“Do you still think it may have something to do with Costanza?” Abella asked.
“Yes, and I know someone who can confirm it,” he concluded, darting her an angry look. He couldn’t stand it that this quack always wanted to have the final word.
XIV.
THE FORMULA
He got out of the boat that had brought him to Amurianum full of hope and perhaps, for the first time, proud of his achievements. If Tataro recognized the chalice, then his theories would be confirmed and thus become tangible proof.
At the foundry, he was told that the master was ill, “with his guts in great turmoil,” and that he’d find him at home.
Getting to the San Donato canal, beyond the church of San Salvatore, he found Tataro’s palazzo.
He’d seen it in the process of being built, and was stunned by its grandeur. The marble of the façade, both white Istrian and multi-colored, glowed with the dying light of the sunset, which played in the empty and filled spaces of the polifora, its rays exploding in alabaster splinters, bouncing off the round stained glass panes that shielded the windows.
The glassmaker had made his dream come true: to be able to shut his windows, like the abbey at Montecassino, with circles of glass held together with molten lead.
He was shown up to the main floor. Tataro received him in bed. He looked ill and jaundiced.
“I’ve got two wolves tearing at my kidneys day and night,” Tataro moaned, grinding his teeth. Then he took a glass from a stool and drained the contents with a grimace of disgust. His lips were stained with blood.
“I have to drink this muck that makes me sick: the blood of a kid fed on diuretic herbs . . . And that’s not all. I have to eat boiled newborn puppy meat—physician’s orders.”
He pursed his lips and made a kind of painful whistle.
“God keep you. I’m sorry for your illness.” Edgardo was surprised by his own monastic tone, which he thought he’d forgotten.
The glassmaker motioned to him to approach. “What do you want?”
“I think I may have found your glass pieces, the ones you entrusted to Giacomo so he’d show them to Lippomano.”
Despite his illness, Tataro gave a start of curiosity.
“They’re in his palazzo storeroom,” Edgardo added.
“What about Giacomo?”
“I found no trace of him.”
“Are you sure they’re my glass pieces?”
“I’ve brought you one to make sure.”
The glassmaker lifted himself up with great difficulty. Edgardo slipped his hand under his cloak, and began to unwrap the rags.
Pierced by the rays of the dying sun, the chalice lit up, making the crystal glass vibrate with the most perfect light.
As though shaking off his amazement, Tataro livened up, and, trying to gather all his remaining strength, reached out to the object and brushed it with his fingers, like a loving caress.
“Is it one of yours?” Edgardo asked quickly.
The glassmaker didn’t reply straight away, but stared at the chalice, spellbound. “Where did you find it?” he asked in a broken voice.
“I told you, in the merchant’s house—”
Tataro’s face turned purple, his fingers shaking, and the veins in his neck were swollen and throbbing. “You’re lying, you damned scribe!” he shouted. “Are you trying to make fun of me? Do you take me for a madman? I’ve been a glassmaker all my life and I’m not going to let a disrobed cleric take me for an ass!”
Edgardo looked at him, unable to comprehend. “I don’t understand, really—”
“Are you trying to make me believe you know nothing about the glass this chalice is made of?”
As though caught red-handed without knowing why, Edgardo lowered his head. “For heaven’s sake, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tataro’s chest shook with a phlegmy laugh. “You’re a terrible actor. You know perfectly well this chalice can’t possibly be mine. The glass it’s made of is pure crystalline glass, transparent and clear like rock crystal. The only ones who knew the formula of perfect crystal were Segrado and . . . ” he stared at him with hatred, “ . . . and a scribe to whom Segrado dictated the formula before he died, and that scribe was you!”
Edgardo felt the glass scorch his fingers as though suddenly molten. A chalice manufactured according to Segrado’s instructions. How could that be possible? The tragic events of twelve winters earlier flashed before his eyes.
His arrival in Venice from Bobbio Abbey after a long journey down the Medoacus. The hope of finding out about the eye stone mentioned by his friend Ademaro. The illusion that the miraculous medication could cure his ailing eyes that no longer allowed him to perform his much-loved work as a copyist. The magic that had overwhelmed him as soon as he’d arrived in this miraculous city rising from the waters, his first contact with the world of glassmakers and glassblowers. Meeting Master Segrado and his young slave, Kallis.
Segrado had worked his entire life to obtain the perfection of pure glass, crystalline, exactly like rock crystal, without that green shade that always made glass paste dull. After many attempts, he’d succeeded in discovering the correct formula.
It was this discovery that had led him, almost by chance, to invent the “eye circles,” the round pieces of glass that would accomplish the miracle of restoring Edgardo’s sight.
It was the formula for crystalline glass that had triggered the war between Segrado and Tataro, and Edgardo—an innocent cleric—had been dragged into a battle between glassmakers that had led to horrible murders.
Reliving these moments made Edgardo realize that it wasn’t those tragic events that had upset his life at the time. They were nothing in comparison with the devastating power of passion, and the discovery of the sensual world. His love for Kallis had made him abandon his monk’s habit, just like that, overnight, relinquishing all privileges, finding himself hunted, renounced by everyone, wandering without any hope.
When, in the end, Segrado had asked him of all people to transcribe the secret formula for crystalline glass, the demons of evil had been unleashed in all their might. In just a few hours, the world had turned against him, leaving him in the darkest pit of despair.
Tataro’s words had reawakened the slumbering beast beneath the mud of the lagoon. It was obvious that the glassmaker was convinced Edgardo had shared the formula with another master craftsman, and was trying to work out why.
That wasn’t the case, he wasn’t lying, and he too was surprised to discover the existence of crystalline glass. Who could have come into possession of the formula? He was the only one to have transcribed it, and the copy had been lost in the sea before his very eyes.
“Do you want to know the truth?” Edgardo said, smiling. “Yes, Segrado dictated the formula to me, but then the parchment was lost and I . . . you know, my mind isn’t what it used to be . . . it wavers, wanders . . . I’ve forgotten it. I can’t remember it anymore.”
“That’s not true, I don’t believe you!” Tataro cried. “You’re lying. You know the formula for crystalline glass but it’s of no use to you. You’re nothing but a blind, crippled scribe!”
“I’m telling you, I know nothing about this glass. I found it in the merchant’s storeroom. I have a witness who was with me, an eminent physician, Magister Abella.”
Tataro grimaced with disgust. “The canker take me—that woman’s a first-class crook. I know her well. She came to see me at the foundry, she’d heard I was suffering from colic, and wanted to offer her services for some strange treatment, and insisted on seeing my piss, as if I’d show it to a woman . . . And then she also asked my garzoni lots of questions.”
Edgardo started ruffling his messy shock of ruby-colored hair that looked like a whirlwind of autumn maple leaves. “So you know Magister Abella?”
“Of course, and I swear I wouldn’t use a woman d
octor even if I was dead, no way I’d trust her . . . Magister of my balls.”
A worm of suspicion crawled into Edgardo’s ear and, digging its way forward, was sliding in with remarkable speed. “Tell me, when did Abella come to see you at the foundry?”
“I can’t remember—what’s the difference? She was a woman then, and is a woman now.”
“Was it before or after Giacomo disappeared?”
“Before, definitely before. It was before the high autumnal tides, the weather was still warm.”
“Do you remember if she also spoke with Giacomo?”
“I don’t know, she might have . . . she questioned more or less everybody, she wanted to know about their ailments, if they were healthy.”
Perhaps it was mere coincidence, an odd gut feeling like the ones you often get when you’re a wretch who takes too much opium and hallucinogenic herbs, but Edgardo couldn’t help but connect the two events.
Giacomo had vanished after meeting Abella. So had Costanza, who’d disappeared two days after the physician had entered the Grimani home. In both cases, she’d inquired after the young people’s health. Perhaps it didn’t mean much, but that little worm of suspicion was aiming to turn Edgardo’s brain into a permanent home.
“So, scribe? Let’s forget about Abella and your fantastical story, and get back to business. How much do you want for the formula?” The old man was aggressive. “I’m ready to shower you in gold. I don’t know to whom you’ve entrusted your secret, but I could do much better than this amateur,” he pointed at the chalice, “and we’ll become rich.”
“You really can’t get any peace, can you, my poor Tataro?”
“What do you hope to achieve by keeping the secret? Segrado is nothing but dust now, and we too will soon be eaten by worms, so your promise is pointless now. Foolish scribe. Go to hell and may the devil eat your soul. You’ll end up in hell very soon . . . very soon . . . ”
Edgardo turned his back on him and left the room. Tataro’s cries slid over the lagoon, in vain.
The tolling bells announcing Vespers were muffled by the clatter of stone shutters bolted over windows. An atmosphere of stagnant resignation and defeat had taken over Ca’ Grimani. Days passed and Costanza’s fate was increasingly linked to a feeling stripped of pain, to a predestined event that would remain shrouded in mystery.
The suspicions regarding Alvise were still hanging, floating in the air. Magdalena watched the servant boy, studied him, and although she couldn’t find anything to confirm the nasty thoughts that troubled her mind, she couldn’t suppress the deep resentment that corroded her soul.
And so she felt relieved when, that evening, she saw her husband return with a glimmer of light on his face, softened by a gentleness she’d long forgotten.
“I have good news, wife,” Tommaso said. “Come, sit by my side.” He took her hand.
Sitting on the high-backed chairs standing against the wall covered in Flemish arrases, lit up by wavering flames that made their motionless bodies quiver, they were the faded fresco of a family struggling against its undoing.
Magdalena looked at him lovingly: he’d put on weight, seemed tired, his skin had turned gray, and his hands purple.
“We’ll soon have an infallible medicine that will allow you to conceive.”
Magdalena froze.
Tommaso continued. “I’ve heard of an extraordinary medicine, very expensive, that has already given many women the joy of a pregnancy.” Then he leaned toward her and stroked her hair. “Are you happy?”
“Yes, of course,” Magdalena said, trying to stall, “but how can you be so sure? Aren’t you afraid this might be one of those falsely miraculous remedies sold by sorcerers and charlatans?”
“These are neither quacks nor crooks. It’s a formula Romano Marzolo brought back from his trip to Alexandria. It’s taken from The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna, the most illustrious physician of the Arab world.”
Even though she trusted Magister Abella and her advice, Magdalena didn’t want to contradict her husband. “I will gladly accept your medication, even though Magister Abella has advised me to—”
Tommaso’s face twisted into a pained grimace. “I’ve asked you not to mention that charlatan.” His tone was calm and icy. “Surely you won’t compare a woman of unknown origins and training to the most illustrious Arabic physician. I am asking you: don’t utter her name again in my presence, and forget her.” Tommaso leaned and kissed his wife on the head. “Trust me. Do you promise?”
Magdalena gave her husband a final look of despair. “I’ll do as you command.”
Tommaso embraced her excitedly. “You won’t regret it. I can assure you that a year from now, the cries of a newborn baby will once again echo through this house.”
Magdalena lowered her head.
“Now smile. The time for mourning is over, and it’s now a time for hope. With God’s help we’ll also find your sister, I’m sure.”
She’d never seen him so full of confidence. His eyes lit up with an expression of light-heartedness.
Tommaso let go of the embrace and left the salon. Magdalena sank into the high-backed chair in turmoil. She wished with all her heart that she could believe him.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs, then in the inner courtyard, grow increasingly distant.
He’d retired to his much-loved pantry, to that secret room to which only he had the keys. Lately, he would shut himself there more and more often, and stay there for hours. Nobody else had access. The last time—she couldn’t even remember when it had been—that she’d visited the room, she thought it looked just like a simple, bare cabin, with no furniture, almost like a cell. But now, whenever she got close to it, she’d be seized by deep anguish. What did her husband do, locked away in that room, all alone, all that time? Why had he categorically forbidden anyone from entering?
Magdalena listened intently. There wasn’t the slightest sound coming from the mezzanine floor. The long, unstoppable waves of the lagoon were crashing against the front gates with a sinister rumble.
A fetid taste of death tightened her throat. She was undecided, confused, and needed to speak with Abella to find out the result of the research conducted on her husband’s sperm. Only the scribe could organize a meeting with the Magister without arousing Tommaso’s suspicions.
Edgardo felt the infection of a new failure burn in his mind. Tataro’s negative response with regard to the origin of the chalice had undermined the theory of Giacomo’s abduction, and so made the hope of finding Costanza more remote. Maybe Abella was right, and he’d sunk into the state of a destitute man ruled by excess, a prey to stimulant spices that removed him more and more from reality.
His suspicions about Abella increased his anxiety further.
Facing Magdalena, he tried to gather his lost dignity and strived to give her a glimmer of hope. He told her about the women’s clothes and the writing tools in the room.
“Are you really convinced that Costanza could be kept prisoner in that house?” Magdalena asked, upset.
“The palazzo is very large, so I couldn’t search every room, but it’s a possibility I don’t want to rule out.”
Edgardo felt he was uttering these words more to absolve himself than because he was truly convinced.
“So what are you thinking of doing?”
“I’ll go back. I must find a way to enter the palazzo again and rummage everywhere, so I need enough time.”
“Will Magister Abella help you?” The physician’s presence represented a new source of hope for Magdalena.
A veil of melancholy descended over the scribe’s cerulean-blue eyes, saddened by suspicion. “I don’t think so,” he replied.
Magdalena put her hand on his. It was the first time the mistress had allowed herself such a familiar gesture of affection. “There’s bad blood between you,” she whisper
ed, without concealing the suffering in her voice.
Torn by conflicting feelings, Edgardo said nothing.
“You must agree that she’s a talented physician who possesses unique and exceptional qualities,” Magdalena added.
The scribe nodded.
“You must inform her that I urgently need to meet with her, in a place that doesn’t arouse suspicions . . . at the apothecary’s.”
Edgardo bowed his head, but couldn’t stop himself from saying, “May I ask you to do something, Signora? When you meet with Magister Abella, please be prudent.”
Magdalena straightened up, abandoning her intimate attitude, and considered him from the height of her superiority. “What do you mean?”
Edgardo had to find a way out without revealing his suspicions. “In this city many skilfully practice the art of listening, and words then bounce from one calle to another, across canals, flying over the waters, so it’s not always appropriate to trustingly open one’s soul.”
Magdalena stared at him with a severe expression. “You’re getting stuck in a tangle of obscure, tenuous concepts that conceal instead of clarify.”
“I don’t wish to alarm you, Signora, but life has taught me that we sometimes put our trust in people who then turn out to be very different from what we imagined.”
His mind raced back to his friend Ademaro, his loyal companion while at Bobbio, and to the dramatic circumstances that had put an end to their friendship.
“If you mean Magister Abella, know that I have the highest respect for her, but she is just my physician, not my confessor.”
Her words reassured him. Edgardo bowed his head and took his leave.
He didn’t have time to notice the change in Magdalena’s face: her tight lips, pale and bloodless, the gold-flecked eye now darkened, her long fingers outstretched in the void, trembling. Signs of a deep turmoil she could not conceal.
XV.
THE TRAFEGO CONVOY
By of the laws that govern the universe,” Sabbatai grumbled, “this man’s as hard as an oak.”
The Apothecary's Shop Page 12