The Shadow Master (19 page)

He could reach out to her and touch her, the way she had just reached out and slapped him. His cheek still stung from it and he suspected one of her many rings might have even drawn blood, but he was not going to put his hand to his face and find out. He just glared at her. He wanted her to feel his anger and hatred. He wanted her to fear him. If he leaned forward just a little he could slap her and send her tumbling to the floor. But he also felt she had grown too distant for him ever to reach. There was a vast chasm between them and its cause lay on the table in front of them. A short note with no crest or seal on it, stating that their daughter, Lucia, was enjoying the hospitality of the Medici family and as an honoured guest would receive the best of treatment until her stay with them was concluded. They hadn't even bothered using metaphor, increasing the insult.

As soon as he had read it, the Duke's heart had sunk deeper into his chest. He had suspected it was the Medicis who had her, but to come out and say it so boldly showed an arrogance that he had not guessed at. It implied they would harm her if they chose to. The Duke's first impulse had been outrage. A desire to rally his men and assault the Medici house as his wife had demanded, but that soon faded and he now wanted to enter into negotiations to get her back.

But the Duchess had surprised him with her reaction. She had read the letter and then dropped it to the table where it lay. “They have overplayed their hand,” she'd said coldly. “They would never dare pluck a single petal from the flower. We shall not even reply to their letter, and we will win the upper hand with our silence.”

“How you can be so certain they will not pluck a petal?” the Duke had asked. “They are desperate and vengeful men. They think we were the ones who blew out Giuliano's candle and tried the same on Cosimo. They feel they have a blood right.”

But she'd waved her hand in the air. “You know nothing of how they think,” she'd said. “You are incapable of imagining how such men think because you do not dare lie with lions like they do. They have made a tactical error that will only be made worse by harming her. They have no proof that we blew out the Medici candle, only a suspicion. But we now have proof that they were behind the picking of our blossom. They clearly sent that young man to steal her away.”

“You would risk our dear flower's safety for the benefit of holding a higher card?” he'd asked. “What happened to your great desire of assaulting the Medici household with our soldiers and Leonardo's inventions?” Though in fact he knew his wife was liable to make extreme changes of mood. She would be driven by a passion one day and then by cold and calculating schemes the next. It made her a formidable adversary.

“We shall still see their house fall,” she had said. “But we will not need to send our tin soldiers alone to do it. If we have this letter posted all over the city the citizens will turn against the Medici as sure as the tide turns against the strand, and come to our side in any conflict.”

“But many of the citizens are chained to the six circular balls of the Medicis.”

“This will give them a reason to break that allegiance,” she'd said, pointing a finger at her husband. “They will come to our side and will help us tear down the House of Medici stone by stone.”

“At the risk of our daughter's safety? Possibly her life?”

She had waved a hand at him dismissively and he'd felt that chill thought of what it might be like to place his hands around her sleeping neck and squeeze. “It is not Lucia's life you care about,” he said. “Is it because she is not our blood child or is it more about your honour? You would have had me rush out of the household and attack them in my day clothes when it was the honour of our House that had been insulted, but if we can turn that to an insult to their House you are content to sit and wait.”

And that was when she had slapped him. A swift blow that he'd barely seen coming and had taken full on the side of his face. She'd glared at him and said, “I may not have grown that child in my womb nor suckled her at my breast, but she is my daughter nevertheless, and don't you ever tell me that I am a mother who would put her own child willingly at risk.”

The Duke glared back at her and then said, “You are a mother who would put her own child willingly at risk.” She raised her hand for another slap, but he stood quickly and grabbed it. She raised her other hand to slap him and he grabbed that too.

“You are too weak to restrain me,” she said, struggling, kicking at him with her legs.

“I am strong enough,” he said, wrestling her around so that he could spin her arms about her body and turn her away from him, holding her tighter.

“Coward,” she hissed, spitting. But he had turned her around now and the spit flew past him. “Witch,” he said. “Clown!” she taunted. “Harpy!” he replied. Then she pushed her body back at him and banged him into the table. It weakened his grip enough that she was able to pull free. She whirled on him and bared her nails like an angry cat, reading to strike at him and rake down his face. He thrust his face forward, daring her to. Instead she reached out a hand and grabbed him by the hair, twisting it painfully and pulling his head towards her. He put both his hands into her hair and twisted it as viciously, pulling her face to his. They snarled at each other once before their lips met. Then they were kissing passionately. The way they had kissed when they first met. Before the years of courtly behaviour and business etiquette had turned them into strangers. Before the long years of parenting had replaced their tumultuous love for each other with a more stable love for their daughter.

With her missing, and in danger, it was like that had been sucked out of the space between them, drawing them violently together. They fell to the ground and lay there in a tight embrace, panting and kissing, husband and wife, hands in each other's hair and around each other's throats.

 

 

XXXV

“Come to bed and we can make the majestic moth together,” the Nameless One's wife said to him. She lay in their bed, with an imploring look upon her face. He looked at her for a moment and then said, “Of course.”

He took his time undressing though, as if it were vitally important that each item of clothing be folded just so. “Do you remember when we were younger and spent a week on that small farm in the hills?” she asked him. She often let her memory roam back to their youth. Back before everything. But they were painful memories to him as they were so wonderful.

“Yes,” he said. “It was a blessed time.”

“We made the majestic moth together endlessly,” she said.

He nodded his head, recalling it. It was warm and they were alone in the farmhouse and had dismissed the servants whenever they were able and spent the day in each other's embrace. “Truly blessed,” he said. But it was a different time too, he thought. He had been much younger and she had been, well, she had been the woman he had married. Had been young and vibrant and full of wit. This evil disease had left but a shadow of his wife. A woman who was like her in so many ways, but also not quite her.

Finally he stood there naked and she held out a hand to him. The way she had when they were younger and alone in that farm house. He wanted to take her hand, but he also wanted to weep at the sadness that was filling him. “Come,” she said.

Wordlessly he climbed into bed beside her and lay down next to her. “Stroke my hair,” she said, and he did. “Hold me,” she said, and he did. Her good hand touched his bare chest and he closed his eyes and tried to remember the feeling of being in the farm house with her. Any glimpse of a naked part of her body had filled him with passion. He had wrapped his arms around her tightly and they'd flown on the breeze like a majestic moth, to all corners of the house, settling on a couch in the sunshine, or on a rug on the floor.

He screwed his eyes tight to try to recall it now, but he could not feel the lightness filling him. She ran her hand lower down his stomach, but he was still failing to respond. He tried to think of her when she was younger. And then he felt himself stirring. She grabbed hold of his ivory tower and felt it rise in her hands. “Come,” she said again.

He had to do the rest of the work. Her limbs were too weak. She could but lie there and let him enter her cave of wonders. Let him climb the heights of the mountain of desire. Let him try to carry them both away in the flight of the majestic moth. But all he could feel was his weight upon her. She had been the one who'd filled him with lightness. She had been the soft wings that had beaten for them, bearing them aloft. And now she was broken and he felt his mortal weight pushing her into the mattress of the bed each time he plunged inside her.

And he felt the passion leaving him. Felt himself getting heavier. Felt like weeping aloud for the frustration of it. He cupped one of her mountains of the goddess in one hand and then found an image of Lucia's bosom in his hand filling him. Her body beneath him. And he resumed his climb up the mountain. He imagined it was her he was embracing. Imagined her arms and legs were metamorphosing into the limbs of the butterfly. Imagined the wings were spreading out beneath him. Then he felt the lightness filling him. Felt the wonderful weightlessness come upon him.

He wanted to hold the moment as long as he could. It had been so long since he had felt it again. But he continued climbing the mountain, faster and faster, floating higher and higher until he reached the pinnacle of lightness. He moaned aloud, suspended in that moment of apogee, and then felt the soft sadness of the falling start to fill him. He lay his body down upon her and felt her push back at his weight. He rolled to one side and opened his eyes. She was staring at him and had a curious look on her face. What had she felt? Did she know he had just betrayed her in his mind?

“Was that good, my love?” she asked.

He worked his jaw and then said, “Let us rest now.” He closed his eyes so she would not see the sadness welling up in them. He reached out one hand and cupped her mountain of Aphrodite again. Tried to think of his wife in that farm house, but could not prevent himself thinking of Lucia lying there beside him, her soft moth wings slowly folding back into her body as she lay there, breathing softly beside him.

“Yes, let us rest and dream of happier times,” his wife said.

 

 

 

XXXVI

“Many more of them have come overnight,” said the guardsman to the Sergeant of the Guard. “I used to try to count them, but have given up.”

Sergeant Cristoforo looked out over the mass of the plague people that huddled around the gates and he nodded his head in agreement. “I will inform the Captain of the Guard,” he said, “And he will inform the City Council. Again.” The guardsman thought that if he had not been standing in the company of the Sergeant he would say that the Council were no more likely to pay the news any heed than pigs were likely to start speaking.

“One or two of the City Councillors should come down to the wall one day and see for themselves,” the guardsman said. And Sergeant Cristoforo thought that if he were not standing in the company of a common guardsman he would say that was as likely to happen as pigs were likely to start singing hymns.

“The Captain should offer them an invitation to that one day,” the Sergeant agreed. And both men thought that if they were not in the company of each other, they would say that it was more likely that pigs would start pissing wine.

“Do you think there are other cities, like us, that have withstood the plague?” the guardsman asked the Sergeant.

“They say there are,” he replied. “They say that there are cities across the seas that have resisted it.”

“Are they but stories? What if the whole world is dying of plague but for us?”

“My wife's brother was the
capitano
of a Medici vessel,” Sergeant Cristoforo said. “He told me that the cities they sailed to in the heathen lands to buy the spice from were free of the plague. They did not even know its value for warding away the disease. If they had, they would have charged ten times the price or refused to sell it, perhaps.”

“Does your brother-in-law ever think of staying in one of those foreign ports?” the guardsman asked. “I have heard of ships that have sailed away and never come back.”

Sergeant Cristoforo shook his head. “Those ships have been lost at sea,” he said curtly. “Captains choose their crews with care and the men in the employ of the great Houses would never betray them.”

“Of course,” said the guardsman quickly. “I was not implying any dishonour on your brother-in-law's part. It is just a story I have heard.”

Sergeant Cristoforo looked out over the hovels and the shelters that the plague people had built around the walls of the city and thought it was time they sent out a detachment to clear them away again. But there were so many of them now. What would happen if the plague people turned on the guardsmen? They would be overwhelmed quickly. They needed more men.

“What is his ship?” the guard asked.

“It was the
Windseeker
,” Sergeant Cristoforo said. And then before the guardsman could ask any more, he said, “It was lost to the maelstrom recently.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” the guardsman said.

Sergeant Cristoforo nodded his head. Just a little. He would rather his brother-in-law had fled to a foreign port and set himself up as a merchant or a slaver or anything other than to have died just in sight of the safe harbour of the Walled City.

The two men stood there in silence for some time, staring out at the uncountable numbers of plague people there before them. The Sergeant knew that if you stood there too long you started seeing individual disfigurements, and then started seeing each figure as a man, a woman or a child. That meant it was time to go below. He would wear armour over his eyes to fortify his senses against it. He would have liked to ask the guardsman if he ever saw them like that, but it was not a question that a Sergeant of the Guard ever asked a guardsman.