The Sorceror's Revenge (43 page)

Nicholas picked up his pen and began to write.  Perhaps he had wronged the boy when he refused to have him here, but he had wanted to keep his family safe.  Memories of his cousin’s bullying had made him reluctant to expose his children to Michael’s influence.  Yet he could not help but sympathise with the boy’s situation.  If he were truly a victim of the falling sickness he would be mocked and despised, even feared throughout his life.  The ignorant would say he was possessed by devils.

Nicholas had only ever treated one patient for the illness and he had been able to offer nothing but a potion for the headache that occurred after a fit, and suggest taking a cure that might calm his humours.  Most physicians believed that for good health the four humours must be balanced. Nicholas did not in general agree, but in this patient’s case it had seemed to lessen the degree of the fits, though they were still sudden and unpredictable.

He would research the affliction and see what could be done to help his cousin’s bastard.  In the meantime he could do no less than agree to Signor Fedora’s request.

Sealing his letter with wax and his signet ring, Nicholas had a feeling that he would regret this moment of weakness one day.  Yet there was little else he could do.  It might have been better to have Michael here where he could watch over and influence him, but he had let the chance go and now he must repay the many favours his friend had done for him in the past.

There was always a price to pay.  Nicholas had known it but he had not guessed what form it would take.

‘I hope the boy appreciates what you do,’ he murmured.  ‘I pray that one day he will not betray the love you have given him.’

Nicholas had known since the day his cousin’s body was discovered murdered in the catacombs that there would be a reckoning one day.

‘When the time comes I shall pay,’ he murmured.  ‘But the time is not yet.’

He felt a cold shiver take him and something told him to throw his letter into the fire but he fought the fear.  He had not ordered his cousin’s death, but it was because of the decision he had taken, the trick he had played on Santos that the assassin had killed him.

‘Please not yet,’ he murmured and rose to his feet.  The letter would be sent in the morning.  Even if he tore it up it would not change what must happen.  The chain of events was already in progress, had been for years. ‘I am not yet ready to pay.’

Nicholas dismissed the premonition of his own death.  The time was not yet.  He would go now to his beloved wife, take her in his arms and love her and forget all the darkness that was in his soul.

Anne was his light and his love, his reason for
living.  He would live every day as if it were his last
.

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