Dave Duncan - The Alchemist's Apprentice

So it was all his sister’s fault? What pathetic trash he was! He could not even kill himself properly. Bianca was sobbing too, silent tears flowing down her cheeks. In her place, I would have taken up the fire irons and made a clean sweep of the Orseolo males.

And that was the unthinkable love of the quatrain. I am certain that there was nothing carnal about it, just brotherly love carried to the point of madness.

It was time to go, or I would fall asleep in my chair. “Your father is trying to save you. He can only die once, so he took all the blame. I knew he was lying. The Maestro knew he was lying, and Inquisitor Dona knew he was lying-but he accepted the confession. You’ve got your life back, Benedetto Orseolo. Try to put the rest of it to better use.”

“You mean that?” Bianca whispered. “The Three won’t send Missier Grande to arrest him?”

“I don’t think so. Dona will have to talk the other two inquisitors into it, but I think they will go along.” The Lizard would make his last deal.

“You’re wrong,” the boy said. “They won’t hang father for trying to kill you. The Ten will take his money instead.”

Bianca stared at me, waiting for my comments. This was the crux of the problem. Shamefully, there are precedents. More than one noblemen convicted of murder has offered to pay an enormous fine instead and the Council of Ten has accepted it.

“That’s impossible now,” I said wearily. “He’s confessed to treason and parricide. They can’t overlook those crimes. If you interfere now, you’ll probably get both of you hanged. Sweat it out, boy. Your penance begins now.” I hauled myself to my feet. “If your gondolier is still awake, madonna, I would appreciate a ride home.”

N o matter how thick the drapes or what horrible hour of the night I go to bed, I cannot sleep past dawn. It is a curse upon the Zenos-my father had it also, or so my mother used to tell me. It was almost noon before the Maestro came huffing and thumping into the atelier. I had been at work for hours and his side of the desk was papered with examples of my peerless italic hand. Much to my amusement, Mama Angeli arrived right on his heels, bringing a steaming mug of dark fluid. The Maestro refuses to admit that khave is beneficent or even nontoxic, but he indulges when he has to, and this day was one of those days.

I was tempted to bid him a cheerful good afternoon but he was so obviously in no mood for chaffing that I resolved not to speak until spoken to. I went back to work. After a while he picked up some of the almanac pages, the legible copies I was making for the printers to set.

He said, “Bah! This is wrong. You are a line out on this table, all the way down the page.” He was restored to his usual self.

“Good morning, master.”

“Is it? I shall need all these sheets redone before you break for dinner.”

“Yes, master. We had a visitor last night after you went to bed-a lady who disagreed with your apportioning of the blame.”

He gave me the sort of look I associate with spiders, except that spiders’ faces are too small to show details. “I hope you told her to go home and count her blessings.”

I reported what had happened. He had been looking forward to explaining to me why Bene’s alibi counted against him, and was peeved that I had worked it out for myself. He was disgusted that the boy had not been arrested.

“I accused the father to try and shame a confession out of the son. I never expected Inquisitor Dona to accept such nonsense! You really think the Council of Three will let the boy get away with murder?”

“Yes. I think he will be left to live with his guilt.”

The Maestro shook his head. “I cannot see why they should connive at such a deception.”

“Family,” I said sadly. “The Orseolos provided some of the first doges, centuries ago, and Bene is the last of the line. His father must have foreseen the possibility of things turning out the way they did and warned him not to interfere if he took all the blame on himself. Inquisitor Dona understood that. Benedetto’s penance is to let his father die and live to carry on the family name.”

“I will never understand the Venetian nobility!”

“Neither will I, master. That’s why I work for you.”

Nostradamus pulled a face. “You almost ended up working for hell. You ought to go and see Father Farsetti again, just to be on the safe side. Think how valuable a boy of your talents would have been to the demons!”

Now it was my turn to bristle. “In what way?”

“Oh, many ways. You could have been hell’s man in the Vatican. Or you could have thrown the Republic into chaos by testifying that you supplied the doge with heretical books.”

“If you mean his Apologeticus Archeteles…” Of course he meant that.

The Maestro bunched his cheeks in glee. “Why do you think he asked me to look after it for him? And because I told you to record it as mine, did you think I was trying to steal it?”

He was definitely back on form. “Of course not, master.” I reached for my pen. “Those sheets you are holding are correct. I always double check your calculations. I found two mistakes in May and one in June. That was why your drafts were a line out. I mended them.”

Where does a story end, exactly? Some stories go on for a very long time, like buildings. The Orseolo saga had been going on for centuries. I just visited for a few days, and this was where I left it. From now on they must manage without me.

A few backward glances through windows, perhaps-

Before noon Giorgio rowed Pulaki over to the mainland and saw him safely to his parents’ home in Mestre. The Maestro was confident that the loss of the use of two fingers would not handicap him greatly.

Two days after that, the bell called the Maleficio tolled in the campanile of San Marco to announce an execution. Corrado and Christoforo were downstairs and out the door in a flash. They returned an hour or so later to describe the proceedings with as much lurid detail as anyone was willing to hear. Having seen the Feathers arrested at Imer’s house, they had now watched them being beheaded between the columns on the Piazzetta. You would have thought from listening to them that they had solved the murder and brought the villains to justice all by themselves.

The Feathers had been tried in secret, but I draw your attention to the curious behavior of the English Ambassador in the meantime. The English Ambassador did nothing in the meantime. He made no outcry at all-no appeal to the Collegio or the Senate, nothing-so he must have been satisfied that they deserved their fate.

The following dawn revealed a gallows between the pillars, and a body dangling from it. Giorgio and Mama heard the news in the Rialto market, and I had Giorgio row me to the Piazzetta to confirm that it was indeed the corpse of Enrico Orseolo. I could tell from the stains on his clothes and the marks on his neck that he had been strangled while seated-they tie you in an iron chair, put a silken rope around your neck, and turn a handle. Only then had he been taken out and hung up on display. This form of execution is typical of the secretive ways of the Ten, but at least it is private, and the victim is not exposed to the mockery of the mob. Orseolo had been suspended right way up, so he had not been convicted of treason, as he might have been. My tarot had predicted the Traitor reversed, meaning that the world was upside down, or perhaps even that the hanged man had earned his halo.

I think that’s all.

No, not quite. One final backward glance…

One siesta time a week or two later, Violetta poked me and said, “You asleep?”

“No, just planning my next move. Pawn takes queen?”