“I did. My son did not.”
“Nor I,” his wife said.
“But you were not in the viewing room, my dear, and that is what interests sier Alfeo.”
“Why should that be, Your Excellency?” I asked softly.
His smile told me that he had been baiting me. “A friend told me.” He took a sip of wine and when he spoke again he dropped the banter and changed his tone to make his next words more significant, like the practiced orator he was. “I am interested to meet you, sier Alfeo. I admire what you are doing. We have far too many impoverished nobles sitting around believing that the Republic owes them a living and honest work is beneath their confounded dignity. They whine in the Council, demanding sinecures and phony offices with many rewards and few duties. The career you have chosen is unusual but quite honorable. Many patricians put off their political careers until midlife and do well regardless.”
I wondered if all this oil would make the floor dangerous, and if he was flattering me or just nagging his son the playboy.
“Your Excellency is most kind.” Giovanni Tirali was certainly gracious, yet Violetta had called him ruthless. I found Enrico Orseolo repulsive, but he had the reputation of being a negotiator, a maker of deals. People are unnecessarily complicated.
“I mean it,” he said. “I mean it! I was very shaken by Bertucci’s death. He was twenty years my senior and I had always looked up to him. That evening at Imer’s he seemed frail but quite competent and cheerful, and yet the next day he was gone. Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit, sit nomen Domini benedictum.”
“Amen,” we said in chorus.
“But…”
Calculated pause. My cue.
“But?” I echoed.
“That evening, when we had looked at all the books and told all the lies we wanted about what we thought of them, our host suggested we join the other guests. I emptied my glass. Pasqual, I am sure, emptied his. And Bertucci drained his. And I saw him make a face, as if it had tasted bad.”
“Dregs?”
His Excellency shrugged. “I assumed so, although properly trained servants know to look out for sediment. I did not get a chance to speak to him again. I thought little of it at the time. When Bertucci took ill, later, I recalled the incident. It niggled at me. After the funeral service this morning, I sought out my friend and told him my worries. And he told me that there was a serious possibility that Bertucci had been poisoned.”
Again the senator paused for effect. I wondered if he made speeches in bed to his wife. “A friend in a funny hat?”
He smiled. “Yes, that one. I asked if the Ten were looking into it. He told me that the Ten were bombardiers who blow up everything and injure the bystanders; this was a case for a stiletto. He had set Maestro Nostradamus himself on it, and his apprentice, Alfeo Zeno. And if they could not solve it, he said, then the Ten would never even get close to the truth.”
I was having trouble not purring or rolling over on my back. “So much flattery is bad for my liver, Excellency. And I should not dream of telling my master what you just said. He would be unbearable.”
The senator’s eyes nailed me to my chair. “Was it murder?”
“I don’t see how it can have been. Another witness saw what you saw, but how could anyone have put poison in his wine with so many people watching? Nobody saw that.” I glanced at Pasqual.
He shook his head, somehow subtly implying that the Old Man got bats in his bonnet sometimes. “I did not see even what my father saw. I have asked the lady I was escorting and she saw nothing untoward.”
Violetta had not mentioned that.
I said, “Thank you. It does seem unlikely that anyone could have poisoned the procurator without being observed. I cannot discover any motive to commit such a terrible crime. Can you suggest one?”
Three heads shook.
The senator added, “Every politician has enemies, but we do not go around poisoning people here in the Republic-not like the Borgias did in Rome. The Council of Ten has the reputation of disposing of people in that fashion, but not here in the city, only enemies living elsewhere, out of its jurisdiction. I could name many men who yearn to be procurators of San Marco, but there are very few who have a reasonable chance of being elected, and none of them was there that night. I certainly cannot imagine a man who aspires to such a job bribing someone else-a servant, say-to commit murder for him. He would pay blackmail for the rest of his life.”
“I thank Your Excellency for an expert analysis. I shall report to Maestro Nostradamus that I have found nothing to indicate foul play.”
“Then why,” Pasqual inquired in a subtle soft voice, “did the Greek throw himself out the window this morning? Did you threaten him?”
I included his father in my reply. “You will understand, messere, that I do not have permission to discuss everything concerned with this case.”
“Of course.” The senator showed no resentment. “ Sier Alfeo, the Senate has paid me the wonderful honor of electing me ambassador to Rome.”
I congratulated him and his lady and drank a toast to them. Her smile looked genuine and probably was. Two-thirds of the Great Council would murder for that appointment. It established her husband as one of the inner circle, the fifty or so men who actually run the Republic, trading senior posts around among themselves. It offered tantalizing glimpses of a shot at the dogeship in another twenty years or so.
“When I go to Rome,” Tirali said, “Pasqual will remain here to look after the family’s affairs. As is customary, I shall take a few young noblemen along with me, both as aides and to teach them some of the ins and outs of serving the Republic. I especially need a personal secretary. While you are younger than others I am considering, I have been aware of your reputation for some time. I am prepared to pay a very generous stipend to a man who can be relied upon to perform his duties with intelligence, diligence, and discretion. You would rank third in the embassy.”
I managed to blush. Indeed I blushed without meaning to, and much hotter than I wanted. “Your Excellency, this is a totally unexpected-”
“Stop!” He raised a hand. “Do not say a word! I can tell you that the doge himself recommended you, and so did several other men I consulted-right after their own grandsons, in every case. Your decision will influence the rest of your life, so I insist that you take a few days to consider it.”
I did not want to consider it. I wanted to turn it down flat before it began gnawing at me like the Spartan’s fox. He was offering me his patronage and a political career. I could never aspire to the dogeship, for that requires enormous wealth and powerful family connections, but I could become a real noble, marry a woman with money, hold office, live in comfort, be worthy of my ancestors. The prospect was giddying.
“You must excuse me, Alfeo,” Pasqual said, with a glance at the winter dark looming beyond the windows. “I need to prepare for an engagement this evening. I do hope you will accept my father’s offer, though. Very few of my contemporaries seem to know what real work is. I know he has tried to explain it to me many times and still it escapes me.”
His oil was not quite as smooth as his father’s. First-name terms so soon in our acquaintance overstepped the bounds.
I said, “Believe me, Pasqual, what he is offering does not sound in the least like real work. Your Excellency, you shall have my answer in a few days, my thanks now, my gratitude forever…” And so on.
Violetta had urged me to come to Ca’ Tirali. Had she known what was in store for me there?
Was I being bribed to overlook a murder?
17
T he senator sent his gondolier along to ferry me home, but I found Giorgio waiting for me down at the watergate. As I dismissed the Tirali man I felt a mad impulse to tip him a few silver ducats for two minutes of his time. The Rome offer was already making my head spin like a windmill.