Go on, dottore. Pick it up.
Crivano slips his slender fingers beneath the cloth and lifts the mirror to his face. It’s about a foot long, several inches across, rounded at the corners, in precise accordance with Trist?o’s sketch. The glass is perfectly flat, uniformly thick and clear. Crivano tilts it toward the firelight to check the silvering and finds no blemishes. A dancing ghost-light appears across the room, on the wall above the hearth, and then vanishes when he tilts the glass back.
Verzelin made this? Crivano asks.
Serena smoothes his thick beard, watching Verzelin with weary eyes. Made it, he says, or caused it to be made.
It’s remarkable. Flawless.
Nearly so, yes.
Is the glass that your shop makes so clear?
Serena grunts. Even clearer, dottore, he says. If I want it to be. But if you ask me, which I admit you did not, I’d tell you that this glass is too clear. Your friend had better keep the damp off it, or in a year or two—
He makes a flatulent sound with his mouth.
—it’s gone. Melted away like a fancy sweet. Very clear glass cannot abide moisture, dottore. Your friend should keep this wrapped in dried seaweed, always. For what he’s paying he should make it last.
Crivano is barely listening, staring at his own face. Like every gentleman, he owns a small steel mirror, and over the years it has taught him to recognize himself. But this glass has made it a liar. He sees himself now as others see him, have always seen him: the shape of his head, the way his expression changes, the space his body fills in a room. He scans the map of damage written across his face and wonders how much can be deciphered: the divot in his jaw from a janissary arrow, the ear notched in Silistra by a whore’s hidden razor, the front tooth chipped by the boot of a Persian onbash? in the instant before the musket went off. With a quick intake of breath Crivano replaces the cloth and pushes the parcel back toward Serena. How long to attach the frame? he asks.
Not long. No more than a day.
My friend won’t need it so quickly.
Once it’s finished, Serena says with a sad smile, I don’t want it in my shop.
He reaches into his tunic—good fabric, Crivano notices, and fairly clean—and produces a rectangle of white paper, folded and closed with a blue wax seal bearing the device of the Siren, his family’s shop. Give this to your friend, he says. It’s my estimate, along with a list of alterations I’ve made to his design. If any are unacceptable, I must be informed prior to sundown tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll complete the piece.
Crivano takes the paper, tucks it into his own doublet. There’s a commotion: Verzelin is on his feet, staggering. The man with the cittern angles away, ignoring him, pretending to tune his strings. Christ! Verzelin shouts, followed by something Crivano can’t make out. A thread of phlegm dangles from his beard, golden in the firelight. Crivano sees a pair of dark stains on the table Verzelin left. The smaller is spilled wine; the larger, he realizes, is saliva.
Verzelin walks toward them, lurching spasmodically at every other step. He walks among us, brothers! he hisses. He’s pointing at Crivano. Promises! Promises! Promises of deliverance!
Crivano keeps his eyes steady. The front of Verzelin’s shirt is soaked with sweat and drool. Amazing, Crivano thinks: all those hours at the furnaces, and still so much phlegm. Surely he’s incurable now. Still, best not to take chances.
Verzelin shapes his words with effort, seeming to gag on them. I have called! he says. I am his prophet! The peacock, he’s a holy bird, isn’t he a holy bird? He walks our streets! Follow him, brothers!
He’s out the door, gone. Crivano tenses, tries to keep the strain off his face.
That, Serena says, is not quite the sort of piety I was talking about.
I should speak with him.
Not much of a point, dottore.
I have his payment. For the mirror.
I’ll pay him for the mirror, dottore. You pay me for the finished piece.
Serena looks at Crivano with narrowed eyes, like he’s an imbecile, but Crivano is already rising to his feet. I’ll return to collect the piece in two days, he says. Send word to me in the city if the project is delayed. I’m lodged at the White Eagle.
It takes Crivano a moment to pay for his wine and to retrieve his robe and stick. By the time he’s muttered his valedictions and returned to the campiello, Verzelin is nowhere to be seen. He can’t have gotten far in his condition, but which way? Crivano looks for the linkboy who brought him here, but the boy has moved on. He could ask anyone else, of course, but he doesn’t want to leave more of a trail than necessary.