With Bruno at my side, I walked along the loggia. The outer world was unfolding as before, only my thoughts were different. Now I knew I would never stand here waiting to be beckoned into the broglia and introduced by an influential patron. I had already written to Tirali, turning down his offer of Rome on the grounds that I owed loyalty to the Maestro; Corrado had promised faithfully to deliver the note and Christoforo to see that he did.
If I had described my vision in greater detail, the Maestro would certainly have given me very different instructions. So why hadn’t I? Why was I here? I had broken my curse by burning the book, but why not play safe and change the future completely by having someone else deliver a letter to Circospetto? Why risk the outcome being almost what I had foreseen? I did not know the answer to that. A stubborn determination to prove my courage, perhaps, or a refusal to be intimidated by evil. Let fear deter you and the evil has won, the Maestro says.
I hesitated for a moment at the Porta della Carta, so that Bruno went another step and turned to look for me, but then I forced my feet to move again and we entered the tunnel. The same guard shot the same startled look at Bruno, slammed the butt of his pike down on the same flagstone, and asked the same question.
I gave him the same answer. Again we were ordered to wait. Time passed even more slowly than before, because I had to fight a desperate yearning to turn around and flee away into the fog. The messenger returned eventually and again we crossed the courtyard. But now the pattern was broken, for only one man went with us, and not in quite the same direction. The moment I realized he was leading us to the censors’ staircase, I took large gulps of air and told my heart to calm down, for this was the way that honored guests were taken to the halls of justice.
We had to climb just as far, but the stairs were wide and high, and thus much easier, especially for Bruno. At the top we were shown into an antechamber that leads to both the hall of the Ten and the smaller room for the chiefs of the Ten. It was presently occupied by two fanti guards, and the cadaverous Raffaino Sciara, Circospetto, in his blue robe. Our guide departed the way we had come. The future was unfolding as it should.
“Well, sier Alfeo?” The secretary’s eyes were as sepulchral as always. “You have had a busy couple of days.” Sciara smiled contemptuously, but probably a face so skull-like can smile no other way.
I bowed and admitted that I had. Bruno was staring at the murals.
“And why are you demanding to see me, sier Alfeo? At this ungodly hour in the morning?”
“The…A mutual friend suggested I should report my master’s conclusions to you, lustrissimo.”
Circospetto frowned. There were witnesses present. “The man you saw that morning?”
I nodded.
“I’m sure you misheard him.”
“I must have done, lustrissimo. I am sorry.”
“Sensitive reports are made to the chiefs of the Ten. As it happens, your timing is excellent. They were just discussing the attack made on you yesterday. They may have some questions to put to you.” He pointed at Bruno, who was gaping at the Tintoretto paintings on the ceiling. “Will he remain here?”
“I could insist, lustrissimo, but he will do no harm if he comes. He cannot hear.”
Sciara nodded and ushered me through the corner door to the room of the chiefs of the Ten, Bruno hurrying at our heels. Three men sat behind the big table on the podium; all were elderly and wore the black robes of nobility with the extra-large sleeves denoting membership in the Council of Ten. Red tippets over their left shoulders showed that they were indeed the three chiefs. They had their heads together, conferring. The papers waiting their attention were still neatly stacked and the candles in the golden candlesticks were long and unlit, suggesting that they had barely started their morning’s work.
At a side table sat an equally venerable spectator in the robes and biretta of a state prosecutor, and beside him sat Missier Grande Gasparo Quazza in his blue and red, solid as a marble staircase. He looked at me with no sign of recognition whatsoever, which is his way.
If the doge had wanted to keep the Ten out of the Orseolo affair, then he had failed, but at least this time I was not facing Inquisitor Marco Dona. I gestured Bruno to a corner and bowed low while Sciara gave my name. He went back to his seat beside the prosecutor and dipped a quill in his inkwell.
The right-hand chief had a long white beard; the one on the left was portly. The middle one must be this week’s chairman and him I knew to be one of the Maestro’s patients, Bartolemeo Morosini. The Maestro had not told him that his heart was going to give out very shortly, but a glimpse of his inflamed, choleric face in any mirror would offer a strong hint.
In the overly loud tones of the hard of hearing, he proclaimed, “You are citizen Alfeo Zeno, clerk to Doctor Nostradamus?”
“I am Alfeo Zeno, Your Excellency. I do have the honor of being listed in the Golden Book.”
All three old men scowled at me for not being dressed as a nobile homo. I would collect no more tips from Morosini when he called on his doctor in future.
“NH Alfeo Zeno, then, but a clerk. You testify before this tribunal on pain of perjury. You were attacked by a gang of bravos yesterday?”
“I was.”
“Do you know who they were?”
“No, Your Excellency.”
“Or why they picked on you?”
I saw the portly chief wince at the directness of Morosini’s question. It left me hanging over a very long drop. To mumble hints of clairvoyance to Missier Grande in private was bad enough. To testify about demons on oath in state records would be suicidal.
I said, “I can only assume that it was to prevent my exposing the foreigner Alexius Karagounis as an agent of the sultan, messere.”
“The man who jumped out the window when you went to see him later in the company of the vizio?”
“That man, messere. ”
“And how did you know that-”
Because I was at floor level and the chiefs were up on a dais, I saw Portly’s shoe slam against the chairman’s ankle. He started and glared at his companion.
Portly said, “Did we not decide to close the file on the foreigner Alexius Karagounis, subsequent upon his suicide?”
The three chiefs choose what shall or shall not be discussed by the whole Council of Ten. If the doge wanted to keep his involvement off the table, his success or failure would be decided here.
Long Beard harrumphed. “We are questioning the witness Zeno about the assault on him earlier in the day. That case is not closed, but we have only his word-his admitted speculation-that there is any connection. On your oath, witness, do you know for a fact that there is a connection?”
“No, messer, er messere.”
“Well, then,” said Portly. “And the man was not summoned as a witness, he came here to volunteer some information. Why don’t we hear what he wants to tell us?”
Morosini shrugged and gestured to Sciara to lay down his pen. “We give you three minutes, sier Alfeo.”
Relieved, but aware that my reprieve might be only temporary, I said, “Doctor Nostradamus instructed me to inform Your Excellencies that the late Procurator Orseolo died as a result of poison administered to him the previous evening at the house of Citizen Imer. My master-”
All three chiefs tried to speak at once.
Portly had the loudest outrage: “Administered by whom?”
“He dare not say yet, messere. I swear,” I continued quickly, “that he has not confided even to me the name of the person he suspects.” The torture chamber was still open for business, one floor up.
“Why doesn’t the old fool write us a letter?” Morosini shouted. “That’s how these things are done.”
“Because he cannot yet offer absolute proof, clarissimo. He is convinced, though, that if the persons who were present at the book viewing that night were to be reassembled in that same room-including himself, of course-then he would be able to reconstruct the murder, showing how it was done and who did it.”