The Eye Stone

by Roberto Tiraboschi

  “A two-headed beast,” said the boatman with detachment.

  Edgardo stared at the monster with more compassion than horror, almost as though feeling solidarity with all that was deformed.

  “They’ve found so many others like that, deformed animals, freaks of nature. Pigs with hens’ feet, geese with the bodies of dogs, fish with hooves like a stag’s, asses with heads instead of backsides. It’s the Devil trying to dazzle us with his magic tricks. We must repent—something terrible is about to happen.”

  “Even creatures that do not follow the golden rules of nature are the work of God and deserve respect,” said Ademaro.

  “All I know is that anything that’s deformed is a sign of the Devil,” the boatman grunted confidently and, with a final stroke of the oar, he pushed away the carcass of the animal, which, as a sign of farewell, spewed out of its second open mouth an eel that swam away, undisturbed, through the rushes.

  Edgardo was absorbed in his thoughts. He had heard those two words together so often: devil and deformed. So much so that he had started to believe it, too.

  The sky was now dark and threads of fog wavered over the shoals. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a thick row of black pillars that seemed to rise from the water appeared right in front of the bow.

  “Here we are,” said the boatman. “This is the island of San Giorgio.”

  The sandolo drew up alongside the shore and Edgardo realized that the menacing figures were tall, slender cypresses that covered the entire island.

  They disembarked on the junctorio,* walked up the wooden steps, then groped their way in the dark across the small stretch of soil that led to the gates of the abbey. They knocked.

  After a long wait, the monk who acted as gatekeeper, thin, lanky and wearing a habit that was too short for him, let them in.

  “We were expecting you earlier. Compline finished ages ago and all the brothers are already in the dormitory.” His tone was gruff but then he looked at them with a compassionate expression.

  “You must be hungry. Come with me.”

  They walked under the portico of a small, rustic cloister in the center of which towered a row of cypresses, slim and oblong like the monk escorting them. As he came out of the first cloister, Edgardo noticed the dark outline of the bell tower that seemed to watch them from above through its triforia and its arches.

  The kitchens were beyond the second herb cloister, near the refectory. The beanpole handed them two bowls containing some kind of muddy pulp that stank of rotting fish.

  “It’s an eel and oat pie. There’s wine in that carafe, if you’d like some. You’re entitled to it after a long journey, to replenish the blood. You can stay in the guest quarters for tonight—Ademaro knows the way—and tomorrow we’ll allocate you your cells.”

  Having said that, he handed Edgardo a candle stub and walked away, his steps like a camel’s.

  There was a long table protruding from the wall, but no sign of stools or chairs, so the monks put their bowls on it and got ready to eat standing up, like horses.

  “He treated us like two beggars,” said Edgardo, smelling the contents of the pan. “This is nauseating.”

  Ademaro laughed. “You’ll have to get used to it. For people who live on water, fish is like grain to the peasant.”

  Edgardo stuck two fingers into the mush and lifted some to his lips. “It’s not that poisonous after all,” he said.

  “You’re always prejudiced. It’s your noble origin that rears its head every so often. You must accept new things with an open mind.”

  Edgardo bowed his head. Ademaro was right. However, it was not his nobility that gave him that seemingly haughty attitude. Anger smoldered in his soul, a deep resentment that gnawed at him, and prevented him from facing life with the joy and faith appropriate to a Benedictine cleric.

  They ate greedily in a hollow silence accompanied only by the gentle rhythm of the lapping water that seemed to be gurgling right under their feet.

  When they had finished, exhausted, they went up to the guest quarters on the first floor. At the end of the hall, behind tiny niches upholstered in mold, they found long tables covered with straw. Even though large wooden beams were nailed to the windows, there was a humid, salty draught coming through, which smelled of sun-dried algae. Edgardo lay down, and felt his twisted bones ache.

  “Let me give you some advice,” Ademaro murmured, sitting up on his pallet. “It would be wiser not to mention to anyone here at the monastery the true reason for your journey.”

  Edgardo was surprised. “Why not? I see nothing wrong in trying to find a cure for my failing eyesight.”

  “Abbot Carimanno is a wise and levelheaded man. He’s in the process of transforming this abbey into one of the most important study centers in Civitas Rivoalti. He’s brought together clerics, translators and highly-reputed copyists. Day by day, the library grows richer in new books. However, he’s an old man, tied to tradition and not very well-disposed toward novelties. It’s better not to upset him.”

  “Do you think a stone could throw this holy man into turmoil?”

  “Wait,” Ademaro interrupted, “I’ve never told you this stone really exists. What was related to me was the tale of a merchant, and it could be no more than the product of a rich imagination. Let’s leave fantasies and dreams outside this sacred place. Let’s keep them to ourselves.”

  They had spent years sitting beside each other in the scriptorium and yet Edgardo had never heard his friend sound so worried.

  “Very well, if that’s what you want.”

  Ademaro smiled, relieved. “I’m only asking you to be cautious.”

  “I’ll be cautious, I promise.” Edgardo said, and wrapped himself in his cloak, shaken by a slight sense of anxiety.

  The word “cautious” could only mean one thing. That in some corner, behind the eyes of a stranger, perhaps even among his brothers, danger might be lurking.

  Alvise Grandis

  The Venice Lagoon, ancient and modern, newly outlined and distinct with its Islands, Valleys and Canals in the present day, as well as, in comparison, the Lagoon as it was at the time Venice was founded, with both the old and new names.

  III.

  AMURIANUM

  At the first light of dawn, thick soot was still raining down from the sky, spreading a veil of embers over the thatched roofs, the fields of sea lavender, and the waters green with algae. Seagulls and crows flapped their wings, raising clouds of ash, while the first rays of the rising sun struggled to filter through the layers of smoke that drifted over the island of Amurianum.

  The fire had been put out during the night but the smell of burning still lingered on the paths, among the huts and in the furrows of the canals.

  Angelo Segrado pulled down the cloak that was covering him and, blinded by the glaring morning light, half-closed his eyes. For a moment he thought it had been a terrible nightmare. He inhaled deeply and the smoke filled his lungs, taking his breath away. It had not been a dream, everything really had burned down. In just one night, the fire had swept away his furnace and storehouse, then spread to the neighboring houses. He had nothing left.

  They had called him when the first fire had broken out at the start of the night, and he had taken the scaula* and rowed with all his strength from Metamauco with Kallis, in order to arrive in time. They had fought the flames until Lauds but there was nothing they could do. Exhausted, they had fallen asleep under a fig tree in the campo* in front of the furnace, in that deserted area behind Santa Maria degli Angeli where nobody wanted to live because it was infested with snakes and malaria.

  Segrado stood up. Kallis was still asleep next to him, wrapped in the remnants of a torn sail. He took a step toward that which, only the day before, had been his realm. Everything had burned down: his work bench, the blowpipe, the punty, all the willow and alder used to fuel the fire, a
s well as the cups, phials, chalices and cruets for the ointments—the high temperature had caused everything to explode. Even the brick furnace was no longer usable. The fireplace had been salvaged, but the central chamber for the cauldrons had collapsed together with the room for annealing. No point in even thinking about starting it up again—it would be far too costly. All that remained of his workshop was ashes, embers and charred beams. He could have screamed like a wounded giant.

  He was known in Amuranium as the bald bear because his huge body, covered in dense hair, was dominated by a totally smooth skull. His hands, as large as shovels, he could turn into the delicate fingers of an embroiderer as soon as he handled the pliers and shears he used for shaping lumps of molten glass. They said he had had all his teeth pulled out so that he could blow through the blowpipe with more power and that he lived in Metamauco, like a hermit, alone with Kallis in a hut no one had ever seen.

  He approached the bundle lying on the grass and nudged it with his foot.

  “Come on, get up!” he ordered. “See if you can at least salvage a few tools.”

  The sail unrolled as though swelled by a gust of wind and a long, thin figure emerged, wrapped in a tortoiseshell cloak that revealed only a face with Oriental features, tapered fingers and large, knotty feet. Her skin had an amber glow and blended with the cloak fabric in a single-hue brushstroke.

  Kallis stood up and with quick, light steps, as though flying over the puddles of mud and ashes, approached what was left of the oven. Like a thread of wool blown by the wind. A delicate and sinuous thread from the hands of a Mongolian weaver. She started rummaging among the ruins, lifting poles, moving bricks and stones so quickly that one naturally wondered how such a small body could conceal such strength.

  “Master . . . Master . . . my God, what happened?” Niccolò, the servant boy who stoked and fueled the fire in the furnace, was running toward him, filled with despair. “Merciful God, everything’s burned down!”

  Segrado lowered his head. “We arrived too late.”

  Niccolò was shaking, rocking back and forth like a child. “It’s not fair! Why has God done this to us?”

  “Did you check the fireplace before you left last night?” Segrado asked in a harsh tone.

  “Yes, Master, I left it barely lit, like I always do. Besides, there was no wind yesterday, so no danger from the embers. I closed the door and the smoke holes.”

  “And yet the fire broke out,” Segrado said, thoughtfully.

  “It’s not my fault, Master, I swear on Our Lord.”

  Segrado looked around. “The fire can come from inside—or from outside. A sly spark from who knows where, carried by the wind or by the hand of a man.”

  Niccolò did not understand.

  “Perhaps here in Amurianum, someone’s blood simmered with envy at seeing me have an oven of my own.”

  On her knees, Kallis was digging with her bare hands, surrounded by blowpipes, steaming ashes, and plumes of smoke, as though she were rummaging in the crater of a volcano.

  “What are we going to do now, Master?” Niccolò asked, anxious.

  Segrado seized his head, glistening with sweat, in his hands, almost wishing he could split it in two in an attempt to find an answer.

  “I don’t know . . . Perhaps we can look for another oven, one we could hire, so that we can continue our work. Although there are very few glassblowers left who own a furnace.”

  “Master Tàtaro has bought almost all of them.”

  “A canker on him . . . If he carries on like this, all Amuri­anum glass will end up coming out of his ovens.”

  Niccolò took a step forward. “What will become of the experiments, Master?”

  Annoyed by Niccolò’s words, Segrado tensed up and glared at him. “That’s right, the experiments . . . The experiments will end up in the storehouse for my shit!” He patted his behind and shook himself like a wet bear.

  Kallis smiled with the satisfaction of a little girl and lifted, like trophies, a shovel, a blowpipe and a pair of tweezers, which was all she had managed to recover.

  The bell had just rung for Prime and a new day was beginning on the island of Amurianum. Beggars, lepers and penitents were already crowding beneath the wooden portico at the entrance of the Basilica of Santa Maria Vergine. The façade of the church, which had a nave and two aisles, had just been rebuilt in brickwork. The roof was still covered in reeds and straw.

  Along the rio* of the glassmakers, onto which almost all the glassmakers’ ovens gave, the servant boys loaded barges with items in colorful mosaics, beads, phials, glasses, bottles, and chalices, to be transported to the Rivoalto,* ready to be stowed alongside other goods onboard merchant ships bound for the Orient.

  A young porter, laden like a mule, staggered out of a storehouse. When he was halfway along the plank that connected the shore and the boat, he started swaying dangerously.

  “Be careful, you dimwit!” the owner of the storehouse shouted, running to his aid and grabbing him by the jacket before he could fall into the canal with all the merchandise.

  “What’s the matter? Are you drunk?”

  The porter stared back at him. “There’s a man in the canal . . . ”

  “Where?”

  “There, twisted in the rope, between the keel and the shore.”

  The master bent over and, in the pale light of the winter dawn, saw the body of a man floating upside down.

  “It’s true, you’re right,” he said without losing his countenance. “There’s a dead man in the canal.”

  It often happened that during the night a drunk would fall into the water in another quarter, then be carried about by the current for hours and even days before being found. For that reason, the discovery did not cause much stir. People gathered and, with some effort since the bank was slippery, managed to carry the body ashore. It was covered in mud and algae, swollen, and the skin had turned so purple, it must have been in the water for a long time.

  “That’s Marco Balbo!” someone cried.

  “Who’s that?”

  “A garzone* from Torcellus. He worked here in Amurianum.”

  “That’s right, it’s him. He was an assistant in various foundries.”

  “He must have drowned.”

  The owner of the storehouse opened the damaged jacket. “No, he was stabbed.”

  There was a deep, gaping wound right in the middle of his belly, letting a section of gut protrude.

  “He was a good lad, skilled at his trade. God be with him.”

  The storehouse owner tried to wipe the dead man’s face with a rag.

  “Holy Mother of God!” he cried out. “Look! Look!”

  Through the blotches of slime on his face, the half-opened eyelids revealed an unnatural, whitish sheen that gave the eyes a somewhat artificial, eerie expression. Everyone was dumbfounded, as though those strange eyes possessed some evil power.

  The storehouse owner plucked up the courage to lift the eyelids in full, and a gasp of horror rose from the crowd. Marco Balbo’s eyes had been gouged out and replaced with two perfectly crafted glass ones. At the center of the opaque, milky glass eyeballs were two ruby-colored pupils, shining like gemstones, which produced a fiery glow and inspired a feeling of torment and fear.

  The men looked at one another, terrified.

  “These eyes are the color of hell,” someone cried out. “It’s the work of Beelzebub!” Everyone immediately made the sign of the cross.

  No one had ever seen such horror. Gouged-out eyes, cut-off hands, men hanged and women burned at the stake were everyday events, but that fixed gaze and the icy light of the stones penetrated your soul like an omen of death, a curse, the Apocalypse foretold. Who could have done this to the hapless Balbo?

  IV.

  MEMMIA ISLAND, THE ABBEY OF SAN GIORGIO

  In one night, Hell has been t
ransformed into Heaven, Edgardo the Crooked thought as his eyes wandered over the surrounding land and water.

  With the first light of dawn, after prayers, Ademaro had taken him around the monastery to see the cloisters, the chapter, the refectory, the church and all the way up to the belfry. It was the first time Edgardo had been able let his eyes stray beyond the walls of Bobbio Abbey. He was overcome with a profound emotion, a feeling of insignificance and powerlessness—the feeling of the wretched mortal who would never be able to fathom the secret of Creation.

  Sky and water sank into each other, blending in an all-enveloping mother-of-pearl glow. A light northerly wind had swept everything away, and cleaned Venetia of the infernal smoke and fog. The city appeared to him in all its incomprehensible and daring desire to steal land from the waters and build on nothing—churches, convents, towers, and dwelling places—in a defiant array of joists, platforms, bridges, dikes, and stilt houses. The fresh water that descended into the sea from the mouths of the rivers ended in a swamp and mixed with salt water, creating, with soil and mud dragged in by the floods, a labyrinth of small and large canals, streams, pits, ponds and a succession of pools among rises, tidal shallows, and fords.

  On some of the islands, there were bursts of luxuriant vegetation, oaks, elms, willows, beeches, and alders, as dense and shady as in forests in the hinterland. These alternated with land cultivated as vegetable gardens and vines.

  Some stretches, scattered on the lagoon, reflected a blinding white glare and seemed illuminated by supernatural reflections.

  “They’re saltworks,” said Ademaro. “There are many on the islands around Venetia. With trade and fishing, they are a mainstay for these people.” He pointed at a distant corner of the island. “There’s also one here in San Giorgio. With the mill, it contributes to making the abbey self-sufficient. The salt is exchanged for other goods. Then there are vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and fish.”