by Tom Pugh
“God be praised, I’m just a humble merchant.”
Aurélie’s nerve was steady, but she found herself blushing.
“I’ll send word before I leave the city,” Michaelis was grinning at her. “Unless you’d like to renew our acquaintance?”
Aurélie smoothed the front of her dress and stared at him.
“No?” Michaelis shrugged. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”
Aurélie walked away quickly. Bastard. She was risking her life for the Otiosi, just as much as he was. She turned off the broad thoroughfare, thinking to take a short-cut home. Still an hour before they rang the bell for curfew, but the sky above the city was slate grey, throwing the alleyway into shadow. There was no one here, no sound but the gentle slap of her closed sandals against the cobblestones. She heard an echo and a second set of steps keeping pace with her own. Aurélie walked faster, slowing as she reached the end of the alley and looked back over her shoulder. A shape at the far end, a flash of colour. Green perhaps, but the light was poor. She blinked and it was gone.
She thought of the heretical letters hidden beneath her skirts, heart thumping against her ribs. The fish market was near. Out of her way, but she’d find people there. She almost ran along the cobblestones, heard the vendors before she saw them, packing up their wares. Aurélie turned at random between the empty stalls. Men offered her discounts on the last of their stock. She allowed them to draw her into conversation, scanning the meagre crowd while they sang the virtues of whitefish and gudgeon.
She saw no sign of the man in green, nothing to account for her fear. Nothing, she told herself, except her own imagination and Giacomo’s tales of fire and pain. Still, she lingered among the fish longer than she should have done, reluctant to re-enter the warren of streets.
The Palace of the Bargello flanked one side of the marketplace, a dozen men of the nightwatch clustered in front, swapping jokes as they waited for the curfew bell.
Giacomo had told her a dozen times; behave as if you have nothing to hide. The battlements on top of the high walls were decorated with corpses. Thieves, bankrupts and sodomites reduced to torn skin, lank hair and decaying flesh. A deterrent for the townsfolk and food for crows. Aurélie fixed a bright smile on her face, before approaching the guardsmen.
“I seem to have lost track of time.” A crow interrupted his meal at the sound of her voice and idly flapped its wings. “I wonder if you could escort me home. It’s not far. It will only take a minute.”
The men made jokes, but Aurélie had picked well. Out of sight of his fellows the young watchman dropped his swagger and led her swiftly through the narrow streets, taking his leave with the courtesies due a lady.
The gate lay open; Giacomo believed in the wisdom of hiding in plain sight. Each night, the servants simply swung it closed. Dropping the latch, Aurélie leant against the solid oak planks.
Marco appeared in the courtyard. A friendly, gap-toothed face to settle her heart. The cook’s boy was nine years old.
“Where have you been? The old man’s been pacing in his room for hours.”
Aurélie ruffled his dark hair. “And how would you know?”
Marco realized he had no ready answer and scampered away across the courtyard.
Aurélie took a deep breath before entering the house. She’d begged Giacomo to let her play an active role in the Otiosi and didn’t want him to think she’d been jumping at shadows. The scriptorium lay on the second floor, but she heard him clear his throat as she passed the reception room on the first.
He sat at the writing desk, quill nonchalantly to hand. “Is that you already, Aurélie?”
She gave her warmest smile. “Marco told me you were upstairs. He thought he heard you there, pacing up and down.”
Giacomo Vescosi only used the reception room for visitors and he was enough of a fixture in the city that he didn’t have to entertain more than twice a year. He set down the quill. “Would you blame me? I might have sent you to your death. A thought like that weighs heavy on an old heart.”
She told him about her adventure, but omitting the man in green and her attack of nerves. She could bear Giacomo’s lectures well enough, but not the fear he suffered on her behalf.
He was a natural teacher; she a gifted pupil, who never flinched when confronted with notions her upbringing had trained her to avoid. She knew how much pleasure he’d taken in teaching her, leading her gently into the world of ideas.
She placed the packet of letters on the writing table. “Still nothing from Lübeck.”
He nodded to an armchair. “Our agent there knows how to contact me directly. He has no need to send anything via Strasbourg.”
“We should have heard by now. How hard can it be to rob a sixteen year-old Dane?”
“Patience, Aurélie. The Frenchman doesn’t know how important the palimpsest might be. He has no reason to share your sense of urgency.”
“But is he trustworthy? He’s bound to read it. What if he realizes the significance?”
“Then he’ll redouble his efforts to see it reaches me,” Giacomo smiled. “Durant isn’t motivated by money. He shares our interests.”
Aurélie looked through the silk drapes, into the courtyard below. “It’s the waiting that’s so hard.”
“The Devil’s Library has driven men mad. It’s a dream, Aurélie,” he smiled, “and will come as a dream does, in its own good time. Or not.”
Aurélie grimaced. Since Giacomo had told her about the Library, she lay awake for hours each night, imagining the knowledge it contained as an explosion of light, people walking in giddy disbelief towards a better future.
“Did the merchant have any other message for me?”
Aurélie shook her head, flushing slightly as she remembered the way Michaelis had looked at her. “The printer is grumbling.”
“The printer is always grumbling.”
“And it seems Cosimo’s taken against products from the north. Michaelis is holding two dozen muskets with no one to sell them to.”
“Muskets?” Giacomo steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Gregorio Spina’s brother has a well-known weakness for modern weapons.”
Aurélie smiled. Giacomo made a point of studying his enemies, but she hadn’t realized his interest extended to their family members.
He examined his left palm, a habit when weighing an argument. “Michaelis has been good to us. It wouldn’t hurt to put him in the way of a swift, profitable sale.” He looked at his right palm. “Then again, perhaps it’s wisest to leave well enough alone. We wouldn’t exactly be sending him into the lion’s den, but not far off.”
“Michaelis can take care of himself,” replied Aurélie. “If Spina hears his brother is wasting the family fortune, it might distract him from persecuting innocent men.”
Giacomo cocked his head. “And the risk?”
“What risk? Unless you think Michaelis might offer them a spontaneous confession. They don’t know who we are.”
Giacomo frowned. “Blind luck. We might have been exposed a hundred times,” he passed a hand across his eyes. “Your trip through the city has made you excited, Aurélie, and reckless.”
She lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”
Giacomo tapped her forearm. “When you advise the old, counsel caution. We elders would far rather ignore good advice, than follow bad.” His eyes shone with sudden mischief. “Send Marco with a note for Signor Michaelis in the morning.”
CHAPTER 14
Longstaff insisted they make for the Gotthard Pass, ignoring Durant’s objection that it was far too early in the year. The lower passes would cost them days, even weeks, snaking pointlessly back and forth between the high peaks, and Longstaff had crossed the Gotthard before, seven years ago. Success then had given him confidence.
They set out from Lucerne, hurried along the road by a clutch of wild-eyed preachers, whose imprecations were designed to make them think again before crossing into Catholic lands.
&n
bsp; “The time has passed for raising children to become farmers, smiths or merchants!” screamed a rake-thin old man with greasy hair. “Listen, for I speak of Satan’s wiles. When he sees men of weak mind, he takes them by storm. When he finds them dauntless, he becomes as cunning as a fox. He has a thousand ways to deceive!”
“With God’s permission you mean,” said Durant.
The old man flushed. “Naturally, I mean with God’s permission.”
Durant crowed in triumph. Longstaff would have preferred the Frenchman to follow his own policy of ignoring doomsayers and the endless tales of damnation.
The Alps rose dramatically ahead of them, a forbidding white wall, bearded by a mass of pine trees. Longstaff put a hand on Durant’s forearm and brought him to a halt. In one smooth movement, he drew the musket from Martlesham’s saddle, lit a match from the tinderbox and touched thin flame to the firing pan. Thirty paces away, a plump rabbit collapsed onto the hard earth.
“Supper,” said Longstaff. “Hopefully we’ll get a couple more before nightfall. The way ahead looks unlikely to provide.”
That evening, they made an uncomfortable camp beside an abandoned mine. Durant stared at the charred meat. “I was in Limoges not long ago; they do the most extraordinary things with rabbit. Stews a man might kill for.”
“Eat,” said Longstaff. “You’ll need your strength tomorrow.”
The pair were silent as they led the horses across broken terrain. The distant peaks disappeared into cloud as a freezing rain began to fall. Then the sky disappeared as the forest grew thick around them. In the evening gloom, strange rock formations loomed out at them from among the trees. The two men sheltered under overhanging rocks. Rain had soaked the bundle of firewood strapped to Martlesham’s saddle and it took them an hour to build a fire. A pathetic thing, hardly worth the effort, which spat and gave off precious little warmth.
They put on heavy blankets the following morning, wrapping Sparrow and the horses against the bitter weather. The rain became snow, obscuring the shepherds’ path. Longstaff took the lead, beginning to regret his foolhardiness. He’d been travelling south to north the last time he passed this way and nothing looked familiar. They left the trees behind and scrambled across loose stones, exposed to the full fury of the elements. Durant fell. He rolled onto his back and lay panting. “We have to turn back.”
Longstaff shook his head. “We’ll reach the pass tomorrow.”
“And tonight? We’ll freeze to death.”
They built a crude shelter against the worst of the wind and snow, and huddled together between the animals. The darkness was absolute. Longstaff could feel the Frenchman’s breath on his face, smell the fear and anger. Please God, let me be right. If they didn’t reach the pass tomorrow, the mountain would kill them both.
They woke before dawn, chilled to the bone, stamping their feet while they waited for the morning light. Durant’s face was a mask of barely controlled fury. Longstaff managed a wan smile in reply. He led the way, switch-backing up the steep slopes and squeezing between giant crags as the wind whipped snow into his face. When he lost the feeling in his cheeks, he tore two long strips from a blanket, handed one to Durant, and wrapped the other around his head, leaving only a thin slit for the eyes. The Frenchman followed his example.
Winter blizzards had turned the path into treacherous, hard-packed ice. Durant slipped twice, the second time heavily. He stared up at Longstaff. “You’ve killed us, you bastard, and I still don’t know where we’re going. What a damned stupid way to die.”
“There,” roared Longstaff. He seized Durant beneath the arm, half-carried him into the lee of a huge stone and pointed at a tall cross, carved deep in the surface. “They say a shepherd begged the Devil to build the first bridge here,” he shouted over the wind – a great wave of relief giving him renewed strength. “As his price, Lucifer demanded the first soul to cross. The shepherd tried to trick him, driving a goat from one side to the other. The Devil grew angry and picked up this stone, intending to destroy the bridge. An old woman appeared, marked the stone with a cross and the Devil no longer had the strength to lift it.” He jerked a broad thumb over his shoulder. “The Gotthard Pass. Take a look.”
The Frenchman did as he asked. When he pulled his head back into the shelter of the stone, his face was white. “You’ve lost your reason, Longstaff.”
“The shepherds promise their headman to rebuild the bridge whenever it gets too run down, and the headman promises his lord to have it rebuilt in stone, and somehow, between all the promises, nothing ever happens.”
Durant looked back the way they’d come.
Longstaff grinned. “If we turn back, we die. The mountain is kinder on the far side.”
Durant spat. “You first.”
Longstaff shook his head. “Sparrow goes first.”
The bridge was as wide as a man is long, more ice than wood. If there had once been handrails, the elements had long since sent them tumbling down into the gorge. The wind raced out of the depths, dementedly.
Longstaff and Durant put blindfolds on the horses, and watched as Sparrow dragged her belly across the frigid wood. She was a brave, sure-footed dog, but Longstaff was certain the wind would pitch her into the abyss. He turned away, unable to watch. The seconds crept past as if they, too, had been wrapped in ice. “She’s made it!” shouted Durant. “She’s safe on the other side.”
Longstaff led Martlesham onto the bridge, holding him by the bridle. He would rather have kept his distance, but the horse needed to feel that he was near. The wind tore at them. Despite the cold, he was bathed in sweat. He edged forwards, drawing the horse in his wake. He looked down, and swayed dangerously in place, saw himself falling. Far below, the walls of the gorge were only a few feet apart.
He couldn’t move, his will unchained by the image of his mangled body. He forced himself to look up. The big grey tossed his head and Longstaff pulled savagely at the bridle. It was enough to return him to himself and start them moving again. He reached the far side and sank to his knees.
Durant claimed to have no clear memory of leading his horse across the planks, only vague impressions; short, quick steps, toes probing for treachery, a wave of relief when he felt the solid earth beneath his feet.
They hurried down from the pass, the wind doing its best to slice the flesh from their bones. The descent was forgiving and they made good time, slipping beneath the snowline before sunset. They found a nook of sheltered rock beside a stream of racing snow-melt. Longstaff drank his fill of the cold water. The horses were tired and angry. Only Sparrow seemed unaffected by the day’s exertions.
While Durant built a fire, Longstaff rubbed the horses down. He skinned the last rabbit and set it to cook before wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. The flames cast little heat at this altitude. He was cold, the muscles in his legs quivered with exhaustion. Without thinking, he reached for his sword, took a whetstone from his pocket and began sharpening the blade.
He was back in Italy and could no longer put off thinking about the task ahead. One more book to steal, before heading to Florence and their rendezvous with the Otiosi leader.
Longstaff looked up. By the weak light of the fire, he could only see the sharp vertical lines of Durant’s face. “You do speak Italian?”
“Well enough.”
Longstaff grunted. He’d been eighteen years old when he met Il Medeghino in the foothills of the Alps and spoke the language like a native. Had he been in search of adventure or a home? Italy’s most notorious general had answered both needs, claiming to see echoes of his own younger self in the rootless Englishman. Longstaff had been flattered, taking vicarious pride in Il Medeghino’s savage reputation.
It had taken the Battle of Marciano to break the spell. Even then, Longstaff had nearly stayed to follow the bloody path marked out for him by his mentor. Now he was going back, of his own free will, in pursuit of a book, and a house in England he hadn’t seen in over twenty years.
Lo
ngstaff put the sword to one side. After what they’d been through together, Durant deserved to know what lay in wait. “The book we’re seeking is written in Latin,” he said abruptly, “bound in red leather with an ivory panel of St. Christopher carrying Christ across a river.” He picked a stick out of the fire and scored a series of sooty lines on the flat stones; a terrified child, fingers tangled in the long beard of an old man. He used the heel of his boot to scrub the picture into a dull smudge.
Durant inclined his head. “Thank you. I appreciate trust.”
Longstaff thought of the soldiers who had put their trust in him at Marciano. Simple men, caught in the rip-tide of war. He could have borne their deaths – soldiers died, after all – but Il Medeghino had stripped even those poor souls of the honour a man earns when he falls in battle.
Durant boned the rabbit, dividing the scant meat between them. Longstaff put aside a few morsels for Sparrow as the Frenchman filled a pot with snow and set it to warm on the fire.
“Where is it?”
“The book? In the high hills above Lake Como; in an old fortress at the head of a valley.”
Longstaff saw it in his mind’s eye; the wild mountains, the fortress crouched at the highest point of a narrow ridge. He imagined Il Medeghino on the ramparts, awaiting the return of his protégé, disdaining the stories told about him in these parts – people buried alive in heaps of manure, thrown into wells and ditches or left to die like dogs.
Durant handed him a hot drink and he took a long draft, then set the cup down for Sparrow, burying cold hands in her fur. How much of his past was he obliged to share with the Frenchman? He didn’t want to talk about the daily foraging expeditions, roaming from village to village, stealing every movable object – when there was anything to steal – threshing and grinding when there wasn’t.
He remembered waking in his ill-slung tent on the morning of Marciano, the drone of ten thousand men speaking with lowered voices, the ring of chain against armour. The field was a wide, bleak plain. His Italian irregulars had the centre. On the left were two companies of Landsknecht in brightly coloured doublets. To his right, an army of Castilian peasants, forged in the bitter conflict for Granada.