So all had gone well thus far. The fact remained that I heartily regretted engaging the troop at all, since a band of serenaders would have served my purpose at much less risk. Especially I cursed my extravagant folly in having them bandy Antonello’s name. Already their caller was shouting it at the top of his voice. They would overdo the business. Gregorini would appoint himself a tragedian and end by giving me away. Nicolo would not lose his head and rush out to pummel him; instead he would become thoughtful, immensely capable, and steel-cold.
As I waited in the shadow of a bridge, my coldness was of a different sort. It caused a clammy dew over all my skin and chilled the cockles of my heart and frostbit my spirit. I thought at first it was the foreboding of failure, a clearheaded gloom brought on by a fatal rashness. But presently I exposed the lie. It was nothing in the world but terror.
There was nothing the matter with my scheme. I was simply frightened almost out of my wits of Nicolo Polo.
The discovery had a startling and quite mysterious effect upon me. An angry shame sent a hot flash through me on the heels of the dismal cold, and that boiling-up made me crave exertion as might a roweled horse. Happily, the jongleurs were almost at the portico. I heard casements opening in the front of the house and then a wench’s squeal of laughter.
“Ah, princess!” the caller shouted at her. “I fear a small brown knave will invade your bower——”
The monkey would be climbing the wall by now. Nicolo’s sons would be rushing to the windows of the supper parlor; the servants could hardly mind their duties; Nicolo himself would grow dark in the face and Maffeo would await his brother’s cue. . . . I made for the postern door. It opened to my hand. After a brief pause in the shadows, I gained the staircase on swift and stealthy feet. At its top the close sound of voices reached my burning ears. I barely rounded a corner when two abigails, the young, pretty one carrying satin pillows and the old, ugly one a chamberpot, ran through the hall. I sped into my mother’s room. It had become Nicolo’s room—my eyes swept in the evidence in passing without recording what it was. If now I found what I was looking for, stored in reach of his hand and under his nose, my victory would be sweeter on that account.
But my spirit flagged as I reached out the open casement to the tile water pipe. My arm being visible from the promenade if anyone looked this way mattered not at all in the dismal face of failure. The upraised pipe easily admitted my hand—I felt around the bend. And then the interior no longer felt smooth and hard. . . .
For a matter of a foot, and except for a gap of about two inches, some coarse-grained substance lined the pipe. . . . It was not leather but something like it. . . . Instead of being water-soaked and rotten, it was somewhat stiff. . . . My clawing fingers tried to cramp it into smaller space. I felt it tear, but it did not fit as tightly as before. . . . With a frantic heart and boiling blood but with my hand still moving with my will, I tried to work it down and out of the pipe. . . . I would be captured rather than retreat without full trial.
Again the substance tore, and part of it came free. I brought it out without looking at it, and my next clawing dislodged the rest. Clutching both pieces, I whirled to fly.
A measurable period of time must have passed between that start and the sudden stop I made on the threshold of the postern door, but I was not aware of it, nor would I ever remember any intervening event. I stopped as might a fleeing fox as he beholds with his narrow, cold-fire eyes an unexpected block to his intended course. But that does not cause him to concede defeat. Such a notion could not enter his intent brain. Although his heart had been beating full blast before, it does not burst apart. He stops and picks another path that, with good luck and good running, may gain him his goal.
A footman of some sort whom I had seen in Nicolo’s train was standing within easy view of the narrow quay, and with him was a pretty wench, probably from a near-by domicile, for whom he might like to display his prowess at catching thieves. In any case he would raise an alarm at sight of me. I must choose between ducking back into the house and hiding there until the coast might clear or making boldly toward the fondamento, with the hope of gaining a cluster of people hanging close to the performers. The latter would be my only screen from watchers at the windows of the supper parlor; still, the choice was an easy one. At least I would not be entering a cul-de-sac, and I could still breathe.
I walked briskly and gained the crowd of gapers without anyone’s raising a cry. But my intent to conceal myself among them was thwarted by new developments, and it came to me that I would not get off scot-free.
Out of the door came Nicolo, his face cold and gray. His eyes swept the performers in brutal contempt, and they were superb eyes, missing almost nothing that concerned him; likely, my own sharp vision was rooted in them. I watched them wheel toward me and then light. I thought the expression on his face changed very slightly, but it gave me no clue to his next act. I knew that if my face were white, he took note of it, and that he observed what looked like two pieces of dirty parchment in my hands.
His voice rose in an imperious command.
“Stop the show!”
The laughter and noise of the crowd had been diminishing since the instant of his appearance, causing the performers to sound louder, more strident, somehow more showy and crude. Now the abrupt, complete cessation of their antics had a shocking effect on all the simple people gathered here. Silence fell with a sense of crushing weight. The caller’s patter stopped in mid-air. A red ball, a white ball, and a red-and-white bottle spun flashing when all else had stilled; then Gregorini’s incredible hands caught the first, second, and finally, with the merest suggestion of a flourish, the third. A dancing bear went down on all fours and hung his head. A monkey in a gay red coat and breeches and a little cap ran along the edge of the balcony till his rope tightened. Then he perched there, watching with a worried face.
Nicolo approached me in the lithe strides of a man in his first prime. What are you doing here? I could hear him saying it, the exact sound, while his handsome lips were still closed. However he worded it, my answer was ready.
Instead he said something completely different and in an utterly unexpected tone.
“Marco, is this your troop?”
“Signor?” He had flushed the word out of me as a hunter does a rabbit, and my expression had been as vapid as a rabbit’s.
“If it is, I’ll let them finish their show and throw them some money. Otherwise I don’t want them disturbing me at supper.”
“Why should you think it was my troop?”
“Their name—I heard it cried all down the canal—and the fact of your presence. You must be aware that some of these troops are owned by gentlemen, and I dare say their owners sometimes mingle with the crowds to get some idea of the collections. I was quite ready to congratulate you on a beau geste. But your patent surprise at my question seems to mean that I guessed wrong.”
“Yes, signor, you did.”
“Then your arrival together is nothing but a remarkable coincidence?”
“Perhaps not as remarkable as you think. I too heard their uproar and was struck by the name of the company, so I left my hired gondola and intercepted them. I wanted to ask if Antonello the Younger was the son or some other close kin of the jongleur you spoke of. I thought it possible he could give me some information useful in court, in case a suit is ever made against me.”