The King's Gold (6 page)

“Yes.” Doctor Riccardi squinted at the text through her red glasses. “This dates a decade and a half before he traveled to Mexico to catch up with Cortés. In his youth, Antonio did not intend to become an American
conquistatore
, but rather focused on...scientific experiments—”

“Vivisections,” I said. “Of peasants, disabled people. The poor and mentally retarded.”

“Yes! Thank you for being so hideously accurate! Anyhow, he later moved his operations to Africa—this was in the early fifteen hundreds. There, he dabbled with slavery, and also investigated the Moors’ famous alchemical practices. He began searching for the secrets to immortality in metals as he once had in the human body. He became intrigued with the idea of the Americas, since Europeans hoped—with great reason, as it turned out—that they would be awash with precious metals. Thus, the venture in Mexico with Cortés, after which he returned home to Florence, killed one of his slaves in some sort of rage, and married. Upon his exile, he devoted himself to the decorative and alchemical arts, et cetera, et cetera.” She adjusted her glasses, squinting at the document I’d pulled from the archives. “This letter was written during his provocative Africa adventure. It’s what we call his ‘barking mad’ phase.”

December 3, 1510

Timbuktu, West Africa

To Giovanni, Holy Father, and our good Cousin in the World,

I understand that you are presently squandering the Church’s coffers with your Debauchery. I write you this letter to order you to cease your spending, as I shall need the Vatican’s funding for my Expeditions among the Moors, in the interests of my Philosophical projects.

Though both you and my Intended, Sofia, have oft criticized my great Goal to cultivate a Stronger and More Select Society as that of a Black Magician, I have only been a good student of Plato, aiming to usher the World from the Era of Appetite into an age of Reason. First came the necessary killings and autopsies I conducted of Criminals & Madmen in order to fathom the structure of their benighted Brains. Then, two years ago, I sailed here to Byzantium to discover the Moors’ alchemical secrets—Medicines—that would Cure this whole world of its Superstition and Barbarism. Two years! That Remedy long eluded me!

Only now, after all this long time, have I struck upon the Solution to this dark earth’s Ills—yet I think it is one you will not like.

Last week, I followed the Spaniards into the City of Timbuktu, which had just been raided by Moroccans. As the Conquistatores went off to conquer a Mosque, I took six of my Florentine mercenaries through the ruins, maneuvering past the cracked battlements, torched libraries, dead bodies, until we saw a sign of life: A thin plume of the queerest blue-green smoke drifted from a little house’s chimney.

Breaking into this lair, we saw small dark men bending over silver stills, and working with the aid of supernaturally bright torches. All about there were leather chests spilling forth with powders and marked with signs of the Philosophical Elements.

“My Lord Antonio,” whispered one of my generals. “What kind of place is this?”

“An Alchemist’s lab!” I shouted—such was my excitement.

The dusky men turned and roared with fury at the sight of us. One of the eldest stumbled forward, menacing me with his bony fists; this, despite the efforts of a younger, handsome lad to stand between us and protect his apparent Father.

“You are making the Universal Medicine here,” I said in the tongue of Mali. “The Philosopher’s Stone that can cure any disease—Death—Stupidity—Religion. I must have it—you must tell me your Secrets. In that way I will bring Light into this Dim world.”

“We shall never tell you the Receipt of that great Potion,” the brave old wizard said.

“What you will not give, I shall take.” I brandished at him my sword.

“Oh, but I will give you something. I will give you the prize I award to all who attempt to conquer our City.”

“And what is that?’

“Your death.”

From a purse tied at his waist he plucked a handful of dripping, fetid, yet incendiary amber-colored Mud, which he hurled upon my person before igniting it with one of the torches blazing nearby.

I do not know of what infernal Drug that mire was made, but it took to fire in an instant, and my entire body became as one pure, killing light. That flame, moreover, only burned the hotter when my general poured his flask upon me, as the Savage’s potion was not doused by water, but instead incensed. I tore off my clothes, rolling on the floor, as the Wizard’s son hurried to sprinkle upon me a thick layer of salt. It was only by the Charity of that Moor that I did not die a Martyr’s death.

But I still vowed to kill them all. Taking one of the torches, I brought it over to a Great Chest, which was marked with a devil-looking symbol I recognized, for Mercury:

I set light to the Quicksilver. A blue, stinking, foul Fume exploded and sixty souls fell dead, quivering, green-faced from their own infernal Poison. Close by, there were two additional barrels, each marked with different signs. One was for sulfur, shaped into a cipher that resembled the mark for Woman.

The other was for the salt the young Moor used to save me, a circle cut through by a bar.

I opened the box with the woman-like sign, touching the torch to the Sulfur. A column of killing fire burst open, as if I had just beckoned the Sun to come down from the heavens and do my bidding. The swarty Magicians burned like straw men, and those who escaped the flame embraced the blades of my Mercenaries—save for the ash-pale son of the Wizard, who wailed to us Fluent Tuscan.

“You are stained by the color of cowardice, my son,” I said. “You are weeping like a woman.”

“What have you done?” he cried. “What is the true nature of Man, that he can commit such offenses against heaven?”

“A man is made of nothing else but reason.”

“No, you have proved today that the real Soul of mankind is that of a beast.”

The timid Moor’s words struck me with a dizzy Revelation, even as I ordered him clapped with iron cuffs branded with the Medici device.

“Perhaps we are both correct, but that man, in order to survive, transmutes so easily between Reason and Beast-Mind that the difference is impossible to detect.” I laughed with delight at the idea. “You interest me, boy. What is your name?”

“Opul of Timbuktu.”

“We are the same,” I urged him, “surely you can see that.”

“You are the opposite of me, my Lord.” He made a strange sign with his left hand. “I am a poor alchemist but you—you are my reverse. You are an animal. You are what the Italians call il Lupo, the Wolf.”

“A Wolf,” I said, slowly. I was impressed by the trickery of his language. “You are too clever to die.”

“He performs witchcraft,” warned my general. “He is calling upon his Djinn, and cursing you with African sorcery, Sir Antonio. We must kill him to remove the jinx.”

The slave bowed. “I only spoke of what I saw. All fear the Wolf, my Lord. As do I.”

“What he says is true,” I replied. “As the trickster Plautus writes, nomen atque omen —each man’s true name is also his omen, his portent. And this Varlet has discerned mine. I have transformed into a Wolf, today.”

“Mercy upon us,” whispered my general, crossing himself.

But I did not fear strange signs or Moorish prayers. I have found that my new slave speaks several tongues, can write passably well, and though he swears he does not know either the secrets of the Philosopher’s Stone or of this burning amber mud, I will convince him through such measures as are necessary to give over to me those receipts.

Yet these are not the only reasons I keep him alive. In truth, I find him most intriguing.

For he is the first to have discovered the truth about me.

Note my new seal, Cousin: I am a Wolf. And with the warlocks’ secret fire, I shall achieve what I could not through all my hacking away at peasants & felons, for all my reading.

You see, I will usher the world into an Age of Reason.

But it shall be made for my Reason, and not that of any other.

Do you understand? Cease spending at once what shall be my money, which shall build the Grand Schools I will set up all over the world, like Alexander the Great, like Caesar.

If you do not, Beware.

Antonio.

“This doesn’t look the same as your document,” I answered to Marco’s intense gaze, once I’d read this monomaniac’s description of the flammable “amber-colored mud” that reminded me of naphtha—the ancient Moorish incendiary weapon, used most famously by Alexander the Great against the Indians, that is inflamed by water but doused by powders.

This recognition had only flitted through my mind for a moment: I focused less on the substance of the letter than the very look of it. I’ve studied the mysteries of penmanship—not only practicing calligraphy myself but reading everything from FBI manuals on the science of forensic handwriting identification to sixteenth-century tomes on occult graphology. Immediately I could see that the ductus, or pen angle, of this document’s calligraphy differed from Marco’s.

“Well, you mean the letters don’t read alike.” Marco impatiently slapped at the air with his long pianist’s hands. “The tone of the thing, I mean, the literary style.”

Dr. Riccardi leveled her glasses at us. “It is true that if your letter had been authored by Antonio after his return with Cortés’s fleet, it would not
read
like this one—so savagely, that is. In his middle and late life, his character matured because of an illness, which he called
the Condition
. He also mellowed on account of his wife’s beneficent influence—”

“Sofia,” Marco and I both said at the same time.

“Yes. But Lola was speaking, I believe, of the penmanship?”

The noble-looking professor sat with his back to us while reading, grunting as if to communicate distaste at the volume of our conversation.

“Marco,” I whispered. “Bring your letter out—I have to take a closer look at it.”

He slipped the pages from the envelope; the transparent pages glowed like pearls.

I said, “The paper of Marco’s letter is strange, now that I think of it. What do I remember about onionskin—it wasn’t used much in the Renaissance, was it?”

Dr. Riccardi shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. And it would be an odd choice of writing paper for Antonio to make. The Medici wrote on parchment, as in the other letters. This isn’t onionskin, precisely, but rather a hemp fiber, which has been scraped so fine as to become transparent. And it became popular only in the seventeenth century, and then mostly with parvenu courtesans who absurdly thought it lascivious, as it resembled the fabric of their lingerie.”

“But the real problem is the handwriting,” I said. “In Marco’s letter, the script is slightly more cramped, in the ascenders, the garlands. The difference is subtle.”

Dr. Riccardi nodded. “It is actually quite glaring to my eye.”

“Lola, don’t make a snap decision, take
your time
,” Marco ordered me, in a low voice.

By Antonio’s letter to the pope, I placed the letter that Marco had purchased from Mr. Soto-Relada, which I quote again for clarity:

My dear nephew Cosimo, Duke of Florence,

I write this missive in response to your call for funds, on the eve of your battle against the Sienese...a war I have told you I find in bad taste...When did we last meet, before you Exiled my wife, Sofia the Dragon, and me? It was in the 1520s, I believe, just after I returned from America, in the few months when I was still allowed to feast at our family’s palazzo. The dining hall was so lovely, I remember, full of mysteries and hints of treasure—with its friezes of golden girls, its secret passageways, its fresco of The Rape of Proserpine , and that gew-gaw I commissioned, namely Pontormo’s gorgeous map of Italy...