The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [95]
As he waited he raddled the coals, and polished some of the tools, idly twitching things into their proper places, anxious to begin the work of the day. At the last he crossed to the silvering vat, which he half filled with water from a pail. Then he reached for the flask of liquid mercury and poured the compound gingerly onto the surface where it spread like oil. Jacques was careful not to pour too quickly, for then the element could break into globules which spoiled the perfect sheet of silver. As he set the flask back down on the bench a perfectly round drop of the liquid jumped onto his index finger. From habit borne of spills when cooking his meagre supper he almost carried the finger to his mouth, then he remembered Corradino's warning that the mere taste of mercury could mean death. He wiped the digit carefully on his jerkin till all traces were gone. Then he was drawn, inexorably, back to the tank as the liquid settled and stilled into a mirrored sheet. He was so busy watching his undulating reflection that he did not turn to heed the key in the lock. He knew, in any case, that it was his master that entered as none but the two of them had the key.
Jacques was still watching his own image so closely that he did not see the gloved hand which caught the back of his neck and pushed his face into the silver poison.
CHAPTER 37
The Labours of Spring
It was not the first time that the Ospedale Civili Riuniti di Venezia had admitted a woman in labour who was wearing Carnevale costume. This was Venice, after all. How could it be otherwise? And yet a significant crowd formed and even the most hardened obstetricians were moved by the sight of La Primavera herself twisting in the agony of her burden. The sprigged dress was soaked with birthing waters and clung to her legs.
In the delivery room decisions were made quickly. It had taken a long while for the Signorina to get here, as she was unaccompanied, and despite the fact that this was her first baby the birth was well advanced. It was already too late for an epidural, and moreover, the baby was breech. The nuns attempted to offer comfort and relief, but, despite the pain of her labour, Leonora was sensible of the fact that she was alone, here in the very hospital where she herself was born, and the baby was coming. Every couple of minutes a toothsome steel trap closed on her belly and back, and she cried out for Alessandro. She was haunted by Professore Padovani's story of another Leonora's mother.
Angelina dei Vescovi, who died in childbirth ... died in childbirth.
She felt the same pains as that long-dead beauty. The pain made them sisters over the span of centuries. At last she lost consciousness, albeit briefly, and the nuns thanked Jesus for the brief respite in what would surely be a long night. The obstetrician, a man of many years of experience whose ideas weren't working, noticed that even in her unconscious state La Primavera clutched at her throat, as if searching for a trinket that wasn't there.
CHAPTER 38
The Watcher in the Shadows
As Corradino Manin looked on the lights of San Marco for the last time, Venice from the lagoon seemed to him a golden constellation in the dark blue velvet dusk. How many of those windowpanes, that adorned his city like costly gems, had he made with his own hands? Now they were stars lit to guide him at the end of the journey of his life. Guide him home at last.
As the boat drew into San Zaccaria he thought not - for once - of how he would interpret the vista in glass with a pulegoso of leaf gold and hot lapis, but instead that he would never see this beloved sight again. He stood in the prow of the boat, a brine-flecked figurehead, and looked left to Santa Maria della Salute, straining to see the whitedomed bulk looming in its newness from the dark. The foundations of the great church had been laid in 1631, the year of Corradino's birth, to thank the Virgin for delivering the city from the Plague. His childhood and adulthood had kept pace with the growing