It’s nothing, dottore. She’s very excited, with all the sbirri. I’ll talk to her when she’s calm, and we’ll make arrangements for your things.
Anzolo, Crivano says. What was the gesture?
Nothing. As I said. Something superstitious peasants do.
Why? Why do they do it?
I don’t know, dottore. I’m a city man, myself.
Anzolo attempts a smile, but can’t sustain it. Crivano fixes him with a flat stare.
They do it to ward off evil, I suppose, Anzolo says. Evil spirits.
Evil spirits? Crivano says. Are you sure?
For a long time Anzolo says nothing. He stands in the corridor with one hand on the wall, facing the door to the street. He’s shivering too; Crivano can see that now.
The plague, he answers at last. They do it to protect themselves from the plague.
Crivano takes a deep breath, releases it slowly. His lungs fill and empty; blood thickens in his brain. He can feel parts of himself awakening that have been dormant for years, while everything within him that has been awake now seems to grow dull and indifferent: pale worms in winter mud.
Yes, he says. I thought that might be the case. Thank you, Anzolo.
56
A pair of sbirri passes, Anzolo gives the signal, and Crivano steps from the White Eagle’s door. It closes behind him with a quiet brush of wood on wood: a final sound. He is alone. He has always been alone—since the Lark died, at least—but his isolation can no longer be hidden. Like a splinter of steel lodged in a muscle, he is no longer part of what he moves among.
He turns right to return the way he came, but immediately spots two more sbirri at the casino down the street; they’ve stopped to argue with the nightwatchmen he saw earlier. Crivano detours into a dark doorway and waits for them to move on. Instead, one of them enters the casino—I’ll chase this heretic dog down with ease, I promise you, once I’ve taken a nice shit—and leaves the other behind. Crivano recognizes the remaining sbirro as the feckless youth who watched his room all afternoon. The boy puffs out his chest, fingers the pommel of his rapier like it’s a new toy. Crivano counts his pulse, giving the young sbirro’s partner time enough to reach the privy and pull down his hose. Then he hurries along the street—stepping from shadow to shadow—and clubs the boy in the face with the iron head of his walkingstick.
The young sbirro shrieks, drops to the packed dirt. The watchmen rise in half-crouches, looking at Crivano, looking at each other. Crivano raises his stick again, and they both sink to their seats. The sbirro moans, clutching his wrecked face, retching blood and mucus. Crivano keeps steady eyes on the seated watchmen as he relieves the wounded boy of his sword and scabbard.
They shout and scramble to fetch the second sbirro from the privy once Crivano’s out of sight, but he’s a safe distance away now, moving west, out of the Rialto. The wind has lessened, the sky is cloudless, and the air has grown dense, unseasonably cold. The warm canal waters send up tendrils of mist; he sees them as he crosses the little bridge. The moon is low, but there’s still plenty of light. Too much light.
By now the sbirri will have rounded up all his linkboys; they will have found the recipients of his message, and all will have professed ignorance of its meaning. Those are the places the sbirri will congregate, in hopes of his reappearance. Crivano therefore opts to propel himself into quarters as yet unknown: toward San Polo and the Frari. As usual the streets conspire to steer him elsewhere: north instead, approaching the upper bend of the Grand Canal. Crivano makes no real effort to resist their redirection. At this point it doesn’t much matter where he goes.
What is he? Whose agent? What has he become?