The Shadow Master (21 page)

“A war is not good for trade,” the Head Councillor said, glaring at the man. “Any fool can see that.”

“But winning such a war would be outstandingly good for trade,” Narducci replied. “And which of the two families would not gamble on a chance to gain a monopoly – especially if they believe they can win it? Surely any fool can see that!”

The City Council leader frowned and resolved to save up some really difficult challenges to throw to Signor Narducci when it was his turn in the Head Councillor's chair. Pacciani wanted to cry at the man, “Then what should we do?” but it was his turn to be the one to propose what to do. He folded his arms and looked down the table, hoping some divine inspiration would occur. Instead a man at his side tugged at his sleeve. He looked at him, peeved, and saw he held out a document to him. He sighed. It would be another note from the City Guard informing him that the numbers of plague people had doubled overnight. Or it would a message from the apothecaries that the spice wine had lost its effectiveness entirely and plague had broken out in the city. Or it would be a message about an uprising of those in the catacombs, which was another topic that the Council had made a collective vow never to mention.

He opened the document and read it. Then again. Then he stood and held it over his head. Not like a sword. Like a battle axe. An axe wielded by a Head Councillor who was finally able to stop the war between the families and able to restore stability to the city and power to the Council. “I have a proposal,” he said aloud. “One I think you will all find to our benefit.”

 

 

XXXIX

Cosimo tried another bite of the quail on his plate, but it tasted bitter and he spat it back out. Even the wine tasted like vinegar to him. They had not had quail for a long time and he imagined it had been carried back alive on one of his ships, when they were still getting into the harbour, at great cost. He should remember not to have it thrown to the dogs then. He sat in the dining room alone, waiting for his mother to join him. He had already ordered the servants from the room so that none of them could see the look of disappointment and defeat on his features. All because of a single-line message.

He had been sitting at his meal planning his next stage of attack on the Lorraines, confident that he had the upper hand. He had laid out salt shakers and glasses and cutlery around the table to represent the Walled City, and he was manoeuvring the pieces around to how he would isolate the Lorraines and force them into fewer and fewer towers and then have them submit to him entirely, along with their new scientific discoveries. The giant eagle and the whales that followed their commands and whatever other inventions that man Leonardo had devised for them.

Several of his scribes had been searching the city for sketches that Leonardo had done, certain that he was leaving clues in them that they could decipher and so understand what he was planning. He had visited them in one of his libraries and seen them all gathered around a table with six or seven sketches laid out before them. They were scanning the backgrounds for details that were clues. They believed the man hid his secrets in his sketches and paintings. Secret visual codes that only the most astute mind would be able to decipher. His way of leaving his secrets for the future, rather than recording them in books where they could easily be accessed by his enemies. This way, only the most intelligent and deserving would ever know them.

He wondered if Leonardo was proving as difficult for the Lorraines as Galileo was proving for him, refusing to create weapons of war and destruction. What good was science if you did not use it to achieve your aims, he thought. What good were paintings and sketches if they did not share their meaning? Painting the faces of the nobility of the Walled City onto the faces of the ancients in the paintings and frescos was easy enough, and having different meanings in visual symbols – such as whether a horse's feet were all on the ground or one was in the air telling you whether the rider in the portrait had died in battle or not – these were all well understood by most people, but hiding secret information in a picture seemed arcane. And when he asked the scribes to tell him what they had discovered, and then listened to how they interpreted the faint and weak lines they found as having particular meanings, or the way a hill stood in relation to a river, or the turn of a finger on a hand, he began to suspect they were so desperately looking for secrets that they were creating them themselves.

He had looked at the sketches and paintings and had seen hills and rivers and hands, yes, but no hidden codes in them. But, he wondered, if he'd spent all week in that room with the scribes, might he not start to see them too? As one who spent hours studying a dining table battleground might start to see victory over an opponent where in fact there was none. He sighed heavily and wished Giuliano were able to advise him. He looked down at the single-line message in front of him once more. It simply read: “The bird is no longer in hand.”

That was a secret code that he did understand and needed no interpretation or puzzling over by his scribes to find a deeper meaning. Lucia had somehow escaped from the Nameless One. And that changed everything. Lucia had been his bargaining chip. With her in his grasp he could have manipulated the Lorraines into giving him concessions. They would not have turned over control of their wealth to him all at once, of course, but he knew that if he made small demands, one at a time, it was likely that he would have achieved what he wanted.

First he would have had their soldiers refused any access to the streets of the city. Then he would have had restrictions placed on their ships so that only his had unimpeded access to the city's port. Then he would have had the Lorraines publicly admit that they had been the ones who had assassinated Giuliano, and that they were willing to make reparations to him. They would have given up spice concessions. Handed over some of their ships to him. Little by little he would have whittled away their wealth and power until they'd stood before him, pleading for what little they had left.

And if at any point they'd refused, he would tell them that Lucia had fallen ill, and he worried for her life, or that she had expressed interest in marrying some old and fat dung collector. They would squirm, the Duke and that witch of a wife of his, but they would comply. But only as long as he held Lucia.

He cursed the Nameless One for allowing her to escape and he wondered whether she had already returned to the safety of her family's house and was telling them what had happened to her. Or was she somewhere in the city in hiding? Perhaps he should have his men out searching for her?

The Nameless One should have given him more information. He didn't even know where the man was to contact him, or admonish him or punish him. Then he wondered if he might somehow be in the employ of the Lorraines, playing one off against the other? Taking Medici coin to kidnap the girl and then taking Lorraine coin to return her? He could trust no one! His advisers and scribes were fools; Galileo was stubborn; and sell-swords and mercenaries, like the Nameless One, were only obedient to gold. He pushed his meal away and stood. Where was his mother? He needed someone he could trust to talk to about this. The only person in the world he trusted now.

He walked around the table putting the implements on the table back into their places. He did not want her to come and find him at play, as if he were still a small boy, spreading out his toy soldiers and forts across the floor of his bed chamber. He wanted to throw the message from the Nameless One into the fire, but thought it best to show to his mother first. He hoped she was in a clear mind today. He could do with some good counsel, as long as she didn't tell him to sit down and eat his meal, as she'd used to repeatedly when he was a boy. He should have one of the servants take his meal away, so he didn't have to explain to her that the message he had received had made everything sweet suddenly taste bitter to him. And he imagined that for the Duke and Duchess of Lorraine, who would soon have their daughter back, everything that had recently tasted bitter would suddenly taste very sweet once more.

He turned around suddenly as his mother came into the room, one of her nurses supporting her by the arm. “Mother,” he said and held out his arms to her. She looked at him and then at the table and said in a chiding tone, “Cosimo! You're a naughty boy. You shouldn't leave the table until you've finished your meal.”

 

 

XL

“Stop!” said Lorenzo. “No more.”

The Shadow Master stopped and looked back at him. “What is it?” he asked.

“We are going deeper and deeper into the Earth and further and further from the world above where we should be to save Lucia from the dangers you say she is in.” He had been trying to estimate how long they had been down here under the city, and thought it must have been after dark already when they came across the cavern of the madmen mass, yet still they went on.

“Sometimes the most direct path is a circuitous one,” the Shadow Master replied.

“No,” said Lorenzo. “No more dark tunnels. No more abhorrent creatures and madmen. How will any of this help her?”

“All will be revealed,” the stranger said. And now Lorenzo felt anger rising in him. “No,” he said again. He did not have a good feeling about what lay ahead of them. “Not one step further until you answer some questions.” And Lorenzo pulled out the copper glove and slipped it onto his hand, feeling it constrict and merge with his skin. He bunched his fingers into a fist and held it up to show the stranger.

The man turned fully back to look at Lorenzo. “Ah,” he said, ignoring the gloved fist entirely. “The point of emotional overpowerment. That is to be expected.”

“What do you mean?” Lorenzo demanded, shaking his fist at him. But the stranger reached out a hand and wrapped it around the glove and Lorenzo felt it somehow coming loose from his hand. “What are you doing?” he asked and pulled back, but the glove came off and the stranger put it into his clothing somewhere. “When the senses take in so much that is new and unknown,” he said to Lorenzo, “sometimes the only reaction possible is to fall back upon an emotion that is easily conjured. Anger. Rejection. Much better than denial at least.”

Lorenzo blinked and shook his head. “You mock me. I follow you willingly down into this pit of darkness and misery and you refuse to tell me why. Refuse to tell me where we are going. Thrust shocking scene upon shocking scene in front of me and expect me to just take it in like a school boy might take in his lessons, unquestioning.”

“That is a good analogy,” the man replied, with a wry smile. “A school boy learning something he had never dreamed of, his mind needing to expand to take in a new understanding of the world that at first seems too strange to comprehend.”

“Enough of riddles and secrets,” said Lorenzo. “I only have one thing of interest. I want to save Lucia.”

“And I want you to save civilisation as well,” said the stranger.

“It is not my concern,” said Lorenzo. “Lucia is my only concern.”

“Well shall see,” the stranger replied and turned away from him.

“Stop,” said Lorenzo and grabbed at him, his hand feeling once more the fine armour under his tunic.

“Yes?” he asked, turning back once more. Then, “Why don't you ask the question you most want to ask?”

Lorenzo barley hesitated. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Yes. That is the one,” he said. Then, almost mockingly, “But why don't you tell me who it is that you think I am.”

“You are an enigma,” Lorenzo said.

“A poor answer,” he replied.

“I think you are dangerous,” Lorenzo said.

“Only to my enemies,” he replied.

“I think you are not of our city.”

“And yet I am here now.”

“I am not sure I can trust you.”

“And why not?”

“You are the Shadow Master,” said Lorenzo bitterly. “You play in the realm of secrets and shadows.”

“Yes,” he said. “That is all true. So enough of secrets and shadows, as you say. Now it is time to be the master of illumination and understanding.” And he turned something on the small torch in his hand and it glowed brightly, lighting up the entire chamber around them. Lorenzo felt his mouth drop open. Felt his breath fade out of him like a candle going out. He turned his head this way and that, trying to take it all in. He had been preparing himself for something more shocking than that which he had so far witnessed. But this! Nothing could have prepared him for this!

“With this,” said the Shadow Master, “You alone have the means to save your loved one and you shall save your city and shall save your civilisation. For this is the secret of the ancients.”

 

 

 

XLI

Cosimo Medici looked back across the long table to the Duke and saw his eyes wandering over the many maps on the walls. Typical, he thought, not focussing on where the danger was before him. Or was it an act to seem casual about admitting his defeat. For Cosimo was convinced the Duke had requested this meeting in order to admit defeat to him. Which meant Lucia had not yet returned home, and he could truthfully swear he did not have her in captivity. He smiled and tried to catch the Duchess' eye. He would particularly enjoy humiliating her.

The Head Councillor, Signor Pacciani, seated at the top of the table, rapped the table-top and called the meeting to attention. “Firstly, in accordance with the agreement for this meeting we will turn the locks on the doors so that there is no possibility of outside forces entering. Are all agreed to this?”

Cosimo shrugged as if he didn't care. The Duke looked to his wife and then nodded. The city guardsman at the door proceeded to lock it. Cosimo did a quick count of those in the room. Four bearded Medicis, four moustached Lorraines and ten City Councillors and city guardsmen. The letter had been very specific about this, and as long as the Lorraines abided by these terms, he felt they were fair. This meeting was a surrender, after all, but they had to maintain some illusion of dignity. He was generous enough to accept that.