“Well,” the Maestro said in his cheerful medical voice. “We shall see how Alfeo’s first-aid skills are coming along. Any injuries other than your nose and arm?”

“My pride,” Vasco mumbled. So he was conscious, which was what the Maestro needed to know.

“I can’t treat that,” the Maestro said. “But lots of people get wounded there when they try to keep up with Alfeo.” It was extremely doubtful that his patient had meant it that way. “Alfeo, bring him-”

But I was already there at his elbow with a full glass of wine, raising Vasco enough to let him drink it. “Water and a bucket, master?” I said. “Honey? More wine?”

“Much more wine. You are learning. Fante, bring the scuttle!” As the startled Amedeo obeyed, the Maestro barked, “Without the logs, you fool!” He wanted it to catch the blood while he restored the flow to Vasco’s hand to see if the color returned, but he is accustomed to having me around, able to interpret incomplete orders correctly.

By that time, I was already going out the door. I ran along the salone to the kitchen, which was a madhouse of confusion, with eight or nine Angelis all shouting at the same time and running in eccentric circles. None of them seemed to notice that I was covered in blood. Even allowing for the love of high drama that Mama has nurtured in all her children, a single breakfast guest should not justify such turmoil, but I was too worried to tarry. I snatched up the things I needed and beat a hasty withdrawal back to the atelier.

I discovered that the Maestro had requisitioned Amedeo Bolognetti to assist him as he began stitching up Vasco’s tendons and blood vessels.

“I don’t need you,” he told me when I delivered the honey and wine and replaced the bloody scuttle with the bucket. “Go and make yourself respectable for company.”

More than happy to obey, I made a brief return visit to the riot in the kitchen for some water and then headed to my own room to clean up. As I stripped off, I realized that I was going to have some wonderfully colored bruises to impress Violetta. By tomorrow I would out-spot a leopard. I was still washing when Inquisitor Gritti walked in without knocking. He closed the door, seeming to ignore me as he strolled over to peer out the window.

“So this is the lover’s leap! One forgets how wonderful is youth.”

“All the more reason to enjoy it…Your Excellency.” I was not in a mood to be courteous if he wasn’t and walking in on a man when he has no clothes on is frowned upon in elevated circles.

He turned to look at me, his ruddy, weathered face expressionless. “Tell me what happened this morning.”

To anyone else, I would have retorted that I must report to my master first, but to try that on a state inquisitor would be ridiculous, so I gave him the story from the time we arrived at the Giudecca, verbatim. Not liking the way he was looking at me, as if assessing me for the torture chamber, I threw down my towel and reached for my shirt, the only silk one I own.

“If you are lying about falling downstairs, you went to considerable lengths to obtain supporting evidence.” He was not smiling, so I didn’t.

I didn’t deign to answer at all. I pulled on my white hose-like the shirt, the only silk ones I own. The Maestro’s idea of an adequate clothing allowance for an apprentice is ludicrous. In a city where anyone who matters goes around in funereal black, young males are expected to preen and strut like peacocks, and that is not easy on a soldo here and a soldo there. I was lacing my hose to my shirt when my tormentor spoke again.

“The vizio confirms that his wounds were caused by Guarini, not you.”

I could not let that one go past without comment. “I am distressed that you would even feel required to ask him, Your Excellency.” I donned my best britches, voluminous scarlet brocade.

“I question everything. The vizio is a very courageous young man.” Gritti stumped across to a chair and sat down.

“That’s interesting.” My best doublet is striped in blue and white, ornamented with acorn-shaped glass buttons, and cost me my entire clothing allowance for a year. I admired it in the mirror as I prepared to fasten my finely starched ruff around my neck.

“He accompanied you and your gondolier across the Canale della Giudecca early on a Sunday morning.”

I turned from peering in my mirror to stare at my tormentor. “That takes courage? Giorgio is a very competent boatman.”

The old scoundrel sneered. “But Angeli is devoted to Doctor Nostradamus and, no doubt, to the invaluable assistant without whom the old man would be virtually helpless. There would be almost no other traffic and you would be far enough from land that no spectator would be able to see what was happening in the gondola.”

This was starting to feel like a nightmare. “What could happen? Are you suggesting that Giorgio and I might have presented a danger to Filiberto Vasco?” Of course he was. Anything one says or does can be distorted into evidence of evil intent.

The old man sighed. “The Grazia girl is young and inclined to hysteria, so the vizio is the key witness to your use of black magic yesterday at Ca’ Sanudo. By silencing him, you could have overthrown the case against you.”

I tucked my hair into my bonnet. “With respect, Your Excellency, I believe that your labors with evil persons have given you a very biased opinion of humanity. Far from attempting to harm Vasco this morning, Giorgio and I did everything in our power to save him. Giorgio is not a young man and I feared he would kill himself, the way he was rowing.”

Gritti smiled, all snowy-bearded grandfather again. “A noble effort! Of course mere brawn is common enough. Brains are much rarer. I watched you in action, sier Alfeo. I admit I was impressed. Definitely it is time your services were placed at La Serenissima ’s disposal.”

So that was what yesterday’s excursion had been all about! Nothing appealed to me less than being a spy for the Council of Ten. “I am enormously flattered, Your-”

“December,” Gritti continued as if I had not spoken, “is the earliest we can get you into the Great Council.” He rose and strolled back toward the window. “We shall see you get elected to some minor post with a stipend-the Salt Commission, perhaps. Just enough to explain how you can afford to eat, but the covert remuneration will be substantial and the prospects dazzling.”

“Your Excellency, I am bound to the good doctor. He is too old to train another assistant. While your offer-”

The inquisitor grunted and turned to frown at me. “I suppose we can tolerate him for a year or so. He will have to retire soon, and I could tell you within fifty ducats how much gold he has stashed away in that secret drawer in the couch. Your work for him will give you a good excuse to-”

“Your Excellency, I thank you for-”

“You would, of course,” the inquisitor said coldly, “first have to be cleared of suspicion of witchcraft and attempted murder.”

“Attempted what?”

He smiled, but no child would want a grandfather who smiled like that. “Just this morning you bled Vasco several times, I understand. Barbers and doctors hesitate to bleed patients who have already lost significant amounts of blood, but you, having no medical qualifications at all, felt free to bleed this noble man who had been wounded while attempting to rescue you from an assailant.”

He was goading me, trying to frighten me. He was doing very well.

“I was trying to save his hand. Ask any doctor-”

“You would save his hand at the cost of his life? Of course a hand on its own cannot testify before the tribunal. If you had felt genuine concern for the vizio ’s welfare and survival, you would have found someone to treat him in Giudecca.” The inquisitor’s eyes shone with a cold, ophidian gleam.

“I offered to take him to the Convent of San Benedetto, messer. I urged him to go there, but he refused. It was he who insisted on returning to Ca’ Barbolano.”