Secret of Light (8 page)

“Okay.” Kate peered through the dim light. “But how do you know it's not being used?”

Darrell made a face. “Smell any horse manure? And the mangers are all empty.”

“Okay,” Kate repeated, “but don't be long. We need to figure out how to get back to school, now that we don't have a cave or glyphs or anything.”

“We
do
have something going for us, Kate,” said Darrell. “We have Delaney. And we have our brains and our wits. We'll figure it out.”

Kate looked unconvinced.

“I'm just going to have a quick look around. I'll be back in ten minutes, tops.” Darrell stepped to the stable door and peered out through the crack. The name
Verrocchio
danced through her mind. Could it be?

Kate retreated into the darkness of the stall. “I'll wait in here,” she said, her voice muffled by the wooden walls. “I'll sit here with Delaney and close my eyes.
If I try really hard, maybe I can convince myself this is all just a bad dream.”

Darrell smiled and opened the door, suspended with leather hinges nailed tightly to the wooden wall of the stable. She glanced back and noted with satisfaction that she could see no sign of Kate in her hiding place. The old stable looked deserted, with only a few ram-shackle stalls and a broken ladder leading to a tiny loft. She pulled the door inward and gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness. Outside she could see a yard connecting the stable to a grand home, complete with a kitchen garden and pebble paths carefully lined with what looked like crushed clam shells.

We must be near the sea. Maybe there
is
a cave we need to find after all.
Darrell hop-skipped her way into the kitchen garden. This leg was easier to walk on than the one she'd had in Scotland, but probably weighed double that of her prosthesis at home. She slipped under the spreading leaves of an olive tree and looked around.

This tree is almost as twisted as the arbutus at Eagle Glen.
The thought gave her a pang as she brushed her hand along the gnarled trunk. She waited a full minute for anyone to appear, and then held her breath and scampered for a small doorway on the far side of the back wall, away from the kitchens.

The room was empty and almost as dark as the stable had been. A small fire burned low in a grate in one corner, providing the only source of light in the tightly shuttered room. Darrell stepped quietly around a table laden with
parchment and other paper-like materials. She rubbed the oily texture of a page between her fingers.

A scratching sound under the far side of the table caused her to stop and peer through the gloom for any further sign of rodents. One rat was more than enough for the day. Rising onto the toes of her left foot, she cautiously stepped around the loaded table. The sound came again, and Darrell gathered her skirts around her knees and squinted at the surrounding floor.

Like a wraith rising from the ground, a ghostly white face hovered over the far side of the table. Darrell bit down hard on her lower lip to stop from yelling out loud.

“You're not going to scream, are you?” the head inquired.

Darrell, dumb with fear, shook her head.

“You can drop your skirts. There are no mice here, or rats either, for that matter. Dante looks after them.” As if to prove the point, a cat slipped between her feet, arching his back against the chiselled wood of her leg. Thinking of Norton, her neighbour's cat, she reached down for a pat, but the cat slipped off into the shadows.

Darrell let the silky material of her heavy skirts rustle out of her numb fingers, and gathered her courage.

“You can't be a ghost,” she said, somewhat unnecessarily, “though your face is so white, you look like one.”

The pallid face took on a thoughtful expression as it examined Darrell. “How can you be so sure?” it asked, and then stood, removing all doubt.

Darrell, her initial fear gone, looked at the figure in front of her with some curiosity. She stepped around
the table and gestured at the floor. “Most ghosts don't have feet.”

“Perhaps then it is I who should worry about strange, spectral girls wandering about, as you clearly don't have feet either, from the sound of it.”

Darrell flushed and sagged against the table for a moment, avoiding his eyes. Then she lifted her chin.

“You're right,” she said quietly. “Though that does not make me a ghost, only a girl with one sound leg and one wooden.”

“I knew it!” he exclaimed, and jumped at her in such a startling way she was forced to take a step backwards. “Let me see it,
per favore
,
per favore
! I want to examine how it works and how you are able to get around so well.” Darrell stepped back again, amazed that someone taller than she could sound so much like a small boy wheedling for a treat.

“Certainly not!” She knew from her time in the fourteenth century that propriety would frown on her even being in this room unchaperoned with this young man, let alone showing him how her leg attached to the elaborate peg she wore under her heavy skirts. She frowned.

“How do you know I get around easily, anyway? Have you been spying on me?”

The young man looked abashed. “Not spying, really,” he mumbled. “Just paying heed. I watched you walk in here and knew something to be amiss with your gait.”

Her eyes adjusting to the gloom of the darkened room, Darrell took a good look at this curious non-ghost. She could now see his face appeared white because
it was well-dusted with chalk, and his hair stood out from his head in tousled red ringlets, with chalk dust liberally distributed through it, as well. His hands were dirty and clutched a half-completed sketch along with the offending stick of chalk. From his appearance Darrell decided he must be fifteen or sixteen.

“You must be my friend's cousin.”

Darrell raised her eyebrows, but didn't reply.

An impatient look crossed his face. “Well, are you or aren't you? Giovanni told me his cousin was coming to apprentice with my master for the season, but he didn't mention a girl.”

“Oh? What
did
he say?”

“He said his cousin is coming here from afar, and will stay with his family.” The young man gave her a long, appraising look, and then leaned over and lit a small taper from the fire in the corner grate.

Darrell frowned. “Did he say I am an artist, too?” she asked coldly.

“No, he did not. You are a girl, so I know it cannot be possible.”

Darrell laughed, and the boy flushed bright red. “I am the one who should be laughing, not you. Girls cannot be artists!”

Darrell tucked her amusement into her cheek. “Why not?”

He looked flustered. “Well, because your job is to run the household, not to draw and paint. How can you sculpt or paint with any accuracy if you are not apprenticed to a professional artist? Besides,” he scoffed, warming to his subject, “girls are stupid. They are not fit for
a man's work. They cannot see the world through the eyes of humanity.”

Darrell felt surprised at the extent of his prejudice. “Do you not think girls and women are human?” she asked.

He thought a moment. “I do believe they are human,” he answered slowly, his eyes looking into the distance. “Just a little less human than men.” He puffed his chest importantly, obviously proud of his membership in the superior gender of the species.

Darrell bit her tongue and changed the subject, sensing a lecture on women's rights might not find receptive ears at this moment. “What have you got there?” she asked, indicating the half-finished drawing.

He cast it carelessly down on the tabletop. “It is a study for an idea I have,” he said, with a slight frown.

Darrell picked up the page. “It looks like a shield,” she said. “Like a family emblem or coat of arms.”

He looked at her with some admiration. “That is true. I am designing a crest to show my father — to show him...”

“To show him what?” Darrell was curious.

“To show him I can,” he said, and slammed his hand on the tabletop. “I will show him all this and more. See here...” He pulled a small, leather-bound notebook from a satchel slung over a chair. “I write down all my thoughts and ideas and I keep them with me always.” He flipped the pages, holding the book a little too close to her face.

Darrell stepped back. The book was half-filled with notes in some strange kind of code, drawings, art studies, and more.

“What is this?” she asked, sliding her finger into one of the pages.

A dark passion filled his eyes and he grinned ferociously. “This? This is the clock I designed to run with the power of water. And this? A study I made of birds that I will transform into a machine to make men fly — into the skies above us and perhaps one day into the past or the future.”

Darrell jumped a little, her heart pounding at his words. She slipped over to the doorway. “I've got to go and find my friends,” she murmured, fearful an adult would be drawn by the volume of his voice.

“I have to work anyhow,” the young man sneered, having clearly forgotten his interest in her leg. “I don't have time to talk with stupid girls.”

Darrell gritted her teeth. “I am not a stupid girl,” she said. “My name is Darrell.”

“Who cares for your ridiculous name?” he said, throwing back his shoulders. “After I complete this design, only one name in all of
Firenze
will be heard on everyone's lips.”

Darrell lifted the corner of her own lip skeptically. “And that is?”

He grinned at her, and for a split second she was taken by the charm of his smile.

“Why, Leonardo, of course.”

Darrell fled.

“You must be joking!” Brodie jumped up from his seat on an overturned wooden pail.

“No joke.” Darrell paced around the small stall, lit now by the light of an oil lamp set precariously atop a bail of hay. “Besides, everyone knows Leonardo was apprenticed to Verrocchio.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Everyone? Sorry, Darrell, most people have trouble remembering all the major figures of the art world, let alone who their teachers were.”

“Okay, okay. It's an interest of mine, that's all.” Darrell held out her hands. “I
knew
his notebook looked familiar. And I touched the paper he was sketching on,” she said in a whisper. “Do you know what that means to me?”

Brodie shook his head. “But why are we here? Is it to introduce Darrell to the greatest artist of all time? After our last visit, it seems a bit...”

“Shallow?” interjected Kate.

Darrell felt a splinter of anger deep in her chest. “What do you mean, shallow?” she said, her face hot. “It's not shallow to want to meet someone who changed the world — even if he is only a kid.” She gestured angrily. “I wouldn't call you shallow if you wanted to meet the guy — ah, you know the computer guy...” She looked to Brodie for help. “Bill somebody...”

“Bill Gates?” Brodie guessed.

“That shows how much you know.” Kate's face went as red as her hair. “Anyone who has any interest in technology knows that Gates has done more harm than good. He's a lucky idiot who was in the right place at the right time.”

“All those computer guys are idiots. I'm just trying to make a point.”

“Now, Darrell...” began Brodie.

“Stay out of this, Brodie,” Darrell snapped.

“Are you calling me an idiot?” Kate snarled.

Darrell stuck her nose close to Kate's face. “My point, before you get all tied up in knots, is that you may want to meet the god of computers someday.”

“Gates is
not
the god of computers,” snarled Kate. “And who's getting worked up here?”

“Just a minute, Kate...” said Brodie, stepping to her side.

Both girls turned to Brodie. “Will you shut up?” they chorused.

There was a moment of complete silence...

...and Darrell laughed. “I'm sorry, Kate. I didn't mean to insult the computer god, whoever he is. Meeting
Leonardo da Vinci makes this the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me.”

Kate chuckled, her anger clearly evaporated. “Okay, I get it. I didn't mean to insult Leonardo, either.”

Brodie shook his head at the two girls. “I'm glad that's resolved. But if the purpose of this trip is for you to meet Leonardo, Darrell, then we should try to find our way back before Giovanni discovers I know more about fossils than I do about art.”

“Fossils? What are these fossils, you speak of? And what are you saying about art?”

Darrell spun around. Their conversation had been so heated none of them had heard anyone enter the stable. And standing at the doorway was Giovanni, accompanied by a furious-looking man in clay-spattered clothes.

Darrell lay on a straw tick mattress across the room from Kate. A single candle burned low.

“I forgot how early they go to bed in these places,” whispered Kate.

“Gives us a chance to talk,” said Darrell. “And to figure out what to do next.” She unwrapped the long strip of cloth that bound the uncomfortable wooden prosthesis to her leg with a sigh of relief. Tucking her sore leg beneath her, she shivered a little and pulled the rough woollen blanket close to ward off the chill. “Verrocchio was pretty angry at the idea that Brodie didn't want to improve his artistic skills.”

“I think Brodie handled it really well. When he said
he was honoured to study under the great master, everyone cooled down pretty quickly.”

“I stole one of the sheets of parchment from the table downstairs and a piece of chalk. As soon as it gets light in the morning, I'll do a quick sketch Brodie can pass off as his own. That should hold Verrocchio and Giovanni until we find a way to get out of here.”

Kate sighed. “I wish we could spend more time drinking in the life here, instead of having to race to find a way out.”