Mab drew a square around Mephisto’s name and then drew out one of his waterlogged notebooks. He carefully turned the pages, slowly separating one from another until he found what he wanted. He read what he had written and then, looking up, asked, “Several times now, I’ve heard people call the Harebrain the ‘Greatest Swordsman in Christendom.’ I gather it’s a title. How did he get it?”
“I’m not sure…” I glanced at Erasmus.
“His real prowess lay upon the battlefield, of course,” Erasmus replied, “but sword fighting as a military art stopped meaning much once muskets and rifles began replacing swords. And Mephisto has never achieved the same degree of mastery with a gun that he has with a blade.”
“Ulysses has the distinction of being the best shot in the family,” Gregor commented, “perhaps, because he was the only one of us who would not have preferred to be a swordsman.”
Erasmus gave a contemptuous shrug. “Be that as it may … the title ‘Greatest Swordsman in Christendom’ was presented to Mephisto by Queen Elizabeth, upon the occasion of his match against Salvador Fabris, who was then considered the greatest swordsman in the world at the time.”
“Fabris! Even I have heard of him!” Malagigi replied, impressed. “This duel, did you see it?”
Erasmus and I shook our heads.
“Alas, we were in Italy,” Erasmus explained. “Theo was in the audience, though. He was serving as a knight for Queen Bess under the Earl of Essex at the time.”
“I was a child of six growing up in Milan.” Gregor leaned forward with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “So, no, I was not able to attend. But I do recall Mephisto reenacting the match for Logistilla and me. My brother played both parts with great thrusts and flurries and a good deal of shouting that I, in retrospect, suspect was not part of the original. I was so impressed, I insisted on swinging around a long wooden spoon for some months, to the dismay of my nanny.”
“I did get to see him fight the great Ridolfo Capa Ferro,” I said, recalling that long-ago afternoon upon the fish-boned bricks of the Piazza del Campo in Sienna when I had watched some of the world’s greatest fencers strut about beneath the hot Italian sun. It had been an unusual treat for me to leave my cloistered chapel and spend an afternoon with my family. I still remember the spicy taste of the sausages sold by a street vender at the far side of the shell-shaped market square and the sound of the crowd as they cheered for their favorites.
“Ah, yes!” Erasmus’s eyes sparkled at the memory. “Old Ironhead announced he and his students would face all comers—propaganda for his fencing school, of course. Only Mephisto beat them all. After that, Capa Ferro used to come by to wheedle trade secrets out of our elder brother. They became great friends.”
“That event I do remember!” Gregor’s dark eyes glowed with the warmth of golden memories. “By that time, I was twelve and so disappointed that none of the grown men would fence with me—at that age I had no notion yet that I was destined for the church. You won a few matches yourself, if I recall, Big Brother.”
“Well … yes,” Erasmus replied, looking down at his hands in an uncharacteristic moment of humility. He played with his fingers. “I did my part for the family honor.”
Gregor gave Erasmus a rare fond smile. “I remember your son Sebastian cheering for you. He told everyone within earshot that the winner was his father. Your poor wife was quite beside herself with embarrassment.”
It was so unusual to see the somber Gregor smiling openly that I felt oddly disorientated, as if I were seeing a brother I had not known I had. Maybe Gregor really had changed during his imprisonment. I wondered how it came about. I hoped that Erasmus would accept this olive branch, acknowledge Gregor’s enthusiasm, and give him with some encouragement, but Erasmus merely turned away and stared off through the tangled webs at the cypress trees beyond, his face tight and drawn.
Another spasm of irritation at my pigheaded brother ricocheted through me. What was wrong with him? Was not the misery around us enough motivation to bridge the gap between himself and his brother?
I clenched my fists, resisting the urge to push him over the side of the gondola into the swamp, where he belonged.
As if he could hear my thoughts, Erasmus suddenly turned around, but he was not looking at me. He grinned at Malagigi. “Those show bouts of Mephistos are all well and fine, but none of them compares with my brother’s greatest match.”
“You mean the match he and Cesare fought over that pretty girl?” I asked, recalling the event. I added enthusiastically, “I saw part of it, the part that could be seen from the Filarete tower. Didn’t they fight some of it on a staircase?”
“It was the sort of thing you’d see in a film.” Erasmus laughed with glee; the shadow that had fallen over his face moments before vanished as he recalled this incident from his early youth. “Up and down stairs, over tables, in and out of doorways, across the parade grounds … that’s the part Miranda caught. It was unbelievable! In my whole life, I’ve never seen its like! Two of the best swordsmen in Italy fighting over things worth fighting about: women and money!”
“I have heard about this duel my whole life, Maugris!” Gregor exclaimed. Again there was a rare flash of boyishness in his smile. “Mephisto and Theo have acted it out for us dozens of times. And, once, when we were invited to visit the Castello Sforzesco for some public festival—the castle that had belonged to my family when Father was Duke, before—” Gregor laughed as if suddenly putting two and two together. “It was you and your siblings, who took it away from him, wasn’t it?”
Malagigi gave a shrug. “It was your uncle Antonio who convinced the French king to attack. We merely came along to lend a hand. A dashing figure, your uncle. A pity he died that day.”
“That was before I was born. I never met him. Anyway, we visited the castello for some public celebration, and Erasmus blocked out the whole fight for Sebastian and me, showing us where various parts of the fight had taken place, where first blood had been drawn and where Cesare finally conceded. There was even a faint blotch on the stone that Erasmus claimed was Mephisto’s blood, shed when Cesare stabbed our brother in the shoulder after refusing to yield when first blood was called.”
“Ah, yes!” Malagigi laughed. “Even I have heard of this match!”
“You?” Gregor asked, taken aback.
“But of course!” Malagigi replied. “Your uncle Antonio described it to us. He was very fond of Mephisto. When we first met, he still hoped Mephisto and Erasmus could be turned, that they would eventually join him against Prospero.”
“Really!” I nearly shouted in surprise. “What an extraordinary idea!”
“It may not have seemed that extraordinary to Uncle Antonio,” Erasmus admitted. “Mephisto and I did admire him greatly. He had turned against Father. It only made sense that he might think others would, too.”
“Would you have?” I asked, shocked.
Beside me, Mab pulled out his list of Traitor suspects and drew a box around Erasmus’s name.
“Of course not!” Erasmus replied, a touch of both humor and sadness in his voice. “But how was Antonio to understand that?”
* * *
MALAGIGI poled us forward as the rest of us sat quietly, basking in the light of the silver star. The swamp here was littered with debris from rotting trees. Ahead, a wide log floated between two cypresses, blocking our way. Malagigi switched his pole-oar to the nearer side of the gondola, so as to maneuver us around the log.
Erasmus leaned back and gazed at the silver star. “He isn’t a bad brother, all in all. Mephisto, I mean. He fought a couple of times on my behalf over the years. His trusty blade has defended you, too, Miranda, as I recall.”
“A few times,” I admitted. “Usually it was Theo who sprang to my defense. In fact, Theo once dueled Mephisto for the right to defend me. After that, Mephisto let Theo be my champion. But there were a few times when Theo was not around, and some young blood troubled me. Mephisto was quick to put the upstart in h
is place!”
“Mephisto fought Theo? Did Theo win?” Erasmus asked, surprised. “I mean Theo’s good, but…”
“I don’t know. They did not fight the duel in front of me…” I rested my nose against my folded fingers. “I’ve always assumed Theo won.”
“Just like Mephisto to win and then let Theo have his way,” chuckled Erasmus. “Or even to let Theo win, if he thought Theo really wanted it.”
“I doubt it.” Gregor’s voice grated. “Mephisto would not have trusted his sister’s safety to another unless he thought Theo could do the job. Theophrastus must have pushed himself upon this occasion and bested our elder brother.”
I tried to remember more details, but the events were lost in the mists of time. I was sure that the fight had taken place at our estates in Scotland, but during which of our stays there, I could not say. It had been centuries since I had thought of the incident. Looking back, it struck me as sweet that my brothers would go to such an effort. It made me love them both all the more.
My heart swelled until my chest felt tight. Fear for both of them seized me. Mephisto I was not as worried about; he could turn into a demon. But Theo was somewhere in Hell, alone. His face, his look of desperation as his fingers were ripped away from mine, hung before me like a specter.
“Mephistopheles fought several duels on my behalf.” Gregor put his foot up on the bench in front of him and stared ahead of us. “Once he even went to a duel looking like me, with the help of Logistilla’s Staff of Transmogrification. I was against this, mind you. After Logistilla turned me into the cardinal, she was never quite able to return me back the way I had been.” He pointed at his throat to indicate his voice, which had been hoarse and raspy ever since that incident. “And I worried that something similar would happen to Mephisto. But she insisted she had mastered her staff since then. So, Mephisto went ahead and let her change him.”
Erasmus leaned forward, intrigued. “What did he do, then?”
“He waited for the thugs who were trying to squeeze money out of my church and bested their leader. They thought I had done it, so they left me alone after that.” Gregor was quiet for a moment, lost in the swirling pools of distant memory. “The other times, he appeared as himself. He always won, of course.”
“Were these incidents all before your brother went bonkers?” Mab asked.
Gregor tapped the tips of his fingers together, thinking. Then he shook his head. “He has come to my defense as recently as the early nineteenth century. I had a parish in Suffolk then. Mephisto made quick work of a band of ruffians who were preying upon my parishioners. That was nearly two hundred years after his mind went.”
“Much as it pains me to say this”—Mab screwed up his face and carefully drew a single line through Mephisto’s name, where it topped the list of sibling suspects in his notebook—“I think we can rule out the Harebrain as a possible traitor. Wouldn’t make sense to keep defending you all and then stab you in the back. After all, Ma’am, if Mephisto wanted you dead, all he would have had to do was not rescue you, either in the warehouse or when we were in the plane being attacked by the dragon.”
“That’s a very good point!” I exclaimed. It had not occurred to me that I owed my life to Mephisto twice over.
“Too bad. Would have been an easy thing to blame Mephistopheles, an open-and-shut case … Alas, it’s not to be. In fact, I’m beginning to think your older brother…” Mab’s voice trailed off. He flipped to another section of his older soggy notebook and ran his finger across the page, reading what was written there and harrumphing to himself.
Gregor cleared his throat. After a lengthy pause, he spoke in a whisper even more breathy than normal. “For years, I have worried that it was having spent time as me that led to his madness, that Logistilla never turned him back correctly. The incident where he impersonated me happened not long before he lost his mind.”
“It wasn’t you.” I touched Gregor’s arm gently. “He drank from the Lethe.”
“Well, that was stupid!” Erasmus thumped his staff against the boards of the gondola. “Can it be undone?”
Mab frowned. “I don’t think that would be such a good idea, Professor Prospero. I think…” Mab paused and peered across the water at the souls of the dead on the next island. “What are they doing? Trying to marry a rock?”
Beyond the stand of trees, a large group of shades attempted to embrace a large rock. On another island, more tormented souls bowed and scraped, worshipping an enormous spiderweb inhabited by giant woman-faced spiders. Farther still, other unexceptional or repulsive objects received obeisance or undue attention from the dead.
“How peculiar,” murmured Erasmus. “I wonder what they are seeing.”
Malagigi turned to Gregor, whose turn it was to hold the star. “If you close your hand, the rest of us will be able to see what the locals see.”
Gregor grunted and closed his hand slowly, as if he did not think this was a wise course of action. As the light of the star faded, the pleasant warmth became an oppressive heat. The whine of mosquitoes filled my ears along with the ever-present moans of the dead. The humidity caused my hair to stick to my face. Even worse was the terrible stench of sewage. Together, the heat, humidity, and horrid odor made it hard to breathe.
“Oh my!” Erasmus had risen up to get a good look at the islands, his free hand pressed against his nose, plugging his nostrils. He winced at the pain.
Of course, to me, everything still looked the same.
“Please hurry!” I batted at the air around me but could not seem to shoo the mosquitoes making the irritating whine. My hand went right through them. “I can’t see what you are looking at anyway. Neither can Gregor so long as he’s holding the star.”
Erasmus sat down rapidly. “You can open your hand, Brother. I’ve seen enough.”
Mab, who had turned in his seat in order to see better, scrunched up his face. He had tilted his head one way and then the other. Finally, he shrugged. “Sorry … don’t get it.”
“What did you see?” Gregor opened his hand, bathing the gondola in silvery light. The temperature suddenly seemed more pleasant, the air more breathable, and the stench less offensive. The mosquitoes vanished.
Mab peered, frowning. “They’re all panting around a lady’s shoe and over there was some underclothes and stuff. Looked as weird with the illusion as without. Weirder, in fact.”
“Fetishists,” Erasmus said. “That rock is a high-heeled shoe, and those spiderwebs are a bra and a pair of silken undies. I won’t even describe the rest of them.”
Gregor said ponderously, “What we are seeing are the souls of those who directed their lust at a symbol instead of the real thing. Their punishment is, apparently, to be allowed to live out their empty fantasies.”
Erasmus shuddered. “Fitting, yet creepy.”
Mab stared at my brothers for a long time. He lowered the brim of his fedora and muttered, “Sorry. Still don’t get it.”
“Rejoice,” Malagigi replied. “There is much about the darker side of humanity that it would be better not to understand.”
“What about the illusions my brothers and Mab could see?” I asked. “What is their purpose?”
“To fool the lost souls,” Malagigi replied.
“Why in tarnation … and, in this case, I mean exactly that … why, here, in tarnation, would anyone bother?” Mab asked. “The souls are already damned, aren’t they?”
“Not as damned as they could be.” Malagigi’s voice was unexpectedly grave.
“What do you mean?” asked Gregor.
“This”—Malagigi spread his arms indicating the swamps—“is not the lowest level of Hell. There are lower levels. Those on Earth are told that once a man dies, his spirit dwells forever in the same place, but it is not the case in either direction. Not only can those in Hell be saved, but the fallen can fall still farther. The more they indulge and debauch themselves—the more they prey upon their fellows—the heavier their souls become. Soo
n, their souls grow so heavy that they are caught up by the next sweep of the Hellwinds.” Malagigi’s hands worried the golden knot of his belt.
“Ridiculous!” exclaimed Erasmus. “You’re pulling our leg, right?”
“I wish I were, mon ami, but it happened to me.”
We all stared at him.
“It did?” I leaned forward with great interest. Gregor’s gaze also was fixed upon the ex-sorcerer’s face.
Malagigi met Gregor’s disbelieving stare evenly before continuing. “After I died, instead of repenting—as any sensible sinner would have—I sought revenge for the destruction of my family. I called upon my friends—elemental spirits of the fire, air, and water who owed allegiance to me alone—and set them upon those who were responsible for dragging us from our home. Only … spirits are not wise. They cannot see the world clearly. Without me there to direct them…” He slapped his forehead. “Zut alors! Did it go awry!”
“Oh! Never turn revenge over to spirits!” Mab shook his head mournfully. “They’ll muck it up. Take it from me, I know!”
“Needing guidance, they picked a man who could vaguely hear them and influenced him to kill those who were responsible. Only they did not know who was responsible—we humans look much alike to them. Unless they have a drop of blood or a piece of hair to identify a particular soul, they have trouble telling us apart. So, they prodded this man, Maximilien his name was, to kill many people … many, many people.”
I could feel my eyes grow round with horror. “Not Maximilien Robespierre?”
“That was it.” Malagigi’s voice trembled softly.
“You mean the terrible bloodshed and violence of the reign of Robespierre was your fault?” I cried. “The glory of France was destroyed … by you?”
Malagigi’s shoulders slumped. An immaterial tear slid down his narrow cheek. “I received my revenge, biensur, and with it, my just deserts—incarceration in a lower circle of Hell than my initial sins had earned me.
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