The Conjurers

by David Waid

  The priest went completely still and Teresa nearly laughed at the look of surprise on his face.

  “Aah…well done,” he said.

  He straightened his back and placed both hands on his knees, sitting at prim attention. “It is as Plato wrote, ‘necessity is the mother of invention.’

  “Does that mean I can go?”

  Father Hugh simply inclined his head and she was off like lightning. He called out, “To the privy only. We must still review your lessons in logic.” But she had already passed down the hall to the front of the house, over the slab step and into the street.

  Ignacio strode along the Strada Maggiore and past the towering cathedral of San Lorenzo. He crossed the public square where craftsmen and farmers, finished for the day, repacked their goods. Bolts of rich cloth from Damascus were rolled. Coral, ivory and scented oils from the Hafsids and Mamelukes were nestled once more in carved wooden coffers and loaded onto waiting wagons.

  A man called out half-heartedly, offering a tray of spiced and fragrant sweetbreads. “Good price,” he said.

  Ignacio shook his head. His master had told him these sights and sounds were nothing, pale half-shadows of the mysteries they studied. He turned his back on the square and followed winding avenues and descending stairs through the city until he came to an arched wooden door.

  The apartments of Salvezzo Lodovicetti seemed nondescript from this side street. The slender lane was empty, but in one of those tricks of sound he heard distant city noise as if it were near, and ghostly, disembodied voices echoing from the walls. Rapping on the door, he waited, shifting foot to foot.

  A muffled voice replied. “Who?”

  “It is Ignacio. Let me in.”

  The bolt was thrown, the door opened inward. Through dim light, Ignacio saw embroidered wall hangings in the corridor behind a middle-aged man with rumpled clothes and wispy hair.

  “Bezio, tell me, is he in?”

  “Sì, Padrone. Upstairs.”

  Bezio’s eyes were red, slitted, and he rubbed them as if he’d been rousted from sleep. Ignacio pulled back from the reek of sour wine. Bezio drinking meant his master was engaged in work that would keep him secluded for hours.

  The old man wiped a sleeve beneath his nose, sniffed. “No one is to disturb him.”

  Pushing past Bezio without a word, Ignacio climbed the nearby staircase. He could hear the servant carping and swearing under his breath as he closed and re-locked the door. At the top, Ignacio straightened his clothing, ran a hand through his shoulder-length, curling hair and knocked.

  “What is it?” shouted a voice from inside. “Damn it, Bezio, why aren’t you drunk and unconscious by the back door?”

  “It’s me, Master. Ignacio.”

  There was grumbling. Footsteps approached. The lock was undone and the door creaked open a finger’s width while the footsteps retreated. It was as much invitation as Ignacio would receive.

  Pushing the door wide, he entered the Maestro’s study, but his step faltered when the smell of putrid flesh hit him like a physical blow. The Maestro stood hunched over a human cadaver that had been cut down the middle. The ribs and meat had been peeled like the skin of an exotic fruit. One leg had been entirely removed along with all the skin of the corpse’s face and one arm, exposing muscles, veins, teeth and gums.

  Lodovicetti waved his hand above the body and a cloud of flies erupted. On a tray nearby, an array of thin saws, knives and bloody rags surrounded a bowl of cloudy water. Satisfied with the dispersal of flies, the Maestro squinted and pushed his face closer to the butchery.

  Because the Church strictly forbade such dissections, all but one of the room’s windows was tightly shuttered. That sole window faced a steep slope down toward the harbor and none of the neighbors had a vantage to see in.

  Looking up, his face just inches from putrescence, the Maestro said, “It is not like you to disturb me when I have given specific instructions to be left alone.”

  “I saw something strange, Maestro, an occurrence in the Ninth House. A comet appeared two nights ago but was gone last night as if it had never been.”

  Lodovicetti straightened. “You saw this yourself?”

  “Yes. That is the house of inauspicious signs, I know, but perhaps the stars were wrong. As I say, it was not there again last night…”

  “Suspiciendo despicio, my boy. ‘By looking up I see downward.’ The doctrine of the stars is never wrong, only the eyes or mind of the beholder.”

  “I prepared a chart of what I saw.”

  Reaching into his coat, Ignacio pulled out a packet of papers. The Maestro wiped his hands on his apron and received the sheaf, eyes fixed on Ignacio’s face. Turning to another table, he cleared a space, spreading the sheets. Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

  “I see you have done more than simply chart the skies,” he said. “You have gone on to interpret the auguries.”

  “Yes, Maestro.” Despite himself, he couldn’t help the excitement that crept into his voice. “The signs reminded me of something I had seen in an old scroll of yours. It took me a full day to find it again. The comet and even this exact array of the stars were the subject of prophecy. It foretold something that it named Rituali Ascendentes, and a young prodigy. I searched but couldn’t find another mention of either. Do you know what it means?”

  Without response, the Maestro returned to the sheets. He poured over the writing and Ignacio did not dare to speak. Then, papers in hand, the Maestro sat in a straight-backed chair and let out his breath.

  “You were right to bring this to me,” he said. “Your calculations and readings are quite good, as far as they go. You noticed that Mars, Lord of the Ascendant, is in reception with Jupiter and that Mercury is in his house of predilection to the sun, yet you failed to recognize he is out of combustion. An important distinction. I believe we can pinpoint a location for this boy who is the subject of your presage with even greater accuracy than you have rendered.”

  The Maestro walked to yet another table, this one by the open window. It held a tray with a little silver knife, some cheese, fruit and a decanter of wine with several drinking bowls. Ignacio was just wondering how the man could possibly take refreshment in this stinking room when his master spoke.

  “We should drink to your find, Ignacio.”

  The Maestro poured a deep draft of wine for himself and brought it to his lips with a steady hand. He downed it in one pull and then poured one for the boy and another for himself. With his back to Ignacio, the Maestro drew forth a tiny packet and poured its contents into the boy’s drink. The man swirled the liquid in the cup just once with his finger and the fine white powder disappeared. When he turned around it was with a broad smile and a drink in each hand. “This is welcome news, Ignacio. Welcome news indeed.”

  Responding to the delicate peal of a hand bell, Bezio trudged up the stairs to the room on the second floor. He was tired and grumbled as he went. Entering the room, he saw his master at the writing desk and the body of the young apprentice lying on the floor, white froth dripping from the corner of his mouth.

  Bezio had been attached to the Maestro’s household for three decades and nothing now could shock him. Noxious clouds regularly found their way under the doorframe, and the ceiling of the room below gave witness to the outrages above through ominous thumps and liquid discolorations. Bezio had disinterred bodies of the highborn as well as the low for his master: women, children, even prelates of the church. The world held no new horrors for him. He simply raised one eyebrow and awaited the Maestro’s instructions.

  Lodovicetti’s mind was absorbed with Ignacio’s discovery when Bezio walked in. The Maestro allowed himself the luxury of excitement because fate had given him an advantage. He had the presage, and more — he had resources in that part of the world to which the signs pointed. His business in Genoa must now be concluded in preparation for the journey.

  Six days to book the long passage, gather his things and arrange the affairs of
his household. He glanced at Ignacio’s body. Six days to indulge in one last bit of research. The Kepler knife with its German steel would be ideal.

  At last he noticed the man standing quietly by the door. “Ah. Bezio, forgive me. Please dispose of the cadaver this evening.” He waved his hand in dismissal of the corpse on the table. “Tonight I shall begin on a fresh subject, as you can see.”

  “Yes, Maestro.”

  “Oh, and Bezio?”

  “Yes, Maestro?”

  “Be careful in the boy’s preparation. His limbs will never move again, but he is alive and I want him to remain that way for some time to come.”

  “Ah.” Bezio said. “Yes, Maestro.”

  Ignacio was enveloped in the smell of sour wine from Bezio’s breath as he was turned, gripped under limp, flopping arms and lifted. Behind him, the man struggled and cursed under his breath. If the boy could have moved his lips he would have used them only to beg Bezio for death in hoarse, frantic whispers as he was dragged backwards to his preparation.

  In the distance, church bells gave their doleful music to the city and its people made ready for the night to come.

  3. Nairne

  Leinster

  Closing his eyes, the noise of Eamon’s own panting breath surrounded him, the crunch of compacting snow. In his mind, he saw his mother. When his eyes flew open, she disappeared.

  Ahead, the farmhouse door yawned yellow light onto the snow that seemed to shake and jerk as he floundered forward. The house looked half a furlong away at least. Could it have been so far?

  There was no arrow shaft in his side he could nip at and bite, but he remembered the wolves dying in the drifts and he wanted that death. Any death. So long as he stopped seeing his mother with her crooked neck and frightened, frozen stare.

  His footsteps slowed, stopped. He could sink to his knees right here, grow cold and still like a boy of ice. People said it was like going to sleep. But Caitlin, tears streaming down her cheeks, tugged his arm.

  “Come on, Eamon! Please!”

  He must have followed, because the next thing Eamon knew, he and his sister were stumbling through the door into the cottage’s candle-blaze. Behind them, Duff and the farmer rushed in carrying Mother. Her arm had fallen loose and bounced with their movement. For a moment, the sight transfixed him. Then he spun to a candle and stared hard at the brightest part of the flame, not blinking, yet he couldn’t hold his eyes open for long. When he looked again, his mother had been stretched on the narrow cot of a tiny, doorless bedroom.

  The farmhouse reeked of close living and strange herbs that hung from dark, splintery ceiling beams in shriveled bunches. His family’s possessions were hauled from the wagon and placed by the door as the farmer’s hounds, hip high, weaved among them, still excited by the wolf skirmish.

  A short crone of a woman was there, too. She wore her iron gray hair pulled back beneath a drab cloth and had a tall, wide forehead. Her eyes gleamed white as the snow outside and she felt her way from place to place with gnarled fingers testing the air.

  Duff spoke with the two strangers as Eamon sat waiting for the cottage to be swallowed by the earth. To be flattened by a fist from the heavens. Nothing happened. The world shouldn’t go on without his mother, but it did.

  He and Caitlin had only themselves now. Duff, maybe, if he stayed with them, but he owed them no loyalty now that Mother was dead. He was their stepfather, and Eamon and Caitlin were just two additional, hungry mouths. Perhaps Duff would put him to work, abandon his sister. Or the reverse. She was twelve, he’d heard of that. Men had begun to stare at Caitlin and her golden-blond hair; there would be work aplenty.

  “Och! Drink this broth, boy. Ye need it.”

  The old woman stood before him, her unfixed gaze hovering over his left shoulder. He had somehow become seated on a stool by a scored and stained cutting table and she might even have been talking to him for some time. He took the spoon and warm bowl and did as she said. His sister, sitting beside him, received the same.

  Up close, he saw the woman’s eyes were covered in cloudy film. Behind the film, the faded outline of her pupils swam like ghosts. Her fingers, tough old hedge roots, spidered across Eamon and his sister, searching for wounds.

  “‘T is a wonder these two have no hurt,” she announced at last to the room at large, though nobody replied.

  Testing Eamon’s temperature with the back of her hand, the old woman gave a start. She pressed her palm against the side of his face several times and once again on his forehead. Whatever it was she’d felt originally must have gone. Shaking her head, she muttered to herself and took his bowl to refill it.

  “I am Nairne,” she said when she returned, then jerked her head toward the bench and table where the farmer sat consoling Duff, “That’s me son, Baodan. The dogs are Fearghal an’ Bran.”

  “My name is Eamon. My sister is Caitlin.”

  “Wisha! Strong names. Is it yer mum what’s dead and over there your father?”

  “Our mother, yes. We don’t know our Da. That’s Duff.”

  The old woman clucked her tongue. “I’m sorry, lad.” She rapped her knuckles on the table, rose and felt her way to sit by the men.

  From the instant she stepped away, the hounds grew disturbed. They walked up to Eamon and sniffed, letting out a whine or a low “whuff,” and would walk away only to circle back. At one point, Eamon caught Nairne listening to them, her head cocked to the side. She stared at empty space with her brows drawn together and called out, “How is it the two of ye came through the wolves not just alive, mind, but with nary a scratch?”

  Eamon thought Duff would answer, but he was hunched in his seat, clutching fistfuls of hair, Baodan’s hand on his shoulder.

  “We were up in the cart,” Eamon said. “They would have had us for sure if Duff’d not killed one and driven the others off.”

  “Well, well,” she frowned and rubbed the side of her nose, “That’s the answer, then.”

  Soon after, he went with Duff and his sister into the bedroom where his mother lay. Eamon kept his eyes on the floor, the walls. Only once, he looked. Her head had been laid straight, but a great, purple flush encircled her neck. She lay with calloused hands crossed on her breasts as if asleep, but the uncanny slack in her mouth, eyes and cheeks gave the lie to that.

  The world was drowning them all, one after the other. Eamon felt so lightheaded and dizzy he would have collapsed, except he grabbed Caitlin’s arm. “Ow,” she whispered, but didn’t move away. From then on, his eyes remained shut. It was safer. He moved his lips so the others would think he was praying, but what good were prayers?

  Nairne led he and Caitlin to a place by the hearth where she’d made a bed on the floor. His sister, exhausted by tears, was soon asleep, but Eamon was afraid of what he might dream. He slid his fingers through Caitlin’s and stared at firelight and shadows among the roof beams, trying not to drift off or remember his mother’s dead eyes. Instead it was Nairne’s eyes he recalled, like slick white pebbles. And at some point, without being aware of it, sleep took him.

  Much later, he woke. He couldn’t remember what he’d dreamed, yet his neck and shoulders were tight and his hands shook. Still drowsy, he turned and gasped as he saw Nairne beside him on a stool, facing the hearth. The fire had burned low, though there was wood in stacks by the wall and a poker leaning against her thigh.

  “Ye were talkin’ in yer dreams,” she said. “I heard ye all the way in t’ other room, though ‘tis true, these days I sleep lighter than a chicken feather. D’ye care to hear what ye spoke or the sounds ye made? Quare and odd, I’d call it.”

  Eamon said nothing.

  “Are ye feelin’ sick?”

  “No.”

  “No fever or chills?”

  “No.”

  “Tcha.” The woman almost looked disappointed. “Well, ye talked about wolves. Sure an’ why not, after what ye’ve been through? But ye made noises as if y’were one of them and not of us. I’ll confess, I
wondered what ye could be dreamin’ about.”

  She wore an expectant look, but Eamon said nothing. He wanted to blurt everything that had happened with the wolf in the wagon, but he could never do that. They’d be turned out of the house for being sorcerers. And what would Duff do with him then?

  The old woman’s lips turned up in a half smile. “Arra! Ye’ll tell soon enough, I think. To pass the time, let’s try a game I’ll warrant ye’ve never played, mar’s the pity.

  “Shut yer eyes.” She leaned forward, her palm hovering over his eyes until he closed them. “D’ye feel the scratch of that blanket on yer skin? Study it close. There’s not just the one quality to the feel, but many at once, hi? Now catch the scents of this house. Ye’ll find it again. Some are fine, an’ some I’ll allow are not.

  “Wisha! Don’t shy away from the bad, nor yet dawdle with the good. It’s in everythin’, even the sound of me words. Keep yer attention sharp as a knife.”

  Eamon concentrated just as she said, but it was a subtle, tricky thing. A log popped in the fireplace and the wood shifted. She began a rhythmic chant.

  The bloom an’ the root, the plough an’ the reapin’

  These are the signs an’ this is the form.

  In mountain soil, the oak nut was sleepin’

  Yet sprout comes with rain an’ rain comes with storm.

  Eamon’s eyes remained closed, but a sensation stirred, a thing he would have missed but for concentrating. It carried with it something new, like seeing color for the first time. That feeling grew into a sense of well-being, and grew again until it was almost euphoria, but rather than obliterating his senses, it freed them. It seemed to Eamon his soul had become bigger than his body. Without reaching, he touched the walls of the house, the daub of flaking clay, the piled limestone, slate, granite. Between the stones he became aware of live insects and felt the delicate bones of long-dead mice.