The Mirror Thief

by Martin Seay

  The sbirri were following you already, Tristão says. I suspect they had already gleaned the crude outlines of your plot. I reasoned that if I could induce you to associate openly with the Minerva bookshop, with the Uranici, with reputed magi like myself, then the dimensions of your conspiracy might seem larger than they were, and the Council of Ten might postpone your arrest until more could be learned. Had not Lord Mocenigus’s unexpected denunciation of the Nolan spurred the Ten to swifter action, you and the mirrormakers might have escaped the city with minimal bloodshed. Narkis bin Silen, of course, had doomed himself from the outset. I had been informed of his intention to remove the mirrormakers to the territories of the Mughals, and I knew this to be hopeless and ridiculous, but I saw no reason why his careful preparations could not be redirected toward practical ends. I lured him to the bookshop to make him known to the sbirri, in the hope that they would eliminate him before his foolishness ruined your entire project.

  Crivano purses his lips. He supposes he should be angry, but he is not. When you speak of practical ends, he says, I assume you’re referring—

  I mean only that the mirrormakers and their party are now to be taken not to faraway Lahore, nor even to Constantinople, but to Amsterdam, exactly as they have been promised all along.

  The expression on Tristão’s face is so sincere, so devoid of irony, that Crivano can’t help but laugh and shake his head. Let me ask once more, Crivano says, for I still lack understanding: what is your interest in this matter? On this you have yet to speak.

  Tristão looks at him appraisingly. His eyes seem dimmed by regret, or sadness. In his hesitation Crivano perceives no fear. Almost everyone whom Crivano has met since he came here, even Senator Contarini himself, has seemed wary of him—everyone but Tristão, whose ambitions are even grander than his own, who has even less to lose.

  After a moment, Tristão lifts a long metal spoon from the countertop and dips it into the chamberpot. He scoops up a quantity of feces—the stench intensifies in the fire-warmed air—and transfers it to a thick-walled beaker, scraping the spoon clean with a polished wooden rod. Then he adds water from a pitcher, stirs, and turns to the rows of jars and phials in the cabinet behind him. I have, he says, two principal interests. I have pursued both in this city with zeal and considerable satisfaction, but in both I have now reached an impasse. While your recent misfortunes sadden me, they have also provided me with a solution that is, I believe, comprehensive.

  You’re going to Amsterdam, Crivano says. With my mirrormakers.

  That is my intent, yes.

  Crivano shifts his weight, smoothes his matted hair with an absent left hand: the right one hurts too much to lift. He needs a chair. He finds one against the wall by the door, turns it around, drags it noisily across the floorplanks. Then he slumps into it to watch Tristão add blue and green salts to the beaker’s vile contents.

  You’re performing the first operation, Crivano says.

  I am, yes.

  You’re beginning the Great Work with shit.

  It is perhaps not the only way, Tristão says, but I think it best. I have been cautious with my diet since the fine meal you and I shared at the White Eagle, eating only what is mercurial, martial, and venereal, according to the classifications of Marsilius Ficinus. It would have been better had I fasted through the previous week, but of course much has arisen that was unforeseen.

  You hold with those who believe the prima materia to be excrement.

  I believe that excrement can serve as such, if one makes certain preparations. In the works of Rupescissa we find the prima materia described as a worthless thing, found easily anywhere. Morienus tells us that all men, highborn and low, regard the prima materia with contempt, and that the vulgar sell it like mud. To what sort of matter might these descriptions apply, besides dung?

  Most alchemists regard those descriptions as allegorical, Tristão.

  Yes, Tristão says. In doing so, I believe they are mistaken.

  He measures a quantity of red crystals—Crivano can’t tell what—onto a scale until it balances against a five-grain weight. Then he pours them into the beaker, and stirs with a sheepish grin. Of course, he says, all we alchemists regard our rivals as deluded fools. In this I typify my species.

  The wooden rod swirls the brown liquid, chimes against the beaker’s edge. It sounds like a churchbell heard on a warm day across miles of calm ocean.

  A moment ago, Crivano prompts, you were speaking of your two interests.

  Tristão sets the wooden rod on the countertop with a heavy sigh. I hope you will forgive my clumsy reticence, he says. Often I find myself at a loss when compelled to speak of things that are perfectly natural. Of perfectly ordinary human concerns.

  You’re referring to Perina, I suppose.

  Tristão glances up, his expression bashful, his eyes bright and relieved. Ah! he says. I envy your intuition, Vettor, and am grateful for it. She is, as you have discerned, my love. Because she is a daughter of nobility, and because I am what I am, our union will never be permitted in the Republic’s territories. Thus we have chosen to depart.

  Amsterdam will be more accepting, you think?

  It scarcely could be less so, my friend.

  A set of iron firetools hangs from the brazier’s rim; Tristão reaches for a poker, stirs the blaze, uses a small spade to load the lower chamber of the athanor. Slow squeezes of a bellows coax a steady glow from the coals; Tristão takes up a stout crystal cucurbit on the counter. His firelit face appears fleetingly in the surface of the mirror-talisman; Crivano starts when he sees it, as if it might be a conjured demon wearing the face of its impious summoner. Outside, behind the dark form of the church, the lights of linkboys move down the fondamenta that abuts the canal.

  What of your second interest? Crivano says. What is that?

  Tristão shrugs, pours ordure from the beaker into the cucurbit. My continued studies, he says. When last we spoke in the Morosini house, I told you I intend to explore optical phenomena associated with the Great Work. I now lack resources to do this; in this city I have no reasonable expectation that my lack will be remedied. I require unfettered access to mirrormakers. In Amsterdam I will have it.

  Crivano watches Tristão fasten an alembic to the cucurbit, a glass bulb to the alembic’s downsloping neck. The devices are so well-made and well-cleaned as to be invisible but for the candleflames they reflect. The shape of the alembic echoes the beaked mask of the plaguedoctor. Crivano smiles; his eyelids sag with sleep.

  Obizzo told me of your new plans for escape, he says. Rowing to the trabacolo. Feigning an embarkation. Do you really believe this will succeed?

  Do you see reason to doubt?

  If the Council of Ten knows what ship you intend to use, the sbirri will meet you in the lagoon. Or they’ll already be aboard when you arrive.

  They do not know what ship, Tristão says. Aside from the sailors themselves, who have been told nothing of their expected passengers, no soul in this city aside from myself knows the name of the vessel that is to bear us.

  Narkis knew, Crivano says. So did the Mughal spies with whom he collaborated.

  Tristão busies himself in the athanor’s upper enclosure. He fixes the cucurbit in a sand-bath, balances the glass apparatus on a rack above the coals’ rising heat. Narkis bin Silen was alone, he says. Even his fellow residents at the fondaco had no knowledge of his activities. And his Mughal friends are not here. They await him in Trieste, I believe.

  You’re sure he confessed nothing prior to his death?

  I am, yes.

  Wherefore this certainty, Tristão?

  I was present when Narkis bin Silen died.

  Tristão moves his hands away from the arrangement of glass atop the athanor. It retains its position. Then he adjusts the height of the platform that bears the coals below. He does not look at Crivano.

  I did not kill him, Tristão says. I certainly would have done so, had that been necessary. But he knew what was possible, and wh
at was not. I told him who I was. He understood. He put a cord around his neck, and he hanged himself from the Madonnetta Bridge. I cut his body down and let him drift in the canal. It was not a happy end, Vettor. Not at all. But for him no better end would have come.

  Crivano watches his friend’s smooth face, intent in the orange light. He isn’t sure he believes Tristão. He isn’t sure it matters anymore.

  If the Council of Ten doesn’t know what ship you’ll use, Crivano says, why bother with the simulation of boarding? None will be watching to be deceived.

  Tristão’s hands fidget around the clay cylinder, although there is nothing more to arrange, no task left to accomplish. An additional precaution, he says. Sbirri will patrol the lagoon, and may see our lights. They will also be keeping careful record of vessels passing through the channel at San Nicolò. Once they learn the glassmakers have gone, they and the guild are likely to send assassins. I much prefer that those assassins be sent to Constantinople, not to Amsterdam.

  Crivano is silent. Tristão continues to bustle around his apparatus until this demonstration can’t help but seem asinine. Then he straightens, sighs, turns to meet Crivano’s gaze.

  You’re lying, Crivano says.

  Tristão looks wounded. Not at all, he says. Why do you accuse me of this?

  It’s a foolish risk you’ve planned, to no certain profit. As you’ve said, the sbirri are patrolling the lagoon. Why tarry, then, with elaborate charades that no one may see? Why not row headlong for Mestre?

  Tristão remains silent, moistens his lips with his tongue.

  It’s not a charade you need, Crivano says. It’s a diversion. You need the Council of Ten to know what ship we’ll use. To have good reason to believe we’ve sailed on it.

  The trabacolo, Tristão says, is called the Lynceus. Its crew expects to sail for Trieste, of course, but for the right sum, I imagine they will go anywhere in the Adriatic. Any port you might wish.

  Crivano stares at Tristão. Then his eyes sink to the rush-strewn laboratory floor, tracing patterns in the matted carpet of dry stalks and coarse sand. A few specks move there: weevils, beetles, fleas, the tiny spiders that hunt them. Impossible from this height to tell which are which. Crivano could slide from his chair and come to rest among them, could spend the rest of his life watching their microscopic intrigues. In his very vastness he would be invisible: a peculiar new mountain.

  The Church of Saint Jeremy rings the first bell; Saint Jerome echoes it a moment later, along with others. Crivano rises, walks past Tristão to look out the west-facing windows. The sun-absented sky has turned an angry violet.

  Even now, Crivano says, sbirri comb the streets for me. But the Council of Ten is ignorant of your involvement. Am I not right?

  You are correct.

  It knows nothing of Serena and his family? Nor of Obizzo?

  The Council now seeks to arrest Serena. He is known to have had dealings with you. But he and his family are already in hiding—I sent them an alarm—and I believe they will reach the Cerberus safely. The Council knows of Obizzo, of course; it has sought him for years, due to his collusion in his brother’s escape. But it does not suspect that he works the canals of the city as a boatman.

  And what of Perina? Do they know of Perina?

  They do not.

  You’re sure? I visited her at the convent. Perhaps they saw me.

  You visited her at the senator’s behest. It is not suspicious.

  I sent a linkboy to her last night, bearing a cryptic message.

  I intercepted that linkboy. I replaced him with one in my own service. Your message will lead no one to her. Rest assured, Vettor, that among our present company you alone are hotly pursued.

  Crivano falls silent. A solitary blue cloud darkens the air over the mountains, rushing forward on a terrible wind, changing shape as it approaches. For a moment it resembles a crawling thing crushed on a pane of dark glass; then it becomes a gob of spit, dripping from fine dyed satin. Then it simply looks like a cloud. Crivano is weary; he wants to sleep, un-goaded by dreams. I have no wish to go to Amsterdam, he says.

  I thought not. We can put you aboard the Lynceus on our way to Mestre. You have money left from the haseki sultan?

  Oh yes. Letters of advice.

  If you like, Tristão says, I can send my servants into the Ghetto to redeem them for precious stones. Jewels are safer, perhaps, than are your letters. And prices here are reasonably good.

  You still haven’t answered my question. How can we be sure that the sbirri will follow me, and not you?

  Tristão steps closer, puts a warm hand on Crivano’s upper arm. This is difficult, my friend, he says. Circumstance compels me to charge you with a heavy task.

  You’re going to tell them that I’m on the Lynceus.

  They will not learn this, Tristão whispers, until we are all aboard Obizzo’s boat. I know of informants whose eyes watch the Cannaregio Canal. As we depart, we shall take pains to ensure that those eyes fall upon us. After last night’s escapades, you surely will be recognized at once. Yet even with the most fleet of messengers at their disposal, even with the sturdiest of oarsmen, the sbirri will be unable to intercept us until we’ve reached the Lynceus, whereupon they will find our red-lanterned trabacolo racing for the open sea, and Obizzo’s sandolo cast adrift.

  You’re exchanging boats, as well?

  Of course. The Lynceus will have a shallow-drafted riverboat—a topo, this type is called—roped to its north side. If Fortune smiles, we will cross the lagoon at peak tide, passing over sandbars that will obstruct any who would apprehend us. But I do not think we will be pursued.

  Because the sbirri will be chasing the Lynceus. They’ll be chasing me.

  They will try to board you in the lagoon. Likely they will try to blockade you at San Nicolò. They may fire on you from the Lido, as well. The crew of the Lynceus is well-armed and lawless, disinclined to surrender. I think you will escape.

  The sbirri will see me on the quarterdeck. They’ll know I’m aboard, and they’ll infer the presence of the mirrormakers. Thereafter, the spies of the Council of Ten will track me wherever I go. Their assassins will seek my trail in every Mediterranean port.

  Tristão moves his hand from Crivano’s arm to the back of his neck. The skin of his palm is dry and smooth. If you can leave Christian lands entirely, he says, it would be better for you, I think.

  I may not be welcome in Constantinople any longer.

  It is a large world, my friend. With many places in it, and great empty distances for vanishing. You could sail for Alexandria, for instance. Or Tripoli.

  Or Cyprus.

  Yes. There is always Cyprus.

  Crivano shrugs off Tristão’s hand, moves along the counter to examine the athanor. The fluid in the cucurbit is motionless, its color unaltered, but liquid is beading in the alembic above. How long does it take? he asks. Your method?

  The time varies. No less than three weeks. Often a month or more.

  And yet you intend to depart tomorrow night?

  Yes, Tristão says. This process yields reductions and coagulates that are stable and portable after sixteen hours. I intend to collect them before we go. Also, if sbirri crash through our doors tonight, I want to be able to show them this, and to say: No, of course I am not planning to flee your city! Look here—I have just begun a complex operation that is to last a full month!

  Crivano manages a sour smile. He presses a knuckle to the cucurbit’s warm glass, then withdraws it. Lowering his eyes, he scans the assemblies of vessels and devices, the use-disordered rows of chemicals and herbs. Though his limbs remain still, his muscles flex and extend, recalling the automatic gestures of a working magus. To open a window onto a world of ideal forms, to know the mind of God: these are the goals of his art. But Crivano is surprised at how many of his fond memories of the laboratory are bodily—akin to his recollections of janissary calisthenics, or of kick-ball games he learned as a boy. The rules were arbitrary; you practiced u
ntil you moved without thought. Those were ideal worlds, too, weren’t they?

  I’ve been thinking of your mirrored alembic, Crivano says. And also of a passage in the Corpus Hermeticum that the Nolan saw fit to cite, about the instance of reflection that induces Man to descend from Heaven and inhabit the Earth. He looks down; He sees His own perfect shape reflected in Her waters. So arises our double nature: mortal flesh, housing immortal souls.

  Tristão nods, but seems distracted. He reaches for the water-pitcher and empties it into the chamberpot, rinsing the wooden rod and the long spoon as he pours. When the water is gone, he sets the pitcher on the counter. Then he lifts the chamberpot, swirling it in his right hand.

  Indeed, he says. But here we should be cautious. Often we are told, and rightly so, that we can know God by knowing ourselves, for we are made in His image. We are not base, it is said, but divine. Yet this, perhaps, is saying too much. For even in our baseness—in our excrement—we might discern the work of our Creator.

  All things come from God, Crivano says. Even shit can be sublimed.

  But should it be?

  Tristão fixes Crivano with a fierce glare. Then he steps to the windows, and with a smooth sudden motion slings the chamberpot’s contents into the canal below. The liquid strikes the surface with a weak slap.

  Should it be sublimed? Tristão says. Should it be transcended? When we seek to do this, is our desire truly to know God? Or is it to know that God truly is as we always have imagined him: the perfect distillate of our corrupt selves? So—we are made in the image of God. Have we considered what this might mean? Innumerable are the egos in man, Paracelsus writes, and in him are angels and devils, heaven and hell. Perhaps God too is like this. Pure and impure. Is it so difficult to imagine? A God of flesh and bone? A God that shits?

  His voice chokes off, as if overwhelmed by some passion: rage, sorrow, Crivano can’t guess which. Tristão drifts away, toward his own approaching form in the mirror-talisman; the image of his torso gradually fills the glass. With the silver window eclipsed the room seems to grow smaller; Crivano shuffles his feet to keep his balance.