Pasquale's Angel

by Paul J McAuley

  Then he thrust it into his red velvet tunic and told the guards, ‘Bring him and follow me.’

  They lifted Pasquale up, one man to an arm or a leg, and carried him down a winding stair to a small room shaped like the letter D, or a strung bow, with a curved wall of stone on one side, and a wall of cabinets on the other. When the guards set him down Pasquale picked himself up as quickly as possible and faced Salai, who stood just outside the door, two burly guards at his back.

  ‘Full marks for your entrance,’ Salai said, and made soft mocking applause. ‘I cannot tell you how convenient this is. I could almost kiss you. My estimation of your abilities has risen, although it seems that I was right all along about your intelligence. I won’t ask why you came here, not now. Why, I will not even ask how you gained entrance to the tower, or at least not at once. That pleasure will come later.’

  ‘You know very well why I’m here, Salai.’ Pasquale spoke to the guards as much as Salai. ‘It was you who stole the device, and when it fell into my hands and I learned just how important it was, I tried to bring it here. I would bring it directly to the Great Engineer. This is the truth!’

  ‘Oh, shout all you want. You see, these are my men, painter,’ Salai sniffed the air. ‘There’s a certain odour about you. Did you shit your breeches when you came through the window? Speak up: it’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘It is nothing but old blood. A smell you should know intimately. How did you escape Giustiniani’s ambush, Salai? I know it was Giustiniani—those fireworks had his mark, and one of his men nearly surprised me in Niccolò Machiavegli’s room.’

  ‘Who said I escaped?’

  ‘You betrayed my master, and you betrayed the Savonarolistas to Giustiniani. Who else?’

  ‘Ah, such spirit. I shall enjoy putting you to the question, painter. I have not forgotten our last session, of course. We’ll start directly where we left off, in far better-equipped circumstances. I’ll leave you to think that over until it is light, painter, and then we will have you moved to the Bargello, the better to perform my offices of mercy.’

  ‘Niccolò Machiavegli, Salai! Does he still live? Does Giustiniani have him, and Raphael’s corpse?’

  ‘For now,’ Salai said, and the door was shut, its wooden lock rattling home.

  It did not take Pasquale long to explore the room, using what little light leaked through the grille over the transom. The cabinets proved to be full of skulls, and wax impressions of the brains they had once contained. There were shelf upon shelf of them, all neatly catalogued. The dome of each skull was divided by a grid of fine black lines, and each had a tag wired through the right eye, bearing a label in cramped writing that Pasquale thought at first was code, until he realized that it was mirror writing. Woman, age 44, palsy. Man, age 22, blind, congenital idiot, Man, age 56, normal. Man, age 35, hanged as thief. Dust on the shelves suggested that the room had not been used for some time.

  There was nothing that could be used as a weapon, and he did not think that he could climb through the narrow window in the centre of the curved wall, which in any case was so high above the floor that he could only touch its sill by standing on tiptoe. Besides, even if he did manage to climb out he would simply be on the outside of the tower, high above the ground, and with no kite to bear him.

  He sat opposite the door, in the narrow corner made where the cabinets met the curved wall, legs straight in front of him. The aches and bruises he had suffered throbbed. Whenever he closed his eyes he relived the thrill of his flight and his fall, and the amazing moment when he had burst the window. Perhaps he had become the angel he had destroyed: he imagined Salai as a scaly worm writhing beneath his own burning sword. Or perhaps by passing through the image of the angel he had become its reverse: a black angel fallen from the grace of God and doomed only to torment. In any event, the madness that had gripped him seemed to have passed. It had inhabited him ever since he had dived into the river to escape the Savonarolistas, a rising curve of urgent, increasingly uncontrolled action that had left him stranded here, in this little cell high in the Great Tower. Or perhaps he had been infected long before then, when he had first met Niccolò Machiavegli. Perhaps he had taken the old man’s obsessions with plot and counterplot too deeply into his own self, seeing Spanish conspiracies where there was only coincidence. He gripped his ankles and shivered, feeling a lassitude that was not despair but simple acceptance of his fate steal over him.

  8

  He was woken by the door’s cumbersome toothed lock ratcheting backwards. Milky dawn light was leaking through the high window, falling like a blanket around Pasquale, although quite without warmth.

  He blinked back sleep as the door opened and a guard stepped through. The man’s polished steel armour gleamed in the light of the lantern he carried, reflected fragmented images of the room so brightly that the man’s square-jawed clean-shaven face (he was not much older than Pasquale) seemed to float unsupported above a crazy mirror. Behind the guard was the old man Pasquale had seen in the long room. It was the Great Engineer.

  Pasquale scrambled to his feet as best he could. His spine seemed to be a column of jagged fused iron, and his every back-muscle ached. The Great Engineer regarded him mildly, stroking his silky white beard with one hand. He wore a pair of blue-lensed spectacles that perched on the end of his nose like a butterfly.

  ‘You had better bring him along,’ he said at last, as if to the air, and turned away.

  The guard took hold of Pasquale’s arm just above the elbow, the thumb and forefinger of his steel-mesh gauntlet nipping the muscles as cruelly and irresistibly as pincers. He half led, half dragged Pasquale up the winding stair, across the great hall where the kite still hung at the burst stained-glass window, its tattered fabric flapping idly, and through a small door on the far side, into a round room noisy with clocks.

  Clocks of all kinds were ranged around the walls: clocks powered by falling sand; clocks with water-wheel linkwork escapements; and every kind of mechanical clock, with dials of burnished gold and silver, or carved painted wood, or even of glass, behind which candles glowed through holes pricked to represent the constellations. There were day clocks and calendar clocks which showed the feasts of the saints, and even an antiquated weight-driven astrolabe with a revolving drum that dripped mercury as an escapement. And in the centre of the room, twice as high as a man, was a great astronomical clock, its weight-driven mechanism visible inside a cage of brass, with a seven-sided drum above. Each face of the drum bore a dial showing the movement of one of the seven heavenly bodies, the Primum Mobile, the moon and the planets, and below the drum, within the brass cage, were ring-dials which showed the hour of the day, and the fixed and movable feasts of the Church, and a dial for the nodes. This device made a loud regular knocking, like a magnified heartbeat, measured and stately against the background of the brisk chatter of the smaller mechanisms.

  The Great Engineer stood at the far end of the room, looking out of a window, like a section of a bubble, or a lens, that reached from floor to ceiling. The guard walked Pasquale across the room, and when Pasquale started to ask why he had been brought here told him to speak only when spoken to.

  ‘But the device—’

  The guard, a blond fellow with a bumpy close-cropped head, a smooth boyish face, and intense icy-blue eyes, said quietly, ‘My master has few words, but each is chosen with care. You will have to get used to his little ways.’

  Pasquale was made to sit at a small table inside the lens of the window. Looking out at the waking city stretched far below, he had the dizzy sensation of being housed in the eye of a giant. He was so high, the Great Tower being four times the height of the square tower of the Palazzo della Signoria, that he could see the circle of the city walls on either side of the river. He saw the manufactories strung along the river, with blackened gaps where some had been burnt out, the bridges across the braided river, and, directly below, the seat of government. The Piazza della Signoria, deep in shadow, was sti
ll littered with the wrecks of the devices of the artificers. The great statue of David was reduced by Pasquale’s elevation to a chip or fleck.

  The Great Engineer remarked to the air, ‘The guard is Salai’s, of course, and will straight away send word to his master, wherever he is.’

  ‘Whatever are you thinking of, master! Of course I won’t,’ the guard said, and winked at Pasquale. ‘Master, don’t you want to share breakfast with this young hero?’

  ‘Has he time for breakfast? Shouldn’t you take him away?’

  ‘It’s the least we can do for him,’ the guard said, winking at Pasquale again. ‘Salai’s men won’t check the room until they get orders.’ He pulled a red cord set in a channel in the wall, apparently without effect.

  The Great Engineer turned and left the window without looking at Pasquale, and started to wind up the weight of the tall astronomical clock, using a toothed key as long as a man’s arm. He favoured his left hand.

  The guard said, with the air of a stage-manager prompting a recalcitrant actor, ‘This is all about the model of the device that went missing, is it not?’

  Pasquale said, ‘I came to bring it back, but Salai took it from me.’

  ‘Well of course, I saw it myself. Didn’t we see that, master?’

  The Great Engineer set down the key and said, ‘You don’t have to humour me, Jacopo. I suppose I must hear how the model fell into this young man’s hands.’

  ‘Set on your tale,’ the guard told Pasquale.

  While the Great Engineer pottered about his clocks, winding them one by one, Pasquale started to explain what had fallen out, how he had come by the device, the murder of Romano that was not after all a murder, the assassination of Raphael and the theft of his corpse, Niccolò Machiavegli’s kidnap, Salai’s plotting with the Savonarolistas and his double-edged game with Giustiniani.

  ‘I had intended to bring your device straight back to you, master,’ Pasquale said, ‘but my luck did not run far enough for that.’

  The guard said, ‘It was a brave try, eh master?’

  There was a silence while the Great Engineer finished winding his clocks. At last he said, ‘It does not matter, Jacopo. You cannot suppress an idea, as I long ago discovered. Once it is loosed on the world it acquires a life of its own, as in the Greek story of Pandora. Often it is enough for someone sufficiently skilled to know a thing is possible—I once amused myself by telling my pupils that I had done such and such a task in such and such a way, and having them attempt to duplicate my efforts. Most could, and although no one way was exactly the same as any other, there was, as it were, a familial resemblance. The model was not important, but the idea behind it was, and that is abroad.’

  The guard, Jacopo, said, ‘Well, perhaps we were unsuccessful in keeping the camera secret, but this is a more dangerous matter.’

  Pasquale said, ‘Salai believes the model important, master, which means he has found a buyer for it. I believe that he’s taken it to the Venetian magician, Paolo Giustiniani, who will sell it on to the Spanish. The Spanish will use it against Florence. I helped frustrate his plans the first time, although entirely by accident. He was working through intermediaries last time, but now he has moved openly. I would try and stop him, if I could.’

  Jacopo said, ‘You mentioned this Giustiniani before. Did Salai tell you why he treated with him and not directly with Spain?’

  Pasquale thought back on what Salai had said, and admitted, ‘Not in so many words, but the way in which the Savonarolistas were attacked on the river has Giustiniani’s mark. Besides, the Savonarolistas are fanatics who would not pay for the device—or not as much as Giustiniani could no doubt promise.’

  Jacopo said, ‘But you’ve no evidence, eh? Well, whoever he has gone to, Salai won’t be back this time, master. It’s treason he’s set on. Open treason.’

  The Great Engineer put his hands over his ears.

  ‘That’ll do no good,’ Jacopo said loudly. He was leaning at the join the window made with the wall, idly looking out at the city. He added, ‘You know he’s really done it this time. You won’t be able to buy him out of this kind of trouble. You’ll have to rescue him from himself.’

  This Jacopo had a sly comfortable air, Pasquale thought, protective but self-serving, too, like the youngest son who humours his father’s every whim in hope of a share of the inheritance. There was best Flemish lace at the neck and wrists of his armour, and his sword had a finger-guard of fretted gold, set with little rubies like flecks of blood.

  The Great Engineer put down his hands and looked at them. ‘How did I get so old, Jacopo? And my beautiful boy?’

  ‘I suppose it was the usual way, master.’

  ‘Salai trusts no one,’ the Great Engineer said, ‘for after all he knows in his own heart that he is not to be trusted, and so he thinks all men are the same as he. You were right, young man, to call him the prince of lies. I named him in punning reference to the name of the god of the Moorish peoples, for from the first he seemed a very limb of Satan. Such a pretty boy, but such manners and such sulks. And greedy too, of course, taking whatever he wanted. Like a little prince, in a way. So it has come to this. No doubt he will have you killed, by and by.’

  ‘We haven’t rescued this young man to let him be killed by Salai’s bullies, master,’ Jacopo said. ‘You know that very well, so stop trying to scare him.’

  ‘It’s only the truth.’

  ‘Only if you let it be the truth,’ Jacopo said, and winked at Pasquale again.

  ‘Yes, you’d like to see Salai’s powers diminished,’ the Great Engineer said.

  ‘He has altogether too much power over you, and his faction has too much power over the other artificers. A spot of humiliation will do us all good.’

  ‘And will do you good most especially,’ the Great Engineer said. ‘Don’t think I don’t know how you try and poison my mind against Salai.’

  ‘Hush,’ Jacopo said. ‘Not in front of the servants.’

  A page entered, bearing a tray of fruit and soft black bread and a sweating pitcher of water. He set it on the low table in front of the centre of the lensed window and withdrew. Jacopo, still lounging by the window, told Pasquale, ‘Eat what you will.’

  ‘What about your master?’

  ‘Oh,’ Jacopo said loudly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the Great Engineer was listening, ‘he’ll claim he’s already eaten. He eats hardly enough for a mouse, and sleeps even less. In anticipation, he says, for the long sleep that is to come.’ More softly, Jacopo told Pasquale, ‘Eat, and let my master think matters over. He’ll warm to the idea, sooner or later. He’ll soon see that if Salai succeeds it can only reflect badly on him. And believe it or not, he still has a soft spot for Salai. He won’t want him to come to harm.’

  Pasquale knocked the tray to the floor; focused by the curved glass of the window, it made a particularly satisfactory crash. The Great Engineer blinked at him, his eyes mistily magnified by the blue lenses of his spectacles. It was the first time he had looked directly at Pasquale.

  Jacopo had drawn his sword. ‘You fool!’ he said.

  Pasquale sprang to his feet and said, ‘I must ask you to let me go, master. It is not too late to stop Salai. I will do it, if you will not.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Jacopo hissed. ‘You don’t know what he can be like. He still loves Salai.’

  ‘Peace, Jacopo,’ the Great Engineer said mildly, ‘and put up your sword. Do you think this young man will attack me with a plum, or a handful of figs? As for you, young man, there’s no need to get excited. I have said that I will help you, as in fact I already have. If it is in my power, you will leave the tower before Salai returns, or as is more likely, before he learns that you are free and sends the order that you are to be locked up more securely.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, master, but I would ask more.’ Desperation had made Pasquale bold. Salai had said that Niccolò was still alive, but what would happen if Giustiniani had all he wanted? He said, ‘
If you let me go free that is one thing. Perhaps I can stop Salai, perhaps not. What I do know is that I must struggle against his plans while also evading the plans of Signor Taddei, who would ransom me in exchange for Raphael’s body. I can try my best, master, but I am but a painter, and hardly more than a pupil at that, while you can call upon so much that for you it would be a simple matter to drag Salai from his meeting-place.’

  ‘Keep your counsel,’ Jacopo said in a fierce whisper. ‘You’ll scare him, and then nothing will happen!’

  ‘It is nothing but the truth,’ Pasquale insisted.

  ‘You fool—I’m on your side!’

  The Great Engineer said, ‘Salai has tried to poison me twice, and a few years ago a soldier shot at me. He missed and was killed at once, but I have my suspicions.’

  ‘More than suspicions,’ Jacopo said.

  Pasquale asked, ‘And yet you could not have evicted him?’

  ‘Not now. His influence is too great, and he has intimated that my mind is failing. Well, perhaps it is. Besides, where else would he go? Poor Salai has never known another home.’

  ‘You see how it is,’ Jacopo said, flinging up his hands in frustration.

  ‘But I loved him, and forgave him,’ the Great Engineer said. ‘I still love him, or the wayward child from which he has grown, and which still in some measure lives in him. Besides, the tower is not mine, or at least, this part of it is not. So that I might build it I made a compact with the Signoria, that if they would pay for the construction and allow me to work as I would, the tower would house a university of artificers. They were great days, once! We would work for days on end in pursuit of an idea. I remember when Vannoccio Biringuccio first rediscovered the principle of Hero’s engine—he sealed water in a copper sphere, which he heated, and was lucky to survive the explosion. We thought the tower was falling! Who would have believed where that would lead, in fifteen years? Who would have thought that our simple inquiries into Nature would so change the world? What do you see, Jacopo?’