“So this is the lover’s leap! One forgets how wonderful is youth.”
“All the more reason to enjoy it…Your Excellency.” I was not in a mood to be courteous if he wasn’t and walking in on a man when he has no clothes on is frowned upon in elevated circles.
He turned to look at me, his ruddy, weathered face expressionless. “Tell me what happened this morning.”
To anyone else, I would have retorted that I must report to my master first, but to try that on a state inquisitor would be ridiculous, so I gave him the story from the time we arrived at the Giudecca, verbatim. Not liking the way he was looking at me, as if assessing me for the torture chamber, I threw down my towel and reached for my shirt, the only silk one I own.
“If you are lying about falling downstairs, you went to considerable lengths to obtain supporting evidence.” He was not smiling, so I didn’t.
I didn’t deign to answer at all. I pulled on my white hose-like the shirt, the only silk ones I own. The Maestro’s idea of an adequate clothing allowance for an apprentice is ludicrous. In a city where anyone who matters goes around in funereal black, young males are expected to preen and strut like peacocks, and that is not easy on a soldo here and a soldo there. I was lacing my hose to my shirt when my tormentor spoke again.
“The vizio confirms that his wounds were caused by Guarini, not you.”
I could not let that one go past without comment. “I am distressed that you would even feel required to ask him, Your Excellency.” I donned my best britches, voluminous scarlet brocade.
“I question everything. The vizio is a very courageous young man.” Gritti stumped across to a chair and sat down.
“That’s interesting.” My best doublet is striped in blue and white, ornamented with acorn-shaped glass buttons, and cost me my entire clothing allowance for a year. I admired it in the mirror as I prepared to fasten my finely starched ruff around my neck.
“He accompanied you and your gondolier across the Canale della Giudecca early on a Sunday morning.”
I turned from peering in my mirror to stare at my tormentor. “That takes courage? Giorgio is a very competent boatman.”
The old scoundrel sneered. “But Angeli is devoted to Doctor Nostradamus and, no doubt, to the invaluable assistant without whom the old man would be virtually helpless. There would be almost no other traffic and you would be far enough from land that no spectator would be able to see what was happening in the gondola.”
This was starting to feel like a nightmare. “What could happen? Are you suggesting that Giorgio and I might have presented a danger to Filiberto Vasco?” Of course he was. Anything one says or does can be distorted into evidence of evil intent.
The old man sighed. “The Grazia girl is young and inclined to hysteria, so the vizio is the key witness to your use of black magic yesterday at Ca’ Sanudo. By silencing him, you could have overthrown the case against you.”
I tucked my hair into my bonnet. “With respect, Your Excellency, I believe that your labors with evil persons have given you a very biased opinion of humanity. Far from attempting to harm Vasco this morning, Giorgio and I did everything in our power to save him. Giorgio is not a young man and I feared he would kill himself, the way he was rowing.”
Gritti smiled, all snowy-bearded grandfather again. “A noble effort! Of course mere brawn is common enough. Brains are much rarer. I watched you in action, sier Alfeo. I admit I was impressed. Definitely it is time your services were placed at La Serenissima ’s disposal.”
So that was what yesterday’s excursion had been all about! Nothing appealed to me less than being a spy for the Council of Ten. “I am enormously flattered, Your-”
“December,” Gritti continued as if I had not spoken, “is the earliest we can get you into the Great Council.” He rose and strolled back toward the window. “We shall see you get elected to some minor post with a stipend-the Salt Commission, perhaps. Just enough to explain how you can afford to eat, but the covert remuneration will be substantial and the prospects dazzling.”
“Your Excellency, I am bound to the good doctor. He is too old to train another assistant. While your offer-”
The inquisitor grunted and turned to frown at me. “I suppose we can tolerate him for a year or so. He will have to retire soon, and I could tell you within fifty ducats how much gold he has stashed away in that secret drawer in the couch. Your work for him will give you a good excuse to-”
“Your Excellency, I thank you for-”
“You would, of course,” the inquisitor said coldly, “first have to be cleared of suspicion of witchcraft and attempted murder.”
“Attempted what?”
He smiled, but no child would want a grandfather who smiled like that. “Just this morning you bled Vasco several times, I understand. Barbers and doctors hesitate to bleed patients who have already lost significant amounts of blood, but you, having no medical qualifications at all, felt free to bleed this noble man who had been wounded while attempting to rescue you from an assailant.”
He was goading me, trying to frighten me. He was doing very well.
“I was trying to save his hand. Ask any doctor-”
“You would save his hand at the cost of his life? Of course a hand on its own cannot testify before the tribunal. If you had felt genuine concern for the vizio ’s welfare and survival, you would have found someone to treat him in Giudecca.” The inquisitor’s eyes shone with a cold, ophidian gleam.
“I offered to take him to the Convent of San Benedetto, messer. I urged him to go there, but he refused. It was he who insisted on returning to Ca’ Barbolano.”
“You would say that, of course. He cannot recall such a conversation. And yet, alas, he managed to survive your malicious abuse and lives to testify against you! A tough as well as a courageous young man!”
“But inclined to sycophantic prevarication.”
“I have two witnesses to your sorcery yesterday. My colleagues were very distressed to hear of this outrage when I reported to them last night. They were inclined to give some credit to your youth and lay most of the blame on the evil old man who has perverted you. These things would come out at the trial.”
He smiled again. Likely the job offer had come from his two fellow inquisitors. He had delivered it and I had refused it. Now I was fair game.
I had my shoes on, I was ready. “But you admit that one witness is a hysterical juvenile. Shall we go and see if Doctor Nostradamus has managed to silence the other one yet?”
32
O ut in the salone, I detected mouth-watering odors from the kitchen. Noemi was hovering there anxiously. Noemi is so delicate she could almost hover literally, and I can never meet her eye without smiling.
“Ready?”
She nodded vigorously.
“I shall tell the Maestro,” I said. “It seems our feast is ready, Your Excellency.”
Gritti walked on without comment, ignoring the statuary and paintings. Back at the atelier we found Vasco sitting on a chair-not one of the best-and sipping a glass of wine. Loss of blood always imparts a strong thirst and the redness of wine makes it the best fluid to help the body replace the loss. He was huddled under a blanket, which at least hid his bandaged arm and blood-ruined garments. His pallor was less marked than before, but with a grotesquely swollen nose trailing wisps of packing and two rapidly developing black eyes, he looked as if he had fallen headfirst off a bell tower. I don’t say he had earned all that. I don’t say he hadn’t, either.
Beside him stood Missier Grande, who was a surprise but not much of one, for he would have heard from the fante about his deputy’s injury. The look he gave me conveyed little appreciation of the work I had done to bring the man back alive.