The Alchemist's Pursuit (15 page)

I rose and bowed as little as possible without giving direct insult. Neither of us had a chance to speak before Alina Orio did.

“Here is my son,
messer
Zeno. Let us hear Nostradamus's message.”

“Certainly, madonna. If he agrees?”

“Yes!” Bernardo barked. “Go on!”

“My master merely wishes to warn you,
clarissimo
, that there are rumors that your exiled brother may have returned to the city. Nostradamus advises you of this purely as a token of gratitude for your earlier interest in his work and seeks nothing in return.”

The inspector of meats exchanged glances with his mother. “Rumors? You come here to repeat rumors? Neither facts nor evidence, merely scuttlebutt and tittle-tattle? I can gather a bellyful of that at any time from the sharks in the Ghetto Nuovo or the fish skinners of the Pescaria.” His voice was the resonant trumpet of a trained orator and I was a public meeting.

I must now walk very close to the perilous edge of accusing the Michiel black sheep of three more murders. I drew comfort from the weight of my rapier at my belt, because I was fairly certain that either Bernardo or Jacopo could throw me out single-handedly, and they could call on unlimited assistance.

“I was instructed to mention two facts that may be relevant. First, a certain courtesan received a note purporting to be from a man she had known some years ago—not giving
sier
Zorzi's own name, I hasten to add, but a nickname by which he was known to her.”

Bernardo's heavy features did not change by one eyebrow hair. “What nickname?”

“Honeycat. Based on a birthmark, I was told.” Seeing no reaction to that, either, I continued. “Second, and perhaps more significant, the Council of Ten officially warned my master not to continue his current inquiries. So, of course, he will not.”

It is very rare to mention the Ten without seeing some sort of response, but I saw none then.

“That's all? You have posited your premises, posed your paradoxes, and presented your peroration?”

“I have.” I also scorn sarcasm and abhor alliteration, but did not say so.

“Then you have said all you wanted to say and may leave.”

Jacopo moved forward to assist.

“Wait!” said the lady. “Thank you for coming, Bernardo. I have another matter to discuss with
sier
Alfeo.” She waited until her son had stalked out in dudgeon and Jacopo had closed the door behind him before she continued. “Bring the casket.”

Jacopo crossed the room and left by a second door, through which I glimpsed a bedchamber.

“Now,
sier
Alfeo, give me your opinion of that small painting above the escritoire over there.”

I rose and went across to peer at the panel in question. My first reaction was repugnance, but after a moment it began to speak to me. I returned to my seat.

“Daring, but powerful. I have never heard of the artist, madonna. A Greek, from the signature, and his choice of forms and colors is unusual . . . At the risk of being presumptuous, I would guess that he is fairly young, searching for a personal style.”

She raised eyebrows and pursed lips in guarded approval. “He was young when he painted that. “Doménicos Theotokópoulos, from our colony on Crete. He later went on to Spain, and I have been told he has met with success there. A very odd young man, he was. And the desk beneath it?”

Was hideous. “I claim no knowledge of furniture, madonna.”

“It is made of ebony wood from the Spice Lands, very rare.”

Very funereal. I praised a bronze cherub instead and she dismissed my opinion with a sniff.

“The escritoire belonged to my father. I should say that ebony furniture
used
to be rare. I have seen examples in several great houses recently. I do hope it doesn't become a fad.” Anything popular would be contemptible, obviously.

Jacopo returned with a shallow silver box, decorated with pseudoclassical figures in bas-relief. Donna Alina placed it on her lap and spread her papery hands on the lid possessively as if afraid it might float away.

“My dearest treasure,” she said with a thin-lipped smile. “My son is not back in Venice. I can prove it. I know he did not murder my husband,
messer
Zeno. I know this as surely as I know the name of my Redeemer. I want Nostradamus to prove his innocence, by finding out who did slay my husband.”

I had been expecting almost anything but that. I hoped my shock did not show as much as Jacopo's did. He looked at her as if she were raving. I pulled my wits together.

“Eight years is a long time, madonna. Memories fade, witnesses may no longer be available. Even my master may balk at such a challenge. Of course I will convey your wishes. And the Ten . . . I mean, he will have to consider whether the Ten's interdict covers that matter also.” Even trying to overthrow the Ten's judgment on so notorious an affair might be judged subversive.

“I know things that the Ten do not,” she declared confidently. “I know where my son is.”

She opened the box without using a key, but I had recognized the words and gesture she used earlier to remove a warding spell. The same actions might or might not work for anyone else. She removed a slim book bound in brown leather, which she placed on her lap under the box, out of the way. Then she produced some loose papers.

“These are his letters. He does not write often, you will understand, because it is dangerous, but a few months after he fled he sent me his most solemn assurance, an oath sworn on his immortal soul, that he was nowhere near the Basilica when Gentile died.” She took up the topmost paper and held it at arm's length. “This is the most recent. It is dated just after Epiphany.” She squinted at the text. “Yes . . .
Maria now expects her confinement about Easter . . . after her difficulties with Gentile I try not to show her my concern
. . . And later he says,
Gentile is a very active little terror, and swims like a dolphin. I spend at least an hour every day with him
. . . You see,
sier
Alfeo? Would a man name his firstborn son after a father he had murdered?” She smirked triumphantly.

“I suppose not,” I said. But why not?

“In one of his earlier letters he remarked how much he had enjoyed his father's attention in his own childhood and hoped to be as loved by his own children. He is engrossed with his family and concerned about his wife. He is in a far land which I shall not name, and
not
here in Venice writing letters to courtesans.”

“Madonna, may I examine that letter you are holding and also the first one that you mentioned?”

“Certainly not!” She thrust the paper back in the box and put the book back on top of them. “It has his new address on it. There is still a price on his head, you stupid boy!”

“If Jacopo were to lay the paper on that escritoire,” I said, “and cover the address with . . . with one of those books on the shelf, then I could see the rest of it. And the first letter is eight years old, so it can contain no secrets now.”

She clutched the casket protectively in her talons. “Why? Why do you want to see my son's letters?”

“So I can assure my master that I have done so. I also want to compare the handwriting.”

“Why?”

“Because my master has taught me much curious wisdom about handwriting. The first letter must have been written under great stress. The latest one sounds like the musings of a very happy man, even if he does have worries about his wife's lying-in. The writing should show that. Even at this distance I can perceive that he is left-handed.”

“How do you know that?” she snapped, burning with suspicion.

“From the slant of the vertical strokes, madonna. Likely he was taught right-handed and tries not to use a reverse slant, but it shows here and there.”

She hesitated, but then curiosity won out and she opened the box again. She gave Jacopo the top and bottom papers. He laid them on the ebony desk, covering part of one with a book, which he held firmly in place. Only then did I go over to join him and study the letters. The old one was much thumbed, almost falling apart, the second much fresher.

“Yes,” I said. “I think
sier
Zorzi is not admitting how much he is worried about his wife—there is stress in those vertical strokes. But he obviously loves her very much, and his son also. And the first letter . . .”

I babbled on for much longer than it took me to memorize both pages, but my main interest was neither the text nor the handwriting. I thanked her. It was time for me to go. The day was drawing on toward evening and after dark I had a date, I hoped, with the Strangler.

“By your leave, madonna? Of course I will convey your wishes to my master. If he is willing to accept the challenge you have suggested, then I shall return on Monday with a contract for you to sign.”

Donna Alina graciously allowed me to kiss her fingers, which were scented with rose water, and Jacopo escorted me out.

“That was neatly done,” he remarked as we strode along the corridor. “I always thought one had to hold paper up to the light to see the watermark.”

S
ome watermarks show through on a black surface,” I admitted. “It was that hideous escritoire that gave me the idea.”

“So I saw what you saw. The watermarks were different.”

“As they should be, written in different lands, eight years apart. The handwriting is the same, as it should be. However, both watermarks are Venetian, so the letters are forged.” Normally I do not reveal information like that to a witness, but Jacopo probably knew it anyway and I wanted to win his confidence.

He chuckled. “I am most grateful that you did not tell her so. Your mention of the Honeycat name was tactfully done, too. We were all terrified that you would tell the old bag about the murdered courtesans and throw her into convulsions.”

I had concluded by that time that Jacopo was no true
cavaliere servente
, because he was no
cavaliere
. He was only a well-dressed lackey and younger than me. His present chattiness was an effort to seem better than he was. Who paid his tailors' bills?

“Does she have convulsions?”

“Not literally. She has a tongue like a skinner's knife, though.”

“Who writes the letters, Bernardo?”

“Domenico.” He laughed. “Bernardo may even believe in them.”

I wondered if Jacopo had believed in them until he saw what I was doing with the ebony desk. He was leading me out by a different route, not the secret staircase. Now that Bernardo knew I had been allowed in, there was no further need for concealment.

“It is a harmless deception for a bereaved mother and widow,” I said, “unless any genuine letters arrived from Zorzi and were suppressed.”

“I know of none.”

He wouldn't. They would have been burned by Zorzi's brothers, or turned over to the Ten, who would have read them first anyway. The Michiels' mail would certainly have been intercepted for a year or two after the outlaw's flight, and possibly still was.

I said, “The lady must have been very upset when her husband was murdered and her son blamed.”

Jacopo said, “Much more upset about Zorzi than . . .” He shot me a quirky smile. “You are a sly bastard, Zeno!”

No, if he had been around back then, he was the bastard among us. I had Jacopo placed.

“I see a likeness to Bernardo,” I said.

We were descending a magnificent staircase to the
androne
. The splendor of Palazzo Michiel belonged only to the legitimate heirs. By-blows would have no share in it.

“Well done,” he said sourly. “Yes. Honor is indivisible. Half is nothing.”

“And how old were you eight years ago?”

“I was just the cook's brat back then. Or a page, sometimes. I can remember Zorzi having screaming matches with our father and using me as evidence that the old tyrant was a hypocrite. Oh, how I loved that!”

“Your full name, in case I need to ask for you?”

“Jacopo Fauro, but just Jacopo will do.” He stopped suddenly at a landing and looked me over. “You at least got your father's name, Zeno.”

“I treasure it. But I got no money.”

I was prying again and he knew it. He shrugged. “I got neither.”

“You have another half-brother, a priest.”

“Timoteo, now Brother Fedele of the Friars Minor. We are a versatile family—politician, financier, saint, patricide, and drudge. Anything else you need to know?”

“And a sister?”

“Sister Lucretzia.”

“And who was the lady who was reading to donna Alina when I arrived?”

“Signora Isabetta Scorozini, Dom's wife.”

I had detected no signs of overabundant love between her and her formidable mother-in-law. Scorozini is not a patrician name. While marriage with commoners is not forbidden, it requires the Grand Council's approval and I remembered Celsi's caustic comment on the Michiels' practice of limiting the number of heirs. He had mentioned a mistress. More likely Domenico's marriage had been blessed by the Church but not the Grand Council; it would be morganatic, so her children could not inherit.

We were almost at the bottom of the stairs; my sand was running out.

“How many children does Bernardo have?”

“None.”

“Who gave Zorzi his nickname of Honeycat?”

Jacopo shrugged again, indifferent. “The family always called him that.” His tone implied that he was not family enough to use nicknames.

We started across the
androne
, toward the main door. “I would offer you a ride home, but ordering boats is outside the limits of my authority.”