The Shadow Master (24 page)

“Yes,” agreed the Duke. “Somebody seems to have been manipulating us to attack each other. Somebody with an interest in seeing us weaken each other.”

“The minor houses?” suggested Cosimo.

“The City Council?” suggested the Duke.

The Head Councillor waved his hands in the air quickly, “No, no, I assure you, the Council has no desire for the city to descend into conflict.” The Duke nodded and looked to his wife with a wry grin. It took the Councillor a moment to realise that the Duke was making sport with him.

“And why have these men assumed the robes of monks?” asked Cosimo. “Do they wish to have us believe there are actually holy men behind this? Perhaps stirred up by the rantings of the High Priest?”

“We should ask the young man,” said the Duke. “Where is he?”

Cosimo had tried to have Lorenzo whisked away by his men, but the Head Councillor had demanded that he be kept for questioning and the Duke had firmly agreed. The Duke had also demanded to know, “Who was that man who saved us?” And Cosimo, trying to maintain the upper hand, had said, “Just one of my minor bodyguards.” He had looked closely at the Duke's face to see if that had impressed him in any way, but he had not responded other than to say, “He is almost as accomplished as my own bodyguards.”

The Councillor had the guardsmen bring Lorenzo into the chamber and he looked down at the dead men – supposedly his handiwork – and felt sick at the sight of them. They just looked so utterly dead. Not like somebody who had recently passed away in their bed looked, who might somehow awaken at a touch. These men died in pain and with blood splashed across their bodies. “Do you know who they are?” the Councillor asked him.

“Yes,” said Lorenzo. “They are followers of a mad cleric.”

“Who?” asked the Duke.

Lorenzo had spent some time deciding what he should tell when questioned, and what would be best left unsaid. “I don't know. He was masked. But I heard him telling these men that all followers of science are heretics and should be killed. He has assembled a small army of fanatics down in the catacombs to help him take control of the Walled City.”

“You have been into the catacombs?” asked the Head Councillor warily, wringing his hands a little.

“Yes,” said Lorenzo, after a pause.

“Then we must act quickly and decisively,” Cosimo said. “These madmen must be rooted out and destroyed.”

“It is forbidden to go into the catacombs,” said the Head Councillor. “The punishment is banishment.”

“And would you banish the boy here who recently saved your life?” Cosimo asked him. “Or would you issue a decree that all assassins who lurk down there are banished, and we will all shake hands and share a bottle of wine, considering our problems fit to be kicked under the table?”

The Councillor squirmed.

“We must lead an army down under the city and destroy them,” Cosimo said.

“I don't think that would be wise,” said the Head Councillor quickly. “They would be in their element. There are miles of tunnels. Or so I have heard.”

“We must flush them out,” said the Duke.

“Then let us use science,” said Lorenzo.

“Explain yourself,” demanded Cosimo.

“They condemn those who follow science and fear it, but Galileo and Leonardo working together could develop a means of ridding the catacombs of them without putting any more men in danger.”

The Duke and Cosimo considered this and then nodded their heads. “Agreed,” said the Duke. “Yes, agreed,” said Cosimo. “They could flood the tunnels with sea water, drowning them all.”

“That might affect the foundations of the city,” said the Head Councillor.

“Then they could suck all the air out of the tunnels so that they might collapse in on themselves,” said the Duke.

“Or they could develop mechanical soldiers,” said Cosimo, “that would not need light nor nourishment and could go through the catacombs and slay all those they found down there.”

“Or animal-men,” said the Duke, “that could dig through the earth.” He looked at Cosimo's amazed face and decided to say no more.

“Could not a way be found to drive just the fanatics to the surface,” asked the Head Councillor, “And do no harm to, well, innocents who might be down there?”

“What innocents?” asked Cosimo.

“The Duke's daughter, for one,” said the Head Councillor. “Did you not say she was in the hands of the fanatics?”

“Yes,” said Cosimo, after a pause. “I imagine she must be.”

 

 

XLVI

The puce priest's men came back in one and twos, licking their wounds and lamenting the loss of so many of their brothers that had fallen before the mystery attacker. The survivors, who had witnessed the slaughter and survived by choosing to stay hidden within the wall cavities rather than leap out and join in the attack, all seemed to have a different story to tell. One said there were several attackers who overwhelmed them. Another said they had walked into a trap. One said they were so weary after their long climb to the surface and up inside the council building that they had no strength in their arms to defend themselves. Another said it was all proof that the plan was ill-conceived.

The puce priest felt their anger and discontent like arrows being shot at him, and despite his first instincts to dodge them, he stood before the altar and called down to his followers, as leaders of lost causes have called for centuries, “Yes, there were several men waiting for you. Yes, they used strange weapons devised by science to overcome you. Yes, you should have prevailed. But you were betrayed! We have a traitor in our midst.”

The anger and discontent immediately moved away from the priest to those about them. Each man looked at the man beside him and wondered if it might be him who had betrayed them. “Fear not,” the puce priest called down. “We have a way of discovering who the traitor is, through trial by fire.”

“Yes,” his followers called. “Show us who the traitor is. Trial by fire.”

The priest continued the theatre by beckoning to one of his acolytes with a hand signal. The man, who had already been stabbed inadvertently by the priest, stepped forward and cautiously held out a dagger in his bandaged hand. The priest gritted his teeth and made the hand signal again. “Trial by fire,” he hissed at the man. The acolyte stepped back and came forward again with a candle. The priest closed his eyes a moment and tried another hand signal, then he said in a loud voice, “Bring me the bowl of flame.” Another acolyte, the one with singed eyebrows, hurried forward with the bronze bowl and then filled it with oil.

The priest beckoned to the first acolyte again who brought forth the candle. He had the man light it from one of the torches and touch it to the oil. Flames leapt up like an angry spirit dancing and whirling before them. “The flames shall reveal the traitor,” the puce priest said in a slow deep voice, letting the fire illuminate his face. “We shall find the traitor and burn him out and the flame will cleanse us of his infection.”

“Yes,” called his followers. “Show us who the traitor is.” And again the priest beckoned to the acolyte with the bandaged hand. The man looked carefully to see what his master was asking him to bring to him, but it seemed he only wanted him. He stepped forward and the priest took his hand and held it tightly. “In this manner shall we discover the traitor,” he called and waved his and the acolyte”s hands through the flames.

“Yes,” his followers called again.

The priest repeated himself, “In this manner we shall discover the traitor.” And he waved their hands through the flames again, more slowly this time. The acolyte was grinning like an idiot, enjoying being a part of the spectacle, and the high priest waved their hands through the flames a third time, slower still. This time the man's bandages caught. The priest watched the look in his eyes as he saw his stupid grin turn to horror. “The fire cannot be deceived,” he called.

The acolyte now pulled his hand back and tried to beat at the flames, and the puce priest took the remains of the pitcher of oil and threw it onto the man's hand, as if helping to extinguish the flames, but they now leapt higher, running up the man's sleeve. The acolyte was now screaming and flapping his arms, fanning the flames. The priest reached up and took off his mask and said to the acolyte, “Stare upon the face of the betrayer!” Then he stood back from him, as did the other acolytes. The man stumbled forward towards his brothers, looking for assistance, as the flames spread across his rough, hooded tunic. His screams were horrific now, as the flames seared his flesh and boiled his blood inside his body.

His brothers pushed to get out of his way as he stumbled amongst them, until one of the men spat the hated word at him. “Traitor!” The others took it up too. Then one man plunged at the acolyte with his sacred dagger, stabbing him in the back. Another stabbed at his chest. Then another at his stomach. The acolyte fell to the floor of the chamber, rolling on the ground until he had all but extinguished the flames and then lay still, the smouldering cloth soon damp in his blood.

“We are cleansed,” the puce priest called out to his followers. “We shall still prevail over the sinners. And this time nothing will stop us.”

 

 

 

XLVII

Rats scuttled past Lucia's feet. She was no longer so afraid of the dark in the tunnels, even though it was as cold as a lonely winter's night and as black as a sullen nightmare. The rats, however, were a different matter. Especially when she stepped on one and it squealed and squirmed under her slippered foot. She expected one of them to bite her at any moment, drawing blood that would attract other rats. But she kept her head high and kept on walking. She was not going to give into anything as inconsequential as fear.

She had run from the Nameless One's place, down the tunnels, as if she knew where she was going and could make her way safely back to the family house. But of course she quickly became lost. She knew she had to find stairs that would lead her upwards, towards the surface. If she could find any exit anywhere she would emerge into the city and could then find her way home. But almost all the stairs she found went downwards. And the further down she went the darker it seemed to become.

The first rats she saw she simply jumped past. The first that seemed to challenge her she kicked defiantly out of the way. But as their frequency increased and her bravado decreased, their screams seemed to be telling her that she was in their world, they were not in hers. She moved ahead slowly, at times having to mask her mouth and nose from the unbearable stench where sewer outlets ran, and she kept going. It might have been easier to turn around and try and find her way back again, but she refused to even consider it. Moving forward was the only way to outpace her fears and get home again.

So, she was edging her way along a particularly dark section of tunnel, holding one hand out to touch the damp walls to guide herself and sliding her feet along carefully. If there were steps ahead, she did not want to tumble down them. She felt a sudden urge to curl up into a small ball and wait there until somebody found her, but stepped away from that thought. Logic told her if she just kept moving onward she would come to some place better than this. She would find some light. She would find something.

She wished she hadn't lost the spoon that had melded into her skin to become a taloned finger. It had broken when she was prying the door open and separated from her skin as mysteriously as it had merged with it. She turned her hand over and over in the dark and tried to see if it was changed or harmed in any way. Lorenzo's climbing gloves had clearly been a product of science, but how had she done the same thing with the spoon? She would have to ask Lorenzo if using the gloves had changed something in her. He would know.

She wished that she didn't have to do this on her own and that he had some ability to find her. There must be some science that he could use. Some way to hear her voice, or feel where she was. Their flesh had joined. That was something he could use. She held that idea close inside her, like it was something sealed tightly inside a small locket, giving her some secret hope.

But as soon as she had tucked the idea away she knew that she was just being fanciful. More likely she would need to find her own way out of these tunnels and would then encounter him on the streets of the Walled City. Fate would be kind to her and place Lorenzo in her path, if she could just find her way up into the city. That seemed a fair thing to wish for. A realistic thing to expect. Especially in exchange for not succumbing to the dark and dangers of the tunnels. She tried hard to recall that feeling of Lorenzo's flesh passing into hers and the warmth that had filled her. That feeling that they were on the verge of spreading a warm light out across the whole city.

And then, as if her thoughts had somehow created it, she did see a faint light ahead of her. Her heart beat a little faster. Was it a way out? Was it somehow daylight? She edged closer, seeing the outline of her hand a little clearer before her face now. Seeing the dim walls. Seeing the stones beneath her feet. Seeing the scuttling dark shadows of the rats. She gathered up her courage and gave one a sound kick. “Out of my way, ratface!” she said.

She came around a curve in the wall and found the source of the light. It was a lantern of some kind, but had no candle in it. It glowed a faint green. She reached out and took it off the wall. This was some kind of science. Perhaps something distilled from fireflies. Lorenzo would probably know.

She held the lantern up high and saw that she was at the junction of four passageways. The lantern was here to guide people. That meant one of the three passageways ahead of her would undoubtedly lead her back to the surface. She could have wept at the simple logic of that. She only had to walk on and find the next lantern and that would be the path out of here. She looked at the three passageways and chose the one on the right, asking her heart and her head to work in conjunction to guide her.