The Orphan of Florence

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  I staggered into the next room, a bare-walled storage area, the floor littered with trunks and crates; ropes, tools, and buckets sat in haphazard piles. There were no doors leading further, only a wall; no other way out save the entrance Ser Giovanni and his dog now blocked. My dead end.

  Ser Giovanni handed me the lamp and lifted up a corner of the plain gray carpet. He rolled it far back on itself so that it would stay put. Beneath it sat a wooden hatch, the sort that leads down to a wine cellar. He gave the thick rope handle a tug; the hatch lifted to reveal a sturdy ladder leading down into darkness.

  I stared down into a black abyss, a dungeon that might have held a private torture chamber and the skeletons of other unfortunates like myself. What if Ser Giovanni simply abandoned me there, my shrieks unheard, to languish and starve?

  “I’m not going down there,” I said, aware that my voice was trembling and I could not stop it.

  “Yes, you are,” Ser Giovanni said, faintly amused. “For a tough little thief, you frighten easily.”

  He handed me the cane, the one that hid the wicked stiletto, and I stared at it, thunderstruck—until I realized that he had to have switched canes.

  I pulled on the cane’s gilded handle enough to expose the deadly sharp blade; I couldn’t have been more mystified and gaped up at Ser Giovanni.

  “I’ve given you no reason to trust me yet,” he said. “Call it a sign of good faith.”

  Good faith, indeed; if I’d threatened him with the stiletto, the dog would have eaten me alive.

  He gestured at the mastiff. “Leo, stay.”

  Leo settled like a sphinx beside the open hatch and stared mournfully down into the blackness, his brow puckering.

  “Now,” his master said to me, “follow.”

  Clutching the lamp in one hand, Ser Giovanni began to climb down the ladder. Watching, Leo rested his great chin sadly between his front paws; his jowls spread out onto the exposed stone floor and began to generate a slowly spreading slick of spittle.

  “Damn it,” I muttered. I tucked the cane under one arm and stepped carefully onto the first rung of the ladder. As I moved onto the second and caught hold of the first with my hands, I glanced down between my legs at the receding lamp.

  As I moved down, the air grew colder. The ladder wasn’t long, and when I stepped off the final rung, Ser Giovanni caught my elbow to help me balance; the lamp in his hand revealed only stony ground beneath our feet and more blackness.

  He gestured for me to take his arm, the one that held the lamp.

  I rested my hand in the crook of his bent elbow and took half a dozen measured steps with him before he stopped. Fabric rustled as he parted black drapes, just like the ones that had blocked the light of the kitchen from the outer entry room. They hid an arched door; Ser Giovanni felt beneath his collar and pulled out the long necklace that held the skeleton keys. He unlocked the door, gave it a firm one-handed push, and motioned me inside.

  I stepped in and winced a bit at the chill; Ser Giovanni followed and lifted the lamp so that the arc of light it cast expanded to reveal a cellar with earthen walls and floors. Instead of wine, it held a cabinet, worktable, shelves, and various implements of a craftsman. At its far end stood a Moorish-looking tent with a canopy, made of the same heavy black fabric as the drapes. Its curtained entrance was pulled shut, but a sliver of light escaped at the seam. I put my hand on his arm again, and we began moving toward it.

  Near the cellar’s entrance, a tall narrow cabinet stood beside bundles of drying herbs suspended from a hook. The cabinet was divided into a few dozen tiny drawers, all identified by small squares of yellowed paper glued to the outside, each square labeled in neat, measured script. An apothecary; every Italian family that could afford one had one, and Ser Giovanni’s was well stocked, as one would expect of a wealthy man.

  Next to it a trio of high bookshelves held several dozen leather tomes with gilded titles on their spines and stacks of scrolls, some of them with tarnished silver finials; beside the shelves sat a chair, a small table, and an unlit lamp.

  I tried to catch some of the titles as we passed and would have stumbled right into a hole in the ground had Ser Giovanni not quickly steered me away. The lamplight revealed a small, shallow pit the breadth of both my hands, edged on all sides with steel strips. I’d been in many a shop to sell stolen trinkets and recognized it as a jeweler’s furnace. Beside it lay a poker, bellows, and a large bin of coal; against the nearest wall rested a shelf holding jars of white powder, slabs of ocher beeswax, and stacks of bars: gold, silver, iron, copper, and lead. In front of the shelf, a worn, scratched worktable was littered with metal files, delicate engraving tools, a small beeswax mold, and a tiny heap of metal shavings.

  A bright new silver talisman on a leather thong sat beside the shavings.

  My mouth opened at the gold bars, a king’s fortune; my gaze moved involuntarily from the silver talisman on the table to the gold talisman on Ser Giovanni’s broad chest, then up at his face. He seemed suddenly to have increased in stature, in solidity. His exposed eye was lit not only by the lamp’s glow, but also by an internal fire, an infinite confidence born of ancient wisdom.

  He saw my expression of awe and the corners of his lips stretched faintly, grimly upward, not in a smile as much as an acknowledgment that he was worthy of it.

  He moved to the worktable, took up the silver talisman in his free hand, and gestured for me to accompany him.

  I nursed no thoughts of escape now; I had to see what awaited us. He stopped a few steps from the black velvet tent, where a few hooded black capes hung from wooden pegs.

  A sheathed Turkish scimitar was propped beneath them.

  For some reason, I remembered Tommaso’s favorite Bible story, the story of Abraham and Isaac, and in my mind’s eye saw Isaac strapped to the stone altar, struggling vainly as his father raised the knife above him, ready to strike.

  I was being led to slaughter. How could I have forgotten that the blackest magic required blood?

  I pulled the cane from under my arm and unsheathed the stiletto just as Ser Giovanni was setting the lamp down on the ground. He rose slowly and raised his hands, palms facing me to show he meant no harm.

  “Relax, lad,” he said softly, without any fear. “You can hold on to the weapon, if it gives you comfort. You can even keep it unsheathed. The whole purpose of bringing you down here is to protect you, not cause you harm.”

  I wanted to whip the stiletto through the air in front of him, to make it sing as shrilly as it had when he’d brandished it at me. I wanted to be gone, with as many gold bars as I could carry. I lifted it and pointed it at his chest.

  Utterly unimpressed, he took a cloak from a peg and tossed it at me; it landed silently in a heap at my feet.

  “Take your cap and boots off and put this on,” he directed. “And raise the hood.” Then he took another cloak and, turning his back to the dagger’s tip, began to pull it on.

  “You’re a fool to trust me,” I said, angry that my voice was quivering. “I’ll run you through and take those bars with me.”

  “No you won’t,” he said blithely, pulling off his boot.

  “What’s to stop me?”

  Once the boot was off, he turned back toward me, his one foot bare, his other shod, and his gaze fastened on mine as if the blade between us didn’t exist.

  “Me,” he answered, his tone even and calm. “And the dog. And the gates. But most of all…” He lifted the gold talisman hung around his neck and held it up for me to see. “This.”

  I thought of Tommaso and the plague and sheathed the dagger, then set the cane against the wall and picked up the cloak. It was so long the fabric pooled around my feet; the sleeves fell half an arm’s length beyond my hands.

  Ser Giovanni proceeded to pull off his other boot, then pulled the hood over his face and studied me in the wavering light as I removed my boots. Shadows hid his eye and the upper bridge of his nose; I could see only its long tip, the black, ske
letal hollows of his cheeks, and the deep crevices on either side of his mouth. Give him a scythe, and he was Death personified.

  “When we’re inside, don’t speak,” he said, his tone still hushed. “Or move unless I tell you to. Do not touch anything. Keep your hands at your side.”

  I nodded and scuffled behind him, trying not to trip over folds of my robe’s fabric, as he parted the black drape and went inside the tent.

  I entered a different world.

  The walls and carpet were black, and the high black ceiling had been speckled with gold paint to resemble the night sky, giving the illusion that we stood beneath the stars in a place that had no boundaries. A ceiling lamp shone down on objects that seemed to float in the air: a white candle, a brass thurible, a gilded goblet, a steel dagger. Miraculously, Ser Giovanni set the silver talisman beside the goblet, where it hung, motionless, suspended.

  Above the objects, a painting floated, a diagram comprised of ten carefully spaced circles divided into three columns: four circles in the center row, flanked by three circles on either side, all connected by thick lines painted in different colors, all containing different mysterious symbols.

  Ser Giovanni took his place in front of the altar and used a striking steel to light the incense in the thurible. He began to chant what sounded like a very ancient prayer in a very foreign tongue. The air came alive, as if a lightning bolt had just struck the ground we were standing on. I felt tingling in my feet and spine and grew lightheaded, as though I’d drunk a large cup of unwatered wine. Of course he couldn’t be the Magician; such a thing could never happen to me, and he seemed quite the mortal sitting at the dinner table. But there was no doubt he was a magician. And a powerful one at that.

  He struck the steel again, and a spark caught the wick of the white candle and flared. Only when he struck the steel a third time and set it to an invisible wick did I realize that there was a black candle opposite the white one and that the objects that seemed to be floating in space were actually resting on two square black boxes, one stacked atop the other.

  By the time he picked up the steel dagger and began to walk around the perimeter of the tent with it, pointing it straight ahead sometimes and other times swiping at the empty air with it, I was swaying on my feet like a bridegroom about to faint. Although my body felt drunk, my mind seemed curiously clear. I marked each action he took and listened to his strange gibberish.

  I’m normally not superstitious, but I was entranced. Even though he spoke softly, Ser Giovanni’s deep voice vibrated with such power that it filled the tent and thundered in my ears. After he made a full circle, he returned to the altar, made some motions with the knife over the silver talisman, then set down the knife, took up the small vial, and coaxed a drop from it onto the talisman’s center. He was casting a spell upon it, imbuing it with magical power right before my eyes. Preparing it as only a real magician could.

  He picked up the talisman and vial and turned back to me. In the flickering light, I caught sight of his gaze.

  It was fierce, magnificent, compelling, filled with otherworldly power. I lowered my eyes to the ground, feeling uneasy, unworthy. Whatever was happening here was either very wicked or very holy. I could feel the tingling energy of it in my freezing toes, up my legs, into my spine.

  But he wasn’t the Magician. He couldn’t be. The Magician would never reveal himself to a lowly urchin; besides, amazing things never happened to me.

  He put one palm over the talisman and vial in his other hand and uttered a short prayer. Then he spoke to me, his tone distant, otherworldly.

  “Lower your hood, please.”

  My heart began to race. He’d made the amulet well before going to the Buco Tavern this evening to find me and bring me here. I’ve been watching you for a while. He had prepared his tent for this ritual. All of his efforts this night had been to bring me here to this moment, this instant.

  My long robes would trip me up before I ever made it out of the tent, and so I wormed my hands out of the long sleeves and complied. At least he didn’t have a knife in his hand—yet. He slipped the leather thong over my head, and the silver amulet fell over my heart, exactly where the other one had hung.

  Ser Giovanni put his forefinger to the open vial and upended it briefly. He stretched out his hand, his fingertip cold as the ground, and traced a symbol on my forehead. I smelled cinnamon and clove; my forehead tingled and began to burn, but I dared not wipe the oil away.

  He returned to the altar, put down the vial, and took up the dagger, and did some swiping with it. When he had circled the entire tent, he put out the candles with the flat of his blade.

  We were done, and I wasn’t dead.

  The minute we stepped outside the tent, I rubbed my irritated brow on my sleeve.

  Ser Giovanni laughed as he pulled back his hood. He was mortal again, with a human voice; he no longer seemed so tall.

  “It burns, I know,” he said. “It’s for protection, like the talisman. The least I could do, putting you in this line of work.”

  I didn’t believe a word. People don’t take young thieves home in order to protect them—not without a darker motive.

  On the way out of the dungeon, Ser Giovanni paused at the worktable to pick up a blunt knife, then headed for the cabinet beneath the drying herbs and opened one of the tiny compartments. He drew out a small glass jar containing a dark brown gummy substance with an unpleasant chemical smell and took out a dab of it—smaller than a quarter of a pea—with the edge of the knife. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger to produce a tiny ball and popped it into his pocket. I stared quizzically at him, but he said only:

  “For that knee of yours.”

  He went first as we climbed back up the ladder, toward the welcome warmth. Leo was waiting for us in the storeroom, his ghost-gray stump of a tail wagging, a viscous pool of spittle lying on the stone floor where he’d rested his chin.

  “Mind that, it’s slippery,” Ser Giovanni said, taking my arm as I stepped up from the ladder, wincing at the stab of pain beneath my throbbing knee. With Leo in tow, we walked back out the way we came, the air growing warmer with each step. But instead of leading me back to the lavish sitting room, he guided me to a staircase leading to the upper floors.

  “You’ll be sleeping in a real bed in your own room tonight,” he said. “You’ll bathe first, though.”

  “No,” I said stoutly.

  He sighed. “Lad, I already told you I’ve no interest in you that way. Those filthy rags you’re wearing are going into the fire and you’ll bathe before you lie down in a clean bed. It’s not just that you stink. I won’t have your lice and fleas in my house.”

  He stepped onto the landing, turned to the left, and opened a door.

  I followed him into a bedchamber ten times the size of the attic Tommaso and I shared, where a thigh-high wooden tub sat beside a sputtering hearth; steam hung over the bathwater.

  It had to be magic. How else could the water still be hot?

  A neatly folded towel and a lump of soap rested on the floor next to the tub, as did a stack of boy’s clothing—unnerving proof that my captor had been watching me, and planning, for some time. Ser Giovanni took kindling from the pile and tossed it onto the glowing coals, then stirred it with the poker. The fire came fully to life, casting its orange glow onto us, onto the walls.

  A large bed with sumptuous covers and drawn-back curtains stood against one wall, but I was too nervous to notice much else. My gaze was on the magician, who propped the poker against the hearth as though he had no fear I’d try to brain him with it. He held out his hand, and when I recoiled from it, he sighed and turned his face away to give me my privacy. Leo pressed against his legs like a magnet.

  “Off with it, now,” he ordered, not looking at me. “Everything.”

  “Stand on the other side of the door,” I told him. “You don’t have to close it all the way.”

  When he didn’t budge, I worked up false tears until one spille
d down my cheek. “Please,” I said.

  He pressed fingers to his temple and rubbed it as if his head hurt. “Good God. All right. But give me your boots.”

  I complied quickly. He took the boots and wrinkled his nose.

  “Awfully small feet to have created such a stench,” he said. He held the boots at arm’s length by the back cuffs and went back through the doorway, the dog following. He pulled the door two-thirds shut behind him.

  Shielded from his sight, I set the florin on the night table, then shed my clothes and hurled them at the door.

  My undergarments were a problem. I always wore a ragged piece of cotton around my waist and folded one edge into a proper-looking codpiece, the better to fool people into thinking I was male. I also wore a length of linen fabric wound four times, tight as a shroud, around my chest. I unfastened the false codpiece, then unwound the linen around my breasts and squelched an appreciative sigh at the lack of pressure. I kicked both under the bed.

  Ser Giovanni called at the door. “Where are your undergarments?”

  “Haven’t got any,” I replied. I tiptoed over to the poker and took it, just in case, and sloshed the water with it so he’d think I was getting in. Then I raised it over my shoulder, ready to bring it down on his head the instant he set foot inside the room to take advantage of my freshly bathed nakedness.

  Instead, the door slammed closed, and Ser Giovanni and Leo’s footfalls receded down the stairs until I heard nothing at all.

  I couldn’t bring myself to get into the tub, although the water looked beckoning. Even though my feet were still aching from walking unshod on the freezing dungeon floor, warming them thoroughly—for the first time all winter—seemed a delicious notion. In the orphanage, I’d never seen clean, hot water in a tub, only the dirty, tepid dregs left by several predecessors before my turn came.

  I propped the poker against the tub and turned toward the fire to study the new silver talisman around my neck. Other than the fact that the metal was dazzling and untarnished, it looked extremely similar to the one I’d given Tommaso to wear, although the rows of numbers on the back were different, as were a few of the symbols on the front.