Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1940 (9 page)

Almost—

NOW.
if
ever, I can offer proof that this is not fiction. If it were, and I were the
hero, I would have tried to slaughter Guaracco there in the camp before sacked
Volterra, despite his triumphant exhibition of the mammoth alum-crystal,
despite his ready explanations,

despite
the pistol he kept ready
in his hand. That would have been the honorable, the courageous,
the
dramatic course.

But it happens that the story is true, and that I was, and
am of human clay. For two years, Guaracco had alternately intimidated and
cajoled me, with judicious applications of hypnotic influence. My ultimate
emotion was only one of hopeful relief. If this be shameful, make the most of
it.

We left the camp together, almost like friends, with some
peasant attendants and a two-wheeled cart to carry the piece of alum. We did
not go directly to
Florence
, but
sought a rather rough road that took us around and then to Guaracco's house.
There we placed the alum, with infinite care and numerous helping hands, in the
cellar workshop.

Guaracco assuredly knew more about grinding lenses than I
did. Probably it was one more Twentieth- Century science he had developed from
his hypnotic interviews with my subconscious self. Too, the alum was a larger
and softer piece of raw material than the fragments of glass I had worked with.
In one day he roughed it into shape, and in two more, with the help of the
swordsmith, he made of it a perfect double-convex lens.

This, two feet in diameter, was a graygleaming discus that
dealt weirdly with light.

At length the time came for the machine to be assembled.
We took our place in the same upstairs chamber from which, in that Twentieth
Century which would now reclaim me, I had
vanished ;
the same where my friend Astley waited, at my direction, prepared for my
return.

I helped to bolt the rods into a framework, and lifted
into place Guaracco's battery, a massive but adequate thing inside a bronze
case worked over in strange bas-reliefs.

I think that case came from the Orient. It was to do the
work I had done with many smaller batteries in my first reflector. Into sockets
fitted his electric light globes, most cunningly wrought—again by Guaracco, in
secret.

"They are not the best," he said. "I understand,"
and he smiled wispily, as always when he referred to his findings through
hypnosis, "that an element called vanadium is the best for the filaments
inside."

"It is more than the best—it
is necessary," I pronounced. That much stuck in my mind.

He shook his head. "I have
used manganese. That, I have come to believe"—and again his wispy
smile—"is almost as good.
Obtainable, too, as vanadium
is not."
He cocked his lustrous eyes upward. "Did you not once
predict, my dear adopted Cousin, that a Genoese friend of the Vespucci family—
Colombo
—would
discover a new world in the west?"

"I did."

"And is not vanadium to be
mined in those latitudes? . . .
Just so.
But not elsewhere.
We must make this substance serve."

He studied the camera apparatus, slipped
the lens of alum into place and secured it with clamps. Then he set the time
gauge.

"May first,
nineteen thirty-nine
," he said aloud. "And so
much allowance for the coming change in calendar which you predict. It was on
May first,
nineteen thirty-nine
that
your

friend
was
to bring in a carcass from which your structure would be reapproximated, eh?"
He straightened up from his tinkering. "Now, Leo, do you wish to say
good-by to Lisa?"

I HAD not forgotten her, had fought
against thinking too much of this sweet, restrained girl whom I refused as a
gift from Guaracco, but to whom my heart turned in spite of all. His speaking
her name wakened certain resolutions I had made. I left the room immediately.

She was lingering in the upper hall
just outside the door, dressed in a girdled gown of blue, and a bonnetlike headdress.
Her dark eyes gleamed like stars—they were filled with tears.

"Lisa!" I called her, in
a voice I could not keep steady. "Lisa, child, I have come to say—to say—

"Farewell?" she tried to
finish for
me,
and her face drooped down into hands. I
could not but catch her in my arms, and kiss her wet cheeks.

"Don't cry," I begged her. "Don't, my dear.
Listen, while I swear to come back, to hurry back—"

"We shall not meet again," Lisa sobbed.

"I will come back," I insisted.

"Since this second machine remains here, it will take
us eventually into the age from whence I came, and then—"

"Us," she repeated, trying to understand.

"I will rescue you from this century, and this
fantastic world and chain of sorrows," I promised.

Guaracco cleared his throat. We looked up, and moved
apart, for his head was thrusting itself around the edge of the door.

"Lisa," he said, "I leave certain preparations
in your hands. At this time tomorrow, bring into the room with the machine a
slaughtered calf—"

Turning from the girl, as Guaracco continued to talk, I
hurried into the room and closed the door behind me. I saw that the power of
the machine was turned on, the light gleaming blue-gray through the lens, the
misty screen sprung up in the framework. Once passed, it was 1939 beyond. . . .

And then I saw that Guaracco was removing the last of his
clothes.

"What does this mean?" I demanded of him.

He confronted me, a naked figure of baskety leanness.

"I have decided to make the journey through time
instead of you."

"But I—" The words broke on my astonished lips.

"No arguments," said Guaracco. "It is too
late." And he sprang into the midst of the framework, and through the veil
of fog.

For a moment I saw him beyond in the room, as fragile as a
man of soapbubbles,

less
than a ghost. I gazed, waiting
for him to fade away completely.

But his substance thickened again, took back its color. I
saw the pink of his skin, the red of his beard, the gleam of his abashed eyes.
He staggered on the floor, as on the deck

of
a ship. He was still in his
own age.

The reflector was a failure.

I laughed triumphantly and almost jauntily, and half
sprang at him. But he slumped down on a chair, still naked. So much gloom had
fallen around and upon him that part of my anger left me. My clenched fists
relaxed, my denouncement stuck in my throat. He had tried to trick me, to shove
himself
into my own age at my expense—but it had not
worked. I only paraphrased Robert Burns. "The best-laid plans of mice and men,"
I taunted, "go oft astray."

HE looked up and stared at me for a full minute—yes, at
least sixty seconds—before making any reply.

"I can understand your feelings," he muttered
then, as humbly as a child caught in a jam closet. "Once more, I thought,
I had tricked my way ahead of you. But I reap the reward of my sinful
vanity."

I was amazed. This was nothing like Guaracco. "Do not
tell me," I jeered, "that you repent."

His hand wrung the point of his beard. "Is it not
permitted the proudest and foulest wrongdoer to say that he has done ill?"
His head bowed almost upon his bare, scrawny

knees
. "Leo, let me make my
poor excuses. My heart was full of zeal for what I should behold and learn, five
centuries in the future. It would be to me what heaven is to the true churchman.
And now, without even a glimpse—"

At last he rose. He held out a trembling hand. He seemed
suddenly grown old and frail. "Do not laugh or reproach. I have been
deceitful, but let me make amends. We shall be true scientists and philosophers
together. Will you not forgive, and take me as your friend?"

I could not exult over so patently broken an
adversary,
and his manner of earnest humility disarmed me. I
took his hand. At once he straightened up, and his voice and bearing captured
some of the old sprightliness. "That is better, Cousin Leo—for we are
kinsmen in taste and direction, at least. What wonders shall we not
wreak
together! The world will hear of
us
!"

As he spoke, a commotion and the sound of an excited voice
came from below us. I, being dressed, ran down in place of Guaracco.

Sandro Botticelli stood facing Lisa. He was mud-spattered
and panting, as from swift riding, and his plump, pleasant face full of grave
concern.

"Leo," he said at once, "I risk my career,
perhaps my life, in warning you. Fly, and at once!"

"At once?"
I echoed, scowling
in amazement. "Why?"

He gestured excitedly. "Do not bandy words,
man," he scolded me. "Begone, I say! Lorenzo has signed a writ for
your arrest. You are a doomed man."

My mouth fell
open,
it seemed to me,
a good twelve inches.

"It
is because of what happened at Volterra," Botticelli plunged on. "That
town was sacked because of you. Lorenzo wanted alum, for your flying
machine."

"Aye,
and I got alum
— "

"But
you did not make a flying machine with it. Criticism has flamed up over the
treatment of the Volterrans, and Lorenzo needs a scapegoat. When Guaracco
informed him that you had used it deceitfully, for another purpose—"

"Guaracco!"
I roared. I saw his plan now, to usurp
my place at the time reflector, leaving me to imprisonment, perhaps death, on a
trumped-up charge. I took a step toward the stairs, for I wanted that scoundrel's
blood.

But
Botticelli came hurrying after me, and caught my arm. "I hear galloping
hoofs, Leo! The officers are coming. Run, I tell you! Run!"

At
that moment the door burst open and two officers rushed in.

Santi
Petagrini

DELIBERATELY I gazed at the men who had entered so
unceremoniously. "You are officers?" I demanded. "You are to
arrest
me ?
Where is your warrant?"

"Here it is." The chief of them drew his sword.

I was unarmed, having laid aside even my dagger for the
attempt to pass through time. Resistance was useless, and I spoke only to save
poor Botticelli from possible punishment for riding to warn me.

"You will get no reward, after all," I addressed
him with simulated spitefulness. "These gentlemen will take me to Lorenzo,
not you. It's well for you that they came. Your effort to arrest me might have
wound up in your getting hurt. I advise you to stick to paint daubing, Ser
Sandro, and not to play catchpoll again."

He stared at me in pained surprise, then in grateful
understanding. I walked out, closely guarded by the patrol, and was mounted
upon a spare horse. Then we started—but away

from
Florence
.

"Did not the Magnificent send you to seize me?"
I demanded of the leader. "Take me before him, that my case may be
heard."

They did not reply to that, or to other demands. We went
southeast, mile after mile, leaving the good main road for shorter and rougher stretches.
Once again I asked where we were going and what my fate would be, and once
again I was unanswered.

We stopped that night at a little house where a grape
grower gave us bread and cheese and wine, and subsequently shelter. I slept in front
of the fireplace, with the men

standing
watch over me in turn.

By mid-morning of the next day, we rode into the seaport
of
Rimini
, and straight to the
stone wharfs. The leader of our party sent a messenger to call ashore the
captain of a small lateen-rigged ship riding close in at anchor. He talked
aside with this captain, and gave him an official-looking document. Then I was
taken from my horse and led forward.

"Go with this ship master," ordered the chief
officer.

I
protested loudly, and one of the officers gave me a rough shove. Next instant I
had knocked him down, and the instant after that the others had swarmed upon me
throwing me to the stones of the wharf and pinioning me.

Before I was put into a skiff to go to the vessel, irons
were procured—broad, heavy cuffs, connected by a single link and fastened with
coarse locks, and clamped upon my wrists. There was no further sense in
resistance.

I was rowed out, hoisted to the half-deck, and placed in a
closetlike compartment off the captain's cabin.

We sailed at
noon
.

The captain did deign to tell me a little of what was to
befall.

"You are ordered to imprisonment, sir," he said,
"at the
Fortaleza
degli Santi
PeJagrini—the Fortress of the Holy Pilgrims."

I have never heard of it, and said so.

"It is a great grace and service to heaven," the
captain elaborated.

"Holy men built it, two good centuries gone, for an
abbey. But the heathen Turk, who flouts true belief and seeks to conquer us
all, has taken the coastline, all save this fortress alone. Because we would
hold our own, even in the teeth of Islam, it is garrisoned by the Holy
Pilgrims."

This Fortress of the Holy Pilgrims must have been locatsd
off the cooat of
Albania
,
which country was almost entirely overrun by invading Turks during the
Fifteenth Century, though no record of it seems to exist, nor any concerning
the Order of the Holy Pilgrims.

He told me about the Order of the Holy Pilgrims, as well.
They were military monks, not powerful or highborn, like the Templars of the
Knights of St. John, but simple monks, armed and trained to fight. As he
described them, they had been originally a band of common soldiers who,
reaching
Jerusalem
at the high tide
of the Crusades, forsook the world and entered the church. After the ousting of
the Christians from the
Holy Land
, they had survived and
fought on, and now stubbornly defended the island on which their
fortress-priory stood.

AND they were to be my jailers. It did me no good to
protest my innocence and my right to justice.

Lorenzo's anger, stimulated by the lies of Guaracco, had
caused him to doom me thus to imprisonment and forgetfulness without benefit of
trial. He or any other ruler of the time was able to do so, putting away a man
as easily as he might put away a book or a suit of clothes. I could be thankful
that he had not executed me. Or could I?

Five days were sailed before a light breeze, south and
slightly eastward over the waters of the
Adriatic
. I was
not permitted to go on deck, but there was a latticed port, and I saw as quickly
as any lookout the two rakish galleys, with crescent-blazoned banners, that
gave us chase on the fifth day.

For awhile it was a close race, and I thought that I might
soon exchange my enforced idleness in the little cabin for labor at a galley
oar. Then guns spoke to our front, a cheer went up from our sailors, and we
drew nigh to the defending shores of the island where
stood
the Fortress of the Holy Pilgrims
.

I was allowed on deck at last. I saw the island as a rocky
protuberance from the blue ocean, its Hattish top green with growth, and but a
single landing place—an arm of the sea, extending almost to the foot of the
great square-towered castle of gray stone that dominated all points of the
rock.

A boat was put off, with
myself
,
the captain, and some sailors to row us. I could see, afar off, the sullen Turkish
galleys.

We came to the mouth of the inlet, and found that it bore
two great lumpish towers of masonry, one at either brink, for the stretching of
a chain if enemy were to be held off.*

A skiff came forward to meet us, rowed by two tanned,
shaven-headed men in black serge robes. A third stood upright with his foot on
the thwart, a crossbow ready in his hands.

Its cord was drawn and a bolt ready in the groove.

"Who are you?" he called in a clear, challenging
voice.

"A Christian vessel, with a message and a prisoner
for you," replied our captain. A jerk of the crossbowman's shaven skull
granted us leave to enter the inlet. I could see that the monks of the fortress
wore each a symbol on his breast—a black cross, outlined in white, with a white
cockle-shell at the center, emblematic of the church and pilgrimage. The two
boats rowed inland to a dock of massive mortared stones, where we landed.

One of the monk oarsmen went swiftly ahead with the papers
the captain had brought, while the rest of us mounted more leisurely the paved slope
that led to the great gate .of the castle. I looked to right and left, on the
outdoors which I might well be leaving for a term of years.

There were some goats in a little herd; a series of
rock-bordered fields where monks with looped-up gowns were hoeing crops,
apparently of beans and barley; an arbor of grapevines.

* This chain defense for a harbor or landing was long a
favorite with fortresses. As late as the American Revolutionary War, the
British were prevented from comitiE up the
Hudson River
by a chain stretched across at
West Point
.

And, at the few spots where the steep shores relented
enough to allow one to reach the seaside, parties of fishermen seined for
sardines or speared for mullet.

The big gateway of collossal timbers, fastened with
ancient copper bolts, stood open and allowed us to pass through a courtyard.
Inside stood a row of black-robed men, armed with spears, apparently taking
part in a most unpriestly military drill. They were all tanned, lean, and
hard-faced, and handled their pikes with the precision and discipline of
trained soldiers, which indeed they were. Into the castle hall we went, then
down a corridor, and to a plain, windowless cell, lighted by a candle.

"Father
Augustino !
" respectfully
called the monk who had conducted us.

SOMEONE moved from behind the plain table of deal planks
and stood up to greet us. He was a gaunt, fierce man, who wore a robe and
symbol in no way differing from the others, yet I knew at once that here was
the master of the priory.

His shoulders rose high and broad, so that he seemed a
great black capital Y of a man, and his face, dark as a Moor's, was seamed and
cross-hatched with scars. His nose had been smashed flat by some heavy blow,
the right corner of his mouth was so notched that a tooth gleamed through, and
his left eyelid lay flat over an empty socket. The sole remaining eye quested
over us with stern appraisal.

The monk stood at attention, and offered the letter that
the captain had brought. Father Augustino opened and read it quickly, then
spoke, in the deep voice of practiced command.

"Go, Brother Pietro, and fetch Giacopo the clerk. He
shall write to Lorenzo de Medici that this prisoner will be held here as he
desires."

The monk made a gesture similar to a salute, and departed
as briskly as a well trained orderly. Father Augustino faced the captain.

"Will you partake of our humble hospitality, my
son?"

"Gladly, Holy Father," was the captain's reply.
"I dare not leave my anchorage under your guns until yonder dog galleys of
Mahound depart, in any case."

The notched mouth spread in a smile. "Nay, they shall
depart within the hour. Our own war craft will see to that. We have two armed
boats of our
own,
and not a Holy Pilgrim of us but is
worth three of the best of the Turkish pirates, whose feet have fast hold of
hell. I shall order a party out to battle."

He came forth from the cell that did duty as his office. I
noticed that he limped slightly, and that around his lean middle, outside the
gown, was belted a cross-hilt sword.

"Is this the prisoner?" he asked, turning to me.
"Prisoner, I call upon you to repent your sin."

"I do freely repent all sins that lie upon my soul,
Father Augustino," I replied at once. "Of the sin with which I stand
charged before "you I cannot repent, since of it I am entirely innocent.
The guilty are those who falsely procured my imprisonment."

"He is a lying dog," grumbled the captain, but I
thought that the scar-chopped face and single eye of the prior were lighted up,
as though he approved of my boldness.

Then another monk arrived, with a sword at his hip and a
half-pike upon his shoulder. At Father Augustino's order, he marched me away,
upstairs and along a gallery above.

We came into a corridor lined on either side with locked
doors, and full of a musty, sweaty prison smell. A porter, burly and
black-gowned, unlocked a heavy door of planking for me and pushed me inside.

My cell was some six feet by ten, with a wooden cot at the
inner end. Above this was a window, not more than a foot square, and blocked by
two crosswise bars. The walls were all of uneven cut stone, the mortar scraped
away around each for the depth of a full inch—the work of many an idle
prisoner. There was a stool, a jug for water, a wooden refuse bucket. The door
that clanged shut behind me had a wooden sliding panel, through which food could
be given me or slops poured forth into a gutter.

When I stretched, my hands reached up to the ceiling
overhead. And when I knelt on my straw mattress, I saw that my window was only a
tunnel through seven fjeet of wall.

I looked out upon a sandy shelf, and beyond that to the
sea.

This was my home, for heaven and Lorenzo de Medici knew
how long.