"I know things that the Ten do not," she declared confidently. "I know where my son is."
She opened the box without using a key, but I had recognized the words and gesture she used earlier to remove a warding spell. The same actions might or might not work for anyone else. She removed a slim book bound in brown leather, which she placed on her lap under the box, out of the way. Then she produced some loose papers.
"These are his letters. He does not write often, you will understand, because it is dangerous, but a few months after he fled he sent me his most solemn assurance, an oath sworn on his immortal soul, that he was nowhere near the Basilica when Gentile died." She took up the topmost paper and held it at arm's length. "This is the most recent. It is dated just after Epiphany." She squinted at the text. "Yes… Maria now expects her confinement about Easter… after her difficulties with Gentile I try not to show her my concern… And later he says, Gentile is a very active little terror, and swims like a dolphin. I spend at least an hour every day with him… You see, sier Alfeo? Would a man name his firstborn son after a father he had murdered?" She smirked triumphantly.
"I suppose not," I said. But why not?
"In one of his earlier letters he remarked how much he had enjoyed his father's attention in his own childhood and hoped to be as loved by his own children. He is engrossed with his family and concerned about his wife. He is in a far land which I shall not name, and not here in Venice writing letters to courtesans."
"Madonna, may I examine that letter you are holding and also the first one that you mentioned?"
"Certainly not!" She thrust the paper back in the box and put the book back on top of them. "It has his new address on it. There is still a price on his head, you stupid boy!"
"If Jacopo were to lay the paper on that escritoire," I said, "and cover the address with… with one of those books on the shelf, then I could see the rest of it. And the first letter is eight years old, so it can contain no secrets now."
She clutched the casket protectively in her talons. "Why? Why do you want to see my son's letters?"
"So I can assure my master that I have done so. I also want to compare the handwriting."
"Why?"
"Because my master has taught me much curious wisdom about handwriting. The first letter must have been written under great stress. The latest one sounds like the musings of a very happy man, even if he does have worries about his wife's lying-in. The writing should show that. Even at this distance I can perceive that he is left-handed."
"How do you know that?" she snapped, burning with suspicion.
"From the slant of the vertical strokes, madonna. Likely he was taught right-handed and tries not to use a reverse slant, but it shows here and there."
She hesitated, but then curiosity won out and she opened the box again. She gave Jacopo the top and bottom papers. He laid them on the ebony desk, covering part of one with a book, which he held firmly in place. Only then did I go over to join him and study the letters. The old one was much thumbed, almost falling apart, the second much fresher.
"Yes," I said. "I think sier Zorzi is not admitting how much he is worried about his wife-there is stress in those vertical strokes. But he obviously loves her very much, and his son also. And the first letter…"
I babbled on for much longer than it took me to memorize both pages, but my main interest was neither the text nor the handwriting. I thanked her. It was time for me to go. The day was drawing on toward evening and after dark I had a date, I hoped, with the Strangler.
"By your leave, madonna? Of course I will convey your wishes to my master. If he is willing to accept the challenge you have suggested, then I shall return on Monday with a contract for you to sign."
Donna Alina graciously allowed me to kiss her fingers, which were scented with rose water, and Jacopo escorted me out.
"That was neatly done," he remarked as we strode along the corridor. "I always thought one had to hold paper up to the light to see the watermark."
15
Some watermarks show through on a black surface," I admitted. "It was that hideous escritoire that gave me the idea."
"So I saw what you saw. The watermarks were different."
"As they should be, written in different lands, eight years apart. The handwriting is the same, as it should be. However, both watermarks are Venetian, so the letters are forged." Normally I do not reveal information like that to a witness, but Jacopo probably knew it anyway and I wanted to win his confidence.
He chuckled. "I am most grateful that you did not tell her so. Your mention of the Honeycat name was tactfully done, too. We were all terrified that you would tell the old bag about the murdered courtesans and throw her into convulsions."
I had concluded by that time that Jacopo was no true cavaliere servente, because he was no cavaliere. He was only a well-dressed lackey and younger than me. His present chattiness was an effort to seem better than he was. Who paid his tailors' bills?
"Does she have convulsions?"
"Not literally. She has a tongue like a skinner's knife, though."
"Who writes the letters, Bernardo?"
"Domenico." He laughed. "Bernardo may even believe in them."
I wondered if Jacopo had believed in them until he saw what I was doing with the ebony desk. He was leading me out by a different route, not the secret staircase. Now that Bernardo knew I had been allowed in, there was no further need for concealment.
"It is a harmless deception for a bereaved mother and widow," I said, "unless any genuine letters arrived from Zorzi and were suppressed."
"I know of none."
He wouldn't. They would have been burned by Zorzi's brothers, or turned over to the Ten, who would have read them first anyway. The Michiels' mail would certainly have been intercepted for a year or two after the outlaw's flight, and possibly still was.
I said, "The lady must have been very upset when her husband was murdered and her son blamed."
Jacopo said, "Much more upset about Zorzi than…" He shot me a quirky smile. "You are a sly bastard, Zeno!"
No, if he had been around back then, he was the bastard among us. I had Jacopo placed.
"I see a likeness to Bernardo," I said.
We were descending a magnificent staircase to the androne. The splendor of Palazzo Michiel belonged only to the legitimate heirs. By-blows would have no share in it.
"Well done," he said sourly. "Yes. Honor is indivisible. Half is nothing."
"And how old were you eight years ago?"
"I was just the cook's brat back then. Or a page, sometimes. I can remember Zorzi having screaming matches with our father and using me as evidence that the old tyrant was a hypocrite. Oh, how I loved that!"
"Your full name, in case I need to ask for you?"
"Jacopo Fauro, but just Jacopo will do." He stopped suddenly at a landing and looked me over. "You at least got your father's name, Zeno."
"I treasure it. But I got no money."
I was prying again and he knew it. He shrugged. "I got neither."
"You have another half-brother, a priest."
"Timoteo, now Brother Fedele of the Friars Minor. We are a versatile family-politician, financier, saint, patricide, and drudge. Anything else you need to know?"
"And a sister?"
"Sister Lucretzia."
"And who was the lady who was reading to donna Alina when I arrived?"
"Signora Isabetta Scorozini, Dom's wife."
I had detected no signs of overabundant love between her and her formidable mother-in-law. Scorozini is not a patrician name. While marriage with commoners is not forbidden, it requires the Grand Council's approval and I remembered Celsi's caustic comment on the Michiels' practice of limiting the number of heirs. He had mentioned a mistress. More likely Domenico's marriage had been blessed by the Church but not the Grand Council; it would be morganatic, so her children could not inherit.