The Ten’s door opened and words were passed to and fro. Martini disengaged and strode through the crowd, every eye on him, coming straight to the Maestro.
“Their Excellencies summon you, lustrissimo.” The rest of the room rustled with outrage. Nobles do not willingly yield precedence to physicians or nostrum-peddling charlatans.
I took Bruno’s arm and we marched over to the door together. The giant knelt. I helped the Maestro dismount and gave him back his staff. His lameness varies depending on circumstances, usually being much worse in public. Wanting me with him, he leaned a hand on my shoulder.
“Is Zeno allowed in?” the vizio asked disbelievingly. His displeasure was encouraging, for if I were on my way to the galleys, he would be wearing a sneer wider than the Grand Canal.
Missier Grande shrugged. “For now.”
I said, “Of course,” and almost succeeded in treading on Vasco’s toe as I went by.
The chamber of the Council of Ten is large and very impressive, with paintings by Veronese and Zelloti adorning its walls and ceiling. A dais at one end bears a long bench curving across the full width of the hall, with the doge’s throne in the center. Despite its name, the Council comprises seventeen men, and when we entered they were quietly chatting among themselves, discussing their last item of business or the next, ignoring us.
The doge, Pietro Moro, wears robes of cloth-of-gold and white ermine, although that night the room still held the heat of the day and the many lamps did not help. His hat, of course, was the golden ducal corno with its distinctive peak at the back. It is a cause for ribaldry that the bulge bears no small resemblance to His Serenity’s most distinctive feature, because all his life he has been known as Nasone, “Big Nose.” Moro is a good man. He tips me generously whenever I deliver his medications, but I would approve of him even without that.
He was flanked by his six ducal counselors in scarlet, three on either side. I was impressed to see that the patriarchal Sanudo beard was borne by the man at the doge’s right hand, the place of honor. Flanking the counselors, in turn, sat the ten elected members in their black robes, seven to the left and three to the right. Of the seventeen, three were patients of the Maestro, and I counted five others who had consulted him on occult matters. Secretaries and clerks were clustered at desks at either side of the hall.
As we approached this sinister tribunal, a minion brought forward a chair and placed it alongside the lectern that stands before the doge’s throne. This was a remarkable tribute to Nostradamus, for Venice rarely makes concessions to age. Moro himself is in his late seventies and many men there were older.
I helped the Maestro to the chair, saw him settled, and then stepped behind it and waited to be ordered out. A secretary brought forward a jeweled crystal reliquary and guided the Maestro through an oath that he would speak the truth and not discuss the questions, his answers, or just about anything. Having done that, the flunky looked uncertainly at me. Before he could appeal for instructions, I laid my hand on the sacred vessel and rattled off the same oath, word for word, inserting for my own name and station. Much to my astonishment and his, no one objected.
The doge looked tired and displeased. This was probably his third or fourth meeting of the day, and all those other men still waited outside. He nodded to the Maestro-and even to me, which was a signal honor-and then glanced to his right and said, “Chiefs?”
That one word brought the meeting to order.
The doge serves for life, although most doges are very old men when they are elected. The Ten’s four secretaries are of the citizen-by-birth class and appointed for life. Everyone else is temporary. Members serve for one year, counselors for eight months, and neither can be re-elected to the same position until they have sat out at least one term. There is nothing to prevent them from being elected to the other position, though, and many of the nobles on the dais would have served as both in the past. The three black robes to the doge’s right wore red tippets and were therefore the three “chiefs of the Ten,” that month’s steering committee. It would be they who had decided to summon the Maestro.
“Doctor Nostradamus,” said the middle chief. He was a gaunt, silvery man of considerable age, sier Tegaliano Trevisan, and the Maestro had cast his horoscope a few years earlier. Offhand I did not recall its predictions, although I knew I could if I had to. His elongated face reminded me of driftwood, eroded and bleached by long turmoil in the breakers. “The Council understands that you have many times displayed great skill at finding missing persons.”
I wished that I had left while I had the chance and kept on running. Trevisan might mean that the Council was seeking advice from the greatest clairvoyant in Europe, but he might equally mean that the Maestro had been accused of black magic. I would be interrogated as a witness, very likely tortured, and probably burned at the same stake. I glanced at Zuanbattista Sanudo in his huge black cloud of beard and wondered why he had reported the story, for it made him seem a fool who could not even control his own daughter. So far he had paid about a third of his fee. A heap of cinders cannot sue to collect a debt.
The doge pulled a face. His Serenity is a total skeptic where the supernatural is concerned. He is not alone in that folly, but most of those present probably knew better.
“I have,” the Maestro said calmly. “How may I assist Their Excellencies?”
“Could you locate a spy?”
The other sixteen had all known what was to be asked, and showed no surprise.
“I assume that Your Excellency refers to a specific spy?”
Every state in Europe employs spies. If you include the Ten’s own army of informers, you could fire a musket across the Piazza and pick up one or two any day.
“A specific spy,” the chief agreed in his dusty, wormwood voice. “We have good reason to believe that a particular spy is doing great damage to the Republic and we are anxious to identify him.”
The Maestro waited, but when nothing more was said, he cleared his throat. “Your Serenity, Your Excellencies…This noble Council is renowned and envied everywhere for its expertise and resources. If your normal methods have failed, you are obviously asking whether I can employ spiritual methods? If I speculate on this, it will be understood that I speak of what I have read in my studies and not from first-hand experimentation?”
“You are not on trial, Doctor,” Trevisan said. “Your testimony is privileged and will not be held against you.”
I started breathing again.
“My almanac for this year,” the Maestro said, “showed no great calamities in store for La Serenissima, so I am optimistic that someone will catch your scoundrel soon. Indeed, the imminent conjunction of Venus and Mercury provides strong support for that surmise.”
I knew that he was merely letting his mouth run while he rummaged through his brain, but Moro was scowling ferociously along at the three chiefs. Even with only one vote among the seventeen, the doge has enormous power to bear grudges and reward friends. None of the three chiefs looked at him, but they all began to fidget.
“I will certainly provide whatever assistance I can,” the Maestro said. “But I can do nothing without more information about the person I am to locate. Normally I have at least a name to go on. Can you give me a sample of handwriting? A description? Even the nation or cause he serves?”
Trevisan nodded. “We anticipated such a request. If you present yourself tomorrow morning at the Chancellor’s office, the learned Secretary Sciara will show you what we have. We can provide a desk…”
The Maestro was shaking his head and I knew what was coming. Very few people defy the Council of Ten, but he was not going to come trotting to the palace every day like some whistled dog. “No,” he said. He was adamant. He would work at home with his library, or he could do nothing.