I am forbidden to reveal more. But we believe that a man named Pulaki, one of the wine stewards, is actually an agent of the sultan. Remove his britches and all will be revealed.”

“You mean not enough will be revealed?” Vasco fancies himself as a wit.

“As the lustrissimo says. There is a slight chance that his master is the culprit. That is what I have to establish. If I identify either of them, I will happily accuse him and give you reason to look for the missing evidence.”

“Will you, indeed?” The vizio smiled. Heads he won, tails I lost. What more could his shriveled little heart desire? “And on what basis will you identify either of them?”

“Call it a hunch.”

He smiled. The Ten could make stones speak. “And who is his master?”

“A Greek bookseller, Alexius Karagounis.”

Vasco’s smile disappeared like an anvil in a canal.

I guessed why and felt a fact drop into place with the thump of a pile driver’s mallet-the Ten already suspected Karagounis! That was why the doge was so concerned; he had unwittingly gone to meet with a possible Turkish agent, and he was utterly forbidden to talk with foreigners except in the presence of his counselors.

Silence fell. Under the competing songs along the canal, I could hear Vasco’s brain creaking as he weighed his options. If Karagounis was under surveillance, then it would take a specific order from the Ten to arrest him and a premature move would bring the wrath of the mighty crashing down on the vizio. To let Alfeo Zeno interfere and then not arrest Karagounis would alert the suspect and cause him to flee. Vasco’s only safe course was to throw Alfeo Zeno back in jail and report to Quazza for fresh orders.

Then he reached a decision and smiled again. “It will be interesting. If your accusation is false, you will be in serious trouble, of course.”

“I am confident that my information is correct,” I said, trying to look as if that were true. Now it was my brain’s turn to creak. My warped imagination toyed with the possibility that Karagounis was a spy for the Ten and then discarded it. “He may have fled. I did try to call on the man yesterday, but there was no one home.”

“We have ways of opening doors,” the vizio said. He continued to smile, no doubt listening to the noises my brain was making as I tried to work out what he had worked out.

No more was said until we reached our destination. There is no way to climb out of a gondola while keeping one leg straight, and my scarlet hose was oozing blood by the time I was up on the quay. I looked skyward in dismay.

My companion leered. “Top floor, you said? You want to run up ahead?”