4
G iorgio was ready in his standard gondolier costume of red and black, so we trotted downstairs and embarked. He is a wiry man and not tall. Standing in the stern of the gondola he looks far too slight to move a thirty-foot boat at all, but he is as proficient with his oar as he is at making babies. We skimmed off along the Rio San Remo, sliding between the traffic. The sun was shining with as much enthusiasm as it ever musters in February; bridges and buildings had a well-washed look. Women on balconies were hanging out washing, peeling vegetables, shouting conversations across and along the canal, lowering baskets to vendors in boats or on footpaths below them. Often they were singing. So were the cage birds, which had been brought out to enjoy the morning and tantalize the cats. Seagulls flapped clumsily or just stared. Almost all the boatmen were singing, too, when not fluting the odd cries they use to warn on which side they intend to pass. They say we have ten thousand gondolas in Venice.
“Is it true the Maestro was at the supper where the procurator died, Alfeo?”
Mama does the talking in the Angeli family. Most of the time Giorgio says little, although his silences have an uncanny knack of prompting other people to tell him secrets. He would not question me unless he were seriously worried.
I said, “He was taken ill at the supper. The Maestro went to help, as you would expect. The procurator died yesterday, at home, tended by his own doctor.”
“Oh.” Apart from returning hails from other gondoliers going by, Giorgio wielded his oar in silence for a while.
“The Maestro didn’t poison him.”
“Alfeo! I never said that he did! That’s a terrible-”
“That’s the rumor. It’s a lie. Last night I was called in to the palace for a consultation. I was not arrested, not questioned. My arms are no longer now than they were before. Don’t worry about it.”
A man who has to support a two-digit family must worry about his employer’s fate. Giorgio slid the gondola through a minuscule gap beside a farmer’s boat already on its way home for the day. He ducked as we shot under a bridge. Then he had time to speak again.
“You are not nearly as good a liar as the master, Alfeo. You are worried, so I am.”
“Then I confess! I’m on my way to tell the Council of Ten I did it.”
The whole boat shuddered. “Don’t make jokes like that, Alfeo!”
It was less of a joke than he thought, although I had no intention of posting the incriminating letter I carried. “How was the wedding?”
Family is one topic on which Giorgio will talk, and talk at length. His children are outnumbered only by his brothers and sisters; Mama has even more; add in aunts, uncles, nephews, and nieces and the wedding party must have outnumbered the Turkish army on campaign. Giovanni from Padua and Aldo from Vicenza and Jacopo and Giovanni from Murano…He was still reciting the guest list when we arrived at our destination.
Ottone Imer shared chambers with several other attorneys in the maze of alleys in San Zulian, just north of the Basilica of San Marco. That the house included living quarters and premises grand enough to entertain thirty guests I took on trust from the Maestro’s account. It is an expensive part of town, so either Imer had family money behind him or he was successful professionally. So why was he dabbling in the used book trade?
The black-clad clerk who peered disapprovingly at me over his glasses looked somewhat dusty and dog-eared himself, as if he needed to be taken down off his shelf more often. He conceded that the learned attorney was in, but that was all he would concede. If I wanted to get any closer to his employer, he suggested, I must state my business in some detail. The learned attorney was not, he implied, about to stop doing whatever he was doing to oblige a mere apprentice, even if, he hinted, the apprentice’s master was a well-known charlatan dabbling in shady arts. I could make an appointment for next week, or Lent, or next summer, he intimated.
Attorneys do not usually turn down business sight unseen, but attorneys rarely have important nobles collapse at their supper tables in a hiss of dangerous whispers. Was Imer hiding from everyone or just from anyone connected with that unfortunate event?
I shrugged. “Then I must take the matter higher up.”
The watchdog’s manner grew even chillier. “Take it as high as you wish.”
I produced my letter and held it where he could read the inscription. “Is this high enough?”
He had seemed pale before. He turned ashen and stumbled to his feet.
“Run,” I said sweetly, and he very nearly did.
In moments I was ushered into the private office of Attorney Imer, which was dim, cramped, and untidy. The owner stood beside a desk heaped with ribbon-tied bundles of paper. Briefs seldom are. He was tall, severe, fortyish, and had an unfortunate tick at the left corner of his mouth. I wondered if it appeared when he addressed the bench, or if only mention of the Ten set it off.
I bowed. “At the lustrissimo ’s service.”
“My clerk said you had a letter to show me?”
He did not invite me to sit, so I sat. He remained standing, eyes icy, mouth twitching. He looked down his chin at me. Lawyers are very highly thought of in Venice, especially by other lawyers.
I said, “My master was the first physician to attend Procurator Orseolo when he was stricken, two nights ago. He was disturbed by the symptoms he observed-so much so that he believes it may be his duty to draw them to the attention of the Ten. He takes this step reluctantly, as you may imagine, knowing the suffering it may cause to innocent people. He is aware that there may be other explanations for what he saw, and invites you to go and discuss the matter with him.”
Roses bloomed on the attorney’s cheeks. “Blackmail? He plans to extort money from me?”
I have never known the Maestro to turn away money, but to say so just then would have been indiscreet. “ Lustrissimo, I would not serve a master who committed such crimes.”
“You prefer selling horoscopes?” Evidently Imer was a skeptic, like the doge. “Yes, the procurator took ill here, in my house. He died at home, I assume in his own bed. He was old. Old men do that. What is left to discuss?”
I stood up. “Evidence of poison. I thank you for your time.” I started to turn, then had second thoughts. “Just out of personal curiosity…Is the servant who poured the wine your employee, or did you hire him for the evening?”
“You can take your personal curiosity to hell with you, boy, and keep it there.”
“And the man with the big nose?”
The attorney’s mouth twitched violently four times. “Let me see that letter!”
I passed it over. It was not sealed. He twitched six times while reading it. “Extortion! If your master wants to come here and ask some questions on a professional matter, I shall try to make time to see him. Ask my clerk to set up an appointment.”
I shook my head. “My master has difficulty walking, sir. My orders are to take you back to visit with him or else drop his letter in the bocca di leone. You may come and watch me do so if you wish. My gondola is waiting.”
“Blackmail, I say!”
“May the Lord be with you, lustrissimo.” I held out my hand for the letter.
“Very well. I will come with you, so I can personally caution Doctor Nostradamus that he is violating serious laws.”
He shooed me out ahead of him in case I tried to rummage through his briefs.
Imer might be doing well for an attorney, but the Ca’ Barbolano overwhelms almost anyone. Sheer size, to start with. In a city squeezed onto a hundred man-made islands, space is the ultimate luxury and the Maestro’s salone is enormous, stretching the length of the building. Huge mirrors alternate along the walls with paintings by Veronese and Tintoretto, chandeliers spread crystal foliage overhead, and the inhabitants on view are built to scale. Michelangelo’s David from Florence stands nearest the door. Beyond him are Sansovino’s Mars and Neptune from the giants’ staircase in the Doges’ Palace, and the Laocoon from Rome. More titanic sculptures loom beyond these. All of them are copies carved in chalk, but the ones I can vouch for are very good copies; the rest are certainly impressive.