The Alchemist's Code (28 page)

The audience jumped.
Sier
Zuanbattista, who knew that voice, knocked over his wine glass with an oath. For a moment the world seemed to stop breathing. Then the doge leaned back and bellowed with laughter, so everyone did—even Gritti, coming in last. That was an admission of defeat.
Ridicule is the deadliest weapon in the world
, the Maestro says.

Poor Vasco stared around in dismay, wondering why everyone was laughing. I did wish I could go and comfort him.

T
hey could have arrested me for spying on their meeting, but I had taken the same oath of secrecy as the Maestro. What mattered more was that he had solved their espionage problem for them in record time. It would be more true to say that the weather had solved it for them by driving the Sanudos indoors, or Danese had, by getting himself transferred to a bedroom where he would not have had the option of sitting by the window and taking notes. No matter, the Maestro could take the credit and look forward to a handsome fee; the
Signoria
could go away happy and prepare for the Sunday afternoon meeting of the Great Council. It is to the Great Council that the Ten report their activities, but the Algol case would obviously not be reported to anyone.

The Maestro's stellar performance had tired him, though. When I had bowed the last guest off along the canal, I went back upstairs and found him already planted in his favorite chair. He glowered at me, which I took to be a good sign.

“Bring me the Dee papers.”

That was an even better sign, because he has been running a savage argument with the heretic sage for years, and nothing would restore him like a good upsurge of choler. I could confidently expect to find several pages of venom and vilification lying on my side of the desk in the morning, waiting to be enciphered.

I headed over to the wall of books. John Dee, of course, is not merely a heretic and a skilled practitioner of the occult, but also a close confidant of the English queen, so his correspondence must be kept in one of the secret compartments. I knelt and began to empty a shelf of its books, stacking them on the floor beside me. “Thank you very much, master.”

“For what?”

“For setting Vasco up by opening the spyhole so he could watch the séance. I wish you'd warned me, though.”

“If I'd warned you beforehand, you might have started to giggle in the middle. And I had no chance to warn you afterward with the bat-eared
vizio
skulking around.”

“But you took a terrible risk,” I said, “letting him watch us practice necromancy.”

“Bah! We didn't! That was the whole point. What I did was mere mummery. You saw how easy it was to burst that bubble. You, though, used the Word, which is authentic thaumaturgy. They might have let Gritti have you for that, but the doge's physician is too valuable to burn.”

And I wasn't. He had saved me at no small risk to himself, so I must not sound ungrateful. “Yes, master. Thanks anyway.”

I slid aside the panel at the back of the shelf and retrieved the Dee bundles, which occupy three pigeon holes. Having delivered them, I went back to replace the panel and the screen of books.

“If you don't need me this fine Sunday, I think I'll go and have a chat with Father Farsetti.”

“Why? Is something troubling you?”
Danese Dolfin demanded behind me.

I was squatting. In trying to spin around, I lost my balance, dropped a pile of books in my lap, and sat down heavily. “That's a much better imitation than I did,” I said, glowering.

The Maestro smirked. “Keep practicing! Oh, leave that. Go see the priest if you want, but I'd say you'd do better to visit that woman of yours and collect a few sins worth confessing.”

I was supposed to look stunned, which wasn't difficult. “You really did get Guarini's name from Giorgio?”

“I said so, didn't I? You think I would lie under oath?”

“Then where did Mirphak come from?”

“Ah, yes. Mirphak?
Ahem!
Well, as you told Gritti, it was a shot in the dark. I invented it to use up one of your three questions. I wanted you to ask for Algol's name and address. I didn't want you asking something else that Dolfin would have known and I did not. As a matter of principle, apprentice:
A deception should be demarcated in advance so that it does not wander out of control
.”

“Thank you for that apophthegm, master. And no Baphomet?”

“None. The book's a total fake. It doesn't work. I've tried it before. Either it was put together by the Inquisition to scare some of the other Templars into confessing, or Raymbaud held back some of the spell. Now get out of here! Go!”

“Yes, master.” I went.

 

A week or so later, Marco Martini dropped by again, this time to deliver a draft on the
Banco della Piazza
, whose size made my eyes pop, and for which I wrote him a most beautiful receipt in black letter gothic. Surprisingly, Zuanbattista Sanudo eventually paid the rest of the fee the Maestro had charged him for almost getting me murdered on the Riva del Vin.

And Francesco Guarini? Francesco Guarini was tried in secret and sentenced to five years in the galleys. Francesco Guarini escaped from his cell in the palace and fled to Egypt. Francesco Guarini was tried in secret, strangled, and his body dumped in the Orfano Canal, where the tide could take it away. Believe whichever you like, because Francesco Guarini was never heard from again, at least not by me. I'd bet on the third ending, were I a gambling lad.

Close to Christmas, I saw the Sanudo gondola going by with Fabricio wielding the oar, so his exile had not lasted long. Just after Christmas, Girolamo Sanudo resigned from the
Collegio
and took the Franciscan habit and the name of Brother Pio. Zuanbattista served out his term as ducal counselor and thereafter declined office, indicating that if the Great Council elected him, he would refuse and pay whatever fine it levied. It did not nominate him after that, and he has reputedly been concentrating on his business interests ever since.

The following summer, Grazia sent me a polite note asking if I, as Danese's best friend, would stand as godfather for their son. I had never been a friend of his, best or worst, but I accepted. In my old age, I may have need of a very rich godson, which Alfeo Dolfin will certainly be. His great-aunt Fortunata came to the ceremony, looking twenty years younger. She stayed well away from me, though.

A
book can have too much reality. I used modern time-keeping because the Venetian day began half an hour after sunset, which meant that noon varied from about fifteen o'clock to about eighteen. Yes, they used a twenty-four hour day, but clocks never struck more than twelve. Clocks were rare. The pendulum clock was not invented until sixty years later.

 

Polyalphabetic ciphers were known in the sixteenth century, but governments continued to use their cumbersome nomenclators. The reason may be that spelling and alphabets were not yet standardized. (The present English alphabet was introduced by Noah Webster in 1826 but was not universally adopted for another fifty years.) Thus it is anachronistic to describe Alfeo or Vasco writing out their alphabet—they might have come to blows over what the correct Venetian alphabet was. Without such agreement, substitution ciphers would easily have degenerated into nonsense. Codebooks, in contrast, did not rely on spelling.
Veneziano
, by the way, was a language in its own right in which the laws of a sovereign state were recorded. Its modern equivalent is still spoken today, although commonly regarded as a dialect of Italian.

 

The traditional date for the election of the first doge of Venice was 697 A.D. In 1297, the aristocracy “closed” the Golden Book, restricting the vote and public office to men recorded there and their legitimate sons after them. Venice was not a democracy as we understand the word, but it kept its independence for eleven hundred years, the longest-surviving Republic in history. Hostile armies could not cross the lagoon, and navies could not sail it when the Venetians removed the markers showing navigable channels, as they did in time of war. By Alfeo's time,
La Serenissima
's great days were over and it had entered into its long decay, but it was not until 1797, two centuries later, that a French army under Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on the shore with artillery that could reach across the lagoon to bombard the city. Rather than see Venice destroyed, the Great Council voted itself out of existence and Lodovico Manin, the only mainlander ever elected doge, removed the
corno
as a sign of his abdication. Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, which explains the Maestro's quatrain on Chapter 28. Bonaparte gave the city to Austria, and it did not become part of a united Italy for another seventy years.

altana
a roof-top platform

 

androne
a ground-floor hall used for business in a merchant's palace

 

atelier
a studio or workshop

 

barnabotti
impoverished nobles, named for the parish of San Barnaba

 

Basilica of San Marco
the great church alongside the Doges' Palace; burial place of St. Mark and center of the city

 

broglio
the area of the Piazzetta just outside the palace where the nobles meet and intrigue; by extension the political intrigue itself

 

ca'
(short for
casa
) a house

 

calle
an alley

 

campo
an open space in front of a parish church

 

casa
a noble house, meaning either the palace or the family itself

 

cavaliere servente
a married woman's male attendant (and frequently gigolo)

 

Circospetto
popular nickname for the chief secretary to the Council of Ten

 

clarissimo
“most illustrious,” form of address for a nobleman

 

Collegio
the executive, roughly equivalent to a modern cabinet—the doge, his six counselors, and the sixteen ministers

 

Constantinople
the capital of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, now Istanbul

 

corno
the distinctive cap worn by the doge

 

Council of Ten
the intelligence and security arm of the government, made up of the doge, his six counselors, and ten elected noblemen

 

dogaressa
the doge's wife

 

doge
(“duke” in Venetian dialect) the head of state, elected for life

 

ducat
a silver coin, equal to 8 lira or 160
soldi
, and roughly a week's wages for a married journeyman laborer with children (unmarried men were paid less)

 

fante
(pl:
fanti
)
a minion of the Ten

 

felze
a canopy on a gondola (no longer used)

 

fondamenta
a footpath alongside a canal

 

Great Council
the noblemen of Venice in assembly, the ultimate authority in the state

 

lira (pl: lire)
a coin equal to 20
soldi

 

lustrissimo
“most illustrious,” honorific given to wealthy or notable citizens

 

magazzen
a tavern that does not sell food and stays open around the clock

 

marangona
the great bell in the campanile San Marco, which marked the main divisions of the day

 

messer
my lord or sir

 

Missier Grande
the chief of police, who carries out the orders of the Ten

 

Molo
the waterfront of the Piazzetta, on the Grand Canal

 

moresca
a popular Venetian sword dance

 

Piazza
the city square in front of the Basilica of San Marco

 

Piazzetta
an extension of the Piazza, flanking the palace

 

Porte
or Sublime Porte, the Sultan's government in Constantinople

 

Quarantia
the Council of Forty, very roughly equal to a supreme court but with administrative duties also. The three chiefs of the
Quarantia
are also members of the
Signoria

 

salone
a reception hall

 

salotto
a living room

 

sbirro
(pl:
sbirri
)
a police constable

 

scuola
(pl:
scuole
)
a confraternity (restricted to commoners)

 

sequin
a gold coin equal to 440
soldi
(22 lire)

 

Serenissima, La
the Republic of Venice

 

Signori di Notte
young aristocrats elected to run the local
sbirri

 

Signoria
the doge and his six counselors, plus the three chiefs of the
Quarantia

 

soldo
(pl:
soldi
)
see
DUCAT

 

Ten
see
COUNCIL OF TEN

 

Three
the state inquisitors, a subcommittee of the Council of Ten

 

traghetto
a permanent mooring station for public-hire gondolas; also the association of gondoliers that owns it

 

Tuscan
the language of Florence, which became modern Italian

 

Veneziano
the language of Venice

 

vizio
Missier Grande
's deputy

 

Wells
the prison cells on the ground floor of the Doges' Palace

 

zonta
a group of extra members added to a committee