“Now!” he said. “Hand me the bell. Sit. Not so close. Now, I shall read the invocation. When the seventh stick has gone out, you will have a few seconds to ask your questions.”
“Me?”
“He knew you better. You should be allowed three and only three questions, but have a couple of extras ready just in case. Find out the murderer’s name and where he lives. Do not pry into matters that do not concern you in this life.”
“No.” I expected to discover those for myself fairly soon.
“Ready?”
“Ready, master.”
He began reciting the Coptic, taking it slowly but rarely stumbling. Repeatedly he mentioned Baphomet, although the way he said it made it sound more like a command than a proper name. After a few lines he rang the handbell once and the first incense stick I had lit stopped smoking. I shivered. A few more lines and he rang twice. The second stick…
The first time in my life that my hair ever genuinely stood on end was after the final, seventh, flame extinguished. There was an awful moment’s pause and then the Head spoke. Yes, a voice emerged from the gaping mouth, soft but unmistakably Danese Dolfin’s sonorous, unforgettable bass scraping at my nerves.
“Who summons me back to this world of sin?”
I swallowed hard on a throat as dry as salt. “I, Alfeo Zeno, do.”
“Alfeo Zeno, why do you dare disturb the passage of my soul?”
“To avenge your murder.”
“Avenge? Or revenge? Would you have me sin even in death?”
How typical of Danese to argue from beyond the grave, even if he wasn’t buried yet. I wiped my damp brow and put the first question. “Danese Dolfin, who killed you?”
The Head moaned as if in pain. “Leave me, leave me!”
“Answer, I command you! Who killed you?”
He sighed and whispered, “Mirphak.”
“What is his real name?”
“Francesco Guarini.”
I heard the Maestro sigh happily. His third bowstring had found the target.
I asked my third question. “Where does Francesco Guarini live?” For a long moment I thought I would receive no reply but then Danese’s voice came again, very faint, as if from a great distance.
“Above the magazzen in San Giorgio in Alga.”
Got him! With both a name and an address, even the Signori di Notte could catch him, let alone the Ten.
“And by what words is he commanded?”
Silence.
“Again I order you to answer! What words command Francesco Guarini?”
This time I heard a sound no louder than a passing mosquito. I said, “What?” several times and tried a few more questions, but nothing more happened. I whispered, “Requiescat in pacem.” The seance was over.
The bell jangled as the Maestro laid it on the floor beside his chair.
“Very satisfactory!” he said. “Before dawn, you will go to San Giorgio in Alga and arrest Francesco Guarini. Bring him back here and I will serve him to Ottone Gritti for his prima colazione.”
“I have no authority to arrest anyone.” Especially not on that testimony.
“But you have the word to command him. Didn’t you hear it?”
“Mirphak?” I said. “Mirphak and Algol? Should I bring in Sirius, Polaris, and Vega also?”
“Keep a look out for all sorts of trouble. You will have the vizio with you!” The Maestro chuckled as he heaved himself to his feet. “Be very careful. He is dangerous.”
“Which is? Or do you mean both?”
“Guarini is. Vasco isn’t, not now.”
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
