The Mirror Thief(191)

Crivano watches his friend’s smooth face, intent in the orange light. He isn’t sure he believes Trist?o. He isn’t sure it matters anymore.

If the Council of Ten doesn’t know what ship you’ll use, Crivano says, why bother with the simulation of boarding? None will be watching to be deceived.

Trist?o’s hands fidget around the clay cylinder, although there is nothing more to arrange, no task left to accomplish. An additional precaution, he says. Sbirri will patrol the lagoon, and may see our lights. They will also be keeping careful record of vessels passing through the channel at San Nicolò. Once they learn the glassmakers have gone, they and the guild are likely to send assassins. I much prefer that those assassins be sent to Constantinople, not to Amsterdam.

Crivano is silent. Trist?o continues to bustle around his apparatus until this demonstration can’t help but seem asinine. Then he straightens, sighs, turns to meet Crivano’s gaze.

You’re lying, Crivano says.

Trist?o looks wounded. Not at all, he says. Why do you accuse me of this?

It’s a foolish risk you’ve planned, to no certain profit. As you’ve said, the sbirri are patrolling the lagoon. Why tarry, then, with elaborate charades that no one may see? Why not row headlong for Mestre?

Trist?o remains silent, moistens his lips with his tongue.

It’s not a charade you need, Crivano says. It’s a diversion. You need the Council of Ten to know what ship we’ll use. To have good reason to believe we’ve sailed on it.

The trabacolo, Trist?o says, is called the Lynceus. Its crew expects to sail for Trieste, of course, but for the right sum, I imagine they will go anywhere in the Adriatic. Any port you might wish.

Crivano stares at Trist?o. Then his eyes sink to the rush-strewn laboratory floor, tracing patterns in the matted carpet of dry stalks and coarse sand. A few specks move there: weevils, beetles, fleas, the tiny spiders that hunt them. Impossible from this height to tell which are which. Crivano could slide from his chair and come to rest among them, could spend the rest of his life watching their microscopic intrigues. In his very vastness he would be invisible: a peculiar new mountain.

The Church of Saint Jeremy rings the first bell; Saint Jerome echoes it a moment later, along with others. Crivano rises, walks past Trist?o to look out the west-facing windows. The sun-absented sky has turned an angry violet.

Even now, Crivano says, sbirri comb the streets for me. But the Council of Ten is ignorant of your involvement. Am I not right?

You are correct.

It knows nothing of Serena and his family? Nor of Obizzo?

The Council now seeks to arrest Serena. He is known to have had dealings with you. But he and his family are already in hiding—I sent them an alarm—and I believe they will reach the Cerberus safely. The Council knows of Obizzo, of course; it has sought him for years, due to his collusion in his brother’s escape. But it does not suspect that he works the canals of the city as a boatman.

And what of Perina? Do they know of Perina?

They do not.

You’re sure? I visited her at the convent. Perhaps they saw me.

You visited her at the senator’s behest. It is not suspicious.

I sent a linkboy to her last night, bearing a cryptic message.

I intercepted that linkboy. I replaced him with one in my own service. Your message will lead no one to her. Rest assured, Vettor, that among our present company you alone are hotly pursued.

Crivano falls silent. A solitary blue cloud darkens the air over the mountains, rushing forward on a terrible wind, changing shape as it approaches. For a moment it resembles a crawling thing crushed on a pane of dark glass; then it becomes a gob of spit, dripping from fine dyed satin. Then it simply looks like a cloud. Crivano is weary; he wants to sleep, un-goaded by dreams. I have no wish to go to Amsterdam, he says.

I thought not. We can put you aboard the Lynceus on our way to Mestre. You have money left from the haseki sultan?

Oh yes. Letters of advice.

If you like, Trist?o says, I can send my servants into the Ghetto to redeem them for precious stones. Jewels are safer, perhaps, than are your letters. And prices here are reasonably good.

You still haven’t answered my question. How can we be sure that the sbirri will follow me, and not you?

Trist?o steps closer, puts a warm hand on Crivano’s upper arm. This is difficult, my friend, he says. Circumstance compels me to charge you with a heavy task.

You’re going to tell them that I’m on the Lynceus.

They will not learn this, Trist?o whispers, until we are all aboard Obizzo’s boat. I know of informants whose eyes watch the Cannaregio Canal. As we depart, we shall take pains to ensure that those eyes fall upon us. After last night’s escapades, you surely will be recognized at once. Yet even with the most fleet of messengers at their disposal, even with the sturdiest of oarsmen, the sbirri will be unable to intercept us until we’ve reached the Lynceus, whereupon they will find our red-lanterned trabacolo racing for the open sea, and Obizzo’s sandolo cast adrift.

You’re exchanging boats, as well?

Of course. The Lynceus will have a shallow-drafted riverboat—a topo, this type is called—roped to its north side. If Fortune smiles, we will cross the lagoon at peak tide, passing over sandbars that will obstruct any who would apprehend us. But I do not think we will be pursued.

Because the sbirri will be chasing the Lynceus. They’ll be chasing me.