“And so, I will never again know the Tuscany of my time,” he mused sadly.
“No. You will know it decades later. But I promise, you’ll recognize it,” she added.
“Everyone I know will be dead.”
“Yes. It has to be. Otherwise, if you went back, let’s say, twenty years later, perhaps to avoid meeting up with Guerrini’s family members, anyone who knew you before would wonder why you hadn’t aged. They’d think you were a sorcerer. This way, no one you ever knew will still be alive. But perhaps,” she looked at the professor.
“Yes?”
“Perhaps, Lauro, you could find some of your descendants, the great-grandchildren of your daughters.”
“That would take a lot of doing,” her boss replied.
“Never mind,” she conceded. “It’s better you start all over again.”
“One thing is very important, Maestro,” said Jake. “You must always think about your actions and how they will impact the future. You are not supposed to be a part of that time, so you must be vigilant not to change things. Very small actions can have big results. Some you cannot control, but, for instance, you can’t have more children.”
“But what if….” he glanced at Cassandra, then down.
“You mean, what if you meet a woman and want to be with her?” she asked gently.
“Yes. I’m a man, after all.”
“We can give you a serum that will sterilize you. You will, ahem, function completely like a man in bed,” said Jake, “but no woman will become impregnated by you. I take a temporary version. We will give you one that will affect you permanently.”
Lauro looked at Cassandra with worried eyes.
“It won’t hurt you at all, Lauro, but it’s necessary.”
“Very well,” he said slowly. “It’s now nearing the end of August. When must we begin preparation?”
“Immediately,” Cassandra replied. “We must go to London.”
The worry in Lauro’s eyes turned to fear. “How will I travel there? Must I go in the aeroplane?”
“I suppose we could go by boat,” said Cassandra. “But to get to and from the ports, we must go in a car or train. There is no other way. Horseback is too slow.”
He inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly. “All right. I’ll try it. I never imagined my life would be filled with this kind of adventure.”
“And it’s really only just beginning,” offered James.
The Italian’s eyes were wide with wonder. Cassandra squeezed his hand.
Chapter Eight
“The shooter is talking,” Jake told Cassandra, meeting her and Lauro in the dining room the next morning. “Giulia wants us to come to the prison. She thinks there might be something having to do with us.”
The small jail was outside the main part of the city, just a twenty minute walk from Villa Girasole, so she, Jake, and Lauro hurried on foot to meet the mayor. The place was pristine—new, by Siena’s standards, and functional only. Aesthetic appeal didn’t seem to have been a factor in its design. They met the mayor in the warden’s office and were taken down a short hallway to a room where they sat on one side of a thick pane of glass. Soon, the prisoner was brought in, along with his lawyer. They sat, while a guard stood by the door. The shooter was introduced as Tommaso Gamba. He was a large man with a dark complexion. He had small, black eyes set in his wide face, and he moved them rapidly to take in his surroundings. His lips were flaccid, his head completely bald. The lawyer was older, thick around the middle, with a full head of grey hair and bright blue eyes in his too-tanned face.
“I have permitted my client to make a statement to you,” the lawyer began.
“Very well,” Guilia replied.
“Franco Marino paid me to shoot the winner of the Palio.”
The four visitors erupted in exclamations.
Gamba continued, “It was about a month ago. He met with me and told me he’d pay me well to shoot the winner, to prove his point about the Palio being dangerous. We were all set, and he’d given me half. Then he went on this trip. When he got back, he called and told me it was off. I didn’t know why, but I was mad ‘cause I wanted the full amount. Then, when you and he made those speeches, and he said he’d found that painting, I figured that was the reason.”
“Will you swear to this? That Marino paid you to kill the winner of the Palio?” Giulia asked.
“He said to wound him, not kill him, but I missed,” Gamba said with a shrug.
“He will,” said the lawyer, “in exchange for a lighter sentence.”
“But why did you shoot the winner after Marino canceled the deal?” Giulia went on. “And shoot the others too, including Marino?”
“Because I agreed with him the Palio should be ended for good. I figured creating a tragedy was the best way to make sure of that. And when he ran out into the Campo that day to try to get me to stop, I figured I’d take him out. I didn’t want that louse running this city. He didn’t keep his word.”
“Wait a minute,” Giulia said. “I remember you. You’re that guy who won the Palio a few years back, and then they rescinded the prize because you were found guilty of giving your horse a performance-enhancing drug. Didn’t you serve time for that?”
“Just a year.”
“Yes, Tommaso Gamba, I remember.”
The man was obviously unstable. Seriously so.
“And Marino got the gun for you?”
“Yeah, he did. Otherwise I never could’a gotten ahold of one. He’s got contacts.”
“Yes, he certainly does. Well, the charges are piling up against him.” The mayor activated her link. “Find Franco Marino and arrest him. Try the hospital first.” She flicked her wrist to disconnect.
“May I ask a question?” Cassandra asked.
“Yes,” answered Giulia.
“I’ll decide if he can answer it,” said the lawyer.
“Where did Marino go when he left town?”
“I dunno.”
“Why do you ask, Cassandra?” Giulia asked her.
“Because if he went where I think he went, it might be the only place he can escape to now. Are we done here? I’ve got to make a call.”
“Yes, thank you, signore,” Giulia said to the lawyer. “We’ll be in touch with you about your client. The family of the slain rider, as well the wounded parties, will want to have a say in whatever lenience he’s ultimately shown.”
The lawyer nodded and rose to go with Gamba. The four visitors left and made their way out of the building.
“What are you thinking, Cassandra?” Jake asked her.
“I’m thinking it’s just too coincidental that Marino knew about us going back to ancient Siena, and then miraculously found the painting of Giuliana—and that we had more dreams about it being in the Louvre, though it wasn’t there. Also that the administrators of the Louvre had that dream the same day we did. This smells like time - travel to me.” She activated her link, and before Jake could respond, was talking to Professor Carver.
“Elton. Do you have any way to find out if there’s an active portal functioning anywhere in the world, but most specifically right here in Siena?”
“Yes, I can track the signal emitted by a wormhole, but only if it’s been activated within the last thirty days or so. The signal fades after that. What makes you think there is one? No one has the capability to build a portal but us….” His voice broke off; he knew what she was thinking.
“And Nick.” As she spoke the name of her former lover, her mind flashed on him. He had secretly experimented with time travel around fifteen years ago, as Carver was perfecting his own method. However, Nick Stockard’s process was unsanctioned by the Chronology community. He was enormously rich, though, and could build what he wanted, proceed with his experiments in time - travel however he wanted, with no one but his own team knowing.
She had found him in England in 1820. He’d helped her rescue James when her son had gotten into trouble during that trip, and then she’d been in a r
elationship with Nick for a while. But he’d interfered with her journey to New York City of 1853 and behaved despicably. After they’d returned to the future, and Cassandra realized what he’d done, he’d run away. He’d never been caught and no one knew where he was. Could the man with the long silver hair she saw in the Campo the day before she and Jake went on their journey have been him?
Giulia disconnected after talking to her chief of police. “Marino slipped out of the hospital less than an hour ago without being discharged. He’s not at home or at his office.”
Just then, Carver linked Cassandra to the coordinates of a wormhole signal near Siena, and it wasn’t theirs. The information indicated the portal had last been activated two weeks prior, the day before Marino announced he’d found the painting.
Police cars swarmed the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Siena. Cassandra and the others sat with Giulia in her car, surrounded by security, as the Italian police raided the building. Soon Marino and a handful of other people in cuffs emerged.
“I want to talk to that bastard,” Jake yelled.
“He won’t talk to anyone without a lawyer,” said Giulia.
Jake opened the car window and screamed, “Marino, was it Nick Stockard who built this lab for you? Are you working with him?”
Marino turned and stared in Jake’s direction. The look on his face answered the questions at once.
“However,” Cassandra observed, “none of those people they’re arresting is Nick.”
Later that day, Giulia called to tell Cassandra, Jake, and Lauro that Marino had confessed. They all listened as she spoke over the link. “He said Nick Stockard contacted him in July and told him Cassandra and Jake had just returned from a time-journey to Siena of 1509. He said Stockard knew everything about you saving Francesco Marino’s life and restoring Giuliana’s portrait. Everything.”
“What?” Cassandra questioned. “How could he possibly know?”
“I don’t know,” Giulia replied. “But he said Stockard knew Marino was my opponent in the election. He said he would help Marino beat me any way he could, saying he had access to time - travel. Marino then got the idea of going back in time and buying the portrait of Giuliana from his own relatives, and Stockard didn’t hesitate to build him the time portal and help him prepare for the journey.”
Cassandra wracked her brain. Who could have known and told Nick?
Giulia was still talking. “Marino traveled to 1928 and bought the painting of Giuliana from his ancestors, pretending to be an art collector. And get this, Stockard went with him. But Marino said they parted in Siena, and he didn’t know where the man was going. Anyway, Stockard had helped him time the journey so he could buy the painting just after his ancestors claimed it from the Museo Civico and for more than they intended to sell it to the Louvre. Turns out they were pretty thrilled with the transaction. Marino brought it back to the present, intending to reinstate it to our museum here, and gain favor for his campaign. As a result, he essentially stole it from the Louvre, since that’s where it was supposed to have been.”
“Changing that timeline and causing us all to have the dream the second time,” Cassandra added.
“Yes. He went on to plead for mercy, saying that paying Tommaso Gamba to shoot the winner of the Palio was a terrible mistake, and that he canceled that transaction as soon as he had the painting. Though, in the end, he didn’t sanction Gamba to kill anyone, he did confess to being guilty of the original intent to harm the winner. He didn’t, however, ask him to shoot anyone else.”
“He’s still a scum-bag,” muttered Jake.
“Oh yeah. He made the confession in exchange for revealing all he knows about Nick Stockard so he might be caught and brought to justice for his part in all of this.”
“Yeah,” said Cassandra, “except that Nick is still somewhere in 1928, and knows we won’t try to find him. How could we? He could be anywhere by now. Marino really isn’t giving Nick up by telling us all this.”
“Do you think Nick intends to stay there?” Jake wondered. “I mean, how would he get back? We found the portal, and it’s being dismantled.”
“I’m sure he has a plan,” Cassandra mused, her heart sinking. Her great love, time - travel, was now being used for purposes beyond the control of the MIT team. It also confirmed Nick had been in Siena recently. She should have guessed he would stoop to a thing like this. And if anyone wondered why he’d helped Marino, there could only be one answer: to get back at her and all of Carver’s team. What else might he be capable of? For the moment, however, that situation was beyond her control. She and Lauro had to get on with their plan to get him back to Galileo’s time. There was just one thing she needed to figure out first.
Rosa readily agreed to a lie detector test, though Cassandra was ashamed to suggest it. It couldn’t have been the owner of the villa that leaked the details of their trip, even accidentally. And sure enough, Rosa proved to be innocent. As soon as they knew for certain, Cassandra and Lauro went together to the café in the Campo. They found the waiter who’d served them, lounging against the counter, watching a holographic soccer game unfold above the bar.
Before she could stop him, Lauro went to him and pushed at the man’s shoulder. “You!”
The waiter, turned, ready for a fight. “What do you want, old man?”
“Old man? Yes, I am old,” Lauro laughed sardonically, “more than six hundred years old. Do you remember me? I was here a few weeks ago, talking about the history of Siena, among other things, and you seemed very interested in the conversation.”
“I was at first, but I lost interest sometime during your boring history lesson.”
“You didn’t hear us talking about a journey and Francesco Marino? The painting of Giuliana?”
“I didn’t know what you were talking about, and I didn’t care. I only remember you because you yelled ‘remember Montaperti.’”
Lauro was about the same height as he, but the waiter was frail in comparison to the muscular Renaissance man. He clenched his fists and stared menacingly into the waiter’s eyes. “You will tell me the truth, or you and I will go outside and I will beat it out of you.”
Part of Cassandra wanted to pull Lauro away, but part of her really wanted him to succeed.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You’re not some kind of spy for Marino?”
“Marino? That idiot? I love the Palio! I hope to ride in it one day. I would never do anything to help him.”
“I think he’s telling the truth, Lauro,” Cassandra said.
“If you’re sure.”
“Yes, I think so. This is one part of the puzzle we may not solve right away.”
They said good-bye to Jake two days later at the door of Villa Girasole, late in the afternoon. Giulia was at his side. The roundish vehicle Cassandra had ordered to take her and Lauro to the train station squatted on its two wheels in the grooved street.
“I believe this will be farewell forever, Maestro,” Jake said. “I am committed to staying here and helping Signorina Brogi for a while. So I send you off on your new life with my wishes for safe travel and great joy. May your future be even more than you could wish for.”
“Jacopo!” Lauro embraced him and kissed him on both cheeks. “You have become as a brother to me.”
“I will miss you always, and am indebted to you for my life.”
“As am I to you. Buona fortuna, Jacopo.”
“Buona fortuna, Maestro.”
“Good bye, Signor Sampieri,” Giulia said, embracing him. “It has been a great honor to know you.”
“You as well, beautiful and esteemed mayor,” he said as he let go the embrace.
Rosa came to the door wiping a tear away with her hand. “I have become so fond of you, signore. I feel you have opened up a door to my own history.”
Though Giulia had been told of Lauro’s plans, Rosa had not—just that he was leaving for London and would not b
e back.
“Take care of my villa, signorina. I know I shouldn’t say it’s mine, for of course, it’s not, but I will always think of it as my home.”
“You are welcome here any time.”
“Thank you.” Lauro bowed, and Cassandra could see he was struggling to fight back tears. It made the transition into the car easier; he was too full of emotion to focus on the movement of the vehicle as it sped away.
“Even if I do go back to Siena, I will never be able to come back to this house,” he choked.
“Giuliana’s letters said they were already using it as an inn as early as the 1500s. Maybe you could stay there.”
“No. It would be too difficult to see everything nearly as I left it. It’s better I never return to my beautiful villa. I will make my home near Florence as you suggest. Oh, Cassandra, I’m frightened of what’s before me.” He clung to her hands.
“We will prepare you well, my love.” She paused. Did he notice those particular words? “You have a little more time before you go to get used to the idea, and James will be with you those first few weeks in old London until you leave for Italy.”
The car slowed as it pulled into the train station.
“So soon? I hardly even noticed we were moving.”
“I told you it wasn’t bad.”
The doors of the car slid open and they got out while Lauro grabbed their bags.
“Here.” Cassandra tapped a button on each piece of luggage, which then rose from the ground and hovered a few inches in the air.
“Levitation!” cried Lauro.
“Hover-luggage.”
The bags followed them into the station, and the travelers boarded a train as Cassandra flashed her palm-link toward a screen at the train’s entrance, confirming they’d bought tickets for their destination of Dunkirk, France. They found the way to their private compartment.
Lauro inspected his surroundings, fascinated. Cassandra explained as fast as she could the materials, the technologies, and the physics of the train and its elevated tracks that would speed them north through Italy, across the Alps, and to the coast of France, all eleven-hundred kilometers in nine hours. “And this is the slow train,” she told him. “I booked it so we could enjoy the scenery until the sun goes down. Then, when we are ready to sleep, these seats turn into beds.” She smiled shyly.
The Time Contessa (The Time Mistress Book 3) Page 24
