Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

Crivano sets his half-eaten bread and sausage on the table, takes the key, and drapes it around his own neck. Then he takes hold of the box’s handles and tries to lift it. It won’t budge.

Tonight, Tristão says, when you depart, you will have the assistance of Hugo and the footman. About my project they know nothing of import, and they can be trusted to be silent. I am very grateful to you for this errand, Vettor.

He bends, blows out the lamp.

Crivano gulps the last of his food as they hurry down the corridor. The lute and the theorbo are playing again; the candles in the great hall are being snuffed, and the Uranici are congregating in the dayroom. Come quickly, Tristão says. There is a fellow here tonight to whom I have pledged to introduce you.

Most of the guests have gathered around the two musicians; they clap and shout encouragement as the players embark upon a fantasia that grows increasingly complex and harmonically improbable. The lutenist plays as if he has surplus fingers. Crivano can see the long neck of the theorbo nod with the rhythm, but the musicians themselves are hidden by the crowd.

Tristão walks to the chamber’s opposite end, toward the row of breeze-sieving windows that opens onto the Grand Canal. Two men converse there; Crivano notes with displeasure that one is Lord Mocenigo. As they draw near, the noble’s vaguely cretinous face clarifies in the dim light, its expression aggrieved and conspiratorial. You now tell me , Crivano overhears him say, that you met no one in all of Frankfurt who successfully learned the Nolan’s so-called art of memory?

The other man, a tall and burly Sienese, seems unfazed by Mocenigo’s question, but he smiles with relief and gratitude when Tristão and Crivano approach. Dottore de Nis! he says. As always, your arrival makes the rest of us seem even uglier than we are.

Mocenigo emits an irritated puff, stalks away. Messer Ciotti, Tristão says, allow me to present Dottore Vettor Crivano, who has come recently from Bologna. Dottore Crivano, this is Messer Giovanni Battista Ciotti, who may be known to you already as the proprietor of Minerva, our city’s finest bookshop.

They exchange bows. Crivano has been in Ciotti’s shop; he heard of it even before he left Bologna, and made a point of visiting soon after he arrived. It’s very good, stocking many titles concerning secret knowledge that he’d hesitate to carry openly in the street. I’m pleased and honored to make your acquaintance, Crivano says.

Ciotti’s smiling response is lost in cheers. The lutenist has doubled time against the bass thrum of the theorbo, executing runs along his fretboard that Crivano’s ears can barely sort out. The end arrives with a daring flourish, and applause fills the room. As it fades, a distant bravo! sounds from a boat passing on the canal, and everyone laughs.

Guests stoop to congratulate the players, the crowd begins to part, and Crivano catches a glimpse of the lutenist, sheepishly eyeing his calloused fingers. Extraordinary, Crivano says. Who is he?

I have not seen him before, Tristão says. He is quite adroit.

He’s a scholar from Pisa, Ciotti says. I imagine he learned to play from his famous father, who recently died, I’m sorry to say. He, good sirs, was a fine lutenist.

The Nolan is standing near the hearth now, conversing with the Paduan scholar who’s to introduce him; the German boy hovers nearby. Messer Ciotti, Tristão breaks in, at our last encounter, I believe you mentioned to me your need for the services of a person able to read and understand the writing of the Arabs. Someone also capable of discretion. Do you still suffer from such a lack?

Ciotti seems surprised for a moment. I do, he says. An Arabic document has come into my possession, an esoteric manuscript, and I’ve recently had it translated. I would like to have this Latin rendering authenticated before I pay my translator the balance of what he is owed.

This man, Tristão says, placing a hand on Crivano’s shoulder, speaks and writes the Arabic tongue with great proficiency. Also the languages of the Greeks and the Persians and the Ottoman Turks, the last of whom kept him prisoner for many years and came to rely upon his skills and experience as an interpreter. I think that perhaps, if he is willing, Dottore Crivano could be of great help to you in this matter.

Crivano and Ciotti look at each other. Then both speak at once, fall silent again, and smile awkwardly. I would consider it a privilege to assist, Crivano says. May I ask how lengthy is the manuscript in question?

Not long. Scarcely ten thousand Latin words.

Crivano nods, suddenly wary, as if he’s stepped among slip-nooses. It might require several hours, he says. I don’t suppose you’d permit me to remove the translation and the original manuscript from your shop?

Ciotti smiles. I might, he says, if I were the manuscript’s owner. But I am not.

He turns to Tristão. Dottore de Nis, he says, when last we spoke, you suggested to me that this task might be compassed most quickly by a pair of translators working in concert. Do either of you know another scholar with a facility in Arabic?

Crivano looks at Ciotti, then at Tristão, who’s watching them both intently, like a child who’s trapped a pair of scorpions in a jar. In fact, Tristão says, I may know of such a man.

Gentlemen! A voice rises from beside the hearth, speaking a clear and reedy Latin. Members of the Uranian Academy! it says. Distinguished guests! On behalf of our hosts, the generous Andreas and Nicolaus Morosini, I thank you for your attention. As always, I am Fabius Paolini, and tonight I am pleased to welcome Philotheus Iordanus Brunus Nolanus to the convocation of this assembly. This is not the first time that Doctor Brunus has addressed us. This chamber was full on the occasion of his previous visit, and all those who were here surely recall as vividly as do I the spirited debate that arose. I shall therefore assume that our speaker is known to most of you — from your familiarity with his famous publications on philosophy, cosmology, memory, and magic, if not from my earlier long-winded introduction — and I shall therefore forego a second one. Tonight Doctor Brunus will, I believe, lecture us on the art of memory, a subject of considerable interest to many in this room. Doctor, I gratefully surrender the floor to you.

The Nolan moves into the space that Paolini has vacated; he makes a slow circle, as if testing the soundness of the floor. His gait is feline, or viverrine, not quite human. He walks with bent knees, on the balls of his feet; his small deep-set eyes scour the room with raw contempt. Crivano recalls a torch-bearing dervish in Tiflis who made a run at their powder store; the janissary archers shot him so full of arrows that when he finally died their shafts kept his limp corpse off the dirt. The dervish’s face as he charged bore an expression identical to the one the Nolan wears now. The world, Crivano thinks, is a poor container for such men.

When at last he speaks, the friar’s voice is rough and shrill, as though coarsened by frequent shouting. My thanks, Doctor Paolini, he says. In fact, I will not be speaking on memory tonight. I have done so before in this room, and to raise the subject here again would cheapen it. Those still unconvinced will remain so, regardless of how I argue. Tonight, rather than lecturing on the art of memory, I will demonstrate it. Perhaps this exercise will quiet those who say that the art is a sham, a waste, a fancy. Gentlemen, I invite you to name my topic for me. We are all learned men, are we not? Choose whatever subject pleases you, and I, extempore, shall engage it.

A startled silence ensues. The Nolan faces his audience with a cool sneer. The quiet collapses into soft grumbles, a few snickers, the shuffle of nervous feet. Paolini clears his throat.