The Mirror Thief(166)

Anzolo is moving across the room, a full plate in one hand, a goblet in the other. His Friulian serving-girls stand awkwardly aside. Are you good sirs quite content? he asks two men seated at the parlor’s opposite end. And you, sirs? Is everything to your liking? This latter query is directed to the three men at the next table: he’s showing Crivano where the sbirri are. Eight, then. The plate appears before him. Enjoy, dottore, Anzolo says. Be cautious of the little bones.

Lunardo waits for Crivano to begin eating. Crivano has no appetite, but lifts his spoon anyway, feigning as much hunger as he can manage. Baked turbot, with a crust of crumbs and cheese. Rice porridge dotted with small grapes.

If you did not know the brothers Morosini prior to two nights ago, Lunardo asks, what brought you to their home?

Crivano chews very slowly before answering. I believe the Morosini often host scholars, he says. I am a scholar.

They invited you?

I was invited, yes.

Lunardo seems amused by this—by everything under the sun. The ill-matched rings on his fingers, Crivano now understands, once belonged to other men: men who now rot in prisons, or fill ossuaries, or pollute the lagoon with their corpses. The heavy silver pendant around his neck is in the shape of a key. Not functional, probably. No way to know what it means, if anything. Crivano recalls the key inked on his own chest, the emblem of his orta. The girl saw it last night. Has she told anyone?

What went on at the Morosini house two nights ago, dottore?

You know this already, I’m sure.

I do, Lunardo says. But I would like you to tell me.

A lecture. By a friar from Campania.

What was the friar’s name?

I don’t remember his name. He is called—and calls himself—the Nolan.

What did he speak of in this lecture?

A bone pricks Crivano’s gums. He scrapes it along his teeth with his tongue to strip the sweet white flesh, then pushes it between his pursed lips, plucks it away with his fingers. Mirrors, he says. He spoke of mirrors.

And what did this Nolan have to say about mirrors, dottore?

Crivano lifts his goblet and sips. What little I do recall, he says, you could not possibly comprehend.

Lunardo laughs, shaking his head ruefully. Then he leans forward. Last night, he says, Brother Giordano Bruno, known to you as the Nolan, was taken into custody by the local tribunal of the Inquisition, and detained in order to answer very serious charges of heresy. If you are unable to explain to me what the Nolan said, dottore, then you had best prepare yourself to relate it to the tribunal, because you are all but certain to be called before them. Until then, you are not to leave the city under any circumstances. Do you understand?

For a moment Crivano is bewildered. Then he struggles mightily to keep the relief from his face. The Inquisition? he says. They arrested the Nolan?

That is what I said, dottore.

Crivano’s eyes water; his diaphragm quakes. Subtly he pricks the heel of his right hand with his knife to distract himself, to stave off the gathering hilarity. Heresy! he thinks. The overbearing little fool must be ecstatic!

But surely this is a trap. It must be, even if what this man says is true. Eight sbirri to question a solitary witness in such a trifling matter? Some other unspoken concern is afoot. Good fellow, Crivano says, I assure you I can report no heresy committed by the Nolan. Obscurity? Yes. Fallacy? Again, guilty. But not heresy.

Lunardo nods. I see, he says. Tell me about his lecture, dottore.

It was, as I said, obscure. And, at times, false.

You have a particular interest in mirrors, don’t you?

Crivano forces anger into his eyes to blot out the fear, willing his gall-bladder to spill forth its contents. I would not say so, he says. I don’t believe I have a great number of particular interests. My interests, like those of any true scholar, are universal.

You were in Murano yesterday, Lunardo says. In the Serena family glassworks.

Crivano takes a bite of fish, an impatient sip of wine.

What were you doing there?

What does one do in a glassworks, sirrah? I was buying glass.

Glass, dottore? Or a mirror?

Mirrors, as you may have noted, are often made of glass.

The Serena family made a mirror for you?

Crivano’s pulse flutters in his neck, like a small bird trapped in a flue; he hopes his ruff is high enough to hide it. He shifts in his chair and opens his legs, intending to avoid hitting his knee on the underside of the table when he lifts his ankle to draw the stiletto. No, he says. The Serena family made the frame. A craftsman at the Motta shop made the mirror. Alegreto Verzelin, he’s called.

Describe this man to me, dottore. This Verzelin.

Tall, Crivano says. Slight. Unkempt. Quite mad, I should judge. A sickness is upon him which causes him to produce a great deal of phlegm, much as a rabid animal does. In my time as a physician I have never before seen its likeness. Why do you ask?

When did you last see Maestro Verzelin?

Crivano looks at the tabletop, tapping the wood with his fingertips, counting backward. Four nights ago, it was, he says. I approved the work he’d done, and I gave it to the Serena craftsmen to be completed.

You haven’t spoken with Maestro Verzelin since then?

I didn’t speak with him then. I only saw him. He seemed badly troubled by the symptoms of his sickness. When I tried to engage him he hastened away. When I sought him in the streets I did not find him.

I should very much like to see the mirror these craftsmen made for you, dottore.