The Alchemist's Code Read online

  I had a momentary nightmare of a spiteful and unwilling rescuee declaiming, And after Zeno had done his worst, Maestro Nostradamus carried me down the ladder on his shoulder… For now, though, the Sanudos had to trust us or dismiss us. Giro knew that and had nothing left to lose, for the terms were more than fair, even if the price was not. I passed over the two copies of the contract, emblazoned with the Maestro’s seal and a signature more beautiful and imposing than any he could have done himself.

  “And you will be able to identify the man with her?”

  Man, not men, I noticed. A man Giro already knew, I strongly suspected. Had Grazia done something utterly appalling like running off with a tiler or a gardener? The family’s reputation would be ruined for evermore.

  “I do not expect to,” I said. Did he think I hobnobbed with members of the kidnappers’ guild? “My efforts will be entirely directed to rescuing your sister. I have also brought this letter for your father to sign, giving me authority to bring her here, because I do not wish to be arrested in place of the genuine kidnappers.”

  His father swept back into the room, a vastly more dynamic presence than his colorless son. “My wife is much relieved and sends her thanks. Your master inquired about a likeness.” He indicated the wall behind me.

  I rose and inspected the family portrait, but it told me nothing useful. Zuanbattista, Eva, and even Giro looked much as they still did. Grazia was only a wide-eyed child, as her father had said, impossible to imagine as a temptress inspiring a lover to insanity. It was an insipid piece of work, and a more skilled artist would have concealed Grazia’s excess of nose better.

  I would much rather have spent half an hour examining the Madonna and Child next to it, which I thought might be a genuine Jacopo Palma Vecchio. The model had certainly been Palma’s daughter, Violante, but as I dragged my eyes away from it, on the adjoining wall I spotted both a face and a style I knew.

  “Andrea Michelli!” I exclaimed. “Commonly known as Vicentino?”

  “Indeed, you are correct, sier Alfeo.” Zuanbattista sounded impressed, as he should be.

  I could do even better. “I have never seen a wedding portrait by him, messer, but surely the bridegroom is Nicolò Morosini?”

  “You knew Nicolò?” This time his surprise meant I was too young.

  Time rolled back, and again I was looking at Nicolò, exactly as he had been that first morning of my apprenticeship, epic nose and all—that was where Grazia’s curse had come from. At his side a glorious beautiful, succulent young bride. I tore my eyes away.

  “I saw him once, clarissimo. It was six years ago, only weeks before his sad death.”

  “The book was cursed!” This unexpected croak from Aunt Fortunata made me jump—she was still not dead? Nicolò died of a rotting finger, and popular superstition at the time attributed that to a paper cut he had received when handling a forbidden book, one of the titles on the Index.

  “So it is said, madonna,” I replied.

  I caught sier Zuanbattista studying me. Assuming that he was wondering whether I believed such twaddle, I looked noncommittal. Before either of us could comment, the hardheaded family lawyer brought us back to cold reality.

  “I think you may safely sign both these documents, Father. I admire the penmanship. Who is the Maestro’s scrivener?”

  I bowed.

  Giro bowed back. As his father headed to a desk in the corner, he added, “Is there anything else?”

  “The garden. I should like to see how the abductors gained access to the house.” I also wanted to search Grazia’s bedroom for signs of forced locks or love letters under the mattress, but I knew I would never be allowed in there. The grounds I might manage.

  “Why?” Giro snapped, in his first sign of human emotion. “What has that to do with Nostradamus and his crystal ball?”

  “Nothing,” I said as blandly as I could, “but it might limit the damage to my skin tomorrow. I hope I can find footprints to tell me how many men I may find myself up against. Will I need to enlist companions? And the ladder,” I continued before he could interrupt. “I assume that they brought the ladder with them? It normally takes two men to carry a ladder long enough to reach a Venetian bedroom. Unless your sister slept on the ground floor?”

  He frowned at my jibe, for only servants and the very poor live in sea level dampness. “I have already looked. The grass is dry after the heat. There are no footprints.”

  “I will show sier Alfeo the garden,” Zuanbattista said as he brought back the letters, shaking sand off his signature. “Go and reassure your mother.”

  Giro and I bowed our farewells. I expressed gracious wishes for future good fortune to Fortunata, who did not react in the slightest, and was escorted out by Zuanbattista. He escorted me down to the androne, for Ca’ Sanudo evidently lacked an exterior staircase, a feature of most Venetian courtyards. It did have a well in the center, for courtyards overlie cisterns, lined with clay and filled with sand to filter rainwater, although nowadays everyone except the poor drinks imported water from the Brenta River. The Sanudo yard was a garden, small but well planned. A century ago, it might have grown vegetables and held chickens, but now it was given over to flowers and fruit trees. The adjoining houses overlooked it on either side, the far end was closed off by a wall with a gate, and I could hear voices going by along the calle beyond.

  The ladder had been laid against the house wall. It looked brand new and was short enough that one man could carry it, although the Signori di Notte would certainly stop and question anyone lugging a ladder around the city by night. It was also short enough to fit in a standard-sized gondola.

  “The watersteps three houses along in that direction, messer,” I said, “they can be reached from the gate?”

  He nodded.

  “And your daughter’s window?”

  The ducal counselor pointed to a window at the mezzanine level, under the twin balconies. The ladder would probably reach that far, but the casement was protected by an iron grille. Madonna Eva had testified that her son had climbed through it, and her husband not only knew that, he knew I knew that. Clearly the ladder was useless for gaining entry to the house itself.

  I carried it to the far end and confirmed that it was a good fit for the garden wall. There were marks in the flower bed to show that someone had entered that way, bringing the ladder over with him. Only one man, so far as I could tell, with feet larger than mine. The intruder had carried the ladder to the house so he could climb up and tap on the window. Grazia had gone down, either to let him in or join him in the yard, and they had left by the front door or the gate. In the morning Giro had certainly not entered by the window, so either his sister had not locked her bedroom door behind her or her mother had possessed a duplicate key. I returned with my burden and laid it where I had found it. Then I inspected the door.

  “If the bolts were properly closed for the night, clarissimo,” I said, dusting off my hands, “then either the villains had help within your household, or your daughter may have been deceived into admitting them.”

  “Young girls without knowledge of the world may be very gullible,” Sanudo admitted.

  And some noble mothers are not above telling lies to tidy up a story.

  Zuanbattista seemed to be studying the fruit trees. I waited, guessing that something important might be coming.

  “It is strange to come home after three years abroad and find the child you once knew has become a young woman you do not.”

  “Without doubt it must be so, clarissimo.”

  “There are few names older and more honored in Venice than Zeno.”

  “I am aware of my burden.”

  Still he counted caterpillars. “I should hate to think that the son of the Marco Zeno who displayed such heroism at Lepanto had sunk to peddling nostrums to the gullible or fleecing distraught mothers.”

  “It would be unthinkable!” I snapped.

  Now he did turn his gaze on me, the eyes of a man of overarching po
wer. “You really believe you can find my daughter tomorrow, Alfeo Zeno?”

  “By my ancestors I do, messer!”

  “Then may our Lord and His Holy Mother be with you. And if you achieve nothing else, I beg you to tell Grazia that we love her and wish her to be happy.”

  Did madonna Fortunata think that way? Or madonna Eva? But sier Zuanbattista rose abruptly in my estimation. He might have wished to choose his son-in-law, but apparently he was not one of those moneygrubbing noblemen who condemn daughters to life imprisonment in convents just to preserve the family fortune for their brothers.

  “I shall tell her if it takes my dying breath, messer,” I promised.

  4

  I am not the greatest swordsman in the world. I rank third or fourth among the dozen in Captain Colleoni’s Monday evening fencing class for young gentlemen. Most of the others are mere dilettantes, though, and there is a world of difference between recreational fencing and red-blood fighting. The great advantage I have over the playboys is that I have been in real sword fights and survived. I have bled, on occasion, but now I know I will not panic, and keeping your head is nine-tenths of a real battle. This knowledge was surprisingly little comfort when I was standing in a shadowy doorway on a misty, clammy dawn, and the world’s greatest clairvoyant had warned me I was going to need my rapier. I shivered.

  It was Sunday, so the great marangona bell in the Piazza San Marco had not rung to announce the start of the working day, but already the seventy or so parish bell towers were sounding for early Mass. This day, of all days, no laundry flapped from balconies and roof terraces. We had done everything we could to fulfill the prophecy and now it was up to Destiny to finish the job. I hoped she would do so soon, for the devout were setting out to church. Soon there would be crowds into which our quarry might disappear, and far too many witnesses.

  I wore my rapier and dagger.

  The henchman at my side was Bruno, our porter. Calling Bruno big would be like saying the sea is moist, but he is the gentlest of men, refusing to carry even a cudgel. He is a deaf-mute, so I had explained in the sign language that the Maestro invented for him: Bad man—steal—woman. Alfeo and Bruno—find—woman—woman happy. He has enough wits to recognize a good cause and had agreed to bring along the only weapon he will tolerate, Mama Angeli’s largest flatiron in a canvas sack.

  A path alongside a canal is a fondamenta, but make it wide enough for off-loading cargo and it becomes a riva. We stood in a doorway on the Riva del Vin, just seaward of the great Rialto bridge, the place the quatrain had named. On any other day this quay would be a buzzing hive of barges and lighters and gondolas, loud with abuse, banter, and complaint, but today it was deserted. The forest of striped mooring posts stood abandoned in the water, serving only as perches for yellow-eyed gulls, who stared suspiciously at us obvious intruders.

  On the far side of the Grand Canal, the city’s main street, lay the Riva del Ferro, backed by a wall of buildings, four, five, or even six stories high. The traghetto there was almost deserted, although one of the few boats lingering by it was the Maestro’s, with Giorgio standing ready to hasten to our aid.

  More gondolas plied the Grand Canal before us, standing well out to clear the marble arch of the Rialto. In my boyhood gondolas had been bright hued and flamboyant, vibrant with color and gilt, every felze sporting rich curtains and every hull proclaiming its owner’s garish escutcheon. Alas, the Senate took offense at such blatant competition and decreed that gondolas should be plainer and plainer, until now they are all black, with black curtains and black leather cushions. Only a few trim items escaped the clammy grip of uniformity, especially the rowlock and the post near the bow that bears a lantern by night and a flower by day—those posts are often gilded still—and private owners are allowed to display their arms on the left side of the boat. Gondolas for hire show the Virgin or a saint.

  Then came a gondola moving fast and bearing neither flower nor lantern, but a white cloth tied around its bow post so it could be identified at a distance. Black swan, white collar, it glided in toward the watersteps in front of us. Two people emerged from the calle del Sturion to my left and walked swiftly across to meet it. They had not come from the doorway of the Sturgeon Inn as I had expected, but the Sturgeon is only the oldest and most famous of many inns patronized by foreigners near the Rialto, and they might have spent the night in a private house anyway. He was tall, wearing a short blue cloak over an indigo doublet and knee britches, and white silk stockings. He carried a leather portmanteau. She did not come up to his shoulder, but she was certainly not resisting him. In fact they were holding hands and swinging arms in the sort of childish display that lovers use to warn other people away. I hoped Bruno would do nothing reckless, but sign language cannot convey such subtleties as, “The bad man may be only bad in the eyes of the law and the girl may not be unhappy.”

  I ran forward. “Madonna Grazia Sanudo!”

  The girl screamed. The man dropped his bag, flashed out his rapier, and slashed at me like a madman. Rapiers are not intended for slashing, but he was aiming at my face. I parried with my arm, then drew. Despite being forewarned, I barely had time to go to guard before I was fighting for my life. He was fast and had a significant advantage in reach, but his technique was erratic and reckless. He had either never taken lessons or, if he had, had forgotten them all in the horror of being in a real fight. Captain Colleoni would have blistered him with derision.

  “Stop it, you fool!” I said, more or less. I parried, parried, and parried, not riposting. “There are people watching!”

  Then I recognized him, yelled, “Saints! Danese?” and narrowly escaped taking three feet of metal in my right eye. That did it. “Idiot!” I grabbed his rapier with my left hand and slammed mine down across his wrist. I used the false edge, but a steel rod can hurt without cutting.

  He yelled and let go of his sword; his gondolier friend tried to smash my head in with his oar. Fortunately Bruno had seen the threat coming and arrived in the fight like a middling-sized earthquake. He snatched up the gondolier, oar and all, and without breaking stride bore him to the edge and threw him well out into the canal.

  Grazia Sanudo screamed in fury and sprang at me, clawing for my eyes. I was forced to drop Danese’s sword and grab her by the neck with my left hand to hold her off.

  I shouted over her yells, “I intend no harm to Danese! Your father told me to tell you that he loves you and wants you to be happy.”

  She froze, glaring up at me with two of the largest, darkest eyes I had ever seen. They startled me. A man could drown in those eyes, had they not been so filled with rage and hatred. “You swear that?”

  “I swear by all the saints. Danese has known me all his life, haven’t you, old friend?”

  Our ogreish abductor was clutching his right arm and trying to curl up without falling over. I released his wretched prisoner, who rushed to wrap herself around him with many cries of, “My darling, my lover, are you all right, my heart, my…whatever…” And so on.

  Sickening.

  “He broke my wrist!”

  “You damned nearly killed me!” I retorted. I sheathed my sword and retrieved his. Seeing that the fight was safely over, men were running in from both ends of the riva and also emerging from the calle. “Danese, old friend!” I detached the girl so I could embrace him myself. That, being a proper greeting in Venice, would hopefully discourage the busybodies starting to wander in around us.

  I told his ear, “Let’s get out of here before someone calls the sbirri. We can talk it over somewhere quieter.” Releasing him, I said loudly, “I regret I frightened you, madonna. Your parents are very worried about you. I do have your father’s written permission to take you home.”

  “I don’t want to go home!” Her voice was larger than she was. “My father has no authority over me now. This man is my husband!”

  “Yes,” I sighed. “I know. Do you want to argue that to a magistrate? Now let’s go before the sbirri get here.”
Taking him along was not part of the plan and would complicate matters considerably, but I knew him and had hurt him. Call me a softie, but I could not just abandon him.

  Venetians are good Venetians first and good Catholics next, but most priests will marry a couple who threaten to embrace adultery—or embrace adulterously—no matter what the law says about parental permission. My tarot had told me what was brewing.

  Giorgio had already brought the Maestro’s gondola across and I urged everybody aboard. Danese was in too much pain to argue and the girl clung to him like tree bark. Their would-be gondolier had emerged from his bath. Had I thought that he was just a gondolier, I might have tipped him a lira for his trouble, but he had tried to brain me and I need all the brains the good Lord gave me. The fight had gone out of him; he did not try to block our departure.

  A grinning bystander handed me the portmanteau Danese had dropped. I thanked him politely.

  The girl went in the felze, of course, but when her evil kidnapper tried to follow her I told him to sit on the thwart and trail his hand in the water to keep it from swelling.

  “You think you’re a doctor?” he snarled.

  “Not quite, but that’s the best way to ease the pain and stop it swelling.” I clambered in beside Grazia, being careful to leave visible space between us. A grinning Bruno settled in behind the felze, raising our prow significantly, and of course Giorgio stood at the stern, wielding his oar.

  I told him, “Ca’ Barbolano please.” The original plan had been straight to the Ca’ Sanudo. He turned our stern to the Rialto and headed home.

  Grazia was small, as I said, and seemed little older than she had in the family portrait. Her nose…Either Maestro Michelli had flattered his subject, or her nose had grown more than the rest of her since he painted her likeness. Truly she had her uncle Nicolò’s nose and on a woman it was a disfigurement. Her body might just qualify for “sylphlike” instead of “skinny” but her complexion was unremarkable and there was an unwelcome trace of hardness about her mouth. Her dress looked childish and somewhat crumpled. But oh, her eyes! They almost atoned for everything else. Without her excess of nose they would have made her a beauty.