Burning a lamp to Saint George, Marija Cirtovich knelt and moved her lips, longing to know why God had brought her all the way here in order to give her to a husband who was distracted. What was it that nibbled at his conscience with such sharp little teeth? For she thought him guilty, because she never knew him; and the reason she did not know him was that between his business and his dreads he lacked the wherewithal to be known, at least to her. (He had long since proved that if death itself be suspended there must remain some kind of permanent equilibrium; perhaps he should have wondered if this were his present state.) Over the years his hearing seemed to sharpen, until sometimes he even fancied that when he passed by cemeteries he could hear the worms moving underground, which naturally tortured him; sometimes at night he sat up beside her, listening; for it had come to him that perhaps the sound was made by the arms of that thing in his dark-glass. On the rare evenings for which he found the leisure, his daughter, hidden behind her long hair, turned the pages of books, her sweet thumbs shining in the candlelight; she begged him, could they please stay together just one more moment, and just one more? Smiling silently, he kissed her forehead, rose and buttoned himself into his old sheepskin coat, for the bora was blowing. Vuk and Nicola, lately returned from a voyage, were sitting sleepily by the fire. They rose to their feet. He gave them a moldy purse of ready silver (Imperial coins of Claudius Anazarbus), instructing them to pay their mother’s outstanding invoices and advance Srdjana her wages. Massimo would carry out the rest. They nodded, not daring to ask questions. Well, well, he thought, let’s see what they can do while I’m off in the world. He did not call Marija, and she did not trouble herself to come to him. For her he felt nothing but pity. As for his sons, he now caught their eyes flickering from one to the other, as if they shared some secret. Such was the business of young men. The carriage rattled him away. It was a fell hour, to be sure; the coachman was crossing himself for fear of highwaymen. Cirtovich slapped his shoulder and said: Trust me, Petar! — Then the man was shamed; he knew that nothing on earth could harm him while he stayed in the care of his master. For his part, Cirtovich had reason to feel hemmed in. The longer and thus more improbably he lived on, the more anxious, so it seemed, grew death to get him, so that the thing in the dark-glass appeared before him ever oftener. Last spring Petar had been conveying him up the hill to San Giusto, in order to receive two treasure-chests whose doors were studded with iron flowers, when it rose up ahead, grabbling at a boulder in its many blackish-green arms as if it meant to hurl a landslide on him. — Stop, said Cirtovich. Turn into the monastery courtyard, quickly! — Petar obeyed. And not two moments later, the boulder came rolling down the road, smashing a peasant’s cart and then skipping down into the harbor. — By God, master! said Petar. — Get going, said Cirtovich.
They rode across the Ponterosso and into the piazza. Cirtovich could see the flicker of Vasojevic’s lamp in the upstairs window of the warehouse. Cirtovich blew his whistle. Two sleepy sailors ascended the steps of the quay, bearing torches. — You’ll be safe with them, Petar. No boozing, now.
I promise, master.
Cirtovich approached the warehouse. Even through the gusts and the creakings of ships he could hear the stealthy plashing of the squid-thing’s tentacles in the canal; so that must be where Death the Huntsman awaited him tonight. His rivals, the ones who on Sundays sang those canzonette spirituali with the black squareheaded notes suspended from the scarlet staves, huddled inside the “Heaven’s Key,” but Captain Robert, whom he merely scorned, lay darkly behind a wall of sacks and hogsheads, while the blood of this world pulsed round and round, the evening sky going purple and clouds coming in — no evil there, and none lurking in the doorway. Deploying one of his black iron keys, and then locking the door behind him, he ascended to his countinghouse. Vasojevic had already risen and was extending his hand.
Well? said Cirtovich.
The map bears all the signs.
God hear you! We might be away this Christmas.
And gladly, master, if only—
But what about our third member? chuckled Cirtovich, and out came his father’s treasure. Just then the demon’s almost tuberous or vegetable quality was especially pronounced as it hung there within the magnifying crystal, its two tentacles immensely longer than its arms, which in turn were as frail and swirly as ribbons. The eye was closed. — Well, well, said the master, winking the thing away, we seem to have permission. Now tell me.
I sent another spy to that Turk Orlanovic—
Oh, him! said the other, remembering that afternoon with Vasojevic in Constantinople, as they leaned forward over cups of Turkish coffee on a round table, buying military secrets from that suave bey in the fez and pajama-skirts, yes, Orlanovic, who cared only for money (and this was another of Cirtovich’s secrets, that for him money itself was not an end), Orlanovic, whose delicately curled moustaches and gentle eyes they disdained; thanks to his treachery, a certain Venetian raid had succeeded. After they completed the business, the two Serbs should have departed, but the dark-glass thing being quiescent just then, Cirtovich thought to reward his loyal companion, and likewise take his own pleasure; so there had been black-eyed Emina and Fata with the perfect-braided hair.
He smiled, but Vasojevic bowed his head as mournfully as a new bride kissing the hearthstone. There remained that matter between them. Cirtovich threw down a pouch of yellow tobacco from Scutari for old times’ sake.
He asked only ten ducats for it, Vasojevic was saying. I gave him twelve, to keep him sweet. A warlock made it. Some Illyrian—
Shaking out the map from its leathern cylinder-case, they unrolled it, weighted the corners with lead bullets, and swooped down like seagulls upon that pictured island — for it was as secret as the face of another man’s wife, or the night-errands of neighbors on the sea.