The Alchemist's Code Read Free Page B

suspiciously across at me.
    â€œCertainly. Sier Alfeo has my complete confidence in all matters.”
    He almost never uses my title in front of a client or patient. When he does, his instinct is infallible. Many nobles bristle when they hear that one of their own is demeaning his class by earning an honest living, but sier Zuanbattista glanced across at me with interest.
    â€œFamily?”
    â€œZeno, clarissimo ,” I said.
    â€œA descendant of Doge Renier Zen?”
    â€œTwelve-greats grandson. My father was Marco Zeno.”
    â€œThe Marco Zeno who fought so well at Lepanto?”
    â€œThat one,” I said proudly. “He died in the plague of 1576.”
    â€œAh, as did so many! I saw your father at Don Giovanni’s council the day before the battle, but there were many officers there and I had no chance to speak with him.” That was nicely done—he had implied that he would have spoken to my father without actually lying about it. Nodding to show approval of my existence and presence, Sanudo looked back to the Maestro. “My daughter was taken in the night.”
    Was taken? The words saddened me. I would already have bet some of my dearest body parts that the correct term was ran away . Venice, on its hundred man-made islands, is a tight pack of tiny communities, an almost impossible place to stage a holding-for-ransom. Many people, especially women, never leave the parish of their birth and know the comings and goings of every other inhabitant. Start buying more groceries than usual and the fact will be noted and discussed; the Council of Ten’s army of informers will overhear. No one keeps secrets in Venice! But the Sanudos were not ready to admit that their child had eloped.
    I reached for my quill as the lady began to speak. She declaimed, as if she had memorized an address to the Senate: “My maid found her gone in the morning. She helps Grazia as well as me and there was no answer to her knock. The door was locked on the inside. She came straight to tell me, of course. We looked out the window and there was a ladder lying right there, on the grass under her room!”
    I had heard similar stories before, and the way they were told mattered more than the words. Madonna Eva was neither terrified nor distraught. Madonna Eva was shocked, yes, but mostly she was furious .
    Curious.
    â€œWe wakened Giro,” she went on, “and sent him to look. He climbed in through Grazia’s window. Her bed had not been slept in.”
    That, she seemed to think, was that, but then the Maestro began asking questions. No ransom note had been found or delivered. Nothing had been stolen and there seemed to be no clothes missing, or perhaps just a few minor garments. Her jewels had gone, but “only the trinkets she kept in her room; her pearls were still in the usual safe place.” Even in its wild distress, the family had thought to check that.
    And Giro?
    â€œMy son Girolamo,” Zuanbattista explained, “minister for the navy.”
    â€œAnd who else lives in the house?”
    Sanudo’s pause was not quite long enough to be called a snub, but enough to imply nicely that he had not come to Ca’ Barbolano to be interrogated by a foreign-born mountebank physician. “Her aunt, Madonna Fortunata Morosini, and three servants—Fabricio our gondolier, Pignate my valet, and the ladies’ maid Noelia, mentioned earlier.”
    That was a small household for a man of Sanudo’s high station, even in Venice, where land is at a premium and the nobility have a long tradition of thrift. Even today it is not uncommon to see senators buying their own vegetables in the Erberia. Possibly the Sanudos had other servants coming in during the day, or the ladies’ maid might also clean silver, the gondolier just love gardening, and the valet like to dress up as a footman. Aunt Fortunata might even adore cooking.
    â€œAnd they are all accounted for?” the