Presently I saw her, a basket on her arm. She was wearing the habit of a tirewoman that my mother had given her instead of the coarse smock of a charwench, her present office; although it was almost as faded and worn as her own face, it was still her pride when she ventured abroad. I caught her eye and led her to a near-by bridge. She sat down on the edge, shelling a mess of dry beans. I lounged beside her, as might a nephew who had come up in the world of late, although not very far.
“I didn’t expect to see you again, young master,” said she.
“I’m not your young master any more, Aunt Rosa.”
“You were once, so you’ll always be. I hold with things as they were long past, not as they are now.”
“Why didn’t you expect to see me? Not here, I grant, but in my uncle’s house?”
“Your cousin Leo, he heard how you’ve tried to borrow from the Jews, and how you failed. He told Signor Nicolo of it, and foretold you’d be gone from the city on the day that Nicolo and his brother Maffeo set sail.”
“What would cause me to be gone?”
“Don’t you know? It was plain enough to Leo and his sire, for they’re a knowing pair. How could you stay for shame? Where was the thousand pieces of gold you said you’d have, to pay your fare? But you’d come back, they said, when folk forgot, and say nothing more of it.”
“What did my aunt Flora say to that?”
“She reckoned it was true, but still she was amazed that you’d sent the fifty gold pieces to settle your debt.”
“Did you hear this with your own ears, or was it repeated to you?”
“I heard with my own ears, when Signor Nicolo and Maffeo came with their trains to break Lenten fast on Easter Eve.”
“What comments did Nicolo make? But I dare say you’ve forgotten——” I spoke in an easy voice.
“Forget, would I? Aye, I will, when Antonello’s ghost forgets the merrymaker who lent him a purse. Nicolo said nothing, pro or con, as to your being ashamed. But he asked a dozen questions as to the money worth of the old Arab, your master. Was Signor Zane certain of what he’d told him before? Did the hundred bezants he’d lent you exhaust his credit with the moneylenders, and all he had left was his allowance from the Emir of Medina? Signor Zane swore to it by half a score of saints and the bones of God. He thumped the table till his wine spilled and I feared the glass would break. Then Signor Nicolo bade him calm himself—after all, it was no great matter, he was merely curious as to the prospects of the fine young man known as his son. And there was no scoffing in his eyes, only a white light.”
“It was strange he would talk so boldly in your hearing.”
“What did he care for churchyard meat like me? My head had been addled since my lady died—the serving wench Amelia had heard Signor Zane tell him so over their wine cups on the day of Nicolo’s return. Aye, on that very day Signor Nicolo asked about his lady’s tirewoman Rosa, whom he’d not forgot in all those years! Shouldn’t I be proud?”
Her gaunt thumb pressed against a dry bean pod. It popped like a burning cane and the beans shot six fathoms across the water.
“Surpassing proud,” I said.
“Yet it proved not half my glory! In his last visit, the one I spoke of just now, he sought me out!”
“You mean he summoned you into his presence.”
“Nay, I do not—may my tongue wither if I lie. When he saw me scouring the threshold stone he came and spoke to me. Was I not old Rosa? How did I fare? He would buy me an unguent for my lame bones. And how long since I’d visited the grave of my dear mistress?”
“What then?”
“I answered him as well as he could expect of one whose head is addled, and wondrous patient he was with me, I’ll be bound. He spoke of this and that, for me to remember, and then he questioned me about my lady’s last sickness. Did she leave any letters for him? But no doubt she left one for her son Marco? Perhaps she gave the lad something to keep until he was grown up. It might be a parcel of some sort, or a bottle, and it may be that she had got it from her uncle, Friar Johannes de Carpini.”
A dull ache spread across my forehead.
“What else did he say?” I asked. “Try to remember every word.”
“He asked if she said anything about a salamander.”
“What was the sense of that? A salamander’s a reptile that’s supposed to be able to live in fire, but Mustapha denies it.”
“Could old Rosa—but I was young then—have stolen the parcel and kept it all these years? If so, I had better tell him and save a whipping. For my mistress had something hidden, and I knew it. I had best pull my wits together to remember. Then when my head shook as though with palsy, and I looked upon him with empty eyes, he struck me hard in the side with his scabbard.”
“Why, that’s a trifle!”
“Nay, it was not, because of what he cried. ‘Why don’t you weep at that, you maggot-headed hag?’ For my eyes were dry as bones. ‘Why, you didn’t hurt me a whit,’ I told him, as near as I could the way my lady said it. Then his eyes went dark as though he gazed into Hell. ‘Don’t repeat a word of what I’ve told you,’ he said to me when the spell passed off, ‘or I’ll have you shut up in a madhouse where you’ll learn what whipping means.’ And with that he went his way.”
His way was toward the Court of Kublai Khan. He would be setting sail in a week, perhaps, certainly within the month. Rosa’s way was down to death, and she would take it soon. One could scarcely imagine a less important event in the sight of the world. A poisoned pigeon falling dead in the Rialto would cause more comment. That would be the end of my mother, too. An underkingship in Cathay would be balm to Nicolo’s feelings and he would forget her dry eyes and strange smile. He would have several queens, a drove of concubines, and a galaxy of handmaidens. He would no longer remember Lucia’s relief when he tupped trulls or won fine ladies’ favors.
What of it? No one lived forever. . . .
“I have two questions to ask you, then I’ll go,” I said.
“Aye, Master Marco.”
“In what room of the Casa Polo did my mother die? It seems to me it was up the stairs—along a corridor to the right—through an archway——”
“Why, what’s happened to my wits? Now I think of it, Signor Nicolo asked me the same question!”
“Did you tell him?”
“I couldn’t recall, just then, but I’ve been thinking on it since, and ’twas the room next to the balcony, o’erhanging the water keep.”
“He’ll search them all. And now try to remember this. A year before Nicolo returned, Dame Muccini, who lived across the canal, lost a gold cross once worn by Saint Agnes, with an amethyst in the center. Her tirewoman Carlotta told you of it, and of its finding.”
“That she did!”
“It seems you told me she consulted a witch——”
“Aye, the Black Woman of Martyrs’ Walk. She told the lady to look behind a mirror in her chamber, and there she found the relic hanging on a nail, where she herself had hidden it when afeared of robbers. I didn’t know witchcraft would work on a holy emblem, but it seems it did.”
I took leave of the beldame, quite sure I would see her again, then made for Martyrs’ Walk. Dame Muccini had gone to her saints and quite likely the witch to the Devil; if I did find her, I would throw away a lira on a fool’s errand. The neighborhood proved to be a poor one, inhabited mainly by leather workers. And when a Negress came to the door of the house pointed out to me, I could hardly bring myself to state my errand.
She was not black but a deep, rich brown, and I had never seen a woman past forty who looked less like a witch. Nearly six feet tall, burly but not fat, each breast big enough to nourish triplets and her arms strong enough to defend them from an ogre, she appeared to be a combination of motherliness and happy childishness. Her eyes were round and a little popped. Her mouth was big and could not help smiling.