Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1940

by Twice In Time (v1. 1)

  Giuliano laughed again. "God's wounds, what a tingler!" he praised me. "I'll ward it another time."

  Forward he came again, right foot advanced, his cloaked left arm brought well up. Again I awaited his thrust, parried it and drove it out of line, then riposted as before. He, as good as his promise, interposed the folds of the cloak, taking a muffled tap on his left forearm. But that hurt him somewhat, and he retreated. This time I followed him, avoided an engagement, and half struck at his head. But I stopped in time, fearing to injure him and make dangerous enemies. Instead I diverted the course of the stroke into a sweeping moulinet, passing over his weapon to my right and his left, and terminated it in a resounding thwack on Giuliano's velvet-sleeved sword arm.

  ABSOLUTE silence fell, then a murmur of consternation from the onlookers. For Giuliano's smile had vanished, and his eyes flashed fire. Plainly the contest had ceased to be sport with him—my thumps had made him angry. He snapped out a soft blasphemy, advanced quickly, and sped a slashing cut—not at me, but at my stick. The edge of his steel, keen as a razor, shore through the tough wood without effort, and I was left with a mere baton in my hand, a truncated billet no more than fifteen inches long.

  "No, no, Giuliano, spare him !" called out Lorenzo, but too late to balk his brother's murderous stab at my throat.

  I managed to parry with the short length of wood remaining to me, causing his point to shoot upward and over my left shoulder. At once I stepped forward, well within his lunge. Before he could retreat or recover, my free right hand caught the cross-guard of his weapon, and wrenched. His own right arm, bruised twice in the previous engagements, had lost some of its strength, and in a trice I tore the sword away from him.

  At once I dropped my severed stick, fell back and whipped the captured hilt into my left hand.

  "By your leave, my lord," I panted, "I will continue the matter with this more suitable equipment."

  But then Lorenzo, Poliziano and Guaracco had sprung forward and between us. The sorcerer caught me in his arms and wrestled me farther back, his red beard rasping my ear as he hissed out a warning to take care. Lorenzo the Magnificent was lecturing Giuliano in the manner of big brothers in every land and generation. And Giuliano recovered his lost temper.

  "Hark you, Ser Leo, I did amiss," he called out to me, laughing. "I had no lust to hurt you at the beginning. I meant only fun. And then—" He broke off, still grinning, and rubbed his injured arm. "I forgot myself. It is not many who can teach me either swordplay or manners but, by Saint Michael of the Sword! You have done both."

  It was handsomely said, and I gladly gave him back his weapon, assuring him that I bore no ill-will. At that, he embraced me in the impulsive Latin manner, swearing that he would stand my friend forever. The company subsided to chairs again, happy that no harm had befallen either of us.

  "We wander from the path of our earlier discourse," reminded Abbot Mariotto tactfully. "Ser Leo was speaking of a flying machine. Where is it, my son?"

  "It is not yet constructed, Holy Father," I replied.

  As with so many other things, the principle of flying a heavier-than-air machine was caught only vaguely in the back of my head. I could visualize roughly the form, a thin body with a rudder for tail and outspread wings. And something to stir the air.

  "Belike you would strap wings to your arms," suggested Giuliano.

  "Impossible," spoke up Poliziano. "Are not men's arms too weak for flight? Would there not need great muscles, at least as strong as those of the legs?"

  I had an inspiration, and an answer. "The muscles of our legs are many times stronger than needful to support the weight of our bodies," I told him.

  Lorenzo, eager as always for new philosophic diversion, challenged me to prove it. I asked him to get me a long, tough plank, and servants were sent scurrying after it. While I waited, I chose a strong, straight chair, and sat upon it. A cushion I took and laid upon my knees. When the plank arrived, I balanced it upon this cushion.

  "Now, come, all of you," I invited, "and rest yourselves upon this plank."

  LORENZO did so at once, and then his brother. The others followed laughingly, not excepting the abbot and Madonna Simonetta—ten in all, supported upon my knees. Only Guaracco stood aloof.

  "Your long shank support many hundredweight, my stout Cousin," he said, "but what does this prove?"

  "It proves his argument, and the fallacy of mine," handsomely replied Poliziano for me, as he rose from his seat at one end of the plank. "His legs have tenfold strength, and his arms may be strong in proportion, enough to flap wings and waft upward his entire weight."

  "Then let me see it done," pronounced Lorenzo, with a grand finality that made my heart sink. "I am ambitious, Ser Leo, to watch you 'mount up with wings as eagles.' And I do not forget the other arrangement, by which you will make solid shot to explode."

  This last labor, which I had been glad to slight in conversation, now seemed actually the easier.

  But Simonetta and the other ladies professed themselves weary of cold science, be it ever so important in a masculine world, and demanded music.

  Poliziano, whose voice was as sweet as his appearance was ungainly, immediately snatched up a silver lute and picked out a lively tune. The song he rendered was saucy and merry, and not a little shocking; but the holy abbot led the loud applause.

  "More! More!" cried Simonetta.

  Poliziano, bowing low to her, sang to a more measured and dignified tune, an offering that had all the earmarks of impromptu versification, inasmuch as it mentioned the beauty of Simonetta, the magnificence of Lorenzo, the churchly dignity of Abbot Mariotto and, finally, the enigmatic quality of my own discourse.

  "And will not Ser Leo sing?" asked one of the ladies when Poliziano had made an end. "His conversation and talents are so varied—war, science, debate, flying like a bird—"

  "Let us hear your voice, young sir," Lorenzo commanded me.

  Thus urged, I took Poliziano's lute, altering the pitch and harmony of its four strings until I could strum upon it in a hit-or-miss fashion, evoking chords to accompany myself. The song which I managed to improvise and sing to Poliziano's tune was on the subject of stars, so edifying to my new friends and so distasteful to Guaracco.

  Since Lorenzo and the others commended it highly, it may not be amiss to set it down here.

  You think I am a spark—I am a star.

  You think that I am small, but I am great.

  You think me dim, but I am only far,

  Far out in space, beyond your love and hate.

  You think me feeble—but I am a sun,

  Whose rule is resolute, whose face endures,

  Beneath whose heat and light are wondersdone.

  Throughout a leash of nobler worlds thanyours.

  You think you know my secrets, and you say

  That they are thus and thus—but, throughthe sky,

  My beam strikes from so many years away,

  You know not how I live, nor when I die.

  CHAPTER X

  The Bombs and the Wings

  SILENT as we departed from the gathering together, Guaracco soon spoke.

  "I know very little, after all, of how you live," he said "but perhaps I can arrange how and when you die. That song was meant to reproach me."

  "Just as you like" I rejoined, for my fear of him had quite departed. Too, I was arraying my spirit against further imposition of his will. "Your masterful ways become burdensome, Guaracco. I defy you."

  And I paused, near the palace gates, my fists clenched.

  "No violence," he warned me. "I carry a sword, as well as that short gun you saw yesterday. And my dwarfs are never far away. You, on the other hand, have not yet assumed our Florentine fashion of carrying arms." His beard stirred in the gloom, and I knew that he smiled, "But I shall not kill you, Leo, unless you force me. All these defiances stand me in good stead."

  "In good stead?" I repeated, for after my temporary semi-hypnotized slavishness, nothing had
been further from my wish than to aid Guaracco.

  "Aye, that. In scorning magic and upholding science, you taught me a lesson, and few can boast of teaching me anything of worth. It is time for me to forget my sorcery pretenses, at least where it concerns my relationship to Lorenzo. Science shall be my way with him hereafter—but not too much science. You and I shall work wonders for him, the two of us."

  "Am I to help you?" I sneered.

  He shook his head, laughing. "It is I who shall help you. For instance, that matter of exploding shot. I saw, as did not Lorenzo, that you were perplexed. But it happens that I may help you to fashion such a thing. Again, is it not true that you wish to return some day to your own century?"

  Useless to deny that, and I said so.

  "And have you not forgotten many details of your time-reflecting machine?"

  Equally useless to deny that.

  "For instance," went on Guaracco, as we resumed our walk together, "you have forgotten certain ways to use this strange new power which you named to me as electricity. It gives light, but how?"

  I could not tell him.

  "I shall refresh your lost memory. Is there not a certain bottle or globe, exhausted of air—and a wire of some substance set glowing within—"

  I clutched his arm, so suddenly fierce that he broke off and swore in startled pain.

  "How do you know that?" I demanded. "Yes, I had forgotten entirely. But you knew, and about airplanes as well !"

  "Let me go," he commanded. "Here come Lorenzo's grooms with our horses."

  WE accepted our mounts, and rode away side by side.

  "Now," said Guaracco, as we entered a dim street, lighted only by the lanterns of a watch patrol, "you will remember that I showed you a pearl, a beautiful jewel? And it put you to

  sleep?"

  "You mean that in my trance I remembered—" I could see how possible that was.

  Meanwhile, I braced my spirit lest he try some other occult trick.

  But he only nodded, as if to check the point. "I learned things about your science which you yourself cannot grasp when awake. You shall look into the pearl again, Leo, and more knowledge will creep forth. We shall produce wonders for Lorenzo, winning great favor and possessions, and also build your time reflector. Nay our time reflector —for perhaps I shall make the journey through the ages with you."

  He was swaying me very strongly but still I resented his absorbing mastery of every situation. He seemed to read my mind.

  "Let us not be lord and servant any more," he offered, "but colleagues and friends. Lorenzo is disposed to grant us money for a shop of our own. Stay on with Verrocchio lest others become suspicious. But your spare time can be applied to our own profit." His voice became sly. "Lisa asks after you, lad. She would be pleased to see you again. And, for all your last words to her, I think you would be pleased, too. Is is not so?"

  Finally I agreed to a truce and a partnership. After all, it was the only way to escape from the Renaissance. And Guaracco's concessions seemed handsome, at the time.

  On the following day I skimped my work with Verrocchio, and called on Guaracco at the little house where once he had tried to bestow Lisa upon me. Lisa was there, shy but apparently glad to see me. How had I been able to admire Simonetta Vespucci so greatly, only twelve hours before I could not understand. But I did my best to conceal my feelings. Guaracco must not bring that influence to bear upon me a second time.

  As at his house in the country, Guaracco had fitted up the cellar for laboratory and workshop. At once we began work on the "explosive shot" which Lorenzo had demanded.

  At my recommendation we made it cylindrical instead of round, a good eighteen inches long and six in diameter. Bronze, being light, strong and workable, was our choce for the outer shell of this bomb, and I cut deen cross lines in the outer surface so that it might the more easily explode and fly in pieces. The inside we filled strategically with lumps of lead, with spaces between for powder.

  Guaracco, though helpful, was as puzzled as Giuliano de Medici about the delay in explosion. To be certain of that delay, I mixed a slow-burning powder, with charcoal of willow wood only lightly burnt. The completed mixture as no more than dark brown in color, and a noticeable interval of time was needed for its ignition. Of this slow-burning powder I made a fuse or match, which led through a hole in the rear part of the bomb.

  "The discharge from the cannon will ignite the match," I explained, "and the explosion will come in as short a space as you would take to say an Ave Maria."

  "Say an Ave Maria for the souls of those it strikes." Guaracco laughed with cruel relish.

  We also made a more elaborate bomb, its curved sides pierced with muzzles from which bullets could be thrown by the explosion. When both were finished—we took only a morning and an afternoon—Guaracco recommended that we wait before presenting them to Lorenzo.

  "I take a parable from the construction itself," he admonished me. "Delay the explosion of this wonder. It will be the more effective with His Magnificence. Remember, also, that when you have given him the explosive shot, he will demand at once the flying machine."

  That was excellent advice, for I was still muddled in my plan to build man-lifting wings, and Guaracco could not—or would not—help me. I therefore went into the trading centers of Florence, to shop for materials.

  My teacher Andrea Verrocchio, who had heard little of my problem, suggested as framework the wood of Spanish yew which was employed by the archers of England for their superb longbows, and was undoubtedly the strongest and lightest wood to be had. I purchased a bundle of such staves which I thinned and shaped by careful whittling, and procured strong silk cloth for the fabric.

  MY best model, as it seemed to me, would be the wing of a bat. I went so far as to snare and kill several birds—sorrowfully, for I love animals —and, by manipulating their wings and bodies, I found out certain principles of flight. These I demonstrated by small-scale models, to be hung on threads and made to simulate flying by a strong blast of air from a bellows.

  A new problem added itself to that of the wings—the construction and manipulation of the tail as a rudder. I sketched a design like a fan, which I hoped to control by pressure and motion of the feet.

  Guaracco professed a great deal of interest in this work of mine, which took up all my spare time for several days. His interest seemed to partake a little of superior amusement, as though he foresaw failure. But Lisa was kindly and admiring, and even helped in the sewing of the fabric, which needed a woman's skill. I joined the ribs of the wings and tail myself, with looped pieces of leather at the junctures, and my thread for sewing and binding was new raw silk.

  It was late in the summer of 1470—the last of August, as I think—when I had the trial of my machine.

  For greater privacy, we returned to Guaracco's country house, the scene of my first appearance in this age.

  Guaracco led the way on his fine white stallion; I rode the gray that had belonged to my hapless adversary Gido, which had later been given me by Lorenzo.

  Lisa had a pretty little mule, and two grooms carried the unwieldy bundles that held my wings and rudder.

  How and when Guaracco's dwarfs made the journey, I do not know. We left them behind in Florence, but they were waiting for us when we dismounted at the country house. Servants like that pleased Guaracco immensely.

  After a light noon repast of cold meat, bread and some white wine, I went to a shed at the back of the house.

  Scrambling up, I donned my pinions. They measured almost thirty feet from tip to tip and were fastened to me with light, strong straps, under the armpits, around my biceps and between elbow and wrist. There were springy grips for my hands, and by relaxing or applying squeeze-pressure I could spread or fold the umbrellalike ribs that supported the fabric. The tail was similarly fixed to my legs, which I could straddle to extend the fan or hold close to fold it.

  I gazed down to the ground. It seemed a long way off. Beneath me stood Lisa, her face
full of apprehensive interest ; and at an upper rear window of the house Guaracco thrust his red-bearded head forth to watch.

  "Ready," I said to myself. "Go!"

  I sprang. As I did so, I spread and beat the wings, extended the tail downward to give me direction in soaring.

  A sickening, airy moment. My face turned up into the sunlight, I seemed to feel the world grow small beneath me. Another longer moment, with the touch of triumph, another beating thrash of the wings. Then I whirled helplessly—and fell.

  I suppose I was stunned. There was a galvanizing shock and darkness, then, from far away, laughter—the delighted laughter of Guaracco. Blending with it came a second voice, softer, gentler. Lisa was pattering a prayer for my safety.

  STRUGGLING with my closeclamped eyelids, I managed to gaze up. Lisa's face was close above mine, all white except for the dark, worried eyes. She had taken my head in her lap.

  "You are not dead, Leo?" she asked.

  "Not I," I assured and I sat up. It was difficult, for I was bruised in all my limbs, and the laboriously fashioned wings and rudder were broken to bits.

  Guaracco descended from his post at the window, and came out into the yard.

  "Not Icarus himself plunged so tragically from heaven," he jibed.

  I rose to my feet, unstrapping the tangled wreckage.

  "For a moment I flew," I defended myself. "The next time—"

  "Must there be a next time?" interposed Lisa, who still trembled. "Pray heaven you do not seek to fly again."

  "She pleads most prettily," Guaracco observed, stroking his beard. "Are you not content to remain on the ground with her, Leo? Will you not leave flight to the birds, its proper masters?"

  But I shook my head stubbornly. "Not I. A bird is no more than an instrument working according to mathematical law. It is within the capacity of man to duplicate that instrument and its working. I shall try again, and I shall succeed."