The Mirror Thief(84)
He steps forward, opening a door to another storeroom, this one filled with dusty crates and casks. A lamp burns on a table in the room’s center, illuminating a small beechwood strongbox. Trist?o pulls a key from around his neck, unlocks it, and opens the lid.
It’s full of coins: silver ducats and gold sequins. Well over a thousand, to judge by its dimensions. Trist?o closes it, locks it, hands the key to Crivano. For the glassmaker, he says. Give it to him, please, and bring my mirror to me.
Crivano sets his half-eaten bread and sausage on the table, takes the key, and drapes it around his own neck. Then he takes hold of the box’s handles and tries to lift it. It won’t budge.
Tonight, Trist?o says, when you depart, you will have the assistance of Hugo and the footman. About my project they know nothing of import, and they can be trusted to be silent. I am very grateful to you for this errand, Vettor.
He bends, blows out the lamp.
Crivano gulps the last of his food as they hurry down the corridor. The lute and the theorbo are playing again; the candles in the great hall are being snuffed, and the Uranici are congregating in the dayroom. Come quickly, Trist?o says. There is a fellow here tonight to whom I have pledged to introduce you.
Most of the guests have gathered around the two musicians; they clap and shout encouragement as the players embark upon a fantasia that grows increasingly complex and harmonically improbable. The lutenist plays as if he has surplus fingers. Crivano can see the long neck of the theorbo nod with the rhythm, but the musicians themselves are hidden by the crowd.
Trist?o walks to the chamber’s opposite end, toward the row of breeze-sieving windows that opens onto the Grand Canal. Two men converse there; Crivano notes with displeasure that one is Lord Mocenigo. As they draw near, the noble’s vaguely cretinous face clarifies in the dim light, its expression aggrieved and conspiratorial. You now tell me, Crivano overhears him say, that you met no one in all of Frankfurt who successfully learned the Nolan’s so-called art of memory?
The other man, a tall and burly Sienese, seems unfazed by Mocenigo’s question, but he smiles with relief and gratitude when Trist?o and Crivano approach. Dottore de Nis! he says. As always, your arrival makes the rest of us seem even uglier than we are.
Mocenigo emits an irritated puff, stalks away. Messer Ciotti, Trist?o says, allow me to present Dottore Vettor Crivano, who has come recently from Bologna. Dottore Crivano, this is Messer Giovanni Battista Ciotti, who may be known to you already as the proprietor of Minerva, our city’s finest bookshop.
They exchange bows. Crivano has been in Ciotti’s shop; he heard of it even before he left Bologna, and made a point of visiting soon after he arrived. It’s very good, stocking many titles concerning secret knowledge that he’d hesitate to carry openly in the street. I’m pleased and honored to make your acquaintance, Crivano says.
Ciotti’s smiling response is lost in cheers. The lutenist has doubled time against the bass thrum of the theorbo, executing runs along his fretboard that Crivano’s ears can barely sort out. The end arrives with a daring flourish, and applause fills the room. As it fades, a distant bravo! sounds from a boat passing on the canal, and everyone laughs.
Guests stoop to congratulate the players, the crowd begins to part, and Crivano catches a glimpse of the lutenist, sheepishly eyeing his calloused fingers. Extraordinary, Crivano says. Who is he?
I have not seen him before, Trist?o says. He is quite adroit.
He’s a scholar from Pisa, Ciotti says. I imagine he learned to play from his famous father, who recently died, I’m sorry to say. He, good sirs, was a fine lutenist.
The Nolan is standing near the hearth now, conversing with the Paduan scholar who’s to introduce him; the German boy hovers nearby. Messer Ciotti, Trist?o breaks in, at our last encounter, I believe you mentioned to me your need for the services of a person able to read and understand the writing of the Arabs. Someone also capable of discretion. Do you still suffer from such a lack?
Ciotti seems surprised for a moment. I do, he says. An Arabic document has come into my possession, an esoteric manuscript, and I’ve recently had it translated. I would like to have this Latin rendering authenticated before I pay my translator the balance of what he is owed.
This man, Trist?o says, placing a hand on Crivano’s shoulder, speaks and writes the Arabic tongue with great proficiency. Also the languages of the Greeks and the Persians and the Ottoman Turks, the last of whom kept him prisoner for many years and came to rely upon his skills and experience as an interpreter. I think that perhaps, if he is willing, Dottore Crivano could be of great help to you in this matter.
Crivano and Ciotti look at each other. Then both speak at once, fall silent again, and smile awkwardly. I would consider it a privilege to assist, Crivano says. May I ask how lengthy is the manuscript in question?
Not long. Scarcely ten thousand Latin words.
Crivano nods, suddenly wary, as if he’s stepped among slip-nooses. It might require several hours, he says. I don’t suppose you’d permit me to remove the translation and the original manuscript from your shop?
Ciotti smiles. I might, he says, if I were the manuscript’s owner. But I am not.
He turns to Trist?o. Dottore de Nis, he says, when last we spoke, you suggested to me that this task might be compassed most quickly by a pair of translators working in concert. Do either of you know another scholar with a facility in Arabic?
Crivano looks at Ciotti, then at Trist?o, who’s watching them both intently, like a child who’s trapped a pair of scorpions in a jar. In fact, Trist?o says, I may know of such a man.