The Mirror Thief(193)

I would like you to have this, Trist?o says.

Crivano grimaces. No, he says. You are—you are far too generous, my friend. You paid so much.

I have no further use for it. I needed it to arrange my mind for the challenges I am soon to face, but now I am ready. And I cannot travel with it. Our passage through the Alps is it certain to result in its breakage. And if someone were to find it—the risk is too great, you see. Shipboard, however, it may travel safely. Take it, Vettor. Or tomorrow night I must cast it into the lagoon.

The talisman’s tilting plane catches the cracked stucco of the ceiling; the cracks sweep and jerk across its surface. Crivano shuts his eyes and pictures the strongbox of coins that paid for it: the bend in the drunken gondoliers’ oar. Very well, he says. I thank you.

He makes no move to take it. Trist?o holds it, a bemused look on his face, then sets it on the countertop. The mirror’s retreat feels like the snuffing of a light, the closing of a door: Crivano is both relieved and diminished by its departure. I shall have this wrapped securely for you, Trist?o says.

Yes, Crivano whispers. You’re very kind.

Are you all right, my friend?

Crivano’s arms shiver, as if he’s cold, though he is not cold. He sighs. I’m quite tired, he says. I should rest.

That is wise. Tomorrow will be difficult. And the many days to follow.

I would like to see Perina.

The words rise to Crivano’s throat with the timbre of a challenge—which, he supposes, they are. He and Trist?o watch each other in the darkening room. Firelight glints in their eyes. Their shadows move with the wind.

No doubt she is eager for your visit, Trist?o says. She has been concerned for your well-being, but unwilling to disturb your sleep.

If Trist?o knows the rest—the last secret, the one that would unravel Crivano completely—he gives no sign. Perhaps he has judged Crivano unraveled enough.

You will find her in the room beside your own, Trist?o says. Go to her now, my friend. Then sleep. Sleep soundly, with all my gratitude.

Crivano nods. He raises his left hand in salute, and turns toward the exit.

Trist?o’s voice comes again as he opens the door. Oh, Vettor, it calls. I took the liberty of extracting a tincture from your henbane.

Crivano stops, half-turned in the doorframe. My henbane, he says.

Yes. In your box of physic you had a very large quantity of what appeared to be biennial henbane. An alarming quantity. I think it is better not to travel with so great a measure of the raw plant, so I have made from it a tincture, which will be much easier to transport. When the extraction is complete, I will bottle it and put it among your things.

My things?

Your box of physic. Also, your trunk. If you need them, you will find them in the storeroom below. If you like, I can have them brought to your room.

A fresh chill settles on Crivano’s neck. When did my things arrive? he says.

I cannot be certain. A footman found them inside the water-gate last night, just after sundown. I assumed that you had them sent.

Crivano’s brow furrows, but the muscles of his face are too weak to hold the expression. Instead he smiles: an airy drunken smile, with no mirth in it. Yes, he says. Yes, I suppose I did.

In the darkening kitchen Crivano finds a tallow candle, lights it with a brand from the hearth: the mutton-fat smokes and sputters as a glow fills the room. The cheese and bread and apples the Jewess set out are greatly diminished; Obizzo must have eaten and retired. A pile of iron filings still blots the tabletop, casting a small shadow on the wood.

Three soft knocks bring Perina’s voice from behind her door: a vague sound, either an invitation to enter or a request to keep out. Crivano tries the latch. The portal swings open.

The air in the room is thick, trapped by shuttered windows, heavy with long-forgotten smells of home. Crivano stands in the entrance with his eyes closed—his mind reassembling the rooms and corridors of the great house in Nicosia, the house this girl was born too late to know—until he has adjusted to the darkness within.

Perina emerges from her blankets like a part-risen shade: a bare white arm from the brown wool, then a tonsured head. The girl watches Crivano as he closes the door, lights two candles atop a low trunk with the wick of his own. She does not speak.

A chair sits beside her bed; Crivano eases into it, puts his candle on a shelf fixed to the bedpost. Perina slides backward, sits up, takes hold of his hand. You are well? she says. Her voice is coarsened by snores. The rough tick of her mattress has left a gridded imprint on her cheek.

I survive, lady, Crivano says.

She smiles.

I am greatly in your debt, he tells her. You must know that. I endangered myself foolishly, and in the course of my rescue you were injured. That fact rests like a capstone upon me.

I was not so badly hurt, dottore. Trist?o must have told you.

Yes, Crivano says. He did. May I look?

Her large eyes grow larger in the dim. She does not answer, and she does not move. Wind rattles the shutters. The light falters as the candleflames dance.

Crivano grips the blanket’s edge. You were struck on this side, he says. Were you not?

She nods.

He lifts the cover just enough to examine the pale band of flesh beneath it. A violet quarter-moon darkens Perina’s swollen skin a palm’s-breadth below her half-hidden breast. Had the blow been lower, had it landed more squarely, she might be dead. As it is, she likely won’t think of the wound at all by the time another Sunday has passed. For once, Fortune has smiled.