Who do we say the message is from?
Say only what you know: that you were sent by a dottore, with light hair and a forked beard. That will suffice. And be nimble and clever, lads, for sbirri are about who would deter you. All go together now, on my command! Ready?
A loud handclap sends them charging like unleashed hounds. The sbirri have anticipated Crivano’s stratagem, but they’re at a loss for a response; they make half-hearted grabs for the nearest passing boys, then turn back to Crivano with incensed expressions. Crivano scans the crowd—four more cloaks dispersed at the edges of the campo, some now flying in pursuit of his little messengers—then bolts to the right, around the belltower and behind the apse, doubling back toward Campo San Silvestro. Dottore! a voice calls. He ignores it.
The sun is down. The first bell rings at the Frari to the west and San Marco to the south; then the sound spreads to San Polo and San Aponal and San Silvestro like ripples over water. Crivano loops back again, without intention or direction. He passes the sbirro with the mutilated face who a moment ago was following him. In a gap between shops he sees one of his linkboys scurry by; he’s unable to recall where he sent that one. He’s very tired now. He wants to return to the White Eagle, but he can’t. Not yet.
The crowds thin as the sky grows dark; soon, Crivano fears, he and the sbirri will be the streets’ only occupants. He begins to seek the shortest and narrowest passages, where he can disrupt his pursuers’ view. Once the second bell has rung, he thinks, I’ll go back to the locanda and sleep. Not till then.
As he’s navigating a constricted bend, looking over his shoulder, a strong arm snakes from a doorway and clamps hold of his elbow. He pulls away, fights to raise his stick, then notes the turban and caftan. Stop, Narkis says. Come this way. Quickly.
Algae-slick steps fall away to the right. Crivano has passed them six times today, probably. He failed to remark them at all until nearly sundown, and even then he took them for an ancient water-gate which once opened onto a canal long since filled with mud and silt. Now, as he struggles to retain his balance against Narkis’s impatient tug, he sees that it’s the entrance to a sottoportego, leading to a small high-walled corte. At bright noonday this passage would be dim; at dusk it’s midnight-black for most of its length. On the lowest step, some small creature has left a lump of feces, now crowded with glossy black flies; they scatter as Narkis and Crivano rush by, shooting straight up, slowing as they rise, fading in all directions like sparks from a fire.
Narkis whispers as he hurries Crivano forward, speaking Turkish with his old elegance and felicity. You have been discovered, Tarjuman effendi, he says.
Crivano’s sputtered response is in the local tongue; his agitated brain won’t find the Turkish words. I know that, damn you, he says. I’ve had sbirri at my heels since the morning. I’ve only just now managed to get word to Obizzo.
Obizzo?
The mirrormaker.
Narkis freezes, as if turned to stone. Then he claps a hand to Crivano’s chest. That business at the church with the linkboys? he says. That is what that was? That is how you sent your message? Are you mad? What if the constables intercept them?
Crivano closes his eyes, takes a long breath—remembering his other life: the view of the sultan’s palace from Galata, laughing janissary faces around a campfire, the texture of a silk caftan against his skin, a cradlesong an Albanian girl once sang for him—and when he speaks again, the old language comes. Do you take me for a fool? he says. I was careful. The boys know nothing. One will set the true messenger in motion.
Whom?
My innkeeper.
This man can be trusted? You’re sure? How do you know?
Of course I’m sure, Crivano says, but now he doesn’t feel sure. Could Anzolo’s performance this morning have been for his benefit, not Lunardo’s? But no: an innkeeper who cooperated with sbirri couldn’t stay in business very long. Could he?
I left a note in my room, Crivano continues, where it won’t be found. The note tells the innkeeper how to find Obizzo.
How?
Obizzo is a gondolier in the Rialto. He has scars on his arms from the furnaces. The gondoliers all know one another. You can always find one, if he wants to be found.
What message did you send?
The one you told me to send, Narkis. In two days, he’s to row to the lagoon west of San Giacomo en Palude under cover of darkness, and look for an anchored trabacolo showing two red lanterns. That is all.
Crivano can barely make out the shape of Narkis’s head against the blue light from the corte; it’s motionless for a long time. Loud muffled voices come from behind them, but no boots scuffle on the steps, not yet. Come, Narkis says, and presses on.