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By Root 268 0

foreboding reached its peak, awful voices clamouring in his head. He went at once to Corradino's lodgings, running as fast as his old limbs would carry him. He entered the little cot without knocking and headed to the second room - the bedchamber. There, he saw the worst. His friend lay on the truckle bed, fully dressed, and still. He thought at first that Corradino had taken his own life, that this had been the meaning of the farewell yestereve. But then, through new tears, he saw a telltale streak of black running from the corner of the open mouth to the coverlet. He turned over one of Corradino's cold hands - the fingertips were also black. Giacomo had seen such signals more times in his life than he wished to. Mercury. The plague of the glassblower had taken Corradino at last. Giacomo sat at the foot of the bed and wept.

He had known.

Corradino had known that he was dying, last night when he had visited. He had been saying goodbye. Giacomo stood at last and pulled the coverlet over the face that was so dear to him. As he did so he lamented, as fathers have always lamented as they beheld their dead sons: `Lord, why did you not take me?'

That night, Giacomo returned at last to his house. It had been the most painful day of his long life, and he felt he would gladly go to sleep and never wake. He had reported Corradino's death to the mayor of Murano, and a medico had been sent to verify cause. The doctor had prodded Corradino with great care, snipping hair and letting blood, a thoroughness which Giacomo knew had been ordered by The Ten. In his dark robes and white mask with its long, beaked nose stuffed with herbs to prevent infection, the doctor looked for all the world like a vulture come to feed on the carrion of Corradino. But, if one of their great assets died, the Council always wished to make sure there was no misadventure. Only the knowledge of this prevented Giacomo from intervening to plead for his dead friend's dignity. He kept his peace. But when the medico at last released the body he seemed surprised that Giacomo requested permission to fulfill the proper rites for his friend. As the post-mortem was complete however, the doctor saw no reason not to grant this whim and Corradino was carried to Giacomo's house to be laid out.

Giacomo attended while the women he had paid made Corradino ready. They cleaned his face, arranged his hair and tied his feet together and his jaw closed. As candles burned around them they sewed the dead man into sack cloth, and Giacomo watched the face he loved disappear into darkness as the stitches closed the shroud. With his last glance of Corradino he thought how comely his son had been, that his curls shone in the candlelight, the cheeks held a faint flush and the lashes that lay across them were still lustrous. It was almost as if he slept. He chided himself, and, in a last act of leave-taking, Giacomo tenderly placed a golden ducat over each closed eye. He gave away a twelvemonth's wages without a thought. He had given the boy everything: his home, his skills with the glass, and all the love his old heart could hold. Corradino had been his heir in all things, so in place of an inheritance Giacomo paid the fare for Corradino's final journey. He turned away, his heart breaking.

At last two constables came to carry the body to the boat which would take it to Sant'Ariano, the burial island. Giacomo asked to come to the quay, but was prevented.

`Signore,' said the taller constable, his eyes shining with sympathy behind their mask, `we have two cases of plague to carry too. We could not vouch for your safety.'

So Corradino had gone, the constables had gone and the women had gone, gratefully biting the coins that Giacomo had given them for their trouble.

He was once again alone, as he had been the night before, before all this sorry business had come to pass. He could cry now for the friend - the son - who had gone. But his tears had left him, and he felt nothing but a dry grief for his loss. Once again he took up his viol, exactly as he had done before his world changed. But