The Shadow Master (3 page)

They were both eighteen now, and this was the first time they had really talked together. Really touched. Though she had played this out in her own mind, many, many times. She had known it would happen one day. Known how they would sit and what they would say. There was so much she wanted to ask him about himself. She knew he was a ward of the Medicis and had no parents. Knew he worked as an apprentice to Galileo. Knew there was something that had always drawn them together.

If her father ever found out he'd have the poor boy skinned and turned out of the city, though. Or at least that's what he threatened to do to any of the men who he caught staring at her. But Lorenzo never stared. Not in that way.

“Lust is in men's hearts,” he often advised her. “You will understand that when you are older.” But nobody had ever warned her about the lust in her own heart. And now he was here, she didn't care to ask him those things she had wanted to know about him. It seemed much more urgent to talk about the workings of each of their bodies. Because she didn't just want Lorenzo to be there on the couch beside her. She wanted him to touch her.

But he was so shy.

“So is it the same for the feet and legs then?” she asked mischievously, kicking off her slippers and raising her gown a little so that her bare feet and slim lower legs were exposed. She watched his face redden a little and felt the same goose bumps rise across her body again. He was so much a boy still, with neither the beard of the Medici household nor the large moustache of the Lorraines, and that proved him something of neither.

When he had sat down on the couch beside her he had reached out a hand to brush back her hair. She'd grabbed his hand tightly to stop him, but he had said, “No. Let me look.” And she had consented. Let him lift back her long, dark auburn hair and see the ugly plague scars along her neck, running down from her ear.

“The follies of the apothecaries,” she had said. They had promised to mend the ravages of the ugly red welts that had burst forth on her skin in the north, but had left behind a mass of scars that looked even worse to her mind, like she had been patched up with spare skin from some animal, which had been burned into place.

She looked into Lorenzo's soft grey eyes and saw neither pity nor revulsion. And when he touched her skin there, so gently, that's when she knew. Now, looking at her feet and legs she saw a similar look on his face. Then, realising he was staring, he was filled with a moment of delicate shyness, and he turned his head away a little from her, not wishing to look at her, but then brought it back again, unable to not look at her.

“Yes,” he said. “Though the bones in your toes are much smaller.”

“Show me,” she said.

He chewed his lip and then moved to take one of her feet in his hands. He ran his fingers over it as if it was a delicate object and traced out each toe, running his finger up the length of her foot, showing where each wire was that moved the parts inside. “You tell your foot how to move,” he said, “and the engine that drives them all is here.” He placed one hand above his heart. “All your limbs are tightly harnessed to it.”

She put a hand atop her own heart, as if it was there he had touched. “My limbs are bound here,” she said. “And bound to my will to move them where I wish.”

“Well, sometimes your will does not control your limbs,” he said.

“When don't I have control of my own foot?” she asked. And with something of a mischievous look of his own, he ran one finger along the bottom of her foot and it curled up at the sensation, completely unbidden. Again raising goose bumps.

“And what of more complex parts of the body?” she asked. “Like the lips.” And she put out one finger and touched his soft red lips, letting her finger linger there. He looked into her eyes and, as if being able to read her desire, kissed her finger gently. Then he raised his own finger to her lips and she kissed it in return.

“We will be married,” she declared to him then, telling him what she knew.

“Yes,” he said, as if he'd never doubted it. As if it was the thing that he had climbed her tower to hear, strapping on metal devices that transformed his hands and feet into claws. No more staring at each other secretly in church. No more lying in bed at nights dreaming of the next time they might glimpse each other, or the next time they might risk just brushing against each other.

She had feigned illness today while the rest of the family had gone to church, in order that he might visit her. She had lain awake since before dawn, excited at the prospect of it. Unsure how he was going to manage it, slipping in and out of sleep, dreaming him there beside her.

This felt like a dream right now to Lorenzo. He was a lowly apprentice, but he was here, inside the tower of Lucia Lorraine, holding her and kissing her fingers. Something he'd imagined over and over until it seemed as much his imaginings as it was real. They'd planned this through small finger signs that they'd developed slowly over the years. Something they knew nobody else could understand. So they'd talked many times without ever exchanging a word. Until now.

“So how do the lips work?” she asked him. “There are no bones in them.”

“It's very complicated,” he told her.

“You don't know,” she teased.

He shrugged. “I have not yet studied lips.”

“Then we must work on that,” she said, and moved back a little on the couch to give him room to lie beside her. He approached slowly without taking his eyes off her. His fingers were trembling a little. As were hers. Their first kiss. She wanted to close her eyes and wanted to keep them open and wanted soft music to be playing and wanted utter silence and wanted it darker and wanted to be in sunshine and when his lips touched hers she wanted to press herself against him so tight that he'd feel every bone and cog and wire in her body wrapping around him. She felt her body was responding like her foot had when he stroked the bottom of it and could not say if it were voluntary or involuntary, the way she arched her back and pressed against him now.

Then his hands were around her and she felt his fingers touching her shoulders, moving up to her long dark auburn hair, sliding down to her neck. She could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest and could feel his against her. Could feel his body moving against her, slowly at first, and then more rapidly, both pressing tightly against the other, all the cogs and wires moving the bones of their hands and arms and legs intertwining.

The shy boy had been replaced by her husband-to-be who had a right to touch her where ever he wanted, as she had a right to touch him wherever she wanted, and when his hand finally brushed against her breast she seized it and pressed it to her harder. She felt his legs quivering as he cupped his hand around her mountains of the goddess. Felt the pinnacles standing erect against his fingers. Felt a burning urgency start to fill her. She slid a leg over his and let him press his hips in closer to hers. Her pinnacles were not the only thing that was erect that she could feel.

He was feeling giddy. More so than when one of his claws had slipped out of the gap between the bricks as he was close to her balcony. He had looked down, certain he was going to fall, and clung to the wall tightly until the feeling had passed. He was falling now though. His head was spinning wildly as he pressed himself into her. Felt the pounding of blood inside him. Felt he had to cling to her more tightly than he had to the tower wall. Knew he would only be safe once he was inside. Knew it was wrong. Felt it was right. Knew if he did not he would fall into some darkness and keep falling. He reached down one hand and felt her own hand join his. Felt her fingers wrap around him. Felt the hands merge into one, the wires and hinges joining. Felt himself being anchored by her.

His lips were pressed against hers and she felt the taste of something warm rising up in her, flowing into him, and something sweet and warm flowed into her own mouth, as if their breath and blood was now a part of the one body. She moved a leg and felt his leg move with her. Closed her eyes and saw herself through his eyes. Opened them again and was looking at him through her own eyes again. She wrapped her arms around him tighter, feeling her hands reaching right inside him, their two bodies drawing closer together and she closed her eyes again, to see herself once more though his eyes, and was slowly filled with a revelation. By joining with her lover they were becoming something entirely new. By really joining with him they could change the very world. They could become a unified being while still being two, one that would have the power to somehow bring all the fractured and conflicting elements of their world together into a peaceful union.

He wondered if she felt it too. How his body was merging fully into hers. How he could feel the movement of her limbs and the breath she took. And that they were somehow changing the world about them into a new harmony. He looked into her eyes and saw her nodding her head. Urging him. He felt her skin against his skin, wrapping about his skin, inside his skin. His whole body trembled from the ecstasy of it.

She watched in amazement as her chest seemed to melt open and a large pink butterfly emerged, flapping gently as it rose from her and joined with a larger red butterfly that was emerging from Lorenzo's chest. He was just as astonished. The two creatures merged together in front of them, their colours becoming a swirl of patterns. Then she could feel them floating. Flying. Transforming. Rising above the bedchamber, the tower and the city. Could feel his marvelling at it. Could feel him pressing closer into her as she drew him in. The butterfly, not an engine, beating where their hearts had joined. He could feel her hearing the distant peal of bells ringing. Could feel his touch upon her skin. Inside her body. Could feel her hearing the cries of people in the streets below. Could see himself through her eyes. Saw what she saw as her head turned as the door to the room slammed open. Heard the scream of Lucia's handmaiden as she burst in on them and screamed, “
O Dio mio
!” Felt themselves falling suddenly apart. Felt themselves falling. Felt themselves hit the cold hard flagstones of the brutal city below.

 

 

IV

“Quickly, quickly, quickly,” the handmaiden said as she bustled Lorenzo down the tower and out onto the street. She had him don an apron and carry a slops bucket in each hand so nobody would question him. The door to the building was guarded to stop people going in, but nobody was stopping people from going out. Though that might happen sooner or later.

“What is it?” Lucia had asked, over and over, “What has happened? Why are all the bells tolling?”

“It is trouble,” was all the handmaiden said, over and over in reply. “Such trouble. The household is all astir. The whole city is astir. And this! This!” She pointed at Lorenzo, trying to refasten his clothes with his back turned to her. “
O Dio mio
! Your father will kill him as surely as night kills day and send you to a nunnery with your head shaven!”

“You must help us,” Lucia implored of the handmaiden, grasping her shoulders. “I love him and you must help us.” The handmaiden looked as if she were going to collapse under the sudden burden of this, but then she said, “Hurry!” She reached out and took Lorenzo by the hand. Lucia took his other hand, as if to hold him there a moment longer, but the handmaiden tugged mightily and dragged him to the door. “When will I see you again?” Lucia called.

“He will come back when he is a rich lord,” the handmaiden said, “Though heaven help him if he has any connection with the Medicis.” She slammed the door behind her and dragged Lorenzo down the corridor. “And heaven help you if you're found in the household today,” she said. And so he was bustled down the stairs, carrying two slops buckets of turds, and pushed roughly out onto the streets.

“Thank you,” Lorenzo wanted to call back to her, but she had already turned her back on him and gone back inside the household. He stood there for some moments, feeling that he had left a part of himself behind, but having no further desire to attract the attention of the guards, he made his way quickly up the paved street. There were people hurrying along the walkways all around him, muttering or crying as the bells continued to toll. It was the signal that the city was under attack, but how could that be? Who could attack them? An army of plague victims? Or had they assembled around the city in such numbers that they were battering down the gates to get in?

He tried to stop people on the streets and ask them what was happening, but each had a different story. “The ceiling of the cathedral has collapsed.” / “Cosimo Medici has been slain.” / “Hundreds are dead.” / “An invading army is inside the city.” He must see Galileo, he thought. If anyone knows what is happening, it will be him.

The old man would ask him where he had been, but he doubted he could ever tell him. He had broken the old man's trust and would be ashamed to tell him what he had done. But who else could explain to him what he had experienced? Galileo had taken him on as his apprentice when he was very young. An orphaned boy who had become a ward in the Medici household, in a manner nobody seemed to rightly remember. One more of many wards. But one whom the old man, Galileo, declared was possessed of a useful brain. That had led him to a different life than any of the other young boys of the household. No duties in the stables or kitchen or yards. No need to rise before daybreak in winter and cart water. No need to muck out horse dung from the stables. Instead he had grown up under Galileo's kind but firm hand. He had taught him to read. To write and do mathematics. And to think for himself.

Which he had found had become a two-edged sword. For as he grew he came to the belief that the old man was not letting him fully experience the wonders of their work. He was diligent and was industrious and loyal, but the old man forbade him from undertaking any science experiments of his own. It was not fair, he thought. He was the apprentice. He should be the one to trial the chronometer and magnifier, not those old sea captains. Had witnessed him perfecting other instruments. He had helped build them. He knew each device's workings and perils. He had even designed many science objects himself. Galileo had told him they were promising. But still Galileo forbade him to use any of the devices they built. He had told him it was dangerous in the hands of a young person. Told him that there were consequences for its use that Lorenzo should be spared from.