The Loved and the Lost (42 page)

“Morto. Tutti morti,”
was all he said. They were all dead.

Shrieks came out of the younger Lincoln and Shamira's mouths, shrieks that rose above the roar and crack of the fire.

“GET IN THERE!” the older Hansum shouted at Sideways. He felt the older Lincoln's hand on his arm.

“YOU CHECK DOWNSTAIRS, BROTHER. I'LL CHECK UP,” Lincoln told him.

Hansum frowned at the implication, nodded, and both winked away.

The blinding light in the heart of the fire turned objects into unreal, over-exposed lumps with silvery-white flames dancing off their undulating surfaces. While the fire could not hurt someone out of phase, it made it hard to see. Hansum had to get very close to the blackened lump lying across the table, a dark
thing
from which flames and charred flakes shot, rocketing upwards in the rising currents. It was apparent what the lump had been and no longer was. Hansum turned just in time to see the stairs disintegrate and fall, causing more circular currents to rise heavenward. He began to order Sideways to go upstairs when Lincoln appeared before him.

“No!” was all Lincoln said, catching his friend looking to the floor above. “Sideways. Outside,” and they were gone.

As the senior Hansum and Lincoln appeared back in the street, the older Shamira was on her knees, watching her younger self screaming with terror and grief. The others were frozen in mute horror.

Hansum twisted his neck back to the house. By now his life had been conditioned by a career that included hundreds of sorties into the past. He was witness to countless deaths and had hundreds of close friends through the ages, all of whom were dead in his time. But this was different. He never got used to Guilietta dying, again and again.

His mind began to race. There was something else he had to consider. What had Lincoln and Zat seen upstairs? The prone figure lying on the bed, his Guilietta. Was the Signora with her? And . . . was the younger Hansum there? Was he, Hansum, dead in this reality? Could this be the type of irretrievably time-changing anomaly that caused Elder Catherine to flee?

He no sooner considered this when the shouts of men and the clomping of horses forced him to look up the road for his answer. Lieutenant Raguso was galloping on his horse in front of an open carriage with several men in it, his younger self included. His alternate self was already standing, screaming at the wagon driver and universe in general. When the wagon screeched to a halt, the younger Hansum was already in the air, leaping from the carriage and running toward the flames. Others went to drag him back, but the white-hot fire did its work and Hansum ended up shrieking and pulling his hair, running back and forth, left and right, in a useless effort that achieved nothing.

Then, Ugilino ran onto the scene. His fists were clenched and his mouth agape. He stood next to the weeping teens and neighbors, falling to his knees and dropping what was in his hands. A pathetic cache of silver coins spilled onto the cobblestones, some rolling in circles until, like the helpless onlookers, they exhausted their stored energy.

The old Hansum clenched his jaw, resolve and anger sharing their place on his wrinkled face.

“Sideways. Zat. Take us back to
this
beginning,”
and the Sands of Time rose.

The plan, if anything went wrong, was try to fix the situation and get back to the predetermined meeting place, up on the walkway of Verona's city wall.

Once again, like decades earlier, the fix had been frustratingly simple. They went back to when Ugilino was going to peer through the crack in the shutters and stood before the slightly earlier version of old Lincoln, just as he was to give the word about Ugilino to Sideways.

“It's not going to work. Abort,” old Lincoln said to his counterpart.

The other old Lincoln looked at him incredulously, but said nothing. He knew the plan too.

“Everything is as it was,” an exhausted Hansum whispered. He was leaning between two parapets, perhaps the same ones he and Guilietta had their first kiss between. “Time for Plan B.” But, while he could make his mouth say the words, standing up straight was out of the realm of possibility right now.

It was dark on the wall and a low-lying fog almost obscured the moon. No amount of training could make the time travelers accept what they had just experienced with anything approximating philosophical detachment. Neither age nor experience offered an antidote for the kind of thing they had witnessed. But they knew one thing. The only chance they had for success was to push forward – now.

“Okay, let's go over what's next,” the Elder Hansum finally said, forcing himself to stand straight. “Stopping the Master and Father Lurenzano from seeing Pan didn't work, so now we play on their belief in angels and demons, to legitimize Pan's presence. We'll intercede when our younger selves are being confronted in the shop.” Hansum looked over to Shamira. She was standing stolidly, her eyes still glistening with emotion from the last situation. “Are you going to be okay? Do you need some time to collect yourself?”

She blinked hard and her face was almost normal again. “No. No, I'll be fine.”

“It's important to feel the emotions, but that's later. Now it's time to work,” Lincoln said.

“Can you see Plan B, Sham?”
Medeea asked.

Shamira brought the exact details of the next part of the plan to her mind.

“Got it,” Shamira said. “I'm ready.”

“Costumes,” Hansum called and, simultaneously, Sideways and Zat formed new clothing for the three humans, Zat hiving off a piece of himself and jumping to Shamira. The older Hansum was now wearing the vestments of a cardinal. With an under robe of cream-colored silk, the upper robe was the signature red for a prince of the church, full and flowing down to the ground, with the faces of angels embroidered onto the rich fabric. The faces had kind eyes and their mouths were opened, as if singing. The faces hid the fact that Sideways was looking out through those eyes, watching everything. To top it off, there was a matching red cap on Hansum's greying head. Lincoln and Shamira were wearing the dark robes of monks, the hoods hiding their faces. “Let's go!” and the Sands of Times rose.

Their timing had to be exact.

Once again, Agistino della Cappa and Father Lurenzano were annoyed at Ugilino when he dragged them out into the night, saying he saw the devil in the shop. But their drunken anger turned to shock when they spied through a crack in the shutter and saw a satyr standing on the worktable, the teens heads bent before him. Shamira was taking dictation and Lincoln and Hansum were reinforcing Pan's cracked shell. But to the superstitious 14th-century citizens, it appeared they were bowing to a satanic creature. The priest and the lens maker pulled away from wall.

“They revere him,” Father Lurenzano said. “They pray to him.” His eyes went wide with conviction as he pronounced, “They are servants of Lucifer!”

“Such evil in my own house!” Agistino gasped.

They were able to throw the shop door open and confront the situation before Pan could disappear, so the hologram had to make a decision on how to deal with the matter. He elected to transform his image into the handsome martyr, Saint Aurelius, patron saint of orphans, saying he was helping save Guilietta because the della Cappas had been so kind to the orphans in their care. But neither Father Lurenzano nor Ugilino were buying it. Not even though Ugilino had met Pan in what he thought was a dream.

“Didn't meeting me before make you a better person?” Pan as Saint Aurelius asked Ugilino?

“I'd rather be a murdering, filth-covered soldier in God's army, than a noble in the Devil's,” Ugilino shouted as he hefted an ax and started for Pan. But before it could whoosh though Pan's image and break one of the new lathes, as previously happened, there was a man's voice at the door.

“What is this?” the voice asked. Everyone turned. They saw an older man in crimson clerical gowns. Behind him stood two monks in dark robes, their hoods hiding their faces. Immediately Father Lurenzano fell to one knee and bowed his head.

“Your Eminence,” he crooned.

“What is going on?” Hansum as a cardinal asked. “I was told by a neighbor there was a priest here. One who could show me to the basilica. In the confusion of the pestilence, I've lost my way to an important meeting with the bishop.”

“I am at your service, Eminence,” Lurenzano fawned.

The whole room looked between the faux cardinal and the shimmering image of Aurelius, hovering by the ceiling.

“Ah, my friend, Saint Aurelius,” the costumed Elder Hansum said, stepping forward and going to one knee. “Holy angel, it is good to see you again.”

Shocked silence. The Signora, who had trundled in after her husband, was near fainting and standing only with the help of Agistino. Ugilino still held the ax over his head, Father Lurenzano looked puzzled, but the most confused had to be Pan and the teens. What could be happening? The image of Aurelius, Pan, wrinkled his nose, trying to figure it out. The cardinal was smiling at him, nodding slowly, like he was telling him to play along. This was the critical moment. The cardinal momentarily looked to his vestments. Pan as the saint, followed the gaze to the gold brocaded angels woven on the fabric and — one of the angels winked at him, oh so slightly. The Saint of Orphans smiled.

Ugilino saw the wink too, and blinked in surprise, but when he looked again, he saw just stitching.

“Cardinal Frey of Carinthia!” Saint Aurelius chimed, as if greeting an old friend. He alighted to the ground, walking silently past Ugilino, who was still tensed with the ax. Pan smiled at him and turned back to the kneeling cardinal, beckoning him rise.

“You know this man?” the younger Hansum asked the image of Aurelius.

“I know the cardinal's . . .
handsome
features well,” Pan as Aurelius said, “although I don't know why he's here.”

“Put down the ax, my son,” Cardinal Frey said to Ugilino. “There's no wood here to chop.” Ugi looked him hard in the eye.

“Don't be insolent to His Eminence! Do as you're told!” Lurenzano snapped, pushing Ugilino hard on the shoulder. Ugilino fell forward and bumped into one of the monks, coming nose to nose with the clergyman and getting a glimpse into the shadow of the cowl. The face was familiar. The monk pushed him back and repositioned the cowl over her eye.

“This monk looks like Carmella . . .”

“I told you to shut up!” Lurenzano said, now shouting. He cuffed Ugilino on the ear.

“But . . .” a harder cuff on the ear caused Ugi to shrink back in pain. He let the ax head fall to the ground, keeping hold of the handle.

“Eminence, you know this being?” Father Lurenzano asked, and the older Hansum began his rehearsed speech.

“Of course, Father . . .?”

“Lurenzano, of San Francesco al Corso”

“Just so. Father Lurenzano. I must now swear you to secrecy, for only cardinals and the Holy Father himself know of communing with Heaven's saints. For others to know of their true existence would cause a crisis of faith, and without faith, want evaporates. With certain knowledge of Heaven, people would end their miserable lives without hesitation, and then who would do God's work on Earth?”

Father Lurenzano stood there, transfixed, his eyes moving back and forth as he parsed the convoluted reasoning.

“But why then was the holy saint communing with these . . . orphans.”

“On occasion, a holy spirit chooses to intercede with common folk. But why? The ways of the Lord are mysterious and not for us to question. And is it not your duty to . . . obey me?”

Pan sent the younger Hansum, Lincoln and Shamira a sub-sonic message.

“These people are from the future. Play up to the Master and Signora. Comfort them.”
The three teens went over to the kneeling Agistino and his wife.

“I'm sorry we couldn't tell you of the saint's help, Master,” Hansum said.