The Vincents thanked him and walked farther down the colonnade for a better view of the building that the pirate captain was in. It was an older style of home with a tall wall surrounding it and space for a garden between the wall and the palazzo. Lights were visible through the windows on the second floor, but none of the inhabitants stood obligingly near a window.
Vincent leaned closer to Jane as though his voice could be audible through the rain to those in the building across the street. “It occurs to me that they would recognise either one of us.”
Jane nodded. “It almost makes me wish you had not shaved.”
“I can grow the beard again, though it would not be fast enough.”
“I said almost. Should we ask the puppet player?”
“No…” Vincent’s voice trailed away and his gaze went distant, as it did when he was considering a theory of glamour.
“What? What are you thinking?”
Without seeming to hear her, Vincent took a step backwards, still staring into an inner distance. He pulled glamour and quickly wove a change in his hair colour from its usual dark brown to a steely grey. A full moustache now connected his side whiskers. He turned to Jane, managing the folds with a nearly invisible ease. If Jane had not known him so well, she would not have realized the effort. Only a very slight quickness of breath betrayed him.
“You are not thinking to confront them like that.”
He shook his head, and the illusion stayed close to his person. “No. Just to see if Sanuto is there. I can pose as a messenger.”
“Even if that were a good idea, you cannot seriously propose using glamour as a disguise.”
“I can hold it for about half an hour, I think.”
“For half an hour?”
“Likely longer, but half an hour I feel confident of.” He had cleverly masked the places the illusion would likely slip in locks of hair so the movement seemed more or less natural. “I work glamour for longer periods of time on a regular basis.”
“But not while walking with it.”
“You recall Miss FitzCameron from your parents’ neighbourhood and how she masked her teeth. If she could dance, why can’t I walk with this?”
“She fainted constantly and could never speak while the illusion was in place. You are holding glamour over two areas rather than just one.”
The smell of damp stone rose around them in answer to the rain. Vincent stubbornly continued to hold the grey hair and moustache while he stared at the building. “Have you another idea?”
What Vincent proposed was ridiculous on the face of it. To walk with glamour required a constant regulation of tension as the folds’ relationships with each other and the ether shifted. Much the way sliding a line quickly through the fingers produced heat from friction, moving glamour took more energy than merely pulling it out of the ether.
It was possible to create small illusions and hold them, but not without risk to one’s health.
But Vincent was right. They needed to know if Sanuto was here—or, if not, what the pirate captain intended—which meant that one of them needed to see inside. And yet Jane was uncertain what they would do with this information. “I do not know which worries me more. That you are thinking of going inside or that you are going to try doing it while wearing glamour.”
Before he could make any further argument, a group of nuns walked past them. They wore a different habit than those of the sisters at Santa Maria degli Angeli, but it was enough for Jane’s mind to offer a new possibility. “What about a lointaine vision?”
A lointaine vision was an invention of Vincent’s that allowed an observer to watch something from a distance, even if there were obstacles in the way. Jane had used the fold only once, years earlier, to eavesdrop on her sister and the rogue who had attempted to seduce her. The glamourist could snake the folds around or over those things that blocked the view, and they carried sound as well. While there were other methods of carrying sight or sound, there was no other for carrying both. Its chief drawback was that it required constant management of the threads as they carried the sights and sounds from the thing viewed to the glamourist. Most significantly for their purposes, it retained the images of whatever was viewed through it. That had been useful when rescuing her sister, but since it was difficult to move the thread due to its length, there was little use for it in polite society. If they could convince the capo di polizia that the pirate captain was here, then a recording would certainly be of use, though they would have to bring the capo di polizia to the recording.
“Where would we cast the lointaine vision from?” He let the glamour masking his features dissolve, which gave Jane a measure of relief.
“By the wall. We would set a Sphère Obscurcie to mask us.”
He shook his head. “The rain makes the outline visible.”
“Really?” Jane thought for a moment, and could see why. “Ah … the offset of the raindrops would show. What if we were under shelter, then could we do it from here?”
Vincent cocked his head and measured the distance with his gaze. After a moment, he slowly shook his head. “I think it is too far to span.”
“If we worked in tandem? We could try yoking it.” If the children could pass doves over the congregation by working in teams of three, it seemed possible that two adults—professionals, at that—could span the gap between the buildings.
“I have become used to working alone again, clearly. Yes. Let us do that, Muse.”
Jane and Vincent took up a station in the lee of a column, where the passers-by were less likely to stumble through their Sphère Obscurcie, and began to weave. Vincent stood in front, supporting the weight of the folds, while Jane fed the line out. The lointaine vision was a variation on bouclé torsadée in that both were a loop of thread coiled around itself. The difference was that the lointaine vision required leaving the loop open with a glamourist constantly feeding out the line and twisting it, while the bouclé torsadée was tied off. Even working in tandem, the energy to span the space across the street was such that Jane was glad they had chosen a spot next to a column, so that she could lean against it. Panting, Vincent once had to ask Jane to pause feeding out the line so that he could shift his grip on the yoke and lift it higher, to control the glamour’s natural tendency to drift downward.
It took the better part of ten minutes for them to get the line into the lighted window. When they did, Jane gasped as the image shifted to show the room inside and the conversation became audible.
What she could see of the room was well appointed, but the lointaine vision was like looking through a tube. They could see only what was directly in front of its end. Jane did not see Sanuto at first, but she heard his voice clearly: “—tell you, one of the finest hunters I have ever seen.”
“And did you win the horse?” The pirate captain sat in range of the lointaine vision on a low sofa. He was recognisable, though, as Vincent had reported, he had shorn his long moustaches and now wore the clothes of a Venetian gentleman. Beside him sat Biasio. Jane had another moment of shock at seeing them together, because she now realized why Biasio had seemed so familiar.
It was not that he had reminded her of Mathieu. “Biasio was the first mate of our ship.”
“Are you certain?” Vincent hastily tied off the yoke so it would remain steady and came back to help her with the lointaine vision itself.
“Imagining the pirate captain with his moustache caused me to do the same for Biasio. I am quite certain.” Jane shifted her grip forward on the glamour and let Vincent slide into place beside her. His fingers brushed the inside of her wrist as he took hold of the thread.
He grunted as he began to see and hear the room with her. “I still remember so little of that.”
The men laughed at something that Sanuto said. Jane very much wished to see him, but he sat to the right of the room and only his foot, propped in front of him on an ottoman, was visible through the lointaine vision. The sword cane leaned against the low stool as thou
gh ready for use.
A fourth man stood at a sideboard at the far wall, pouring a glass of port. Jane recognised him as being the clerk who had supposedly handled their papers at the port. He lifted a glass of sherry and saluted the other gentleman. “As graceful a gambit as I have ever seen.”
They continued to talk about the hunter and other admirable horses, and then conversation drifted to racing, but nothing incriminating was said, nor did they refer to Jane or Vincent. In fact, there was nothing to indicate that they were anything beyond genial colleagues. The glamour kept spooling out, and, even with Vincent’s help, Jane’s strength was beginning to flag. They knew that Sanuto was there, but nothing beyond that.
A knock came at the door to Sanuto’s room. Biasio rose and opened the door to admit Gendarme Gallo. His hat was damp and his hair plastered against his head. The laughter ceased and the pirate captain sat up. “What?”
“Pardon the intrusion, signors.” Gallo bowed to each man in turn. “Sir David came to the offices today and said that he saw you.”
“Saw who?” Sanuto shifted in his chair.
“Signor Coppa.” He bowed to the pirate captain. At last Jane had a name for the man.
Coppa seemed entirely too silly to be a pirate captain—which, of course, he was not. But he also seemed too silly to be a rookster. Frowning, Coppa said, “Where? I avoided the square and their apartment.”
“He did not say.” Gallo turned his hat in his hand. “But I do not think he will be troubling you.”
Sanuto leaned forward, his hand becoming briefly visible as he lifted his cane from its place. “Surely you were not foolish enough to imply that you were associated with us.”
“He was going to go to the capo di polizia.”
“And?” Sanuto sat back. “If he had, you would have told us, and we would have removed. Now…”
Coppa rolled his eyes. “Are we blown?”
“What about trying a MacGregor?” Biasio said. “You’d have to dye your hair again, Spada.”
Spada? Which of the swindlers was that?
As if in answer to her question, Sanuto’s voice rolled out. “Perhaps. Let’s hear exactly what our friend said to Sir David.”
“I … I told him that I hoped he would do nothing that would cause me to have to arrest him. And that I expected to see him tomorrow.” Where his face had, before, been damp with rain it now had beads of sweat dripping from the brow.
“And?”
“And he wouldn’t say anything else to me after that.”
Sanu—no, Spada—said, “Go back. Say nothing else to him. If he brings it up again, imply that you work with the secret Carbonari society to reclaim Venice, but do not volunteer the information. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Denaro? Pay the man.”
Evidently, Denaro managed their money even when not pretending to be a customs clerk. He pulled out a handful of coins and counted out seven to Gallo. He bowed again to each of the men, and then took his leave. They waited until the door to their room shut, and then waited again until they heard the front door close.
As soon as it did, Coppa cursed. “Now what? Do you think you can still pull off a Hausman? I mean, they know we’re here. I don’t even know how. I swear I avoided all of the spots that either of them frequent.”
“It is all right, Coppa. I think it is fairly clear that Gallo is not as steady a tumbler as we’d hoped.” Spada tapped the ground with his cane. “Well, Bastone? Do you think you can make a Verre Obscurci without either of the Vincents?”
The apprentice, whom she had known as Biasio, hesitated. “Yes?”
“If they don’t work, then he can at least fake it,” Coppa said. “We’ll be gone with the money before the Lombardy-Venetia buyers realize. Or simply blow town with their deposit.”
“Short-term profit, gentlemen, is not as valuable as a repeat customer,” Spada murmured. “That is why we are here. Coppa, any further thoughts on the location of the real spheres?”
Coppa shook his head. “None. And I am fairly certain that Querini was telling the truth, but we should perhaps have Bastone ask again when he goes to work with him. He knows him better.”
Vincent made a startled intake of air at the same time Jane did. The real spheres? If they did not have them, who did?
Denaro humphed. “More and more, I think it must have been Gallo who made the swap. They worked when we first got them.”
“Or they cracked in transit,” Bastone said.
“Whatever the case, Bastone will have to make us a new one before the bidders come.” Spada tipped his glass to the former apprentice.
“You don’t understand how hard these are to make. I barely understand his papers.”
Coppa narrowed his gaze. “But you watched them. That was the whole point.”
“The folds were so thin. I only know they were using cold because they cracked a sphere the first night. I mean, it’s like this…” His gaze went distant as he looked into the ether and reached for a fold. Bastone paused, gaze turning toward the window until he appeared to be looking directly at Jane. “Hullo … What’s that?”
Sixteen
Tarot and Puppetry
The moment it became apparent that Bastone saw the thread of glamour they had pushed into the room, Vincent cursed. Jane hauled backwards to pull the thread out of sight, but Vincent held it firm. In the room, Bastone rose to his feet.
“He will see it.” She tugged again, but Vincent’s hands were in front of hers, and the thread did not move.
“He already has, but right now it is just a curious thread in the window. If it twitches, he will know someone is watching.” Vincent slid his fingers into the thread and pried apart the two pieces. “Here, hold this side steady, but let it untwist. Then tie it off.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making it look like it is the remnant of an anchoring thread for a street illusion.” He took the other end and let it begin to untwist. Taking a deep breath, he looked at Jane. “Do not worry.” Then he ran, holding the thread, directly across the street.
To someone who did not understand the toll glamour could take, what he did might appear commonplace. To walk with glamour, even a single thread, was difficult. But this was a very long thread that had required two of them to support its length. And yet … he crossed the street, maintaining it by himself, and the end of the thread in the window did not move. Not at all.
As he moved, he fed the end he was holding back into the ether in a steady spool so that he was constantly changing the relationship of the thread to the ether, the thread to himself, and the thread to the yoke while keeping the end that stood in the window absolutely steady.
And he did all this while running.
He did this while fatigued from having spent the past half hour spooling out glamour.
Jane was therefore dismayed, but not surprised, when he attained the other side of the street, tied off the glamour, and sagged against the wall. Leaning against it, he turned and gave Jane a merry wave, but he was clearly fatigued. His breath puffed into the cool November air in great jets of steam. They rose into the air like a signal fire.
Vincent frowned and closed his mouth, curving his hands over his nose to mask some of the steam.
Jane tied her end of the glamour off, making sure not to let it move. The thread had uncoiled so that it no longer carried images from the palazzo. She looked up at the window without the benefit of the lointaine vision and was alarmed to see Bastone standing there. She shrank back, before remembering that she stood in a Sphère Obscurcie. She glanced across the road to see if Vincent’s breath might be visible from the window, but he was no longer standing against the wall.
For a moment, Jane thought that he had cast a Sphère as well, before understanding that he sat, sagged against the base of the wall. Her instinct almost carried her forward, but she checked her flight before she stepped out of the influence of the Sphère. Bastone still stood in the window looking out,
and would see her if she crossed the street. Though her every instinct urged her toward Vincent, she also knew his limits—better than he did—and knew that nothing worse would come of this than him becoming a little damp from the rain and the puddled water on the street. Still, it took an effort to steel her resolve and step back. She slid out of the Sphère and behind the column.
As she did, the puppet player was emerging from his booth. Signor Zancani motioned her back. “I will tend to him. Lest they see.”
Biting the inside of her lip, Jane waited behind the pillar. It chafed to do nothing, but the puppet player was quite correct. The rain was a mere drizzle, and the overcast sky left more than enough light to see by, so she would be visible if she crossed the street now. Zancani darted across as though running for the door of the building next to the palazzo to escape the rain, but as soon as he was against the wall, and could trust it to hide him, he doubled back to Vincent.
Her husband was already stirring. With immeasurable relief, Jane watched Vincent accept a hand from the puppet player. The men made their way up the street, staying close by the wall. As they walked, Vincent seemed to recover his strength and rely less on the puppet player to steady him.
Jane forced her attention away from them and back to the window. Bastone was speaking to someone in the room, and seemed to have lost interest in the glamour. Had he been able to discern the spiral before they got it untwisted? It was similar enough to a bouclé torsadée that he might have recognised that someone was spying on them.
Signor Zancani paused at the corner and said something to Vincent. Her husband nodded and glanced at Jane, pointing at the puppet booth. She nodded in return as the men turned the corner away from her, guessing that they would circle through the streets to return to the booth and meet her there. Jane reached into the ether and undid the Sphère Obscurcie, taking care that the knot did not fray and call attention to itself. Keeping to the shadows deep under the colonnade, Jane made her way to the puppet booth and waited by it.
She divided her attention between the palazzo and the street. None of the men were visible in the window now, but she was as worried about the door, in case any of them should depart. More than that, her concern was for Vincent. In spite of her consciousness that his dizziness had been largely because he had tried to quiet his breathing after such an exertion, she would not rest easy until he was with her again.
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