The Mirror Thief(170)

As he’s navigating a constricted bend, looking over his shoulder, a strong arm snakes from a doorway and clamps hold of his elbow. He pulls away, fights to raise his stick, then notes the turban and caftan. Stop, Narkis says. Come this way. Quickly.

Algae-slick steps fall away to the right. Crivano has passed them six times today, probably. He failed to remark them at all until nearly sundown, and even then he took them for an ancient water-gate which once opened onto a canal long since filled with mud and silt. Now, as he struggles to retain his balance against Narkis’s impatient tug, he sees that it’s the entrance to a sottoportego, leading to a small high-walled corte. At bright noonday this passage would be dim; at dusk it’s midnight-black for most of its length. On the lowest step, some small creature has left a lump of feces, now crowded with glossy black flies; they scatter as Narkis and Crivano rush by, shooting straight up, slowing as they rise, fading in all directions like sparks from a fire.

Narkis whispers as he hurries Crivano forward, speaking Turkish with his old elegance and felicity. You have been discovered, Tarjuman effendi, he says.

Crivano’s sputtered response is in the local tongue; his agitated brain won’t find the Turkish words. I know that, damn you, he says. I’ve had sbirri at my heels since the morning. I’ve only just now managed to get word to Obizzo.

Obizzo?

The mirrormaker.

Narkis freezes, as if turned to stone. Then he claps a hand to Crivano’s chest. That business at the church with the linkboys? he says. That is what that was? That is how you sent your message? Are you mad? What if the constables intercept them?

Crivano closes his eyes, takes a long breath—remembering his other life: the view of the sultan’s palace from Galata, laughing janissary faces around a campfire, the texture of a silk caftan against his skin, a cradlesong an Albanian girl once sang for him—and when he speaks again, the old language comes. Do you take me for a fool? he says. I was careful. The boys know nothing. One will set the true messenger in motion.

Whom?

My innkeeper.

This man can be trusted? You’re sure? How do you know?

Of course I’m sure, Crivano says, but now he doesn’t feel sure. Could Anzolo’s performance this morning have been for his benefit, not Lunardo’s? But no: an innkeeper who cooperated with sbirri couldn’t stay in business very long. Could he?

I left a note in my room, Crivano continues, where it won’t be found. The note tells the innkeeper how to find Obizzo.

How?

Obizzo is a gondolier in the Rialto. He has scars on his arms from the furnaces. The gondoliers all know one another. You can always find one, if he wants to be found.

What message did you send?

The one you told me to send, Narkis. In two days, he’s to row to the lagoon west of San Giacomo en Palude under cover of darkness, and look for an anchored trabacolo showing two red lanterns. That is all.

Crivano can barely make out the shape of Narkis’s head against the blue light from the corte; it’s motionless for a long time. Loud muffled voices come from behind them, but no boots scuffle on the steps, not yet. Come, Narkis says, and presses on.

Crivano’s boot drags through a puddle; the odor of the sea rises with the splash. You have done well, Narkis says. Our project may not be completely destroyed.

I don’t know how the sbirri discovered me. They want me to think it has to do with a heretic who’s been arrested, but I don’t believe that.

It is the mirrormaker, Narkis says. The one you killed.

Verzelin?

They have found his remains. They washed up on the Lido yesterday morning. He must have drifted quite far. The gulls showed where his body had come to rest. The flesh had been badly disturbed by various creatures, but the constables knew who it had been in life from a ring that it wore: a glass ring, bearing a false black pearl. You should have removed that, I suppose.

Crivano stops. The skin of his face is numb, as if blasted by an icy wind. He shakes his head. Verzelin wore no rings; Crivano would have noticed them as he bound the dead man’s hands. Surely he would have. You’re quite certain, he says, that the corpse is Verzelin’s?

I can only repeat what I have heard. The mirrormakers’ guild has declared that the corpse belongs to the man you murdered. Prevalent opinion is that he suffered despair due to his sickness and drowned himself. Although there is some doubt that, in his infirm condition, he could have tied certain knots. Also, no boats are missing from Murano. This is difficult to explain.

They’re going to accuse me.

I think it is likely that they will do so, yes. They suspect a larger conspiracy.

What should I do?

You should stay away from the glassmaker and the mirrormaker whom you have recruited until they have safely escaped. You should avoid arrest until they are gone. If the constables arrest you, they will torture you, and you will confess. Everyone does.

But what—

Crivano’s voice is suddenly harsh in the tight space: a stranger’s voice. His clawed hands gather the folds of Narkis’s caftan.

—should I do?

Narkis is still for a moment. Then he sighs. I do not know, Tarjuman effendi, he says. They are hunting me as well. The constables came to the fondaco this afternoon. I fled through a window and escaped along the rooftops.

Crivano’s grip loosens. The sbirri saw them both at Ciotti’s shop; of course they’d be looking for Narkis too. Is all lost, then? he says. Who will arrange the escape of the craftsmen? We ourselves can do nothing now.