“The boat stayed in place for about an hour, they said, and then suddenly approached the Ca’ Barbolano. No doubt these predators expected their quarry to embark in my gondola as he usually does, and were prepared to give chase to some distant place where the crime could be committed. The plan went awry, because Alfeo went along the calle to the campo instead. Six of the men disembarked and ran after him-and that was very curious behavior! It is not surprising that the witnesses remembered. The boat departed, bearing its gondolier-and you, Your Excellency.”
Bianca cried out and clapped her hands over her mouth.
Benedetto said, “No! That is-”
“Shush, both of you!” their father commanded. “This is total rubbish. My government duties keep me far too busy to go wandering around at random. I have not been near Ca’ Barbolano in months and I never saw that woman before the night my father took ill. How much did you pay those louts to identify me? Did you explain the penalty for perjury?” The politician was about to start bargaining.
The room was very quiet. I expected the inquisitor to comment, but he did not.
“You served two terms as rector of Verona,” the Maestro said. “And the woman mentioned Verona to Alfeo. You summoned her or she followed you here, to Venice. You knew that your father would choose retsina if it were offered. He walked with a cane, had a crippled hand-easy to describe to someone who had never met him. You killed him without even being in the room! And you knew Alfeo by sight, because you had ordered him out of the house several times rather than pay a trivial debt. When he went to her house and started asking-”
Orseolo rose to his feet. “Slandering a member of the Collegio is criminal sedition. Marco, you have known me for years. You cannot believe this. Why should I murder my own father?”
The inquisitor’s face was grim indeed. “The law does not care why, but I expect Doctor Nostradamus can tell us why. We must hear the rest of what he has to say.”
The Maestro bunched his cheeks in an antiquated pixie smile. “Because his father discovered he was throwing away his political career on a woman. You may be able to find witnesses who have seen him visiting the Ca’ della Naves. A similar thing happened a few years ago, when his father forced him to dismiss a courtesan he was supporting, a woman who goes by the name of Alessa. Granted His Excellency is now a widower, and can reasonably be expected to take a mistress; but that Feather woman is a foreigner and he is a senior minister in the government.”
Which would make their intrigue treason under Venetian law. Such love is unthinkable, as the quatrain had said. The least penalty Orseolo could hope for would be dismissal from political office and loss of his place in the Golden Book. Exile or the gallows were possible.
Bianca and Benedetto were on their feet, saying, “Father! Father, you-” but Enrico bellowed for silence.
“You are a clever devil, Filippo Nostradamus. May you burn in hell for all eternity!” he put his arms around his children. “I am sorry, my darlings. Yes, what he says is true.”
“Father!”
“You are admitting the charge?” old Dona demanded, horrified.
“I admit it. My father was a tyrant, and I have never been able to stand up to him. There was a time when I could make him see reason, but lately he had become close to irrational. Yes, I met Hyacinth in Verona and we fell hopelessly, madly, in love, like adolescents. My term of office there ended and we had to part, but we found we could not live without each other. A few months ago I wrote and urged her to come to Venice. We were happy again, briefly, until my father learned of her and swore he would expose us. He was immune to all argument. The murder was my idea. I talked her into it. Show her mercy if you can.”
Bianca was weeping, Benedetto ivory-white with shock.
“Take your sister home, Bene. Look after her. Be a better brother than I have been a father.”
For fire read passion, the tower destroyed, the man and woman falling.
Missier Grande opened the door. Enrico Orseolo released his children and walked out. The Lizard could not negotiate a compromise this time, not on a charge of parricide. Quazza followed him out. It is not every day that a great minister needs to be escorted to jail.
It was over. Brilliant! The Maestro can still amaze me.
“That concludes my case, Your Excellency,” he said.
Dona remained slumped in misery. He had expected Hyacinth, but never Enrico. As members of the inner circle of government, the two men must have known each other and worked together for decades. Apart from any personal loss, the scandal of a great minister confessing to the murder of his own distinguished father was going to shake the city harder than the earthquake of 1511.
I walked along to the inquisitor. After a moment he realized I was standing there and looked up with a scowl.
“Your Excellency, may the man Pulaki Guarana be released now? He obviously played no part in the murder. From the look of him, he must have told you everything he knows about Karagounis, and he could benefit from medical attention.”
He shrugged. “We do seem to have concluded the evening’s business.”
“Not quite, Your Excellency,” said Filiberto Vasco.
I had not noticed him return. He was smiling. He was smiling at me.
The inquisitor said, “What?”
“We have not yet solved the problem of the books.”
My bowels felt as if I had swallowed an anchor. I had forgotten the jack of swords, but of course no card in the tarot deck would be a better fit for the vizio. Vasco, not Benedetto, was the snare to be avoided. The palace cells might have to admit a fourth new guest tonight.
Dona frowned. “What books?”
The vizio bowed. “Your Excellency will recall that at the meeting of the Ten at which I had the honor of reporting on the suicide of Alexius Karagounis, His Serenity inquired what had happened to the books exhibited at this address on the night of the thirteenth. Acting on instructions from Missier Grande, I examined the literary material I had removed from the deceased’s residence. I identified all the antique papers and submitted them for His Serenity’s inspection. He ordered that they be kept in secure storage until the Council of Ten could make determination of their ownership, but he also confirmed that one was missing, a unique copy of a lost work by Euripides. His Serenity described it as ‘priceless’.”
His Excellency muttered, “Bloody books,” under his breath. “Go on.”
Vasco continued, smiling at me all the time. “I went upstairs, Your Excellency, to the Leads, where the manservant Guarana was being interrogated. I added the missing book to the list of questions he was required to answer.”
“And what did he say?”
Pulaki had crept closer and now fell on his knees, groveling before the inquisitor. “I said everything, Your Excellency, everything I know! You think I would have not told about a stupid book when they were doing such things to me?”
“What he claimed,” Vasco said happily, “was that the deceased, Alexius Karagounis, was working with that very manuscript at the time I called on him in the company of sier Alfeo Zeno. I recall clearly that there were papers on his desk. When the spy jumped out the window, I ran downstairs with my men. Regrettably, I left Zeno there unsupervised.”
“I couldn’t run,” I said. “I had a sore leg.”
Everyone ignored that.
“When I returned,” Vasco continued, “both Zeno and the papers had gone. I accuse NH Alfeo Zeno of stealing a document that the doge himself describes as priceless.”
This was obviously my cue to do some fast talking, but I felt as if I were standing on mist. “Oh come, Filiberto, you can’t hang me any higher for priceless than you can for just pricey.”
“You admit your guilt?”
“Never! What His Serenity told me was that it was worthless. He cancelled his bid for it.”