Alchemia (Alchemy)

by Tom Rynard

Ursula Giustinian, ten years old and the middle child of the three children born to Battista Giustinian and his wife Ambrosia, stood at the top of the stairway, straining her ears for any sound coming from the rooms of the bottom floor of Ca' Giustinian. Her father was away from the house, and had been for two days, being sent north across the lagoon to the nearby city of Padova by her grandfather. Papa did not hate his work with Grandfather, Ursula knew, but it wasn't what he wanted to do, what he loved to do. His “passion in life,” a term her mother used with derision when speaking of her father, was located on the bottom floor of the Venetian palace in a room set off from the wide open area which served as the warehouse and office for the family's business ventures. His passion was his laboratory, where he worked to unlock the secrets of life. Even at ten, Giustinian knew that her father would never take to being called, “Merchant” or “ Pregadi ” or “ Procuratori di San Marco ” or even “Doge.” He desired to be known only as one thing: “Alchemist.”

Ursula missed her father when he was gone from home. Alone among her siblings, she would sit with him in his laboratory in the evenings or early morning, watching as he mixed liquids of different colors, added powders or solids, heated and cooled his concoctions, or just sat at one of the tables filled with beakers and jars and tubes while he read the strange texts that he called the classics of alchemy. And when he was gone, she liked to sneak into the laboratory to take in the sights and smells of the room, to look through the same books her father read and attempt to make sense of them the same as he did, to just be among the magic she felt in the room. Sometimes, especially now that she was ten, she did not have to sneak into the laboratory. If Papa was working on something that needed stirred or checked while he was gone, he would instruct her on what needed done.

His absence now, she felt, was the result not of any pressing business matter but of his work in the laboratory. She had not been with him in the laboratory when he made his great discovery. It was at the supper table that, hardly able to contain himself, he announced to the family that he had decoded the classical texts and had succeeded in creating the Elixir of Life. Ursula's mother had never understood her father's work, alternating between making fun of him and berating him for his endeavors. This time was no different. She started off by responding to his announcement with her own comment that she was happy for him, no, she was happy for them all. The next time she had guests over she could serve them the Elixir in place of champagne. But it was as if her displeasure with her husband had been bottled up inside her for too long. She sat quietly for a minute thinking of what her husband had said before pounding her fists on the table, pushing her chair back and storming from the room, shouting as she exited, “You'll make fools of us all.” Mama went, as she often did when she was mad, to the house of Grandfather Foscari, her father. The next day after Mama had returned home, Ursula saw Grandfather Foscari's gondola arrive next door at the home of her other grandfather, Grandfather Giustinian. Later that day, Grandfather Giustinian came looking for her father, telling Papa he needed to get ready to go to Padova on business.

Ursula heard no sound from the top of the stairs so she slowly made her way down them, walking soundlessly in her bare feet across the cool marble steps. As was common of the Venetian palaces of the day, the stairs were located at the interior courtyard that sat towards the back of the residence. In a sense, the stairs were outside the living areas of the house, although within the building itself and not visible from either canal or calle . Once at the bottom of the stairs, Ursula walked to the doorway that led to the interior of the lower floor. Ursula stopped at the door, which was slightly open, and listened again for sounds from within. There was no noise so she continued, making her way through the warehouse area of the floor to her father's laboratory. Still no sounds or voices came from the laboratory. The door, however, was open and a light from one of the oil lamps or candles cast a yellowish glow through the doorway. Her father rarely locked the door when he was not in the laboratory but he did always close the door. Ursula, who had also been in the laboratory earlier that day, remembered extinguishing the lamp and closing the door on exiting the room. She made her way slowly toward the light, pausing every two steps or so to listen for sounds coming from the room.

The first sign that something was not right in the room was a large shard of glass lying just inside the doorway. Judging from its size and shape, it was part of one of the glass tubes that Papa used to run between the different beakers that might be sitting on the tables. She moved quicker towards the doorway, although as she got next to it, but before she stood in the doorway, she stopped again. She stood a long moment there, her ears straining for any sound from the room. Finally satisfied with what she heard, or didn't hear, she willed her body into the doorway and looked for the first time at the grisly sight that awaited her. She immediately saw four bodies on the floor, their poses unnatural and their faces contorted. She looked quickly at the four bodies, a mix of men and women, and then ran through the remainder of the laboratory to take in those areas she could not see. It was in the back of the room that she found the still body of her mother. As recognition and identification of the body filtered through to Ursula's consciousness, she ran from the room, mounted the steps to the piano nobile , or main floor of the residence, and then up an interior flight of steps to the top floor of the building. She ran to her room, slammed the door shut and hid herself among the covers of her bed.

* * *

Thirty-four years later

Teodoro Dinardi, segregario to the Avogadori di Comun of Venice , stood against the wall of the Palazzo Ducale under the southern arcade of the building that served as the heart of the Venetian government. Dinardi had traded the dark blue togata that marked his official position for the black one that merely indicated his membership in the city's nobili . Beside him stood one of the vigili assigned to his office. The vigile , like Dinardi, had traded his official uniform for his everyday street clothes – the standard blouse, jacket and hose of a member of the popolani . They had positioned themselves so that looking at an angle to their left, towards the Molo and the water of the Bacino di San Marco , they could see through the large rounded arches that lined the palace's arcade at ground level. Their object of interest was a ship which had docked at the Molo and was presently unloading both cargo and passengers.

The ship, Dinardi knew, had just returned from Jerusalem and points in between. The passengers were returning from their pilgrimage to the Holy Land, many of the same passengers now departing the ship having also started their journey from Venice . The passenger that Dinardi was watching for was not one of those who had made the pilgrimage as a round trip from Venice . Battista Giustinian had been exiled by the Republic thirty-four years previously and had not set foot back into the City since then. Thirty-four years since he had been exiled – that was five years before Dinardi was even born. There was no way that Dinardi knew Giustinian by sight. Nonetheless, he recognized the man as soon as he stepped onto the gangway to exit the boat.

The man coming down the gangway was in his late 60s, tall, thin, gray-haired and clean shaven. With one exception, there was nothing remarkable about his facial features – his nose was neither large nor small for the face, his mouth and lips could not be said to be disproportionately fat nor thin, his chin was not square nor weak nor double-chinned. It was, simply, a chin. Giustinian moved slowly down the gangway, almost inching along as his one foot seemed to feel the wood beneath it in search of a sure footing before it would allow the next foot to come forward. He was also helped in his endeavor by a woman in her forties who walked before Giustinian, although in constant touch with him, his left hand tucked under her right forearm and holding tightly to it just above the wrist.

“He would have done better to let them off-load him in a cargo net,” Dinardi's companion quipped. Dinardi did not respond but merely continued to watch the old man disembark from the boat.

Giustinian's remarkable facial feature – what made him instantly recognizable – was his eyes. Giustinian was totally blind. But he was more than blind. His was not a blank stare blindness, for he had once been able to see clearly with the coal black eyes God had given him. Nor were the pupils cloudy from a grayish-green mucus that seemed to ooze from the inner recesses of the eye. Giustinian's blindness was caused by the fact that he had no eyes, just two sockets. Five years previously, while in the custody of a Slavic prince for one crime or another, his luck had run out. The prince decided it was better to pluck out his eyeballs and condemn Giustinian to a sightless life than it would be to end his life altogether.

“‘Their sockets were like rings without the gems,'” Dinardi said to no one, “‘Whoever in the face reads omo /Might well in these have recognized the m .'”

“What's that?” Dinardi's companion asked.

“Dante , Il Purgatorio ,” Dinardi answered. “The sixth level, where the gluttonous are cleansed of their sins. Dottor Morosini would be proud I remembered that from my days at his academy.”

Dinardi knew where Giustinian was headed once he alighted from the craft. The Council of Ten had determined where he would reside now that his exile was lifted and he could return to Venice . The conditions of his return had included a requirement that he take up residence with his nephew, the son of Giustinian's elder brother who had died only the previous year. He was not permitted to live with his father in the grand palace that had been built along the Canal Grande years after Giustinian's exile. His father was now ninety-four years of age and only beginning to show signs of the mental fatigue and physical limitations of his age. As Dinardi knew, the Council of Ten had not perceived any danger in Giustinian living with his father. The father had disowned and disinherited the son on his exile and had made it clear to the Council that he wanted nothing to do with him on his return.

Dinardi and the vigile under his employ followed Giustinian and his daughter to the palazzo where the two would live. Having satisfied himself that Giustinian was settled into his new abode, Dinardi turned to go when he noticed a servant from the house walking towards them at a brisk pace and carrying a note in one hand.

“Excuse me, Ser,” the servant, a boy in his late teens, addressed himself to Dinardi, the obvious senior of the two since he was dressed in the black togata of the nobili . “Ser Giustinian . . .,” he stopped as he said this and corrected the title by which Giustinian was to be addressed, a second condition of his return being that he not be permitted to wear the black togata or be accorded the rank of nobili for a period of ten years (assuming he lived that long) or at his death, if earlier. “Signor Giustinian has requested that I bring you this message.” The servant handed Dinardi the note. Dinardi unbound the ribbon around the paper, unrolled it, and read the message:

Thank you for seeing me safely from the waterfront to my new abode. If you could be so kind, could you ask Ser Reginaldo Morosini to visit with me tomorrow at the tenth hour. I have need to consult with him.

Respectfully yours,

/s/ Battista Giustinian

* * *

Reginaldo Morosini arrived by gondola at the palazzo where Battista Giustinian was staying in the company of Jacopo da Ferrara. On this trip, Reginaldo stood in the back of the gondola, manning the oar at the craft's rear. Jacopo stood up front, likewise working an oar in tandem with Reginaldo. It was not the tenth hour of the day as set out in the note that Dinardi had delivered to Reginaldo at his academy. Reginaldo had sent his regrets to Giustinian, explaining that the hour did not work for him. He suggested a later time, much later, explaining that his attendance was required until later in the afternoon after the students of his academy finished with their lessons for the day and were released. Having received no objection to his suggestion, Reginaldo set off with Jacopo as soon as both were free of their classes.

Reginaldo wore the black togata of the nobili , although his robe was embellished with the large bell-shaped sleeves that marked him as a physician. He wore the robe of the physician only when he was engaged in the practice of the medical arts, as he believed to be the reason for his being summoned by Giustinian. Reginaldo was neither tall nor short. His light brown hair hung to his neck, while his face was clean shaven. One could not say he was remarkably handsome, nor was he unpleasing to the eye. Jacopo, on the other hand, was twelve to fifteen years Reginaldo's junior. As with those of his age group, he wore his hair short and sported a well-trimmed beard. Chocolate brown eyes and dark brown hair gave him a look which women found attractive. Unlike Reginaldo, he was not a member of the nobili and so did not wear the black togata . As though to highlight the brownness of his eyes, his jacket was brown, as were the hose he wore. His hat was not the black bareta as worn by Reginaldo but a brown beret of more stylish design to match the remainder of his outfit.

A servant of the Giustinian household was waiting for the two at the water entrance to Ca' Giustinian and led them through the warehouse which made up the bottom floor of the palace, outside to the open courtyard behind the warehouse and up the set of exterior stone stairs to the piano nobile . They were left standing in the portego , or grand hall, that ran the length of the floor.

“My father will be with you shortly,” a woman in her mid-forties said as she entered the room without introducing herself. She was dressed conservatively by Venetian standards – neither the cloth of her dress nor her jewelry ostentatious, her neckline failed to reveal any part of her breasts and her shoes were flat-soled rather than the elevated platforms that were so fashionable with the women of the city.

“Signora, I am Dottor Morosini,” Reginaldo began by way of introduction, “and this is my associate, Signor Jacopo da Ferrara.”

“I never married,” was the woman's reply, not bothering to return the courtesy of identifying herself by name. “But perhaps you don't know my tragic story. I was made to accompany my father when he was shown out of Venice and have been his caretaker ever since, never allowed to marry or to seek my own way in the world. Not that I had many, well . . . , any proposals for marriage. There was no good match with a woman tainted by the crimes of her father and no romantic love on which to base a marriage without an adequate dowry or economic or political gain to be made by the union.”

“You never married, my dear Ursula, because of your devotion to my care.” Reginaldo and Jacopo turned towards the voice that had come from the opposite end of the room. Passing through a doorway, feeling his way as he came along, was Battista Giustinian, the man Dinardi had followed from the Molo the previous day. “You had your share of lovers,” the man continued as he made his way towards the three persons assembled at the far end of the room, “but you never encouraged a long-term relationship.”

Ursula excused herself from the room as Giustinian finally stood before the three. Giustinian reached out for Reginaldo and Reginaldo moved his arm to where the blind man could take hold of his hand to shake it. With one hand, Giustinian took Reginaldo's hand and with the other began to feel Reginaldo's wrist, lower arm and the sleeve of his togata .

“Nobile ,” Giustinian commented, “and a doctor at that.” A note of surprise was in his voice as he made the latter comment.

“I thought you knew that,” Reginaldo answered, also taking note of Giustinian's apparent surprise at finding him to be a medical practitioner, “and that was why you sent for me.”

“I trust only the Jewish doctors. I remember the Morosini family and its prominence in Venice from my time in the city before my exile. The Morosini are not Jews. No Dottor,” he continued, “I do not send for you because of your medical skills but for other reasons. I have returned to Venice to die, it is true. But that is not why I have asked you here.” He paused, a fact taken by Reginaldo as a sign that he wanted Reginaldo to somehow acknowledge what he said.

“You must excuse me, I thought you sent for me for health reasons.”

“No, I am not afflicted with some debilitating illness nor have I have reached an advanced age in life that makes my death imminent,” Giustinian answered. “Instead, I anticipate that my return to my home will lead to my murder. And I have sent for you so that when that happens, you can solve the murder and see that justice is done.”

Reginaldo stood silently, not sure how to answer Giustinian's request.

* * *

“Thirty-four years ago, this was my home.” Giustinian began after he had led Reginaldo and Jacopo out of the grand hall of the piano nobile and back down the exterior staircase to the lower floor area where the two had entered. They found themselves in a separate room filled with shelves and tables, benches and crates. Some of the crates were open revealing what was contained within them – glass jars and tubes, mostly, along with some iron tools and other devices. In one corner sat a furnace, the pipe for carrying away the smoke and fumes lying on the floor beside it. The room contained everything needed for a first rate alchemy laboratory, Reginaldo noted, remembering that it had been his work in alchemy which had resulted in Giustinian's exile from Venice thirty-four years previously and the loss of his two eyes some thirty years later. Giustinian said nothing for a moment, allowing his two companions to take in the room.

“This was my laboratory before, . . . before I was sent away from here,” Giustinian explained, sweeping his arm around the room. “I no longer practice the art. I no longer can. But I have not let go of my equipment. My daughter dabbles in the art of alchemy, to some degree. I'm not sure what she is looking for, if she is looking for anything.”

“Will she be allowed to set up the laboratory here again?” Jacopo asked. “I mean, after what happened. Before.”

“Who knows?” Giustinian answered as he shrugged his shoulders. “But, really, what happened here before? The laboratory did nothing. I don't think I did either. At least nothing that would require my being sent away for such a period of time.”

“So you did not deserve to be exiled?” Reginaldo asked the older man.

“This . . . this, I deserved.” Giustinian indicated the two empty eye sockets. “I knew my elixir was not ready – I had not replicated the success I had achieved previously before being driven from Venice – but I also knew it not to be life-threatening. There were dangers with it, to be sure. It had not been tested on another human. But I did not know that it would take the sight of the young man it was to be given to.” He hesitated for a moment as he re-lived the moment. “The boy's father was good to his word,” Giustinian continued. “‘If you are a charlatan, you shall suffer the same fate as my son,' he told me. And he was good to his word.”

“Thirty-four years ago,” Reginaldo reminded him again.

“The Elixir of Life was not intended to be taken by anyone,” Giustinian answered. “In the end, that is what kept me from being strung up between the columns of the piazetta .” He was referring to the two columns that stood before the Palazzo Ducale, one holding the statue of San Marco in his symbolic form as winged lion and the other of San Teodoro. The bodies of criminals executed by the Republic were often strung by a rope between the two columns as a reminder to the city of the ultimate punishment that could be meted out for criminal behavior. “They took it without my knowing.”

“And yet, six people died,” Reginaldo added.

“Yes, it was tragic and I would wish that I could turn back the hands of time and make it not to be,” Giustinian insisted. “The mixture was wrong – the ingredients were not as I had intended.”

Jacopo was silent throughout the discussion, noting only to himself that Giustinian had not found it to be such a tragedy to compel him to give up the practice of alchemy. He had continued to pursue his alchemy in the years since his exile.

* * *

It was as they were led out the door of the canal entrance that Reginaldo saw Ursula Giustinian standing on the left side of the arcaded landing and leaning against the railing at water's edge. She did not turn at the sound of the door opening, continuing to look out over the canal.

“Did you wish to speak with us?” Reginaldo asked. Jacopo walked past Reginaldo and descended the two steps that led to the water. He began to untie the gondola from its mooring.

“Signorina Ursula Justinian,” she said, turning to Reginaldo. “I'm sorry I did not introduce myself earlier in there with my father.”

Reginaldo studied the face of the woman as she stepped closer to him. I know this woman, was his immediate thought, one he quickly dismissed since she had not been in Venice for over thirty years and had been a young girl when she left. She was, he observed, a woman in her early or mid-forties – about his age he noted. One's first impression was of a woman who had reached her age of greatest attraction, the effect of years coalescing in her features to produce a woman of noble and refined beauty. The impression was a fleeting one, however. The closer one studied her features, the more one became unsettled with her look. There was an imperfection about her that Reginaldo sensed but could not quite put into words: maybe a coldness in her eyes, a hardness in the line of her mouth, a general sense that this person had known little joy – or sorrow – in her life, perhaps no feeling at all.

“Did you wish to speak with us, Signorina Giustinian?” Reginaldo repeated his question.

“How did you find my father?” she asked in reply.

“Concerned,” Reginaldo said, pausing slightly before adding, “For his safety.”

“For his ‘safety'? Do you mean his health, Dottor Morosini?”

“No, he did not send for me to look after his health. He is worried about his safety. He believes that someone will attempt to take his life now that he has returned.” Reginaldo watched the woman for a reaction. Surprise had registered on her face when told that Reginaldo had not been consulted on medical matters.

“Does he have reason to be worried about his safety?” Reginaldo inquired.

“Who does he think would want to do him harm?” she asked. “We've been here only one day.”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Reginaldo said. “After all, you are the only one to have spent the past thirty-four years with him. And there was the matter of his being responsible for the deaths of six people. Some things are hard to let go, even if they happened over thirty years ago.”

“Since he had his eyes taken from him, my father believes he sees better than he has ever before.”

“And does he?” Reginaldo asked, pressing the woman for an answer. She shrugged her shoulders and looked off down the length of the canal before answering.

“He has no eyes to see,” she said after a moment's pause. “He sees nothing. Or maybe in losing his eyes, his only sight is of those things that are in his head. If he does see things, they are things that are not there.”

“Your answer is like a riddle,” Reginaldo observed, “spoken like one who has spent her time apprenticed to a master alchemist and has come to master his secrets.”

“The pursuit of alchemy is denied to women. I could not have been an apprentice to my father,” she paused ever so slightly, “or to anyone else.”

“Yet,” Reginaldo observed, “he told us that you have become well-versed in the art, or is it a science, of alchemy. He even has kept the contents of his laboratory and brought it here for your use.”

“He wasted his time on me,” she answered so quickly that Reginaldo could not help but think that he had struck a nerve with this topic. Ursula continued, without additional prompting by Reginaldo, “He wasted his life on looking for something that wasn't there.”

“So you think that there is nothing to this Philosopher's Stone business?”

Ursula was silent for a moment as she thought about what Reginaldo said. “No,” she finally answered, “my father's error was that he pursued the wrong Stone. He turned away from a true pursuit of the physical Philosopher's Stone, except as a means of performing cheap sideshow tricks or milking money out of the greedy who thought we could really turn a base metal into gold. True, he did such tricks to feed us, but it was a matter of expediency and he really gave up his pursuit of knowledge on this topic. Instead, he sought to find a different secret, a different Philosopher's Stone – not the physical or natural one but the one of the mind. He believed that there was also a Philosopher's Stone that could reveal the inner workings of the soul and that in uncovering this secret, no one, not even the basest, most evil person could be denied eternal salvation.”

Reginaldo caught the use of the past tense in her description. “He doesn't hold to these beliefs anymore?” he asked.

“No, I think he finally came to the realization that there was no Philosopher's Stone of Salvation. There will always be those who have no hope of salvation.”

“You stuck with him all these years,” Reginaldo said to change the subject. “There is something to be said for that.”

Again, Ursula shrugged her shoulders and continued to look down the canal as she explained, “In the beginning, I had no choice. I was sent with him. I stayed because there came a time when I knew no other life than to serve and comfort him.” Ursula turned her head to squarely face Reginaldo as she finished this comment.

“I don't mean to pry, but do you remember anything of what caused your father to be banned from Venice and to be put under the penalty of death for his return?” Reginaldo then asked.

Reginaldo noted the slightest of twinges at the corner of Ursula's mouth at the question. She answered quickly, almost too quickly, “I remember nothing of it.” She said nothing else and looked off again down the canal and away from Reginaldo. Reginaldo, for his part, did not entirely believe her but he also did not know whether her reluctance or inability to talk of the matter meant the memory was too painful or upsetting for her or that she was trying to hide something. He decided to let her off the hook and not pursue the question further.

“It was a long time ago,” he offered.

Yes. . . . An eternity,” she replied.

Jacopo stood in the gondola, listening to the conversation between the two, while at the same time moving the craft's rear oar so that the gondola remained stationary, pressed against the steps at water's edge. Reginaldo could sense that Jacopo was ready to go and wishing that the conversation was over. He thanked Ursula for speaking with him and took his place in the front of the gondola, taking up the oar as Jacopo pushed the gondola away from the steps and into the canal.

* * *

As Reginaldo and Jacopo were making their way down the small canal, or rio , that had bordered on the water entrance to the Ca' Giustinian, Reginaldo asked the question that Jacopo had come to expect. It had been asked the first time Reginaldo had brought Jacopo along with him on an investigation and every time since then. It was asked this time, as well: what was Jacopo's first impression of what they had just experienced.

Ser Giustinian is, Jacopo responded, or had been, a man devoted to alchemy – someone who had spent his life deceiving others into believing that lead or any other substance could be turned into gold and that a formula existed for granting eternal life. He was a “trickster,” Jacopo concluded, and there would be no reason to believe that he was not being one now in his claim that he was in danger of being murdered. There was also his age, Jacopo added. Giustinian may believe his age to be no impediment to his health but his manner suggested that his age may be affecting his mental capacities. “And yet,” Jacopo said, “there was something about the way he talked about what happened so many years ago that was unsettling. As though there was something more to what happened and that his exile may not have been justified.”

“I had the same impression,” Reginaldo agreed. “I remember little of why he was sent away from Venice years ago but I do know this much from what I have heard over the years. The charge was negligent murder in the death of six persons, some rather influential. Ser Giustinian would not be alive today if the deaths had been other than accidental. As for his fear of the danger to his life now, I suppose someone might still harbor him ill will for what happened thirty-four years ago. As I said, there were some rather influential families who lost loved ones through his negligence.”

* * *

Over the following days, Reginaldo better acquainted himself with the circumstances leading to Giustinian's exile, accessing the records of the criminal proceedings from the City's archives. Reginaldo's occasional service as consultore to the Council of Ten, as well as his academic endeavors, made him well-known to those who worked at the Archives of the Republic of Venice . The documents he sought were quickly provided him. A note from Dinardi to the archives attesting that Reginaldo was working with Dinardi's office on official business allowed Reginaldo the additional privilege of removing the documents to his academy while he went through them.

The case was much as Reginaldo had remembered it but there was also much that he had not known. Alchemy was long past its heyday in Venice when Battista Giustinian took up its practice, if it had ever had a heyday there. At most, there might be three alchemists practicing in the city at any one time and those were often transplants to the city from the northern or eastern reaches of Europe where the practice was held in higher esteem. Venetians, Reginaldo reflected, were more focused on making fortunes out of trade and business than out of base metals. Their efforts were also considerably more successful than most alchemists. It came as something of a shock then when Giustinian returned from a year serving as a clerk to a diplomatic mission in Prague and eschewed family business pursuits in order to establish what he touted would be the most complete alchemy laboratory in all of Italy . He threw himself into the work, amassing an impressive collection of both laboratory equipment and texts on the subject.

Then came the fateful day when Giustinian announced to his wife and two children that he believed he had deciphered the highly symbolic and coded learning of the master alchemists that had gone before and who had left their knowledge in the form of writing or pictures for others to translate and put into application. He had produced a potion that would prolong life considerably, if not grant immortality, he told them.

As with so many marriages among the nobili in Venice , Battista Giustinian's marriage to Ambrosia Foscari had been an arranged one. It was true that some affection had grown between the two in the years of their marriage, particularly in respect of the care and upbringing of the three children of their union. But there was not the romantic love and devotion that was often found in marriages of those who did not marry because of the economic, political or social advantage that was expected to result. Ambrosia Giustinian had difficulty understanding or accepting her husband's passion for alchemy, particularly in light of the economic opportunities open to him as a member of the Giustinian family. He was, she believed in concert with her father, wasting the quite extensive dowry that had been presented him when the two married.

Another common aspect of the system of arranged marriages in Venice (and throughout Italy , for that matter), was that romance could be found outside the marriage, so long as it was discreet. Ambrosia was no different from other members of her class. She took her lover from the rich and powerful Contarini family. Had Ambrosia been from a lesser family, and had her lover not been tragically involved, the punishment meted out to Giustinian for the deaths of the two might have been tempered somewhat. This potion that would prolong life, or make one immortal, was too much temptation for Ambrosia and her friends as they engaged in a night of drinking, frivolity, and lovemaking at Ca' Giustinian while her husband was away. The group went into the laboratory, stole the potion that Giustinian had concocted and drank it. It had been great fun at first. They each drank in turn, making faces and grimacing from the taste, running through the laboratory proclaiming their eternal life, and laughing as they told one another how they suddenly looked as though they were ten years younger. This lasted for twenty minutes before the laughter and merrymaking turned to paroxysms of pain and, for all except two, death.

Reginaldo had forgotten about the two that had lived. It was believed that they had taken a smaller dose than the others. Or perhaps they had not imbibed the same amount of liquor as the others before partaking of the Elixir of Life. While the two lived, they were not able to tell anyone what had happened. They might as well have died with the others. It was as though they had become simple, helpless infants again, unable to talk and apparently unable to comprehend anything that was said to them. They sat and drooled all day and were incapable of taking care of their bodily functions. Their families had them put away in a local hospital for the insane where they never saw the outside world again. In fact, as Reginaldo discovered as he read through the records on the case, it was not until the second of the two had died that the Council of Ten had shown any inclination to end the exile of Giustinian. That had been seven years ago. Giustinian was not ready to return to his city at that time, however. That was most unfortunate, Reginaldo thought. Had he returned then, he would most likely still have his eyes.

In the beginning, Giustinian had denied any responsibility for the deaths and injuries. He claimed that his concoction had been tampered with – suggesting perhaps that poison had even been added -- but Giustinian lacked the means of proving it. It had been suggested by friends that were counseling him as he was being questioned by the vigili that he might be the only one with any real motive for poisoning his concoction in order to do away with his wife and her infidelities. It had come out during the investigation that his wife had announced to Giustinian and their two children that she was going to serve the elixir in place of champagne the next time she entertained. She was being sarcastic, Giustinian told the vigile who was questioning him, although the two children had apparently missed the sarcasm in their mother's voice. It was not long after this line of questioning, though, that Giustinian dropped his protestations about someone tampering with his elixir. He quietly accepted that his negligence in preparing a liquid that could kill so readily and his failure in keeping it out of the hands of those who did not understand its danger was the cause of the deaths and injuries. He also quickly agreed to the punishment that was proposed: banishment from the city. He asked only for one concession, a concession which was surprisingly granted. His daughter was allowed to accompany him. He did not ask that his only surviving son go with him, preferring, instead to have him raised by the boy's maternal grandfather.

It had, in fact, been Ursula, the daughter, who had found the mother. Ursula loved the laboratory and would sit for hours watching the liquid in the flasks boil or smoke or metals be placed in the furnace to be removed as molten liquid. Her father explained what it was he was doing as he worked, calling her, his “apprentice.” When her father was away from the house, she liked to sneak down to the laboratory to read the different books on alchemy that he had collected and try to decipher the secrets of what it was he was doing. That was where she was headed the night she discovered the bodies of her mother and her house guests. She took the deaths very hard, originally not speaking of the matter for days afterwards.

* * *

It was nine days after Reginaldo had met with Giustinian, and three days after he had finished with the records from the archives, that a vigile from Teodoro Dinardi's office appeared at Reginaldo's academy with news that Giustinian had been injured in an attempt on his life. Dinardi was asking that Reginaldo come to assist in the investigation, the vigile told Reginaldo, but he also reported that Giustinian was objecting to any need for Reginaldo's assistance.

“It was nothing to concern yourself with,” Giustinian insisted gruffly when Reginaldo arrived. “Merely some thugs wishing to take advantage of a blind man.”

“Yet, how is it that a blind man is out walking alone on the calli of Venice ?” Reginaldo asked.

“I was not alone. I told you that. I was accompanied by one of the servants.”

“Who conveniently saw fit to leave you momentarily at the moment you were attacked.”

“Preposterous !” Giustinian retorted. “It was necessary for him to enter the shop to pick up something for the house.”

“And was the time and place of his choosing ? Or yours ?” Reginaldo let the question hang in the air as Giustinian considered its imputation.

Giustinian had been set upon by two unidentified persons as he had been left standing on a narrow calle outside the shop of a silversmith. In the short time he had been in Venice , he had commissioned a painter to do his portrait but insisted that he be painted in the artist's studio rather than at the palace where he was staying. Either his daughter or one of the servants led him to his sitting each day. It was on the return trip from the studio that he had been attacked, the servant having gone into the silversmith's shop to check on a candelabra which was being repaired. Giustinian had fought back as best as he could, being cut by the knife of one of the assailants in the process and dumped into the nearby canal. He had been fished out of the canal before he could drown. The bleeding from the cut was stopped but Giustinian had been left in a weakened state from the loss of blood and the pain from the wound. The stitches placed to close the wound by the barber and surgeon likewise caused him much pain and discomfort. Reginaldo found Giustinian both pale and irritable.

“So you do not believe that this attempt on your life is the danger you warned me of when we first met ?” Reginaldo finally asked after a moment's silence.

“No.”

“But you still believe that someone desires your death?”

“It is inevitable,” Giustinian answered matter-of-factly.

“If Venice is a danger to you, then why did you ask to return ?”

“I did not ask to return. I agreed to return. Seven years ago, the Council of Ten agreed to lift my exile but I did not ask to be permitted to return then.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Reginaldo said again, “but why return if you believe you will die ?”

“Because it is inevitable,” Giustinian answered. “Inevitable that I be murdered. If that is so, then I prefer it to be here.”

“Tell me about the Elixir of Life,” Reginaldo changed the subject.

“There is no Elixir,” Giustinian answered, a hint of resignation in his voice. “I wasted my life in pursuit of something that did not exist.”

“Yet, you found it before,” Reginaldo insisted. “You had successfully created the Elixir in your laboratory. Here. In this very house.”

“I deluded myself into believing I had succeeded,” Giustinian answered. “And numerous innocent persons paid with their lives.”

“How could you be deceived?” Reginaldo asked. “The process had proceeded exactly as it should have, did it not – Nigredo (black) to Albedo (white) to Citrinnitas (yellow) and finally the Rubedo (red)?”

“You know something of alchemy?” Giustinian asked. The progression of colors described by Reginaldo was what the alchemical texts described as the progression of the transmutation of whatever base substance was being used into what the alchemists referred to as the Philosopher's Stone.

“Did you create the Elixir of Life in your laboratory?” Reginaldo asked again.

If Giustinian had possessed eyes, he might have been looking inward, Reginaldo thought. A new look crossed Giustinian's face as he seemed to think back on a period thirty-four years previously.

“I did,” he finally answered. “It happened exactly as you said. Nigredo . . . Albedo . . . Citrinnitas . . . Rubedo . I had solved one of the great mysteries of our age.”

“And yet, you didn't take the elixir yourself.”

“Who wants to live forever?” Giustinian answered. “No wait,” he paused a second. “Who wants to live forever alone? That's why I didn't take it. I wanted to be sure I could repeat my success, that I could bestow this gift of immortality on others I cared to spend my days with.”

“But your wife took the potion before you could make more and it killed her.” This was a statement and not a question by Reginaldo. “It didn't give everlasting life, it ended it. And somewhat abruptly.”

“That's true,” Giustinian admitted. “My wonder drug was a killer.” Reginaldo let this admission hang in the air for an extended period of time before speaking again.

“Ser Giustinian, you know your Elixir of Life did not kill your wife and her guests. Do not the followers of Hermes say, ‘There is but one Medicine to give life. Once the Medicine is created nothing should be added to it for to do so will corrupt it and what you seek will become something else.' I repeat, you did not kill your wife and guests. You were just willing to take the blame.”

“I did kill them. I assure you,” he answered.

“No,” Reginaldo replied. “Something had been added to your Elixir, a poison to pollute it. Your wife and her friends had not finished all the elixir in the flask in which you had stored it. The vigili found a purplish black liquid in the flask, not a red one. The Rubedo was gone.”

“We've talked enough of this matter,” was Giustinian's response. “I want you to leave.” He turned his face away from Reginaldo and refused to say more. Reginaldo stood for a moment at the bedside of the man. After deciding that Giustinian was, in fact, finished with their conversation, he turned and left.

* * *

Three days later, Giustinian was dead, found smothered to death in his bed. Reginaldo was led to the top floor of Ca' Giustinian to the bedroom where the body had been discovered. Dinardi was standing with the Jewish doctor who normally was called in when an unusual and suspicious death occurred in the City, his religion identifiable by the yellow bareta prominently worn on his head or the yellow circle affixed to the front of his togata . They stood to the side of the room while a young priest stood at the bed. Too late to administer the last rites to Giustinian, the priest was still busy praying over the body, sprinkling it with holy water and anointing it with oil in hopes of easing Giustinian's passage to the next world.

The death was not natural, Dottor Zapudin told Reginaldo, nor accidental. One of the velvet pillows from a settee in the room had been used to smother Giustinian, the pillow left sitting on the dead man's face when one of the servants of the house came in to check on him. The servant suffered quite a shock when she removed the pillow and saw Giustinian's unblinking stare.

“They didn't try to hide the murder,” Dinardi observed. “Or they were frightened away and didn't think to remove the pillow,” Reginaldo replied. Zapudin continued with his observations. Considerable pressure was used to hold the pillow in place until Giustinian stopped breathing, the doctor said. The face was marked from the cloth rubbing and pressing against it and threads from the pillow were found in the victim's mouth, indicating that at some point in the attack he awoke to discover what was happening. As he struggled and gasped for breath, the pressure on the pillow forced it part-way into his mouth. Reginaldo asked whether Giustinian had the strength to put up much of a struggle. He was still weak from the attack on him, the doctor said. One must assume he was sleeping when the attacker entered the room and put the pillow over his face, he opined, and that he woke in the middle of the attack. Adrenaline, fear and confusion at what was happening might have given him some strength to resist, he continued, but the knife wound would have limited the use of his right arm and made any struggle very painful. In his weakened condition, the struggle would not have lasted long.

“Do we have any suspects?” This question was directed at Dinardi.

“Oddly enough, we have no shortage of suspects,” Dinardi answered. “His daughter was hosting everyone who might be considered an enemy of Ser Giustinian as a result of what happened thirty-four years ago. They had gathered on the bottom floor of the house so as to not disturb her father.”

“That's quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say,” Reginaldo said.

“The daughter says you talked to her about her father's worries about his safety and she had been standing outside the door listening when you were here last and suggested to her father that maybe the attack on him was not a simple robbery. She thought it might help to get together those who might have designs on getting even with her father and try to convince them that Ser Giustinian was not a threat to them.”

“It didn't seem to work,” Reginaldo observed. “It only seems to have given the killer access to the man so they could kill him. Who was here?”

“Her grandfather – her mother's father, her brother, three family members of others killed by Ser Giustinian thirty-four years ago. We've not allowed anyone to leave. Another had stormed from the house after arriving. We have sent someone to return him to the house. I thought you might want to talk to them.”

“Just three of the family members? All told, there were six people killed and two others who were left without the use of their minds for the rest of their lives.”

“Some said they were not interested in attending, either because they had put the matter behind them after all these years or because not enough time had gone by for them to be able to face the pain again. Others of the victims have no one left in the City to uphold their honor,” Dinardi told him.

Reginaldo and Dinardi left Dottor Zapudin in the room to clean up and gather his medical instruments while they went down two flights of stairs to meet with those who had gathered in the house.

* * *

“I had no feelings for my father, one way or another,” Ursula's brother told Reginaldo. “I was only five when he left and soon forgot him.”

When Reginaldo and Dinardi had entered the warehouse area on the bottom floor of the palace, introductions and greetings were exchanged with the group that had come to the house at the request of Ursula Giustinian. It had not been necessary for Reginaldo to be introduced to everyone there. Some he knew from one civic duty or another or from the regular meetings of the Grand Council. Ursula's lone surviving brother was one such person, although Reginaldo knew him not as Francesco Giustinian but as Francesco Foscari. Reginaldo did not ask, but just assumed, that the name had been changed sometime after his mother's death and his father's exile. It was very likely that he had been formally adopted by his grandfather, less to save Francesco the embarrassment of being associated with the name Giustinian and the blot that was placed on it by his father's crime than to benefit from the high esteem that was placed on the Foscari family name by Francesco's grandfather. Knowing what he did of the grandfather, it was easy for Reginaldo to see the line of reasoning behind the adoption: the boy's mother had been a Foscari; he had Foscari blood in him; what better thing for the boy than to also bear the Foscari name. Unfortunately, Reginaldo thought as he took Francesco aside to speak with him, the Giustinian blood in him had diluted the effect of the Foscari blood. He was by no means a dotard but he was also considered by many in polite Venetian society to be a disappointment to the Foscari name. Some even went so far as to joke that the elder Foscari clung to life so long and tenaciously because he could not bear the thought of Francesco becoming the head of the Foscari family. The elder Foscari much hoped to outlive Francesco and let the Foscari name take its chances with one of Francesco's three sons.

In looks, Reginaldo could not help but observe that Francesco bore a striking resemblance to his father. And, since there was only the slightest similarity between Francesco and Ursula, Reginaldo assumed that Ursula must have inherited her looks from the Foscari side of the family. Indeed, it was as these thoughts were going through his head that Reginaldo realized why he had felt so strongly that he had seen Ursula, or her likeness, before when he spoke with her on his first visit to Ca' Giustinian. Adorning the walls of the grand Foscari palazzo , which Reginaldo had visited on many occasions, was a painting that very easily could have been Ursula Giustinian as she existed today. Knowing that the artist that had created that painting had been dead some twenty years, it must have been Ursula's grandmother who sat for the portrait.

“So why would you be asked here?” Reginaldo asked.

“Curious, I guess,” was Francesco's answer. “Not so much to see my father because I really don't think of him in that way. I wanted to see my sister. It's strange. I have no real memories of my father but I have carried vague memories of my sister with me all these years.”

There was little of substance bearing on the death of Giustinian that Francesco had to say. He had arrived by gondola and been let into the warehouse area by one of the servants. It was the first time he had been in the building since he had gone to live with his grandfather. He was led into the room which had been the laboratory so many years before where he found Ursula and his grandfather and one of the other guests. The rest arrived shortly afterwards. They talked, they argued, they sometimes said nothing until they were interrupted by the servant who had found the body and had come in a state of panic looking for Ursula.

* * *

“I left the room once,” Giovanni Carlino told Reginaldo. Of the six who had died on that evening thirty-four years ago, only one had not been a member of the city's nobili . That person had been the wife of Giovanni Carlino. Carlino had not been wealthy then, nor was he wealthy now. A member of the cittadini , he had been working in his father's small printing shop when his wife had died. In the ensuing years, his father had also passed away and he had taken over the shop. The press was not a large one, printing small runs of translations of Roman and Greek classics, an occasional manual on marriage or child-rearing that were widely popular in Italy and throughout Europe and an even less occasional travel guide.

The records of the archives that Reginaldo had read had little to say about Giovanni Carlino. He was, it would seem from the records, the typical example of the Venetian cuckold. He was not killed in the same incident as his wife for the simple reason that she was at Ca' Giustinian with her lover, a married member of the city's patrician class who had given in at some point to the allure of Ivana Carlito and found himself unable to free himself from the entanglement. Senora Carlito was a beautiful woman with an unsatisfied sexual appetite and time on her hands as her husband spent long hours at the family business.

Of the six who had accepted the invitation of Ursula Giustinian to meet, Giovanni Carlino had, at first glance, the least cause for being there. He was, after all, the wronged party and the incident at Ca' Giustinian had only served to prove the unfaithfulness of his wife and to bring down on him the ridicule of family and friends for his failure to take control of his marriage. As Reginaldo had soon found out, things were not as Reginaldo would have anticipated. A weak man, Reginaldo concluded, Carlino had come to blame himself for his wife's infidelity and otherwise ignored the wrong she had done him. As he was quick to point out to Reginaldo, though, he lost more than a faithful wife. She was with child at the time of her death, probably in the third month of her pregnancy but no later than the beginning of her fourth month. It had not occurred to Carlino then, and it did not occur to him now, that he might not have been the father of the baby his wife was carrying at the time of her death. He saw only what he wanted to see and he did not care to dwell on the fact that he and his wife had gone through seven years of marriage without conceiving a child. And even though he blamed himself for his wife's infidelity, he also blamed Giustinian to some degree for what Giustinian had taken from him.

“Why did you leave?” Reginaldo asked. “Where did you go?”

“I followed Ser Florini out, to try to get him to return.” Florini, Reginaldo had been told, was the one person who had left Ca' Giustinian shortly after his arrival in an extreme state of agitation. “It was either incredibly stupid or incredibly insensitive,” Carlino continued. “Bringing everyone together in the room where our families had died.” Carlino had caught up with Ser Florini outside the palace on the calle that passed on the back side of the building. Florini refused to return with Carlino. “I don't know how long I was gone,” Carlino finished with the explanation for his absence from the others. “Five minutes. Maybe more. Maybe less. The door to the house had not closed all the way behind me. I let myself in and returned to the room where the others had all gathered.” No one had seen him re-enter the palace or knew whether he went straight back to the gathering or not, he admitted when asked by Reginaldo.

* * *

Roderigo Catalano had been the pride of his father – the oldest son, smart, handsome, a head for business. The future good name and success of the Catalano family was assured. Thus, it almost killed Roderigo's father when Roderigo succumbed to the Elixir of Life that had been so carelessly concocted by Battista Giustinian thirty-four years ago.

It wasn't that the father thought less of his other son, Filipo. Filipo was also handsome and smart, but perhaps more bookish and less talented in the ways of the merchant than his brother Roderigo. Besides, the boys' father had other plans for Filipo. Filipo was his father's offering, his gift of thanks to God who had miraculously saved the Catalano family from financial ruin and delivered the fleet of merchant ships safely to Venice long after they were due and as the moneylenders were preparing to call in the loans the father had taken out to fund the venture. Under the circumstances, some Venetians of means would promise to build a church if God would intercede on their behalf. Others would promise to do great charitable works. Some would simply resolve to live better lives. Others would offer up a son or daughter (and sometimes themselves) to serving the church directly as a priest or member of a convent. Filipo's father was among this latter class of Venetians. Filipo had been promised to the priesthood.

It was Filipo, in fact, who next met with Reginaldo. Filipo's father had passed away five years previously, leaving the Catalano family to the younger son.

“My father thirsted for revenge, especially in the early years,” Filipo explained. “He prayed to the Virgin Mary to deliver Ser Giustinian back to Venice or its territories in violation of the edict banning him, so that the death penalty that was to be imposed on his return could be handed out. And when the Holy Mother failed to answer his prayers, he paid for others to hunt him down to bring him back. It was all to no avail.”

“And you?” Reginaldo asked, “how do you feel about the man who has been held responsible for your brother's death.”

Filipo shrugged his shoulders and answered matter-of-factly. “After thirty-four years, the Catalano family honor no longer requires revenge.” Filipo paused for a second and then looked Reginaldo directly in the eye. “If it ever did.”

The two stood facing each other in silence, Reginaldo attempting to judge whether there was sincerity in what Filipo was saying.

“How so?” Reginaldo finally broke the silence.

“At most, Ser Giustinian was merely careless,” Filipo explained. “But those who suffered from that carelessness were equally to blame for what happened, if not more so. At most, Ser Giustinian made it possible for others to unwittingly cause their own deaths. But they acted without his permission in drinking his potion, even without his knowledge. There was also, knowing my brother and his occasional vices, probably something mean-spirited in what he and his friends were doing that night.” Filipo paused again as he gave thought to the words he wanted to speak next. “And, I think the law was too harsh in the punishment it handed out. Ser Giustinian was not punished for what he did but for who he did it to.”

Reginaldo sensed no dissembling in what was being said. Perhaps, he thought, it was the broader education in the classics that Filipo had received and the less-myopic vision focused on the family business pursuits that accounted for such a forgiving attitude. Or perhaps it was a sense that the death of his brother had been Filipo's own salvation since it had delivered him from a life serving the church. In any event, something had softened his heart.

“So why did you come tonight?” Reginaldo asked.

“Because his daughter asked,” Filipo replied, “and for the right reasons. I wanted her to know that the Catalano family posed no threat to her father.”

* * *

“I wanted to look down in those sockets that once held eyes and know that the bastard was suffering, even if the suffering was not related to what had been done to my daughter.” Ser Nigro was well-known for his hot temper and plain speech on the floor of the Grand Council. Those traits were not something that was affected for the meetings of that governing body. It was ingrained in Nigro's personality. His daughter had been the last to die of those who had drank Giustinian's potion, having lived the final twenty-seven years of her life insensitive to the world around her. Or, if she could sense her surroundings, she was unable to convey that to those who cared for her. She had finally died seven years ago.

Reginaldo wondered, though, how much Ser Nigro had actually suffered. Once the doctors told Nigro that it was unlikely his daughter would ever recover her senses absent intervention of some miracle, she was put away in one of the charitable institutions for those who could not care for themselves. This had been within a week or two of the fateful night when she joined with Ursula Giustinian in drinking Ursula's husband's elixir. For Piero Nigro, where his daughter was concerned, out of sight was out of mind. Relieved from the cost of the care for his daughter once she was placed in the institution – except for a donation to the mendicant order running the hospital – the daughter became a nonentity to Nigro. This indifference to his child, it was rumored, had cost Nigro his wife, as well, who was unable to understand how her husband could so easily abandon someone who had been a part of his family for eighteen years. After only a few years of her husband's indifference, Nigro's wife took up a separate household and ultimately, through the influence of her family, obtained an annulment of her marriage of twenty-two years. For the wife, the price paid for the annulment was dedicating her life (and the dowry which she was able to recover from her husband) to the sisterhood. This was not a difficult decision for her, however. She simply joined the convent operating the hospital which cared for her daughter.

All this was well known throughout the nobili and influential cittadini of the city. And to some degree, Nigro's reputation suffered in the community as a result. He, however, was unable to see that it was his abandonment of his daughter and his driving his wife from his home which was responsible for the dark cloud which hung over him from the date of his daughter's death. Nigro was convinced that Ser Giustinian was responsible for everything which followed, and he was not reluctant to tell anyone who would listen to him, even now thirty-four years after his daughter had died. Gone were the political and economic connections he had so carefully cultivated in the marriage contract he had arranged for his daughter. With her death, the marriage did not take place and the connections were lost. His wife was driven inconsolate and unreasonable by the daughter's death, leaving Nigro and taking with her the not unsubstantial dowry which Nigro had to turn over to her as her own property. To compound the problem, or so Nigro saw it, his payment of the dowry could not have come at a worst time. He had to forego one investment opportunity that would have set him up for life and had to borrow money at an exorbitant rate of interest. When he was unable to pay back the loan, he was forced to sell the family palace and move into something less appropriate for someone of his status. While he could not adequately explain how, his inability to recover financially over the intervening years were also laid at the feet of Ser Giustinian.

Piero Nigro was a very bitter man, Reginaldo reflected, and that bitterness seemed only to have increased in the years that had passed since the death of his daughter. Was the bitterness enough to lead him to murder the person he blamed for his misfortune? Nigro denied it but there was a short period of time, he admitted, in which he had left the others – to relieve himself, he said – but he saw no one while he was gone from the room. According to Dinardi, he had not been seen by any of the three servants who were also present in the house at the time.

* * *

There were only two others for Reginaldo to interview: Matteo Foscari, the grandfather of Ursula Giustinian, and Ser Florini. Florini had not been returned to Ca' Giustinian, Dinardi's men apparently having trouble locating him since he left the palace. Of all those who were present, Ser Foscari was the most prominent and should have been the first interviewed had Reginaldo been concerned with the conventions of polite society. It was just for the reason that polite society would not have kept Foscari waiting to be interviewed that Reginaldo did so. He still was not ready to meet with the man.

Instead, he asked Dinardi to bring the servant who had discovered Giustinian's dead body. She had given a complete statement to Dinardi and his men when they had arrived. Reginaldo had been apprised completely of her statement. Reginaldo did not anticipate learning anything new from her about her discovery and would not have asked for her except that she asked one of the vigile if she could speak with Reginaldo. She would not say more about why she needed to do this, other than to say that she had something to share with him. Reginaldo was curious about what the woman would have to say that was intended only for his ears.

The vigile led the servant into Reginaldo's presence. They spoke briefly about her discovery of the body, as well as the last time she had seen Giustinian alive and who she might have seen coming and going through the house during the evening while Ursula Giustinian hosted her meeting in the room that had once been used as Giustinian's alchemy laboratory. The servant held a book in her hand, although Reginaldo could not see the title.

“Is that for me?” Reginaldo asked. The woman nodded her head and handed the book to Reginaldo. The book was worn and well-used. Around the book was tied a green ribbon, holding it shut or holding it together. Reginaldo could not tell which.

The servant explained how it was her responsibility to care for Ser Giustinian since he had arrived at the palace. When he discovered that she could read, he had her sit with him for an hour or two each day, usually in the evenings, and read to him from books on alchemy he had her bring up from the laboratory.

“This book,” she told Reginaldo, pointing to the book in his hands which he had yet to open, “he had me bring up on the first day I read to him but he never had me read from it. He insisted I should not open it but should keep it in my room and only turn it over to you should something happen to Ser Giustinian.”

“Did he say why I should have this book?” Reginaldo asked. “Did he say I should read it?”

“No. He just said I should give it to you and that it would help explain what he had been pursuing all his life but which he had come to realize was impossible to obtain,” was her answer.

The title to the book was difficult to read, the only word that could be made out being the name “Hermes.” Reginaldo removed the ribbon to read the title page but as the pressure holding the book together was released and it expanded, it became evident that a bookmark had been placed in the book. Reginaldo opened the book to the page indicated where he began to read.

The Alchemist's Ten Truths

Battista Giustinian

I set down these truths for those who follow. These are the principles I have discerned from my lifetime of study.

Principle One: All matter has perfection in it. This perfection we call Gold. This is so whether the matter is animal, vegetable or metal.

Principle Two: All matter strives to realize the perfection of Gold within it but, through one accident or another, the perfection is not achieved. It is like water spilt upon a table. Water does not change what it encounters but is instead changed by it. If the water passes through salt, it takes the taste of salt. The nature of matter, thus, takes the form of what it encounters and passes through. If what it encounters is pure, so will the substance be pure. If what is encountered is impure, so will the substance be impure.

Principle Three: Once matter becomes impure, it cannot be made pure simply by mixing the impure substance with the pure. To do this will only diminish the purity of the pure, thereby rendering it impure and, while it might have a positive effect on the impure substance, the substance still retains its impurity. Know also this truth: that which is in nature may be perfect, but nature lacks the power to purify that which is impure. Only by our artificial effort, and not by the forces of nature may the impure be made pure. The dry becomes humid and the cold becomes hot only by some intermediate substance and outside force. This intermediate substance is the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life.

Principle Four: While nature lacks the power on its own to purify that which is impure, it is through the application of nature by artificial means – the application of fire in the properly constructed furnace – which brings purity to impure matter in the same way that the earth's inner fire produces those things that are perfect in nature. We can only overcome nature by the application of Nature and when Nature meets with nature, nature is transformed into Nature.

Principle Five: All matter is generated from the two base substances, quicksilver and sulphur. The more quicksilver present, the greater the purity. By contrast, it is sulphur which makes matter impure. To become pure, a substance must be purged of its sulphur. This is done through four stages: solution, ablution, reduction and fixation.

Principle Six: These four stages must be strictly followed according to the ways of the Masters for purification only comes through the unification of the body with the soul in the first stage, the love of the spirit by the body in the second, the proper hardening in the third to sustain the fire needed for the transformation and the pain to be experienced in the hardening and softening of the substance being worked to make the substance capable of transformation.

Principle Seven: Like a physician who divides man into body, spirit and soul, so the Alchemist divides the Philosopher's Stone. The spirit ties together the body and soul, being as it were the chariot which carries the soul throughout the body.

Principle Eight: The Stone can cure all illness, physical as well as of mind. It is the soul which permits the impure (or sick) to be transformed into the pure (or healthy). The soul cannot have its transforming effect without the spirit to carry it throughout the body. Thus, to transform the body – to cure the illnesses of the body and mind – one must enable the spirit to carry the soul throughout the body. All persons contain soul, spirit and body but it is only through the Stone that the spirit may carry the soul through the body. Otherwise, illness of one sort or another and death is inevitable.

Principle Nine: Carefully observe three rules in working to transform the impure into the pure. First, know what you are working with and prepare the right substance accordingly. Second, do your work continuously without interruption that can dilute the effect of the substance or retard the progress of your work. Third, be patient and allow your artificial application of Nature to work its course. The transformation of the impure to the pure can only be accomplished in the time set by Nature.

Principle Ten: God has made this all possible through his great gift to us of the mind by which we are allowed to discover the secrets that He has left for us to discover. Because he has given us the means to discover his secrets, that which He has created it is possible for man to act upon. There may be difficulty in making the Stone, but God, in His true greatness, has given us the means to do it. Praise God in all you do.

Reginaldo read through the pages, quickly once and more slowly a second time. As he started his second reading, he stopped to look up at the servant. “Thank you,” he told her, “you may go now.” When he finished the second reading, he refolded the pages and returned them to the book. Turning to the title page, he saw that it was a collection of writings on alchemy published by one of the more notable printers in Venice : the House of Cicero Press. What was of particular significance to Reginaldo was not the publisher of the book as much as the relationship of the publishing company to certain persons then gathered in the palazzo. Reginaldo did not re-secure the book with the green ribbon. He folded the ribbon in thirds and placed it inside at the title page. Before closing the book, he also noted the year of publication. The book had been in print for twenty-three years.

“I am ready to speak with Ser Foscari,” he told Dinardi.

“And Ser Florini?” Dinardi asked.

“No, that won't be necessary,” Reginaldo answered. “He had nothing to do with Ser Giustinian's death. But then, neither did Ser Foscari.”

* * *

Ser Foscari was at least seventy-seven years of age and walked with short painful steps, his arthritic knees having reached the point of being almost crippling. His torso was stooped and he seemed to lean to one side. His wrists were reed-thin and his hands gnarled. The mind was still sharp, Reginaldo knew, very sharp. But even if Reginaldo had not already decided on Giustinian's killer, he still would not have considered the elder Foscai a suspect. The man might have possessed the strength to plunge a dagger into Giustinian if he used both hands. Giustinian was not killed by that means, though, and as the doctor indicated, Giustinian had put up some fight when he awakened to find himself being smothered. Foscari could not have overcome such a fight, even given Giustinian's weakened state. To that also had to be added that Foscari's knees would not have allowed him to climb up and then down two flights of stairs without some assistance.

Foscari was not happy with being left waiting while Reginaldo spoke with the others, especially a mere servant of the house.

“When can I leave?” he demanded of Dinardi. Dinardi had stood in the room with Reginaldo as he spoke with each person. In his dark blue togata signifying his position with the Avogadori di Commun , Dinardi would have been the person in charge of the investigation being carried out. Foscari knew better, however, being well aware of the services Reginaldo provided to the Council of Ten. Membership in the Council rotated frequently among the more respected nobili of the city and Foscari had served numerous terms on it. He had also served as a member of the pregadi , which sat in attendance along with the doge whenever the Council convened. Reginaldo had served as consultore and addressed the Council on more than one occasion while Foscari was present. Still, although Foscari knew that it was Reginaldo who was in charge of the investigation, Foscari chose to ignore him, attempting to return slight for slight.

“We are almost finished and everyone will be free to leave then,” Reginaldo told him.

“Why did you come here this evening?” Reginaldo asked, deciding to immediately get to the point.

Foscari stood silently for a full half minute, the silence filling the room with anticipation for the response he would give.

“I came to kill Battista Giustinian,” he finally replied. “Although it appears someone beat me to it.”

“And how were you proposing to do that?” Reginaldo asked, playing along with what he knew to be a deception. Some people, Reginaldo knew, were never able to understand the limitations that came with age, seeing themselves in their own minds as of an age without physical or mental limitations. Foscari, however, was not such a person and never had been. He knew that he lacked the ability to kill Giustinian himself. Equally as important, had Foscari wanted Giustinian dead, it would have only been a matter of paying the right person the money necessary to carry out such a deed. For one fleeting second, Reginaldo considered whether that might in fact have been what had happened – Foscari could have paid someone to enter the house and smother Giustinian while everyone was distracted with Ursula's meeting, even affording Foscari the chance to be present while Giustinian was being murdered. The book the servant had given Reginaldo told a different story, however. Foscari's response only confirmed for Reginaldo what he knew to be the plot of the play unfolding before him.

“Something would have presented itself,” Foscari answered. The thought of this feeble old man setting himself on Giustinian, even a weakened Giustinian, brought a smile to Dinardi's face. He turned away so the old gentleman could not see his reaction.

“I think not, Ser Foscari,” Reginaldo said somewhat brusquely in response to Foscari's comment. “Do not lie to us.”

Foscari was not accustomed to being treated in such a manner, his face turning red and the blue veins on his cheeks and nose becoming more prominent as well. He started to sputter his response, got control of himself, and then answered, “It is as I say.”

“Do not be deceived by Ser Foscari's words,” Reginaldo was addressing himself to Dinardi. “He came not to see Giustinian buried but to see him praised. Is that not correct, my friend?”

“Preposterous!” Foscari answered. “He murdered my daughter. Why would I come to praise him, as you say?”

“Because he kept a secret for thirty-four years. A Foscari family secret. But, if you did not come to see your former son-in-law, perhaps you came to see his daughter. Your granddaughter. You do not impress me as a man who would abandon his daughter's child to one who killed his daughter while taking the other offspring under his wing.”

Foscari said nothing.

“Perhaps we should move this discussion to the other room where everyone can benefit from it,” Reginaldo suggested. He stepped towards the door that led out of the former laboratory and into the warehouse area, holding out his arm to indicate that Foscari should go before him.

“Signori . . . and Signorina, I have nearly finished my inquiry,” Reginaldo began as they all gathered together in the middle of the room. “I wish you to stay, though, for a short while longer in case I need to sort through some minor matters. Otherwise, signori, you are free to go, for I have decided that none of you are responsible for the death of Battista Giustinian.”

The curiosity got the better of those present and no one moved for either entrance to the house.

“Let me begin with what happened in this house thirty-four years ago,” Reginaldo started. “For too many years, Battista Giustinian has stood falsely accused, although it was his own choice to accept the judgment of the Council of Ten and its punishment. He could have fought the charges and likely would have succeeded in exonerating himself.”

“And why wouldn't he, if he was innocent as you say?” Piero Nigro demanded. Nigro, Reginaldo knew, would find the truth the hardest to take. After thirty-four years, the blame he had heaped on Giustinian would be held for naught, and if Giustinian was not responsible for Nigro's thirty-four years of misery and misfortune, then Ser Nigro would have to face up to the unpleasant truth that he may be responsible for his own fate. Yet, there would still be others for Nigro to blame before the day was out.

“That I do not know. He might have done it out of love. He might have been paid off to do it. I suspect it was a combination of the two, perhaps more the former than the latter. There is one here who could answer that question for us. He has been supporting Ser Giustinian all these years, or at least has been contributing to his support. Perhaps, Ser Foscari, you can tell us how it was that you came to pay so much money to Ser Giustinian all these years.”

“What you suggest is preposterous!” Foscari answered indignantly. “Why would I support the man who was responsible for my daughter's death?”

“Signorina Giustinian, perhaps you can tell us how your father supported himself and you all these years since he was exiled from Venice ,” Reginaldo addressed himself to Ursula Giustinian, who had remained in the warehouse area while Reginaldo was interviewing the others gathered there. He had spoken briefly and privately with the woman before speaking with the others and had asked her to remain. She had stood silently apart from the others, undisturbed and apparently lost in her grief over the death of her father. Reginaldo's question seemed to startle her and she hesitated before answering.

“We had a private benefactor,” she finally answered. “From Venice , I believe, but father never told me where the money came from. There were also royalties from a book which had been published, and occasionally he was paid for rendering services as an alchemist or in other odd jobs.”

“Is this the book?” Reginaldo continued with his questioning, holding up the book the servant had brought him earlier. Ursula started to reach for the book but Reginaldo dropped the hand holding it back to his side.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Ser Foscari, is the book familiar to you? I would think it would be, published as it is by the House of Cicero Press. An odd book to be published by a printing house specializing in classical Roman and Greek works and also one not likely to turn a very big profit for printer or author. Of course, not everyone here may realize that the Foscari Press and House of Cicero are one and the same.”

Foscari stood silent, his face turning red with anger. Reginaldo did not relent, however.

“More puzzling is why the printer and seller of classical works would publish a modern work on alchemy by an author who, just twelve years previously, had killed the owner's favorite daughter.”

“This is personal business,” Foscari spat out, his ire with what was being said very evident. He seemed to be getting madder with each word. “Foscari family business. These . . . these . . . people have no interest in this.” Foscari seemed to struggle with how to describe the others gathered in the room.

“Everyone here has an interest in what happened thirty-four years ago,” Reginaldo countered. “In truth,” he continued, “it would have been very easy to say that you have been providing support all these years to your granddaughter here who had been exiled along with her father. Under those circumstances, the man responsible for killing your daughter was only the unintended beneficiary of your largesse.” Reginaldo paused again and looked from Foscari to Ursula Giustinian before proceeding. “It would have been easy for you to say that but you didn't. You didn't because that was not the motivating force behind your actions.”

“Stop!” Foscari screamed, the words coming out as a high-pitched squeal. “Enough of this, I am leaving.” He turned and started shuffling to the canal-side entrance to the warehouse.

“Ser,” Reginaldo called after him. “As I said at the beginning, you are free to leave but your leaving will not stop the truth from being told here tonight.”

Foscari turned to face Reginaldo, neither continuing towards the door nor returning to the group. “Yes, I have come to realize that now. Since there is nothing I can do to stop you from saying what you will, there is no reason to stay here.”

“Perhaps you can correct any errors in my statements,” Reginaldo suggested, but he knew that in the end, the man's dignity would impel him to leave.

“Truths or half-truths, it doesn't matter, Ser Morosini,” Foscari replied. “Both will have the effect of damning the Foscari name, and for no real purpose.” Foscari turned again and continued to the door at the rear of the building. He failed to shut the door completely behind himself. The last that was heard of him was his calling out to the gondolier who had brought Foscari to the meeting.

Reginaldo stood silently for a minute, reflecting on what had happened. Perhaps, he thought to himself, he had been unfair to Foscari – had it really been necessary to impugn his motive for making payments to Battista Giustinian all those years in order to reveal who killed Giustinian that evening? Reginaldo's approach, he knew, had a twofold basis. While he had the murder's resolution worked out in his mind, he was still largely thinking out loud and testing his hypothesis from observing the reaction of those listening. Of greater impact, however, was that, as he saw it, Reginaldo was telling a story and you do not begin the story in the middle. The story of the murder of Battista Giustinian had its origin in the deaths that had occurred thirty-four years previously and of other events in the intervening years. And there was a third reason, as well, Reginaldo realized. Giustinian wanted the story told this way.

“So why did Ser Foscari make the payments all those years to Giustinian? Was he being blackmailed?” Dinardi brought Reginaldo out of his reverie and back to the task of revealing the killer.

“No, there was no blackmail involved,” Reginaldo answered. “It is my belief he did it to protect the Foscari name and reputation. There may have been other motives, as well. A desire to provide for his granddaughter, atoning for some of the guilt from letting his son-in-law take the blame for the deaths of his daughter and those that died with her. For Battista Giustinian was not the one who was responsible. Someone had tempered with his concoction, and a potion otherwise harmless – who knows, maybe Ser Giustinian had solved the secret of eternal or prolonged life with his Elixir of Life – was turned into a deadly poison.”

The room was silent for a moment as Reginaldo allowed what he had revealed to sink in. It was Dinardi who first put the pieces together and first broke the silence.

“It was Giustinian's daughter, Ursula, who mixed poison with the potion prepared by her father,” he stated.

Ursula started to protest the accusation but then stopped, standing silently on the edge of the men gathered together.

“Yes,” Reginaldo answered, “it was the signorina here.” Reginaldo nodded in the direction of Ursula.

Caught up in the revelation, Filipo Catalano asked the question that had occurred to the others who had been gathered together at Ursula Giustinian's invitation. “Why would Ser Giustinian take the blame for the action then?”

“Simple, but perhaps not so obvious,” Reginaldo continued. “Giustinian was acting out of love. . . and a belief that his alchemy held the cure for the sickness he saw.”

“But that still doesn't answer the question, why Giustinian allowed himself to be blamed for the deaths of his wife and others if his daughter had tampered with the potion he had prepared,” Dinardi pointed out. “How could she have known that the resulting substance would be deadly or that someone would drink it and die? The deaths were accidental from her standpoint.” He stopped for a second to consider the matter and, then, as the answer occurred to him, he continued, “Unless, there was no accident. But she was so young.”

“So young, but perhaps not too young, is that not correct, Signorina?” Reginaldo directed his question to Ursula. Ursula continued to stand mute, seemingly unfazed by the accusations and meeting the look of Reginaldo whenever he chose to look her in the eye while speaking.

“Perhaps it is too much to ask you to answer such a question, Signorina, for it will necessitate your implicating yourself in the deaths of your mother and her friends. What is more important, perhaps, is that your father believed you had known what you were doing: he believed you knew what to add to your father's Elixir of Life to render it fatal, you knew your mother would be drinking it, and you knew that she would die as a result. And, certainly, the evidence was there to suggest it. You were your father's constant companion in the laboratory. You knew the secrets as well as he did. You were ten and very intelligent for your age. You had heard your mother say she was going to drink the potion when her friends were over. When your father left and your mother invited her friends over, it was very easy for you to sneak down to the laboratory, add the poison to your father's potion and wait for your mother to do herself in. But we're not worried about what happened thirty-four years ago, except as it has some bearing on what occurred here tonight.”

Reginaldo stopped to catch his breath and to think through what he would say next. Reginaldo knew who had killed Giustinian, but proving it would be another matter. He only hoped that the killer would confess as he laid out what happened. However, he was very uncertain that he would succeed. Not only was he dealing with an intelligent killer but one who had no feeling.

The attention of the persons gathered in the middle of the room had been focused so intently on Reginaldo that no one saw the door leading to the canal creak as it opened.

“You were right about my granddaughter.” Ser Foscari had returned. “She was responsible for the death of my daughter – her mother – and the others with her that fateful evening. And it was no accident. Had her father not intervened, the truth would have been out that she had murdered her mother and her mother's friends by substituting poison for her father's potion. And there were deeper concerns about the child. Her infant brother had died mysteriously while sleeping one night. The doctor had been unable to explain it, only to say that the child had stopped breathing as he was called to God.

“I did not care much for Battista as the husband of my daughter,” Foscari continued. “He wasted too much time on that stupid alchemy and did not spend enough effort on becoming a shrewd and successful businessman, but it was his belief in his alchemy and what it could achieve that gave him hope for his daughter, my granddaughter.”

Ursula had stood immobile while Reginaldo had been talking, silent but glaring, as he spun out his conclusions of what had happened thirty-four years previously. On Foscari's return she first showed surprise and then became visibly agitated. Her agitation increased as Foscari spoke.

“You know nothing of Papa . . . either before he left Venice or today. You hated him and turned my mother against him. And then you poisoned Papa against me, the two of you conspiring to imprison me for life.”

The old man stepped towards his granddaughter, his hand reaching out towards her. She stepped back.

“Don't come near me,” she said in a voice that was near a shriek, its sound echoing off the walls of the large room. “You don't care for me. Now. Or before. Don't think I don't know what is important to you.”

The old man dropped his hand and stepped back. There was truth to what Ursula had said, perhaps not the whole truth but at least a part of it. Foscari had not been concerned with protecting her thirty-four years ago, and he had worried about what the effect would be on the Foscari name. But Ursula was a girl then and would grow into a woman. As a woman, she would not suffer from the taint of the family name – whether it be Giustinian or Foscari – or at least not once she was married off. There was, however, her brother to consider who would carry the shame throughout his life. What Ursula did not understand, what she might never come to know, was that the decision to send her away with her father had not been Foscari's alone. It was only after lengthy discussions between Foscari, Giustinian's father, and Giustinian, that a decision had been made. Giustinian, only a minor participant in those discussions, had acceded to the decision of his father and father-in-law. He accepted the decision neither reluctantly nor with enthusiasm. He accepted it as the command of his elders and as the only real alternative available.

Protecting the family name aside, there was actual feeling by Foscari for his granddaughter, even though he had not seen her for over thirty years. He had wanted to see her since she had returned, had wanted to make some type of amends to her for the years of separation. A cynical person would have said that these were no more than the feelings of an old man fearing the approach of death and desiring to make himself more acceptable in the eyes of God. Foscari did not analyze his motives. He merely felt an urge to repair the distance that had grown between him and his granddaughter.

But Ursula knew none of this and would not have cared if she did. Reginaldo likewise did not know it personally but he knew enough of the families involved and the ways of the Venetians to be almost certain that the exile of Battista Giustinian had resulted from discussions between the elder Giustinian and Foscari. There was one difference, Reginaldo believed, between the way Foscari remembered it, or more precisely, wanted it to be, and the way Reginaldo now came to understand it. Giustinian had accepted his fate thirty-four years ago less out of obedience to his elders and more out of guilt for not seeing his daughter's blemish, his love and devotion towards her, and a hope that his alchemy could transform the sickness that everyone saw as eating away at Ursula.

“I cannot speak for Ser Foscari, but your father was your protector and, he thought, the key to your salvation.” Reginaldo told Ursula. Until now, he had been holding the book the servant had delivered to him at his side. He now took it between both hands and opened it to the pages that had been marked by Giustinian. “His hope for you,” Reginaldo continued, “is found on these pages. Perhaps your grandfather only sought to have you removed from Venice , to be forgotten once gone, but your father had a more noble desire. He sought an answer in the Philosopher's Stone, not to transform one matter into something more precious but to transform the very essence of the person, to restore the soul, to reach the inner spirit and set it back on the right track.”

Ursula snorted, interrupting Reginaldo. “My father was my jailer, not my protector. And as for your Philosopher's Stone, he wasted his life, and my own, as well, in seeking to transform something that was not in need of transformation. If what you say about the driving force behind his life is true, then his life was an abysmal failure. Look at me – where is the transformation?”

“He wasn't successful,” Reginaldo concluded simply. “He knew that what he set out to do could not be done. As he told me, he came to realize that not every substance could be changed or made what it cannot be. Your father had believed that the inner self was a substance controlled by its own balance and, therefore, controllable if one could only unlock the secrets of the Philosopher's Stone as it applied to the substance of the soul.

“But then he lost hope. Or maybe he came to a different understanding of what God intended. Some persons were simply created bad and if God made something that way, maybe man was incapable of finding a way to change it.”

“Then he was a heretic!” the younger Foscari declared. “Man's fate was not pre-ordained. We have a free will.”

“This isn't a debate on faith,” Reginaldo began, but was interrupted by Ursula.

“So you are saying that my father believed that I was ‘corrupted,' ‘twisted,' incapable of salvation?” she asked.

“He came to believe that he could not make you into something you were not intended to be. That is all,” Reginaldo answered.

“And what exactly is it that I was intended to be?” Ursula demanded.

“A soulless person. Not that you don't know right from wrong or that you cannot control your behavior,” Reginaldo answered, not attempting to lessen the blow of what he had to say. “What you lack – what your father believed you lacked – was the inner spark that makes one care, that leads one to want to do right and to feel guilt when you don't. You are feral – living only to survive, self-absorbed in your primacy, and not feeling remorse at what you have done to maintain that primacy.” It was as these thoughts were given voice by Reginaldo that he realized that Giustinian's abandonment of his belief in alchemy may have been premature. His failure with his daughter had not been a failure to transform a base substance into something valuable and pure. His failure was the result of there not being anything there to transform in the first place.

“And that is why I killed my father?” Ursula asked. “To survive?” The questions contained no hint of denial of the act and were asked rather matter-of-factly.

“Did you kill your father?” Reginaldo answered with one of his own.

“Now there's a conundrum,” Ursula said. “If I admit to killing my father, then I am not so ‘self-absorbed' in my survival, as you would have it, and I would have had no reason to kill him in the first case. On the other hand, if I deny it, then I am acting in accordance with my character and had reason for the killing, even though that reason might have been the product of the defect of my being.”

“The law cares little for why one kills,” Reginaldo answered. “It is the fact of the taking of another's life that is important. ‘Why' is usually only a means to prove that one did kill when there is absent any direct evidence of such killing. True, there are some circumstances that may mitigate the punishment, and self-defense may excuse a killing, but these are exceptions.”

“Then a defect in one's being will not excuse one from acting in accord with that defect?” Ursula countered. “If my being directs my actions, how can I be punished for what I am predestined to do?”

“You lack emotion, not free will,” Reginaldo countered.

“Then I exercise my free will to not claim responsibility for my father's death. Your ‘law' will have to prove I was responsible for what happened to him.”

Reginaldo could not but help noting Ursula's choice of words. She did not disclaim the act of killing, merely responsibility for it, as though there was something to excuse her in what she did.

“I will give you one more chance to own up to killing your father,” Reginaldo said, “and perhaps in doing so, the law will show you some mercy.”

“I insist on proof,” Ursula insisted.

“Fine, then proof you shall have. Follow me.” Reginaldo turned and walked to the doorway leading to the inner courtyard of the palazzo. In single file, the group followed him through the courtyard, Ursula first, followed by the elder Foscari, then Ursula's brother, and the remainder of the group. They climbed the stairs to the piano nobile , crossed the large hall, and went up the inner flight of steps to the top floor where they soon found themselves assembled in the bedroom of Battista Giustinian. The body lay in peaceful repose on the bed, unclothed except for a sheet draped covering the body from the waist to the thighs, providing some modesty in death. The servant who had discovered the body was in the room, in the process of cleaning and preparing the body for its presentment to the public before being carried by gondola to the cemetery. Once the arrangements were made for the funeral mass and burial, the body would be moved to the portego of the piano nobile where it could be observed by all those who had an interest in paying their respects to the deceased. A rather small crowd very likely, Reginaldo thought to himself.

On entry of Reginaldo and those following him, the servant covered the body more fully, the sheet pulled up to cover all but the tops of Giustinian's shoulders and his feet. The toes pointed out. She made ready to go but was stopped by Reginaldo.

“Please stay for a moment,” Reginaldo told her. “You found the body,” Reginaldo said, a statement not a question.

“Yes,” she answered somewhat hesitantly, not sure why she was being questioned before the group assembled in the room.

“When was the last time you had seen him alive?” Reginaldo asked.

“I had to leave the house,” she said. “I came and told him I would be out for awhile but he was asleep. I made sure he was comfortable and then left the room and went on the mistress' errand.”

“And he was alive at that time? You are sure he was merely sleeping and not already dead?”

The corners of the servant's lips turned up in a small smile as she thought of the question before answering. “Yes, he was alive. He was sleeping on his back and when he sleeps on his back, he snores. Softly, never loud, but you can definitely hear it.”

“And when was it that the mistress,” at this point Reginaldo pointed to Ursula, “sent you on your errand?”

“I don't know the time,” was the reply. The servant was silent for a second before continuing. “It was before these others arrived. I had asked Signorina Giustinian if she meant for me to leave just then. There was no one else in the house to allow the visitors in.”

“And what was the errand which was so important?”

“Shoes,” she answered.

“Shoes?” Reginaldo asked.

“I was sent to the cobbler's to have some shoes repaired. I waited while the cobbler did the work. Even so, I was not gone more than two hours. Probably closer to only an hour and a half.”

“Thank you,” Reginaldo answered. “Another stroke of the brush on the picture we are painting.” He faced the others but before beginning, he turned back towards the servant. “Thank you, you may leave if you desire, or stay, if you like.” As Reginaldo suspected, she had no interest in remaining in the room with those assembled there. She bowed slightly and left the room.

“Perhaps, you are right, Signorina, in gambling that there is not sufficient information for a tribunal to conclude that you have killed your father. Perhaps when we are finished here today, you will walk free. Nonetheless, I will lay out the facts which lead me to believe that you have killed your father,” Reginaldo began.

“First, there is the reason why. Did you covet what your father had? Had he abused you? The answer to those questions are both, no. Did you hate him? No, maybe ‘hate' is too strong a word. But ‘hate' is a different emotion than ‘loathe' or ‘despise.' And ‘abuse' is different from ‘mistreatment.' You have made clear that you believed your father mistreated you. He had been turned against you by your grandfather and went from being a loving parent to your jailer. You despised him for this but you were still reluctant to leave him. Why? Why would you stay with him all those years, after you had come of age and could just walk away from him?

“Two things kept you with him. First, you knew you could not return to Venice on your own. Whether or not your father had threatened to reveal what had happened thirty-four years ago should you leave him, you knew that Ser Foscari or your other grandfather would not allow you your freedom. Second, and more importantly, as much as you chafed at being so tied to your father, he protected you from what you had done. You killed him because he would no longer shield you. He came home to Venice because he had given up on transforming your soul. There was no elixir, no Philosopher's Stone that would save you. It was time to accept responsibility – responsibility for what had happened thirty-four years ago; for what had happened while you lived in exile; for what would be done to your father once he returned to Venice with you. You killed him because of the years of pent up frustration of being held prisoner by him, as you saw it. You killed him because he had betrayed you in agreeing with your grandfather to remove you from Venice . You killed him because he no longer protected you but was now a threat to you.”

Reginaldo reflected on the way that Ursula's life had been controlled by conflicting forces. She despised her father while living in exile with him but was helpless in leaving him. She needed his protection for her survival. When that exile ended, and she was free to find a life of her own, her father was a threat to her survival which had to be eliminated. The mind was a strange thing, Reginaldo reflected, and there was likely much more to sanity, to reality, or an absence of irrationality, than a balance of humors as Galen and the other ancient physicians had taught. He also did not believe that it was heresy to hold that it was not the way in which one stood in relation to God which accounted for how the workings of the mind controlled one's actions. Rather, it was the other way around. One's actions determined the contents of one's soul and how one stood in relation to God. He shared none of this with the group, however.

“You had the reason to kill your father,” Reginaldo continued. “The next question is whether you had the way and the means to do it.” A criminal act, Reginaldo believed, was the confluence of an ends, ways and means – an “end” or motive for committing the criminal act; a means, or physical ability to bring about the desired result; and a way, or plan that allowed the way to be implemented to bring about the desired end. A crime not subject to direct proof required discovering who had the ends, ways and means for committing the crime.

“Certainly, the means of the killing was available to you,” Reginaldo began again. “Your father was smothered, this pillow pressed against his face so that he could not breathe.” Reginaldo had moved to pick up the pillow that the doctor and Dinardi had identified as the murder weapon. “Your father was resting, sleeping, as you entered his room, picked up the pillow, and placed it over his mouth and nose. You are a strong woman and he was in a weakened state from the earlier attack. What little resistance he put up as he awoke was useless. You were able to overcome him. And, finally, you were alone with him in the house, knowing that your servant was out on an errand that would give you plenty of time to accomplish what needed to be done.”

“So I had the ability to kill him,” Ursula retorted. “So did everyone else in this room. And yet, you are willing to believe their pleas of innocence even though they had reason to see my father dead, as well.”

“That was where your plan got clever,” Reginaldo answered. “You brought these men here, you made sure that each one had an opportunity to be about the house alone. You wanted the authorities to focus their investigation on the group of suspects you had so conveniently gathered for them in hopes they would ignore the one person who had the greatest opportunity and reason for committing the murder.”

“That is your proof?” Ursula asked.

“That is my proof,” Reginaldo answered. There was no slip of the tongue by Ursula by which Reginaldo could trip her up, no plain and obvious piece of evidence that pointed to her. There was only conjecture, conjecture which would not be sufficient to convince a court of her guilt or to even convince the Council of Ten to take an interest in the case and to extract the evidence it needed by other, more painful means. Yet the pieces fit and Reginaldo was convinced that no other answer would be found to the death of Battista Giustinian. Ursula Giustinian would be free for the present and her father's death would go unpunished.

Epilogue

Perhaps it was the effects his age was beginning to have on his ability to think but the elder Foscari had not been convinced by Reginaldo's presentation or had forgotten it in the month that had intervened between the time he had stood in the Giustinian palazzo to see his granddaughter accused of her father's murder and the time the elder Foscari took her into his household. It was not long after that time that Francesco Foscari, formerly Francesco Giustinian, began to slowly waste away, as though something was eating at him from the inside. Within six months, he was dead. Dottor Zapudin was called on behalf of the Council of Ten to examine the body but was unable to draw any conclusions about the reason for the death. It could have been a cancer, he told Reginaldo, or it could have been the result of a slow and progressive poisoning. The elder Foscari had refused permission for an autopsy to be performed and still maintained significant influence with the Council of Ten that it would not override his refusal. The boy was dead, he said. That was all that mattered.

onetheless, Reginaldo found himself at the grand Foscari palazzo at the request of the Council of Ten to make, what Reginaldo knew would be, a perfunctory investigation into the questionable death of a person associated with that house. Two days following the interment of Francesco Foscari in the family mausoleum, Ursula Giustinian's body had been found floating in a small, dirty canal polluted with the waste from a nearby tannery on the island of Giudecca .

Dante Alighieri, The Purgatorio , Canto XXIII, lines 31-33.