The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [96]
He considered whether he should remove his white bauta mask as soon as his feet touched the shore; a poetic moment - a grand gesture on his return to the Serenissima.
No, there is one more thing I must do before they find me.
He closed his black cloak over his shoulders against the darkling mists and made his way across the Piazzetta under cover of his tricorn and bauta. The traditional tabarro costume, black from head to foot save the white mask, should make him anonymous enough to buy the time he needed. The bauta itself, a spectral slab of a mask shaped like a gravedigger's shovel, had the short nose and long chin which would eerily alter his voice if he should speak. Little wonder, he thought, that the mask borrowed its name from the `haubau', the `bad beast' which parents invoked to terrify their errant children.
From habit borne of superstition Corradino moved swiftly through the two columns of San Marco and the SanTeodoro that rose, white and symmetrical, into the dark. The Saint and the chimera that topped their pediments were lost in the blackness. It was bad luck to linger there, as criminals were executed between the pillars - hung from above or buried alive below. Corradino made the sign of the cross, caught himself, and smiled. What more bad luck could befall him? And yet his step still quickened.
There is one misfortune that could yet undo me: to be prevented from completing my final task.
As he entered the Piazza San Marco he noted that all that was familiar and beloved had taken on an evil and threatening cast. In the bright moon the shadow of the Campanile was a dark knife slashing across the square. Roosting pigeons flew like malevolent phantoms in his face. Regiments of dark arches had the square surrounded - who lurked in their shadows? The great doors of the Basilica were open; Corradino saw the gleam of candles from the golden belly of the church. He was briefly cheered - an island of brightness in this threatening landscape.
Perhaps it is not too late to enter this house of God, throw myself on the mercy of the priests and seek sanctuary?
But those who sought him also paid for this jewelled shrine that housed the bones ofVenice's shrivelled Saint, and tiled the walls with the priceless glittering mosaics that now sent the candlelight out into the night. There could be no sanctuary within for Corradino. No mercy.
Past the Basilica then and under the arch of the Torre dell'Orologio he hurried, allowing himself one more glance at the face of the huge clock, where tonight it seemed the fantastical beasts of the zodiac revolved in a more solemn measure. A dance of death. Thereafter Corradino tortured himself no more with final glances, but fixed his eyes on the paving underfoot. Even this gave him no respite, for all he could think of was the beautiful tessere glasswork he used to make; fusing hot nuggets of irregular glass together, all shapes and hues, before blowing the whole into a wondrous vessel delicate and colourful as a butterfly's wing.
I know I will never touch the glass again.
As he entered the Merceria dell'Orologio the market traders were packing away their pitches for the night. Corradino passed a glass-seller, with his wares ranked jewel-like on his stall. In his mind's eye the goblets and trinkets began to glow rosily and their shapes began to shift - he could almost feel the heat of the furnace again, and smell the sulphur and silica. Since childhood such sights and smells had always reassured him. Now the memory seemed a premonition of hellfires. For was hell not where traitors were placed? The Florentine, Dante, was clear on the subject. Would Corradino - like Brutus and Cassius and Judas - be devoured by Lucifer, the Devil's tears mingling with his blood as he was ripped asunder? Or