The Loved and the Lost (44 page)

The older Hansum appeared in the shadow of a heavy cart laden with the wares of a merchant who had tried earlier to flee the city with his family. They were now lying under the cart, all dead.

“Time?” Hansum asked Sideways.

“The Podesta will be arriving in about a minute,” Sideways reported. The gate to the city started to open, pushed and pulled by a phalanx of straining soldiers. The miserable souls inside became excited and converged on the gate, but were pushed back by other soldiers. Then in came half a dozen mounted knights, followed by an ornate carriage.

“Here we go,” the older Hansum said, and Sideways's face disappeared into what looked like robes of a simple priest. Hansum stepped into the open and joined the throng of people pleading and gesturing up to the carriage's inhabitant. Hansum stood silently until he saw the Podesta Mastino della Scalla. The noble was peering through the window, ignoring the entreaties of the citizens, but looking out at what must be a first glimpse of his city since the plague hit.

“I have word of Romero Monticelli, Excellency,” Hansum called and, as expected, Mastino locked eyes with him.. The noble called for the wagon to stop. Soldiers ran to block the carriage from the rabble, but Mastino beckoned Hansum forward.

“What?” the Podesta asked the old priest in front of him. “What about Romero? Is he ill?”

“No, Excellency. He is not ill, though he is in danger.” Hansum looked around at the faces of the soldiers and citizens listening. He looked up at Mastino. “Excellency, there is much to tell. Vital, timely news. May I join you?”

After the soldiers checked Hansum for weapons, he was up in the carriage, sitting opposite della Scalla.

“Who are you?” Mastino asked.

“My name is Father Benjamin.”

“What are you to Romero?”

“I . . . am his father,” Hansum said.

“His confessor?”

“No. He has my blood in his veins.” There was no need to explain further to a man with many bastards. “To my shame, I made him,” Hansum continued his story, “but I have followed his life and am proud of his accomplishments. I had him raised by my brother and watched from afar. I never met him. Now that he is established, with your permission, I will reveal myself.”

“To take advantage of his new wealth?” Mastino asked suspiciously.

“No. To protect him. And to do that, I must tell you, his benefactor, what I know.”

“Tell me then.”

“Well, first, he is already married.”

A few minutes later, after hearing more fiction mixed with fact, Mastino got the attention of the driver.

“Take me to the della Cappa house before we go to the palace. Immediately.”

As in the original timeline, the younger Hansum, Shamira and Lincoln were together in one of the many comfortable bedrooms of the palace. Hansum was asleep on the floor and the young Lincoln was lying on top of the bed with his broken arm. Barred from their house, they had struggled through the rain and plague-infested Verona only to find the palace with no doctors, carriages or spare soldiers to retrieve Guilietta by force.

After a fitful night's sleep, the young Hansum awoke to someone shaking his shoulder. He looked up and saw the Podesta standing above him.

“The city has gone mad, Excellency,” he said, jumping to his feet.

“The whole world,” Mastino replied.

“There's dead in the streets,” Hansum said, starting a speech designed to convince the Podesta to help him get Guilietta. “People are blaming evil spirits . . .” but Mastino was ignoring him and waved some people into the room. “Even my own has gone mad,” the young Hansum went on. “Guilietta's father thinks I am to blame for his daughter's illness and that we are in league with the . . .”

“Put her on the bed,” Mastino said to two men at opposite ends of a stretcher. “You boy, get off,” he ordered Lincoln.

A nun and a monk were blocking Hansum's view of who was on the litter. The nun wore a full wimple and a veil covered her face. She pulled back the blankets and motioned for the soldiers to hold the litter close to the bed. Another woman followed, along with an elderly priest. Hansum was becoming flustered with all the activity deflecting attention away from what was most important to him.

“Please listen to me, Excellency,” Hansum continued. “Master della Cappa has forbid me to come into his house and I cannot get in to rescue . . .” and then he saw who they were lifting onto the bed. “. . . Guilietta.” Hansum stared in amazement. There she lay, eyes closed. The veiled nun was tucking in the covers and smoothing her hair over one of the plush pillows.

Hansum fell to his knees and leaned against the bed.

“Guilietta!” He fought back tears. “How?”

“I received word of your dilemma,” Mastino said compassionately, “What else was I to do for my savant?”

Still on his knees, Hansum swung around to the Podesta and grabbed his hands.

“Grazzi, Excellency. Grazzi,” he said kissing them.

“Also thank Father Benjamin. He is the one who found me at the gates and bid my help. And the one who arranged the monk physician, the silent sister and the medicine you were seeking.”

The older Hansum, as Father Benjamin, stepped forward and smiled down at his younger self.

“Grazzi, Father. It was very . . .” and then it hit the younger Hansum. “You know about the medicine?”

Father Benjamin held up two fingers, as if to give a blessing, but then placed them at his temples, an unquestioningly familiar gesture.

“We're here to help,” he said in Earth Common to the astounded teens, “but things have gotten complicated. Remain calm and play along. All of you.”

Hansum's eyes bugged out. His jaw dropped. He turned to the younger Shamira and Lincoln, whose arm was in a sling. The three put their hands to their own necks and pressed the language nodes.

“Who are you? Why didn't you show up earlier . . .” Hansum began.

“All that later,” Father Benjamin said. “Right now we must save Guilietta.”

Hansum nodded dumbly and turned back to the other two teens, who were equally bereft of words. And then, as the consequences of what was happening began to compute, the younger Hansum smiled at his ailing Guilietta.

“Excuse the rudeness of talking in a foreign language before you, Excellency,” the older Hansum said to Mastino della Scalla.

“Did you tell him who you are?”

“Not yet, Excellency. A bit at a time, under the circumstances.”

The young Hansum's face was very close to Guilietta. He touched her cheek.

“Her skin feels normal,” he said with wonder.

“Yes, the silent sister's medicine has already had its good effect,” Hansum as Father Benjamin said. “Her color has come back.”

“The medicine. You made the medicine we were trying to get?” young Shamira asked.

“We gave it to her an hour ago,” the fake priest answered. “It was a good recipe you were given,”

“Yes, Pan knows what he's talking about . . .” and then the younger Hansum stopped. To him, Pan had been killed not a dozen hours earlier. He looked over at the veiled nun. She looked back at him with two very green eyes.

“Romero,” a soft voice whispered. Both Hansums watched as Guilietta slowly opened her sleepy eyes. “Romero. Where?”

“You're at the palace, darling,” young Hansum said tenderly. “You're going to get better, Guilietta. You're going to get better.” Guilietta looked all around her; at the large, opulent room, at all the people standing about, then down at the beautiful sheets and blankets. “You're safe, Guilietta. You're going to get better.”

“Father Benjamin tells me this medicine should most definitely stop any inner mortification,” the Podesta said. “And, as he suggested, my men sent Father Lurenzano packing with orders not to associate with your family again. All the wine has been removed from the house. I will send a carriage for Master della Cappa and his wife tomorrow. When your wife is better, Romero, you can take them all to your estate for safe keeping.”

“Thank you, Excellency,” young Hansum said. “I very much appreciate . . .” and he stopped. The Podesta, the man who controlled every aspect of his life had referred to Guilietta as . . . his wife.

“That's right, Romero,” Mastino said, his face serious. “I know. I know . . . everything.” And then he laughed. “It would have been much better if you had told me earlier. Oh, how it would have simplified things. What you put me through.”

“Excellency, I'm sorry. I never meant to . . .”

Mastino made a soft sound, blowing through his lips and waving his hand. “It's done, it's done. We all have reasons, and good and bad comes from what we do. Who's to know what will happen except God? Lucky for you, eh, you're my savant and have given me lookers and cannons, eh?”

“Ow,” Guilietta said, wincing slightly.

The woman who had been standing silently in the corner came forward and put her hand on Guilietta's midriff.

“Does it hurt here, my dear?” the woman asked.

“Si. Si, a little.”

“She should stay abed and not travel,” the woman said.

“Who is this?” Hansum asked. “Another herbalist?” Given Guilietta's last experience with a woman the Podesta had provided, he was suspicious.

“I know of herbs for my trade, Signor,” the woman said, “but I am not a herbalist.”

“What trade are you then?” Hansum asked.

“A midwife, of course.”

“A midwife?” Hansum asked. “Why?”

The woman looked astonished.

“Why? Why?” the Podesta laughed. “Oh, my savant, a midwife because your wife is with child.”

The younger Shamira and Lincoln shrieked with laughter, bouncing up and down. Young Hansum on the other hand was stunned mute.

“With ch . . . child?” he stammered.

Mastino laughed uproariously again. “Was your head in the clouds when you did the deed, my savant? Another reason not to punish you. You no longer are just my vassal, but as the head of the house for a wife and child, you are in servitude to both for life! Ha. And I get to watch.”

Hansum looked over to Guilietta. She looked back with apprehension.

“I'm going be . . . a father?” he asked.

“Si,” she nodded.

A smile broke out on Hansum's face. “I'm going to be a father. We're going to have a baby,” and he kissed his wife as everyone cheered.

“Quietly, quietly,” the midwife warned, to little effect.

“Father Benjamin, I must go,” the Podesta said. “While life is blooming here, thousands die all through my lands. Let us pray we survive to see all our dreams and schemes come to pass.”

The older Hansum-as-priest looked back at this complicated man. For decades he had blamed him for so much. He was a tyrant, a man of war, but also a builder of buildings still admired a thousand years past his death. The della Scalla name still graced one of the most famous places where opera was sung, and Mastino's progeny went on to be some of the most influential kings, queens and statesmen across Europe for centuries.

“I shall add my prayers to the many,” the older Hansum answered. “Perhaps things may pass for the better this time.”

“This time?” Mastino enquired.

Oops. Hansum thought what to say. “Our Prince of Peace, Cristo, showed us the way over a thousand years past, and still we have not fulfilled his dream of a world where love and brotherhood rule. Many have tried, but still our world is . . . what it is.”

The teens were giggling and laughing on the bed, all thrilled at their turn of fortune. Mastino put his hand on the shoulder of the man he knew as Father Benjamin and turned to walk to the door with him.

“Who knows, Father. Maybe with the cannons and ideas God gives my savant, perhaps I can be the man to tame this world. What do you think? Has God given the son of your seed such inspiration? Was this his plan, disguised in what you thought your sin?”

Now in the hall, the two men turned and looked at each other. The older Hansum chose his words carefully.

“Only God knows the future. At least we hope he does. But maybe it's up to us.”

“You talk like no priest I've ever met, Father. Truly, tell me what you think. I like you and will not tell the bishop.”

“Excellency. I think you will do what you will and others will do the same. It is in this clash where both inspiration and grief are forged. It has been over thirteen hundred years since the years of our Lord began, and I fear it will take the same number before his vision is fulfilled.” Mastino could not know that he was hearing actual future history.

“You see things clearly, Father Benjamin. It is an ability few have.” Hansum did not answer. A servant ran up the hall to them.

“Baron da Pontramoli needs you urgently, Excellency.”

“I must go, Father. I'm glad I stopped for you this morning.” He began to leave and turned. “You know, Father, when you hold your face like that, I can see you as you must have been in your youth. Much like our Romero.”