He opts to turn right, down the Street of the Glassmakers. It’s long and straight and brightly lit—by glazed lanterns hung over doors, and also from within, by the white-hot furnaces—and edged along its left-hand side by a small canal choked with boats. If Verzelin came this way, he’ll be no trouble to spot.
Crivano hurries forward, his walkingstick clutched by his side. He notes the brightly colored insignia of the shops he passes: an angel, a siren, a dragon, a cockerel devouring a worm. The shutters are all opened, the wares are on display, and more than once he’s startled by the image of his own anxious face.
25
A hundred yards down the fondamenta, just past a small fishmarket, Verzelin sways in front of the Motta mirrorworks, the shop that employs him, bellowing at his colleagues inside. The shop’s racks and shutters are a gallery of silvered panels—ovals and circles and rectangles, pocket-size or inches across, with frames of inlaid wood or wrought metal or chalcedony glass—and they render him in fragments: his hollow chest, his twisted limbs, the silent O of his shouting mouth.
I’ve caught the Lord! he says. I have, I have, we all have! But what’s the good of catching if you never follow? No one in the shop comes to the windows; passersby give him wide berth. The bricks at his feet are spritzed with white foam.
Crivano watches from a short distance up the quay. This is better, he thinks: better that he and Verzelin left the Salamander separately, and better that he’s had time to think. By now Obizzo will have moored the boat; he’ll be nearby, half a mile at most. The question is how to move Verzelin in the right direction. Crivano dealt with too many madmen during his years in Bologna to believe himself capable of anticipating their actions, but he has an intuition about this one, and no better ideas.
He saunters forward, giving the mirrormaker an empty stare. Verzelin goes silent, his febrile eyes returning Crivano’s gaze, his lean bearded face a riot of tics and twitches. Then Crivano walks past him, carrying on down the fondamenta, the iron ferrule of his stick clicking sharply on the pavement.
Confounded, Verzelin discharges a spate of rapid gibberish, unintelligible and bestial, and Crivano picks up his pace. There’s an opening on the right: the Street of the Potters. He makes the turn. Another glassworks here, along with two osterie and a lusterware factory; the other shops are dark and shuttered. Halfway down the block, Crivano steps into the recessed doorway of a mercer and waits.
Verzelin isn’t far behind. With each step, his body angles left; he corrects himself like a ship beating to windward. The few people on the street hasten from his path. He murmurs as he comes. The peacock, he says, he’s a holy bird, a holy bird, a holy bird.
Crivano steps into the open; the moonlight catches him. Verzelin, he says.
Verzelin blinks, squints. Dottore? he says. Dottore Crivano?
Yes. I’m here.
I conjured you, Verzelin says. I called you from the glass.
We must go, Verzelin. Do you understand? We must leave Murano tonight.
Verzelin stares without comprehension, then squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, like a child who’s tasted raw onion.
Listen to me. The guild and the Council of Ten have learned of our intentions. The sbirri are looking for you right now. There’s a boat nearby waiting to take us to Chioggia, but we must hurry.
Verzelin grimaces, stares at his shuffling feet. In his expression Crivano can see an army of fleeting impulses being enveloped by profound weariness. I will follow, Verzelin mutters. I have looked. In the glass. What I have seen. And I will follow.
Crivano finds a dry spot on Verzelin’s upper sleeve and tugs it to urge him along. There’s a wide square ahead—early-rising merchants’ wives filling pails at the well—and they angle away from it, following the curve of the street until they’re parallel to the glassmakers’ canal. Potters are at work nearby, singing a maudlin song about a drowned sailor, but he and Verzelin have the pavement to themselves.
Crivano speaks softly and rapidly, reminding Verzelin of what they’re doing and why. From Chioggia we’ll sail to Ragusa, he whispers. In Ragusa an English cog will be waiting to take us to Amsterdam. We’ll be there in three weeks, God willing. And the guild’s prayers to Saint Anthony will be very fervent this year, I think.
Don’t want, Verzelin says, don’t want to go to Amsterdam. Heretics! Full of heretics, it is.
Well, you’ll have to convert them all, won’t you, Alegreto?
Verzelin’s tremors have faded, but his feet are dragging, and his voice is blunted by his dripping mouth. Can’t work, he says. Lift the glass. Not anymore. My hands, dottore! My hands!
Crivano wraps his fingers around Verzelin’s arm, glances ahead. He can see the lagoon now, and the quiet fondamenta where Obizzo is to have moored the boat. You won’t have to work the glass in Amsterdam, Crivano says, pulling him forward. They’ve found good workers for you there. Experienced men. You need only teach them to apply the silvering.
I am afflicted, Verzelin moans. I have seen! There is no time, no time. Have you? Do you follow?