The Alchemist's Pursuit Read online

  Silence. The dead man was starting to sound like a candidate for sainthood.

  “Then did he ever try to help them, then? Courtesans, I mean, fallen women? Battista, I am trying to discover why your master’s dying wish was to ask me something or tell me something, and you are the only one who can help me find out what it was that troubled him. I cannot honor his wish if you won’t help me. Why should your master, facing the eternal, have worried about the death of a woman of the streets?”

  The mousy little man seemed to cower even more. “I cannot recall . . . Well, maybe. I heard him say to one of his visitors, something about the terrible trouble they can cause. I think he meant the sort of women you mean, lustrissimo.”

  “Ah! That could be helpful. Do you remember who he said that to?”

  Battista tried. He closed his eyes and stood for a moment, moving his lips as if praying, clenching and unclenching his fists. “It was one of the nobles, an older man. Yes, he wore the long sleeves of the Council of Ten. Don’t know his name, there were so many . . . They were talking about the old days, when the master was on the Council, too.”

  I raised my eyebrows at that.

  Nostradamus said, “He was in politics? I did not know that.”

  Not just in politics but very successfully so if he had risen as high as the Ten.

  Now Battista was nodding vigorously, happy to have pleased, anxious to help. “There was talk once of him being elected a procurator of San Marco!”

  That is the second-highest honor to which a nobleman can be elected, for the procurators are elected for life, like the doge, and there are only ever nine of them. Their duties are nominal, although they hold permanent seats on the Senate and can be elected to other posts also. The doge is almost always chosen from among the procurators, so they are potentially doges in waiting.

  “When was that?” the Maestro asked.

  “About seven or eight years ago. But then the master gave up politics. He started going to church more and spending his time on good deeds and his work for the scuola.”

  “A sudden conversion?” Nostradamus said wryly. “Like the blessed San Polo on the road to Damascus?”

  Battista hesitated, then nodded. “It was a big surprise to us all, refusing election.”

  “Servants and family?”

  The man nodded. Of course a patrician’s household would follow his political career with interest. Battista must have dreamed of being valet to the doge, living in the palace. Very subtly, the Maestro probed, trying to find out without blurting out a direct question, if there could have been a connection between a dead courtesan and Gradenigo’s sudden abandonment of politics, most likely a scandal. Battista sensed the way he was being led, though, and went back to denying that his master could ever have been involved with any courtesan.

  Eventually the Maestro thanked him and told me to give him a lira for his trouble, which was an astonishing outburst of generosity. I hoped it meant that he was going to take up Violetta’s challenge and track down this monstrous slayer of courtesans.

  That morning had more surprises than the lagoon has fish. When I led Battista out to the salone, I found Fulgentio Trau out there, admiring Michelangelo’s David. It is only a copy in chalk of the original in Florence, but it is actual size and always makes me wonder how big Goliath was.

  I need not describe Fulgentio. As well as being the same age, we are the same size and build. You can tell us apart because he has the clothes and I have the looks. We attend the same fencing class and he is almost as good as I am—good enough to have earned him a post as one of the ducal equerries, whose duties include guarding the doge. Fulgentio is a citizen-by-birth, so his name is written in the Silver Book, not in the Golden, like mine. The main difference between us, though, is that he is rich beyond measure, having three older brothers who are bankers. Under Venetian law, brothers inheriting property from their father automatically hold it as a fraterna, a financial and legal partnership, so Fulgentio has an equal share in the family wealth although he has no interest in banking as a profession. His brothers could negotiate a separation but seem content not to. Possibly he has agreed never to marry, so that any children he may sire cannot dilute the family fortune; one can’t ask even the closest of friends such questions. Some people suspect that his part of the bargain is to bring home secrets he has overheard in the palace, but I could never believe that he would stoop to spying. Fulgentio, in short, is very rich and perfectly happy.

  We bowed to each other in a parody of courtly etiquette.

  “Pardon the rags,” he remarked, indicating his ducal livery. “But then I couldn’t wear anything really good when grubbing around in such a slum.”

  “Oh, I know,” I retorted. “I keep applying for a transfer to the galleys.”

  He chuckled. “I just dropped in on my way to the palace. Is this the man you mentioned?”

  “This is Battista, who is in need of a position because his employer of many years has just died.”

  While Battista was bowing, I gave Fulgentio a private thumbs-up sign to show that I approved of my candidate, which I did even more after listening to his interview with the Maestro. Then I excused myself and left them to talk while I went back into the atelier.

  Nostradamus was scowling ferociously, of course, because he had failed to solve the mystery of the deathbed summons and almost certainly never would.

  “The man was delirious.”

  “Yes, master.”

  “And the deaths of two courtesans in less than a month is pure coincidence, so don’t—”

  “Three, master.”

  “What?”

  “There was a third, a Ruosa da Corone. Lucia was last seen on January fourteenth. Caterina was murdered last Sunday and Ruosa about a week ago. Only the Caterina date is firm.”

  “Sit down.” He waved at the two green chairs on the other side of the fireplace. “And talk.”

  I am rarely honored with one of those chairs, but this time I could provide no more information to justify my favored status.

  “It’s hopeless!” he growled. “The Council of Ten may not care about a strumpet here or there, but it will certainly not ignore a massacre like this. The Ten have their sbirri and Lord knows how many informers throughout the city. They will dig out all the information. You seriously expect me to solve a jungle bloodbath like that while sitting here in my atelier?”

  “No, master.”

  “No what?”

  “No, I do not expect you to. I only brought the man back with me because Fulgentio is looking for a valet and Battista impressed me. I realize you cannot perform miracles, and clairvoyance only works forward, not back. And whatever Gradenigo wanted to tell you is gone forever.”

  He scowled even harder at me, as if he suspected me of taunting him into taking the case. Which I probably was, although I was mostly worried about Violetta’s safety.

  “The monster may very well strike again!”

  “Yes, master.”

  He waved a hand.

  “Write, then!”

  Surprised, I rose and headed for my side of the big double desk.

  “And none of that fancy fandangle calligraphy of yours. Just honest, legible italic. Good linen parchment.”

  I selected paper and a quill and opened my inkwell. I said, “Ready,” because he had his back to me.

  “A contract between me and that harlot of yours. One hundred ducats nonrefundable for expenses . . .”

  I grunted to show that he was going too fast. He almost never asks for money in advance, only on results. That way he cannot be charged with fraud.

  “. . . the balance of 1,370 ducats payable upon the apprehension and conviction of a man responsible for the murder or attempted murder of at least one courtesan in Venice within one month before or after this day’s date.”

  I spattered blots all over the text and swore like a galley slave. “You are contracting to catch a murderer who hasn’t even killed his victim yet?”

&n
bsp; Despite the pain in his hips, he had managed to lever himself around to smirk at me. “Why not? Clairvoyance works forward, doesn’t it? All I have to do is foresee the next victim, and all you have to do is be standing behind the closet door.”

  6

  Fifteen minutes later I was back in Number 96, finishing Violetta’s breakfast while she scanned the contract. She wore another simple housemaid’s dress, which I gathered Milana had sewn for her overnight. It was plain, but few senators’ wives would boast of anything better made. I had come by the sea-level road because I was wearing my rapier; swords and acrobatics do not mix.

  “Just what sort of expense is Nostradamus planning to spend my hundred ducats on?” my darling demanded.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “But I expect he does.”

  “I want him to catch the man who killed Lucia da Bergamo.”

  “He can’t. No witnesses, no evidence—the strangler’s scot-free on that one. But obviously the same man killed all three victims. And obviously he may kill again.”

  She nodded reluctantly, a tiny frown marring the perfection of her forehead. “You think I’m in danger?”

  I brought out my tarot deck. “I can find out, if you wish.”

  “Will it really tell?” Minerva’s big, luminous gray eyes studied me. “You believe in the cards that much?”

  I nodded. “Tarot has limitations, but even the Maestro admits I am good with it. But I’m not a fairground fortune-teller, love. I won’t babble pap about being lucky in love or old friends re-entering your life. If the news is bad, I’ll tell you. I might desensitize my deck if I misquoted it.”

  “Let’s do it, then.” At once she began clearing a space on the table, which is very small, an intimate place to be shared by two.

  I shuffled the deck and gave it to her. “Hold it for a moment in both hands. Now cut it and deal off the new top card. This will represent you or the question you want answered.”

  She turned over the queen of coins.

  “Excellent!” I said. “The highest-paid courtesan in Venice, who else?”

  She laughed. “How did you do that?”

  “I didn’t! I told you this is serious, not make-believe. This deck is almost two hundred years old. It’s had many owners and enough time to absorb every dream and fear that mortals know.” I took it back and dealt four more cards, facedown, forming a cross around the first one. “Now the one closest to you is the problem. Turn it over—sideways.”

  She did and then gave me a sharp look, for it was XIII of the major arcana—Death.

  “But it’s reversed!” I said quickly. “That’s good! Lay it down that way.”

  “What does Death reversed mean?”

  “That the problem is to avoid Death, I think. Now turn this one, the helper or path.” This time she found trump X, which on my deck shows a lion. “This stands for Strength, although some decks call it Fortitude, and other artists may use other pictures.”

  “Should I perhaps hire Bruno to protect me?” she inquired teasingly.

  “I wish you wouldn’t joke about this!”

  “Sorry. Now what?” She was amused, not sorry. Although Violetta has great esteem for the Maestro’s clairvoyant abilities, familiarity breeds disrespect and she is too aware of my faults and weaknesses to hold me in similar reverence.

  “The opposite one, the snare to be avoided.”

  She turned over II, the Popess, reversed, and looked inquiringly at me.

  “That is the most cryptic card in the arcana,” I admitted. There never was a Pope Joan. In my deck she is shown on a throne, wearing robes and a papal miter, holding a book on her lap. “I need to think about it. Let’s see the last one, the goal or solution.”

  She turned the top card and it was the knight of cups reversed. Now I knew I must do some fast talking, because I could recall few layouts more perplexing. With three cards reversed and only two trumps, it was certain to be ambiguous. “The queen of coins means that it is your reading, and Death reversed means that the problem is to keep you alive. Strength or Fortitude may mean that you will have to be brave. The knight of cups baffles me, I admit. The jack of cups usually means me, the alchemist’s apprentice, but I don’t think I’ve ever appeared as a knight in any suit. Besides, I don’t want to be reversed! And the Popess reversed has me totally befuddled.”

  “And here I thought I was consulting an expert!”

  “It’s a very unusual spread. I’ll consult Nostradamus. I suspect it refers to some people we haven’t met yet.”

  Violetta’s eyes had darkened, but they were twinkling with amusement. “What use is a prediction that can’t be understood until it has come to pass?”

  “Ask Apollo. That was how he did it at Delphi. Trust me. All will be revealed in time.”

  “As long as Death stays reversed,” she retorted.

  “Let’s get Giorgio to row us over to San Samuele so we can visit with my old hero, Matteo the Butcher.”

  The rest of the world admires and envies Venice for many things: our wealth, our republican form of government, our skilled and luscious courtesans, our glittering state processions, the beauty of our jeweled city on its hundred islands, smug and safe and well fed in its fish-rich lagoon. Another of our unique features that is almost as famous and perhaps not as envied—although travelers come from far and wide to view it—is the War of Fists.

  Its needs are simple. We have more than four hundred stone bridges ready to hand in Venice, almost all of them narrow, humpbacked, and lacking parapets or railings of any kind. Moreover, they almost always mark the boundary between two parishes. Line up a few hundred enraged, combative young men on either side and you can resume the War of Fists. It happens spontaneously quite often in the fall, between summer and the start of Carnival, and the Council of Ten thunders against it. The greatest battles, though, are planned weeks in advance, enlisting the best fighters from all over the city, and there is not a great deal that the Ten can do to prevent those encounters. Indeed, the government has been known to organize them to entertain important visitors, such as one I remember about ten years ago for delegates from some place called Japan, which is said to be near Cathay, at the other end of the world, but I doubt that the visitors had come all that distance just to watch armies of carpenters and fishermen trying to pound their opponents into submission or submersion.

  The contesting teams are always the Nicolotti and the Castellani. Whatever began the age-old dispute between the two factions is now lost in mists of myth, but the hatred between them is virulent, leading sometimes to outright murder. The dividing line between the factions winds across the city roughly southwest to northeast, and it makes a particularly large curve around my birth parish of San Barnaba, which lies on the eastern, Castellani, side of it. Being of patrician birth, I cannot participate in such plebeian pastimes except as a supporter, although I did once manage to steal a very minor role in one great battle, as I shall explain.

  Now San Barnaba is fairly central in the city, flanking the outside of the more southerly of the two great bends of the Grand Canal. It is also frontier territory, abutting Nicolotti parishes on two sides, and it boasts a very visible and accessible bridge, so favored for battles that it is known as the Ponte dei Pugni, the Bridge of Fists. When a battle is scheduled, the inhabitants throw up rickety bleachers to rent to spectators, and those lucky enough to have windows or roofs overlooking the scene can charge enormous fees to the rich and great. You can understand, then, that I was always a staunch Castellani supporter because it would have been more than my juvenile life was worth to utter one good word about the despicable Nicolotti scum. San Remo parish fervently supports those glorious Nicolotti heroes, so I shall never be completely trusted there and must guard my tongue when anything concerning the War of Fists creeps into conversations.

  The opposing forces are not mere rabble. Many parishes or other groups in the city pride themselves on sending semi-military companies of fifty or more young men, marching in
step, wearing the same uniform. Both sides have their various leaders, known as padrini, who provide some sort of order and plan strategy, and of course every one of these is a great fighter who has earned respect and reputation in a hundred previous clashes. By the time the battle is due to begin, thousands of pugnacious young men have worked themselves up into fighting fury, every vantage point in sight is packed with spectators, and the canal is paved solid with boats. Abuse is hurled, blood froths, and skilled padrini have concealed reserve forces in nearby warehouses, so they can throw in fresh troops at a critical moment.

  The main part of the engagement is the general assault on the bridge, with the objective of taking it and driving one’s opponents back down the far side or off into the water. It is a rough sport, with injuries and sometimes even deaths, and the fortunes of battle may swing back and forth many times during an afternoon. Prior to the assault, though, the finest fighters like to show off their prowess in one-on-one matches, either challenging particular opponents or taking on all comers. The padrini organize these and umpire them. Very often a padrino himself will fight a bout, to show he has not lost his skills, and great is the excitement as the champions come forth on the crest of the bridge to bellow their challenges. The boxing is not especially brutal, for the match ends as soon as one man draws blood or sends his opponent to the canal below.

  In my youth, one of the Castellani’s great fighters and padrini was Matteo Surian of San Samuele, who was a butcher by trade and therefore chose the Butcher as his nom de guerre. I was present on the day he fought his last fight, when he went up against the despicable, garbage-eating, dog-spawned “Mankiller.” Mankiller had killed a man in a bout once and had never been forgiven for it, although the death had been a drowning and undoubtedly an accident. That wonderful battle ended when Matteo punched Mankiller clean into the canal. Matteo gave up fighting after that, the day of his greatest triumph. But that most glorious, golden day, he let Alfeo Zeno hold his shirt while he was out there fighting.

  I decided then that I would have an account of that honor engraved on my tombstone.