The Dragon Waiting

by John M. Ford

  The sky show was ending. Alesssandra Scala was talking about showing Phoebus's chariot with wheels of genuine fire. Poliziano wanted to stage the burning of Rome. Lucrezia de' Medici suggested flame-breathing serpents, and Pulci, irreverent as always, proposed a war among the gods, held in the sky with weapons shooting fire.

  Then the syncretist Ficino, sitting hunched with Lorenzo standing at his side, put all the ideas together, along with Lorenzo's new song: chariots blazing between the worlds as gods fought rebel gods, the destruction of a city—a planet?—by fire, beasts beyond imagining both to terrify and befriend the heroes.

  "It needs a title," Signorina Scala said.

  Pulci had his mouth open, but Ficino beat him to the pun.

  "It shall be dedicated to Isis and Mars," he said, "and we will call it Stella Martis."

  A servant brought Lorenzo's lyre, and another for Ficino; pipes for Poliziano and tambourine for Lucrezia.

  "Will you sing, Luna?" said the Magnificent.

  "I only heard the words once—"

  "Improvise," said Ficino, his eyes alive with joy. "What's life but an improvisation to the music?"

  And Cynthia sang, words rising from within her like giggles to pop on the tip of her tongue, until as the eastern sky began to lighten she wondered if their horses knew the way to carry them home, and did not really care if they did.

  Cynthia's feet knew the way from the Ricci house to the Palazzo Medici, and she did not care if they did not; crossing the Arno, she did not care if they carried her over the edge of the bridge to drown.

  Vittorio Ricci walked, shoulders bent, a few steps ahead of his daughter. He wore a black cloak, and a mood to match. Cynthia looked up; the September sky was dull. The city was too quiet, the river too flat, the whole bloody world gone numb and tingling.

  They were admitted at once to the Medici palace. Nothing was right there, either. She could hear the whispers of the servants behind her, feel their eyes on her back. She wondered, should she look outside, if the building stones would still meet fairly, columns stand straight; if the statue of Marcus Aurelius in the courtyard would be weeping bronze tears. No, that was wrong. The Philosopher Emperor was a Stoic; he would not weep for the death of all beauty in the world.

  Lorenzo de' Medici was reclining on a couch, his head and feet supported by feather pillows. He wore a loose silk gown, a silk sheet over the lower half of his body. He was talking with his brother Giuliano, and Francesco Sassetti, general manager of the Medici Bank; the tightness in Lorenzo's voice was perceptible to Cynthia all the way across the room.

  "I wish I knew why my good friend the Duke Sforza required so much gold on short notice. I only fear I do know. What is the extent of the Duke's indebtedness now, Francesco?"

  "According to Messer Portinari, some five hundred thousand Milanese pounds... one hundred twenty thousand florins, Magnificent." Cynthia almost gasped. The Ricci were not poor, and all their house and movables were worth less than a tenth of that.

  "In fact," said Lorenzo, "I do not know what to make of any of Galeazzo Maria Sforza's actions of late—not since those noble young idealists tried to kill him…ah…Dottore Ricci, Dottorina Ricci. Please come in."

  The doctors approached. Sassetti bowed to leave.

  "Francesco."

  "Magnificent?"

  "Write to Portinari. Ask him the consequences of liquidating our branch in Milan."

  "Magnificent, the consequences would be—"

  "Disastrous. I know. But get Portinari's figures. Assure him that whatever happens, he will retain a position with us."

  "And if the Duke Sforza should hear of this proposal?"

  "Francesco," said Lorenzo very patiently, "unless the Duke's devious brother has dropped incontinently dead, I hold it as a fact that the Duke will hear of it. If I know Ludovico Sforza, the Duke will be reading your letter well before Portinari does. As for what Galeazzo Maria will make of it—well. He knows I once made a war over alum, which is worth much less in the pound than gold."

  Sassetti nodded and went out, tucking his hands into his long, flapping sleeves.

  Lorenzo shifted his legs slightly, grimaced. "Now, Giulian', too late I understand why Grandfather never lent to princes. Sforza, and then King Edward, and poor Louis, and now the younger Sforza... Father and I are both fools. Court fools."

  Giuliano said "Handling money is an art and a science."

  "But not one that Ficino can pry out of Plato.... Ah. Excuse me, Vittorio, Cynthia. Come here, take a look."

  Giuliano stepped back. Vittorio Ricci swept the sheet aside. Cynthia's scalp prickled. She could sense Giuliano's chill. The younger brother had been sixteen when Piero the Gouty died. He had seen. He knew.

  Vittorio said evenly, "You have not missed the medication? Or, perhaps, used the stale infusion from the previous batch? Or overindulged in the dangerous foods?"

  "No, no, and no. Shit, Vittorio, I've taken my spoonful of medicine like a good boy since I was seventeen. I thought about taking an extra swallow this morning, but..." He closed his eyes as Vit- torio's fingers moved his knee.

  "Well that you did not," Vittorio said. "It could have been very dangerous."

  Yes, Cynthia thought, very dangerous to the house of Ricci.

  "Nonetheless, we may try that course. Slight increases in your dosage, until... Have there been any of the—untoward symptoms?"

  Lorenzo was briefly silent. "When I hurt my side, in the tournament—you remember, Giulian'—I had the nausea, and I know I vomited, because Bartolomeo Lanzi caught my spew in his good helmet. Do you recall?"

  "I remember," Giuliano said, and looked at Cynthia, his pretty face distorted with fear.

  "Oh, brother, I haven't any fever. Do I, Luna?"

  "No," Cynthia said. "Pain alone can cause the upset, yes."

  "Then you have had nausea," said Vittorio. "And your stools?"

  He spoke so calmly, so impassively. Cynthia wanted to strike him. She wanted to scream, thought that if this went on much longer she would have to scream, bloody murder.

  Vittorio went on with his examination. Cynthia waited for Lorenzo to ask the question she knew he must—but he did not. It was Giuliano who took her into the adjoining room and asked, "Can he be reacting... like Father? After all this time?"

  "I don't know," she said. "Perhaps it's just—" and then she shut her mouth tight. She had consented to this thing, but not to compound the treachery with lies—and the lie had come so easily. Silence had almost become conspiracy, without any real effort at all.

  Giuliano looked at the floor, ran his fingers through his already disarranged hair. He looked like a troubled young god in one of Botticelli's panels. All he needed was a little comforting. She had none to give.

  They went back into the room. Vittorio Ricci was packing specimen vials into his black bag. "Destroy the supply of medication you have," he was saying. "I will prepare a new infusion and bring it tomorrow." He closed the bag. "Come, Cynthia."

  "Would you stay a little longer, Cynthia?" Lorenzo said.

  Vittorio put his hand to his face, stroking his cheeks, squeezing away whatever emotion had been there.

  "If you're needed—"

  "I'll stay," she said. "Go on, Father."

  The elder Ricci picked up his bag, made a stiff little bow, and left.

  Cynthia looked at Lorenzo, determined to tell him no lies, even if he asked for a confession of attempted murder.

  "Have you considered Pisa?" he said, and she had to think of all the possible meanings before realizing that Lorenzo had meant no more than he had said.

  "I... could not leave now." Which was the truth.

  "Well, I suppose I'd rather you didn't. Especially if someone must bathe my legs every day.. .oh, smile, Luna. Please smile."

  She did. It was not the truth.

  "You're what—twenty-two?"

  "Yes, Magnificent."

  "That name never sounded any sillier.... We're headed for trouble in Florence,
Cynthia. There are only three states left in the

  North free of Byzantium, and now Milan wants war with us. I can hear that Imperial puppet della Rovere laughing himself sick in Rome." He tightened a hand. The fingers would not quite close into a fist.

  "Luna. Go to Pisa. Marry an intelligent pauper, or a clod rich enough to keep to his mistresses. I'd tell you to marry Giulian', and he'd do it, but it wouldn't help; you must get out of this circle before something terrible happens. Go to Germany and practice your art— or to England; Edward has peace now. We bought it for him."

  She could not move, or think.

  Lorenzo sighed. He tried to pull a ring from his right hand, could not get it past the knuckle. "Ah, shit. Help me to the cabinet, will you?"

  Giuliano and Cynthia took Lorenzo under the armpits and walked him to a dark wooden armoire set against the wall. Lorenzo pressed a thumb against his ring and a thick metal prong snapped out; he put the key into an inconspicuous hole in the carved wood and turned. A panel swung open.

  Inside was a small, stoppered glass flask of dark amber liquid and a silver spoon. Lorenzo took the flask and handed it to Cynthia, who tried to control her trembling as she accepted it.

  "Messer Lorenzo!"

  The flask shattered on the tiles.

  A page ran into the room, dropping to his knees, skidding to a stop. "Ser Lorenzo—a coach from Milan—Messer Reynardo. And another person, in a hood."

  Cynthia felt Lorenzo's shoulders go hard. "Very well. Dottorina Ricci, I suppose we've followed your father's instructions; now pardon me. Giuliano, see Cynthia out, then meet me in the quiet chamber."

  The page said "Magnificent, Messer Reynardo asked that a doctor be brought. A surgeon."

  Lorenzo said "In that case, Cynthia, will you...?”

  "Of course, Magnificent."

  Lorenzo told the page, "Have Reynard and his guest enter beneath the roses. And get someone to sweep this up."

  Giuliano kicked off his leather pattens, knelt to slip them on his brother's bare feet, then with Cynthia half-carried him across the broken glass to the couch.

  "Best get me some lower garments," Lorenzo said in a suddenly exhausted voice. "And... you know."

  "The chair?" Giuliano said.

  "Yes. Father's chair."

  Giuliano and the page went out. Cynthia took a roll of linen gauze from her bag and began to pad Lorenzo's swollen feet.

  "I hope, Cynthia, I am not involving you... in an unpleasant business."

  Cynthia controlled herself. It was rapidly becoming easier. "Who is Messer Reynardo?"

  "A Frenchman. He calls himself Reynard; what his real name is I don't know. He was a gift from Louis; the only value for money I ever got out of that old spider."

  "But... what does he do?"

  "Why, Dottorina, can't you guess? He spies for me, on my good friend the Duke of Milan."

  The quiet chamber was a specially built room in the cellar of the Palazzo Medici, with double walls to stop sound and a heavy door that locked itself on closing. The walls were of plain stone, and there were no furnishings but an iron candelabrum and several thick iron rings set into ceiling and walls and floor, frighteningly full of possibilities.

  Lorenzo de' Medici sat in a padded chair on wheels that had been used by his father Piero. Giuliano stood behind the chair, his hands on the pushing handles. Cynthia was a little further back and to the left, her cloak over her shoulders with the hood raised.

  In the middle of the room stood two people. The taller of the two was Reynard, who wore a leather jack over his doublet and hose, all very dusty, and a plain-hilted small sword. His face was very bland, smiling in a vague way.

  The other person, who had been cloaked and hooded until the chamber door was closed, was a boy, dark-haired, droop-shouldered, bow-legged. He was very pale, and stared vacantly at the floor.

  "A halfwit?" Lorenzo said.

  "Hardly," said Reynard. There was no French accent in his voice, nor any other sort of accent. "He could read Plato in Greek. What you're seeing now is the side effect of the spell; I didn't have time or energy to be subtle." Reynard touched the boy's head. He did not react. "It also means he'll come up quickly when I lift the control. Watch, now."

  Reynard made a complicated motion with the fingers of his right hand, then swept them along his left arm. It seemed that he had pushed back the sleeve, though the jack was too heavy and stiff for that to be possible; still, his arm looked bare, the basilic veins showing large and blue on white skin.

  Reynard's right hand brushed the boy's head again, then touched his temples, pinched the bridge of his nose; Reynard flipped his wrist to one side and snapped his fingers.

  The boy blinked at Reynard's bare arm. He inhaled, and his tongue flicked out. Then he seized the arm with both hands and sank his teeth into the inside of the wrist, biting like a wild animal, making wet sucking sounds. Saliva flowed freely.

  Reynard pinched the back of the boy's neck, muttered something. The light went out of the boy's eyes; his face and jaw went slack, his look once again empty and mindless.

  The leather sleeve reappeared. Reynard turned it in the candlelight, showing bite marks that went almost through the leather.

  Lorenzo said in a flat voice, "You are sure it was the Duke who did this?"

  "Absolutely, my lord."

  "There have been many rumors about Duke Galeazzo "

  "Most of them are true, my lord. The Duke Sforza believes, probably rightly, that as long as his cruelties were confined to a few of the nobility, the bulk of his subjects would tolerate them, but the vampire disease would be seen as a threat to all."

  "How long?"

  "I believe he was infected after those three young men attempted to kill him early last year; that he was not in fact wearing armor beneath his doublet, and was mortally wounded. There was a vampire in the dungeons—an experiment of the Duke's—and the Duchess Bona offered him his freedom if he would save the Duke's life."

  Lorenzo said "Bona would. And it just may explain his turn of mind." Then, sharply, "It required twenty months for you to discover this?"

  "I have known since last winter, my lord."

  Lorenzo's eyes narrowed. "Then why—"

  Reynard tugged at his collar. "Last winter, my lord, the Duke was hungry, and I was available. Ludovico Sforza watches his brother's ... donors very carefully, for signs of infection. I had to be very circumspect." He displayed a set of small black scars above his collarbone.

  "I am sorry, Reynard. And are you... infected?"

  "No, my lord. Those he passes the disease to the Duke has nailed into chests. He stores the chests in a room, and spends time there alone, listening. He calls it his House of Peers."

  "Sweet Venus, Galeazzo..."

  Cynthia could not take her eyes from the boy. He looked a little like her brother. Spittle was drying on his chin.

  "This one escaped for a time," Reynard's bland voice went on. "I caught him with a kitten for bait—"

  "Oh, enough!" Giuliano cried.

  "Is this the surgeon?"

  Cynthia was abruptly conscious of all the men looking at her. "Yes," she said. "Shall I do it now?"

  Reynard said "It has to be done, and holding him still costs me. Are you familiar with the—"

  "I know the technique," Cynthia said, suddenly very angry. "Do you think I'm frightened?"

  "I apologize, madame," Reynard said gently. "I myself am rather frightened."

  She looked at the spy, or tried to; his face would not focus. Magic, she thought, an illusion like his naked arm had been. She wondered what he really looked like; if he could see his own face in a glass.

  "Take off his shirt," she said, and took a scalpel from her bag, swabbed it with alcohol in an automatic action before realizing that cleanliness was not going to matter this time.

  Reynard took off his belt and lashed the boy's wrists. "Pain will break the control," he said. "My lord Julian..."

  Giuliano took the boy's ankle
s. Reynard lowered him to the stone floor and pinned his shoulders. "Madame?"

  Cynthia knelt, the knife in her right hand, and began counting ribs with her left. The chest was very thin. She would have to go through the inner edge of the lung, at the point of a triangle whose bases were superior and inferior venae cavae, cutting the little rope of nerves in the heart apex.

  She heard Lorenzo praying, to Minerva Medica. That was probably a good idea. To Asclepius, too. After the nerves in the heart, the cervical spine must be severed. Would any of the medical gods still listen to a Ricci? The men could have done it themselves with a dagger in the heart and a sword to the neck. The boy's pupils were pinpoints. A little further up. Amateurs usually got the dagger in the wrong place, her anatomy teacher had said. "Hold him now." Forgive me.

  "Not much blood." "No. Turn him over." The second stroke was easy.

  "What did Ser Lorenzo want?" Vittorio Ricci asked.

  "I did some surgery on a boy in the house." She was too tired and disgusted to invent anymore; Vittorio did not ask for any more. He picked up a paper from the table where he sat and handed it to Cynthia. "Another," he said. "Pushed under the door."

  She read:

  Most learned physicians:

  We are most pleased with Messer Lorenzo's progress, and with your admirable discretion in the matter.

  Please do not neglect to prescribe a treatment for Messer Giuliano, as requested in our previous letter.

  When this course of treatments is complete, your relatives may end their visit with us and return to comfort, light, and air.

  Yours ever watchful.

  "Now you see I am right," Vittorio said. "If we had shown the first letter to the Medici, your mother, your brother and sister, would all be dead now."

  Cynthia had nothing to say.

  "I have made the new infusion. It tastes precisely of the colchicum, and has twice the concentration of uric salts as the prior formula. I had not expected the salts to be so effective; we may not have to use the pure colchicum extract…" Vittorio looked again at the letter. "I do not know what we will do for Giuliano. But there are poisons enough for all."