“The twenty ducats, master? I can enter them in the ledger?”
The old miser chuckled. “Enter whatever you spent. But tomorrow you must take the clothes back to the Ghetto and get whatever you can for them. Enter that in the ledger as a credit.”
I can never fool him. We have played out this farce before, when he wants me dressed up, and I always solve the problem the same way. I went across the campo to the Ca’ Trau San Remo, home of my friend Fulgentio, now ducal equerry. As I told you, he and I are the same size, and fortunately he was home. When I explained that I needed to shine before some important people, he at once rang for his valet and told him to dress me. I refused to cooperate until I had made Fulgentio promise to take the clothes back the next day and not try to make them a gift. He agreed unwillingly, grumbling that he rarely got to wear decent things now, having to spend all his days and half his nights disguised as a gargoyle in equerry rags.
The Maestro has no idea how humiliating this is for me. I keep promising myself that next time I will take him at his word and actually spend some of his golden hoard. So far I never have. He would weep.
I got down to business. “Master, I need instruction. You have deciphered the rest of the quatrain? The gold and the eyes of the serpent were about the attempt on my life. But unthinkable love triumphs from afar sounds like a clue to the murder.”
“It may well be so.”
Resisting a temptation to grind my teeth or punch out his, I said, “I tried a reading before we came out.”
“Tarot? Old wives’ nonsense.”
“It may well be so.”
“Bah! What did it tell you?”
“For question, subject, or present I dealt out Fire, Trump XV. That puzzles me. It obviously doesn’t represent me, or you, or a murderer.” Fire shows a tower being struck by lightning, with a man and woman falling from it. “Can it mean danger to the Republic?”
He chuckled. “Not in this case. I’m glad you weren’t stupid enough to reject it and start over. Tell me the rest of it.” Obviously he already understood more than he was going to tell me, but at least he was showing real interest and had stopped scoffing.
“For past, problem, or danger, I turned over the two of cups. That one seems easy. It must represent the two glasses that were switched.”
“Or the two waiters?”
I grunted, not having thought of that possibility. “For future, objective, or solution, I got Trump XII, the Traitor, reversed. And that I most certainly do not understand!”
The Traitor depicts a man suspended from a tree by one ankle. Hanging his corpse upside down is the traditional Italian way to disparage a traitor, but in my deck the Traitor seems alive and happy in his odd position and has a mop of golden hair like a halo. He is not just a convicted criminal.
“What did I teach you about XII?” my master murmured cautiously.
“That it may represent a change of loyalty or viewpoint, or a rebirth, because we all take our first breath upside down. But reversed? What does that mean? No sudden change of viewpoint-we were right all along?”
After a significant silence, my master said, “In this case I think it may be a warning not to jump to premature conclusions. What else did you find?”
“For helper or path, I turned over the two of staves, which I do not understand at all. And for the warning, the snare to be avoided, I got the jack of swords, which tonight ought to mean me.” Jackanapes of swords, perhaps.
The Maestro was nodding. “That’s very good! Excellent, an excellent foretelling. You are becoming quite skilled with tarot.” Praise indeed!
“But why the jack of swords as the warning? Am I going to commit some fatal error?”
He chuckled like a hen calling her chicks. “I shouldn’t think so. The program seems reasonably foolproof. Perhaps the jack of swords may mean someone else. Benedetto Orseolo, for example?”
“It would be a lackluster match, even if my leg wound is worse than his shoulder’s. What does the rest of the spread mean?”
“It tells you who committed the murder and how I shall reveal the truth. Think about it.”
I resisted an urge to throw the old mummy into the canal. Bruno would just rescue him, and I might get Fulgentio’s outfit splashed.
At the top of the stairs, Bruno knelt to let the Maestro dismount. Ottone Imer was waiting there for us in his black attorney’s gown, and I was amused to see his mouth twitch a few times when he registered my sartorial apotheosis. I could almost imagine his brain turning from the Apprentice page to the NH page. The Maestro had been right, as usual- clothes talk.
I granted our host a small bow. “I see you have done us proud, lustrissimo.” The hallway was cramped, but he had not spared on candles. Wine bottles and goblets of crimson glass were arrayed on a table, and the servant Benzon was waiting there. He was staring wistfully at my gold and amber.
Imer said, “Welcome back to my house, Doctor Nostradamus. I hope this will be a happier visit than the last. May I offer you wine?”
“No. You did not the last time, not when I arrived. I hope we can duplicate the last time as closely as possible. Of course people will probably not arrive in the same order. I dislike standing…”
Imer conducted the Maestro into the dining room. Bruno, I noted, had shed the carrying chair and was taking it away to some nether corner of the house, probably the kitchen, where he would wait as patiently as a mountain all night, terrifying servant girls by smiling at them. I saw no reason why I could not try a glass of wine. I went over to Benzon.
“Blessings on you, Giuseppe. You have the same wines as last time?”
He nodded. “Yes, messer.”
“Which one is poisoned?”
His eyes narrowed. “All of them, Alfeo. Which one would you like?”
I had told him to call me Alfeo. I laughed. “The arsenic. I’ll try the retsina, please.” As he poured me a generous glassful, I said, “You may have your friend Pulaki back to help you shortly.”
“He’s no friend of mine,” Benzon said sulkily. “I never saw him before that night.”
I took a sip and grimaced. “You weren’t joking about the poison.”
“And I wish you wouldn’t! I didn’t poison anybody!”
I realized that he was terrified, a midget caught up in a clash of titans. I apologized. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” I assured him.
“No? You swear that?”
“Not unless you poisoned the old man. Maestro Nostradamus knows who did and is going to expose him. So you can relax.” Unless the tarot’s two of cups meant the waiters, of course.
Imer came stalking out of the dining room. “Doctor Nostradamus wants the guests shown into the salone,” he told Benzon, “and not served wine until later.” He noticed my wineglass, but did not comment on it. “How many will be coming, er… clarissimo?”
I made a graceful gesture with the glass. “I don’t know exactly. There were thirteen in the room on the thirteenth, but two are dead-the procurator and Alexius Karagounis. I doubt if the doge will appear again, but someone else can play his part. I expect Great Minister Orseolo, Missier Grande, and possibly his vizio. Perhaps others from…”
Imer drew breath sharply; his mouth twitched. In his blue and red robe, Missier Grande was mounting the stairs. Gasparo Quazza is an ominous sight at any time, yet it was his young companion I watched, the Greek’s servant Pulaki Guarana. He moved with difficulty, one hand gripping the balustrade and the other heavily bandaged and held tight against his chest. He wore the same clothes he had worn the previous morning, but they looked the worse for wear. So did he, face pallid under a heavy beard shadow, eyes sunk in deep wells.
Imer uttered a croak of welcome. I laid down my glass and bowed to Missier Grande.