Phantom (19 page)

He stared at the statue with academic admiration, but he did not move to touch it, and I was aware of something ominous in this very deliberate omission of respect.

"They say," I prompted uneasily, "that when a sinner kisses Saint Peter's foot he receives the first hope of God's salvation."

Erik turned slowly to look at me.

"There is no God," he said with sad, quiet certainty. "There are beautiful churches, there is beautiful music… but there is no God."

I stood and watched him walk away down the silent nave. I had been unable to persuade him to look at the
Pieta
, Michelangelo's celebrated masterpiece which depicts the Virgin holding her dead son. I had wondered at the time at the cold civility with which he declined my suggestion.

Now I was afraid I understood.

When I came out onto the steps he was standing in the center of Saint Peter's Square gazing at the double colonnade surmounted by statues of saints and martyrs. But as I approached, he hastily turned his attention to the huge obelisk in the center of the square, which had been the work of Egyptian heathens in the first century before Christ. The meaning of his gesture was painfully clear to me; he did not want to hear about God. If I questioned that statement in the basilica our curious relationship would be at an end; I would never see him again.

In response to his fierce, silent plea I found myself swallowing the indignant platitudes that were threatening to trip off my tongue.

"When does the fair leave the Trastevere?" I demanded.

"Tomorrow." He did not look at me.

"Tomorrow I have business at the travertine quarries in Tivoli," I said brusquely. "I shall be on the Tiburtina road at dawn. You had better make up your mind in which direction you want to travel."

It was my turn now to walk away in anger.

I felt him watching me unhappily, but I made damned sure I didn't look back.

The next day, when I found him waiting for me on the ancient Roman road and saw that both the mares were with him, I knew a moment of relieved satisfaction.

It was the best part of twenty miles to the foothills of Tivoli, but the horses were fresh and we made good time. The quarry master was an old acquaintance who had good reason to be grateful for the business I had put his way over the years. He made no difficulties when I told him I would like to put a boy at the stone face for an hour or two.

"New apprentice?" he asked, with obvious surprise.

"Possibly," I said guardedly.

"Well, you surprise me, Giovanni. I wouldn't have thought you could be bothered trucking with a boy these days, not when you employ some of the best rough-masons in the city."

I frowned and he threw up his brawny arms in mock defense.

"Mind your own business, Luigi," he said to himself with good-natured humor. "Nobody wants to know what you think, right?"

"We'll need some tools," I reminded him pointedly.

"Be my guest, Giovanni. You've had enough stone out of this quarry in your time, you know you don't need to ask."

The sun was beating down mercilessly, making a white hell of the quarry as it shimmered in a cloud of choking dust motes. I had chosen a quiet area, well away from the main working parties, and Erik stood in his shirtsleeves touching the dirty white stone face with disdainful fingers.

"I didn't think it would be like this," he said, "it's so pockmarked and porous and…
crude
."

"It's not the most beautiful stone in the world," I admitted coolly, "but it was good enough for Caesar and it had better be good enough for you too."

He laughed suddenly, the sound reverberating around the quarry and lightening my heart with its spontaneity and boyish innocence.

"Please show me what to do, sir," he said, with a simple humility that almost made me forgive his atheism.

As I put the age-old tools of a hewer into his hands, I told myself it was not too late to say to him: "
Let there be light
."

It was after midnight when we returned to Rome, but the streets were still full of revelers. Music continued to spill out of the taverns and the cafes, while around the obelisks and fountains in the many piazzas friends lingered to talk of Young Italy with noisy exuberance.

I felt the boy tense at the sight of the crowds, saw his hand slip automatically to the knife in his belt, and I led him hastily down the quieter back streets until we reached my house.

"What place is this?" he demanded cautiously when I indicated he should dismount and follow me into the small courtyard.

"This is where I live," I said.

He took a step back from me.

"Why have you brought me here?" he whispered.

The horror in his voice, the sudden fear flickering into his eyes, told me everything. This boy had suffered abuse from a man in its worst form, and I felt a great anger welling up in me against that unknown tormentor.

"I have brought you here to sleep in safety off the streets," I told him steadily. "There will be no payment asked of you of any kind."

"You would let me sleep here?" he said doubtfully. "You would take beneath your roof a thief and a—"

He stopped abruptly, cutting off the word I dreaded to hear before it could take breath, and we tended to the horses in silence before I went to open the door and beckon his hesitant figure over the threshold.

He came in slowly, with a nervous reluctance that reminded me poignantly of a hungry animal venturing in from the wild against the warning of instinct. As I moved around the big, stonewalled living room, lighting the oil lamps, he stood with his arms clasped tightly against his chest, gazing around with a bewilderment and wary disbelief that tightened my throat. I realized with a touch of despair how daunting was the task that lay ahead of me if I chose to build on the unstable ruins of this devastated soul.

I left him for a moment while I went to the cellar to fetch a jug of wine. When I returned I found him standing in front of the old spinet, running his fingers soundlessly along the dusty keys with a gesture of longing.

"Who plays this?" he asked suddenly.

"No one now," I admitted with a sigh. "It's been in the family for many years, but none of my children were musical. I've been thinking of getting rid of it—it takes up a lot of room and it only gathers dust."

Again he touched the wood with lingering regret.

"How can you think of doing that?" he said unhappily. "It's such a beautiful instrument… I wish—"

"Yes?"

He was silent.

"You know how to play?" I persisted.

He nodded, still staring at the keys.

"It could be moved to the cellar," I said quietly, "if you wish."

He looked up at me in astonishment. "You are saying I may stay here. Why?"

I shrugged my shoulders slightly.

"Perhaps I need an apprentice," I said.

Silence. I watched him turn away, both hands covering the mask for a moment.

"I lied to you when I said I was not apprenticed," he said softly. "I am already sworn to a master."

I did not need to ask who that master was, not when I could already see Death's mark upon him like sheep brand.

I went to the empty hearth and sat down in the fireside chair to fill my pipe calmly.

"You don't think perhaps you're a little young to be so certain of your calling in life?" I said after a moment, not looking at him as I spoke.

Again he did not answer and I put the pipe down on the tiles without lighting it.

"Indentures can be broken at any point during an apprenticeship, Erik, however dark the profession. Even the harshest master cannot hold you to a craft against your choosing. And remember, however long and faithfully you may have served as a bondsman, once those indentures are broken you will never have the right to call yourself a master of that trade."

Still he was silent, staring at the old spinet, and from the taut set of his shoulders I was able to sense the fierce struggle taking place inside him, his real reluctance to abandon the only other master who had ever shown him hope of security and pride. The devil is capable of commanding loyalty and respect from an apprentice; his charisma can be a formidable thing. Perhaps after all I was wasting my breath…

The keys beneath Erik's long fingers began to depress in a series of richly melodic chords which lingered on the air for a moment, with an echoing sweetness, before expiring into the thick silence.

Then at last he turned to look across the room at me.

"I should like to see the cellar, please," he said.

For the first few weeks I confined him to the masons' yard, permitting him to work only in the absence of my other workmen and under my exclusive supervision. He still showed no inclination to remove the mask, and I knew this grim eccentricity would inevitably bring him trouble on a building site. He would not survive long there without some basic knowledge of the craft beneath his belt.

Very soon he was dressing stone as though he had been born with a mason's ax in his hand. Each batch of mortar that he made for me was of an exactly uniform consistency, and I would dearly have liked to know how he managed to do that every time, without fail. One measure of fine-ground Italian pazzolona, two of clear river sand, one of fresh burnt lime—the formula is simple enough, yet most apprentices make an utter botch of their first attempts to make decent mortar. God knows I received enough angry cuffs from my own master in the early days before successfully mastering the process.

Perhaps I should have resented the ease with which he absorbed my skills, but I could only wonder at his startling capacity to learn. He seemed to be at one with the stone, instinctively sensing its strengths and weaknesses, handling it with reverent respect, as though it were a living entity. He refused to wear the mason's gloves that would have protected him from the painful shards and splinters; he always liked to feel the stone beneath his bare hands and often pointed out a fault in the grain that might have escaped many a more experienced eye.

The day came, far sooner than I had hoped, when I knew there was nothing more he could learn in this stonewalled nursery, so I took him down to one of my sites and placed him in the charge of a layer 1 trusted. There were several young laborers working there, and I noted the nudges and meaningful glances that were exchanged between the lads with great misgiving.

When I returned to the site at noon, the men were resting from the unseasonable heat and I was immediately aware, from the ominously swift manner in which Gillo Calandrino approached me, that there had already been trouble.

"That new boy is a menace!" the man said grimly, as he wiped his dusty hands upon his mason's apron.

I frowned. "You don't find him willing to learn? Attentive… respectful?"

The man gave a grunt that might have been a stifled snort of laughter.

"I've no quarrel with his willingness to learn, sir. I've had my brain picked clean by his questions all morning—he's sucked me dry as sponge!"

"Well, then, what is it?" I demanded, with rising irritation.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but I'd say he's not quite right in the head. He damned near killed two of our lads a half hour back. I've had to send Paolo home to get his arm dressed. And it was a nasty knife wound… I doubt if he'll be able to work for the rest of the week."

"I assume the boy was provoked," I said coldly.

"I wouldn't know anything about that, sir," said Calandrino, suddenly evasive and unable to meet my eyes any longer, "but I do know he behaved like a mad savage. When I went to break it up I thought he was going to go for me too—and I don't mind telling you, sir, I thought twice about tackling him with that knife in his hand. He knows how to use it, there's no mistaking that."

"But he didn't harm you."

"Well… no," the layer admitted reluctantly. "Seemed to come to his senses after a moment and back off. But you can't blame the lads, sir, it was only a bit of fun. Stands to reason they'd want to get a look under that mask, I mean, any normal boy would."

"I thought you said you didn't know what happened."

The man went very red beneath his suntan and gave a little shrug.

"Boys will be boys, sir, but if you want my opinion that one should be locked up! There's one or two slates loose there, if I'm not very much mistaken!"

"I'm not interested in your opinion!" I said with measured fury. "I look to you to keep better control on a site during my absence. If you can't do that, maybe it's time you found yourself another position. As for the laborers, you'd better tell them I don't employ them to indulge their curiosity on my time. Any more trouble and I'll see them all turned off! Do I make myself plain?"

"Yes, sir." The man looked dumbstruck at my tone.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Get everybody back to work!"

With a resentful glance Calandrino made to turn away.

"Wait," I said abruptly. "Where's the boy now?"

The man jerked his thumb toward the top of the scaffolding where, by shielding my eyes, I could just make out the distant figure hunched perilously against the fierce sun.

"You let an untrained lad climb up there?"

"He didn't stop to ask my permission, sir," said the layer with a cool sarcasm that this time I chose to overlook. "Just shot up like a bat out of hell before any of us could blink. The lads were taking bets that he was going to jump off."

I made a gesture of dismissal and the man strode away, muttering under his breath.

Taking the scaffold in easy stages I climbed to the dizzying height where the boy sat staring straight into the sun. He got to his feet hastily when he heard me coming and stared at me with tense expectation; I knew he was waiting to be dismissed.

"Arc you hurt, Erik?"

"No, sir." He sounded astounded that I should have asked.

"Come down, then. I need your help this afternoon."

Without waiting for him to reply I returned to the ground. And for the rest of the day, as he followed my instructions to the letter, 1 was aware of his eyes constantly coming to rest on me with puzzled gratitude.