The Alchemist's Pursuit (13 page)

“Everything, fair exchange.”

“Nostradamus going soft in his old age? If he's willing to tell all, he can't know much. Well, let's see. Start with Gentile. Had a few uncles but no brothers, sisters, or cousins. A carefully husbanded tribe, the San Marco Michiels—they have always believed in keeping the family fortune intact. Gentile was publicly devout, straitlaced, sanctimonious. An obnoxious tyrannical prude, in fact.”

“The sort who won't let his wife look out any window that overlooks a street?”

“Exactly. Gentile married Alina Orio—eccentric sort of woman. She lost five brothers to the plague, them and their families, extremely careless of her. That wiped out a whole branch of the Orio clan, so she ended up with all the property, very odd. Four sons and a daughter survived infancy.”

“I heard three sons.”

“Don't interrupt me when I'm gossiping. I might miss out a juicy bit. Bernardo was going to be the politician. Of course he wasn't even thirty then, but he'd already made a major speech in the Great Council, opposing a change in the salt tax that his father had supported in the Senate. Got a response from the doge himself, tremendous honor that, for a nipper! The patricide put the whole family in the lazaretto, of course, but Bernardo wouldn't give up; he kept on attending Great Council meetings. So they tried electing him to trivial offices and he accepted and worked hard at them. He's started making speeches again, and it looks as if they're about ready to forgive him. He's been nominated for several meaningful jobs lately, and come near to winning a couple of times. He won't want the old scandal dug up.”

“What is he now?”

Celsi closed his eyes for a moment to think, then twinkled them at me. “Inspector of meats!” This was one minor politician he was recalling, out of hundreds, a fine feat of memory.

“Then, Domenico's the businessman. Doesn't attend the wind factory unless there's some critical vote coming up. He's a genius at buying up estates on the mainland, tidying them up, and selling them at a spanking profit. Dull, like all men who make money. Only those who make art or history are interesting, Alfeo dear. Dom's not the sort to hide a murderer—no profit in that. Has a couple of children by a long-term mistress.

“Next was Timoteo. He inherited his father's acid piety, but he seems to have meant it. He renounced his share and entered the cloister.”

“He's a monk?” I spoke a little too eagerly.

Carlo Celsi has extremely sensitive antenna. He eyed me suspiciously.

“A friar. And a priest also, as I recall. Why?”

“Just wondered. The other brothers form a
fraterna
?” I asked, being as innocent as possible. I had caught a faint whiff of motive . . .

This time the old gossip missed my eagerness. “So far as I know. They have to go to law to disenfranchise, you know.”

I nodded. “And the daughter?”

“Oh, they packed her off into a cloister years ago. That costs money too, but it's cheaper than providing a dowry. Did you hear the size of dowry old—”

I headed off his digression. “Which leaves only the infamous Zorzi.”

“Correct.”

“Obviously the last, since the rest had been named in alphabetical order. Or the sons had. What was the daughter's name?”

“Don't remember. Your brilliance is exceeded only by your personal charm. Zorzi! Oh, Zorzi was a hellion!” Celsi said admiringly. “If he hadn't been a nobleman's son he'd have been swept up by the Ten and banished for licentious living. Apollo he was, to look at, and he never seemed to be short of money. He and his father fought like cat and dog all the time, with the old man always threatening to disinherit him if he didn't reform his ways. That was why he came under suspicion, I think.”

“Remind me about the murder.”

“You were a teenager. Don't tell me you didn't lap up all the gory details!”

“Yes, but you always know more than anyone else.”

Celsi snorted but looked pleased. “Christmas, a stormy night, and the Basilica atrium is black as tar at the best of times. Families reuniting as the women arrived from their section and the men from the nave, lamps being waved about . . . complete confusion. A lot of people even wondered if Gentile Michiel had been the wrong victim; he just didn't seem important enough for such a shocking crime. Right man or wrong, someone stuck a knife in his kidney. No one saw who it was. He was dead by the time they brought in a surgeon to try stitching him up, the killer long gone.”

He shrugged. “A couple of days later Zorzi saw which way the wind was blowing and raised his sails in the nick of time. The Ten condemned him and put a price on his head. They did it with all the trimmings—placards posted at the Porta della Carta, the public crier marching around with his scarlet coat and his trumpeters. Now you're going to tell me Zorzi's come back and is slaughtering courtesans?”

“How much of a price?”

Celsi's curly silver beard twisted around a smile. “Trust Nostradamus! Old miser. A thousand ducats, no matter where he's caught. That's on top of the usual five hundred for handing in the head of an exile who sneaks back incognito. Has he come back? Truly?”

It was my turn to sing now, but I squeezed in one more question. “If the Mass was a formal state gathering, how did a kid like Zorzi ever get admitted? He couldn't have been a member of the Great Council at nineteen.”

Celsi shrugged. “He could have, but he wasn't. I don't remember anybody asking how he got in. It would have been easy enough. It was dark, a melee. Gentile would be wearing his red senatorial robes, so his black ones would be stored in a chest at home somewhere, I expect.” He scratched his beard. “I'm sure the Ten had good reason to declare the boy guilty. Probably witnesses recognized him. You really think he was
innocent
?”

“I don't. And if the Maestro does, he hasn't told me about it.”

“What leads you to think he's come back?”

As I told him, I realized how weak our case still was. “Three demimonde have been killed in the last three weeks, all in the same way, all old enough to have been in the trade eight years ago. No signs of other violence, meaning rape, and no robbery, so the motive's a mystery. All of them seem to have been expecting an old friend, and at least one of those had claimed to be Honeycat, which was Zorzi's love name. He had a birthmark to justify it, in a confidential location.”

“Pah! I wouldn't waste spittle on that evidence.”

“And the Council of Ten has warned us to stop prying into the murders.”

Celsi sniffed disapprovingly. “Better. That is odd, I grant you. I know how often the Three take credit that really belongs to Nostradamus—and to you, too, dear boy, of course. Why try to block you on this one, mm?”

“They want to take Zorzi Michiel themselves?”

“Perhaps. But three dead courtesans are a serious matter. The state needs the taxes those women pay; the Ten can't want the trade shut down. It's a pity . . .”

He eyed one of his bookshelves, then heaved his portly frame upright and went to fetch a leather-bound ledger. He spread it on his lap, with the edge tucked under his paunch, and started thumbing through it. “My version of the Golden Book,” he muttered. “I call it the Brass Book. You must be in here somewhere, everyone is. Yes, thought so. It's a pity the Devil finally took old Agostino Foscari. He would often drop a hint or two if I asked him nicely.” He frowned at me. “Why're you looking like that?”

Because I had thought of something, and since I had not yet had time to report my idea to Nostradamus, I did not want or need to share it with Celsi. “Procurator Agostino Foscari? He died last fall, didn't he? Why him?”

Of course I couldn't deceive an expert. My host beamed like an antique cherub. “You still owe me a few secrets, dear boy. Out with it.”

“You're saying that Foscari was one of the Three back then, back when Gentile Michiel was murdered?”

The Three are the state inquisitors. The Ten—who are actually seventeen, comprising ten elected members plus the doge and his six ducal counselors—do not have time to investigate criminal cases personally. They delegate that duty to the Three, a subcommittee of two elected members and one ducal counselor, known as the blacks and the red respectively from the color of their robes. The lips of the Council of Ten are notoriously sealed tighter than the Vatican's cash drawer, but Celsi was hinting that a case as old as the Michiel scandal was about due to spring a few leaks.

The old man smirked approvingly. “Yes, he was. Foscari was the red.”

“And the blacks?”

“Just where is your nimble little mind running now, sonny?”

“Tell me the other two inquisitors who investigated Gentile's murder, and I'll give you a lovely, juicy morsel to make your day. I promise.”

He pouted. “Or I shall claim a forfeit! The other two were Tommaso Pesaro, and Giovanni Gradenigo. He's gone too, now. Foscari in September, Gradenigo last Thursday, and you'll never get anything out of Pesaro. He won't tell the recording angel his middle initial. Now what's the big secret?”

“Nostradamus foresees another murder. We expect it this evening and we have a good idea of where it will happen.” Or would have, when I had more time to think about it.

So I didn't have to discover what Celsi meant by a forfeit and we parted on good terms, with him rubbing his hands in glee at not being just on top of the news but actually ahead of it. I had put my master's reputation on the line, but it was worth it.

The one other question I had wanted to ask and hadn't was whether the young Timoteo Michiel, when he took his friar's vows, had taken the name of Fedele.

B
ack at Ca' Barbolano, I found a note from Violetta to say that she was going to a house party on the mainland and would be back on Sunday. It was addressed to me, but the Maestro had opened it and read it. He always does, so she knows not to include any lovers' secrets. For once I wished I knew where she was going and who was taking her.

I had just enough time before dinner to give the Maestro a quick summary of what I had learned. That left him to do most of the talking at table, which he normally does anyway. As we headed to the dining room, I was pleased to see that his lameness was less marked, his disposition was improving, and he was definitely caught up in the Honeycat case now. Which effect was the chicken, which the egg, and which the rooster, I do not speculate.

“So you think,” he demanded, “that the dying Giovanni Gradenigo learned of the murdered Caterina Lotto and remembered that it was she who betrayed Zorzi Michiel to the inquisitors? That was all he wanted to tell me?”

While planning my response, I nibbled appreciatively on a mouthful of Mama Angeli's delicious
Taglierini
noodles. I had told Violetta that any connection between the death of her friend Lucia and the patrician's deathbed appeal had to be an impossible coincidence. Now it was starting to look like no more than close timing.

“Possibly, but I think he must have heard about the other murders too, at least one of them. One dead courtesan wouldn't mean much—that was your own reaction when Violetta told you about Lucia. It's hard to believe that three women all betrayed Zorzi,” I hastened to add. “Which may mean that Honeycat doesn't know which of his lady friends shopped him and is going to avenge himself on all of them . . .

“Or,” I added with sudden inspiration, “he wanted to kill that particular one without drawing attention to his own case, so he killed a couple of others as well.” Too late I saw the trap I had fallen into.

“Bah! Rubbish! Why tell me? An antiquated, invalid retired doctor? Why wouldn't Gradenigo summon one of his Council of Ten friends, who could start a hunt for the returned exile?”

“I don't know,” I said humbly. “But the fact that the old man was a state inquisitor right when Zorzi was exiled can hardly be pure coincidence.”

“And just what is an impure coincidence?”

When I said that the Maestro's disposition was improving, I meant that it was returning to normal. I sidestepped the question.

“You want me to try Bernardo Michiel this afternoon, master?”

“You are not a court. I want you to try to get to talk with him. If he doesn't know where his murderous brother is hiding, then I don't know who else to ask.”

“Domenico, perhaps,” I said. “He's the one who buys and sells property, so he could give Zorzi sanctuary somewhere on the mainland. It would be easy enough to nip across from Mestre, commit the murders, and nip back again.”

“By ‘nip' you mean ‘row'? Or ‘swim'?”

“Sail or be rowed. And Bernardo was the one whose political career was swamped by his brother's patricide. I doubt if Domenico's real estate business would have been hurt much, so there may be less ill-feeling there.”

One of Nostradamus's tiny fists thumped the table. “That is absurd speculation. Facts! You're job is to bring me facts, not guesswork. I do the guessing. You cannot predict the brothers' respective reactions to their father's death until you know them personally. Speak with Domenico if you get the chance by all means. And find out if the sanctified Timoteo is now going by the name of Fedele.
That
might be an impure coincidence.”

 

 

Since Violetta was out of town, I abandoned thoughts of a siesta after dinner and trotted up to the archive boxes in the attic to find the Michiel file. It was thinner than a portrait painter in Constantinople, just a brief personal letter from Bernardo and the Maestro's even briefer response, dated the following week and written for him by my predecessor. I learned nothing I did not already know, such as that a nobleman writing on a topic that might interest the Council of Ten will do so in his own hand rather than trust a secretary.