Tim Willocks

by Tim Willocks

  The joy of her naïve fantasy vanished. This was business, nothing more. They were as distant from each other in temperament, as well as in station, as any two individuals could be. She had no right to think ill of him. Indeed, she’d never held any man in higher esteem. And in return for what he offered, the price was trifling. Even so, something inside her, which had in this last hour bloomed back into life, withered away. She tried to keep her voice even, and felt she sounded cold.

  “You misunderstand the complexities of nobility,” she said. “Marriage alone would allow you the appearance of a title, but no more.”

  “May I legitimately comport myself a count—and insist on being addressed as ‘my lord’ or ‘Your Excellency’ or some other such obsequious courtesy?”

  “I believe you may.”

  “Then the appearance is worth a fortune, no matter how fraudulent, and I shall be more than satisfied.”

  “Very well,” she said. “My title has been bartered away before. At least this time it is a matter of my own choosing.”

  “Then we have a bargain?”

  “Shall I have an attorney draw up a contract?”

  “A handshake will do for now.”

  He held out his hand. It was large and rough, with the calluses of a sword hilt on the palm. She reached out her own hand to take it and he pulled back.

  “May I add a rider to our pact?” There was a sly amusement in his eyes.

  The charm he was able to exercise was infuriating. “You may try,” she said.

  “On our return, you will play for me again on your viola da gamba.”

  A confusion of sentiments rose within her. “Why are you doing this for me?”

  His brow flexed. “Because I consider the bargain fair and a boon to my business.”

  “Your faith in my intuition may be frail,” she said, “but I sense you enter this venture with deeper motives than simple business might entail.”

  Tannhauser considered her—for what seemed like minutes but could only have been seconds. He seemed to calculate how much he should reveal of himself, and she sensed that at the core of that self was a sorrow as deep and enduring as her own. Perhaps even deeper. If he’d taken her into his arms, she wouldn’t have resisted.

  Tannhauser said, “I once knew another mother who fought for her boy.”

  “That’s all?”

  “The mother lost,” he said.

  Carla waited. But on this matter, Tannhauser said no more.

  He smiled with his broken teeth. He stretched out his hand.

  Carla took it and he squeezed and a sudden shiver rippled across her skin.

  She wished they’d sealed their bargain with a kiss.

  Tuesday, May 15, 1565

  The Messina Road—The Oracle

  Tannhauser rode through hills painted violet and gold by the set of the sun. The women of the Villa Saliba had laid him like greyhounds fetching down a deer, yet he was gratified.

  Amparo, for one, was a find. Her sexual allure, of which she seemed ignorant, itched at his mind and privities. Her shew stone had proved a marvel. Most such stones were spheres of pure crystal. Grubenius had owned a speculum of polished obsidian. Amparo’s device was an optical contraption—constructed merely as a novelty—but with the mantic genius that paves the way to knowledge she’d recognized a higher function within it. It was a brass tube with an eyepiece at the fore end, while at the nether end two slim, triple-spoked wheels, also of brass, rotated about a spindle, one flat against, but independent of, the other. Between the spokes of each wheel was laced an intricate fabrication of stained-glass fragments. Down the bore of the tube were fixed two slender strips of mirrored glass, their reflecting surfaces opposed at thirty degrees.

  On first glance the wheels appeared dark, but when pointed at sunlight, or a candle flame, a multiplicity of colors was revealed, and when the wheels were spun with a flick of the fingers, the colors and the sum of their parts whirled through amazing combinations that stunned the eye. Any movement of either wheel changed what could be seen, and Tannhauser understood that by altering the speed of their rotation, and of their speed relative to each other, Time itself was broken up into particles infinitely small. Furthermore, the temper of the field of vision depended on the source of illumination—the closer to the flame, the more incandescent the colors. The smokiness of the candle, the intensity of the sunlight, the texture of the intervening ether, all these elements changed what was changing even as they themselves were changing too. And when the wheels rolled into stillness, and a particular combination of color and light was chosen by Chance, there for an instant was a shard of eternity captured. In short, within the girl’s vision glass was a model of the Cosmos—of the mighty flux, of Fate itself.

  Sometimes Amparo would see nothing but the beauty of the colors; at others, images of startling clarity would fill her mind. Sometimes she would hear the voice of angels. No one could know the future; Amparo did not claim to do so. But amongst the infinity of Things that one day might be, lie all the Things that will be. It was possibility she saw within the vortex. What could be lay waiting in the crucible of what was yet not. This, it seemed to him, was what Amparo, albeit by instinct, understood.

  Night fell as he approached the northern gate. In the last of the twilight a two-wheeled carriage clattered up the road toward him. The driver wore a helmet and a breastplate and the matchcord of a musket glowed down by his seat. As the vehicle trundled by, a young, ratlike face peered out from under the hat of a priest. Tannhauser thought on them no more. He passed the watchman at the gate and crossed the city. That final frenzy that marks the end of the day had all but passed and the streets were soon quiet. He rode along the waterfront for the Oracle.

  Tonight he would drink too much and slake his lust upon Dana. Perhaps, he thought, this impulse was somewhat ungallant, for it was Amparo and Lady Carla who’d inflamed his fancy. But such was life. He wondered what sound each would make in the throes of love. The ferocity of Carla’s attack upon the gamba echoed still through his mind. Furthermore, she was clearly of high intelligence, an erotic force he hadn’t encountered before. He imagined peeling off that red silk dress, though he doubted she would ever consent with such as him. Her one experience of romance had brought her punishment and shame, and exile from all she loved. She was entitled to be cagey. Even so, he shifted in the saddle to give his member room.

  Along the waterfront darkness was general, broken by yellow pools from the lanterns of the ships. The new-risen moon above the sea was a day past full. A hundred yards hence stood the Oracle and a curious crowd clustered about its doors. Tannhauser stopped. Beyond the crowd he caught the glimmer of torchlight on a pair of steel helms. The helms belonged to men-at-arms. City constables. And crowds were prone to gather about misfortune. A murder at the tavern? There’d been none to date, thanks to Bors, but it was far from impossible.

  Then Tannhauser heard the threnody of a scream.

  It was muffled by walls and distance but clear enough. A surge of fear swept his bowels. In an extremity of pain such as the fading scream announced, most men sounded strangely alike.

  Yet Tannhauser knew that the cry came from Sabato Svi.

  He dismounted and led Buraq through the passage between the chandler’s and the ropewalk. To the rear of the buildings that fronted the docks lay a maze of workshops, wagon pens, storage yards, and stables, all threaded without design by crooked alleys barely wider than his shoulders. He picked his way through the dark by the shreds of moonlight. Buraq followed quietly behind. As he approached the rear of the warehouse he heard another scream, much more piercing here, and saturate with terror and desolation.

  Sabato Svi was being tortured.

  Buraq felt his master’s distress and blew his nostrils in sympathy. Tannhauser hawked the gall from out his throat. He tethered Buraq to an iron hoop in the wall and reassured him. He unrolled the cuffs of his high leather boots to protect his thighs and crotch and drew his sword. He stole toward
the warehouse, its roof a stark black parapet against the stars. He stopped on a feral instinct. He’d heard no sound. But above the stink of the alley, a smell of sweat and leather not his own. Then a hoarse breath. He shaded his brow against the starlight above and relaxed his eyes into the darkness. A hulking shape lurked—there—against the paler dark of the wall. Tannhauser took a step closer. The smell was distinct. He whispered.

  “Bors.”

  The shape moved sideways, crablike, and ducked toward him. A crossbow emerged at two paces, aimed at his chest. Tannhauser poised ready to strike, should his judgment prove him false. Bors’s face appeared. He canted the crossbow skyward against his hip. His grizzled features were drawn. He kept his voice low but couldn’t quite still its tremor.

  “City police. Two outside, four within. Cuirasses and helms. Two hackbutts and a pistol stand inside.”

  “Do we know them?”

  Bors shook his head. “Not from our patch. They’re led by the scrawny inquisitor from the Couronne.”

  Tannhauser fancied he could hear the clank of the wheels that cause the universe to turn. One of those moments when the architecture of your ambition was revealed to be a brothel built on sand; when the needle of the compass broke and all the clocks stood still; when the future you’d imagined and the future which gaped at your feet parted company forever.

  Tannhauser said, “What do they want?”

  “I came up from the cellars toward the end of it. They were looking for you.”

  “And Sabato?”

  “He had to make a dispute of it—mocked them something fierce—and they struck him down. Young Gasparo took that hard.” Bors’s mouth twisted. “And they shot him dead.”

  Tannhauser felt a grinding inside his skull. It was his own teeth.

  “I kept my head down,” said Bors. “When the police cleared the tavern, I shuffled out with the rest. No one played me false.”

  “Dana, the girls?”

  “I left them safe and sound with Vito Cuorvo, then came back.”

  Another agonized scream rang out. Bors grimaced.

  “Where are the villains now?” asked Tannhauser.

  “They scoured the building and regrouped in the tavern. From the rear, our way is open.”

  “The Inquisitor is one of the four?”

  Bors nodded. “We’ve three police inside, one of them a captain. We must beware of alarming the other pair outside.”

  “A cry or two they’ll credit to poor Sabato, but we can’t allow gunfire.” Tannhauser indicated the crossbow. “Are you steady?”

  “Steady as a rock.”

  Bors cradled the crossbow in one elbow and dug a three-inch stub of candle from his jerkin. He unhooked a small iron pot from his belt and flipped the ventilated lid. Inside glowed a burning lump of charcoal.

  “An inquisitor and five constables,” Tannhauser mused. “That’ll put us as far beyond the law as men can be.”

  Bors’s face was already gray with that knowledge.

  “If we two run now,” said Tannhauser, “I doubt that they’ll pursue us across the straits.”

  “If anyone had foretold that I would risk my dirty neck for the sake of a Jew, I’d have laughed in their face.” Bors mustered a grin. “In any case, I don’t believe you.”

  Tannhauser clapped him on the back. Bors lit the stub of tallow from the coal in the pot. They slipped inside the Oracle by its light.

  The darkness inside the warehouse was complete and without the candle they’d have blundered. Tannhauser picked his way through what remained of their stock until he found a bundle of javelins racked with the pike shafts. He cut the binding cord and sheathed his sword and chose three of the slender spears, five-foot staves of ash tipped with needle poignards. He tested each for balance. At short range they were as lethal as a musket and far more nimble.

  As they crept toward the tavern at the front of the building, lamplight spilled across the floor from the doorless portal. With it came a shrill tirade that was almost ecstatic with bigotry. Tannhauser heard the word “Jew” shrieked as if alone it were an insult without rival. Sabato vented a curse that was swollen with agony. Then his voice was choked off and replaced by a guttural gagging. Tannhauser’s bowels churned and his legs felt so weak that he feared they’d fail him. He quelled the urge to vomit. It had been a long time. He reminded himself that this was normal and he breathed deep and even and the jitters passed. Bors snuffed the candle and hefted his crossbow. Tannhauser edged to the portal and peered beyond.

  He saw two constables and their captain, armed as described. The captain, who was plump as a partridge, stood with arms akimbo and watched the alcove. From the alcove came Sabato’s groans. Tannhauser could see neither Sabato nor the priest. Of the two constables, one stood amid the deserted trestles, midway to the front door. His arquebus was shouldered and the match hung smoldering from his fingers. The second constable lounged on a bench, his long gun propped between his knees, and drank from a jug. Tannhauser reckoned the first to be nine paces distant, the second at no more than five. He pulled back and mimed drinking with his thumb then stabbed a finger at Bors. Bors dipped one eye around the architrave and withdrew. He gave Tannhauser a nod.

  The shrill voice rose from the alcove. “Blood and circumcision! How many good men have you reduced to beggary with your poisonous schemes and lies? Where is your gold, Jew? The gold you’ve stolen from us—from we who’ve shown you so much Christian kindness! We who let you live among us, as if you were a man and not a rabid, thieving dog! What Devil brought you to our country? God did not invite your fiendish brood! The gold, Jew! The gold!”

  Tannhauser hefted a javelin in his right hand, the two spares balanced in his left. He gave Bors the nod, then propelled himself two paces into the tavern. As his front foot landed and his arm blurred past his ear, he heard the snap of the crossbow behind him and the hiss and crunch of the quarrel. The constable grunted as the javelin struck him below his breastplate and bored through his pubis. The poignard hurtled two feet farther through his lower gut and tumbled him beneath the trestles, where he twitched and blinked and gasped as animals pierced and dying often will. Tannhauser filled his hand with a second shaft and turned on the captain, who gawked at him with a shock too early for terror. Tannhauser advanced. The captain’s pudgy hand flapped toward the snaphaunce in his belt, but the pistol was no more a threat than the panic-soured fart that squealed from his arse.

  “Think of your wife,” instructed Tannhauser. “Think of your children.”

  The captain did so, and what little remained of his resistance was undermined. Tannhauser put the javelin to his throat, then turned and tossed the spare across to Bors. He pulled the pistol from the captain’s belt. It was a splendid piece, equipped with the latest Spanish stone lock, the kind of weapon a banty little turd would reckon his vanity demanded. Tannhauser blew the powder from the pan and returned it to the captain’s belt. He looked yonder and saw young Gasparo. Gasparo lay on his back by the stairs with a bloody hole stoved through his chest. The boy had been loyal and had died for it. Tannhauser quelled a terrible urge before turning back on the captain. The captain’s jowls trembled against the spear point as he tried to resurrect some shadow of his former authority.

  “My name is—”

  Tannhauser lashed a backhand across his cheek. The heavy gold ring laid him open to the bone. “You can keep your name,” said Tannhauser. “I’ll have no use for it.”

  The captain whimpered and clenched his eyes. Tannhauser glanced backward over his shoulder. One constable slumped over the trestle, his face and beard as bright as enamel with gore. The quarrel of the crossbow had caught him behind one eye and was lodged so deep in his skull that the bone had half stripped the fletching. Tannhauser’s victim lay clenched and panting on the flagstones, awaiting the arrival of a tide of pain so monstrous that he dared neither move nor scream, and hardly dared to breathe. Tannhauser turned toward the alcove. The priest stood staring at the floor, as if he
hoped that this tactic might render him invisible.

  Tannhauser looked at Sabato Svi.

  Sabato sat on Tannhauser’s celebrated chair. His jaws were wedged apart by an iron pear crammed into his mouth. A screw and a key protruded from the end of the pear, for cranking its diameter to ever more painful dimensions. Tannhauser glanced down. Sabato’s hands had been nailed to the chair’s armrests. Tannhauser met his dark eyes and saw that something had been torn from his soul. Something he would spend a lifetime trying to recover without success, for such is the harvest of torture.

  Tannhauser turned to Gonzaga.

  “You. Priest,” said Tannhauser. “Take that atrocity from his mouth.”

  Gonzaga didn’t dare raise his head.

  “If I hear him so much as sigh,” continued Tannhauser, “you will foot the bill.”

  Gonzaga scrabbled for the crucifix of the rosary beads belted around his waist and mumbled some hogwash in Latin. The gesture made Tannhauser’s mind flare white with rage. He strode across the room. The javelin whirled through a half circle in his fingers. As he bore down on Gonzaga the wretched inquisitor finally jerked up his face.

  “Mercy, Your Eminence!” he cawed. “Mercy in the name of Christ!”

  Tannhauser drove the javelin through the instep of the priest’s left foot. Gonzaga shrieked and clung on to the shaft. Tannhauser tore the crucifix away and a shower of black beads spilled across the floor. He looked down into the two revolving tunnels of abject terror bored into the priest’s paling face. He held the crucifix before them. He spat on the cross and phlegm bespattered Gonzaga’s contorted features.

  “You’re proud of your cruelty, aren’t you, priest?” He threw the crucifix to the flagstones. “I was thirteen years a Turk. And this is nothing.”