He puts that concern aside, makes his selections, measures them onto the slab. Then he gathers beeswax on a spatula, softens it over the lamp-flame, smears it across the scattered herbs, stirring and scraping them into an ointment. Once he’s gathered it in a vial, he returns to his box, fishes out a long slim razor, and rouses the girl.
She recoils when she sees the blade. He claps a hand over her mouth before she can scream, pinching her nose, pressing her skull downward until the bed-ropes groan. Then he begins to whisper in her ear, and he keeps whispering until her struggles cease, until she understands and accedes to what he’s about to do.
He releases her, then takes hold of her thigh and rolls her quickly over on her stomach. He straddles her, rests his buttocks against her own, bends her back leg. As if she’s a horse he’s shoeing. He tilts the pad of her foot toward the lamp until the wart is clearly visible. Then he begins to cut.
He draws no blood, or very little. As the shaved-away callus litters the sheets, he sweeps it to the floor with the back of his hand. When the area of the verruca is cleared, he applies the poultice, then dresses it with a snug bandage. Clean this every night, he says. Put ointment on it every morning. Don’t walk unless you must. If you do these things, within a month it will cease to trouble you.
He stands, freeing her. She he rolls onto her side, then cocks her leg, prods the bandage. Looks at him. Dottore, she says.
She says nothing else. After a moment, she rolls onto her belly and draws in her limbs, rising sphinx-like on her knees and elbows, swaying sleepily in the lamp’s flame. Crivano watches her for some time. A sound escapes his throat: a wet exhalation, like a small beast dying or being born. Then he climbs across the mattress and commences to use her in the manner of the Greeks, in the same manner the janissaries would sometimes use him, in same the manner he’d sometimes put the Lark to use during the long slow dream of their boyhood, those unspoiled days when nothing was different and nothing would ever change.
54
When he wakes, sunlight is pressing through the curtains, and the girl still sleeps beside him.
When he wakes again, the sunlight has shifted, grown softer, and the girl is gone. He tries with some success to sink back into slumber, but recollections of the night before — along with concerns about what the girl may have stolen, and the desire to void his bladder — finally rouse him.
Stool and urine in the chamberpot already. Enough water in the pitcher to clean himself. The stack of coins that he left for her is gone, of course, but his own purse still jingles when he lifts it. The ample sheaf of papers in his trunk’s false bottom — letters of advice from a bank in Genoa, an account Narkis established for him — has led him to be somewhat careless with his funds; he turns out the purse on the tabletop to take stock of its contents. Gold sequins, silver ducats, silver soldi, copper gazettes. A few lire and grossi. One scarred and flattened giustina, MEMOR ERO TUI IVSTINA VIRGO visible on its reverse. Coins from other lands: a papal scudi, an English half-groat, a quart d’ecu bearing the device of Henri IV. One blue-green piece he can’t identify. He opens the curtains, winces, holds it to the light. A ducat. A coin of necessity, struck during a siege by a local treasurer from whatever metal could be spared. One side is illegible, worn smooth; the other bears a winged lion, and the year the coin was minted: 1570.
Crivano’s arm spasms and goes numb as if struck on the ulnar nerve; the ducat clatters to the floor, rolls to a corner. Crivano, trembling, stoops to retrieve it. He sits naked at the table, reading the coin’s relief with his fingertips as his eyes grow wet. Thinking of his father. I demand that you end this fatuous sulk at once. I have made my decision. Maffeo and Dolfin will stay here with me. What you say is true: if we defeat the Turks, my estate will pass to them. But we will not defeat the Turks. Don’t you see? The sultan’s victory may come this year, or next year, or ten years from now. But it will come. There is no one who does not know this. To Maffeo and Dolfin, I bequeath my lands and my properties, which are worth nothing, which are in fact a curse that dooms them. To you I give my name, my seat on the Great Council. I am sending you and the Lark to Padua not because you have no legacy in Cyprus, but because the only legacy for you here is death. Crivano wipes his cheeks, dries his face on his peg-hung shirt, dresses himself. Wishing for an instant that he still had Tristão’s mirror: wanting to read the history in his face, history he’s labored greatly to conceal, to forget. History no other living soul could recognize.
Bells are ringing; he loses count. It must be quite late in the day. Obizzo, he thinks. There isn’t much time left.
On his way out, he ducks into the parlor — unusually crowded — and finds Anzolo by the door to the kitchen. Good day, messer, he says. Did the item—
Ah! Good day, dottore!
Anzolo sweeps forward with a theatrical solicitousness that’s entirely unlike him, and claps Crivano on the shoulders. I am greatly pleased to see you, dottore, he says. But I confess I’d hoped you’d arise a bit later. Knowing of your fondness for lamprey, I had intended to send my girl to the fishmarket this morning, but in my carelessness I forgot until only now.
Crivano is nonplussed: he detests lamprey. I beg your pardon, he says. I don’t believe I requested—
Dottore, a valued guest like yourself should not have to make such requests. You have my apologies. We shall have lamprey for you tomorrow, I hope. Today a very fine turbot will emerge soon from our oven, and I hope you will flatter me by eating some of it before you depart.
Anzolo has a tight grip on his upper arms, restraining him from turning toward the exit. Crivano feels his skin flush, his lip curl with displeasure. A moment ago he’d simply sought to inquire after the parcel he sent to Tristão; now reflex moves his fingers along his walkingstick’s shaft, preparing to thump this fool in the sternum. He opens his mouth again to protest.
Please, dottore, Anzolo says. I insist.
The innkeeper’s face is garlanded with a beatific smile, but his eyes are fierce — and, Crivano now sees, frightened. The color that rushed to Crivano’s cheek an instant ago now flees; hairs stiffen on his arms and his nape. Of course, he says. Thank you.
A new voice comes from behind him, not a voice he knows: Will you join me, dottore?
Anzolo’s fingers loosen and fall away. Crivano turns.
A compact and sinewy man has risen from his seat at the corner table; he salutes with a raised hand. His garments are simple, grays and blacks, but of good fabric. His several rings and silver pendant put him at the uneasy margin of the sumptuary laws — unless he’s a citizen, or a noble, which Crivano very much doubts. The cut of his hair and beard suggests Spain. His loose bearing recalls the battlefield.
I have just finished my own meal, the man says, and now find that I have nothing better to do on this fine summer day than to sit in this parlor and broaden my association. Shameful to be so idle, I suppose. But gregariousness can be its own species of industry, don’t you agree, dottore? Please. Sit.
His jeweled hand drops to indicate the chair before him. The lace curtains behind him move in a breeze — swaying in unison as if linked by a thread of spidersilk — then sag again, inert. Through the windows, under the awning of a joiner’s shop across the street, Crivano spots two loitering figures; both wear new cloaks of like provenance, though of differing hue. The man at the corner table also wears such a cloak, and has opted not to surrender it to the parlor closet, although the weather is quite warm. As Crivano watches, one of the men across the street shifts and turns, revealing a single rolling eye, a dark hole of a mouth, a confusion of scars from chin to forehead, ear to ear. It’s the bravo he saw yesterday morning on the Mercerie, by Ciotti’s shop. Crivano takes a long slow breath, tightens his sphincter so as not to shit himself.