named an agent who should be invited to the general viewing and might bid on my behalf. At the end of my meetings that day, I found a note from Bertucci Orseolo confirming that he would be going to the sale in person. He had heard disturbing rumors about Imer and wondered if the books were all they seemed to be.”
So that was how it had been done? The doge must have seen a reaction in my face. He paused, but I outwaited him, all eager and expectant.
“It was too late for me to be sure of getting hold of my agent to change my instructions. I decided to go and see for myself if there had been substitutions made. There had not. Your master agreed that the Virgil was a very early, very valuable copy. He said he thought the Meleager was just Hellenistic imitation. So did Bertucci. I was not at all sure I believed either of them, but a doge must not risk being made to seem a fool, so I had a footman fetch my agent, told him not to bid on the Euripides, and left. You’re suggesting I was lured there to be poisoned?”
The valet was chalk-white.
“I think the possibility should be kept in mind, Your Serenity.”
“Bah! A doge is not a king. I have no real power. Why should anyone try to assassinate me, huh?”
“Ambition, sire? Terror? If the sultan can strike you down, he can make other rulers tremble.”
“Ridiculous! That’s far-fetched. And I very rarely go charging out of the palace on a whim, Alfeo.”
“Of course not, sire. But if you had been taken ill later, you might not have mentioned that you had done so. It is only a theory so far, I agree. Why should anyone want to kill the procurator either? My master believes he was poisoned in that room.”
“Bah! Your master claims to be able to read the future, too. The past is usually a lot easier.” Pietro Moro glared at me, his mouth moving as if he wanted to grind his teeth. He heaved himself to his feet, and paused. “I won’t accept any babbling about planets, but if my old friend Bertucci really was murdered, just tell me who did it and I will see his head roll across the Piazzetta, understand? I don’t care who he is!”
“I understand, sire.”
“Tell Sciara when you have anything to report. Jacopo, give him a lira.”
I bowed and withdrew-with my lira.
The short winter day was already ending when I boarded the gondola at the Molo.
“Where to now, Your Excellency?” Giorgio asked.
That was a good question. “No sign of those two fine boys of yours?”
“None.”
“I still need to see Karagounis.” He lived quite close. “But Doctor Modestus is more urgent and I must consult him before they lock up the Ghetto. I don’t want to kill the horse, though.” The Ghetto is at the far end of the Grand Canal.
“It’s a good, strong stud horse, Alfeo. This is my job.” Giorgio is far stronger than he looks. He worked the gondola out into the Basin and then began swinging his oar like a fly whisk, stooping into every stroke, overtaking everything in sight. Admittedly he did not try to sing at the same time.
There is no finer street in the world than the Grand Canal, whose waters lap the doorsteps of gilded palaces and bustle with boats of every kind-gondolas, galleys, barges, rafts, and skiffs. I have never seen it look more beautiful than it did that evening, lit by the low sun and a-sparkle in its own strange light. We passed by the Customs House and a succession of great family houses-the Giustinians’, Corners’, Darios’, Barbaros’, the House of the Duke of Milan, and many more. We swept past my birth parish of San Barnaba, where the barnabotti brood in their embittered poverty, and then more palaces, the new Rialto Bridge coming into sight, a single great arch of marble double-edged with shops. Beyond the bridge and around the second bend we passed the great markets, stripped now of their morning crowds, and then another magnificent parade of palaces escorted us to the Canal Cannaregio, where we turned off to follow lesser ways to the Ghetto Nuovo.
Ghetto is a Venetian word, of course, and a concept that has been copied by many other cities, but Venetian Jews fare much better than most. Christoforo saw me and came slithering through the throng that was streaming in and out of the great gate, shouting my name and grinning with delight at accomplishing his mission.
“He’s still in there. Come along!”
The Ghetto is a warren of narrow calli and a central campo seething with people, almost all of them Jews in their required red hats. The buildings are higher than anywhere else in the city; there are shops and stalls everywhere, but no church, no wayside shrines. The women wear bright clothes and jewelry-rings and chains of gold-and some are very beautiful. Christoforo slipped through the crowd like a minnow, so I was hard put to keep up with him, but he led me unerringly to the door where his brother waited.
“He’s still here,” Corrado said. “Five floors up, he said.”
I told my helpers where they could find their father and solemnly handed them four soldi apiece. Belatedly wondering at my chances of getting that back from the Maestro, I began my climb. At the top of the first flight up I heard and then saw the second-best doctor in the Republic plodding down toward me, bag in hand.
Isaia is narrow-shouldered and stooped-almost hollow-chested-with a permanently worried look, which he claims increases the fees people are willing to pay him. He dyes his beard gray to look older, is armed with a sense of humor deadlier than a bravo’s stiletto, and plays the deadliest chess west of Cathay.
“Alfeo! Your helpers assure me that your master is well.”
“Much better than he deserves. If he weren’t, you are certainly the one he would send for.”
“Why not a restorer of antiquities?” He showed strong teeth in a smile. “So you must be the one with a problem. A case of the French disease, is it?” We were nose-to-nose in a dingy, dimly lit stairwell that bore a strong smell of old cooking. It was an odd place for a medical consultation.
“No. Chastity and frequent self-flagellation protect me. The Maestro wants your opinion on a case.”
Modestus rolled his eyes. “The Lord’s wonders never cease. This is only the third time he has done that and I must have asked his advice two dozen times. I shall be happy to do what I can. Will you tell me here, or shall we go to my house?”
“Here will do well. The subject was an elderly male of choleric humor. He limped slightly on his right leg…”
Isaia listened without comment, but I could soon sense that he had guessed the name of the deceased. When I had finished, he said, “Those symptoms sound to me like poisoning with the herb digitalis.”
“Not oleander?”
“Possible. Digitalis more probable.”
“My master’s opinion also. Treatment of choice?”
He sighed. “Very difficult in a man of his years. He was already trying to vomit, so perhaps water, as long as he was capable of swallowing. The point is moot, though, isn’t it? His doctor bled him that night and again the following morning, then attributed the subsequent death to old age.”
“You are ahead of me,” I said. “I was going to ask you the doctor’s name so I could find out what medicines he had prescribed, if any.”
“I am still ahead of you, but I feel unhappily close to betraying a colleague.” The gloom did not hide Isaia’s discomfort. “He is a good man, although he was a better one twenty years ago. He, too, asked my opinion of the case this afternoon.”
“Why consult you if he believed the death was natural?”
“He was having second thoughts about it, although foxglove had not occurred to him. When I suggested it, he admitted he had never prescribed it in his life or seen its symptoms. I advised him to take his suspicions to the Ten.”
“Will he?”
Isaia laughed. “What do you think?”
But now that Isaia had confirmed that there had been murder done, I had no excuse not to do so. I could feel thin ice cracking under my feet.
“I am very grateful and will tell my master. Also, I ask a more personal favor. There is an attorney named Ottone Imer.”
Isaia is much too quick-witted ever to hesitate. His pause was deliberate.
“I have heard of him.” The near-darkness emphasized how resonant and compelling his voice is. Usually it is soft, a comforting bedside voice, but now I heard the steel in it, warning me off.
I said, “I heard rumors that he is heavily in debt.”
Even in the Republic, which tends to listen to its purse more than its Pope, officially only Jews lend money,
