With a short laugh Crivano wakes himself, then sits open-eyed in the breath-warm darkness, trying to recall what in his dream so amused him.
It was quite late last night when he left the Morosini house. Still, he now he feels entirely restored, scornful of more slumber. He kicks his blankets aside, rises to stretch, withdraws the chamberpot from beneath the bed.
As he’s pissing, he notes a dim indigo sliver of sky between the closed shutters and wonders at the hour. In his memory the Nolan’s voice persists—odd, since Crivano granted the lecture but a modicum of attention. In Cecco’s commentary on Sacrobosco, we read of the demon Floron, who can be apprehended in a steel mirror by means of certain invocations. So spoke the Nolan. Or did he? Could this still be the dream-voice of Crivano’s imagination, limpeting fast to whatever daylit surface will hold it? He can’t be sure.
Ten bells ring from San Aponal as he lights the lamp, fills the basin, splashes his face and neck. In half an hour the sun will be up. He’s to present himself at Ciotti’s shop by the stroke of twelve: plenty of time for a stroll through the Rialto, an inspection of the new bridge. Last night his passage into sleep was hampered by anxieties over the day’s strange events—Trist?o’s insistent introduction to Ciotti, and the unexpected emergence of the girl Perina before that—but this morning these concerns seem distant, as if stifled by some antic reassurance received in his dreams. Crivano feels vigorous and reckless, like a vessel running before the wind.
Among the wise Egyptians, the mirror evokes Hathor the Cow, she who rings the sky as the Milky Way, the Earth as the Nile. The comparable Greek figure, of course, is Amphitrite. The Nolan spoke last night for perhaps two-thirds of an hour. It seemed longer. Crivano might have followed more closely had he not been so unnerved by Trist?o’s conduct: his indiscreet mention of the silvered alembic, his suggestion of the mirror as the Nolan’s topic. This, surely, is why Narkis directed him to associate with Trist?o in the first place—the man’s imprudent dabbling in secret knowledge is the thrashing shark that will feed the swift remora of their own conspiracy—but Crivano can’t help but feel exposed, compromised, by such rash gestures. Last night Trist?o retired from the chamber only minutes after giving the Nolan his subject: a whisper to Ciotti, and he was gone. While no doubt eccentric, it’s unlike Trist?o to be rude, even to a popinjay like the Nolan.
Hathor is the wife of Ra, who is the Sun. So too, as Isis, is she the wife of Osiris. So too, as Seshat, is she the wife of Thoth. Crivano hears a buzz of snores as he makes his way through the corridor. No other lodgers seem to be astir. In the parlor downstairs, a yawning Friulian girl in a nightshirt feeds the fireplace with split wood. Good day, young woman, Crivano says. Has Anzolo yet risen?
The girl turns, startled, then averts her eyes. Not yet, dottore, she says. Shall I fetch him?
He takes a moment to look her over: limp hair, wide hips, fourteen or fifteen years old. They always seem a bit frightened of him, these girls. Never charmed or smitten, as they are with Trist?o. Stupid to be envious, of course. No need, Crivano says. Give him a message. Last night he helped me carry a small strongbox, which we locked away in a closet. I am going out now; I plan to return to the White Eagle by the fourteenth bell. At that time I will need a dependable and able-bodied gondolier to take me to Murano with that box. I trust that Anzolo will be able to make such arrangements.
I’m sure he will, dottore. I’ll see that he gets your instructions.
Outside, the sky has ripened to a yellow-tinged blue. Shutters open, carpets drape sills, and the smell of leavened dough trails from the baskets of women on their way to the fornaio. Crivano idles under the White Eagle’s sign to formulate his route to the Mercerie—closing his eyes to assemble the city’s image in his head, imagining himself afloat above it—and as he sets off, the sun’s first rays flare across the belltower of San Cassian.