Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

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?