The Alchemist's Code

30

A s the eastern sky began to brighten on a chilly Sunday morning, Giorgio was rowing me south across the wide Canale della Giudecca, which is the main shipping channel separating the city from the long string of islands called the Giudecca. Giudecca is known for great palaces and playgrounds of the very rich, so I am not as familiar with it as I should like to be. Cool or not, the morning was spectacular. Light danced on the ripples like fireflies and ever-hopeful seagulls floated by overhead, eyeing us for signs of imminent garbage ejection. The city seemed to stand on its protecting lagoon and the first rays of sunrise were giving the tops of the Alps a good-morning kiss

Beside me in the felze sat the vizio, huddled in his cloak, grumpy and sleep deprived. I was in no better shape, for we had had an epic row over sleeping arrangements. He had refused to let me sleep in my own room, because he knew about the other way out of it. I had refused to let him lock me in the spare bedroom. In the end we had both slept on couches in the salone with the lamps lit. Then I had wakened him at an iniquitous hour, saying I was going sightseeing in San Giorgio in Alga, did he want to come?

For once I was glad of his company, since I did not share the Maestro’s cheerful confidence that I could persuade a murderer to accompany me back to Ca’ Barbolano for a cozy breakfast with a state inquisitor. Just having Filiberto Vasco with me would give me many times the impact I would have by myself, although I could not see him providing any practical assistance unless I told him why I wanted this unknown Francesco Guarini, and that I was most certainly not about to do.

St. George in Seaweed is in the far west of the Giudecca, and is one of the smallest parishes in the city, so I had been surprised to learn that it even had a magazzen. A magazzen is an all-night wine shop, which, unlike a tavern, sells no food, although clients can usually send out to a nearby pork butcher for a snack. None of us admitted to knowing where San Giorgio’s magazzen was located, but I did not expect it to be hard to find, and it wasn’t. Giorgio let us off at the watersteps, we walked along a short calle to the campo, and there it was, with its signboard over the door and a light inside still just barely visible in the brightening day. I could not imagine the rich patronizing such a slum, but where there are rich there are servants and artisans and tradesfolk to live off the crumbs they drop.

“Only two stories,” Vasco remarked as we headed to it. “That simplifies your search.”

I needed a moment to steady my voice. “What do you mean?”

He smiled with a saintly innocence worthy of San Francesco himself. “You don’t expect the locals to help you, do you? I just meant that a two-story building is easier to search than a taller one would be.”

“It is kind of you to share your professional expertise so willingly.”

I told myself that Vasco was merely prying, trying to discover how much information I had. He could not have spied on our seance, because I had closed the spyhole; the atelier door is absolutely soundproof. No, he was merely putting things together. The only possible explanation for my early morning dash across the Canale was to catch the spy that Nostradamus had promised to deliver.

San Giorgio in Alga’s magazzen was just as smelly and seedy as all its brethren, but smaller than most. Into one small room it crammed four stools, two benches, a couple of tiny tables, three unsavory-looking male customers-one of them asleep on a bench-and one cat, asleep under the other bench. Another man, probably either the owner or a relative of his, sat beyond an open window at the back, ready to vend vile vintages. A door in the corner connected the customer area with his den.

Eyes turned when I walked in. They widened when Vasco followed me, and then all except the proprietor’s quickly looked away. One of the customers kicked the sleeper to waken him.

I kept moving until I reached the window. “Francesco Guarini?”

The man was middle-aged, overweight, and unhealthy looking; the amelanotic nodule beside his right eye told me that he had only a few months to live. The tiny room behind him was packed with barrels, crates, buckets, gondola cushions, two oars, fishing rods, some rope, an ax, tattered baskets, broken crocks, and much else. He flinched, glanced at Vasco momentarily, and then jerked a thumb upward. An open staircase angled up the wall of his kennel from just beyond the door on my right.

“Up there? Which way at the top?”

“Only one door at the top, boy.”

“Is there another way out?”

“No.”

The vizio might not be actively helping me, but his mere presence had been enough to produce cooperation. Had I been alone, I would have been consigned to the Devil in vivid language and meaningful gestures.

“Coming?” I asked my assistant.

“No.” Vasco leaned against the wall beside the hatch, where he could keep an eye on the clientele. “I prefer to watch your antics from a safe distance, clarissimo. You there, sit down!” The customer who had risen duly sat down. It was amazing what a red cloak and a silver badge could do. “Padrone, I’ll try a glass of your best red.” Vasco ostentatiously did not reach for his money pouch.

I opened the door, left it open, started to climb. It was narrow, with no handrail; the treads creaked. I turned a corner at the back of the shop and mounted more steps until I was facing another door. I rapped on it with the hilt of my dagger. Noting that it opened outward and the top tread was barely larger than any of the others, I hammered again, then backed down two steps. There was a chink of daylight under the door, and in a moment it was darkened by a shadow.

“This is appalling wine,” Vasco complained from below. “Did you remember to wash your feet?”

“Who’s there?” growled a man’s voice behind the door.

I steadied my rapier with my left hand, ready to draw. “I want Francesco Guarini.”

“Guarini’s not here. Come back tonight.”

“Let me speak to Mirphak, then.”

“Don’t know him. Go away.”

So much for words of command.

“Come out, Guarini. I know you’re in there. Danese Dolfin sent me.”

“Who?” But this time the door opened a chink. With barely a pause, it flew wide and a chair came hurtling into my face. I went over backward and somersaulted down to the corner, unfolding against the wall with a crash that almost broke my neck. The man rushed down after me and tried to kick me in the face as he went past, but by then my dander was up. I caught his foot with both hands and twisted. He toppled over the chair and it was his turn to fall, pitching face-first down the lower flight and out through the door into the magazzen. I went hot behind him, practically in free fall.

Vasco, to his credit, jumped forward to block Guarini as he scrambled to his feet; Guarini head-butted him. I slammed into both of them and we all went down. Guarini was considerably heftier than me, but I was on top and I got an arm around his neck. He was done for then, because I grabbed my wrist to form a choke hold, which I tightened until he went limp.

“Padrone!” I bellowed. “Bring me some of that rope you have back there.” I looked up at the three customers, all of whom were on their feet, looking down. I have rarely been grateful for the presence of Filiberto Vasco in this world, but that was one of those precious moments. I was an outsider intruding and had he not been there to represent La Serenissima, I would have been the bottom layer of a five-man imbroglio, possibly ten-man by this time. Favoring discretion over valor, the San Giorgio militia turned away and strode out.

“Lemme ub!” Vasco yelled, who was still pinned under my prisoner. “You crathy thon of a ditch-born…”

I ignored the rest of what he said until I had accepted a dirty coil of cord from the barman and bound Guarini’s wrists. Then I eased back onto my knees and hobbled his ankles for good measure. He was a bullnecked, youngish man with a Borgia beard, taller than me and undoubtedly powerful, and he was starting to demonstrate a very foul mouth.

“Be silent!” I shouted. “Or I will gag you.”

My head still rang from its encounter with the side of the stairwell. I had twisted my ankle, and could count more bruises than there were treads in the stairwell, but Vasco looked worse than I felt. He struggled to his feet, bleeding dramatically.

“Thanks for the help,” I said. “What happened to your face?”

“Hith head hid my noath! An’ he knifed me.” He was clutching his left wrist with his right, so he had no way to deal with his nose, which was pouring blood. I was much more alarmed by the red jets spurting through his fingers.

“Sit down!” I snapped, leaping to my feet. “Bring towels!” I ordered the proprietor. “Run! I take it, Vizio, that citizen Guarini is officially under arrest?”

Vasco’s reply was too lengthy to report verbatim, but the gist was in the affirmative.

“I’d better attend to that gash before you lose too much blood,” I said, realizing that he might bleed to death before my eyes. “Hurry!” I bellowed to the patron, who had rushed off up the stairs, but I couldn’t wait for the towels. I pulled out my dagger and slit Vasco’s sleeve open, all the way to his shoulder, so that I could make a bandage out of it.

Guarini had awakened and was squirming, so I poked him with my toe, not especially gently. “Lie still, dog! If it makes you feel any happier, brother Filiberto, I testify that this scum is the man who killed Danese Dolfin.”

“You know him?” Vasco demanded through his bloody mask.

“I do. And I know someone else who can identify him, too.” It’s amazing what one good, hard crack on the head can do to clear it. I was starting to catch up with the Maestro, who had seen the answer a whole day earlier.

The landlord came hurrying down with some dirty rags, but by then I was using the hilt of Guarini’s knife to tighten the tourniquet. “Is there a barber-surgeon nearby?”

“No, lustrissimo. Not on Sunday.”

“Go and fetch my gondolier. Tell him-”

“I cannot leave my premises.”

“Go!” I roared. “You want Missier Grande ’s deputy to bleed to death in your vermin pit? Tell my gondolier that Filiberto is hurt and Alfeo needs help. Move! ”

I told Vasco to hold the tourniquet steady while I cut pieces of his shirt to pack his nose. He moaned a little at that, and I assured him that it wasn’t broken, although it was already so swollen that I could not be sure. He looked like the aftermath of the Battle of Lepanto.

“We must get you to the convent,” I said. “The sisters will care for you.”

“No!”

“San Benedetto is very close.”

“No!” Vasco must know he had lost a serious amount of blood, but he insisted that he would return to Ca’ Barbolano with me and my prisoner.

“I missed a good party?” asked a familiar voice, and I turned with relief to Giorgio Angeli.

“It was brief but energetic,” I admitted. “We need to get the vizio to a surgeon.”

“I know the best doctor in Venice,” Giorgio said, helping Vasco stand.

Vasco promptly fainted and Giorgio, who has learned many things from being Nostradamus’s gondolier for so long, expertly hoisted him on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.

I prodded Guarini again and said, “Up, pig.”