The Shadow Master (17 page)

Lorenzo did as he was bid and felt something like chain mail under the man's cloak, but so thin it was like cloth. More mysteries. The hooded figure led him onwards one step at a time and soon Lorenzo heard moaning coming from ahead of them. “What is it?” he asked in a soft voice.

“Shhh,” cautioned the stranger and kept walking onwards. Soon they entered a wide chamber. There were a few dim lanterns in nooks and Lorenzo could make out more details of the stone work and shapes in the shadows. He had taken several steps into the chamber before he realised that the shapes were men. He froze and let go his grip on the hooded man's shoulder. Was this a trap? He turned around in a circle and saw the men were were all about them. He nearly shouted before the strong hand clamped over his mouth. Then the hooded man was whispering in his ear, the mouth so close he could feel his breath. “We are safe, but you must be silent. Treat them as sleeping dragons.” He lowered his hand and lifted Lorenzo's hand to his shoulder once more and led him onwards again.

Lorenzo could see the figures were chained to the walls, like this was some prison, but he could also see those figures who were closest to the lanterns. They were not people. They were creatures of some kind. They were hideous. Hugely deformed heads. Limbs missing. Faces with no eyes. And the stench. It was somehow worse than the river of human waste because it was the mixed with the smell of living creatures.

“
Mio Dio
,” Lorenzo muttered to himself. “Where have you brought me?”

“Steel yourself,” whispered the hooded man closely again. “It gets worse.”

How could anything be worse than such monstrosities, thought Lorenzo as they stepped from the chamber into one of the tunnels leading from it. But the next chamber was infinitely worse. The figures chained to the walls were children. So many of them. But none a child as he would have described them. They were chimera creatures like existed in the tales of old. Some had the heads of dogs. Others had the features of cats. Some had stumped wings in place of arms. Others had claws for feet. Lorenzo felt he had crossed into a dream, or a nightmare. This could not be real. He stumbled as he walked and nearly fell to the fetid ground. But the hooded figure clasped his hand and pulled him close. “Strength,” he urged softly.

Lorenzo took a deep breath of the putrid air and closed his eyes to block out the horror of it. But even with his eyes shut he could see the creatures before him. The hooded figure pulled his hand and Lorenzo felt himself being guided along as if he were blind. Eventually the stranger said, “We are passed.” And Lorenzo opened his eyes.

“What are those things?” asked Lorenzo.

“I will explain momentarily,” said the hooded figure. “But we have one more chamber to pass through and it is the worst of them all.”

“Worse?” asked Lorenzo.

The hooded man said nothing and led him along the tunnel to the next chamber. Lorenzo wanted to close his eyes again and have the hooded man lead him through blindly, but he had to know what horror could be worse. Once more the hooded man said, “Tread slowly and silently.” Lorenzo felt his insides knotted in fear but nodded his head. The chamber was set out with wooden shelves filled with large jars. And in the jars were the heads and limbs of the children from the last room. They were covered with plague pustules and malformed, but more horrific still, the eyes seemed to follow him as he walked across the chamber. And as he looked at the face of one young girl, her eyes seemed to blink. He felt his blood run cold. It must have been a trick of the dim light. It must have been his imagination. Then he swore she did it again. His legs would no longer obey his will to walk, even though he wanted them to run from this place.

“Look away!” the hooded man hissed sharply. “And keep walking!” Lorenzo did as he was told and soon they had passed from that chamber. “
Mio Dio
!
Mio Dio
!
Mio Dio
!” Lorenzo muttered to himself as the hooded man pulled him along. “This is a place of nightmares. Who are those poor wretches?”

“Experiments,” said the hooded man.

“What do you mean experiments?” Lorenzo asked. Experiments were things conducted with weights and measures and lenses and pendulums to determine a scientific principle. These were something far other.

“The apothecaries of your city have been charged by the City Council with finding a cure to the plague that does not hold them hostage to the two Houses' spice trade wars. They have been experimenting on plague victims.” His tone was so matter of fact. So heartless.

“Your disgust is written plainly on your face,” the hooded man said. “You judge me as being complicit it this, but it is your people who have done this.”

“They are no people of mine,” said Lorenzo.

The hooded man smiled. “Well spoken.” But then added, “Though strictly speaking the City Council's desire to find a cure to the plague is driven by their desire to break the control that the two Houses have over them and the city through their control of the spice trade, so anybody in the employ of either of the two Houses is also complicit in this.”

Lorenzo wanted to slump to the ground and he wanted to keep walking further away from these atrocities. He wanted to find an exit that would take him back to the streets. He wanted to have never come down here. And he wanted to go back and see if the face of the young girl had really been alive and had blinked at him. “Are they alive?” he asked. “Those heads?”

“What if I tell you ‘no'?” the hooded man asked.

“I won't believe you,” he said.

“And what if I tell you ‘yes'?”

“I still won't believe you.” Then Lorenzo said, “It was an evil thing to have brought me here!”

“Was it?”

Lorenzo did not feel he had to answer, but the hooded man said, “Do you know why I asked you to be so silent? It was not in order to prevent them from harming us. It was to prevent us from harming them. If they see people walking before them it will remind them of what they once were, and that will cause them great pain and sorrow. Their lives are miserable enough without that.”

Lorenzo was taken aback at that. This hooded stranger continued to surprise him. And so many thoughts filled his head. Should they be freed? Would it be kinder still to kill them? Shouldn't the citizens of the city be made aware? “I can see what you're thinking,” said the hooded man. “That we should stop these experiments, yes?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And you're full of anger and grief and all other things, yes?”

“Yes,” said Lorenzo. “We must stop these experiments.”

But the hooded man said, “Did you ever consider that if you believe in a god, or gods, then everyone on this Earth is but an experiment in the nature of the human condition? Every travail and hardship is but a part of the experiment, no more ghastly than this here.”

Lorenzo didn't like the weight of that idea. It still sat like a great stone upon his shoulders. “And even love,” the hooded man said. “What if even love is a part of the grand experiment being played out upon you by your gods?”

Lorenzo shook his head. “No,” he said. “I feel love in here.” He rapped on his chest. “It is not based on belief. It is a truth that is undeniable.”

“Good,” said the hooded man. “That's a belief that will hold you in good stead for the next level we are going to descend to.”

“There is more?” asked Lorenzo.

“Oh, so much more,” said the hooded man. “Come.”

 

 

XXXI

“Hello, my little bird,” the Nameless One said, causing Lucia to jump from the bed with a start. She had dozed off, despite vowing to herself not to. “I see you have made yourself comfortable in your cage.”

She sat up on the bed and brushed her skirts out flat, turning her head from him. How long had he been here in the room watching her? She wanted to demand it of him, but did not want to speak to him. She looked down at her hands as if she had no interest in whether he was there or not.

“I have brought you a meal,” the Nameless One said. “I hope you do not consider it too poor for your taste.” She did not look up at him. “I prepared it myself,” he added.

She gave a quick glance up to see what his culinary skills might be capable of and saw some kind of soup in a bowl. Probably horrendous, though the aroma that was now reaching her across the room suggested otherwise. At the smell of it her stomach grumbled noisily and she felt herself reddening a little around the neck. That her own stomach was such a traitor!

The Nameless One chose not to comment on it, though, and said, “I will leave the meal here by the door and you can eat it at your leisure. I will come and collect the tray later. Will that be satisfactory?” She still chose not to respond.

“Very good, then,” he said. “And if there is anything else I can do to be of service to you, just let me know.”

“You could free me,” she said quickly, and then pursed her mouth to prevent any other unbidden words to escape.

“Ah, I would truly love to free you, my little bird,” the man said. “But that I cannot do just yet.”

“When then?” This time she did look up and saw he was smiling under his dark leather mask.

“That is difficult to say. We are walking across a very narrow bridge that flows over very turbulent waters and to rush across would only increase the chances of falling.”

“My father will be furious and my mother even more so,” she said.

“Of that I have no doubt at all,” the Nameless One replied, and he bent down and placed the tray on the floor. She wondered if he were inviting her to attack him. Letting her think she might have some chance of catching him by surprise and taking the key from him and escaping. But she knew it would be pointless. He was too fast and strong for her. It would just be a game to him.

He straightened up again and adjusted his clothing carefully. “Well,” he said. “It has been a pleasure conversing with you, once more.” And he reached into his pocket for the door key. Lucia waited until he had turned the key and then said, “You have a lovely coat.” He turned back to her and looked down at the garment. It was expensive black cloth, set with pearls and silver thread.

“Ah,” he said. “I see you are observant for a little bird. You are deducing that I am not merely some lowly-paid kidnapper, correct?”

Lucia did not reply. “I think we might have a pleasant game here,” he said. “If you can deduce seven things about me correctly, I will grant you one wish.”

“Any wish?” she asked.

“Any wish within my power,” he said.

She mulled on that a moment. “Even setting me free?”

“That is not within my power.”

She pouted and turned her head as if she did not want to play. Then she looked back and said, “Would you deliver a letter for me?”

He thought on that. “Most probably. Yes.”

“Alright,” she said, turning around on the bed and facing him square on. “Let's play.”

“My shoes,” he said. “What can you guess about me from my shoes?” She examined his boots closely and then said, “They are well kept, unlike most of the old boots being worn around the city that can no longer be easily replaced. So you clearly take pride in conserving what you have.”

He gave a low bow. “What about my voice? What does that tell you.”

“You enunciate very clearly, so are obviously well-educated, and I think a native of our city.”

He bowed again.

“What of my cooking skills?”

“Since I have not yet tasted your soup, I cannot say,” he held up a finger, but she quickly cut in, “But since you have skills in the kitchen at all you clearly do not rely entirely on servants for your meals.”

He bowed once more.

“Then what of my profession?”

Now she frowned a little. “I would guess some experience as a military man. Some time spent in one of the mysterious cities to the east, before the plague years, where assassination and kidnapping were considered art forms. I would guess many years of training as a much younger man.”

“All too easy,” he said. Then, “What of my heart?”

She looked at him and said with a certainty she did not fully possess, “That's the easiest of all. Your heart beats like a large drum of sorrow.”

His eyes blinked rapidly, but he did not look away. “No. You have guessed incorrectly,” he said and without another word he quickly opened the door and stepped out, locking it behind him. Lucia reached out a hand to stop him, but said nothing. He had said her guess was incorrect, but then why did it feel like she had just shot an arrow at a deer and only wounded it, and had just seen it run away, bleeding and confused?

 

 

 

XXXII

Cosimo Medici looked down at the bloody mess before him and said with certainty, “There will be more blood spilled before this is over.”

He sat in a dim upper room of the house, decorated with ornate tiled floors and mosaics on the walls. The apothecary who was changing his dressings didn't reply. He had already lain the bloodied bandages on a tray on the table beside them and was now washing the wound with warm water, scented with some of his secret ingredients. “It smells,” said Cosimo.

“It smells because it is potent,” said the apothecary. “It will keep away infection.” And as if he was instructing a young child rather than the head of the Medici household, he added, “We have been perfecting our arts for hundreds of years and many of our secrets were passed down from the ancients. Our ways are built upon long-practiced and proven cures.”