The Alchemist's Pursuit by Dave Duncan

porter, who carried the old man to his room. Between us we put him to bed. This was the worst rheumatic attack I had known Nostradamus to suffer, and it raised the horrible prospect that he might soon be unable to walk at all.
    By that time Fulgentio was giving Corrado a fencing lesson at the far end of the salone , to an accompaniment of massed jeering from the boy’s assembled siblings. Mama was watching with eyebrows at half-mast, because the sword is the weapon of either the gentleman or the gutter bravo, and she does not want any of her sons to have anything to do with it. I edged around to Giorgio.
    â€œThree saints?”
    â€œIt’s a tough one.” He scowled like a man caught out in his professional expertise. “Two saints are common enough. Or a gang of them hanging around on the outside of a church, fine. But exactly three—the church of San Trovaso is on the Rio San Gervaso e San Protasso. That’s the best I can think of.”
    â€œPossible. Keep thinking.” I couldn’t recall any grass around San Trovaso.
    I went back to the fencing lesson.
    â€œLet me revenge your shame,” I told Corrado, and took foil and mask from him. Then I went to guard against Fulgentio and got thoroughly whipped, suffering four hits in a row. My mind was on more serious things, you understand, and fortunately it came up with an answer in time to justify my inattention. I threw down my foil and tugged the mask off.
    â€œThe Piazza itself!” I told him. “The two columns on the Piazzetta? The saints on top are San Teodoro and San Marco, right? And the church of San Geminiano at the far end of the Piazza, facing the Basilica! That makes three.”
    Fulgentio was still protesting about grass as I dragged him and Giorgio downstairs. I had wrapped myself in my winter cloak and, needless to say, we wore our swords and daggers. We took an armful of torches, for the moon had already set behind the rooftops.
    Venice is built like an ants’ nest of narrow, twisting alleys and canals because of the wind—corners and turns slow down the gusts. But when we emerged onto the choppy Grand Canal, we took the full brunt of the storm, and rain had begun. Huddled in the felze with Fulgentio, I explained my reading of the quatrain.
    â€œIt’s really two statements. The first line tells you when, and that’s after a day that was once holy and now isn’t, at least not to us. Tomorrow is Saturday, which is the Jewish Sabbath. Our Christian holy day is Sunday, so we no longer keep Saturday as holy. Got that?”
    â€œThis’s still Friday.”
    â€œI know. The Jews start their days at sunset, so their Sabbath has begun.”
    â€œAnd we look for a friar, who is holy in firelight but murders in shadow?”
    â€œYou’re coming along nicely, lad. Yes. The second line tells us that three saints are watching where the man of blood will strike. May they help us!”
    â€œAmen!” Fulgentio said. “But what’s ‘blind vengeance’? Does that mean that we kill the wrong man?”
    I had no answer to that. “Let’s start by finding three saints and grass.”
    Giorgio rowed us across the Grand Canal and into lesser but more sheltered ways. We disembarked behind the Old Procuratie, and I told him to go home and help Mama pigeonhole the children. Fulgentio and I walked through the arch to the north side of the Piazza. The smaller Piazzetta, abutting the Grand Canal, is normally closed in the evening for the nobles’ broglio , but that night it was deserted. The great square itself was as bare, and the only lights came from torches. No one would dare light a bonfire on such a night, lest it burn down the Doges’ Palace. Hawkers, pedlars, musicians had vanished and merrymakers were in short supply.
    And so was grass. I had been hoping that some tableau might include turf, or there might be animal stalls with hay, for you can find almost