He has no intention of stopping in the church but somehow winds up there anyway, weaving from sunbeam to mote-dusted sunbeam across the broken floor of the nave, thinking of Lepanto. Captain Bua in his breastplate and helmet: Santa Giustina, we pray that on this, your feast day, you will intercede on our behalf, and secure for us the blessings of God as we fight to defend the chastity of our great Republic from savages. Clutching the Lark’s spray-slick hand as the fleets closed: the last good moment, before the drums and cymbals crashed over the waves to be answered by horns from the Christian galleys, before the line dispersed and the real horror began. The first man he killed: turbaned head blown off and scattered on the water as he jumped from the oven platform. Slipping on the blood-brown deck, ankles tangled in viscera. The Lark clubbing a dead janissary with someone’s severed forearm while keening cannonballs tore the air overhead. The thunderclap when the Christ over the World lit its powder magazine, shattering the Ottoman galleys around it, bits of wood and iron and flesh raining through the smoke. The gulf aflame with burning wrecks, drifting into clusters like petals on a pond, lodestones on quicksilver. Fumbling in the tear-blurred darkness for the Lark’s matriculation certificate as the Turks stormed the decks overhead.
He needs to eat something. Outside, behind the cracked apse, he finds a small casino serving spit-roasted kid along with chewy bread and an unimpressive red wine. The only other customers are four hard-faced Arsenal workers with scavenged wood shavings bundled at their feet; they cease their dice-game when he walks in, unhurriedly hiding their cup and coins, glaring in silence. With so many ridotti springing up around the city, Crivano’s surprised to see them gaming in public; their flagrancy speaks to the decline of the campo. The stares don’t abate, so Crivano makes short work of his meal, rises, and—feeling restored by the food, emboldened by the wine—approaches them. Will you good fellows take a physician’s wager? he says.
After permitting them to cheat him out of a small sum, Crivano orders wine for the table, and inquires about the state of the church. It’s shameful, they agree; no fit memorial for Lepanto’s honored dead. One of the four was in the battle himself, or says he was: at the oars of Vincenzo Quirini’s flagship, jabbing his pike through Turkish ribcages. He came home with his freedom, a few ducats’ worth of loot, a few stories no one wants to hear. Only fools boast of fighting for nothing, he says, so I never boast. The diplomats, they never intended to retake Cyprus. That’s clear enough now, isn’t it? They were making their deal with the sultan even as we sailed into battle. But I defended the lives of my bench-mates, I sent a lot of Turks to hell, I didn’t shame myself through cowardice. I’m satisfied. If anything else matters, I don’t see how.
The sun is low by the time Crivano is on the street again. Beside the church’s steps he meets a young priest with a taper, drunker than he is, skulking inside to light the few remaining candles. The sallow skin of the man’s neck is inflamed by traces of the Spanish disease. For a moment Crivano wants to pursue this wretch, to thrash him with his stick, but he thinks better of it. His anger surprises him. Why should he be troubled that Lepanto is forgotten? Hasn’t he tried to forget it himself?
He thinks of Perina: her urgent questions, her wide searching eyes. What convent is she in? Santa Caterina, isn’t it? Nearby, past Zanipolo, not far from the Crucifers’ church. What was it she said? It is precisely this chaos I seek knowledge of, for in such disarray resides the truth! Ah, youth’s sincere conviction when it speaks such words! Amusing, disquieting, embarrassing. Like watching children at play with their fathers’ swords. He wants to see her, to speak to her. And the fact that he’s about to commit an act of treason shouldn’t preclude him from keeping his promise to the senator, should it?
A busy salizzada takes him to Campo San Zanipolo, where he steps between the peddlers’ carts by the mounted bronze of Colleoni to pause in front of the Scuola of Saint Mark and regain his bearings. The odd trompe-l’oeil fa?ade with its pelicans and phoenixes and winged lions only serves to confuse him further, so he rejoins the crowd, moving west. At first he’s able to plot his route by the ancient squat belltower of the Crucifers and the slender onion-domed campanile of the Apostles’ church, but he’s soon among the high walls of hospitals and new palaces and has only the sun to locate him. He’s all but given up hope of finding his way when he crosses a broad canal to see the long latticed fa?ade of the Zen palace, and Santa Caterina just beyond.
A lamp burns by the convent’s outer door, though the sun has not yet set. Crivano tries the handle, finds it locked, and raps with the head of his stick. His parcel grows heavy; he sets it down, then picks it up again, swaying on the stone steps. After a moment he resumes his knocking.
A bolt slams, and the door opens to reveal a sliver of nun: downturned mouth, wrinkled cheek, patient eye. I’m sorry, dottore, the nun says. Visitors are not permitted in the parlor after sundown. I hope you will come again tomorrow.
Crivano’s words emerge somewhat slurred; he tries to polish his elocution. The sun, good sister, is anything but down, he says. Even now its fiery orb cleaves my eyes. I have come a great distance to see Signorina Perina Glissenti, who is an educant in your care. Admit me, please.