Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales

by Garry Kilworth

  The city was still there, of course, he reminded himself. It was vertical, instead of laying like a great pool over the surface of the continent. It was as if the houses had been sucked up to the clouds, like water in a waterspout, and now stood as a giant pillar supporting heaven. The city had become the Tower, a monument to artistic beauty and achievement: a profound and glorious testament to brilliant architecture. Perfect in its symmetry, most marvellous in its form, without parallel in all the previous accomplishments of man. It was grace and elegance, tastefulness and balance, to the finest degree possible this side of heaven. The angels could not have created a more magnificent testimonial to art, nor God Himself a splendour more pleasing to the eye.

  And at its head, the great and despised architect and builder himself, its maker and resident.

  The Tower had been started by the High Priest designate, da Vinci, when he was in his early twenties.

  ‘We need to get closer to God,’ he had told his contemporaries and the people, ‘and away from the commerce and business of the streets. We have the cathedral’s steeple of course, but think what a great monument to the city a tower would be! We could use the bricks and rubble from condemned buildings, to keep the cost of the construction low. The air is cleaner up there.’

  Da Vinci was now truly a ‘high priest’ living at the top of the Tower, away from the people, protected by his army of clergy. It was said that oxygen had to be pumped to his chambers, night and day, in order to breathe up there. It was also very cold, and fires were maintained constantly, the fuel coming from the stored furniture of a million inhabitants of the old city.

  He had begun the work, as he had promised, by using the debris from demolished houses, factories, government buildings, but gradually, as the fever for greatness took him, so he had urged his priests to find more materials elsewhere. Gravestones were used, walls were pillaged, wells were shorn of bricks. The people began to complain but da Vinci told them the wrath of God would descend upon any dissenter, and since he was God’s instrument, he would see to it that the sentence was death.

  By this time the Tower had become a citadel, within whose walls a private army grew. The Holy Guardians, as they were called, went forth daily to find more building materials, forcing people from their homes around the Tower, and tearing up whole streets to get at the slabs beneath.

  Not all the citizens were unhappy about da Vinci’s scheme, or he never would have got as far as he did. Many were caught up in his fervour, added fuel to his excitement and determination. The guild of building workers, for example, a strong group of men, was totally behind the idea of a Tower to God. It promised them work for many years to come.

  Also the water-carriers, with their mule-pulled carts; the tool makers; the waggoners carrying supplies for the builders and the Holy Guardians; the weapon makers; the brick workers; the slate and marble miners. All these people put themselves behind da Vinci with undisguised enthusiasm.

  Da Vinci began recruiting more youths, and maidens, as the Tower’s demands for a larger workforce grew, and these came mainly from the city streets. When the guild could no longer find willing, strong people to join them, they sent out press gangs and got their labour that way. Eventually, they had to get workers from the farms, around the city, and the land was left to go to waste while the Tower grew, mighty and tall, above the face of the world.

  Churches were among the last buildings to be stripped, but torn down they were, and their stained-glass windows and marble used to enhance da Vinci’s now fabled monument. The High Priest strove for perfection in his quest for beauty. Inferior materials were torn out, removed, shipped down to the ocean in barges and cast into the waves. No blemish was too small to be overlooked and allowed to remain. Every part of the tower, every aspect, deserved the utmost attention, deserved to meet perfection at its completion.

  Flawlessness became da Vinci’s obsession. Exactness, precision, excellence. Nothing less would be accepted. There were those who died, horribly, for a tiny defect, a mark out of true that was visible only in certain lights, and viewed at certain angles, by someone with perfect vision. There was no such thing as a small error, for every scratch was a chasm.

  This was the form that his obsession took.

  By the time tower was half-built the population had already begun to leave the city. Long lines of refugees trekked across the wasteland, to set up camps in the hanging valleys beyond, where there was at least a shallow surface soil for growing meagre crops, though the mountains cast cold shadows over their fields, and high altitude winds brought early frosts.

  Or people made their way to the sea and settled on a coastal strip that could barely support the fishermen who had lived there before the multitudes arrived. Many of them died on the march, some travelled by river and drowned when the overcrowded rafts were thrown by the rapids; others perished of starvation when they arrived at the camps; thousands went down with the plague and never raised their heads above the dust again.

  And still the Tower grew.

  What do you think of da Vinci?’ asked Romola on the third night they were together.

  ‘He’s a genius,’ said Niccolò without hesitation. ‘He is the greatest architect and builder the world has ever known.’

  ‘Does his genius come from God?’

  She peered at him through the firelight.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘I mean does God give him instruction?’

  ‘That sounds close to blasphemy,’ he said, staring hard. ‘You’re suggesting that God, not the High Priest, should take credit for the Tower. It is da Vinci’s work, not the Lord’s.’

  He drew away from her then, away from the fire, despite his fear of the night snakes amongst the darkness of the rocks.

  She continued to talk.

  ‘I used to be one of the Holy Guardians—until I was thrown out on my ear...’

  He looked at her, then behind him at the Tower, then back to her again.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you didn’t come from the refugee camp? You came from the Tower itself?’

  ‘I...I didn’t know what else to do, when we were told to leave, I thought about looking for my parents’ former home, thinking it was a long way from the Tower and something of it might have survived.’

  ‘Why were you asked to leave?’

  ‘New guards were recruited, from distant places. The old Holy Guardians have been disbanded. We are no longer permitted to remain near the tower. Most of my friends have gone down to the sea, to try to get work on the ships, guarding against pirates. Fighting is all we know. I intend to ask the High Priest if some of his—his closer Companions at Arms can return to our former posts. We were his Chosen, after all.’

  Niccolò smiled.

  ‘You mean he doesn’t call you to his bed any more?’

  She lifted her head and shook it.

  ‘No, that’s a privilege reserved for the Holy Guardians.’

  ‘I see. So the fact that you, and most of your companions, had reached the age of thirty or thereabouts, had nothing to do with you being asked to leave? The new men and women, they’re not young, handsome or pretty of course?’

  She stared at Niccolò.

  ‘He recruited a new army for very logical reasons. They now consist of many small groups of men and women from different regions, different tribes.’

  ‘Now why did da Vinci do that?’ asked Niccolò, softly.

  ‘It’s said that he’s afraid of plots being formed against him, even amongst his trusted Holy Guardians. The separate new groups do not speak each other’s language, they use many different tongues. If they can’t communicate, they can’t conspire against the High Priest, can they?’ she said. ‘Since he has control over a small group of interpreters, he has complete control over the whole army.’

  Despite himself, Niccolò was impressed. It certainly was clever strategy on da Vinci’s part. There was much to admire about da Vinci, no matter how much he was hated. The Tower was a produc
t of a brilliant mind. The architecture, the engineering, was decades ahead of its time. Where an old support might have proved too weak, da Vinci had designed a new one. He was responsible for inventing the transverse arch, the buttress, the blind arcade, and many other architectural wonders. The absolute beauty of the work— the colonnades, the windows, the ceilings—was indeed worthy of a god.

  Such a pity a million people had been sacrificed to feed his egoism.

  On the third Sunday Niccolò confronted her, waking her from a deep sleep. ‘You’ve been meddling,’ he said, angrily. ‘You’ve been sticking your nose in amongst my goods.’ She shook the sleep from her head, staring up at him. Comprehension came to her gradually. He could see it appearing in her eyes. ‘I was just curious,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean any harm.’

  Niccolò pointed to one of the packs that had fallen from a camel. Its contents had spilled out, over the desert floor: marble statuettes of angels, of cherubim, of seraphim.

  She stared where he was pointing.

  He said, ‘When you retied the knot, you used a knot that slipped— there’s the result.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to...’

  ‘To spy,’ said Niccolò.

  He could see he was right by the expression on her face and he grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. She immediately struck him a sharp blow with the heel of her hand behind his ear, then as his head snapped to the side, she kicked him in the groin. He went down in the dust, excruciating pains shooting through his neck, a numbness in his genitals which quickly turned to an unbearable aching.

  She had been, after all, a soldier.

  ‘Don’t you dare try that again,’ she cried. ‘My mother was an assassin. She taught me the martial arts. I could kill you now...’

  In his agony he didn’t need to be told.

  By the time he had recovered, she had gathered his statuettes, carefully wrapped them in their protective rags, and tied them inside the pack. He hobbled over to it and inspected the knots, satisfying himself that this time they were correct and tight. Then he swung himself into his saddle, winced to himself, and gestured for her to follow on with the camels.

  Those figurines,’ she said, obviously trying to make friends with him again, ‘they’re very beautiful. Where do they come from?’

  ‘I carved them myself,’ he said, ‘from the finest block of marble the eastern quarries have ever disgorged.’

  She seemed impressed, though she was obviously no judge of art, nor could she know the work that went into just one of the three hundred and thirty-three statuettes. There was admiration in her tone.

  ‘They’re very beautiful,’ she repeated.

  ‘They’re flawless,’ he remarked as casually as he could. ‘It took many years to carve them all, and I have only just completed them. They are a gift, for da Vinci. He can no longer carve minutely, the way one needs to be able to carve if one is to produce a piece just six inches tall—objects that need a younger steadier hand—especially since he developed arthritis.’

  She was silent after this.

  The Tower grew in size and height, as they drew nearer to its base, until it filled the horizon. Its immensity and resplendence overawed Niccolò so much that he almost turned around, forgot his mission, and went back to the mountains. It would now take him a day to ride, not to the end, but to the edge of the Tower’s shadow. The Tower was like a carved mountain, a white pinnacle of rock that soared upwards to pierce the light blues of the upper skies. Its peak was rarely visible, being wrapped about with clouds for much of the time. The high night winds blew through its holes and hollows, so that it was like a giant flute playing eerie melodies to the moon.

  By this time they had begun to eat one of the camels, and two others had been set free, their fodder having been consumed and their usefulness over. The water was almost gone.

  Romola showed him how to produce water, by using the stretched membrane of the dead camel’s stomach. She dug a conical pit in the sand, placed a tin cup at its bottom, and shaped the membrane so that it sagged in the centre. Water condensed on its underside and dripped into the cup.

  ‘I’m an artist,’ he stated, piqued by her superior survival knowledge, ‘I don’t know about these things.’

  ‘So, an artist, but not a survivor?’

  ‘I make out.’

  They reached the Tower, footsore, weary, but alive. The Holy Guardians immediately took them into custody. Romola protested, saying she was a former soldier, but she could not get them to understand what she was saying. All around the tower was a babble of voices, men and women talking to each other in a dozen different tongues. Romola’s pleas were ignored and she was thrown into the dungeons.

  Niccolò found a Holy Guardian who spoke one of the three languages he knew and explained to him that he had brought some gifts for the High Priest and that da Vinci would be greatly angered if Niccolò were not permitted an audience with the one on high.

  ‘I am the High Priest’s son,’ said Niccolò, ‘and I wish to pay homage to my father.’

  Messages were sent, answers received, and eventually Niccolò found himself being hoisted in silver cages up the various stages of the Tower: pulled rapidly aloft by winches through which ran golden chains with counterweights. An invention of his father.

  With him went his bundles of statuettes.

  He reached the summit of the tower and was ushered into a huge room on his knees, before the powerful presence of the High Priest, da Vinci. The room was decorated to the quintessence of perfection, its ceilings painted by great artists, its walls carved with wonderful bas-relief friezes, and on the cloud-patterned marble floor stood statues sculpted by the genius da Vinci himself.

  A thin middle-aged man stared at Niccolò with hard eyes, from a safe distance. He rubbed his arthritic hands together, massaging the pain, while the guards stood poised with heavy swords, ready to decapitate Niccolò if their master so gestured.

  ‘You claim to be my son,’ he said, ‘but I have many sons, many daughters—bastards all of them.’

  Niccolò replied, ‘It’s true, I’m illegitimate, but how could it be otherwise? You’ve never married.’

  The old man laughed softly.

  ‘That’s true. I loved only one woman—and she failed me.’

  Niccolò assumed a puzzled expression.

  ‘How did she fail you, my lord?’

  ‘She scarred herself, making her loveliness ugly to my sight. She was a vision of beauty, that became horrible to my eyes...’ The memory was obviously painful to da Vinci, for he paused for a moment in deep thought, a frown upon his face, then his mood changed, and he said, ‘What? What is it? Why did you request, no demand, to see me?’

  ‘I bring you a gift, my lord,’ said Niccolò. ‘A present for my father. Three hundred and thirty-three statuettes, all carved with great skill by a talented artist—a genius—every one of them a masterpiece.’

  ‘Who is this artist? Raphael? Michelangelo?’

  Niccolò raised his head and smiled.

  ‘I am the artist, my lord.’

  This time da Vinci roared with laughter.

  ‘Let me see the gift.’

  The guards unwrapped the rags and the statuettes began to appear, were placed carefully upon the marble floor, until they covered a huge area of the great room. Eventually, they were all on view, and the High Priest motioned for the guard to bring one to where he stood. He studied it, first while it rested in the guard’s hands, then taking it in his own and turning it over and over, cautiously, but also admiringly.

  ‘This is indeed a beautiful work of art,’ said da Vinci, holding up the figurine so that the soft light caught the patterns on its buffed and polished surface. ‘How many of them did you say are in the set?’

  ‘Three hundred and thirty-three.’

  Da Vinci smiled.

  ‘You know the value of numbers. Three—the Perfect Harmony.’

  ‘Or union of unity and diversity...’

 
‘Both. And here we have the perfect number—three threes.’

  ‘Angels, cherubim, seraphim,’ said Niccolò. He began to arrange them in a large circle on the marble floor. ‘As you see,’ he continued as he worked, concentrating, not looking up at da Vinci, ‘they are also an interlocking puzzle. Each angel fits into another, but only one other. You will notice that the pattern of the marble flows through the figures, like an ocean current, following the holy circle. I defy you to find where the pattern begins and where it ceases, for it is one continuous flowing band.’

  ‘Marvellous...’ Niccolò heard the High Priest breathe.

  There were angels of every kind, some nude, some clothed in flowing robes, some wielding swords of justice. There were seraphim brandishing spears of truth, and cherubim with little wings, drawing on cupid bows with tiny arrows.

  ‘But look closely my lord, at the features...’

  The High Priest did as he was bid.

  ‘...every one of them,’ continued Niccolò, ‘has your face, when you were a young and beautiful youth.’

  There was silence in the room for a long time.

  Finally, da Vince walked past his prisoner, looked down on the multitude of marble figures at his feet, all bearing his features from a time when he was at his most handsome.

  ‘Superb,’ he whispered, stroking the one in his hand lovingly. ‘Wonderful—’ But then he cried out, as if in pain, as he plucked a cherub from the holy ring.

  ‘There ’s one with a broken wing,’ he cried.

  A guard near to Niccolò moved uncertainly, as if he believed he was expected to do something about his master’s anguish, but da Vinci held up a withered arthritic hand.

  Niccolò spoke quickly.

  ‘An accident, father. I shall carve another to replace it. I brought enough of the marble with me to carve three more statuettes, should it be necessary.’