Caravan To Xanadu

CHAPTER 7

THE PARCHMENT

Soon after sunrise I rose, put on my oldest clothes, and went to a gardener’s market not far from the house of my uncle Zane. It had been Rosa’s custom to visit it twice weekly as long as I could remember, always at the same hour, and I doubted greatly that she would fail the rendezvous today.

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.

“Are you known as the Black Woman of Martyrs’ Walk?”

“Why yes, some call me that!” she replied eagerly.

“I hear that you’re a fortuneteller.”

“Whoever told you that, young gentleman, missed it a mile! I never told a fortune in my whole life.”

“Aren’t you a seeress of some kind?”

“That I’m not! If you’d ask me whom you’ll wed, I’d have no more notion than a bedpost. But sometimes I can help folk with their troubles. Maybe it’s to find something they’ve lost, or to make up a quarrel with a friend or a sweetheart, or to get over a hate, or a sorrow, or a shame.”

“Then who’s your master? It couldn’t be the Devil——”

The woman laughed like a peal of gongs.

“I should say he’s not! I don’t have ought to do with him. But they say I can cast out a devil, sometimes, if he’s not bored in too deep. A maid who mewed all the while like a cat, and another who shamed herself before folk, and a youth who dressed himself in women’s clothes—all these stopped their strange ways, and became like other folk, when I’d ministered unto them.”

“Is it a laying on of hands?”

“In a way of speaking.”

“In whose name?”

“In no one’s name, your Honor. I’d be afeared to claim to speak or act in some holy name. What I say is just what a mother would tell her child when she finds out his trouble.”

“Where did you learn your art, if that’s what you call it?” Since she was so cheery and forthright I did not miss the chance to question her.

“My master bought me for a concubine when I was fourteen. He was a doctor in a great school in Alexandria. He said that madness was not caused either by devils or the moon, but by the evil of a body’s soul fighting the good. This he’d learned from a pale-brown bearded man dressed in white, with a red mark on his forehead. I’ve forgotten his name—could it be Swami?—but he came from beyond the deserts under the rising sun. And it was he who taught my master to turn grown-up folk into children.”

“God forbid!” And the sweat came out on me in cold beads.

“It was only for a few minutes and did no harm. The brown man said that many in his own country had that power, and while some were wise doctors, some were tricksters and mountebanks.^[8] Because my master had me hold the mirror or the ink bowl that he used—he told me I made the sick people feel at ease—I watched him do it a hundred times. When he grew old and feeble, I did it in his place—not nearly so well, but well enough to help folk with troubles that a black woman could understand. I earned enough silver to buy his bread and wine. When he died, he left a paper setting me free. I became the woman of a Maltese sponge fisher and followed him to Venice. Now he too is dead.”

“How did your master use the mirror or the ink bowl—or are you forbidden to tell?”

“The sick one looked into it at my master’s bidding. That was all. A candle flame does just as well. If I knew the whys and wherefores, I would tell you, but I don’t. Now tell me your trouble. If I think I can help you, I’ll say so—otherwise I’ll not try. If I do try, you’ll tell me if I’ve succeeded. If I have, give me your blessing and a silver coin. If I haven’t, give me your blessing only. You can be sure I’ll not harm you.”

There were few things in this world that I was as sure of.

“My trouble is to remember something from long ago.”

“Why do you squint your eyes when you say that?”

“Because even to speak of it causes a pain across my eyebrows.” Then I went on with blunt words, a way of talking that might be compared to a way of walking when a resolute man goes to a hard, unwelcome task. “I was about four years old. My mother was sick unto death. She had me bring two candles to her bedside. She brought forth from some hiding place what I thought was a parchment, and I think it was pale brown from age. She had me do something more with the candles, but I can’t think——”

I had to stop and catch my breath, lest my brow split apart from pain.

“There, there,” the woman said, stroking my forehead with her big, pink-palmed hand. “No haste, young master. Tell Cleo what the trouble is, and she’ll try to help you.”

“Cleo?” And the pain mysteriously dimmed.

“ ’Twas my master’s name for me, short for a great Egyptian queen whose name I forget. ’Twas in the way of a joke.”

“She brought the parchment to the flame,” I said. “I thought she meant to burn it up. I guess it was moldy from age—it didn’t catch fire or even smoke. Then she put it where she’d got it. Then . . . then . . . she touched her finger to her lips——”

This last I got out in a desperate burst, and I would not have wondered if blood had spurted from my ears.

“She wanted you to have the parchment, didn’t she?” the woman said, a wonderful tenderness in her face.

“Of course.”

“You think it was her will, or a deed to riches?”

“No.”

“You never found it, and you want to know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“Answer one question, to let me see if maybe I can help you. I’ll keep my hand on your forehead to save you part of the pain.”

“Ask it,” I said with dread.

“Did you see where your mother hid it, and forget, or did you never know?”

I tried to remember. The dull ache over my eyebrows tried to grow to bone-cracking agony, but the strong hand held it back. Then it ran to the back of my head, like an imp of Hell. My brain was cracking like a dropped melon. . . .

“Yes!” I shouted. “I saw her!”

“That’s all, young master,” I heard Cleo’s soft voice, now speaking in a minor key, and with a kind of lovely sadness that most tender women sometimes employ to children sick or in pain. “It won’t hurt any more. And maybe Cleo can tell you where the parchment is.”

She had me lie down on a worn and shabby couch. Then she got a candle and started to light it with flint and tinder.

“Must you use a candle, Cleo?” I asked.

“Why, no——”

“I wish you’d not, if there’s any other way. I keep seeing those two candles.”

“I should have known it!” She paused and glanced around the room. “Do you see the little hole in the curtain that gleams like a star?”

The hole in the black cloth was no bigger than a pinhead, but the noonday light beyond made it diamond-bright.

“Like the North Star,” I answered without thinking. The North Star is not nearly as bright as dazzling Sirius.

“Just look at it steadily, my son. Does it tire your eyes a little? But I’ll stroke your temples and you won’t get a headache. . . . There. . . . I think you may want to go to sleep. . . . Do you feel a little sleepy, young master? I believe you do. I believe your eyelids are drooping and you can hardly keep them open. . . . All is all right. . . . You may sleep if you like. . . . Yes, go to sleep. . . . Sleep, my son. . . . Sleep . . . sleep. . . .”

My thoughts began to straggle and I felt myself falling into warm, pleasant, peaceful sleep. A strong, warm hand continued to stroke my head and neck, and I felt safe under it, and free of all trouble and pain. . . . A voice on which I set great store, one that would never guide me wrongly, sounded in my drowsy ears. . . . Time ran on.

“Young master!”

It was a cheerful voice now, and quite strong. My brain caught at pleasant wakings long and long ago, but the memory failed before I could seize it. I wakened to find Cleo looking into my face, a smile on hers. Instantly I knew where I was and on what business I had come. . . . Yet I wished I could have slept on. . . .

“Did you have a pleasant nap, your Honor?” the woman asked.

“Most pleasant, thank you.”

With that polite response, I became more sharply alert. Cleo was smiling, but her face was beaded with sweat and her eyes were big and troubled. She made her voice sound cheerful by a none too easy effort.

“I take it you weren’t able to help me,” I said. I meant less than that, and more.

“I found out what you wanted to know,” she answered, the forced cheer gone from her voice. Her eyes were cast down.

“Tell me, please.”

“Your mother had you get the two candles and put them side by side, only a palm apart. She took the parchment out of an iron pipe just outside her window that draws rainwater from the roof and flushes it into the reservoir below. It was rolled into a cylinder. She unrolled it and held it between the two candle flames. The flames licked it but didn’t burn it. She whispered something you couldn’t hear, but her gesture told you that the parchment was for you and you must not tell anyone. Then she rolled it again and put it back in the pipe.”

I heard her and thought upon her words without a trace of pain.

“It must have flushed out years ago. . . . No, the end of the pipe turns a little—if the cylinder kept its shape, water could pour through it . . . but it would surely rot away.”

“If it was of common parchment, yes.”

“By what wonder of wonders did you find out all this?”

“It was no great wonder. You remembered and told me.”

“Talking in my sleep?”

“You were between sleep and waking.”

“And you gave me no drug?”

“No, and you would have told me more than that, if I’d asked you.”

“I’ll go and look for the parchment. I don’t expect to find it, but it won’t trouble me any more. Here’s a lira grossa.”

“I can’t take it, young master!” To my amazement her eyes filled with tears.

“Why not?”

“I want you to give it to some beggar on the street, and tell him to say a prayer for the Black Woman of Martyrs’ Walk.”

“You’ve earned it. Why won’t you take it?”

“I may have helped you, but I’m afraid I’ve hurt you, and maybe I’ve killed you. It may be I’ve led you a step down toward Hell. Good fights with Evil in every soul, my master told me, but in your soul the battle is most dire.”

“How do you know? Tell me, if you will and if you can.”

“I heard wings of angels and whipping pinions of fiends.”

I considered how to go about looking in the water pipe by my mother’s death room. The insistence of my reason that it would be a fool’s errand must not and would not reduce the energy of my effort or the risk I was willing to run. I could not go nor could I stay until I knew.

This was the best chamber in the Casa Polo, so nine chances out of ten it was occupied by Nicolo. If he thought it was haunted by my mother’s ghost, he would be more likely rather than less likely to choose it. Surely he would want her to see the beautiful young girls who shared his bed, for if once she would have joyfully yielded them her place, thirteen years in a cold and rainwashed cell would teach her to envy them. He would leave a watch light burning when he entertained them, so her ghostly eyes could behold their frolickings, and he would fancy her in the doorway, her phantom ears hearkening to their cries of passion and whisperings of love. . . . I had better stick to my business. If Nicolo did not occupy the chamber, his brother Maffeo did so. And to climb the steep wall by rope or ladder and gain the balcony without waking him was out of the question.

If I could catch the brothers away from home, it would be difficult to guard against their unexpected return. Meanwhile I could very easily trip over one of Nicolo’s sons or a house wench. Obviously, the best time for the raid was when the family was assembled at meat, with a good share of the servants in attendance. If I provided some sight of interest, they would watch through the glass, and chambermaids would hang out the upper windows. Serenaders would cost only a silver lira. For two lire there could be duetists accompanied by a string quartet.

Then a thought came creeping out of my brain like a little gray, venomous snake and caused my eyes to sink into my head. For three lire I could provide a troop of jongleurs.

Would Nicolo go where he could not see and watch them? Not he, not Nicolo, not that lordly man who meant to be a king in Cathay!

It did not take me long to learn that three companies were at present in Venice, one of them down-at-heels. This last I followed and watched—a better lot than I had supposed. Their songs and tricks were a little too witty, not quite coarse enough, to please the street crowds. Their master was a juggling clown. He had a sallow nondescript face except for a nose like a Spanish duke’s. I marked the inn where he and his troop put up, and when he washed off his paint, I met him in the courtyard.

“What is your name, friend?” I began.

“Gregorini is good enough for the time and place.”

“Did you ever hear of Antonello, a jongleur from Perugia, who tossed his last ball eighteen years ago?”

“He said he was from Rome,” the clown answered. “It sounded better.”

“Then you did know him.” The back of my neck prickled.

“All of us know one another, well, not well, or scarcely, depending on one another’s prosperity. Even the dancing bears would have claimed to know Antonello if they could speak. He was the best of us all.”

“He was? How wonderful!”

Gregorini looked at me sharply. “Are you his son?” he guessed, the wildest guess I had ever heard a man make.

“I don’t think so. But I think he was my mother’s lover.”

“He was the best of our trade in Italy, one of the five best in all Europe. Sometimes a householder gave him wine with his own hand.”

“Was he your friend?”

The clown’s great black eyes wheeled slowly to mine.

“In the name of Thespis, he was.”

“Perhaps he boasted to you of bedding a highborn lady named Lucia. I hope he did bed her, and I wouldn’t blame him for the boast.”

“He never told me of it, but there was some such thing in his life. As you no doubt know, he was killed by a highborn hater.”

“That hater lives in Venice. I think he hates all jongleurs. I want you and your company to appear before his house at sundown tomorrow, and put on your best show. If you could call yourself Antonello the Younger, it would help out my jest.”

“It’s no jest, my friend. I see that in your face. As for my being Antonello the Younger, that’s easy. I’ve a dozen different names, here and about. It’s a common thing for obscure actors to call themselves after famous ones who’ve gone before. We would cry ourselves down the canal as Antonello’s Troop. But what would the signor do?”

“He may lose his temper. It may be in a way that won’t show, but it’s possible that he’ll hit you with the flat of his sword or call the watch.”

“He won’t use the point of his sword, will he?”

“He’ll do nothing that would make him stand trial, let alone go to prison. Just be sure that you don’t put yourself where you’ll be charged with theft.”

“You’re well acquainted with Antonello’s story,” Gregorini remarked.

“Why, yes.”

“Lucia was your mother, this man is your father, whom you hate. Why yes, I’ll do it, for anything you want to pay me, or no payment at all. It will be a small stroke of revenge for a member of my guild. Also—if I’m attacked without cause, the people will rally around me. I’ll show them they haven’t given their plaudits to a craven!”

With this last his voice rang, his shoulders squared, his nose rode high, and quite a noble expression graced his commonplace face. We are all showmen of a sort, I thought—only some of us are more transparent than others. I had no doubt that Gregorini would do his part well.

As the hour drew near I dressed in my very best, hired a gondola, and made for the rear of the Casa Polo by a little-used canal. There was no reason to believe that the postern door would be bolted while the servants were up and about, and the narrow quay on this side was largely screened by a bridge. A short distance up the canal I heard shouting, singing, and the shrill notes of a treble flute. The jongleurs were pausing only briefly at the smaller houses, doing a trick or two and picking up thrown coppers, but it would be in character for them to make a good showing before a mansion as extensive as the Casa Polo. Apparently they would arrive before the front entrance precisely on time.

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.”

This was in effect what I had intended to say in case of an encounter of this kind. It came forth cold and stale, and a lame parry to his adroit, deep, barbed thrust.

He looked me up and down and I thought his gaze lingered a perceptible instant on the torn sheet in my hand. I was quite sure that his curiosity was aroused and perhaps the Devil whispered in his ear that this was the very object of his search, the loss of which was the greatest loss he had ever suffered; but his common sense denied the inkling.

“In that case I’ll ask you to do your business with him elsewhere,” Nicolo said curtly. Then to the crushed clown, “Take yourself and the other trash out of my sight and hearing, as fast as you can.”

Doubtless Antonello noted that Nicolo Polo made no threats and had need of none. Without waiting for his master’s nod, the bear-leader began tugging the pitiful brute across the quay to a big brightly painted gondola. The monkey man drew in the tether so swiftly that his squeaking pet was in peril of falling. Nicolo’s cold eyes were not on them now—he had turned back to his door—but they did not stop even to wipe away their sweat. The clusters of spectators appeared to dissolve and avoided one another’s eyes.

“I wish to talk to you, Antonello, so I’ll board your gondola,” I said as grandly as possible.

Except to pay him his fee, he wished that I would stay away from him. All his noble feelings had dissipated. Antonello the Great was rotten and forgotten, and I was his luckless bastard. Probably it was to raise myself in his estimation rather than to console him for a rebuff that I gave him a gold piece instead of the three lire I had intended. This I handed him on the approach to the first bridge.

He accepted it with no sign of gratitude. “So the gentleman thought you owned my company, did he?” he remarked, with a sneer on his painted face. “I would have told him I owned every stick and stitch myself if I hadn’t been afraid I’d spoil your game.”

“You were a great man yesterday, Gregorini. Don’t turn into what the signor called you.”

I hailed a gondola and turned away from the Casa Polo. In case Nicolo had found out or surmised something to take action on, I chose obscure canals instead of the great thoroughfares for my homeward route. Then I approached Mustapha’s house only after careful reconnaissance. Meanwhile I had concealed the two pieces of dirty fabric under my shirt.

For ten minutes or more, Mustapha and I conversed. I sat down, apparently at ease; I had almost the feeling of it; certainly I made him no short answers and listened to him not impatiently, or even patiently but with an interest that was real even if somewhat forced. All this was some sort of propitiation of the Devil. All the time I heard soft sounds behind the wall where Miranda moved about, opened and shut drawers, and sang. I considered going to speak to her as a kind of preparation for a coming ordeal—perhaps to take bearings to determine my position—but I rejected the idea by instinct.

Alone in my room, I looked in a glass, mocked myself, cursed myself for a spiritual bastard. Then, sitting on a chest, I got out the two pieces. Instantly I was sure that they were no sort of parchment that I had ever seen, and under their dirt and stain there was writing.

The coarse-grained, slightly spongy material was of interwoven fibers. I passed a damp cloth over it, greatly afraid that wiping off dirt might wipe away the writing. This did not prove to be the case, so I grew bolder, As the stuff cleaned, the writing became plainer. The script was bold, and by fitting the two pieces together, I was soon able to read it.

My eyes slowly widened, for here was the answer to one of the greatest enigmas in Christendom—the legend of the Salamander.

My dear niece Lucia:

When I came to the Court of Mangu, Khan of Tatary, I was made to walk between two fires ere I was admitted to his presence. I escaped with painful burns, but if the fires had been set closer together, I might have perished.

Their wizards walk through fire unharmed. I discovered that their secret was a long cloak, boots, and a hood that looks somewhat like leather. Some legend of the stuff has reached the West. It is called salamander skin, and many alchemists and philosophers have experimented with the hides of these reptiles, believed to be impervious to fire, in an attempt to produce it.^[9] These attempts are doomed to failure. Actually the garments are made of a mineral fiber found in the High Altai on the western border of Cathay. The wizards guard the secret not only from the people, who make rich offerings, but also from the Khan, who believes in their seeming supernatural powers. Yet the latter would pay richly for the protection the stuff could afford his documents, his most rare treasures, and even his royal person.

In the city of Fuchow, whence a caravan road makes into Eastern Dzungaria, I was able to obtain a small piece from a magician. On it I have inscribed this letter, with India ink. I think it is the same incombustible substance that was used for wicks in the lamps of the Vestal Virgins. It is all I have to leave you: care for it as though it were a precious locket, adorned with pearls. Perhaps husband or son will find it a key to fame and fortune.

I write this in my cloister in the archiepiscopal palace in Dalmatia, as I approach my death on earth and, I most humbly pray, my eternal life in Heaven.

Your loving uncle

Johnannes de Carpini

Archbishop of Antivari

Then, below, was what seemed written in fire itself. As I read it, in my mother’s handwriting, my hair rose up as in the presence of the walking dead.

Nicolo knows something of this. My son Marco, do not let him have it, or I cannot rest in my grave.

Mama