have given you a very biased opinion of humanity. Far from attempting to harm Vasco this morning, Giorgio and I did everything in our power to save him. Giorgio is not a young man and I feared he would kill himself, the way he was rowing.”
Gritti smiled, all snowy-bearded grandfather again. “A noble effort! Of course mere brawn is common enough. Brains are much rarer. I watched you in action, sier Alfeo. I admit I was impressed. Definitely it is time your services were placed at La Serenissima ’s disposal.”
So that was what yesterday’s excursion had been all about! Nothing appealed to me less than being a spy for the Council of Ten. “I am enormously flattered, Your-”
“December,” Gritti continued as if I had not spoken, “is the earliest we can get you into the Great Council.” He rose and strolled back toward the window. “We shall see you get elected to some minor post with a stipend-the Salt Commission, perhaps. Just enough to explain how you can afford to eat, but the covert remuneration will be substantial and the prospects dazzling.”
“Your Excellency, I am bound to the good doctor. He is too old to train another assistant. While your offer-”
The inquisitor grunted and turned to frown at me. “I suppose we can tolerate him for a year or so. He will have to retire soon, and I could tell you within fifty ducats how much gold he has stashed away in that secret drawer in the couch. Your work for him will give you a good excuse to-”
“Your Excellency, I thank you for-”
“You would, of course,” the inquisitor said coldly, “first have to be cleared of suspicion of witchcraft and attempted murder.”
“Attempted what?”
He smiled, but no child would want a grandfather who smiled like that. “Just this morning you bled Vasco several times, I understand. Barbers and doctors hesitate to bleed patients who have already lost significant amounts of blood, but you, having no medical qualifications at all, felt free to bleed this noble man who had been wounded while attempting to rescue you from an assailant.”
He was goading me, trying to frighten me. He was doing very well.
“I was trying to save his hand. Ask any doctor-”
“You would save his hand at the cost of his life? Of course a hand on its own cannot testify before the tribunal. If you had felt genuine concern for the vizio ’s welfare and survival, you would have found someone to treat him in Giudecca.” The inquisitor’s eyes shone with a cold, ophidian gleam.
“I offered to take him to the Convent of San Benedetto, messer. I urged him to go there, but he refused. It was he who insisted on returning to Ca’ Barbolano.”
“You would say that, of course. He cannot recall such a conversation. And yet, alas, he managed to survive your malicious abuse and lives to testify against you! A tough as well as a courageous young man!”
“But inclined to sycophantic prevarication.”
“I have two witnesses to your sorcery yesterday. My colleagues were very distressed to hear of this outrage when I reported to them last night. They were inclined to give some credit to your youth and lay most of the blame on the evil old man who has perverted you. These things would come out at the trial.”
He smiled again. Likely the job offer had come from his two fellow inquisitors. He had delivered it and I had refused it. Now I was fair game.
I had my shoes on, I was ready. “But you admit that one witness is a hysterical juvenile. Shall we go and see if Doctor Nostradamus has managed to silence the other one yet?”
32
O ut in the salone, I detected mouth-watering odors from the kitchen. Noemi was hovering there anxiously. Noemi is so delicate she could almost hover literally, and I can never meet her eye without smiling.
“Ready?”
She nodded vigorously.
“I shall tell the Maestro,” I said. “It seems our feast is ready, Your Excellency.”
Gritti walked on without comment, ignoring the statuary and paintings. Back at the atelier we found Vasco sitting on a chair-not one of the best-and sipping a glass of wine. Loss of blood always imparts a strong thirst and the redness of wine makes it the best fluid to help the body replace the loss. He was huddled under a blanket, which at least hid his bandaged arm and blood-ruined garments. His pallor was less marked than before, but with a grotesquely swollen nose trailing wisps of packing and two rapidly developing black eyes, he looked as if he had fallen headfirst off a bell tower. I don’t say he had earned all that. I don’t say he hadn’t, either.
Beside him stood Missier Grande, who was a surprise but not much of one, for he would have heard from the fante about his deputy’s injury. The look he gave me conveyed little appreciation of the work I had done to bring the man back alive.
The Maestro was wiping his hands on a damp cloth. He scowled approvingly at me. “If you must waste so much money on clothes, they deserve to be worn in good company. I was just telling Missier Grande that his vizio owes his life to you yet again, Alfeo.”
“Again?” murmured the inquisitor. “You mean again after yesterday?”
“No.” The Maestro’s smirk told me that he had been dragging bait, although Gritti might not realize that. “I was thinking of the time when the gondola overturned and Alfeo had to tow the vizio to shore.”
“Our prima colazione is ready, master,” I said hopefully.
“Your Excellency,” Missier Grande said, “I should see the vizio home.”
“Not just yet.” Gritti walked over to one the green chairs and turned it so he could include Vasco in his field of view. “First I want answers to a couple of questions.”
“As you please,” the Maestro said with unusual amiability.
He hobbled to his red chair, leaning on furniture because he had left his staff there. I went to my side of the desk and sat. Missier Grande remained standing. The two fanti were out in the androne, watching through the open door and within easy hail.
“Doctor Nostradamus,” Gritti said, staring intently at him, “yesterday you did not know who Algol was. Do not interrupt me! If you had known you would have said so, and you didn’t. You merely said you would tell me today, and this morning you sent your boy all the way to the Giudecca to accost a man who had not previously been mentioned in this case. To the best of my recollection, the name of Francesco Guarini has never been brought before the Ten. I grant you that his reaction to Zeno’s summons was suspicious and his violence against the vizio will send him to the galleys, but where is your evidence that he has anything to do with either the Algol matter or the death of Danese Dolfin? Explain.”
The Maestro leaned back, rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, and put his fingertips together, five and five. That almost always means that he is about to start lecturing, but for once it did not.
“The revered and mighty Council of Ten does not reveal all its methods, Your Excellency. I have my own professional secrets and need them to earn my living. I assure you that you have your man and a couple of witnesses are available. With a little encouragement, Guarini will confess to everything.”
Inquisitors do not take kindly to defiance. Indeed, they take very cruelly to it, and Gritti’s smile clotted my blood like butter. “But it is you I am presently encouraging. You will tell me how you learned his name. I will know who told you, and when. I am prepared to go to great lengths to get the truth.”
There was the ultimatum. We were back to the question of how much torture a frail octogenarian could stand, and who else might be questioned in his stead. Gritti meant what he was saying. He was clearly prepared to accept as a working hypothesis that Guarini was Algol and would solve both the espionage case and the murder for him. Now he was investigating the problem of black magic. He had the scent of witchcraft in his nostrils and a true fanatic sees witchcraft as much worse than espionage.
“I am not prepared to tell you at this time,” the Maestro said calmly, making as if to rise. “After we have eaten I may say more on the topic, but I believe it is irrelevant.”
“It is relevant if I say it is!” The inquisitor’s rubicund face darkened a few shades.
“But I know the details and you do not.” If the Maestro was deliberately trying to get both himself and me
