Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1940 (13 page)

Turmoil

UNDOUBTEDLY, as I have said, Il Duomo—Saint Mary's of the Flower—was
the second cathedral in all Christendom. I was there gasbottles and all, the
next morning before Cardinal Riario began to say mass.

I tried to lose myself among the throngs of worshipers who
strolled most informally among the banks of seats in the octagonal choir space
beneath the great open dome. For once

I was glad of the natural darkness that clung in the
cathedral, lighted only by the ornate upper windows. At the high altar the
cardinal, young and handsome for all his high dignity, was intoning the
service. I found a shadow beside a carved wooden screen, and tried to shrink my
height by bowing my shoulders under my mantle.

More worshipers appeared, and more, brave in all the
colors and fabrics of Sabbath costume. A tall, ruddy head and beard showed
among them—Guaracco, I saw at once. In my heart I prayed that he fail to see
me, and he did. He was looking for other things, and perhaps he believed that I
had indeed fled
Florence
.

Then, on the other side of the choir, a
flash of blue velvet, a smiling, handsome face.
It was Giuliano de
Medici,* and his arm was linked with that of Francesco de Pazzi, as though with
a close friend. On the other side of Giuliano, and a little to the rear, walked
Bernardo Bandini, the dissolute young gentleman on whom Guaracco threatened to
bestow Lisa. Would Guaracco do so? Would Lisa consent?

And then someone strolled past me.
Lorenzo,
a gorgeous figure in a crimson houppelande, sword at side, chatting with a
crooked, smiling young man—Agnolo Poliziano, the poet.
Behind them,
tense and pale, slunk two dark-clad figures, the assassins Maffei and Bagnone.

I took a step toward the ruler of
Florence
.
I drew in my breath to shout a warning, in the midst of the holy service. I saw
Guaracco approaching beyond some chairs.

It
was then that the host was elevated at the altar. The young cardinal's voice
rang out the prayerful words that, all unknowing, would signal for violence:

"Ite, missa
est
!"

Maffei, the vengeful Volterran, who was closer to me than
Bagnone, stepped suddenly forward, clutching at Lorenzo. His dagger twinkled in
air.

* Giuliano was ill on this fatal Sunday, but Francesco de
Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini went to his house and urged him in a friendly manner
to attend mass.

I seemed to move of an involuntary stimulus. Had I been a
true Florentine, I would have paused to draw sword, and that would have been
too late to save Lorenzo. Being an American, and from the Twentieth Century, I
struck with my fist. Maffei staggered under the blow, his thrust went awry. It
glanced along Lorenzo's neck.

"Beware, Your Magnificence!" I cried, and struck
Maffei again, a roundabout right.

He turned halfway toward me, catching my knuckles on the
point of his chin. Down he floundered in a flurry of black robes, and I set my foot
on his dagger hand. The weapon clanked on the floor, and I kicked it away.

All had become howling confusion. My gas, I saw, would not
affect only Guaracco's party, but the whole congregation. I dared not release
it. At last I thought to draw my sword.

Across the octagonal space, chairs were overturning and
horrified people were scurrying and gesticulating. For a moment I saw
Giuliano's blue velvet form struggling on the floor, while Francesco de Pazzi,
with his knee on Giuliano's breast, struck viciously with his dagger. Other
swords were out on all sides.

"Down with the Medici oppressors!" I heard
Guaracco trumpeting.

A CHEER answered him, for the service had been liberally
attended by members of the conspiracy.

The cardinal, his young eyes wide with horror, was drawing
back from the altar, and a priest in black robes was trying to lead him away.
Maffei had risen, and was running before my sword-point. I turned to see what
was happening to Lorenzo.

He had drawn his own sword, and was parrying the wild
dagger thrusts of Bagnone, but his wound streamed blood and the terrified Poliziano
hampered him by clinging to him.

I hurried to them and thrust hard at Bagnone, but my
stroke was turned, for as Guaracco had done the night before, this conspirator
wore mail under his gown. Yet the digging jab drove him back. I gestured toward
a doorway with my weapon. "Is that the sacristy?" I shouted.
"Get him in there and bolt the door!"

"Giuliano!"
Lorenzo was
shouting back. "Is Giuliano safe?"

But I gave him an unceremonious shove, and a moment later
Poliziano had dragged him to the threshold.

"Down with the Medici!" yelled Guaracco again.

His voice was near, and I faced around upon him and half a
dozen of his supporters who were rushing to cut Lorenzo off. I threw myself in their
way, quickly wadding my cloak into a shield, and engaged several blades at
once. I heard the clang of the door behind me, and the shooting of the bolts.

"Medici! Medici!" I roared, fencing off my
assailants.
"Murder!
Help, honest men, murder is
being done!"

"Medici!" someone echoed, and never have I heard
a sweeter voice. A robust cavalier in plum-purple hurried to my side. He, too,
had a sword, and struck manfully at the conspirators. His example fired others.
In a trice the entire floor of the choir was a melee of jabbering voices and clashing
steel.

Several armored guardsmen made their appearance. I saw
Guaracco fleeing. I followed suit, for I remembered that Lorenzo, whose life I
had just saved, had doomed me.

The public square outside the cathedral was swiftly
jamming with people, some armed and angry, others frightened and mystified. All
were talking at once, and nearly all were shouting

"Medici! Medici!" In this quarter, at least, the
people were for their ruler. A fellow in a jerkin of falding, with gray hair
and a cast in his eye, stopped me with a fierce clutch even as I emerged from
the cathedral.

"Is it true that Ser Giuliano de Medici is
slain?" he asked.

"I fear so," I replied. "I saw him struck
down."

The gray head shook dolefully, but the one good eye
lighted up.

"Come to the Palazzo Publico, young sir," the
man urged me. "There is good sport there."

"What sport?" I asked, panting from the
excitement.

"Salviati and some cutthroats went up to seize the
magistrates. But the most of them were trapped in a room. The door had a spring
lock."

Joy surged into me. My device had worked.

"How then?"
I cried.

"Some guards, and friends of the Medici, came and
seized the lot," he replied with relish. "Even now they are being
hanged from the windows, like hams on a rafter."

"FIERCE as it sounded, the news came gladly to my
ears. Guaracco's conspiracy had failed in part at the
cathedral,
it had failed utterly at the palace. But I had no time for rejoicing. Elsewhere
in the city was rising fresh
danger.

"Nay, come with me," I bade my new friend.
"I know of better sport still." I raised my voice. "Hark, all true
Florentines and servants of the Magnificent! Who will fight for the

Medici?"

"I!" stoutly called a youth, brandishing a
cudgel. "And I!" came another volunteer. "I! I! I!"
chorused others. Half a score offered themselves in as many seconds.

"Then follow," I said, and set off at a trot for
the Pazzi quarter. I now held a bottle of chlorine gas in each hand. The
fellows set up a shout, of enthusiasm or excitement, and ran at my heels.

We had not far to run. Out of a narrow side street road a
man on horseback—a square-faced man, bright of eye and straight of back for all
the whiteness of his hair. He wore goldfiligreed armor on chest and legs, and waved
a sword. Armed footmen came at his heels. "
Liberty
!
Liberty
!" he was shouting.
"Overthrow the oppressors!"

He must be Giacopo de Pazzi, the aged but sturdy head of
the rebellious family. Behind him were marshalled the retainers of his house, a
good hundred—and dangerous looking. And masses of citizenry pressed from other streets
to stare, perhaps to join. There was nothing for it but audacity.

"
Medici !"
I thundered
in return to the Pazzi slogan, and flourished one of the gas-bottles as though it
were a battle flag.
"Forward, loyal Florentines!
Smite the assassins!"

My own following set up a shout, and pressed forward with
me. I had more adherents than I had thought at first; doubtless we had been
reenforced by others as we passed along the street. But Giacopo de Pazzi was not
the man to be daunted. He had come out looking for trouble, and seemed glad to
find it. Yelling a warcry, he came toward us at a trot. His horse alone would
scatter my band, for we were all afoot. I made a decision, and hurled my first
gas bottle.

It burst on the pavement several yards ahead of the old
man, and he checked and stared. I ran close and threw the second.

It smashed even closer to him. The cloud of gas, rising
and mixing with the air, must have been driven sharply into his eyes and nose,
as well as into the nostrils of his horse. The poor beast snorted and reared.
Giacopo de Pazzi kept his seat with difficulty. Coughing, he dropped his sword
and clutched at his throat with his hand.

A moment later his frightened steed, out of control, had
sidled into the foremost of his own men, throwing them into disorder.

The onlookers knew less of what had happened than Giacopo
de Pazzi, but he had lost command of the situation, and the balance of approval
tilted from him. Hoots and jeers rang in the air.

"Medici!" I screamed again.

"
Medici !
Medici
!
" echoed back from all sides.

I hurried almost into the midst of the Pazzi party. From
my belt I tore my third and last bottle bomb, and threw it. It broke only a few
feet from me, and the fumes blinded and strangled me as well as others. I
retreated as best I might, coughing and dabbing at my tear-filled eyes. But, though
I could not see, that final dose of irritating gas must have completed the job
of halting the rush to dominate the city.

I heard an increasing hubbub of loud shouts for the
Medici, and when my vision cleared at last, I saw a flash of armor. Guardsmen
were making their appearance, threatening the parade with swords and pikes. I
saw the foremost armed servants of the Pazzi faltering and drawing back, crumpling
the head of the column. Some darted to right and left, losing
themselves
in the crowd.

Giacopo de Pazzi had recovered somewhat from his taste of
chlorine. He was no coward, but he knew when he was beaten. He spurred quickly around
a corner and away before we could reach him and drag him from the saddle.

I thought that he might reach the gates and escape, and
did not begrudge him that boon. To me he seemed the least grisly of all that
group of rascally plotters.

An officer of the guard passed close to me, and I hailed
him. "How goes it at the palace?" I asked.

"The rebels are all taken or slain," he
answered. "His Magnificence is safe, and has spoken from a balcony, begging
that there be no more butchery, and asking that the survivors be delivered to
fair trial. He urges peace, even while his tears stream for his dead
brother."

"It is not over yet," I admonished him.
"Keep watch on the gates. Some mercenaries have been gathered there to
help the conspiracy."

"They will never enter this city," he assured
me.

I turned from him toward the
Arno
. There
was one more thing to do, and it lay with me to do it.

*Giatopo de Pazzi was a simple and decent man, who might
not have approved of the entire conspiracy. He was later captured, and his
mutilated body tossed into the
Arno
. Another
conspirator, Bandini, was a fugitive for months, but was finally haled back to
Florence
and hanged from the Palazzo Publico

The
Christening

CLOSE to the riverside, Guaracco's house neved looked so
quiet and yet so forbidding. I ran to the door and tried it. From within a
voice challenged me quietly, cautiously.

"I am from Guaracco!" I called at once.
"All is lost in the city."

There was a rattling of Chains, as if the barrier was
being lowered, and I did not wait for the door to open. With my shoulder I bore
strongly against it, and it creaked back. A cry of profane execration greeted me.
One of the dwarfs, the ugly one I had stunned the night before, swung up his
curved sword. But my own point was quickly in his throat and he crumpled on the
threshold, his oaths dying into a blood-choked gurgle. I hurried inside without
waiting for him to cease struggling.

"Lisa!" I shouted as I ran through room after
room. "Lisat where are you?"

"Leo!"

It was muffled, little louder than a whisper, but I,
having come into the kitchen, traced the direction of her voice. She was
beneath me. In the floor showed a great cleated hatchway. She must be in the
cellar, among Guaracco's stacked weapons. Seizing the iron ring that served as
handle for the door, I heaved it up. Light gleamed from below.

There was no ladder or other way down, but I swung myself
into the hole, landing upright on the earthen cellar floor. She was there,
seated like a stone figure upon a great chest that must be full of ammunition.
Beyond were the stairs that led to the front of the house. Her eyes sought mine
in the lantern light.

"Leo," she murmured, as softly as the sigh of
wind heard far away. "You have come back."

"Fly away from here!" I gasped at her.
"These devil's machines and weapons shall be destroyed within the minute.
And we are leaving
Florence
forever—before
Guaracco
finds
us. Or Lorenzo does either."

"But I must stay," she protested, as though she
reminded me of the obvious. "I was told to wait."

"Told by Guaracco!"
I cried
hotly, for it now was manifest to me that he had bound her to her place by
hypnotism, stronger than shackles.

"Guaracco, yes."
Her
head dipped a little in agreement. "He said that all would be well. A new
Florence
would be built, with no oppression."

"Lies, lies!"
I cried
passionately. "He tried to form himself a devil's kingdom here, erected on
spilt blood and corpses." I caught her hand. "Come, Lisa!"

I got her to her feet, but it was like lifting a straw
dummy.

"I was told to wait, Leo," she said.

My hands seized her shoulders, and I tried to shake her
into consciousness. "Lisa, do you love me? Or is that only an illusion,
too, turned on and off by Guaracco like the spigot of a wine cask?"

"Love you, yes." She was definite enough.

"Then come, I say." I backed toward the stairs,
drawing her along with me. She looked ahead, and saw something. Her eyes
widened, her mouth opened to cry out.

"Leo—danger!"

She tore from my grasp and scurried around me so that she
was between me and the stairs. I turned on my heel only swiftly enough to see what
she had seen.

GUARACCO had descended upon me and his hand was lifted,
holding something that gleamed. I heard the bark of an
explosion,
saw a sudden ghostly puff of smoke. And Lisa sagged against me, into my arms. Her
eyes were suddenly bright and wakeful again, and her mouth tremblingly smiled.
I eased her slackening body to the floor. I knew that she was dead.

"Do not move, Leo!" warned Guaracco hastily.
Still at the foot of the stairs, he leveled his weapon at me pointblank.
"This fires six shots! It is one of the guns I made according to the
science I gleaned from you."

It was, indeed, a revolver. His thumb had drawn up the
hammer, and the muzzle stared me between the eyes. I gathered for a spring, but
paused. I did not fear to die, but I feared that Guaracco might live.

"You have failed," were the first words I spoke
to him.

"Failed?" His eyes flickered down toward Lisa.
With his rebellion crumpled around his head, he could still smile in triumph.

"Failed," I said again. "Lisa was under
your spell, but she broke it to save my life. She loved me. Her love was more
than your dirty conjuring tricks."

"True, true," he admitted smoothly. "And I
am glad, after all, that she did save your life. Leo, there is still time and
opportunity for us to help each other."

I curled my lip in contempt, but he went on:

"Many have died today. Why should we? If you do not
understand, Leo, look at what else I bring,"

His free left hand extended toward me, and between thumb
and finger flashed a globule of rosy-silver light.

"It is a pearl," he intoned in a new voice.
"The pearl of sleep, Leo.
Look upon it!"

I looked. I felt my senses sway, but held them firm. It
was only a pearl. The light did not wax or blur or brighten. I was resisting
his spell. It was only a pearl that Guaracco held, trying to spellbind me with
it. But I stared, and would not let it have power over me.

"You are going to sleep, Leo," Guaracco was
intoning. "To sleep—and all is well between us."

I gazed, my mind at work. A way opened to revenge and
victory, if I were cunning. Slowly, stiffly, simulating a trance, I made a step
toward him. He thought himself the winner.

"Leo, Leo, I am your friend," he tried to din
into me. "I am Guaracco, who adopted you as his cousin, made you great and
wealthy. And you will be grateful and help Guaracco. You will tell Lorenzo de
Medici that Guaracco, too, fought to put down this conspiracy. Those who can
testify otherwise are dead."

It would have worked had he been able truly to impose his
will. I let him deceive himself, and took another step. We were almost within
arm's reach of each other. The leveled revolver was bigger and brighter to my gaze
than the pearl. I kept my face gravenly rapt, my eyes staring, but I was awake
and resolute. Would he suspect?

"Once we are believed, we can still work together,
Leo," Guaracco was insisting. "Plan again, and better and bigger. We
may yet rule the world!"

I threw myself upon him.

HE pulled trigger, but my right hand was upon the
revolver. Pain bit my thumb, that had thrust itself between breech and hammer,
and the firing pin drove deep into the base of the nail. A moment more and I wrenched
it away and flung it behind me. It exploded with the shock, and the bullet sang
into the beam overhead. A moment later we had both drawn swords.

"You triple traitor!" howled Guaracco, parrying
my first lunge. "Come then, if you will have death this way!"

I made no reply, but deflected his riposte—the trick he
had learned from me. His chest was exposed to a return riposte, but I knew the
mail that defended it, and swept my blade in a quick arc. He got his brow out
of the way with millimeters to spare. Falling back, he tried to clutch at another
pistol, one of a heap in an open box, but I nicked at his outflung hand, and
got home. He whimpered. Two of his fingers soared away, and blood fountained
forth.

"Wait, Leo!" he changed his tune at once.
"I must not die, if you expect to live and—"

I did not expect to live, and made him no answer. His
sword was up, and I beat it momentarily aside and slashed at his face. Quickly
he parried, but only half-broke the force of the blow. His cheek was laid open,
and his beard suddenly
gleamed
a deeper red.

"The time reflector," he yammered at me, on
sudden inspiration. "Only I can show you how to rebuild, improve,
get
back to your own age!"

He should have saved his breath, for he was panting and
choking. His thrusts were unsteady, easy to foil.

My digging lunge at his belly, while it did not pierce the
chain mail, drove most of the wind out of him. It drove out the fight, too. He
tried to retreat to the stairs, but misjudged and brought his back against the
plankfaced wall. He threw down his sword and lifted his hands.

"Mercy!" he begged. "I surrender! Leo!"

His unwounded right palm spread itself against a stout
timber. I darted my point at it, all my weight behind.

A tremulous, unmanned howl from Guaracco—his hand was
spiked to the wood by my blade, like a big pale spider on a bodkin.

Then I let go my hilt and stepped back. I spared no eye to
my enemy's plight, nor ear to his prayers.

Lisa lay still and misty pale, but there
was no blood on her calm face.

I closed her eyes, straightened her body and folded her
hands upon her quiet breast. In her last instant of life her mouth had fallen
into the little close-lipped smile I had known.

Kneeling almost to earth, I kissed her once, and her face
was still warm.

"Leo, Leo!" sobbed Guaracco in shameless
entreaty. "What will you do?"

He was trying to seize my sword and wrench it away, but
the point was tightly wedged in the wood and his free left hand, shorn half in
two by my previous stroke, could not grip the hilt. He remained a prisoner.

I let my actions answer him. From its peg I snatched the
lantern. With my foot I stirred some straw and rubbish into a mass against the
foot of a barrel. He saw what I intended.

"There is gunpowder in that barrel!" he
shrieked.

I knew it, but still I spoke him no word. With all my
strength I dashed the lantern down. The glass shattered, the straw blazed up.
And then I raced away up the steps. Behind me fire gushed up luridly.

AT the door of the house I almost trampled upon Guaracco's
remaining dwarf, the handsomer one.

He stared at me in mute horror, then at the glow behind
me. He seemed to read in my face what had happened, for he scuttled past and
dived into that flaming cellar as into a swimming bath.

"Master!
Master!" he
screamed.

I gained the street, ran along it for more than a score of
paces before the whole world seemed to turn into thunder and lightning. I was
flung to my face, skinning my cheek on the pavement, but I rose and ran on.
That was the end of Guaracco's house—his weapons—his dwarf—himself—Lisa. Nothing
remained for me to do save to go and give myself up to Lorenzo.

In the evening I stood in the groined, frescoed chamber
where first the ruler of
Florence
had given me audience. Lorenzo de Medici was seated opposite in his chair of
state, across the ebony and ivory table. His collar hung loose over his neck
bandage, but otherwise he was the same

Lorenzo as ever—alert, self-contained, far-thinking, "I
am driven to believe all points of your strange story," he said gently. "And
no one can deny that you have saved
Florence
and me. Poliziano says so, and so do the officers of the guard. I grant you
full pardon, and I ask you to pardon me. It seems that I drove you away once by
my misjudgment. It shall not happen again."

I bowed thanks, but I could think only of Lisa. He read
that tragic thought.

"Sorrow touches you, my friend, as it has touched me.
My brother died today, as did your sweetheart. But perhaps work will comfort us
both, and
Florence
hath need of my
rule and your science."

"You are right, Magnificence," I agreed.

"Yours will be a great laboratory," he promised.
"
Aye,
and a studio of your own, in the gardens of
San Marco.
Above all, honor and safety.
But one chief
change must be made in you."

"And that?"

"This matter of your strange
journey from another age which, though I believe, I do not begin to understand.
It must remain a secret between us. Since the death of Guaracco and your lady
Lisa, you and I alone know it. Others might think you a devil's apostle, and
urge that you be borne to the stake." He paused, pursed his lips, as if completing
some decision. "Therefore it is expedient that we provide you with an
ordinary birth and family among us—a father, and all the rest."

"A father?"
I echoed
him, not comprehending.

"Aye, that. I know the very man—an attorney who is in
my confidence, and who has several children already. If I ask it, he will
gladly own you as yet another son. The records can be arranged in various
offices to make it believeable. Forget that barbarous,

unpronounceable
surname of yours.
The name of the attorney, your new father, is Piero da Vinci."

"Da Vinci!"

I sank back into my chair, implications rushing upon me
with bewildering shock and speed.

"Leave all arrangements to me," said Lorenzo.
"It is my peculiar talent to make perfect all such little things."
His bitterly ugly face grew suddenly beautiful with that warm smile of his.
"From this day forward you are Leo—no, Leonardo da Vinci."

And I knew the rich life given me to lead, as crown of the
age and inspiration of ages to come. My scientific gropings will show the way
to doctors, master engineers. My paintings will dazzle nations. Michelangelo will
hate me too much, and Raphael
admire
me too much, but
both will be the better for my examples.

One greatest picture I shall create, with LaGioconda as
model to be sure, but preserving the smile and spirit of Lisa, Mona Lisa. And I
shall die old and great, with kings weeping for me.

I am Leonardo da Vinci.