The Medusa Amulet Page 8

  “I’ve just spoken to her, and she has.”

  David was dumbfounded. And if he was thinking about how his absence might affect his chances of getting the job as Director of Acquisitions, Mrs. Van Owen had anticipated him there, too.

  “If you were to succeed at something like this-something that would bring such credit to the institution-I don’t see how she could not reward you with the directorship. She doesn’t see how she could refuse it, either.”

  David felt as if his whole world was being turned upside down. Suddenly, he wasn’t working for the Newberry but for this very rich and very strange lady in black, whose money and power seemed to bend everyone’s wills to her own. Now, his very career seemed to depend upon carrying out her orders. He wanted to call Dr. Armbruster’s office and see if any of it was true.

  “Go ahead,” Mrs. Van Owen said, guessing his thoughts. “Call her and see. I can wait.”

  The offer alone was enough to convince David she was telling the truth. “But are you aware,” he said, scrambling, “that the Newberry’s budget doesn’t allow for-”

  “I thought I made this plain,” she interrupted, a note of exasperation in her voice. “Money is not an issue. I will pay any and all expenses, without limit. Your boss has no objection to your leaving as soon as possible. If you’re successful, the library will profit-enormously-and so will you.” She took a gold Cartier pen from her tiny clutch purse, and on the back of a card embossed with her name, wrote something down. She laid the pen on the table and flicked the card in his direction.

  “That’s our private contract,” she said.

  David picked it up and saw, just above her signature, “One million dollars.”

  He did not know what to make of it-it was as if he were looking at an Egyptian hieroglyphic. When he looked up again, she was staring fixedly into his eyes.

  “I know you need that money,” she said. “If not for you, then for your sister.”

  Up until then, he’d felt like the ground had been systematically cut away beneath his feet, but with that it was as if she had kicked him in the gut. “What does my sister have to do with this?”

  “Her medical expenses have to be immense.”

  “How do you know anything about that?” he persisted. “My family is none of your business.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I intend to make it my business.” She leaned forward again, her long, tapered fingers spread like talons on the lab reports. “If you get me what I want, I’ll get you what you want.”

  “What I want is a cure for cancer. Are you trying to tell me that you can get that?” Now he was convinced that the woman was as batty as she was rich. She must have been reading Cellini’s Key to Life Eternal , and mistaken his alchemy and magical formulae for scientific fact.

  Coolly surveying him, she said, “You think I’m out of my mind,” and he remained pointedly silent. “I’d think so, too, if I were in your shoes. But believe me, I’m not. I cannot go on living without the Medusa, and, to be frank, neither can your sister. Let’s not deceive ourselves. Get it for me, and I can promise that your Sarah will live to a ripe old age… just like me.”

  To David, that didn’t seem like much of a promise; despite the weird aura she gave off, the woman couldn’t be much older than his sister at all.

  “Or are you prepared to just sit by and watch her die?”

  With that, she got up in one fluid motion, floated up the stairs, and was gone, leaving the powerful scent of her perfume lingering in the air where David sat, with her card in one hand, stunned beyond words.

  Mr. Joseph Schillinger, former U.S. ambassador to Liechtenstein, was just finishing the crossword puzzle in the Times when his driver and general factotum, Ernst Escher, said, in his thick Swiss accent, “Look who’s coming out now.”

  It was the woman in black, the same woman he’d glimpsed at the Dante lecture. But there was no veil, and he had had time for Escher to run her license plate. It was indeed Randolph Van Owen’s widow. But was she the mysterious donor of the book?

  “And it gets better,” Escher said, turning his shaved head and thick neck to grin at his employer.

  It did indeed, because just as she got back into her waiting car, David Franco, the young man he’d come here to track, came bounding down the steps after her. He was holding out something gold-a pen, perhaps?-in his hand. Her window rolled down, she took it, and after they’d exchanged no more than a few words-and what wouldn’t Schillinger have given to know what those words were?-the car rolled off down the snowy street.

  “What would you like me to do?” Escher asked, always on the lookout for action and preferably of the violent kind.

  “Nothing. Just sit still.” The man was like a hand grenade with the pin pulled out.

  As Schillinger kept watch from the backseat, Franco, wearing no coat against the bitterly cold wind, stood rooted to the spot. Even from this distance, across the width of Bughouse Square, he looked dazed, and Schillinger wondered what had transpired inside the library. Had he discovered yet what Schillinger had guessed the moment that the book had been revealed? That the illustrations were from the hand of the master artisan-and necromancer-Benvenuto Cellini? No one but someone steeped in the occult could have depicted the scenes so powerfully, or in such a distinctive style.

  For years, ever since meeting Monsieur Linz at an auction on Lake Como, Schillinger had been a part of the man’s web, keeping his eyes and ears open for anything that might be of value to someone of such dark and rarefied tastes. And now he had it. The small favors that Linz had done him in return-parceling out word of a long-lost Vermeer drawing, or a Hobbema landscape, about to emerge onto the black market-could now be repaid in spades.

  Schillinger reached for his phone and placed a call to France.

  “ Oui? ” the voice on the other end snapped. “ Que voulez-vous? ”

  Every time Schillinger had to speak to Emil Rigaud, he had to swallow his bile. To think that a former United States ambassador could be treated so contemptuously by a decommissioned French army captain, was infuriating, to say the least. But keeping his temper, he explained what he had just learned.

  “But how much do you think he knows,” Rigaud asked, “this David Franco?”

  “He’s a very intelligent young man,” Schillinger said, vaguely proud that they shared an alma mater, “but he’s just getting started. At this point, I suspect he knows only a bit less than I do.”

  Rigaud sighed, as if he’d heard this veiled complaint before. “We keep it that way for your own benefit, Joseph. If you knew more than what we tell you, if you took it upon yourself to start nosing around where you are not wanted, dire consequences could ensue.”

  Schillinger, insulted, went silent.

  “ Comprendez-vous? ”

  “ Je comprends.”

  “Good,” Rigaud said. “Now call Gropius in Antwerp. Ask him about the small Corot oil that has just come to light.”

  Schillinger had always coveted a Corot. How did they know that? “Thank you, Emil.” Maybe he wasn’t such a bad sort after all. “But what would you like me to do about this David Franco? I have Ernst Escher with me here, and something,” he said, in a more sinister tone of voice, “could be done.”

  “Do nothing. When we have to, we will take care of things from our end.”

  “And Mrs. Van Owen? We move in similar circles. Her husband recently died. Perhaps I could become her friend and learn something more that way.” He felt absurdly like a young flunky, trying to ingratiate himself with the boss.

  “Monsieur Linz has the situation well in hand,” Rigaud replied, as if lecturing a schoolboy.

  “I’m sure he does, but I thought-”

  “Stop thinking, will you? Monsieur Linz is a Grand Master, and you are playing at tic-tac-toe. Call Gropius.” And then the line went dead.

  When the ambassador looked back toward the library, Franco was trudging up the steps like a man with t
he weight of the world on his shoulders. What did he know that Schillinger didn’t? There were times, and this was one of them, when Schillinger felt that he was playing for penny antes when great stakes were being wagered all around him. Perhaps if he pursued his own interests a bit more strenuously, he would not only gain in the material sense-and his acquisitive instincts had not lessened with age-but he might find himself in a position to command some respect from that toady Rigaud and his mysterious master.

  “Well?” Escher said, eagerly, from the front seat.

  “Home,” Schillinger replied, and he could see his driver’s shoulders fall with disappointment. He had so hoped for a confrontation. As Escher pulled the car back into the city traffic, blasting his horn at a slow-moving school bus, the ambassador put in the call to Antwerp.

  Chapter 8

  The hood was left on his head until the coach had rumbled over the last bridge leading out of Florence and taken to one of the bumpy rural roads. After another hour or so, a pair of rough hands loosened the cord and yanked it off. Cellini gasped for a breath of the fresh country air.

  One of his captors leaned back in the opposite seat and surveyed him with a crooked smile. The other two, he presumed, were up on top, driving the horses.

  “They said we’d need ten men to subdue you,” the man said, glancing at the ropes binding his prisoner’s hands and feet. “And now look at you, trussed up like a prize pig.”

  Though there were black muslin curtains in the open window, the moon was bright, and Cellini was able to see enough of the countryside to know what road they were on and to guess where they must be going.

  Rome.

  Which meant that these men, prepared to abduct a man of Cellini’s stature-a man in the current employ of the Duke de’Medici, the ruler of Florence-could only be in the service of the Pope himself, Paul III. No one else would have dared.

  But for what offense? Cellini had served the Papacy well for years. He had fashioned the elaborate cope, or clasp, for the ermine gown of the previous Pope, Clement VII, and made a dozen other jeweled ornaments, silver ewers and basins, coins and medals, for the leaders of the Church. And when the Duke of Bourbon, and his army of mercenaries, had invaded and sacked Rome in 1527, who had been its ablest defender? It was Cellini who had manned the gun batteries of the Castel St. Angelo, where Clement had taken refuge for seven long months from the marauding troops-if those savages could be dignified with such a term. Indeed, it was Cellini to whom Clement had turned when all seemed lost and the hoard of papal treasures threatened to fall into enemy hands.

  And now this new Pope, Paul III, had sent his ruffians to set fire to his studio and carry him off by force?

  “Don’t you want to know who we are?” the man in the carriage said. He was an ugly brute, whose teeth had all grown in sideways so that his words came out with a whistling sound.

  “You’re the scum the Pope sends to do his dirty work.”

  The man laughed, clearly unoffended. “They said you were smart,” he conceded, digging at something in the corner of his mouth with a long, filthy fingernail. “I see that now. I’m Jacopo.” He flicked the offending particle to the floor.

  “But why like this? If the Pope wished to see me, he had only to send a request.”

  “We are the request. He requests that you throw yourself at his holy feet and beg him not to hang you from the Torre di Nona.”

  “For what?”

  Ignoring his question, Jacopo lifted the curtain and stared out at the rolling hills of Tuscany. “It’s nice up here,” he said. “I’ve never been this far from Rome.” He wiped some spittle from his chin with the back of his hand-a gesture Cellini imagined must be routine.

  “Well? Are you going to answer me?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, before settling his head against the rocking wall of the cabin and dropping into a deep, snoring sleep.

  And there he was right. Most carriages would have put in for the night, but this one, with lighted lanterns swinging from the four corners of its roof, managed to drive all night, even at the risk of running off the road or injuring the horses. At dawn, they pulled into a post house, and though Cellini was allowed some bread and wine and a chance to put a cold compress on his head, he was bundled back into the carriage as soon as the new horses had been harnessed. Jacopo took the reins, and one of his accomplices-a wiry fellow with a huge, livid bruise on one cheek and a blackened eye-assumed his place inside the cabin.

  “What happened to you?” Cellini said, knowing full well. “You look like you got hit with a bucket.”

  The man spat in Cellini’s face. “If I wasn’t under orders to deliver you in one piece, I’d break you in two.”

  “And if my hands weren’t tied, I’d give you another black eye to match the one you’ve got.”

  The carriage rolled on for several days, until Cellini felt that his back would break from the constant jouncing. With his hands and feet tied-these scoundrels must have been expecting a good bounty for his safe delivery-there was little he could do to make himself comfortable, and the prospect of whatever awaited him in Rome was hardly encouraging. As they finally approached the Eternal City, the roads became smoother and better paved, but they also became more crowded, with shepherds bringing their flocks to market, and rickety wagons carrying barrels of wine from Abruzzo, wheels of cheese from the Enza Valley, and loads of the distinctive blue-gray marble from high in the Apennines. Cellini could hear the driver-right then it was Bertoldo, the one with the sword who had first clapped him on the shoulder in Florence-shouting, “Make way! We come on order of His Holiness, Pope Paul! Get out of the way!”

  From the oaths and epithets he heard in reply, there were many who didn’t believe him. But the contadini were like that, Cellini mused. They worked the farms and fields all day, sometimes not speaking to a soul, and when anyone did speak to them, they were instantly suspicious of his motives-especially if it was a stranger with a sword, driving a fancy black carriage and ordering them around.

  Jacopo, sitting inside again, couldn’t resist parting the curtains and holding his ugly mug in front of the window. Cellini had the impression that he hoped to be spotted traveling in such style by someone-anyone-he knew.

  The streets of Rome, unlike Florence, were a mess. In Florence, the streets were narrow and often dark, but the people knew how to behave. They did not throw their offal into the gutter, they did not empty their chamber pots out the front windows, and they did not leave dead dogs or cats or birds to rot in the sun. But these Romans, they lived in a cesspool and didn’t even seem to mind. Every time he had come to Rome, Cellini had marveled at the state of chaos, the teeming confusion all around, where the greatest masterpieces of the ancient world were surrounded by tanning yards and the classical temples overrun by pig markets. As the carriage passed through the Porta del Popolo, the tomb of Nero’s mother appeared on their right, a crowd of beggars littering the steps. The tomb of the Roman emperor Augustus fared no better, pieces of its marble facade having been torn down and burned for the lime they would yield. The Campo Marzio was cluttered with workmen’s shops, some of them tucked into the ruins of once-glorious mansions. The Temple of Pompey had been turned into an unruly hotel, where scores of families had carved out spaces for themselves, with open fires and hanging laundry, beneath the enormous and dilapidated vault. If Florence was an elegant ball, Rome was an untamed circus.

  And Cellini feared that he was about to become its main attraction.

  Passing through the Borgo, as the bustling area between the banks of the Tiber and the mighty Vatican City was called, Cellini could not help but recall his first trip to Rome, when he was only nineteen. He and another goldsmith’s apprentice, Tasso, had often talked about leaving their hometown of Florence; Rome was the place where fortunes and names were truly to be made. And one day, on a long ramble, they had found themselves at the San Piero Gattolini Gate. Benvenuto had jokingly said to his friend, “Well, we’re halfway t
o Rome. Why don’t we keep on going?” Tasso had looked a bit dubious, but Cellini had bucked him up.

  Tying their aprons behind their backs, they had set out on foot. In Siena, they had the good fortune to find a horse that needed to be returned to Rome, and so they were able to ride the rest of the way, and once they’d arrived in the city, Cellini had quickly found work at the studio of a successful goldsmith named Firenzuola. He took one look at a design Cellini had executed for an elaborate belt buckle and hired him on the spot to execute a silver vessel for a Cardinal, modeled on an urn from the Rotunda. Tasso was not so lucky, and homesickness got the better of him. He returned to Florence while Cellini stayed on in Rome, changing masters, and making objects, from candlesticks to tiaras, of such great beauty and ingenuity that he had soon become the acknowledged master of his craft.

  But the hands that had made rings and miters for popes were now so chafed and numb from the ropes binding them that he could barely move his fingers.

  At the main gate of the Vatican, the carriage was stopped by several members of the Swiss Guard, in their green-and-yellow uniforms and plumed helmets. They were young-these days they were always young, as nearly all of their predecessors had been massacred during the sack of the city-and there was some haggling over papers. The leader of the Guard poked his head into the cabin to see who was inside. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, and said, “You’ll want to give this one a wash before taking him to the Holy Father.” The portcullis was lifted and the carriage passed through into the main piazza. Cellini ached to be out of the carriage, even if it was only to mount the steps of the papal palace and face an unknown fate.

  Bertoldo appeared to have taken the guardsman’s suggestion to heart, and he stopped at a fountain, where he let Cellini dismount. Unbinding his hands and feet, he allowed him to scoop some of the cool water with his cupped hands onto his face and neck. The water felt so good that Cellini dropped to his knees and ducked his whole head into the fountain. When he lifted his head back out again, he shook his long black curls like Poseidon rising from the deep. The water coursed across his broad shoulders and chest, and over the Medusa that still hung below his shirt. The sun was hot and bright, and he held his face up to it, not knowing how much longer he might be able to enjoy such a simple pleasure. A pair of friars, in long brown cassocks, stopped to watch, muttering behind their hands.