Vincent reached into the ether and pulled out a fold of glamour, then let go of it. He coughed, stepping back from Jane. Concerned, she looked back at him. He shook his head. “It is nothing.”
“Vincent—”
“The thickness was wrong.”
Signor Nenci worked the paddles without looking at them. “Glass is cooling.”
Vincent took his position again, reached back into the ether, and pulled out another fold. He began the weave for the Sphère Obscurcie shape, pausing for a moment to adjust the direction of the folds slightly to allow for the angle at which they were now working.
Jane pulled the lines of cold from the ether and followed Vincent’s path to strengthen its impression in the glass. Compared to working with the sphere, even one held still on the end of a pole, this was astonishingly simple. It took them only a little longer than it would to weave one without glass, and Jane was almost baffled when Vincent released the glamour. She did the same, with the sensation that it must not have worked.
Signor Nenci looked up at them as he stepped back from the table. A perfectly formed square sat on the table, and running through the middle of it, the faint occlusions of glamour. “Well?”
“That was easier.” Vincent had a line between his brows as he stared at the glass. He rubbed the base of his neck, frowning. “How long before we can put it into the sun?”
Turning in place, the glassmaker looked around the studio, which was lit by slanted skylights in the ceiling. He snatched his leather glove off the floor and pulled it on. With a shriek of metal on stone, he dragged the table to the closest pool of sunlight. Vincent reached out to help him, then jerked his hand back, shaking it. Signor Nenci grinned. “Careful. The d——n thing’s hot.”
“Signor Nenci!” The Abbess stood to follow them.
He grinned. “Well, it is.”
“I see.” Vincent examined his hand, but did not appear to have burned himself.
Jane followed the men more slowly, hanging back so she could watch for the telling moment when the slab went into the sun—
—And Signor Nenci vanished.
“My God!” The Abbess raised a hand to her chest. “Ah … in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
“Eh? What?” Signor Nenci’s disembodied voice came from the centre of the Sphère. To him, standing in its influence, the room would appear perfectly normal.
“Allow me.” Vincent stepped into the Sphère, vanishing. “If you would go to Lady Vincent and then turn.”
With a series of his habitual grumbles, the glassmaker stepped out of the Sphère and stomped across the floor. When he got to Jane, he stopped and turned. “Well?”
“Where is the table, Signor?”
His mouth opened as if he were going to make a sneering comment.
“Never mind the table,” Vincent’s disembodied voice said. “Where am I?”
For a long moment, the glassmaker simply stared openmouthed at the space where the table had been. Then he clapped his hands and began to laugh. “What else can we make?”
Vincent emerged from the Sphère, rubbing the base of his neck. “Let us find out, shall we?”
“We were only going to make the Verre Obscurcie today,” Jane said.
“I did not expect it to be so easy.” Vincent still wore a contracted brow. “We have time to try another.”
“It is not the time I am worried about, but your energy.”
Vincent scowled. “We said we would make three tries. It took only one, so why not see what else we can do?”
“You are rubbing your neck a great deal.”
Vincent dropped his hand and sighed, stepping closer to Jane. He lowered his voice. “You know what this is.”
“And you know why I am voicing my concern.”
His jaw worked and he looked to Signor Nenci as if the glassmaker would support him. Signor Nenci stepped away, studiously taking no notice of them. A loose thread on his leather apron consumed his attention. Vincent growled low in his throat. “I had thought you would wait until I had given you some cause for concern.”
“It distresses me to see you acting unwell.” She studied him, wishing that it was easier to tell when he was being honest about his health. “Would you tell me if your head was really bothering you?”
“After our conversation? Yes.” Vincent held out his hand, spreading his fingers wide. No tremors were visible. “You see? I am perfectly well.”
“Perfectly?”
“Adequately well, then.” He rumpled his hair with real aggravation upon his face. “One more, Muse.”
The Abbess watched them with her head tilted to the side. She had seen Vincent at his worst, and was no doubt wondering why they were even contemplating working with glamour now. Jane shared that. They had a working Verre Obscurcie, so there was no need to do anything else today. But Vincent looked so excited, and after months of his depression it was difficult to deny that sparkle in his eye. He did not seem the worse for wear, if she disregarded the hand that had rubbed the base of his neck. And truly, it was astonishing how easy it had been to cast the glamour into the slab of glass on the table. Jane was eager to see what else they could do. It was only the timing that concerned her.
But one more attempt could not hurt. Not really. “One more. And I mean one more attempt, not that we continue working until we create one more glass.”
Vincent flashed a rare grin and spun back to Signor Nenci, then stumbled and took a step to the right to catch his balance. It was not much, but it was more than enough to show that he was dizzy. Jane put a hand under his elbow to steady him, in case it was worse than it looked. He jerked his arm free and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Vincent…”
“I am—”
“Do not tell me that you are well.” She glanced to the Abbess to see if she had noted Vincent’s stumble. The nun had clearly seen it and was hurrying across the factory floor. “We have done everything here that we set out to do today. We are going home now.”
“I was going to say that I appear to be a little light-headed, yet.” He lowered his hand and glowered at the floor. “It is not enough to present a problem.”
The Abbess stopped in front of Vincent and tilted her head up as if she could glare sense into him. “And if you lost your balance next to the oven?”
The look of anger and embarrassment that crossed his face was remarkable to behold. “That would be unfortunate, yes.” Like a bear trapped between a trainer and his audience, Vincent turned between Jane and the Abbess. “Then I shall ask Signor Nenci to move the table farther from the oven.”
Jane put a hand on his arm to stop him. Though they had discussed what she was going to say next, a significant part of her expected him to insist on staying regardless of any prior agreement. “When we were working with Querini, you made me stop when I was unfit and would not admit it. Do you remember? To pull me away, you said that you would stop working the next time I asked, without grumbling.”
To his credit, Vincent only looked at the floor for a long moment, as though he were counting the tiles in the floor. Then he nodded, lifting his head, and gave a smile that was almost convincing. “Shall we go home?”
Not even Signor Nenci tried to convince him otherwise, for which Jane was grateful. When she got Vincent back to their apartment, she would find out how his health really was, when he was not putting on a show for the Abbess.
Twenty-two
Glass on Marble
Jane shifted over in bed and tried to find a more comfortable position. It was still dark out and she desperately wanted to sleep, but she had been tossing all night. Though they had worked hard on their plans, she was left with a lingering tension as she continued to think through all of the possible things that could go wrong today. Each time she answered one question, her brain would offer her another. Was Signor Zancani going to have the costumes ready? Yes, he had already shown them to her. Then would the nuns be in position to provide a distraction? Of course, they
had already practised that. Would Lord Byron have any questions before they began? Probably.
As she rolled on to her back, the extra space in the bed told her that Vincent was not in it.
Jane sat up, holding the cover around her to ward off the cold. “Vincent?”
He stood at the window, a shadow against the dawn light. “It is raining.”
Using the blanket as a robe, Jane crawled out of bed. The bare boards of the floor seemed almost cold enough to be the flagstones of Vincent’s glamural. The glass walls of the orangery showed a still-dark landscape, but without any hint of the rain that appeared in the real window looking out over Murano. Low clouds covered the city, and rain drizzled down the walls of the city into the canals.
There was no possibility of a Verre Obscurcie working today, not even Signor Nenci’s version. “Can we put it off?”
He shook his head. She knew that, of course. They had known that rain was a possibility when they went to bed last night. To wait increased the risk that the Lombardy-Venetia officer would arrive the next day and take all the Verres. They would have to use their other plan, then, and send Vincent in, today, as the French officer. “It frightens me, Vincent.”
“You know I will be fine.”
“No … I really do not. I know that you think you will be, but I want that faith.”
Vincent turned from the window and wrapped his arms around her. “This will work, Muse.”
And if it did not—oh, the things that could go wrong terrified her. “Just remember that I will come for you.”
He smiled, and traced a finger down the side of her face. “That I know.” Bending down, Vincent kissed her, first on the forehead, then the nose, and then her lips. His breath was warmth and life. Jane opened the blanket to pull him inside the small shelter with her. Vincent slid his arms under the cloth and down her back. Without effort, as if to prove that he was fit, her husband lifted her and carried her back to bed.
* * *
Standing with the nuns at their station under the gallery down the street, Jane adjusted the veil of her wimple to try to cover more of her face. The white cloth of the nun’s habit covering her brow and the sides of her face did nothing to hide her nose. How could anyone fail to recognise her in this? Signor Zancani’s ensemble had been more concealing, and even though this suited their purposes today better than dressing as a man would have, Jane kept wishing for the wart or glasses. The bulk of her costume got in her way, and with each movement she felt every lump and twist of the rope she had hidden within it.
Sister Aquinata elbowed Jane, while pretending to be paying attention to the girls they were professedly taking for an excursion. “A real nun does not play with her habit quite so much.”
Dropping her hand, Jane blushed—which real nuns probably also did not do, or at least not to the extent that she did. The rain had lightened to a soft mist, but the clouds showed no signs of clearing. The driest path, however, was under the long galleries along the sides of the streets. They walked their charges under the gallery opposite the swindlers’ palazzo. Signor Zancani had set up his booth there, and they planned to stop and watch the puppet show so that they were in place to provide some confusion when Vincent exited the building.
Other passers-by strolled through the streets, taking advantage of the temporary break in the rain to go about their errands. Jane watched the flow of foot traffic until she spotted the French officer. It was hard not to stare at Vincent, who she recognised only because she had helped him dress. The uniform had been cut to make him appear heavier than he was so that he could carry in the faux Verres for the swap. Signor Zancani had taught him to alter his walk to a more military bearing. With the gold trim on his uniform and the sword hanging by his side, her husband had quite the military swagger. Until the puppet player had forced her husband to walk with his chest out, Jane had not realized how much of the distinctiveness of Vincent’s stride was because he led with his brow, his chin tucked into his collar, as though his mind were leading him forward.
Now Vincent’s chin was held up.
Or, rather, not his chin, but the face of Général de Brigade Germain, which Vincent wore over his own features. The whiskers and hair colour had been altered by Signor Zancani so that Vincent had bushy white side whiskers and hair running to grey. Glamour altered the line of his jaw to give him jowls, and he had the bulbous nose of a man who drank to excess.
Sister Aquinata elbowed her again, and Jane dragged her gaze from her husband. A real nun would not stare at a man with so much longing. She sent up a prayer that Vincent would be safe. They were fast approaching the part of the plan that frightened her the most, when he went inside the palazzo.
The puppets. She must appear to be watching the puppets and making sure the girls were all staying with the group. Sister Aquinata stood on the other side of their small cluster. At the end of this show, Sister Maria Agnes and the Abbess would take their place watching over the group. Jane stepped to the side until she stood upon the stone they had marked. From there, she was able to see the mirror that Signor Nenci had lent them. It hung on the puppet booth as though it were trimming, but angled in such a way so that it reflected the palazzo. She could see Vincent step up to the door and knock.
More significantly, she could hear. Jane had run a slender thread from the second-floor room down to the street to carry the sound from the bouclé torsadée that had remained anchored behind the curtain in the parlour at the palazzo. A casual passer-by who happened to stroll through the thread would catch at most a snippet of conversation from the palazzo but would be past too quickly to note it. If one stood in exactly the right spot, however, pretending to watch a puppet show, one could align an ear with the thread and listen.
Someone was in the parlour, because she could hear the quiet hiss of paper turning and the clink of glass on marble. Was that the sound of the Verre being set out on the sideboard or simply a glass of brandy? No other clues came to identify which man, or men, were there, and it gave her nothing of the sound that happened elsewhere in the house. But she could see Vincent present his card—prepared by Sister Franceschina—and be admitted into the house.
A few moments later, the parlour door opened.
“Pardon me, sir, but Général de Brigade Germain is here to see you.”
“Are you ready?” Spada. The glass clinked against marble.
“No, but I can fake it.” Bastone. Papers rattled as he shuffled them. For a moment he appeared in the window as he crossed the parlour to the strong room.
“Then show him in.”
The door closed.
Metal clicked. A lock? Another door opened with a faint hiss of cloth brushing cloth. Muffled, Bastone said, “Sometimes I wonder if the Verre never worked.”
“Perhaps they were swindling us, you mean?”
“Exactly.” His voice remained indistinct, as though he were in another room. “If Napoleon hadn’t backed this, I would have voted for getting out long ago.”
Spada snorted. “As would I, but … I saw the Verres work and used one myself, when the Vincents were out. They work.”
“That is good, because they are not particularly attractive.” Bastone’s voice grew in volume as he walked out of what Jane assumed was the strong room.
The door opened again. A man with a gruff voice spoke Italian with a thick French accent, “Good afternoon, messieurs.”
“General Germain.” Cloth rustled as Spada stood. “Please be welcome. How was your journey?”
“It was good, merci.” Footsteps sounded, and then her husband appeared in the window, as they had agreed. Jane could scarcely breathe, watching him. He would try to make them converse near the window in order to remain visible from the street. Vincent held two fingers in front of his chest to indicate that only two of the band of swindlers were in the room with him. “The weather is frightful today, is it not?”
Jane fidgeted with her rosary, considering. If there were only two men in the room, that meant tha
t the others could be anywhere. It might not be safe yet to send the signal to Lord Byron to effect his subterraqueous entrance.
Spada said, “Alas, Venice in the winter is often like this.”
Vincent raised a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Now, where are these Verres Obscurcis that I ’ave ’eard so much about? Will you show them to me?”
Spada glided across the room to stand by him. “Of course, but let us first offer you something to drink. You must be parched from your journey.”
“Non. Not at all. I would very much like—” He stopped abruptly and pressed the handkerchief to his brow again. “Will you be so good as to show me the Verres?”
“Are you quite all right?”
“Is no matter. Malaria left me—how you say—palsy sometimes.” His image in the mirror was too small to make out the fine details. She could not see his hands shaking, but that must be what was happening. Jane’s heart sped as if she were the one working the glamour.
“Spada…” Bastone stepped into view, with concern in his voice.
Vincent swayed. Spada took a step back in alarm as her husband’s glamour ruptured into an oily spectrum and he crumpled to the ground.
Through the bouclé torsadée, Jane could hear Vincent’s heels drumming against the floor and the sound that had given her nightmares: the short grunts of breath being forced from his body in convulsions.
Twenty-three
A Complicated Tapestry
She had known Vincent would convulse. The harsh edge of his breath bore into her head through the bouclé torsadée. Jane could not listen to that sound. Jerking her head out of the skein, she turned to Sister Aquinata. “Vincent is having a seizure.”
The nun’s mouth dropped open in horror. On the stage, the puppets stopped, Pulcinella turning as if in shock. Her voice had been louder than she intended, and all of the girls had clearly heard her. She had not meant to alarm them, but there was no time to worry about that.
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