His wife was a silver-haired matron who still retained much of what must have been spectacular beauty. She was not of noble birth, but he had not been stricken from the Golden Book when he married her; his political career had survived and prospered. No doubt she had brought him a stupendous dowry. The Great Council can tolerate that sort of marriage.

I was assigned a seat with a view of the canal and asked what wine I preferred. A footman brought it. It was starlight on the tongue.

“We were reading some of Petrarch’s sonnets together,” the lady said, closing a book. “Are you a poetry lover, clarissimo?”

Oh, how sweet! “I love sonnets as I love the stars, madonna, and know as little about them.”

“But swords you know. We heard that you had a very narrow escape this morning.”

I shrugged modestly. “There were only six of them.”

The laughter was convincing.

“I noticed you limping,” Pasqual said.

“I think they nicked my calf, but I may have done it myself. I was flailing quite wildly.” Nicking with a rapier would be tricky.

“I expect you were,” the senator said, smiling in cherubic innocence. “You were lucky that they tried to take you out with knives. Such bravos usually wear swords and know how to use them. They did not expect to find you armed, obviously.”

Thanks again to the Maestro’s incredible clairvoyance! But how did Tirali know all this? “They probably thought that six unfamiliar swordsmen would be conspicuous and attract the locals’ attention,” I said.

“Very likely. You had a busy morning. You went to see a man in the Greek quarter.”

Alarm horns were blowing. What was going on here? How did he know that? “You are well informed, Your Excellency. You even knew I was coming to call on you.”

He laughed. “I have friends in high places. You came to ask if we noticed anything unusual at Ca’ Imer the other night?” He had a rich, sonorous voice, an orator’s voice that could speak out along the length of the Great Council’s hall and be audible to more than a thousand people.

Now I was more than a little nettled. “And did you notice anything?”

“I did. My son did not.”

“Nor I,” his wife said.

“But you were not in the viewing room, my dear, and that is what interests sier Alfeo.”

“Why should that be, Your Excellency?” I asked softly.

His smile told me that he had been baiting me. “A friend told me.” He took a sip of wine and when he spoke again he dropped the banter and changed his tone to make his next words more significant, like the practiced orator he was. “I am interested to meet you, sier Alfeo. I admire what you are doing. We have far too many impoverished nobles sitting around believing that the Republic owes them a living and honest work is beneath their confounded dignity. They whine in the Council, demanding sinecures and phony offices with many rewards and few duties. The career you have chosen is unusual but quite honorable. Many patricians put off their political careers until midlife and do well regardless.”

I wondered if all this oil would make the floor dangerous, and if he was flattering me or just nagging his son the playboy.

“Your Excellency is most kind.” Giovanni Tirali was certainly gracious, yet Violetta had called him ruthless. I found Enrico Orseolo repulsive, but he had the reputation of being a negotiator, a maker of deals. People are unnecessarily complicated.

“I mean it,” he said. “I mean it! I was very shaken by Bertucci’s death. He was twenty years my senior and I had always looked up to him. That evening at Imer’s he seemed frail but quite competent and cheerful, and yet the next day he was gone. Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit, sit nomen Domini benedictum.”

“Amen,” we said in chorus.

“But…”

Calculated pause. My cue.

“But?” I echoed.

“That evening, when we had looked at all the books and told all the lies we wanted about what we thought of them, our host suggested we join the other guests. I emptied my glass. Pasqual, I am sure, emptied his. And Bertucci drained his. And I saw him make a face, as if it had tasted bad.”

“Dregs?”

His Excellency shrugged. “I assumed so, although properly trained servants know to look out for sediment. I did not get a chance to speak to him again. I thought little of it at the time. When Bertucci took ill, later, I recalled the incident. It niggled at me. After the funeral service this morning, I sought out my friend and told him my worries. And he told me that there was a serious possibility that Bertucci had been poisoned.”

Again the senator paused for effect. I wondered if he made speeches in bed to his wife. “A friend in a funny hat?”

He smiled. “Yes, that one. I asked if the Ten were looking into it. He told me that the Ten were bombardiers who blow up everything and injure the bystanders; this was a case for a stiletto. He had set Maestro Nostradamus himself on it, and his apprentice, Alfeo Zeno. And if they could not solve it, he said, then the Ten would never even get close to the truth.”

I was having trouble not purring or rolling over on my back. “So much flattery is bad for my liver, Excellency. And I should not dream of telling my master what you just said. He would be unbearable.”

The senator’s eyes nailed me to my chair. “Was it murder?”

“I don’t see how it can have been. Another witness saw what you saw, but how could anyone have put poison in his wine with so many people watching? Nobody saw that.” I glanced at Pasqual.

He shook his head, somehow subtly implying that the Old Man got bats in his bonnet sometimes. “I did not see even what my father saw. I have asked the lady I was escorting and she saw nothing untoward.”

Violetta had not mentioned that.

I said, “Thank you. It does seem unlikely that anyone could have poisoned the procurator without being observed. I cannot discover any motive to commit such a terrible crime. Can you suggest one?”

Three heads shook.

The senator added, “Every politician has enemies, but we do not go around poisoning people here in the Republic-not like the Borgias did in Rome. The Council of Ten has the reputation of disposing of people in that fashion, but not here in the city, only enemies living elsewhere, out of its jurisdiction. I could name many men who yearn to be procurators of San Marco, but there are very few who have a reasonable chance of being elected, and none of them was there that night. I certainly cannot imagine a man who aspires to such a job bribing someone else-a servant, say-to commit murder for him. He would pay blackmail for the rest of his life.”

“I thank Your Excellency for an expert analysis. I shall report to Maestro Nostradamus that I have found nothing to indicate foul play.”

“Then why,” Pasqual inquired in a subtle soft voice, “did the Greek throw himself out the window this morning? Did you threaten him?”

I included his father in my reply. “You will understand, messere, that I do not have permission to discuss everything concerned with this case.”

“Of course.” The senator showed no resentment. “ Sier Alfeo, the Senate has paid me the wonderful honor of electing me ambassador to Rome.”

I congratulated him and his lady and drank a toast to them. Her smile looked genuine and probably was. Two-thirds of the Great Council would murder for that appointment. It established her husband as one of the inner circle, the fifty or so men who actually run the Republic, trading senior posts around among themselves. It offered tantalizing glimpses of a shot at the dogeship in another twenty years or so.

“When I go to Rome,” Tirali said, “Pasqual will remain here to look after the family’s affairs. As is customary, I shall take a few young noblemen along with me, both as aides and to teach them some of the ins and outs of serving the Republic. I especially need a personal secretary. While you are younger than others I am considering, I have been aware of your reputation for some time. I am prepared to pay a very generous stipend to a man who can be relied upon to perform his duties with intelligence, diligence, and discretion. You would rank third in the embassy.”