"Damnatio!"
"Master?" I closed the book on a finger.
"Donna Alina seems to have faith in me. She could have given the book to her daughter to deliver to me."
"If she is not the killer…" I had not quite rid my mind of that assumption. "Why the nun, though? Surely a nun should hurl such smut into the nearest canal?"
"Because Lucretzia is the only one Alina trusts?"
I gulped and said, "Yes, master," humbly.
"Get me the knight of cups!"
"Er…?"
"Vitale's solution was to be the knight of cups reversed, you said? Get him. Bring him."
Somewhere a shutter opened… "Ah! The cavaliere servente?" I should have seen that Jacopo might fit the "solution" card in the reading I had made for Violetta, but I hadn't met him when I did it.
"Of course. Bring him and I'll reverse him."
"How far may I turn the screw?"
"All the way to the headsman's ax."
I pursed my lips in a silent whistle. He rarely gives me so much leeway.
"If he won't come, any second-best?"
"No, it must be Jacopo. And I want Vitale here when he arrives."
"Master, Violetta never rises before noon!"
"Then waken her. This is urgent. Tell her to dress like… provocatively."
"You're not asking for much," I murmured, but I couldn't have been quiet enough, because he glared at me. He expected me to drag a natural-born citizen away from whatever he was doing as if I were a Council of Ten sbirro. And also dictate how Violetta was to dress, which was even more dangerous. Tactics would be important. I marked my place in the thrilling Steganographia, selected pen and paper, and wrote a brief note, which I rolled up and tied with a ribbon.
"I think I'll go armed, if you don't mind."
No reply. I set off to fetch my sword. As I stepped out into the salone, someone rapped the door knocker.
It was early for visitors. It was even earlier to see Fulgentio Trau active in the world, but from the look of him he had been on night duty, guarding the doge's bedchamber. He was clearly a bearer of bad news. He spoke no greeting, smiled no smile.
"The doctor awake?"
I nodded and stepped aside to let him enter, ushered him into the atelier.
Nostradamus moved as if to rise, for a ducal equerry far outranks him.
Fulgentio raised a hand in forbiddance. "Please stay, Doctor. I bring a very brief message to you and to your apprentice. It is from 'a high official,' but I am forbidden to say whom." He glanced at me to make sure I was also listening. "I am instructed to tell you both that this is your last warning, and you are granted this mercy only because of your many past services to the Republic. You must stop asking questions about the death of Gentile Michiel. You will disregard this warning at your peril, both of you."
Fulgentio shrugged, and muttered, "That's all. Sorry."
As he turned away, the Maestro said, "Wait!"
"Doctor?"
"I would take it as a great favor, lustrissimo, if you would deliver a very brief note to the distinguished person who gave you that warning."
Fulgentio smiled sadly but warily. "I will gladly try, of course. But I may not succeed and I doubt very much that it will do any good."
"Understood," the Maestro muttered. "Alfeo?"
I strode across to the desk and readied my pen and inkwell in record time, choosing a sheet of our finest rag paper.
"Two lines should do it," he said. "I give my sacred word that I have no interest in previous crimes and my only intent is to prevent future murders. Sign it for me."
I pursed lips in a silent whistle of astonishment. If the old miser was sincere in abandoning the Gentile murder contract, then he was voluntarily giving up a significant fee for the first time in my experience. I went off to the kitchen for a lighted candle. When I returned, I affixed his signet, then handed the letter to Fulgentio.
"And tell them that goes for me, too, with brass buttons," I said.
He gave me a look that said I was walking on a razor's edge. He bowed to the Maestro and headed for the door. As I let him out of the apartment he said, "For God's sake, make him be careful!" and then trotted off down the stairs.
I went back to the Maestro, who looked as if his fuse had burned down to the touchhole and he was ready to explode.
"Any instructions for today, master?"
"Aargh!"
Not promising. "That warning came from the doge himself, I think."
"I don't."
"Oh! Master, have you any idea why the Ten don't want you to investigate this affair?"
He repeated, "Aargh!" even louder.
"You are keeping secrets from me." I was hurt. I knew everything he did; what had he seen that I hadn't?
"Some things are too dangerous to know. Just because you are my apprentice, you are not required to break the law. The instructions I gave you a few minutes ago still stand, but if you refuse to obey them, then I am helpless."
"I'll get my sword," I said, and departed.
Violetta had only recently gone to bed. Even little Milana's normally unshakable good cheer faltered when I gave her the message I brought.
"It's not an hour since her patron left, clarissimo."
She only calls me that when I am being completely unreasonable. I apologized, assured her it wasn't my fault, and insisted that the matter was urgent, all of which I had done already. Then I made a quick and cowardly escape, down to where Giorgio was waiting for me. I settled in the felze. He already knew where we were bound.
He pushed off. "You look worried."
I adjusted my face to a smile. "I'm just annoyed that I can't see what the Maestro has seen."
"Your whole life must be a misery then."
It would be worse if I finished up chained to an oar. "I think this Honeycat case is about to blow open," I said. "But I don't know who's going to come down in pieces."
"That," the gondolier barked, "is a disgusting expression."
"It's a disgusting case," I said.
The doorman at Palazzo Michiel must have known me by then, but the studied lack of recognition in his expression warned of choppy water ahead. I asked to see Jacopo Fauro.
"I regret to report that I have orders not to admit you, clarissimo. I may accept written communications only."
Congratulating myself on my foresight, I produced the scroll I had prepared. It was addressed to Jacopo and said only, Her dearest treasure is going to the chiefs. The doorman took it and closed the door on me. Declining to take a seat alongside the half dozen other men waiting for audience-several of whom were smirking at the sight of a sword-bearing sprout being refused admittance-I strolled across the riva to stare out at the ships and lighters in the basin. A chilly wind made the morning sunlight dance on the water, but spring would come. I could see Giorgio along at the Molo, chatting with some other gondoliers.
I wondered who would receive the note. The Michiel household had more crosscurrents than the lagoon of Venice itself and Jacopo lurked in the center of it all, a spider in a web of lies. At times he was a flunky, at others a fraternal partner. Sometimes he served donna Alina, sometimes he spied on her for her children. He obviously spied on them for her. Bernardo and Domenico told different stories as the fancy took them. Zorzi had been framed for murder, possibly with his own connivance, but certainly helped along by someone. Now one of the two religious in the family had exploded a mine under it by revealing that odious diary. Mixing metaphors is one way of passing the time.
The door swung open and Domenico Michiel appeared in the opening, red faced and pugnaciously prognathous. "Zeno!"
I strolled in his direction and he vanished back into the dimness of the androne to await me. I entered and closed the door. Apart from Domenico himself, the big hall was deserted. The real estate trader and I could have a good, no-holds-barred, uninterrupted rowdy-dowdy.