The Alchemists pursuit

"Um…" I said, baffled by this backward thinking. "Yes, master."

Of course Nostradamus would collect from Violetta, but that would mean that his final reward for catching Honeycat would shrink by the same amount. This could be ominous. Had he given up hope of earning his fee?

"And I need counseling on a matter of cats, master."

He looked up at me with an expression that would flake paint off a Tintoretto. "Cats?"

I explained about cats: cats that force me to detour and so lead me to find Alessa in a weak moment, cats that direct me to a refuge when the mob is after me, and cats that delay me so that vizio Filiberto Vasco doesn't catch me red-handed trying to bribe Circospetto. One cat, or three? Not a cat in the normal sense at all, of course, so what? As I spoke he frowned and tugged at his goatee. Afterward he stared across at the wall of books for a while, sca

"You been summoning without telling me?"

"No, master."

"Curious," he murmured. "I had not thought of… Well, I advise you to be very careful. I have exposed you to much strange lore in a very short time. It may not have seemed short to you, but when you compress the wisdom of centuries into just a few years, it can take on a life of its own. I may have been reckless. You may have opened cha

I scrabbled hastily in the back rooms of my memory. "In the Iliad, Patroclus tried three times to scale the walls of Troy and fell back, but when he tried again, Apollo struck him down. Diomedes, too. He attacked the god three times, and each time Apollo brushed him aside, but on his fourth attempt the god roared at him to warn him off. And Achilles-"

Violetta would have been proud of my classical scholarship. Even the Maestro grudgingly nodded approval.

"Yes, yes, Homer knew it, but it is older than that. I was thinking of the Hebrew tradition, to forgive a si

"Or it may be truly benevolent?"

"It may be," he said sourly, "but be careful! If there is a fourth time-Heaven forbid!-the stakes will be very high. Let me see that wound of yours."

I suspected when Giorgio delivered me to the Riva degli Schiavoni that I would be too early for do

I was not alone in that belief, obviously, else why did so many people want the Maestro to investigate an eight-year-old murder that the Council of Ten had declared solved? Do

No long wait this time-Jacopo appeared in short order, trotting down the great staircase and striding forward to meet me with a smile of greeting. He was even more magnificently garbed than before, his britches and doublet a concerto of cream and purple brocade, and he had somehow contrived to have his silken hose and his ruff both in the same shade of cream, instead of white. Moreover the ruff was huge, with i

If I could trust anyone in the Michiel household, it should be Jacopo. He could have been no more than eleven or twelve when his father died and he was also in the clear for the courtesan murders, because if I tried to tackle him the way I had tackled the fake friar at San Zanipolo, I would bounce right off.

We bowed and greeted.

He made no move to lead me anywhere. "You bring a contract? The old witch will be delighted. She has been on pins and needles since you left, worried that Nostradamus will turn her down."

"The price may startle her."

"Bah!" he said in exactly the tone the Maestro uses. "She has more money than she can count, nothing to spend it on, and not much time left to try. You'll have to be patient, though. The daily reconstruction is still underway. Skilled craftsmen are at work. Is there anything I can tell you or any way I can entertain you until she considers herself presentable?"

I had very few questions to ask Jacopo, but I might as well put them now. I doubted that his half-brothers would let me within hailing distance of themselves or their staff until the matriarch had blessed my quest, perhaps not even then.

"What do you know about the knife that was used to kill your father?"

He eyed me warily. "How much do you know about it already?"

"I heard that it was a family possession."

He gri

He went upstairs at a fast trot, which I had to match, but fortunately there were only a few servants around to frown at such impropriety. We crossed the wide salone to a glass case standing against the opposite wall. Amid a collection of ancient books, Roman lamps, Greek jars, some antique coins, and a few Turkish curiosities, there was only one weapon, a dagger. It had an S curve to it, with an animal head for a pommel. The grip was made of bone and the scabbard of silver. The blade was not visible, but would be very little longer than my hand, while the hilt would fit comfortably in a man's fist.

"It's called a khanjar," my guide said cheerfully. "Syrian. Made of damascene steel. It was collected in 1204 at the sack of Constantinople by one of their"-his smile faltered-"my ancestors. Unfortunately he collected it between his ribs. Fortunately his son was there also and was able to salvage the dagger, if not save the situation."

"He saved the family honor, though. He must have killed the killer or he couldn't have brought back the sheath."

Jacopo nodded. "Never thought of that."

Or perhaps the dagger had been routinely looted from a corpse and its story had been embellished over four centuries. I could not but admire the deadly little horror-an assassin's dream, small enough to be easily concealed and quite long enough to kill a man. "This cabinet is kept locked?"

"It is now. It wasn't back then, when our father was stabbed. I used to play with the khanjar when I was small and it was still just as sharp as it must have been in Constantinople. In fact…" Jacopo hesitated. "I was the one who noticed that it was missing after the murder and opened my big mouth in front of witnesses. Apparently the sbirri had not thought to ask anyone if we could identify the weapon."

"And how did the scabbard find its way back this time?"

He stared at me blankly. "I don't know. I suppose it was left behind in the Basilica. The killer wouldn't want to be caught wearing it, now would he? Not with blood on it."

I wondered who had been crass enough to put the dagger back on display, but I wasn't crass enough to ask.

Jacopo started to stroll. "Let's go and see if the painters and decorators have completed today's masterpiece."

I went with him. "If Zorzi has come back to Venice, he must have found somewhere safe to hide. Who would help him? Who would give him shelter?"

"One of his harlots, I suppose. You'll be an old man before you finish questioning all of those maenads."