Dave Duncan - The Alchemist's Apprentice

Violetta was in full flood now. “Then they wonder why their sons have trouble finding noble brides. Of course it’s all right for men to marry beneath them, just as long as the brides have money and not too many brothers. Pasqual’s father applied for permission to marry a citizen’s daughter and the Great Council held its nose and approved. The marriage restored the family fortune and hasn’t even hurt his political career. But Pasqual is an only child. His parents are nagging him to marry and produce an heir.”

A few of the old clans have grown enormously, so there can be fifty members of the Great Council with the same family name-some fabulously rich and some mouse-poor, like me. Others trimmed the herd too small and died out.

Violetta had not done. “Do you know that some fathers have forced their daughters to take their vows at knife point?”

Yes I did, but such things are better not discussed. A mere courtesan should not speak ill of her betters. Alarmed, I said, “Beloved, just what did you say to Bianca in your tete-a-tete yesterday?”

She shrugged as if the question was completely unimportant. “I just told her a few things she did not know. She has no one to turn to, you know, no one at all. No mother or sisters to advise her. All her childhood friends are still in the convent. The Church and the state and the men in her family are all against her.”

“Merciful God, woman, if you advised a procurator’s daughter to take up a career as a prostitute, they will pillory you! They’ll brand you, deport you…I don’t know what all they’ll do to you!”

“I did nothing of the kind,” Aspasia said stiffly. “I told you she was trained in a convent! What do you suppose she knows about Ovid or Boccaccio? She knows no songs but psalms. There is only one way she could entertain a man, and that is the least part of a courtesan’s repertoire. I told her that she was crazy to prefer marriage, that many noblewomen are confined even more strictly than nuns. They are assigned husbands for dynastic reasons, usually much older men, and they often lack even the benefit of company.”

“Thank Heaven!” I said, convinced that I was not hearing the whole truth.

“Of course I did have to agree with her that most, or at least many, young wives acquire a cavaliere servente to brighten their lives while their husbands are occupied with business affairs.”

I shuddered.

“I also listed,” she conceded, “some of the more liberal houses, like San Zaccaria, where the sisters’ habits are of attractive cut and decent fabric, not just sackcloth bags, where the diet and the prayer regimen are not too tyrannical. Where they allow music and so on.”

“That’s all right, I suppose,” I said doubtfully.

“Or San Lorenzo, Maddalena, San Secondo, and some on the mainland and outer islands that are even more forgiving, like San Giovanni Evangelista di Torcello-”

“A common brothel!”

“It has unusually relaxed views, but there are many where the sisters are allowed to entertain friends in the parlor, even friends with whiskers. And so on.”

“But you did not suggest she become a courtesan, did you?”

“I answered all her questions,” Aspasia said evasively. “She asked me how I got started and what sort of money one could earn. I told her about secret marriages, which the Church recognizes and the state does not, and what an outraged father can or can not do about it afterwards-especially to the bridegroom, of course. About how a girl might find a trainer and a protector…Useful information that she wanted to have.”

I shuddered even harder. “Did you mention pox and pimps and turning tricks in alleys?”

“I told her that few were as successful as I am. Do you honestly suspect that sweet child of murdering her grandfather?”

“She had the best opportunity,” I said, happy to return to the safer subject of murder. “Who else knew that he was drinking retsina? She must have been close enough to hear him choose it. The servant said he laughed. Doesn’t that suggest a family joke and an audience to appreciate it?”

“How distinctive is the poison’s taste?”

“We don’t know,” I admitted weakly. “We assume it had a strong flavor and therefore the fact that he chose that wine was important.”

“If you are going to argue that way,” Minerva said, “then you must explain how she knew that retsina would be available. It’s rarely served even in the great houses, and I would not expect to see it offered at a party given by a citizen attorney.”

“You know more about that than I do.”

“Or Nostradamus.”

“He doesn’t get out much,” I agreed. She was right, as always. The murderer must have carried the poison to the reception, so the crime was premeditated, but then to count on the victim drinking or eating something with a very powerful flavor seemed strangely hit-and-miss. “Who, apart from Imer and Karagounis knew there would be retsina available?”

“Let’s ask Bianca,” Violetta said as the gondola nudged against a mooring post.

I gripped her arm. “You wait here! It’s far too dangerous for you to go around masquerading as a nun. Suppose we run into her father?”

“Her brother would be more dangerous.” Medea struck my hand away, scorching me with a warning glare. “Just how do you think an unknown, unattached young man like you is going to get in to speak with an unmarried girl of her lineage and upbringing? On the very day of her grandfather’s funeral? You are not usually so stupid, Alfeo Zeno.”

“Ah, flattery!” I stepped ashore and handed her up beside me. She turned to the nearest door, and I said, “No, this way.”

“You have been here before?”

“Two years ago. I delivered the procurator’s horoscope.” Then I had been sent around to the tradesmen’s entrance, but I had argued my way up into the state rooms by refusing to deliver the scroll to anyone other than the great man himself. I had been tantalized by glimpses of marvelous paintings that I had not been able to examine properly.

This time I expected a tomb of a house, draped in mourning and silent as the streets of Atlantis, but a barge tied up at the steps was half full of furniture. Two workmen came out carrying a chest. On our way upstairs we passed a team bringing down a wardrobe.

“The family has three days to move out,” Violetta told me.

“That seems cruelly soon.”

“It is usual. Funeral this morning; tomorrow they will accept condolences in the palace courtyard. The Great Council will elect a new procurator on Sunday. You can be certain that vote buying and arm twisting have already begun.” That was Aspasia speaking, of course.

“Surely the family will have already gone to the Ca’ Orseolo?” I said.

A line of workmen ran up past us to fetch more furniture.

“She said not yet.” Helen wafted her lashes at the harassed young doorman who accosted us. “Sister Maddalena and sier Alfeo Zeno, to see Madonna Bianca.”

He had certainly expected me to speak, not her, and was perhaps startled to discover that nuns even had eyelashes. Confused, he mumbled, “The family is not receiving visitors today, sister.”

“Madonna Bianca agreed to receive us this afternoon.”

Understandably, he went and fetched the majordomo, who frowned suspiciously at me, as if trying to remember where he had seen me before. He was older and less susceptible to eyelashes, but Helen had already lowered her veil and yielded place to Aspasia, who explained about her friendship with Bianca and their appointment for this afternoon. We were shown into a reception room overlooking the Piazza. Violetta swept forward to look out the window, while I followed unhappily, squirming at intruding on a family’s bereavement-we were not even wearing mourning! Half the room had already been stripped of furniture. Two men followed us in and left with a bundle that probably contained a harpsichord. I had mad visions of being left behind, locked up in an empty apartment with Violetta.