The Medusa Amulet

by Robert Masello

  Dr. Armbruster was supervising the setting out of a tea service. The room was wainscoted and warmly lighted, the back wall dominated by an oil portrait of Mr. Walter Loomis Newberry, its founder, in a black suit coat and hanging silver watch fob. Dr. Armbruster glanced at David-he felt like he was being inspected for flaws-and said, “Be appreciative, by all means, but don’t enter into any negotiations or comment in any way on the terms of her gift. We leave that to our own lawyers.”

  “Got it.”

  At three o’clock on the button, Mrs. Van Owen and a man she introduced as her attorney, Eugene Hudgins, were ushered into the room by the receptionist. The lawyer, a stolid guy with a red complexion, took a seat at the head of the table, as if so accustomed to it that no one would challenge him, and Mrs. Van Owen sat to his right. Dr. Armbruster took a seat on the other side, next to David. The receptionist took care of pouring out the tea, and David took those few minutes to study their benefactor.

  Today, she had no veil on, and her face was the most captivating David had ever seen. Her skin was a creamy white, so flawless and unlined it was almost impossible to assign any particular age to it. Was she younger than he’d been led to believe, or was this the miracle of that Botox stuff he had heard about? He knew she had recently lost a husband-the news of his crash had been carried in all the papers-but David could see no sign of grief. Her hair was jet-black, and sleekly gathered into a tight chignon. She had a regal and vaguely foreign look about her… but not so much foreign to this place as to this era. A look that was further accentuated by her most striking feature of all-her eyes.

  They were a violet blue. David had never seen eyes of such a color. Maybe that was why she’d worn the veil the day before. Maybe she took advantage of every occasion she could, even if it was to wear mourning attire, that allowed her to keep people from staring. When David found that he was doing just that, he took off his wire rims and pretended to be cleaning them.

  Hudgins had opened a bulging valise and taken out a bulky sealed envelope, along with a legal-sized binder imprinted in big block letters with the name of his law firm, HUDGINS amp; DUNBAR, LLC.

  “That was a very interesting talk you gave,” Mrs. Van Owen said, and when David looked up, she seemed to be amused by something. “I learned a great deal about Dante.” There was a slight smile on her lips, but her words, like her features, carried a distant air. She had a faint trace of an accent, but even David, who was very good at placing them, wasn’t sure where this one came from. Definitely European, that much he knew, but it could have been French, or Italian, or even Spanish in origin.

  “Thanks very much,” he replied. “Coming from the donor of such a beautiful book, it means a lot. And now that you’re here, I can’t resist asking where the book came from.”

  “Florence. But you know that.”

  “I meant, how did it come to be yours?”

  “Oh, it had been in my family for many years, and I thought it was time the world was able to enjoy-and study-it.”

  “But the illustrations,” he persisted. “Do you know anything about who executed them? I’ve consulted dozens of sources so far, and checked archives online all over the world, but I still can’t find a match to any known edition.”

  “No, I shouldn’t think you would.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Because it is one of a kind.”

  “You know that? You know that it’s the only extant copy?” David could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice. “How?”

  But instead of answering, she resorted to an airy dismissal. “That’s what I’ve always been told.”

  David visibly deflated. All sorts of myths and legends clung to family heirlooms. This copy of the Divine Comedy was undoubtedly rare and valuable, but it was possible, even likely, that somewhere in the world, perhaps buried in the bowels of the Vatican library, another copy existed.

  But it was unlikely to be a more intact one than this.

  “Now that that’s been settled,” Mr. Hudgins interrupted, as if uncomfortable with this unmediated conversation, “we should really get on with the business at hand. We have some additional material to be transferred,” he said, nodding at the bulky envelope on the table and making it plain that David should open it.

  As David drew it close, Hudgins continued. “Mrs. Van Owen has graciously decided to leave these manuscripts and drawings in the care of the Newberry Library, for further examination and study. She wishes to know as much about them as the curatorial staff is able to discover and is prepared to underwrite the costs of all such work.”

  Although David was happy to hear that she would bear the expenses, he was already concerned that something very old and valuable had been transported in such a casual manner as this. He grew even more concerned when, after unsealing the envelope, the unmistakable scent of smoke emanated from inside.

  “Their final disposition, however, remains an open question,” Hudgins said. “Much will depend on how the completion of the work goes and whether it yields success. If it goes as well as we hope, the Newberry can expect to receive these materials on a permanent basis, along with a very generous and unrestricted gift to support the library. If not…” He trailed off. “Other arrangements may be made.”

  David had just removed the packet of papers, as deftly as he could, from the padded envelope, and already he was astonished at what he saw. Just from the feel of the paper and the ink, he could tell that these papers were hundreds of years old. Fifteenth or sixteenth century, if he had to guess. They reminded him of the many ricordanze he had studied over the years-the memoirs and diaries of Italian businessmen, documents that provided a fascinating glimpse into everyday life during the Renaissance.

  This handwriting was in Italian, too, and though faded by time, still more than legible. The edges of the papers were singed here and there, accounting for the smell of smoke, and there were dots of mold and decay, like age spots on an elderly hand, sprinkled throughout. But as he turned one page over and glanced at the next, and the next, he could see that they were a virtual treasure trove. These weren’t mundane records of grain purchases or wool deliveries. This was a rough draft, with many crossouts and markings, of something called La Chiave alla Vita Eterna. The Key to Life Eternal. And in its margins, and in some cases on the backs of the pages, there were drawings and schematics, and references to smelting processes and glassblowing. There was a sketch on one sheet that could only have been the plans for a kiln-a large kiln, big enough to cast a mighty statue. David’s heart was hammering in his chest, and he distractedly removed his glasses and wiped them clean on his tie before exploring an underlying page, a page that had been folded over. His fingers paused above it, until Mrs. Van Owen herself said, “Unfold it.”

  Still, he paused, afraid of doing it some damage-normally he’d be doing this on a lab bench, with some cotton and tweezers, under a dim and indirect light-but Dr. Armbruster, her own curiosity piqued, said, “Go ahead, David. Somebody has to.”

  Standing up, he unfolded the sheet of paper, maybe two feet square, then simply stood there, stunned.

  It was an elaborate drawing, in red and black ink, of the Medusa-the mythological Gorgon whose gaze could turn an onlooker to stone. It was circular, and a reverse view-largely blank, or unfinished-was drawn at its lower right. Although he could not tell what artist had done it, David could see that it was the work of a master-a Raphael, a Verrocchio, or a Michelangelo. And because of its shape, it must have been the design for a medallion, a coin, or the cope on a cloak.

  “It was a looking glass,” Mrs. Van Owen said, answering his un-spoken question. “ La Medusa, as you can see it was called.”

  Indeed, the words were written on the page. And of course-that made perfect sense. The back was simply a mirror. “But do you know whose design it is?” He scanned the page for a signature, but there was nothing. Nor had there been one on any of the previous pages.

  “I do.”

  He waited.


  “Like all of this, including the copy of Dante, it is from the hand of the greatest and most versatile artisan who ever lived,” she said, her violet eyes holding firmly on his. “Benvenuto Cellini.”

  He sat down quickly, the sketch still spread before him on the table. He could hardly believe his ears. Cellini? One of his heroes ever since Amherst, when he had read every word of his celebrated autobiography in a Renaissance art course? The rebel spirit who had created some of the greatest sculptures of his day, works that had played a role in David’s very choice of career? For several moments, he was dumbfounded, before asking, “And what do you want me to do?” Already he was itching to start in on his research. “Verify the drawing somehow?”

  She frowned at the very suggestion. “There is no question of its authenticity.”

  David could see that she was not someone who brooked argument easily, and he was sorry he’d crossed her already. Even Dr. Armbruster looked cowed.

  “Then what would you like me to do?”

  With one long, lacquered nail tapping the sketch, and her foot tapping the floor impatiently, she said, “I want you to find it.”

  “The actual mirror?” he asked uncertainly. What did she take him for, Indiana Jones? Dr. Armbruster, too, looked surprised at the nature of the request, though she was not about to start raising any objections. “Wouldn’t a gemologist, or a specialist in antique jewelry, be your best bet?” he said, but she grimaced in disgust.

  “I have tried that route. They found nothing. It needs a scholar to find it; I am sure of that now.”

  “Is it possible,” he said, almost afraid to complete the thought, “that they didn’t find it because it does not exist?”

  “ La Medusa,” she said, in a tone that brooked no dissent, “exists.”

  Looking into those violet eyes, boring into his like a pair of icicles, he didn’t doubt it. Nor would he have dared.

  “And I need you,” she concluded, “to get it for me.”

  Chapter 6

  The knock that had just sounded on Benvenuto’s door was not a friendly one, and the voice that called out his name was equally peremptory.

  His hands were coated with warm wax, and he was in the middle of making a model of Caterina, who stood in the nude holding a wreath as if offering it up to the Heavens. It had taken him half the day just to calm her down, and it was bad enough that she insisted on wearing a scarf over her white hair.

  “Who is it?” he bellowed, his eyes still trained on the girl. “What do you want?”

  Cellini had already had to send his assistant Ascanio to the apothecary’s shop for a hair dye made of boiled walnuts and leeks-Caterina said she would not set foot outside until her hair was made black again-and now there was no one there to answer the damn door.

  “It’s Captain Lucasi, and I am here at the behest of his lordship, Cosimo, the Duke de’Medici.”

  The duke was the immensely wealthy ruler of Florence and patron to all of its greatest artists-Cellini among them. As for this Lucasi, Cellini knew from previous run-ins with the man that he was an officious prig, terribly impressed with the colored balls-the Medici insignia-adorning the front of his uniform.

  “Damn it to Hell!” Cellini exclaimed, wiping his hands on a rag and throwing it on the worktable. “Let him in.”

  Caterina wrapped herself in the bedsheet and, after making sure no wisps of white hair were escaping from under the scarf, opened the door.

  Lucasi took her in slowly, looking from head to foot with a sly smile on his lips. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a yellow veil?” he said, referring to the garment prostitutes were required to wear in the streets of the city.

  Caterina scowled and walked away.

  Lucasi stepped into the room, looking all around. “What have I interrupted?” He poked his nose into the fireplace, where a pot of white beeswax was being kept warm and malleable, but when he ventured to touch it with his finger, Cellini shouted, “Get away from that, you dolt!”

  The captain pretended to take no offense, but turned, with the smile still on his lips, and said, “You need to come with me.”

  “Where? What for?”

  Captain Lucasi shrugged. “The duke pays for everything you’ve got here,” he said, gesturing widely at the silver cups on the floor, the gems still loose on a table, and finally at Caterina, who had planted herself on top of the seaman’s chest, “and when he says come, you come.”

  Cellini was within a hair of refusing, but even he knew better. When the Medici summoned, you answered their call, or wound up in a cell in the notorious Stinche. He had been there before, for public brawling, and had no wish to return.

  “Give me a minute,” he growled, roughly scrubbing the wax off his hands and wrists with a bar of lye soap before pulling on a fresh shirt and blue tunic. Beneath them he wore the Medusa, which he had sworn to himself he would never again remove. “Take the charcoal from the hearth,” he said to Caterina, “and put a lid on the wax.” Marching toward the door, he said to Lucasi, “Let’s go then.”

  The captain glanced down at his pants and shoes, still spattered with bits of wax, and said, “You don’t want to change those, too?”

  “I thought you were in such a hurry,” Cellini replied, starting down the wooden stairs. If the duke thought his finest artist should live at his constant beck and call, then he’d better get used to seeing the signs of his toil.

  Outside, the narrow street was relatively quiet, the heat having driven everyone indoors hours ago. The sun was lower in the sky, and the shadows of the other workshops fell over the cobblestones. A stray dog lay panting under the eaves of the ironmonger’s across the way, a grocer’s cart slowly rumbled along behind a swaybacked donkey. From a third-story window, an old woman beat a carpet against the balcony rail.

  With Cellini leading the way, and Captain Lucasi doing his best to make it look like the artisan was in his custody, they marched to the Ponte alla Carraia, the ancient bridge where the wool carts from as far away as Flanders and France brought their wares to be sold and dyed and spun. The dyers, whose hands and arms were stained blue and green, used the Arno River below to rinse and wash the wool. But at this time of year, there wasn’t much to work with; the water level had fallen so low that dying fish were flopping on the banks. Dante called the river, which neatly divided the city in two, that “cursed ditch,” and Cellini would not have argued the point.

  When they reached the Piazza della Signoria, the broad public square where some of the city’s greatest statuary was on display-Michelangelo’s unrivaled David, and Donatello’s Judith and Holofornes -Cellini slowed down, as he could never help but do, to admire the workmanship, and Captain Lucasi gave him a shove on the shoulder. Cellini whirled around and barked, “If you do that again, you’ll regret it.”

  “Just keep moving,” Lucasi retorted.

  “Barbarian.”

  The duke’s palazzo, a huge fortress of pale stone topped by a crenellated tower, sat on the square like a great brooding giant, a fitting symbol of the Medici power and influence throughout Tuscany and beyond. Cellini had been there countless times before, but he never failed to notice the immediate hush that fell the moment he passed beneath its arched doorway, the sense of leaving the ordinary world and entering a far more rarefied precinct. Not that it instilled in him any trepidation. Since the day he was born and his father had christened him Benvenuto-or Welcome-he had felt at home anywhere. He was proud to say he was cowed by no man, and with only a few exceptions-his friend Michelangelo, the painter Masaccio-considered himself the superior of anyone he met, even dukes and princes and popes.

  He would bend the knee, he often said to himself, but never the head.

  The footmen recognized him, and even before the captain had announced their arrival, Cellini was mounting the marble steps to the salons that surrounded the central courtyard. He had powerful legs and moved like a bull with his head down, always plowing through any obstacle that might present itself. His shoulders w
ere broad and strong, conditioned by years of sculpting and metalwork; his hands and fingers were knotted and hard from bending gold and silver to his wishes. He was thirty-eight years old but looked younger and could handle himself in a fight with men half his age.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Captain Lucasi complained when Cellini turned left at the top of the stairs and took his usual shortcut through the duchess’s suite of rooms. Everywhere, on walls and ceilings, in niches and on plinths above the doorways, there were remarkable works of art-frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli, statues by Mino da Fiesole, paintings by Uccello and Pollaiuolo. Cellini never missed an opportunity to reacquaint himself with the past masters whose work he strove to surpass.

  “Benvenuto! Is that you?” he heard, and stopped in one of the galleries. Perhaps this hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.

  The duchess herself-Eleonora de Toledo-swept out from one of the antechambers, in a full-pleated gamurra and white satin cap, and he greeted her as pleasantly as he could. When she was cordial to him, it was always for a reason-and this proved to be no exception.

  “I want you to look at these pearls,” she said, “and tell me what you think they’re worth.”

  She held out a rope of seed pearls strung between her fingers.

  “Are you planning to sell them?” he asked warily. He could already see that several were losing their luster.

  “No, I want to buy them, and Messer Antonio Landi is asking six thousand scudi.”

  “That’s a lot more than they’re worth.”

  From the immediate frown on her face, he knew he had said the wrong thing.

  “Are you sure? I think they’re quite beautiful.” She held them up to her neck, so that they caught the light from the windows.