“Well, I’m sorry about the old man,” Violetta said softly. “I am glad we don’t have to suspect poor Bianca.” She was Niobe, an aspect of her I rarely see, the sorrowing mother. Bellini or del Piombo would have taken one look at her and painted her at the foot of the cross for all eternity to admire.

“We need not bother Bianca,” I said happily. “The case is closed.”

“Indeed?” the Maestro murmured.

I almost fell off my chair in alarm. “Am I missing something?”

“You missed something last night,” he said with quiet satisfaction. I detest that sleepy look he puts on. He was going to make me look stupid in front of Violetta.

I spoke through clenched teeth. “Instruct me, master.”

“You are looking for a simple solution after I warned you the matter was complex.” He bunched his cheeks into a mocking smirk. “Evil is rarely simple. Yes, I’ve told you that often enough, but you must also remember that, while fiends are not as clever as certain nuns, they do know their business. A fiend making a mistake would be very unlikely to commit a lesser evil instead of a greater, and yet you are telling me that the fiend-ridden Karagounis poisoned a harmless old man instead of the Republic’s head of state. How very curious! A demon would be much more inclined to err the other way, like a dog spurning fresh meat in favor of a stinking heap of carrion. If the fiend had the chance-by design or by accident-to poison Nasone and did not do so, then the fiend must have been on the track of some greater evil. We must hope that today’s incident has balked it.”

Violetta was silent, watching us both without expression. She must see how the old scoundrel was baiting me.

I said, “You are telling me that Alexius Karagounis did not murder Procurator Orseolo despite what the other demon showed me?”

He nodded smugly. “The logic is inescapable. How exactly did you command the fiend?” He knew that. I had reported every word.

“First, a negative-to go away ‘if there was no murderer present on San Valentine’s Eve last in the room in…’ Oh, confound it!” What I actually thought was Damn you! which is what Putrid had said to me.

“You have it now?”

“Well, I don’t!” Violetta said loyally, probably lying to make me feel better.

“A murderer,” I said, “is a person who has murdered another. The old man did not die until the following day, so the poisoner was not a murderer until then-unless he had killed someone else previously, I mean. Until Orseolo actually died, the crime was merely attempted murder. I should have specified poisoner, not murderer.”

The Maestro picked it up. “Alfeo’s tame fiend would normally have taken him exactly at his word and gone away, to mislead him into thinking that there had been no killer present. But there was a murderer present, one of the sultan’s assassins. The demon would undoubtedly have preferred not to betray that one, because the man had the potential to do much greater evil in the future, but it had to obey Alfeo’s command.”

“What greater evil, Maestro?” Violetta asked anxiously.

“Hell alone knows,” I said. “Karagounis was setting himself up in the city, planning to marry so he could stay here. He had Ottone Imer in his pocket. He organized the book sale so he could meet rich and important people. He must have had some long-range plan. In a few years he might have become truly dangerous.”

He had already been dangerous enough to shed some of my blood that morning. He had known my name and face. Who else but his demon could have warned him about me and told him to send bravi after me? Or tracked me down in the church, a place I do not go as often as I should.

Violetta looked from me to the Maestro and back again. “So who did kill Procurator Orseolo?”

We both shrugged.

“It is no longer our concern,” I said. “The Ten do not know about the demons. They may suspect that our information was unholy, but the Maestro’s skills are often useful to them, so they prefer not to ask, and they do keep the Inquisition away. Vasco recognized Karagounis’s name, so he was already under suspicion. The Ten will accept that he tried to poison the doge and failed to…”

My master was smirking again. “But the doge was not there, was he?”

“Not officially,” I admitted. “But a man who was there later jumped out a window before the vizio could ask him questions. Won’t the Ten accept the Greek’s guilt?”

He stuck out his goatee stubbornly. “I won’t! I have my reputation to consider. The real culprit committed a murder in my presence, and I want to see him die between the columns! Besides, you haven’t told me why Karagounis killed himself.”

Puzzled, I said, “To avoid being tortured?”

“Why should that bother a demon? Surely the fiend that possessed Karagounis could have prevented him from giving away any secrets? It would have enjoyed his agonies.”

Violetta frowned. “It sacrificed the pawn for some later advantage?”

The Maestro drew back his lips in his implied smile, but I could see he had wanted to reveal this himself. “You are a much better chess player than Alfeo, madonna. Whatever the Greek was up to, and Alfeo may be right on that, I don’t believe that he poisoned the procurator.”

“You know who did?” Aspasia demanded.

Again he smiled. “I have known for some time, but I want to find out what more evil remains to be uncovered and I must have evidence to convince the council of Ten.”

I held back an angry comment. Either he was just strutting to impress Violetta or he had let me invoke a fiend when he already knew the murderer’s name.

Aspasia glanced at me and then said, “Maestro, I understand why you won’t tell me who poisoned the procurator, but why won’t you tell Alfeo?”

He shook his head so hard that his wattles flapped. “Alfeo’s face gives him away every time. Look at him now-he’s angry and can’t hide it. He would speak quite differently to the murderer than he does to the innocent witnesses. Alfeo, you must visit with Bianca Orseolo. If anyone saw the murder committed, she did. And we still don’t know why Pasqual Tirali went to the book display, do we? That was quite a detour if he was taking his companion to the Lido.”

Violetta did not rise to the bait.

I said, “I need dinner first. Can’t you see just by looking at me how hungry I am?”

14

G iorgio did not approve of a courtesan dressing as a nun; he rowed us in angry silence. I did not approve either, although I pulled down the blinds of the felze to enjoy the guilty fun of cuddling her. I could kiss her freely, because nuns do not wear face paint to smudge, but my talk was not romantic.

“If you are discovered, you will be whipped!” I told her. The thought of her flawless body being ripped and bruised by the lash made me feel ill.

“Nonsense!” she said. “It is Carnival! I brought a mask I can put on if I need to. And why are you wearing a sword? You can’t fight on an injured leg.”

“I can if I must.” My calf had stopped bleeding at last-fortunately so, because I was going to run out of clothes soon. Bruno was sleeping off his laudanum, but I was resolved to go nowhere without my sword until we had all the fiends and murderers accounted for. “You would wear a Carnival mask in a house of mourning?”

She laughed and kissed my cheek. “Or I can claim to be a spy for the Ten.”

I shivered. “Don’t joke about it.”

“I’m not one,” she said, “although I suspect many courtesans are. Would it put you off your game if you thought I was taking notes for Circospetto?”

Of course it would, but the idea that Raffaino Sciara might spend his days perusing hundreds of pornographic score sheets made me laugh out loud. I said, “It would inspire me to even more heroic efforts.” It was time to change the subject, and also the entertainment or I would become too distracted to think about business. “A question, love-Yesterday I asked you about the book viewing and you told me the foreigners’ names. You even knew their address.”