The Golden Bowl
“I’m listening,” Zorzo says. He’s hurrying through the streets with Tulipano, the garzone he tasked with locating Fugger’s house and finding out more about him.
“I have a friend who’s an apprentice to a cartographer in the Campo Santa Margherita,” Tulipano says. “He knows everything.” He tries to find the right page among his scribbled notes and knocks a passerby. “Sorry, sorry.” His excessive height and skinniness make him clumsy.
“Go on.”
“So he started with mines in Bavaria, the Tyrol, in Bohemia, the Slovene lands, silver, copper, tin, iron. Then everything else followed—manufactories, smelting plants, bronze foundries, road building.”
“Road building?”
“To get it all to port, sir, to Antwerp, to Danzig, Lisbon, here to Venice, to sell to the world.”
“He built roads to Venice?”
“Who else would? He cut new passes through the mountains. He cut straight through the Urals to the Baltic, through the Pyrenees to Spain. What else?” Riffling through his pages: “Pepper, wine, jewels, soap, glass and holy relics—he trades in all of them.”
Zorzo pulls a face. “Holy relics?”
“The bones of the martyrs, splinters off the cross and so forth. And written pardons for sinners, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“And now he bankrolls the Hapsburgs, and the Vatican too. He owns everything.”
“It sounds like you’re quite taken with him, Tulipano.”
“No, sir, not at all.” The apprentice blushes.
“It’s all right, I’m fascinated too. Maybe we need new gods in this age?”
“Sir?” Tulipano is offended now and Zorzo has forgotten how devout the youngster is.
“I’m joking with you. And did you find out about Sybille Artzi?”
“Artzi?”
“Well, Fugger now. His wife, who everyone says is so murderously beautiful.”
“Oh, very little, sir.” Tulipano leads the way to the end of the path and stops. “That’s it, the Fugger residence. It’s called the Palazzo Pallido. I came by earlier, but it’s closed up at the moment except for some household staff. Although the palazzo is a relatively new purchase, Fugger himself has been back and forth to Venice at different points in his life. He studied here.”
“I’ve lived in Venice eighteen years and I’ve never seen this place,” Zorzo says. “The Palazzo Pallido? Palatial, perhaps, but it doesn’t look particularly pale.”
“No, sir. I thought the same.”
Zorzo studies what must be the back of the building. It’s immense, forcefully out of scale and character, surrounded as it is with little tenements and pretty waterways. Its high walls—the color of charcoal smoke—are precipices of small, dark bricks, and set with pious, meanly sized windows. It has nothing of the playful Moorish style of Venice’s most famous buildings, like the Ca’ d’Oro, with their airy loggias and colonnades. It’s more like some Gothic fortress of northern Europe, particularly the tower that rises from the rear like an army battlement. Most of the windows are shuttered, but at least three chimneys exhale perforated bands of smoke.
“It faces the sea, sir, which is also unusual,” Tulipano goes on. “The north shore, away from the shipping lines. Nearly every other palazzo of this size is on the Grand Canal. And this part of Cannaregio is pretty run-down.”
“Not where you’d expect the richest man in Europe to have his home,” says Zorzo. “Which I presume is intentional, privacy-wise. Not everyone who comes to Venice is a show-off.” Tulipano giggles at this, being a Venetian. “You’re a good lad. Get back to the workroom. I’m going to linger a few moments.”
Zorzo waits for more than an hour, knowing Tulipano’s right and the master and mistress haven’t arrived yet, but intrigued by the noises coming from the house, which seems to have the timbre of anticipation, as if the whole place is holding its breath. It grows colder, as a faint mist rises from the canal.
The chill gets into his bones and he’s about to give up his vigil when there comes the toll of a boat bell and a barge steals around the bend. In the fog, it could be a slow-moving whale returning to its home sea. It’s loaded with trunks and crates, weighing it down at an angle in the water. A pair of gondoliers power it from the stern, while two more men sit slumped at the prow. These two are splattered all over with dirt and mud, while their eyes are baggy and red from tiredness. The end of a long journey. The barge driver calls. A little window opens, someone peers out and, moments later, there’s a whine of metal—shrill and loud against the chill afternoon—and water doors at the base of the tower open. The barge slips in and Zorzo steps back into the shadows. On a little interior quay, a housekeeper is waiting. She’s stout, all in black, armed at the hip with a giant bunch of keys. Four or so lads in household livery stand with her.
One of the exhausted men in the boat stands and says to the housekeeper, “This is the first load. The rest will come later, or in the morning.”
“The morning? Why not today?”
“The master and his wife may stay the night in Mestre, after all. On the harbor. An issue with,” he pauses and wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, “an issue with the mistress, I gather.” The housekeeper scowls at this, though she already has what Zorzo’s father would have called a face of thunder.
The housekeeper gestures at the cargo and orders, “Take everything to the hall.”
“Yes, Frau Bauer.”
Zorzo doesn’t wait for the unloading. He turns on his heels and hurries across Cannaregio, not back to the red house, but over the Rialto, from where he speeds north. He reaches the port, at the northwest tip of the city, just in time to catch a ferry to the mainland. If Fugger and his wife are holed up in Mestre, he may be able to get a look at them, even find a way to introduce himself.
The boat casts off and his heart thumps. He wonders if he’s being too rash, whether he should really be getting back to his workshop and the still unfinished black gloves of Espettia Lippi. He puts his collar up, pulls his jacket tight and watches Venice retreat behind him. He realizes it’s been more than a year, maybe more than two, since he’s crossed the lagoon to Mestre. When his father was alive, he went all the time to his home in Castelfranco. There is something about the ferry—with its six oars going at once, the speed of it, the huddle of other passengers, everyone on their own mission—that shakes away the anxieties of the last two days: the bailiffs, Leda, the Ca’ d’Oro and Bellini. As he settles, a brand-new thought strikes him. Caspien said that prince orient was otherworldly. What if the entity in the sky in Giotto’s picture, hurtling toward the earth, actually carried prince orient? He’s heard stories of strange bright lights arriving in centuries past, celestial voyagers, some of which fall from the heavens. Caspien also said the mine was shallow, the mineral close to the surface.
The more Zorzo thinks about it, the more it bends his thoughts out of shape. He goes to church, as all men do when required, but he has never truly believed in the people from the Bible, not actually thought of them as breathing, striving, struggling flesh and blood—however well artists depict them. To him they’re mythology. Jesus Christ, the late-appearing hero of the story, is hardly more credible than, say, Apollo or Zeus. And as for the earlier parts of the Scriptures—the world created in seven days, floods engulfing it, seas parting—wonderful tales all, but beyond logic.
And yet, despite what he thinks in private, one truth is beyond doubt: history has pivoted against that brief moment in time fifteen hundred years ago, that tiny span of three decades, the birth, life and death of one single man. As a result of it, of Christ, the order of the world has changed from one thing to another, maybe not immediately, but eventually and completely. It has even changed time itself, in that it has been counted differently from that moment on.
And now there is this possibility: that an object from the sky, that may have carried within it an unimaginable color, collided with the world at the precise moment the great change commenced.
The moment Zorzo disembarks, it’s clear his gamble has paid off. Mestre has usually grown quiet by this time of day, but at one end of the harbor, on the far side of the tavern that Zorzo used to visit, it’s thronged with activity. There are three carriages, a pair of traveling carts, stacks of trunks and boxes, at least a dozen panting horses and a swarm of men, all filthy from traveling, like the two on the barge in Cannaregio. Boats are being loaded up. Six men heave an iron chest from the back of a cart and carry it onto the largest barge. It’s so heavy the boat tips to one side before they center it and set it down.
Zorzo studies the carriages. Two of them, though dirt-caked like everything else, are very smart, gleaming boxes of dark wood: the new breed of traveling vehicles from northern Europe that people like Carlo spout about—even though he lives in a city of water—with high, slim wheels and ingenious braces to give the compartment a cushion of suspension. Not seeing anyone who might be Jakob Fugger or his wife, Zorzo slips into the tavern.
There’s a smattering of dockworkers between shifts, some with their ears pricked to the drama going on outside, some peering through the window at it. No one stands out, though. Zorzo buys a measure of brandy and throws it back, to a satisfying kick of warmth inside.
The door flies open so fast that the handle knocks the wall. A man enters and strides to the bar. He is so imposing, tall and thickset, the floorboards bend to his weight. Thick ringlets of blond hair wind from beneath his cap, and an empty golden tureen hangs from his gloved right hand. It’s heavy and large, almost the size of a baptizing font, the type of vessel that a newborn prince might be christened in. “Fill it up,” the man says in a foreign accent, banging it on the counter like it’s a milk bucket. “Hot water.” He casts down some money. The innkeeper seems to resent the man’s manner, but the sum of money is undeniable.
Everyone in the room looks over, even those who hadn’t been interested in what was happening outside. Against the drab decor of the room, the vessel shines, like an object of the gods that has appeared in the mortal realm. If it’s truly gold, it could be worth more than any of the dockworkers will earn in their lifetimes. Though if it crosses their minds to covet such a thing, the stance of the man warns against it. He turns to the room, fists resting on his hips, and everyone pretends they’re not looking. His face has the pale pink, ruddy color of pig fat. Both sword and long dagger hang from his belt. They’re not ornamental weapons: they’ve been used, and often, all the shine and decoration rubbed from their hilts.
It takes a while for the innkeeper to fill the vessel, going back and forth to the fire to heat the water in batches. Eventually the stranger gives a flick of his hand to indicate it’s enough and tells the innkeeper to follow him outside. Zorzo waits until they’ve gone before going after them.
The blond colossus leads the innkeeper to one of the black carriages and knocks on the side. “Madam,” he says, then he opens the door, takes the tureen from the innkeeper and sets it down on the floor of the carriage.
“Danke, Tomas,” a woman replies. “Are we crossing now?”
“Shortly,” says Tomas. He bows stiffly and retreats, leaving the door open.
Crossing? They obviously decided against staying the night here. Zorzo cranes his neck to see. The interior of the carriage is lined in cloth of gold, which shimmers against the candlelight. He can see the white coat hem of the seated woman. She leans forward and her hands come into view. They could be carved alabaster, Zorzo thinks, thin fingers, unnaturally white and glassy—before he realizes she’s wearing gloves. She peels them off and sinks her hands—which are pale too, like pink coral—into the water.
Keeping his distance, Zorzo circles the carriage and notices a man, separate from the rest, standing at the edge of the water, half-veiled in sea mist, looking toward Venice—looking in such a way as if he owned the place, or is about to. He too is tall, but he’d still draw the eye if he weren’t, even with his back turned. He’s not dressed showily, but the black fabrics of his clothes drip with wealth: silks and velvets of pure darkness, not muddy forgeries of color. He wears a chaperon hat, the type rarely seen anymore in Venice. Zorzo wonders if he should go and introduce himself, here and now. He may never get as close to him again, but how would he do it, on a dark quay in Mestre, without sounding desperate, or suspicious? I hear you possess prince orient. Might I see it? If nothing else, he should say something to make Fugger turn, so Zorzo can see his face, see the human form of absolute wealth, how money changes a person—but then Tomas appears, Fugger’s right-hand man, presumably, and says something in his master’s ear. Fugger nods and climbs aboard one of the waiting boats, while Tomas goes to oversee the last of the loading.
From behind, there comes a click. The woman in the carriage—surely Fugger’s wife—holds out her palm to the sky. There is a painting, Zorzo thinks: against the bustle of an Italian harbor, the misted thicket of ship masts and harbor cranes, the hand of a lady, the young wife of the world’s richest man, comes from a glossy coach to test for rain. She dismounts and Zorzo slips back behind the corner of the inn. She’s angled away from him and he can’t see her face either.
“Johannes,” she says to one of the men who have started unloading trunks from the roof of her carriage.
“Madam?” He’s a slight adolescent with a nervy smile: the opposite of Tomas.
“It’s not so cold. I won’t need this.” She takes off her overmantle and holds it out for him. Underneath, her dress is also pearl-white, in satin, a lustrous thing against the drab browns and muddied grays all around her. It’s voluminous too, from yards and yards of fabric. She must be one of those ladies who eschew practical clothes for traveling, durable fabrics and dark colors.
“Of course, madam. No rain now either. For that we must be thankful.”
She puts her gloves back on and steps across the harbor toward the waiting boats. She looks terrified, her back a stiff board, her ear turning to every noise. She doesn’t lift the hem of her gown, but lets it drag along the dirty quay-stones. She’s a pale apparition moving through the chaos.
Johannes opens one of the trunks and, to make space for the overmantle, presses down on the clothes inside. Zorzo catches a glimpse of them, folded like giant cushion-cut jewels, their colors—folium violet, Egyptian green, carnelian red—shining like her dress in the dusk. Johannes stows the coat, locks up the casket and hurries to his mistress, who has halted halfway to the water’s edge.
“You’re nearly there, madam. A few steps more.”
“I won’t do it.” She’s taking deep breaths and shaking her head. “I can’t.”
“You’ll be all right, madam,” Johannes replies. “It’s not the sea proper. A lagoon is calmer than the sea proper. And there’s barely any wind now.” She rocks on her heels and Zorzo can sense her tension. “Would you like me to hold your arm?”
She shakes her head, steadies herself and glides on toward the barge her husband boarded. He stands in silhouette, facing the port, his eyes trained on her.
“Nearly there, madam,” Johannes encourages her. “It’ll all be over soon.” Again, she reminds Zorzo of a character in a painting he saw once, an empress being led to the scaffold, to her execution. Eventually she reaches the ramp and stops.
“Have fears,” her husband says. His voice has a hard, featureless tone. “Have as many as you want. Fear murder, fear plague, fear the devil, but this?” He flicks his head toward the water. “We could have been there by now. Ludicrous.” He leans out and takes her by the wrist, but she snaps her hand away. Her resolve seems to strengthen; she puts her shoulders back, mounts the ramp and steps down onto the boat. Tomas embarks after her.
“Well?” Fugger gestures at the captain. “Go. Bring this journey to its end.” He moves under the canopy, leaving his wife on the open part of the deck. As the boat casts off, Sybille lets out a gasp, digs her heels in and holds on to the rail. Zorzo steps to the water’s edge to watch her. What ludicrous misfortune, he thinks, what cruelty, to have a fear of the sea and be brought to Venice.
When the swaying of the boat evens out, her shoulders relax a touch. She turns to the mainland receding behind her. Zorzo tries a third time to see her face, but all he can discern is a pale question mark against the night. Then the barge shrinks away toward the city.