by April White
I wasn’t a fan of that whole locked door business, especially since the key had been kept not in the lock, but rather on a heavy iron ring attached to the priest’s belt.
Artemisia and I made it to the top of the stairs before the priest was halfway up, and I was glad for the distance because I just barely stopped a squeak from becoming a squeal when I saw the room there. It was spectacular and covered in floor-to-ceiling sixteenth-century frescos that spilled color across every surface. The ceiling was about twenty-five feet above my head and painted with glittering stars. Carved into the floor were names of what I recognized as different winds: Tramontana, Scirocco, and Ostro.
“It is the Tower of the Winds,” Artemisia said in a hushed voice, “and the most beautiful room in the whole world.”
I’d never seen the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, or the Alhambra in Granada, or the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, but I had seen the Trinity Library in Dublin once on a trip with my mother, and in my opinion, it was what heaven for book lovers looked like. This room, in a tower at the Vatican, made the Trinity Library look like a shoe box.
The priest only stayed long enough to ensure we weren’t going to complain to his bosses about him – at least that’s what I made up, because the only thing I could understand of his perfunctory conversation with Artemisia was his tone – and then he left us alone in the tower.
Of course I immediately bounded down the staircase to test the door, and yes, he had locked it. I studied the substantial iron lock and thought Ringo could probably pick it if he had the right tools. Then I checked out every nook and cranny of the construction of the staircase and the room until I was satisfied that, with the exception of a window overlooking the roof of the nearby gallery, the Tower of the Winds had only one way in and one way out.
“Do they always lock you in here when you come?” I asked Artemisia as she set up her paint palate.
“Always. They do it not to protect me so much as themselves from me. I am a woman, and so I am dangerous to them.”
“They should be so lucky to be corrupted by a woman,” I grumbled under my breath.
She smiled. “It is true.”
“What was the shelf-lined room we went through to get here?” I asked.
“That is the secret archive.”
My interest perked up immediately, as it would with any room that had the word ‘secret’ in its name. Artemisia laughed at the expression on my face. “It sounds, how do you say … mysterious?” I nodded enthusiastically, and she continued. “The secrets are only those of the popes. It is a library of their letters.”
“There could be letters from the English priests who tried to get King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled,” I said, not to be dissuaded from the seductive allure of secrets.
“Or perhaps Leo X’s excommunication of Martin Luther?” Artemisia supplied. I appreciated that she seemed to share my passion for the controversial stuff in history. She directed my eyes up, about ten feet down from the ceiling. “Do you see that hole there?”
Now that she pointed it out, I couldn’t believe I’d missed it when we walked in. It wasn’t a large hole in the wall – maybe the size of a silver dollar – but it was definitely a hole through which I could see daylight. “Yeah, what is that?” I asked.
“Every year at noon on March 21st, the sunlight shines through that hole …” she traced an invisible line with her finger “… down to the center of the floor. It is the spring equinox.”
“This was built as an observatory?” I asked in awe.
She seemed surprised I knew such a thing, and she nodded. “Osservatorio, yes, and there was a time Queen Christina of Sweden stayed here when she first came to Rome.”
I helped Artemisia spread a canvas sheet on the floor under the section of wall she was currently restoring. “I don’t know anything about Queen Christina of Sweden.”
Artemisia sat cross-legged on the floor and began to touch up the ship in a scene that looked vaguely biblical. I sat next to her, and she handed me a brush from the bun at the back of her head.
“Take this. You can restore the frame.”
My heart stuttered and I didn’t trust myself to speak. I could actually help restore a painting in this magnificent room? The idea that my work could contribute in any small way to the grandeur that was the Vatican was incredibly humbling, and I set myself to the task of repainting the chipped details of the frame around the fresco she was working on.
As she launched into her story, Artemisia seemed unaware of the huge honor she’d just given me. “Queen Christina was the daughter of the Swedish king – I do not remember his name, but he ruled in the early 1600s. She was adored by her father, who instructed that she be educated as a prince would be.”
“Same thing happened to Elizabeth Tudor,” I said unthinkingly.
Artemisia seemed a little startled at the familiarity in my tone. “Perhaps not so odd a coincidence as some might think. They were both quite accomplished women.”
“I’m guessing your father only saw your talent, not your gender, when it came to training you as an artist. I went to school in a place where men and women are educated equally,” I said, weighing my words carefully.
Artemisia looked thoughtful for a long moment. “To go to school would be a remarkable thing. Doran has taught me much about history, but there are things I don’t know to ask.” She studied the detail of the work I was doing on the frame, then looked at me in some surprise.
I smiled as I concentrated on the shading so the swirls of paint looked like they’d been carved from wood. “I’ve had some training, yes. My mother is a painter.”
Artemisia seemed delighted by this information. “Please repair any part of the fresco that attracts you. I do this part so I can sit and talk with you while I work, but you may paint any part of the walls that you wish.”
I grinned and continued my work on the frame while I asked, “Would you tell me more about Queen Christina?”
Artemisia laughed and proceeded to tell me historical anecdotes about the seventeenth-century Queen who had been crowned as a king, declared her intention never to marry, and then abdicated her crown after ten years to convert to Catholicism. “Christina liked that Catholics valued virginity as Lutherans did not,” Artemisia said.
I couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped. “The value of virginity? That’s almost as bad as the concept of a dowry. It’s like ‘here, let me pay you to take my daughter off my hands so I don’t have to feed and clothe her anymore.’” Too late I remembered what Doran had said about Artemisia’s father paying a higher dowry to get her husband to take her, and I cringed. “I’m sorry, that was callous of me to say.”
Artemisia shook her head. “No, you are correct. The only dowry I would allow Palmira was a chest of china and linens. I wanted a love-match for my daughter, and happily, she found one.” She contemplated the fresco in front of her, and then looked at me. “My church cares for the poorest and weakest of humanity, yet I, too, find the value placed on virginity to be oppressive, as it has been the means to control women.”
Our conversations turned to art – to the baroque style she favored, which was one likely reason she was the artist chosen to restore the Tower of the Winds, and to the various styles with which Doran consistently surprised her. She always demanded an education in whatever style he used, and was under strict instructions to keep her knowledge to herself.
I asked Artemisia whether she had ever had a problem with the fact that Doran wasn’t aging. She shrugged, “And what would be the purpose of that? My time with him is limited to the span of my life. I will not waste a moment of it considering something as fleeting as my own beauty.”
I liked Artemisia. She was an interesting companion, and working alongside her was as inspiring as it was challenging. We worked side-by-side for about five hours, only taking a short break for some bread and cheese.
I did go check the door at the bottom of t
he stairs again, and then I borrowed some white paint and used my fine brush to paint a nearly invisible spiral onto the wall right behind that downstairs door. The stairwell wasn’t lit properly, and when the door was open, the spiral would be hidden behind it. I’d gotten good enough at disassociating myself from Clocking when I didn’t want to that I didn’t even feel the familiar hum in my bones as I completed the design. I studied the stairwell and then pictured it with my eyes closed just to make sure I could Clock us back here tonight.
When a priest finally came to escort us out, Artemisia and I had finished the restoration of two whole panels of the painted wainscoting. On our way back through the archives, I tried to find any more doors that looked as utilized as the one with the shiny door handle, but as far as I could tell, that was the only one. The corridor was utterly silent, but the priest hurried us through it like his pants were on fire and the bucket of water was outside.
I was surprised to find that there was still daylight, because it had been so dark and gloomy in the archives. When we emerged at the other end of the tunnel, Artemisia’s coach waited for us. Once we were inside with the door shut, she sat back and breathed a sigh of relief.
I narrowed my eyes. “You were nervous about having me with you.”
“There is a bishop close to the pope whose sole responsibility is the ‘reformation’ of the fallen, the lost, the heretic, and the infidel. He knows I am a fallen woman, and I have felt his gaze on me as I’ve gone to and from the tower to work. I felt it again today.” She held my gaze. “I love that tower, Saira. If there is God anywhere on Earth, His spirit infuses that room with all the color and light and beauty of His being. That room is my church, and to be denied it would be like blinding me.”
I stared at her in shock. “And you risked that for me? I’m so sorry. I would never have asked for your help if I’d known what you stood to lose if you were caught.”
She reached over and touched my hand gently. “Cara mia, Doran has told me enough that I would help you where he cannot. I’ve done what I can now. The rest is up to you.”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” I whispered fervently. I looked out the window at the city as we passed it by, and I wondered how I could possibly repay all the people who had helped us.
“You must succeed,” Artemisia said quietly, as if she’d read my mind.
She was right.
Vatican Night
Ringo, Tom, and I left for the Vatican at midnight. Artemisia gave us permission to come back to her villa to sleep safely if we needed to, but it was understood by all of us that she would prefer we didn’t. I had gone to Mary Shelley before dinner to explain our plans and to thank her for having cared for me – for all of us – when I couldn’t.
“My dear, there is a time in everyone’s life when they lose someone they hold very dear, and nothing is so painful to the human mind as great and sudden change. Just as the most useful help one can give a new mother is to cook and clean and manage her other tasks so she can care for her babe herself, it is also the most useful help one can give the newly bereaved. You needed to find your own way through the labyrinth of pain, but at least I could keep you safe while you did so.”
I had hugged her for a long time. “Thank you, Mary. I felt mothered by you, and it was the nicest feeling I’ve had in a long time.”
Her eyes were shiny when she kissed me on both cheeks. “I am glad Aislin’s vision sent me to find you. Live now, and be happy, and make others so.”
We Clocked through the spiral Doran had carved for his personal use inside the walled garden, and it was an easy transition to the bottom of the stairwell in the Tower of the Winds. Ringo wanted to work on the lock immediately, but I made Ringo and Tom climb the stairs to see the spectacular room at the top of them.
The effect of the frescos was very different at night by the light of the small flashlights we carried, but the gasps of appreciation from the guys were the same as mine had been. I showed them the work Artemisia and I had done that day, and then pointed out the small hole high up in the wall, perfectly positioned for the equinox sun. I had described everything I’d seen in the secret archives earlier, and we all agreed that the well-used door was a good place to start our search for the ring, since it seemed to be a place to store things valuable to the popes. Ringo went back down the stairs to work on the lock while Tom lingered in the tower room and stared up at the walls.
“Artemisia calls it her church,” I said quietly.
“If this were a church, I might actually believe in God again.” Tom turned away and left the room without a backward glance.
It only took Ringo about five minutes to pick the lock on the door, and moments later we were inside the secret archives of the Vatican. The grates in the ceiling provided the only light, and whatever moonlight there was outside gave the space a dim glow. The grates also meant we couldn’t use our flashlights, because artificial light might be visible to someone outside. My Shifter sight came in very handy at night. As long as there was a little light, my Cat could adjust my eyesight to see in the dark. Tom had enhanced eyesight as a side effect of the Vampirism, and Ringo was a former thief, so none of us were blind.
I reached out as far as I could with my Cat’s senses, and I felt the stillness of the room in every corner and around every bookcase. We barely breathed as each of us used whatever skills we’d developed to determine the obstacles we faced.
When Ringo finally exhaled, I knew he felt the emptiness of the room too, and I stepped out into the main corridor. The guys filed in behind me, and we clung to the bookcases, away from the barely visible bands of light that shone down through the ceiling grates. Ringo tried the handle on every door we passed, and every one of them was locked.
The well-used door was also locked, and there was no key above the door lintel. The priests at the Vatican didn’t have the lazy or over-confident habit of leaving the key close by, so Ringo went to work very quietly with his lock picks.
I used the time to poke around the bundled letters in the stacks. There was an embossed letter “G” on the spine of one stack, and I unwrapped the leather and then bent over the letters so I could shield my flashlight with both my palm and my body.
I couldn’t read Latin, but I thought I recognized the name Galileo written on the page. The handwriting was beautiful – tight and elegant – and I wished I could trace the letters to learn the style. It was with reluctance that I finally re-tied the leather around the bundle and replaced it on the shelf.
I heard a barely audible click, and then the door opened. I didn’t say “you’re a genius” out loud, but my slight squeeze on Ringo’s shoulder told him anyway. I was about to step through the open doorway first, as had become my habit, but Tom stepped in front of me and shot me a look that dared me to challenge him. I almost did on principle, but then waved my hand in the universal ‘you first’ gesture. I was tired of battling him.
I was tired of being at war.
Ringo caught my eye as he paused to close the door behind us. He was tired too, and I was forcibly reminded that he was only there because he felt compelled to watch my back. He had no other horse in this race, and I thought the strain of not saying what he really thought was wearing on him.
I waited for him, and he stopped beside me. I leaned in so I could breathe the words instead of whisper them. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head, then flicked his gaze down the corridor. This passageway was lined with closed cabinets, and the available light was much dimmer than in the main archive. Tom was about ten feet ahead of us.
“Reach out with yer senses,” Ringo breathed in my ear. “Somethin’s not right.”
I was startled by his certainty, and I let my Cat come to the surface again. My gaze down the corridor sharpened, and I could sense something just outside her range. Something … no, whatever it was, it had gone.
I had tensed, so Ringo knew he was right.
Tom was too far ahead for us to verbally war
n him, so we ran silently to catch up. I slipped in front of Tom to block his way, but Ringo tapped him on the shoulder and then instantly ducked when Tom spun around fist-first.
He was about to say something, but Ringo’s face silenced him. I tried to hear past the pounding of my own heart, but there was too much motion left in the air around us. It took a few seconds for everything to still again.
It was there again – the something I’d almost felt before. It was closer now and … there it was.
“Monger,” I breathed silently.
They both heard me though, and so did my Cat. She came up even closer to the surface of my awareness and used her senses to feed me information. “In the next room,” I mouthed as I gestured toward the door at the other end of the passage.
Tom crept forward and leaned his ear to the door. If it was possible to be even more silent than before, we were, and the air barely even moved around us. A distant-sounding clearing of a throat made the hair on my arms stand straight up, and all of us visibly tensed. Then the sound of slippers scuffed the floor on the other side of the door, and I held my breath. Finally, they moved away, growing fainter until eventually a door opened. When it closed again and there was silence, I remembered to exhale.
Tom held a finger up to forestall any whispers while he tried the doorknob carefully. It was locked, of course, and I almost laughed out loud at myself for imagining it could be anything else. When the silence in the other room continued, Ringo knelt down in front of the door, and with the precision of a surgeon, picked the lock and opened it – even faster this time than the last.
No one moved, and Tom’s tension had leaked into the air around him until I could feel it crackling like static electricity. Ringo finally took a tentative step forward, and then another, and this time I was right behind him. Tom fell into step with us as he shut the door silently behind him.
A single lantern had been left burning on the desk, and I looked back with a moment of panic to find the door we’d come through had disappeared. But it was just hidden in the paneling of the wall, and Ringo had already found the catch to release it.