The Shadow Master (26 page)

“Always so many things to do,” she sighed. “Can it not wait for another day?”

“There is a wrong I must right,” he said, placing one hand on her head and stroking her forehead.

“But there is so much that is wrong with the world,” she said. “You cannot right it all.”

“That's true,” he said. “But I can at least right the wrongs that I have done.”

Now she smiled. “What wrongs have you ever done?” she asked.

“Aha,” he said. “There should be some mysteries left in a marriage.”

She held out her hand and took his both in hers. “Surely there are very few left to us after all our years together,” she said. He nodded his head. “Yes. Very few. But I have one for you before I go.”

“What?” she asked.

“A surprise,” he said. “A present.”

She sat up a little and he removed one hand to withdraw a small box from inside his jacket. She took it and turned it over and then opened it. “What is it?” she asked, lifting out a small brass object of cogs and wheels.

“Let me show you,” he said. He took out a small brass key and wound the device, and the wheels and gears clicked and turned and the object rose and changed, rising into the shape of a bird once more. His wife looked at it in amazement as it bobbed its head and opened its beak and chirped. “It is like magic.”

“Yes,” he said. “Like magic.” Then he pressed the key into her hand.

“Will you be gone long?” she asked.

“Not so long,” he said. “I will have one of the servants prepare a sleeping potion for you and when you awake I should be back again.”

She patted his hand. “You are so good to me.” He said nothing and stared into his wife's face until he couldn't bear it any longer and then said, “I wish I had been better.” Then he stood up and was gone, filled with the unshakeable belief that doing this one good thing would somehow make up for everything that he had done in his life in the service of wealthy houses. And that this one act of independence would allow a foolish old man some peace in his last years.

 

 

 

LI

Lucia understood that Galileo was fighting for his life, and yet he acted as calm and collected as if he were talking to students or friends. The puce priest had allowed the ropes binding him to be unbound so that he could stand and address them all, outlining his defence. If he had been a soldier they might have given him a dining knife and then asked him to defend himself against a dozen men armed with swords. Or if he had been a younger man they might have demanded that he engage in a tug-of-war against ten men. For she could see that the men in hessian hoods and robes had effectively blocked up their ears against his logic.

Galileo had begun by asking the priest for a clear outline of the charges against him, and when told that it was heresy for practising science he nodded his head slowly and then said, “I would like to respond to these charges in the form of a conversation between two friends. One of them, let us call him Salviatti, is interested in understanding the nature of the world around him. The other, let us call him Simplicio, has learned everything he knows of the world from the books he has in his library.” Galileo turned around to ensure everyone in the chamber could hear him. “The two friends are discussing the forces of nature, floods and maelstroms and storms, and find they have very different explanations for their existence. Simplicio states that according to his texts these acts of nature are caused by the Devil, whose drive in life is to make the lives of mankind miserable. Salviatti, however, states that he believes that such events are caused by the gods of the ancients, as a means of testing mankind. Now, it is apparent that both explanations cannot be true, so we have to find the one that is most true. Do you accept this?”

He looked around at the men about him again. The puce priest stood at the altar with his arms crossed. He considered what Galileo had said and then nodded his head for him to continue. “So, how do we determine which of the two friends has the truth of it? We could attempt to make observations to help us, but they would probably not be very illuminating and for every text we found that supports one theory, we might find another that supports the other, correct?”

Nobody said anything. Lucia looked around at the stony faces about them and felt he might as well be addressing the rocks themselves.

“But what if there was a third possibility?” Galileo said. “Not that neither was right, but rather what if both statements were able to be true at once? What if there existed a state whereby one reality could exist and another reality could exist with it?”

Lucia watched the priest shift his feet uncomfortably. “What if we could find a way of allowing these two truths to exist together? Would that not provide both a means of preventing the conflict between the two friends, and also a means of finding harmony in many conflicts that exist between people?”

He waved his arms around him, as if producing an object into his hand, and then said, “Imagine a candle, like the one your priest holds. We understand that there is one way to light it to illuminate a room. But if we change the way we think about it and turn the candle sideways we can light it at two different ends. It is still the same candle, but the light it gives out is suddenly twice as bright and will change the way it lights up a room, allowing us to see more clearly, while casting two shadows.” Lucia saw some of the men in the room frowning at the idea.

“And if we agree that such a possibility was a beneficial thing to seek, we could also imagine that there might be a way of similarly allowing the conflicting realities we see before us to coexist. And if we accept that, we should also accept that those doctrines or dogmas we have adopted, and those new realities that science allows, should be able to coexist in harmony too?”

Lucia had been long told by her father that Galileo was an evil scheming man of cunning genius, with no moral qualms, and yet she found the man both humble and eloquent and felt that amongst any other audience they would surely be moved to at least see some point in his arguments.

“For whatever knowledge we have gained of the world is only gained because we have been given the ability to gain it. How can science be heresy if it discovered through our God-given abilities to discover it? How can the existence of different understandings be wrong if we agree that it is good if both Simplicio and Salviatti agree with each other, and do not have to go to war over their different beliefs?”

Then he turned to the puce priest and said, “Your beliefs and mine can coexist with each other, and I believe that accepting this fact is the first step towards restoring the harmony to our world that will allow us to overcome the pestilence that ravages the land. Would you abandon that possibility?”

Lucia felt she should clap her hands in support of the old man, but she watched the priest's face carefully to see his reaction. She was unsure what these crazed people were going to do with her, but was certain her fate was linked to that of Galileo. She watched the priest carefully scrutinising the faces of his followers, trying to see if Galileo's words had swayed any of them. Then he turned to Galileo and said, “Your words are dangerous tools that you use to enslave those with lesser conviction than ourselves. But they only serve to condemn you as a heretic.”

“Who are you to condemn me?” Galileo demanded, and the puce priest smiled and reached up and removed his mask. Galileo gasped in surprise to see his own face reflected back at him.

“I am you,” the priest said. “And through your own words, you have admitted to practising science and so condemn yourself. You shall now proceed to the second trial. Trial by fire!” He made a gesture with his hand and the acolyte with the singed eyebrows once more brought forth the bronze bowl and the oil.

 

 

 

LII

The army of the plagued roamed across the countryside like a horde of locusts, following stories of a city of plenty, where there was no contagion, and where fine wines and foods could still be found. Where the women were unblemished and the men weak from good living.

They army had begun as a large group of vandals and outlaws, stealing and eating what they could and burning what they could not. It left its dead and dying as it went, but attracted new recruits. Lone individuals or bandit bands that were pulled along by the army's growing momentum. It grew so big it could never stay in one place for more than a few days, ravaging what crops and livestock were to be had, acting like a contagion itself, burning property and infecting the fields and forests, leaving behind pustules of festering and burned out ruins. And the infected corpses of those too weak to keep moving.

The plague army had no leader, and anyone who tried to take command of it was either supplanted by the plague or by the army itself, and crushed underfoot, so it moved like a headless serpent, thrashing sightlessly about and refusing to die. Spilling dark poison as it went. Writhing this way and that.

But it always followed the stories of the city of plenty where there was no plague. It ingested these stories, growing them until they became mythic in proportion. Rivers of wine, and warehouses of grain, and wagon loads of pheasants and ducks and quail, and beautiful women and unarmed men in a lightly defended city – just to the east, or a few leagues to the west, or perhaps to the south or north.

The plague army might have destroyed itself eventually, disintegrating back into smaller bands, riven by infighting and hunger, as it moved back across countryside it had already ravaged. But then they saw the angel in the sky. It was just like in the stories of the ancients, the beautiful, white-winged creature guiding them onwards like a bright star in the night. Leading them up through the pass in the mountains and over any obstacles placed there in their way, towards the Walled City.

 

LIII

Lucia watched in horror as the acolytes held Galileo fast and the priest gripped his hand, waving it back and forward slowly over the flames. Galileo's eyes were like a frightened horse, and he stared into the flames as if transfixed. But neither man was showing any pain. Yet.

The men around her pressed closer and Lucia wondered if she could slip away. Wondered how far she might get. Wondered if it was completely unreasonable to expect a miracle still at this moment. Now she saw the look of pain on Galileo's face. The priest looked pleased as Galileo struggled harder. She wished she somehow had the power to stop this. To bring the roof of this cavern down upon these madmen. She willed it to happen and held out her palm towards the priest at the altar as if the strange power that had allowed her to meld with metals would help her now. And she saw, to her surprise, the ceiling behind the altar start to crumble. She willed it harder. Pushed her palm as if there might be some force coming from it. Dirt and stones started raining down upon the acolytes.

And then something completely and unreasonably miraculous
did
happen. The priest and the acolytes fell back from the rubble as a giant creature emerged into the chamber. Two huge, dark eyes scanned around as Lucia wondered what type of monster she had summoned. It pushed its way fully into the chamber with two large claws and then she recognised it for what it was – a mole. A giant mole.

The acolytes ran in terror and confusion, and only the priest stayed his ground, pulling Galileo in front of him to protect himself. The other followers were in a panic, not sure whether to attack the monster or run from it. A few of the bravest ran at it with daggers, but its huge claws cut open their stomachs before they could stab it.

“Burn it,” their high priest called above the noise. “Burn the abomination.” One of the braver acolytes grasped a torch and ran at the creature. The mole's hair caught alight and then others started seizing torches and threw them at it too. “Drive it back to hell where it came from,” the priest called. Soon it was ablaze and thrashing about wildly, but, instead of retreating, the giant mole suddenly stood on its rear feet and started shedding its skin, like a snake might. Lucia stared in wonder as the mole's chest opened up to reveal a young man inside. It was Lorenzo! He had turned into a giant mole and had burrowed through the earth to save her. She felt a rise of something warm inside her chest. They were going to be together again. They could stop all this madness. But she could see, though, that he was struggling to free himself from the harness that bound him. He had one arm loose, but as the mad followers realised it was a man there, not a monster, they waved their blades and advanced on him.

“Lorenzo!” Lucia called and jumped to her feet to run towards him to help him. To protect him somehow. But then everything seemed to change. She felt a slowness overcome her and saw Lorenzo move at a startling speed. He was free from the harness and moving amongst the acolytes wielding a sword that seemed to stretch and bend, reaching out to cut down the men that attacked him. But he was not slaying them. He was cutting at the backs of their legs behind the knees, crippling them. He moved from one side of the chamber to the other, his limbs blurring too fast to easily follow. Men tried slashing their daggers about them, hoping to strike him, but he dodged them and was then behind them cutting them down. Then he was beside her, cutting her bonds, but when she reached out for him he was gone, back into the fray. Soon there were no acolytes left standing, and Lucia felt the air about her change again and saw Lorenzo looking around him, walking at a normal speed, making sure there were no attackers left.

There were only two men left standing, Galileo and the priest, who stood near the altar. Lorenzo looked across to them and held out his sword in a warning gesture. Then he stepped over to Lucia. “Light of my heart,” he said.