Pesna walks around Teucer and assesses him.
'Your wife is a talented sculptress. Did she tell you what she made for me?'
'She said you had her work with your silversmith to make gifts – some articles for each room of the temple – and you will have me bless these along with other offerings.'
'Aah.' Pesna is amused that the young sculptress is as cunning as she is talented. 'Your wife has informed you well. I will indeed be grateful if you will bless these gifts – along with others that I have in the room adjacent to this.'
'May I touch my wife's work? I should like to acquaint myself with it.'
Pesna is intrigued by the question. 'You are testing me, Netsvis. I know not how, but I feel there is something on your mind that does not accord easily with my intentions. '
'May I?'
Pesna is about to refuse when he is struck by an idea. One with an element of fun.
'Walk with me,' commands the magistrate. 'I'll ensure your path is clear.'
Teucer allows himself to be guided through two doorways. Then Pesna stops and announces: 'This is the room of gifts. There are more than twenty worldly goods that I have personally commissioned and will place before the deities.' He moves him to the middle of the room. 'You are in the very centre now. Let's see if the gods still favour you.' He takes Teucer by both elbows and gently waltzes him in an increasingly dizzying spin. 'If you can find your wife's work, then I will keep you as my netsvis and you will consecrate the temple. If you cannot – then I will have Larth test your worth by hanging you from his hooks.'
Pesna lets go.
Teucer rocks and almost loses his balance.
'Oh, I almost forgot to mention,' teases the magistrate, 'there's one rule to this game: you may touch only six objects. So, make good choices, young priest.'
Teucer steadies himself. Quells the distracting thunder and vibrations in his heart. Steadies his breathing.
Hearing Pesna's elegant leather sandals shuffle and creak to the west of him, he guesses the magistrate will have positioned himself close to the silver tiles. Not next to them. Probably opposite, so he can get the best view of the search.
Teucer's heightened senses tell him there is no window in the room – no doubt a precautionary measure to protect the goods within from any thieves. The only fresh air he can feel – a wisp of a breeze around his open sandals – comes from the door they entered through.
He thinks for a while longer. Pesna spun him round and then stepped away. He remembers the slap of leather on tile. No further than three paces. Four at the very most.
Teucer now has his bearings.
He tries to recall Tetia's account of her visit. She mentioned a wall filled with vases and opposite it a long oak table laden with the most precious art she had ever seen.
The netsvis stretches out his right hand and carefully steps to his side.
Pesna stifles a laugh.
Teucer's foot brushes the base of a large bucchero vase. His heart jumps.
He's picked the wrong side.
'I'll be generous and not count that,' chides Pesna.
He swallows. Calms himself. Turns one hundred and eighty degrees. He stretches out his other hand and steps to his side. If he's correct, the long table should now be on his right.
Nothing.
He takes an extra step.
Nothing.
One more.
He hears stifled laughter and imagines Pesna pressing both hands to his mouth to contain his amusement.
Teucer's right hip bumps into something.
Something solid.
The table.
Excitement crackles through him.
He puts his hand down and feels its edge. Holds on. Slides his fingers back until he finds the right-angled end.
Pesna grows quiet. He wonders if there is some purpose to the seer's blunderings.
Teucer shuffles, crablike, his hand in constant contact with the table.
He reaches the far end and stops the instant he feels his fingers fall away.
Twenty paces in length. A fine table.
He walks it back again.
Ten paces.
Stops.
The middle.
Teucer tentatively stretches out both hands.
He knocks a vase on his left.
'That counts as one,' says Pesna.
His right hand bumps into something that feels wooden.
'Two!'
Teucer swallows again. If he's right, then the tablets are now immediately below his fingers.
He lowers his palms.
Nothing.
Pesna moves closer to him. Hovers behind him. Teucer can feel his heat.
Backwards or forwards? Up or down? Which way should he guess?
Teucer moves his hands towards the front of the table.
Jewellery.
'Three!'
He glides his fingers back again.
Bowls!
'Four! I hear Larth rattling those hooks.'
Teucer freezes. He's not thought it out as well as he'd imagined.
Where would Pesna put his most precious goods? Certainly in the middle of the table. But not at the front where they could fall. At the back would be safest. Maybe even elevated on some wooden plinth, so they would be better displayed for his greedy eyes.
Teucer plays his hunch. Reaches out.
His elbow knocks a vase and he hears it tumble.
Pesna steps forward and stops it rolling off the table. 'Five! You have but one life left.'
Teucer stretches, his spine cracks, the table presses hard against the front of his legs.
His hands come down.
Something cold against his palms.
Silver. He's sure it is.
Applause.
Heavy clapping from Pesna. 'Bravissimo! Well done! I am amazed.'
He pats Teucer's back.
But Teucer doesn't feel it.
His body has gone numb.
An awful ache runs through his head. A stab of pain like the one that brought him to his knees in the curte.
For a second he thinks he hears voices. Echoing voices from a black place beyond the world. And now the visions come again. Visions of the demon god and of his own demise.
And something worse.
Something indistinct and blurred.
The child.
Teucer crashes to the ground, his hands still holding the three Tablets of Atmanta. His mind still holding a terrifying image of his unborn child, the rapist's child. Growing. Changing. Becoming every bit as terrifying as the demon god he'd seen. Becoming the font of all evil.
CHAPTER 30
Present Day Fondamente Nuove, Venice Vito Carvalho bums a cigarette from a soldier guarding the crime scene, and reminds himself of the information he'd been given on the phone just before midnight: The corpse has been dismembered. Body parts tied in heavy-duty plastic trash bags – stuffed in large cloth sacks – weighted down with old bricks. Everything dumped in the north side of the lagoon, away from the regular water taxi and vaporetto routes.
Vito blows out smoke and looks across the black water. Had it not been for the diving teams searching the thick muddy belly of the canal for vital parts of Antonio Pavarotti's motor boat, the dismembered body would never have been found.
Arc lights spill their horror-film whiteness on to the quayside. He walks past recovery teams and CSIs poring over mounds of stinking silt and slimy weed.
Through the glare he sees Nuncio di Alberto with a face paler than the moon listening to one of the scuba team. The diver has rolled his wetsuit down to his waist; as he talks, his body is steaming surreally in the cool night air.
Professore Montesano's voice spills from a white plastic tent. Vito knows who he's talking to long before he pulls back the flap and walks the deck boards forensics have laid to lessen the risk of cross-scene contamination.
'Ciao,' he says with gentle sarcasm. 'No disrespect, but I'd hoped not to see either of you for a while.'
Montesano raises a latex-gloved hand as a hello.
Valentina Morassi can't manage a smile. 'Ciao, Major.' The strain of the day is etched around her raw-looking eyes.
'You shouldn't be here. We'll talk later,' he says pointedly. Valentina guesses he's worked out that she finally picked up Nuncio's calls and then bullied him into telling her what was going on.