The Shadow Master (12 page)

Lorenzo looked at the tilt of the fallen man's head and the way his eyeballs were rolled back in his sockets. “I think he is dead,” he said.

The caped man bent down and put his fingers against the fallen man's neck. “Sorry,” he said to the dead guard. “That wasn't meant to happen.” He stood back up and gave Lorenzo a shrug. Lorenzo stared back at the strange figure and then at the four guards and asked, “Who are you?”

“It's always, ‘Who are you?'” said the dark figure. “Never, ‘How did you do that?'”

“How
did
you do that?” asked Lorenzo.

“Too late,” said the dark figure. “You only get one question. I'm a friend.”

“But… but… are you in the employ of the Medicis?”

“Only one question,” said the figure. Then he held out his arms and said, “Ah, you don't remember me, do you.”

Lorenzo shook his head. He was certain he had never met this man before.

“Well, you were very young at the time. Just a child really.”

Lorenzo blinked. “I don't understand,” he said.

“But I will tell you that I am not employed by the Medicis,” the man said. “As I said, I am a friend. A friend of horny young men who ought to know better than to be chasing a bit of skirt across the rooftops of the city with a broken chronometer.”

Lorenzo reddened a little. “You insult my lady's honour.” Then he looked at the chronometer in his hand. “You know what this is?”

The figure laughed. “I know many things. Some I suspect you don't know, such as the cost of using this. Or the fact that it won't work while in your gloved hand.”

“But how?”

“No more questions,” the dark figure said. “I'm sorry but you will not be visiting your fair lady this evening.”

Lorenzo glared at the man and said, “And who will stop me?”

“Commonsense will stop you,” he replied. “You will see her again soon, but not tonight.”

“How do you know this?” Lorenzo asked.

“It is written,” said the man enigmatically. “Now you must be very silent and very obedient.”

Lorenzo considered this. He looked at his gloved hand a moment and then nodded. Almost reluctantly.

“Good man. First take off these men's trousers and undergarments.”

“What?” asked Lorenzo.

“Then throw them to the street below.”

“But why?” he asked.

“Think about it. They won't know quite what to report.”

Lorenzo did as he was bidden while the dark figure watched on silently. Then he said, “Now follow me.”

“Where to?” asked Lorenzo.

“You've used up all your extra questions,” the man said, and then in a tone that brooked no disagreement, “Come. You must leave. And put away those devices before you hurt yourself.”

But Lorenzo could not help himself from asking just one more time, even though he knew he would not get an answer, “Who are you?”

 

 

XX

Leonardo raised his arms in surprise as the giant eagle swooped down towards him on the large balcony. He lowered his arms and held up a finger to chide the large bird as it came to a halt in front of him, fanning its large wings open with a whump, and then settled onto the balcony's edge.

“Inside. Quickly,” said Leonardo, and the bird walked awkwardly towards the window, and then turned around, spreading its wings wide again. But it was not to fly this time. Leonardo reached up and started unfastening straps as the bird transformed back into a man strapped into a flying machine of leather, canvas and wood.

Leonardo poised for a moment, staring at the handsome young man now standing before him with arms outstretched like he was on a crucifix. Damon smiled down at Leonardo and waited for him to free him from the flying machine. He fiddled with the harness straps and fastenings, checking the hinges on the wings as he separated the man from the machine. Finally he had him out and the young man stepped free stumbling forward, his bare chest still heaving a little from either the exertion or the exhilaration of flying. He was not like this when he emerged from the submergible. Becoming a whale was certainly less exciting than becoming a bird.

He watched the young man trying to regain control of his limbs and finding them much stiffer than they had been the previous time. “Come,” he said again. “We must get this inside.” Together they carried the harness and wings inside the large chamber and lay them upon a large bench top there that had been built for them.

“How did it fly today?” Leonardo asked the younger man.

“I truly was a bird,” Damon said. “It was glorious.” He was still panting a little for breath and Leonardo watched his tanned chest rising and falling. Then he stepped in close and held out the young man's arms, feeling the strength in his muscles. Looking carefully at the colour of the skin and noting where it had lost its lustre.

“When can I fly again?” Damon asked him. “You should paint me in flight. It would be a masterpiece. How could any painting of me not be?” That such beauty and such vanity co-existed was a pity, Leonardo thought. If he was to paint the young man flying it would be more likely a picture of Icarus falling to Earth having flown too close to the sun.

“That is up to the Duke to decide,” said Leonardo. “These are dangerous times and we must be careful how we tread.”

“I won't need to tread,” said Damon. “I shall soar.”

Leonardo ignored him. He was like a small child sometimes, wanting distractions and to be fussed over. And truth be told, the older man did enjoy fussing over him. Sometimes. He ran one hand along Damon's skin and felt how hard it was. Felt the small bumps that had grown along his shoulders. Then he saw the welt near the base of his neck. He asked the youth to sit and he examined the skin carefully. It was most likely only a bruise, he decided, not a pustule forming. Probably from the flying machine. It was a surprise that Damon's arms and chest did not have more bruises from the harness. But the toll of using the transformational science was showing on him. His skin was hardening and losing colour. The joints calcifying. Like his own. “So what does the city look like from above?” Leonardo asked him quickly to distract him from his examination. He also had a great curiosity for how the world would look from such a perspective. It made him feel so limited in how he could view and paint the world about him. Understanding perspective was fine for giving depth to the buildings when you viewed them from street level, or from a balcony – but to see the world the way a bird saw it? That would be wondrous.

“It's hard to describe,” said Damon, moving his arms like he was flying again. “At first it is just a jumble of orange tiled roofs. But then you start to see the streets and the towers and the church domes.”

“Is it like looking down at a map?” Leonardo asked him. “Or a model of the city?”

“Yes and no,” the young man said. “It is so much more, because as I move, the city changes and I can see the different aspects. Alleyways emerge as I fly over them and then disappear again, and it sometimes feels like I am still, in the air, and the city is moving beneath me.”

Leonardo closed his eyes to try to imagine it. Then he asked, “And what of the countryside?”

“Ah,” said Damon. “It is so different from high up.” They had done much of their initial practice on ships out at sea, and flying over the countryside was as different as a four course meal was to bread and water. “It looks so beautiful,” he said. “You would never imagine that it is a place of pestilence and death out there.”

Leonardo nodded his head. It had been a long time since anyone had voluntarily left the Walled City to travel through the countryside. Since the plague had come, all commerce was by sea and only those expelled from the city ever left its gates. It might have looked ideal from the sky, but down closer it would have revealed farms lying fallow and untilled, fruit trees grown wild, villages empty and overgrown. The land was returning to an untamed state in the absence of healthy working men and women. There were, he knew, hundreds of the plague victims who gathered at the city gates in the hope of being amongst the lucky few admitted to the city. But if they knew why those few were granted access they might not be so keen to tramp across the countryside and stand outside the city gates pleading for mercy. Dozens died out there, and the city guards demanded that the dying bury the dead if they wished to be able to wait outside the gates for the chance to enter the city. It was cruel, but necessary, he knew. The city had to be protected from the plague.

And as long as the Lorraines and the Medicis controlled the spice trade, everyone in the city was beholden to them to protect themselves from the plague. Some had to sell their family riches to afford the spice potions, while others, like himself, were under the patronage of the Duke and had a regular supply provided to them in return for their services.

Leonardo then turned his attention to examining the canvas and wires of the harness to see if there was any damage to them. Damon contented himself with looking around the room. The walls of the large chamber were covered with wires and wooden frames and canvas sheets and sketches of the many machines Leonardo had designed or was building. Most were modelled on animals. The flying machine had been developed after extensively studying the anatomy of birds. The submergible machine after studying fish. He had a war machine that was based on the shape and strength of a turtle's shell, and another that he was working on that could dig underground like a mole. It was not as satisfying as painting, he felt, but it was some satisfaction nevertheless.

He then looked back to Damon and looked at the welt on his neck again. He knew the young man's skin intimately, from the many hours he had spent gazing at it from different angles. Painting and sketching him. He knew it as if he were viewing his body from the ground or the air above. He did not need to fly himself to know what it might look like beneath him.

“Come,” he said to the young man. “You should rest, but first join me in some spice wine.”

 

 

 

XXI

Lorenzo was a hawk in the body of a sparrow. No, that wasn't it. Lorenzo was like a bird trapped in a cathedral, flapping up against the stained glass windows, unable to see outside clearly and unable to find a way out. That was closer. He wanted to have the description right when he talked to Galileo about it all. He was never as clever with words as he was with objects and pictures. He could dissect any object and state exactly how it worked, and even improve it, but to give it the best metaphor for how it worked was a difficult chore. Perhaps he should describe it as being a machine with a working component missing?

It was probably futile anyway. He had betrayed Galileo once again, and had failed in his mission, and some of the Lorraine guards were dead which would certainly cause reprisals against the Medicis, and no matter what metaphor he came up with it, it would not lessen his crime any in Galileo's eyes. The old man would not be swayed by clever metaphors to better understand what had driven him. How could he describe his need to see Lucia again to anybody in a way that they could understand? It had become more than an obsession;, it was as if some part of his body had been ripped from him and he needed it back to continue breathing and thinking normally.

He had been wandering around the safer streets of the city for most of the day with heavy feet and heavy heart, trying to revisit the morning's events in a way that would have turned out better. Trying to accept his abject failure. Putting off returning to the Medici palace. Vainly trying to find a metaphor that would somehow make his stupidity seem more understandable and acceptable. If he ruled the Walled City he'd ban all metaphors. Or maybe he'd just have a list of ten or so approved ones that people who were unable or unwilling to state things plainly had to use for all occasions. And anybody coming up with a new metaphor would be made to build a working model of their metaphor to see how useless it was. The river running backwards. A moth in an iron cocoon. Tears of honey.

Yet the stranger who had saved him seemed better described by a metaphor than plain words. He acted as if he used scientific machines to aid him and yet Lorenzo had seen none. His manner of speech was that of an outsider, yet he knew details of the Walled City intimately. Had he used secret machines to help him? How did they work? And had he actually helped him or hindered him? He had a great desire to know more about him that was as great as his desire to see Lucia again. Perhaps the stranger could even help him see her? But he had disappeared after leading Lorenzo back down to the street level. And how to find a mysterious man in the city who clearly did not want to be found?

With that thought lingering in his mind he paused a little as he walked past a dark alley, expecting the stranger to suddenly step out in front of him. But there was nobody there. Lorenzo sighed. Of course there was no one there. If he ruled the heavens, though, that's how things would happen!

He thought once more of Galileo's anger when he learned that he taking the magnifier and chronometer. If they had ended up in the hands of the Lorraine household, Cosimo Medici would have been beside himself with fury and he would have been turned out of the Walled City at the very best, and more likely executed as a traitor and an idiot.

For the first time ever, he felt the Medici household was not a place of safety for him. It was a very discomforting feeling. He was now a person of the streets, like those others he saw scurrying along quickly, keen to avoid any trouble, fetching food or whatever commerce they needed to engage in, despite the turmoil between the two Houses. There were even a few merchants stores open, which served to remind him that while the two major Houses carried great sway over the lives of the citizens of the city, they did not dominate every aspect of everyone's lives. Perhaps he could become one of them. Never return and find a trade in a small dark shop in a thin dim alley somewhere where he would not be easily found. It made his chest constrict. He would be a boy between all over again, and his chances of seeing Lucia would be near impossible.