The lesser servants, sitting at the other table, were all women except for two junior de mezo boatmen, who would row at the bow, a young page or footman, and a Moorish slave. Such distinctions matter as much at that social level as they do in kings' palaces. I recognized the maidservant, Agnesina, who had been mending clothes in donna Alina's company on Saturday, but apparently signora Isabetta ate with the gentry.
The brighter side of this snub was that I had intended to question the servants anyway and now I had a chance to do so in a relaxed atmosphere. It did not take me long to learn that none of them had been employed there for more than a couple of years. That was not truly surprising, because the rich are constantly complaining about the difficulty of holding onto servants, but it was a setback to investigating the murder of Gentile Michiel. As for the courtesan inquiry, I never had any intention of asking the staff who in the house might be creeping out at night to strangle or stab four women. There would be an uproar, a mass flight, and the news would be all over the city in an hour.
I settled down to making the best of my lesson in humility and the reminder of how the other half eats. My pride suffered less than my stomach.
Sier Bernardo had returned from his duties in time for dinner and condescended to receive me afterward in his office, which was a small but lavish room containing an oversized desk and very few books. He sat behind the desk. I was left on my feet and so was Jacopo, who stood just behind me so I couldn't watch him. His inclusion this time was a surprise.
"My duties for the Republic are weighty and consume much of my time," the inspector of meats declared in his sonorous orator's voice. "The matter you are investigating was settled, so far as I am concerned-so far as anyone in Venice except my dear mother is concerned-many years ago, and its resurrection now can serve no purpose. Moreover, I have an important visitor due in a few minutes. What is it that you want to know?"
"Where you were on the night your father was murdered."
He scowled at me under bushy black brows. "I was here, in my residence, at home, and in bed. I had been suffering for several days from a recurrent excess of phlegm and green bile, a cause more of discomfort than danger, I admit, but disabling in spite of its lack of morbidity. The physicians had bled me, so I was in no state to go anywhere at all."
As an alibi that was not perfect, but good enough for now. The inquisitors would surely have questioned all the servants who might have discovered his absence during the crucial period. I could not, for they had since scattered to the four winds.
"Do you believe that your brother was guilty of patricide?"
"Without a shadow of a doubt."
"Why?"
"Because the Council of Ten so decreed, and I am a loyal servant of the Republic. To call into question the solemn conclusion of the most senior tribunal of our government verges upon perfidy and sedition. Furthermore, young man, if you believe for a moment that the honored magistrates presently comprising that august tribunal would ever contemplate reversing the deliberated conclusions reached by their sublime predecessors, then you have been led into deep folly, and your duty as a scion of one of the ancient and most noble houses of our patriciate is to educate that foreign-born charlatan you work for in our laws and customs rather than let him confound your thinking."
"Your mother does not agree."
He drummed fingers on desk, a gesture in a patrician equivalent to a bull pawing turf. "Holy Writ enjoins each of us to honor his father and his mother, and I tolerate her for that reason. Her experience of the world has been greatly limited and you must remember that persons of her sex lack the natural logic and judgmental ability that the Good Lord grants to men. As an elderly, but loyal, daughter of la Serenissima, who has borne many children and endured much suffering through the misdeeds of the youngest of them, she deserves her family's respect, which I freely grant her. I tolerate the whimsies of her old age with patience, but I cannot let affection mislead me into sharing her delusions."
The moment he paused for breath, I asked, "Do you think your brother is still alive?"
Jacopo wandered over to stare out the window, standing with his back to us as if our conversation was of no interest whatsoever.
Bernardo growled. "If you ask do I hope that he is still alive, then of course I must answer in the affirmative. I pray daily that he has found happiness through sincere repentance and the grace of God, as I have found it in my heart to forgive him. I am encouraged to believe that he flourishes by letters my mother has received from him, two of which, so I am informed, have been shown to you."
"I have seen letters purporting to be from him. Sier Domenico admitted to me that they were forgeries."
Bernardo smiled into his beard. "Have you not yet realized that of course he has to say that we believe them to be forgeries? We should have a duty otherwise to turn them over to the Ten."
That did not explain a Venetian watermark on a letter written from Savoy.
"Sier Domenico told me he thinks sier Zorzi is dead."
Sigh, another patient smile. "Same answer."
"You believe, then, that your brother is still alive?"
"Zeno, I have neither seen, nor spoken with, my brother Zorzi for eight years. What I believe and what sier Domenico believes are equally irrelevant and immaterial. As indeed, I regret to say, is this whole conversation. I ask and hope that you and your principal will be gracious to my mother and considerate of her feelings, for if you abuse her trust in you, I shall see that the full weight of the Republic descends upon you."
"Where does Jacopo get all his money?"
Dropping his pretense that he was ignoring us, Jacopo spun around.
"We pay him to wait upon donna Alina," Bernardo growled. "As she ages, her ability to retain servants has deteriorated markedly. She is moody and intractable."
In the background, Jacopo rolled his eyes at an epic understatement.
"You pay him enough to spend ten ducats for amethyst buttons on a single doublet?" Even if the lady had the disposition of a badger, she could not be worth that much.
Bernardo scowled, eyes glittering. "She has recently indulged him by letting him collect some of her rents, and I am of a mind to have my bookkeepers review her ledgers to see how much of that money may have inadvertently gone astray, but I do not see how that can possibly concern you. Now, if you have no further questions-"
I flashed my best mountebank-apprentice smile. "Oh, but I do! Two of them. I should prefer to put them to you in private, though."
Furiously red to the tips of his ears, Jacopo marched across to the door and this time he did slam it behind him.
"I am informed," I said, "that the Ten sent a fante to ask you some questions just after I left on Saturday. Will you tell me briefly what they wanted to know?"
I expected the big man to refuse. He swelled even larger, but then he shrugged. "Questions much like yours. Had I heard from Zorzi? Did I know where he was? I told them I had assumed for years that his head had been turned in for the bounty money so the Ten should know the answers better than I did."
"Had assumed? You don't now?"
"What are you after?"
"I'm curious to know why the Ten feel the need to ask. That was all they wanted-to rehash the old inquiry?"
"They asked much the same rubbish you've been asking-where I was when Father was murdered. Where Domenico was."