`Then why would Roberto say what he said? Why would he hate Corradino and me? And what did he mean about treachery - and about France? I thought Corradino died here?'
Adelino nodded. `Certainly he died here, of mercury poisoning, so the history books say.'
Leonora tried to absorb this, the threads of a hundred half-remembered tales of Corradino spinning webs in her addled brain. She soon realized that she was nodding her head repeatedly. `Yes,' she said, `that must be right ...'
Adelino crossed the room and took her by the shoulder. `Look. Why don't you take the rest of the day off? I'll smooth things over here. Come in tomorrow as normal and this will all blow over. Big day tomorrow, the first press ads go out. Get some rest.'
Leonora registered his kind tone but her stomach shrivelled at the thought of the ordeal to come. She stumbled thankfully out into the sunlight and turned to walk to the boat along the Fondamenta Manin. This time the familiar street name gave her no comfort. Instead she looked up at it and addressed the faded sign. `Corradino, what did you do?'
CHAPTER 16
A Knife of Obsidian
And now, to make a knife.
The glass blades that Corradino made for The Ten's assassins, those deadly points which entered the skin with barely a whisper, they would not do for his purpose. Such knives hung, glittering, on racks on the walls of the fornace - ranked like so many chilling icicles that brought the cold winter of death. They were made here in great number for good reason. They could be used but once. Each knife was designed to snap at the haft after the fatal wound had been delivered. The wound would close and heal in death, concealing the manner of the victim's leavetaking. But for those friends or families that sought a post-mortem for their dead beloved, the glass blade served as the ultimate warning from the Council. Corradino knew that his blades were the most favoured by the dark shades that reaped for The Ten. When he honed their deadly points he sometimes thought of the men that would meet their ends as these blades entered their flesh, separating muscle and sinew, rending artery and vein. He felt haunted by the cries of their women and children; keening, bereft of their men and fathers, as he himself had wept for his dead parents. But he dismissed the thought with another:
If I refused to make these knives, my own life would be forfeit.
Corradino mitigated his guilt by making the blades as thin, strong and clean as his skill allowed. Like a surgeon, if he had to assist such butchery, he would make the passing as painless as possible.
The fornace was empty - all the maestri had gone, even Giacomo, whose age was beginning to tell. Corradino was alone with the glittering blades, the half-finished candelabri standing like amputees waiting for their missing limbs, and the shining goblets singing almost imperceptibly as they cooled. He looked around the cavernous space that had been his home for twenty years, cool now that the fires were dead. He checked that every last soul had gone and then lit a single candle. He turned to the door of a disused furnace that was set back into the wall. He opened the door and entered the gaping maw, his feet crunching on the detritus of old goblets and candlesticks that had been littered in here like damaged treasure, since the furnace had been stopped up many years ago. Corradino felt for the blackened brickwork at the back of the firehole, felt expertly for the metal hook and pulled. An inner door silently sprang open and he stepped inside.
Instantly he was at home. He lit from memory the candles on the many branched stick inside the door and the room that warmed into light resembled not a place of work but an attractive Venetian salon. A velvet chaise lounged in the corner. A firehole, dominating one wall, burned as merrily as a nobleman's hearth. And on the walls, reflecting heat and light, hung some of Corradino's most treasured pieces; the pieces that he knew would have to be released for sale one day, but not yet - not quite yet. Great mirrors spanned from floor to ceiling, making the room twice as large. Sconces, reaching out from the walls in a heartbreaking arabesque, rivalled the beauty of the flames they carried. Picture frames that held no image, but that would diminish any portrait in the world, no matter how celebrated the beauty of the subject. Only the centre of the room belied the appearance of a luxurious palazzo for here stood the tools of Corradino's trade - long water vats and silvering tanks, vials of multicoloured pigments and limbecs of evil-smelling chemicals.
This chamber is mine. Secret, safe, and the right place for the office which I carry tonight.
Corradino knew what was needed - a knife of his own design, called a dente, or tooth. It was well named; not slim and deadly like the assassin's knives that he was charged to make, and not designed to break off at the haft like them. Short but sturdy, made of dense dark glass and with a wicked point, the dente would do well for cutting and digging alike. He was still for a moment, surveying his benchful of powders and unguents, thinking of the type of glass that was needed. Then he knew.
Obsidian. The oldest glass in the world.
He stripped off his jerkin and went to work. The heat of his chamber was intense, as the firehole was large and the room - though sizeable enough for its purpose - heated quickly. Corradino thrust a handful of ash-like pumice from Stromboli into the fire instead of the customary sand. Then followed a handful of sulphur which burned his nose and made him tie a kerchief about his face. His task tonight was to recreate the hard black natural glass that spewed forth, time out of mind, from the volcanoes of the south. The kind of glass which set like stone. The kind of glass which had entombed the poor dead souls of Pompeii and Herculaneum, trapped like flies in amber - first liquid, then diamond hard. With a firehardened paddle he mixed the powders with a fiery blob of gather which had been heating in the fire all day like a sleeping salamander. He mixed and reheated the glowing orb, adding more pumice and a little pitch, until the glass was as dark and sluggish as treacle. Only then did he take his pontello and shape the knife, rolling the handle on the wood and leather scagno saddle which stood by the fire. When he was happy - for there must be no error tonight - he took the handle to the fire again and flamed the blade end for a long moment. When the dark handle glowed at the haft he brought it out and set it in a vice, blade end down, and watched as the rosy tip of the handle grew downwards with the force of gravity, and the molten glass dripped like a fiery stalactite into a wicked point. Corradino had invented this drip method, finding that it yielded a more perfect point than any amount of grinding or polishing after the fact. This way, the glass made its own edge. The glass must best decide how its enemies were to be dispatched. He counted his heartbeats and, at exactly the right moment and not before, he turned the vice so that the cooling blade turned, curving and hardening into the fang of the beast. Small and stubby, black and pin-sharp, the evil point glinted in the firelight
Yes - this should serve. The blade and handle are made all of a piece, so there is no weakness in the knife.
As Corradino sat and watched his black knife cool, he looked his last around the chamber. Known to no other save Giacomo, the room had been made for Corradino the day after he had discovered the secret of how to make his mirrors. All his most private work was done here. This salon kept the secret.
The secret, which lay buried in the art of glassblowing.
The secret that he merely stumbled upon when a vase that he was making went wrong. The secret which saved him from death at the hands of his greedy masters, The Ten. The secret which had freed him from the prison of Murano and given him the status to walk about Venice almost as other men, and thus give life to his greatest creation, Leonora. The secret which was not written anywhere, even in his vellum notebook, and was known to no man but he. The secret that was coveted by the foreign king who had brought him to this pass.
The secret which I swore to take to my grave. I did not know how true I spoke.
CHAPTER 17
Dead Letter Drop
Vittoria Minotto was intrigued. It was not a state of mind she experienced often, and in order to revel in the sensation fully she had suggested Florian's as a
meeting place. If one was to put in for expenses, one might as well enjoy the experience.
The day was fine but there was a breath of Autumn in the breeze, so Vittoria chose a table just inside the famous green and gold salon, where he would easily be able to find her. There were no strains of string quartet or piano today. Many of the tourists were now gone - Venice was preparing to enter her period of hibernation before Carnevale. It was interesting to note - and as a local she had become aware of it over the years - that the thronging school parties and coach trips of summer gave way, in the winter months, to quiet weeks with the `city break' couples dotting the piazza for the four days from Thursday to Monday.
Vittoria ordered her ruinously expensive caffe arnericano and lit her cigarette. She looked out into the square, to see if she could spot her date arriving. Ah, there he was. Young, good-looking, walking with a purposeful stride which scattered the pigeons. Better and better.
He found her at once. `Signorina Minotto?' It was the voice from the phone call. Low, driven and agitated.
She inclined her head and blew out smoke. `Si'
He sat and, unbidden, took a cigarette and lit it. She liked him at once.
`I think I might know something which might interest you. About Leonora Manin. Actually no, it goes further back than that. About Corrado Manin. It might make quite a good story.'
That was it. He had said it. The word that she loved, that she lived for. The word that had captured her attention from being a little girl at her father's knee, holding her breathless from the words; `Once Upon a Time'. How she had begged to stay up, to hear more!
A Story.
'Go on.'
CHAPTER 18
Non Omnis Moriar
Giacomo del Piero looked from his window over the Murano canal. He was sure he heard something stir without and carried his candle high, peering through the narrow quarrels of his window. He saw nothing, but the flame of his candle illuminated only his own reflection, fractured by the leadings of the panes. He saw an old man.
Giacomo turned from his image and thought of what he would do now. He supposed he must eat - there was some fine Bolognese sausage in the pantry, and a jug of wine to go with it, but somehow he had no appetite. He felt he needed to eat less as his age advanced - other things nourished him now. His books, his work, and his friendships. He thought of Corradino in particular, and that the boy had become as a son to him over the years. Perhaps he should go down the path to Corradino's lodgings, and share the wine with him? No, the boy was exhausted with this commission for that mysterious client, Maestro Domenico of the Teatro Vecchio. Giacomo had never met the man, but he knew that the work kept Corradino at the fornace at all hours. Perhaps Corradino was even yet not at home to receive a visit.
Giacomo took up his ancient viol instead and his bow and fingers, unbidden, found a melancholy folk song of the Veneto which matched his mood. He felt a foreboding, a heaviness of heart which he could not explain. It was this feeling that had made him go to the window repeatedly since he had returned from the fornace.
So the muffled knock at the door when it came did not surprise him, as he had felt expectant all evening. As he set down his viol carefully on the trestle, he had a horrid fancy that he would be opening the door to Death itself, come at last to claim him. But the figure who stood there was not Death. It was Corradino.
They kissed each other heartily, although Giacomo thought at once that his friend looked agitated. Once inside he could not seem to sit or stand, and waved away the offer of wine, before accepting and downing the cup in one swallow.
`Corradino, what ails you? Have you a fever? Is it the mercury?' For Corradino had suffered much from a hacking cough of late - a sign which could indicate a corruption of the lungs from the mercury used to silver the mirrors. Only last week Giacomo had insisted that his friend place four peppercorns under his tongue to ward off the lung sickness - like all Venetians Giacomo had an enormous respect for the mysterious spices of the east. But even spices could not prevent mercury poisoning. The silver devil brought most of the glassblowers to their deaths - their art consumed them in the end. Corradino shook his head fervently at Giacomo's diagnosis, but his eyes burned in his head. `I came to ...' he began, and stopped abruptly.
Giacomo grabbed Corradino's arm and pulled him down on the trestle beside him. `Compose yourself, Corradino mio. What is it you would say? Are you in trouble?'
Corradino laughed, but shook his head again. `I came to say ... I know not what ... I want you to know ... there is so much I cannot tell you!' He took a breath. `I wanted to tell you that I owe you everything, that you are a father to me, that you saved my life over and again, that I can't ever repay you, and that, whatever may befall me, I wish you to try to think well of me.' He clasped the old man's hands fervently. `Promise me this - that you will try to think well of me.'
`Corradino, I will always think well of you. What is this coil?'
`One more thing. If you should see Leonora, if you should ever see her, tell her that I have always loved her, and love her still.'
`Corradino ...'
`Promise!'
`I promise, but you must tell me what you mean by all this. What has become of you tonight? What are you planning?'
Corradino reacted instantly. `I am planning nothing. Nothing. I ...' he laughed and dropped his head into his hands, his fingers parting the dark curls. Then, in more normal tones he said, `Forgive me. It is some mood, some fancy. Dark humours come from the gibbous moon, which shines tonight.'
He motioned toward the window, and Giacomo saw, sure enough, that the moon was almost full, and had a strange hue. Perhaps that accounted for his own melancholy. `Aye, I felt somewhat of the same mind myself. Come, let's drink this folly away.'
Corradino waved away the wine jug. `I must go. But remember all I said.'
Giacomo shrugged. `I will. But I'll see you at the fornace tomorrow.'
'Aye, tomorrow. I'll see you then.'
The hug was fervent and prolonged. Then Corradino was gone, and Giacomo was once again alone. As he stared out into the night, he wondered if he had really seen tears shining in his friend's eyes as he turned away. Despite the talk of tomorrow, the whole interview had the manner of a leavetaking.
A leavetaking indeed. When Corradino did not arrive at the.fornace in the morning, Giacomo's foreboding reached its peak, awful voices clamouring in his head. He went at once to Corradino's lodgings, running as fast as his old limbs would carry him. He entered the little cot without knocking and headed to the second room - the bedchamber. There, he saw the worst. His friend lay on the truckle bed, fully dressed, and still. He thought at first that Corradino had taken his own life, that this had been the meaning of the farewell yestereve. But then, through new tears, he saw a telltale streak of black running from the corner of the open mouth to the coverlet. He turned over one of Corradino's cold hands - the fingertips were also black. Giacomo had seen such signals more times in his life than he wished to. Mercury. The plague of the glassblower had taken Corradino at last. Giacomo sat at the foot of the bed and wept.
He had known.
Corradino had known that he was dying, last night when he had visited. He had been saying goodbye. Giacomo stood at last and pulled the coverlet over the face that was so dear to him. As he did so he lamented, as fathers have always lamented as they beheld their dead sons: `Lord, why did you not take me?'
That night, Giacomo returned at last to his house. It had been the most painful day of his long life, and he felt he would gladly go to sleep and never wake. He had reported Corradino's death to the mayor of Murano, and a medico had been sent to verify cause. The doctor had prodded Corradino with great care, snipping hair and letting blood, a thoroughness which Giacomo knew had been ordered by The Ten. In his dark robes and white mask with its long, beaked nose stuffed with herbs to prevent infection, the doctor looked for all the world like a vulture come to feed on the carrion of Corradino. But, if one of their great assets died,
the Council always wished to make sure there was no misadventure. Only the knowledge of this prevented Giacomo from intervening to plead for his dead friend's dignity. He kept his peace. But when the medico at last released the body he seemed surprised that Giacomo requested permission to fulfill the proper rites for his friend. As the post-mortem was complete however, the doctor saw no reason not to grant this whim and Corradino was carried to Giacomo's house to be laid out.
Giacomo attended while the women he had paid made Corradino ready. They cleaned his face, arranged his hair and tied his feet together and his jaw closed. As candles burned around them they sewed the dead man into sack cloth, and Giacomo watched the face he loved disappear into darkness as the stitches closed the shroud. With his last glance of Corradino he thought how comely his son had been, that his curls shone in the candlelight, the cheeks held a faint flush and the lashes that lay across them were still lustrous. It was almost as if he slept. He chided himself, and, in a last act of leave-taking, Giacomo tenderly placed a golden ducat over each closed eye. He gave away a twelvemonth's wages without a thought. He had given the boy everything: his home, his skills with the glass, and all the love his old heart could hold. Corradino had been his heir in all things, so in place of an inheritance Giacomo paid the fare for Corradino's final journey. He turned away, his heart breaking.
At last two constables came to carry the body to the boat which would take it to Sant'Ariano, the burial island. Giacomo asked to come to the quay, but was prevented.
`Signore,' said the taller constable, his eyes shining with sympathy behind their mask, `we have two cases of plague to carry too. We could not vouch for your safety.'
So Corradino had gone, the constables had gone and the women had gone, gratefully biting the coins that Giacomo had given them for their trouble.
The Glassblower of Murano Page 13