carrying coals, but nodded and swept by, and even that bitch did not know me. I glided down the Giants’ staircase to the foot where Signor Cristoforo awaited me, and we left the place without question. If the dogaressa wished to visit the Arsenale with her daughter’s tutor, it was clearly no one’s business but hers. We hurried down the Riva degli Schiavoni toward the docks, aided in our deception by a pissing drizzle which kept every passing wight huddled into his hood.
Inside the citadel of the Arsenale I was reminded, now as before, of the night when Brother Guido and I had stumbled upon the shipwrights working in the old castle at Pisa; the smells of tar and wood and linen were the same. I followed my tutor to the side of the covered harbor where smiths, caulkers, and sawyers ran about and weaved around each other, fetching and carrying in an ever-flowing stream of people. These, I knew, were the arsenalotti, a buzzing hive of drones with my mother as their queen. This was the Stato del Mar in action.
Signor Cristoforo fixed the mass with his weather eyes and shot out a hand to grab the arm of a passing man. The fellow was small and slight, with gray hair and a young face, albeit with skin tanned to leather by seagoing. His eyes turned down at the edges and gave him a sad expression, but when he recognized his captor he smiled a smile of great charm—surprising, for as far as I could see he had absolutely no teeth at all. The two men clapped hands and hugged—slapping each other on the back in a brother’s embrace. And when the stranger spoke I knew him for a Genoese, for he had the same thick vowels as my tutor. Perhaps this was his brother.
“Cristoforo, you old cunt! How come they let you out of Genoa?”
“They let you go, didn’t they?” replied my tutor in the same spirit. “I hear that they’re getting rid of all the ugly sailors.”
“Must be quiet back there then.”
It was an acknowledged joke and I smiled politely, before I realized that no one could actually see what I was doing behind my mask and under my hood.
“How is Lisabetta?”
The stranger spat neatly. “A pain in my arse and my pocket.”
“The children?”
“The same.” But it was said with love and gave me a jolt—I realized I envied this toothless sailor; he was married with children whom he loved, just like my tutor. I had a moment of misgiving—I was about to put him in danger.
“And how about you? You still teaching? Taught the dogaressa anything in the sack yet? Christ, she’s a tasty piece—makes my prick pain me.”
Now I chuckled, and the seaman looked beneath my hood and noticed my mask for the first time. Fell to his knees.
“Jesus shat! The dogaressa!” His tan face blanched. “My lady, forgive me,” he babbled. “I knew not . . . that is, I meant nothing—”
“Get up, you old pisspot,” exclaimed Signor Cristoforo, “before the whole place sees you. This is not the dogaressa, but her daughter. Signorina Luciana Mocenigo, meet Bonaccorso Nivola, the best sailor on these shores or any other.”
I gave the man my hand, as it seemed the right thing to do, and he kissed it, like a man who had just been hit round the head with a frittata pan. Signor Cristoforo drew our little trio behind a stack of pine planks twice as tall as we. The sweet sap filled my nostrils.
“She’s minded to go on a trip and wants you to take her.”
“A trip.”
“Yes. You still running the rope boats to Mestre?”
“Of course. Only way I can pay for all the bambini my Lisa-betta pops out. ‘Nother one on the way.”
“All right then. One trip. And you can feed them for a year.”
“Gold?”
“Gold.”
“How much?”
“Fifty ducats.”
The seaman gave a toothless whistle, and I swallowed. Fifty ducats was a fortune! Where the hell was I supposed to get that money? Signor Cristoforo must be mad! Then, in a horrid instant, I knew; but the thought bathed me in a sweat of terror. My mother had a coffer of gold ducats in her chamber—I had seen it only this morning as I had searched for her masks. Madonna. Then I straightened up. Only one thing could make me go back in that room, and that was Brother Guido. I’d do it if I must. The sailors continued their bargaining, as if I wasn’t there.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.