Dave Duncan - The Alchemist's Apprentice

I went briefly to my room to shed my cloak. Then I went to report.

When I limped into the atelier, the Maestro was seated by the fireplace. To my amazement, the visitor in the green chair opposite was a nun. I blinked twice before I recognized Violetta, alias Sister Chastity, and remembered that she and I had a date to call on Bianca Orseolo.

The Maestro is enough of a prude to rank courtesans with prostitutes and despise men who pay women for sex when they could buy books instead, but he is not a misogynist-he finds almost everybody stupid and boring, regardless of gender. Violetta is well aware of all this and goes out of her way to charm him. Nobody is less boring or stupid than she when she wants to be. He eats out of her hand and would not notice if she fed him rocks.

I detoured by the desk because there was a letter lying on my side of it. It had been opened, of course.

Dear and honored friend,

The man of whom you enquired was in serious financial straits until recently, having pawned his book collection and some of his furniture. About two months ago he came into better times and paid off all his debts.

I have the honor to be

Your humble servant

Isaia

That testimony would hang Ottone Imer now, if the Ten got hold of it.

On the Maestro’s side, the Midrasch-Na-Zohar had been closed and pushed aside, but Nettesheim’s De Occulta Philosophia lay open beside it, so he had not given up on cabalism yet.

I headed for the tete-a-tete, collecting a chair on the way. Somehow Violetta seemed much less outrageous in her nun’s costume than she had the previous day. Had I grown used to it, or had Milana altered it for her? Her sun-bleached hair was well tucked away and she wore no face paint, but it was equally possible that Violetta was merely acting nun so effectively that I failed to find her display of ankle and bosom as outrageous as I should.

“Bishop takes pawn.” She lifted her lips to offer me a kiss, but she was Aspasia, so it was a Platonic, political kiss. Besides, bending was awkward for me at the moment. “You are bleeding, Alfeo.”

“Just another jealous husband.” I sat down between them, facing the fire.

“Rook to king’s bishop five,” the Maestro said.

“Ah, disaster!” Violetta said. “I should have seen that! It will be mate in three, won’t it? I should know better than to try to match wits with one of the greatest minds in Europe, but I do thank you for the game, doctor. You look very pleased with yourself, apprentice. Shall I leave, so that you men can talk business?”

“Maestro?”

He said, “Not at all, madonna. I know Alfeo tells you everything anyway.”

He does this just to rankle me, because he knows I will leap to her defense like a dog chasing a stick.

“I do not tell her everything! I tell her nothing. In this case I questioned her because she was one of the witnesses, and a very observant one. She led me to valuable information about Enrico Orseolo, who had to be a prime suspect because he will be the old man’s heir. Other than that, she knows no more than the public at large.”

He pulled a mawkish smile. I had brought back the stick. “Would you tell her what you did with that mirror last night?”

“I haven’t done so, but if you give me permission I will.”

Courtesans have to be the most secretive of people, and he knows that.

“Do so, then.” He leaned back to watch.

“I invoked a fiend last night, love,” I said. “Dangerous but necessary. That’s why I went to the church this morning.” I knew she would have heard about the fight that was the talk of the parish. “The demon showed me the face of the poisoner, and today I went calling on him with Filiberto Vasco. The spy was Karagounis, not his servant. When we questioned him he saw the game was up and jumped out a window. About now the vizio must be trying to explain why he brought in a dead spy. I wish him luck, very bad luck. But the case is closed. The would-be assassin was a Turkish agent. The procurator’s death was an accident, when their glasses got switched. The real plot was to kill the doge, who had been cleverly lured to the meeting.”

“Well, I’m sorry about the old man,” Violetta said softly. “I am glad we don’t have to suspect poor Bianca.” She was Niobe, an aspect of her I rarely see, the sorrowing mother. Bellini or del Piombo would have taken one look at her and painted her at the foot of the cross for all eternity to admire.

“We need not bother Bianca,” I said happily. “The case is closed.”

“Indeed?” the Maestro murmured.

I almost fell off my chair in alarm. “Am I missing something?”

“You missed something last night,” he said with quiet satisfaction. I detest that sleepy look he puts on. He was going to make me look stupid in front of Violetta.

I spoke through clenched teeth. “Instruct me, master.”

“You are looking for a simple solution after I warned you the matter was complex.” He bunched his cheeks into a mocking smirk. “Evil is rarely simple. Yes, I’ve told you that often enough, but you must also remember that, while fiends are not as clever as certain nuns, they do know their business. A fiend making a mistake would be very unlikely to commit a lesser evil instead of a greater, and yet you are telling me that the fiend-ridden Karagounis poisoned a harmless old man instead of the Republic’s head of state. How very curious! A demon would be much more inclined to err the other way, like a dog spurning fresh meat in favor of a stinking heap of carrion. If the fiend had the chance-by design or by accident-to poison Nasone and did not do so, then the fiend must have been on the track of some greater evil. We must hope that today’s incident has balked it.”

Violetta was silent, watching us both without expression. She must see how the old scoundrel was baiting me.

I said, “You are telling me that Alexius Karagounis did not murder Procurator Orseolo despite what the other demon showed me?”

He nodded smugly. “The logic is inescapable. How exactly did you command the fiend?” He knew that. I had reported every word.

“First, a negative-to go away ‘if there was no murderer present on San Valentine’s Eve last in the room in…’ Oh, confound it!” What I actually thought was Damn you! which is what Putrid had said to me.

“You have it now?”

“Well, I don’t!” Violetta said loyally, probably lying to make me feel better.

“A murderer,” I said, “is a person who has murdered another. The old man did not die until the following day, so the poisoner was not a murderer until then-unless he had killed someone else previously, I mean. Until Orseolo actually died, the crime was merely attempted murder. I should have specified poisoner, not murderer.”

The Maestro picked it up. “Alfeo’s tame fiend would normally have taken him exactly at his word and gone away, to mislead him into thinking that there had been no killer present. But there was a murderer present, one of the sultan’s assassins. The demon would undoubtedly have preferred not to betray that one, because the man had the potential to do much greater evil in the future, but it had to obey Alfeo’s command.”

“What greater evil, Maestro?” Violetta asked anxiously.

“Hell alone knows,” I said. “Karagounis was setting himself up in the city, planning to marry so he could stay here. He had Ottone Imer in his pocket. He organized the book sale so he could meet rich and important people. He must have had some long-range plan. In a few years he might have become truly dangerous.”

He had already been dangerous enough to shed some of my blood that morning. He had known my name and face. Who else but his demon could have warned him about me and told him to send bravi after me? Or tracked me down in the church, a place I do not go as often as I should.