Yes, I was shaken. Officially the Ten investigate major crimes against the state, but they will meddle in anything they fancy. I must trust that the Maestro had acted upon his own warning and departed. I was certain that he would not be found if he did not want to be found. Although I had been his apprentice for years, I still did not know the limits of his powers.
The first flight of stairs brought us to the mezzanine landing where I had spent most of the night. Doors there lead into two apartments occupied by the Marciana brothers, who are sier Alvise Barbolano’s business partners. I raised my lantern in passing…“Such a shame you did not come in daylight, lustrissimo. Sier Alvise just acquired this painting, San Marco Blessing the Fishing Boats. Quite a rarity. By Sebastiano del Piombo.”
Sciara did not spare it a glance. Philistine!
Another flight brought us to the piano nobile, the Barbolano residence itself. The doors there are twice my height and can be opened wide enough to row a galley through. They were shut, of course. I did not draw our visitor’s attention to the Tintoretto on the wall. His continuing silence did not seem to be from lack of breath and the old skeleton had no trouble keeping up with me, although I had a forty-year advantage.
The last two flights brought us to the top floor, which the noble Alvise Barbolano puts at the disposal of the celebrated Maestro Filippo Nostradamus. I unlocked the door and stood aside to let my companion enter, striding in like a de-horsed horseman of the Apocalypse. Our two lanterns did very little to raise the darkness, for the salone runs the full length of the building and its ceiling is twenty feet high; it takes a lot of flames to illuminate it. The statues glimmered spookily and stars twinkled from gilded cornices and picture frames, from chandeliers of Murano glass.
Sciara seemed unimpressed. “His bedroom?”
I led the way across to the appropriate door. The Maestro had prophesied that he would not be there and I believed him.
“Open it!”
“It is not booby trapped, lustrissimo. Once in a while I will balance a bucket of water on it just to make him laugh, but-”
“I told you to open it.”
I opened it gently and raised my lamp. Then I walked in.
The Maestro earns a lot more money than he ever admits, but he could not support the upkeep of one broom closet in Ca’ Barbolano. His bedchamber alone is fit for a king, but everything in it-furniture, paintings, tapestries, chandeliers, statuary-is owned by sier Alvise. The bed, standing on gilded columns, displayed undisturbed bedding of silk and lace. The Maestro might be hiding in one of the marquetry chests, but Sciara seemed to consider that possibility as unlikely as I did.
“Where does his horse sleep?”
“Horse, lustrissimo? He owns no horse that I know of.”
“You know who I mean! The mute.”
“Ah!” I led the way along to a smaller room-a comparatively humble room, although some of the richest men in the Republic sleep in worse. I marched in, not bothering to be quiet, for Bruno has been stone deaf since birth. Stretched flat out across two beds put together, the giant was snoring loud enough to raise waves on the lagoon. Being very close to naked, he was an impressive sight. “There is more of him,” I said, “but we keep the rest in storage.”
I did not draw Circospetto ’s attention to the Veronese Madonna on the wall. It is only a small one, but Bruno likes it.
“Your tongue will strangle you yet, Zeno. Let me see the study.”
I led the way again, going a little slower as I worked out what to do. So far so good-the Maestro had gone, leaving Bruno behind. Wisdom had departed and Silence was deserted. But, although Sciara had visited the Maestro’s atelier before, he had never had a chance to snoop around there at will. Now the brave Riddler must guard the treasures. My first problem was that I had not only locked the door, but also warded it, as I always do at night. The one time I forgot to disable that curse, it threw me halfway across the salone and tied me up in an agony of cramp. What had disabled a healthy youngster like me might well kill a man of Sciara’s age.
I unlocked the door, but then I hung my keys back on my belt and turned to face him, folding my arms. “First you must give me your oath that you will not remove anything.”
“Stand aside.”
I said, “Gladly,” and did so. “But I warn you, lustrissimo, that if you touch that door handle you may receive a very unpleasant surprise.”
Lantern light turned his osseous smile into a sigil of crooked shadows. “Are you threatening me with violence, messer? That is a serious criminal offense.”
“Warning you of danger, merely.”
“Open the door, or you will come back with me and explain your refusal to the magistrates.”
“I expect sier Alvise Barbolano will lodge a complaint with the Council.”
“What the nobleman may choose to do is not your concern. Open the door or fetch your cloak.”
I was damned either way. My refusal might even be all the evidence the Ten would need to issue a formal search warrant. I knew of evidence in there that could be used to hang the Maestro and me with him. Among his papers were prophecies, letters written in cipher from people all over Europe, horoscopes for senior members of the government, and many other documents that could be regarded as evidence of treason or heresy.
Furious, I turned my back on the intruder to conceal my hands. I made the passes and muttered the incantation needed to remove the wards. Then I led the way inside.
The room was dark and unoccupied, but the poisons I had brought back the previous evening still sat in full view on the desk. Both Gerolamo the herbalist and Danielle the apothecary had warned me to be careful with those. Sciara made a methodical circuit of the room, starting at the alchemical workbench with its mortars and alembics, lingering to look at the scores of jars on shelves above it.
I stayed very close, prepared to grab away anything he tried to pocket.
He took even longer at the wall of books, raising his lantern to scan the titles-books and more books, all bound in embossed leather and lettered with gold leaf. The Republic is the greatest center of printing in Europe, so the Maestro’s collection is far from being the largest in the city, but it contains many rarities-manuscripts and fragments centuries old. More to the point, no library in Europe contains more works on the arcane: cabalism, demonology, alchemy, Gnosticism, and other heresies banned by the Church. Venice pays much less attention to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum than the rest of Catholic Europe does, but just because a law is rarely applied does not mean that it cannot be, so forbidden books are never displayed. Some have been rebound and incorrectly titled. Others are hidden inside other books, hollowed out for the purpose, a few are locked away in secret compartments behind the walls behind the books. Books are rarely evidence of treason, but they can suggest heresy or witchcraft. Sciara was looking at enough evidence to send the Maestro to the stake, if he wanted to. He would have to find it first, but he had all the time in the world and unlimited resources.
He ignored the velvet cloth over the crystal ball, as if to imply that he would not be distracted by hocus-pocus. He passed the fireplace and came to the big double desk near the windows, littered on the Maestro’s side with books and on mine with the packets of reagents I had left there, plus the letter I had been working on when I was sent shopping. Sciara reached for the paper.
“I should warn you, lustrissimo,” I said, “that that is a confidential document addressed to the Pope.”
He read it anyway, then turned his skeletal smile on me. “This is your side of the desk, your writing.” He had noted the gold inkstand and the bronze one, the location of the windows, and the fact that I wore my sword on my left side. He had drawn the correct conclusion.