The Alchemist's Code

15

T he last relict logs collapsed in heaps of ash. Jumping awake, I squealed and almost fell over backward. I must have been sitting there for hours, for the wood had sunk to a bed of glowing coals. The real world seemed dark, cold, and unpleasantly solid. My eyes ached.

“Oh, well done, Alfeo! Well, well done!”

I could not recall the last time he had given me such praise, but I hardly registered it at the time. “What’d I say?”

“You don’t remember?”

I did, or at least I would when I had time to separate all the confused images, but I just shook my head. My throat hurt too much to speak.

“Wonderful things. Are you all right?”

I nodded, but thirst tormented me as if I had been eating salt. My legs were numb, my throat burned. I staggered to my feet, cotton hose slipping on the terrazzo. “Need a drink!”

“Of course. You go to bed. I’ll close up here.”

That was an unparalleled concession! I really must have done well. I had discovered a whole new talent.

“Yes.” I skidded and staggered across the room. The air out in the salone was probably as hot as ever, but felt like a welcome caress of cold after the atelier. Sweaty cloth clung to my skin. The big hall was dim, for only two lamps were lit, so it was the sound of a sword scraping from its sheath that stopped me, before I even saw the flash of the blade in front of me.

“Gesu!” Vasco’s startled face came into focus.

“Saints!” I croaked. “You back again?” I hauled off my hood.

“You?” He sheathed his sword. “What in Heaven’s name are you doing?”

“Rehearsing for Carnival. Why are you here?”

“The Council of Ten sent me back to guard you.”

Disgusted, I said, “That’s a wonderful step up for you. Now get out of my way.” I headed for the water barrel.

In the kitchen, I found Giorgio in the near darkness, asleep with his top half sprawled on the table, and the bench taking his weight. I made enough noise with the ladle to waken him. He sat up, showing no surprise at seeing me clad in black from the neck down.

“I’m sorry, Alfeo! The vizio bullied his way in past Luigi and insisted the Ten had sent him. I made him promise not to disturb-”

I paused for air. “You did right.” Another long, long drink…“You couldn’t refuse him. No harm done.” Except, of course, that Vasco was an armed man and he had entered uninvited, so he had broken the Aegia Salomonis. He might have done no direct harm himself, but what else had he let in that might? Sensing our barrier, had Algol used the vizio to break through and perhaps been able to pervert and falsify all my pyromancy? Damn!

“But before that-”

“Never mind!” I insisted. “Tell us in the morning. Go to bed.”

So Giorgio slunk off up to the attic, furious at having failed in his duty. I, having drunk enough to fill the Grand Canal, stalked back into the salone. I could hear the Maestro and Vasco arguing, so I left them to it and went into my room, locking the door behind me.

Here the air was even cooler, for all three windows stood wide and the heat had broken at last. As I hurried over to close the casements, I heard rain and distant rumbles of thunder. I had drunk so much water that I ought to have been breathing steam, yet I burned as if I were still infested with fire elementals. The effect they had on me then was that I needed-desperately needed-Violetta. Fortunately, she seldom goes to sleep before dawn. My clothes were still in the atelier and I could not waste time in changing. Although I rarely attempt the jump across to the altana of Number 96 when there is a wind blowing, that night I was ready to dare anything.

Having tied my keys around my neck with a lace, I opened the central casement again and lifted out the three loose bars, setting them on the floor with their tops leaning on the sill. Then I scrambled out and stood with my heels on the extremely narrow ledge just below, clinging to the fourth bar for support and already soaked. I heard the marangona bell in the Piazza toll midnight as I replaced the other bars and pulled the heavy casement ajar. Then I turned, leaped into the dark, hit the tiles with my foot, caught the rail of the altana, and was across.

The higher rooms at Number 96 were still jubilant with laughter and music and even a few angry voices, but the corridor and the stairs were dark and empty, so no one saw the bizarre apparition running down from the roof. Probably no one would have cared anyway, except to ask what special service I was getting and what it cost. The topmost floor houses the gentlemen’s brothel and the ground floor provides speedy service for those who cannot afford better, while between them lies the floor where the four owners have their personal apartments; visitors there are admitted by appointment only and are few, because two of the owners are now retired. I let myself into Violetta’s suite and went straight to her bedroom. She always keeps a light burning, and that night she had two, for Aspasia was reading a book.

But instantly Helen was there in her place, hurling the book away, casting off the sheet, and extending the world’s loveliest arms in welcome. “Darling! I had almost given up hope! What in the world is that you are…were…wearing. Oh, you’re all…” Wet, perhaps, but she had no time to get the last word out before I was all over her, kissing her frantically.

“Saints preserve me,” she muttered when I gave her a chance. “I’ve never known you quite so… ardent!”

“Burning.” I kissed her lips again in passing.

“Combusting?”

“Deflagrating.”

“Cheat! No such word.”

“Is so. Ebullient, too.”

“Fervent.”

I thought, “Glowing,” but had no opportunity to say it and by then it didn’t matter. We never got to “Hot” or “Incandescent.” I do not recommend pyromancy to anyone, but it does have interesting side effects. It was almost dawn before I was completely burned out.

An hour before dawn the city’s churches ring for matins but I never hear them. Roosters scream and I respond with snores. Only at sunrise, a few minutes before the marangona rings, do I crack an eyelid-but that morning I suffered a sharp poke in the ribs.

“You must go.”

I grunted negatively and tried to cuddle closer.

“Listen to it!” she said. “You’ll have to go by the front door.”

The unpleasant noise in the background was a rattling casement and rain pounding the glass, which meant very high wind. In such a storm the high road would be close to suicide, so I would have to risk the watergate. Big storms are rare so early in the winter. Venice rules the seas but the weather pleases itself.

I persisted. “Luigi doesn’t open up until sunrise.”

“It will be sunrise in a few minutes. So stop that and go!”

I stole a last kiss, disengaged, and left her bed.

I shivered my way into my Guise of Night hose and smock, which were still damp, but were going to be a lot wetter before I reached home. I left Violetta’s apartment, locking it behind me, and trotted downstairs to sea level. Her timing had been perfect, because I heard the marangona -loud and clear, carried by the wind-as I let myself out the front door. Now workers would start emerging all over the city, a rising flow of men hurrying to their workshops, foundries, markets, and so on, hailing one another, stopping at churches and shrines for a hasty prayer. So far my luck was holding, for there were neither boats on the Rio San Remo, nor pedestrians on the fondamenta along the far side.

Getting into Ca’ Barbolano unseen would be the problem. Old Luigi unbolts the front door at daybreak and usually takes a look outside, just from habit. After that the Marcianas are supposed to post a boy to keep watch on it, except when the men are working in the androne, which is most of the time. But the old night watchman often interprets dawn a little earlier than the sun does, and adolescents have contrary instincts, so there can be a brief interval between man and boy. If I could slip in then, I should be able to run upstairs unseen. Of course I would leave a trail of wet footprints, but clean water does not show up on white Istrian marble.

So I crossed to the narrow calle and continued on to the Barbolano watergate, working my way along the ledge with my back hard against the wall, my toes over the lip, rain needling my face, and a howling gale trying to throw me off. No one saw me, or at least no one started a hue and cry about burglars, and with a sigh of relief I peered around the corner, saw that the great door was closed, and slipped into the loggia. Danese lay sprawled in a corner with the blade of a rapier protruding from the middle of his chest; the hilt under his back explaining his awkward, arched position. His doublet and the front of his breeches were brown with dried blood. His jaw hung open, his blue eyes stared in amazement at the ceiling, and he was very obviously dead.

This was an unexpected complication.