The Medusa Amulet Page 9

  Bertoldo and his confederates hauled Cellini to his feet, bound his wrists again, and with the water still dripping off him, marched him up the steps of the palace and through the smaller throne room, where dozens of men-merchants, aristocrats, city officials-milled about, waiting anxiously for an audience with the Pope. Some clutched papers in their hands, others were carrying gifts (one had a squawking green parrot on his arm), but all of them fell silent when Benvenuto was briskly escorted past them. Clearly, none of them wished themselves in his shoes.

  In the greater throne room, another crowd was gathered, but this one was made up of priests and cardinals, ambassadors and their secretaries. The Pope himself, draped in a red velvet cape, sat on a high-backed purple throne, giving orders and directives, and apparently carrying on ten conversations at once. He had a long face with a long nose, and a bushy white beard with a dark streak down its center. As Cellini boldly approached the throne, Bertoldo and his men fell away. Benvenuto recognized many of the courtiers-some were prelates who had begun their rise in Tuscany, and some were foreigners whose kings and princes he had worked for-but there was one he knew well. Signor Pier Luigi had recently been made the Duke of Castro, and if he had to guess why he had been brought here under such duress, he’d guess it had something to do with him.

  “And look who it is,” Pope Paul exclaimed. “The wandering artist.” There was no malice in his voice, which temporarily puzzled Cellini.

  “I came as quickly as I could, Your Holiness… and would have done so willingly.”

  The Pope only now seemed to take notice of his bound hands and gestured at Bertoldo to undo them.

  Bowing his head nervously, Bertoldo unknotted the rope and stepped backwards toward the rear of the room. Cellini shook his hands to get the blood moving again and straightened the damp collar of his shirt.

  “Forgive me, Your Eminence, but my traveling companions-fine fellows all, but a bit lacking when it came to conversation-failed to tell me the reason for this visit.”

  The Pope laughed. “You haven’t changed a bit, Benvenuto.”

  “Perhaps it was time he did, Father,” Signor Luigi put in, and Cellini smiled wryly at his form of addressing the Pope. In this case, calling him “Father” was more than symbolic; Luigi was in fact his bastard son-which accounted for the heap of titles and monies bestowed upon him-and Luigi liked to subtly remind people of his paternity. He was a dark, scowling man, with thick black eyebrows, a drooping moustache, and black beard. And now, as always, he wore his armored breastplate. He had enough enemies, Cellini reflected, to make that precaution wise.

  “Perhaps Messer Cellini would like to turn into an honest man,” Signor Luigi added.

  Cellini felt the blood rise into his face, but he held himself in check, simply saying, “I have never been anything else.”

  Signor Luigi strode between the papal throne and where Cellini stood in order to look him in the eye. “Really?” he said scornfully. “Then isn’t there something you’d like to tell us about?” he asked. “Something you’d like to confess in this holy place after so many years of concealment?”

  Cellini was as honestly confused as he had ever been in his life. “You will have to enlighten me. As always, when Signor Luigi speaks”-he purposely avoided using any of his grander titles-“there is a lot of noise, but not much music.”

  The Pope quietly guffawed, which only made his son angrier.

  As if he were speaking in the Colosseum itself, Signor Luigi raised his eyes and his voice and even his arms, as he moved in circles around Cellini to declaim his charges. “Would it surprise you to know that your confidences have been breached? That certain confessions you once made, in your usual boastful manner, have reached the Holy See?”

  “Confessions? To whom?” Cellini had not visited a priest for that purpose in years.

  “A certain apprentice from the town of Perugia.”

  Ah, so that was it. He must have been referring to Girolamo Pascucci, a lazy thief who had broken his contract with Cellini and still owed him money. But a confession? Much less to someone he’d never trusted?

  “We know, Messer Cellini-we know -what happened during the attack on Rome, sixteen years ago.”

  “Ah, then you know that I commanded the artillery that defended Pope Clement VII when he was under siege in the Castel St. Angelo?”

  “We do,” Signor Luigi said sarcastically, annoyed at having his per-oration interrupted.

  “And that I was the one who kept the three beacons burning every night, to prove that we had not surrendered?”

  “But that is not-”

  “And that it was a shot from my arquebus that brought down the Duke of Bourbon himself?”

  “We know,” Luigi boomed, “that the Pope, in his hour of most desperate need, with the barbarians battering at the very doors of his sanctuary, entrusted you with the jewels belonging to the Holy Apostolic Chamber.”

  At last Cellini could see where this was going. “That he did. I would never deny it. Pope Clement, may his soul rest in peace, came to me one night and said, ‘Benvenuto, we must find a way to preserve these treasures. What can we do?’”

  “So you admit to this concealment?”

  It was all Cellini could do not to thump the idiot on his fancy breastplate.

  “With the help of the Pope himself, and his servant Cavalierino,” Cellini explained, more to the Pope on his throne than his insulting bastard son, “we removed all the precious stones from his tiaras and miters and crowns and sewed as many of them as we could into the folds of the robes that he and his servant had on. In order to move the gold more easily, we melted it down.” Cellini remembered well the small blast furnace he had hastily built in his quarters. He had tossed the gold into the charcoals and let it drip down into the large tray he had placed beneath the brick.

  “And where are those jewels now? Where is that gold?”

  “Where it has always been. In the coffers and vaults of the Vatican.”

  “All but eighty thousand ducats’ worth!” Signor Luigi trumpeted.

  “Is that what you are accusing me of? Stealing the Pope’s jewels?”

  Signor Luigi rocked on his heels, his thumbs hooked beneath the corners of his breastplate. “If you didn’t, who did?”

  Cellini hardly knew where to start, but he knew that he had to be careful; Signor Luigi was a dangerous enemy. Even if Pope Paul knew him to be a bit slippery, the man was still his son-and blood was thicker than water. Cellini never forgot that.

  “First of all, even if I had committed such an unthinkable offense, I would never have confessed it to a man like Pascucci; the city of Perugia never gave birth to a bigger liar and thief. And as for the missing stones, I suggest you consult the account books. Have you done that?”

  Signor Luigi didn’t answer.

  “I didn’t think so. Everything-every ring, every diamond, every ruby, even every garnet-was recorded in the accounts as soon as the siege was lifted. While Pope Clement was negotiating the settlement, a small diamond ring, worth no more than four thousand scudi, fell from his finger, and when the imperial ambassador bent to pick it up, the Pope told him to keep it. Apart from that, you will see that not a ducat’s worth-much less eighty thousand ducats’ worth-is missing.” Cellini scoffed, to indicate the absurdity of the charge he had just addressed.

  And though Pope Paul appeared mollified, Signor Luigi was not. Indeed, his brow was more furrowed than ever, and rather than let it go, he said, “The account books will be looked at.” He snapped his fingers and waggled them at a retainer, who scuttled out of the room to get started. “But that still leaves us with an equally grave charge.”

  “Another?” Pope Paul said, sounding a bit put off.

  “Yes, Father… a charge of heresy.”

  The room fell utterly silent, and the Pope leaned forward on his purple throne, his long white beard brushing his knees.

  Signor Luigi, pleased at having recaptured everyone’s attention, said, �
��In his workshop in Florence, Messer Cellini has experimented with forbidden texts and arcana that are in direct contravention of Church teachings. My sources tell me-”

  “What sources?” Cellini broke in. “Pascucci again?”

  “No,” Signor Luigi replied dryly, “other apprentices you employed. And they tell me you have employed various grimoires”-the black books of magic banned by the Catholic Church-“to fashion objects of an occult nature. Objects that may give you powers properly reserved for God alone.”

  Pope Paul fell back in his chair. A foreign ambassador-French by the look of his finery and lace-gasped and held a handkerchief to his face, as if to avert a contagion. Cellini felt the temperature in the room fall by several degrees.

  “I don’t know how to answer such baseless accusations,” Cellini said, “especially as I don’t know who’s making them.”

  “That’s for me to know,” Signor Luigi declared.

  “Is it true?” Pope Paul asked.

  And here Cellini paused. He would have to continue his denial, but lying to the Pope himself was a sin of a magnitude he could hardly contemplate. And Signor Luigi must have noted his hesitation because, before Cellini could think of what to say, he had swooped forward, reached under Cellini’s shirt collar, and lifted the chain out.

  The Medusa lay in the palm of his hand, her face glaring up at the throne.

  “The proof, Father, the proof! An unholy object, whose true purpose only the Devil can know.”

  The Pope indicated that he wanted to see it, and one of his priests came forward and lifted it over Cellini’s head. When it was placed in the Pope’s hand, he studied it closely, then turned it over, rubbing his thumb on the black silk backing.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “A looking glass, Your Holiness.”

  The Pope twisted the latches and the silk cover slid away. Cellini inadvertently glanced toward the long windows giving onto the Vatican gardens. Blessedly, the sun, and not the moon, hung in the sky above the grove of orange and lemon trees.

  “It’s not a very good one,” the Pope said, eyeing the convex, and distorting, glass.

  “No, Your Eminence, it did not meet my own expectations, either. It was designed for Eleonora de Toledo, but as it came out imperfectly, I kept it for myself and made another-a perfect copy, with ruby eyes-for the duchess.”

  “Rubies from the Vatican’s casks?” Signor Luigi threw in.

  Cellini’s fists clenched-he had taken all the insults he could-and Luigi, backing away, ordered Bertoldo and his henchmen to grab him.

  “You will have all the time you need to contemplate your imperfect workmanship,” he said, “in your old home-the dungeons of the Castel St. Angelo.”

  Cellini started to protest, but the Pope, reluctant to thwart his son any longer, handed the glass to one of his retainers as if it were a piece of spoiled fruit from his garden, and conspicuously turned away.

  Chapter 9

  “One more time, Uncle David! One more time!”

  David was about to get off the ice-he hadn’t been skating in years and he considered it a miracle that he hadn’t taken a fall yet-but in deference to his niece, he agreed to go around the rink with her for one more lap. After all, it was Christmas Eve.

  It was cold, but still bright and sunny out, and as they skated past Sarah, sitting on the bench and wrapped in a long down coat and a woolen cap pulled down tight around her ears, David shouted, “You hanging in there?”

  Sarah nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Then we’ll be right back!” And still holding Emme by her mittened hand, David sailed back into the crowd of kids and teenagers weaving their way around the rink to the tinny, amplified sound of “Frosty the Snowman.” It was a picture out of Currier and Ives-the frozen pond in the park, the skaters in their stocking caps and colorful leggings, their breath fogging in the air.

  And it felt good to be out and exercising in the open air, especially as he had felt trapped in the whirlwind of his own thoughts ever since Mrs. Van Owen’s visit to the library. It had been the single most surreal moment in his entire life, and even after he’d run outside to return her pen-and she’d assured him that she meant every word she’d said-he’d been consumed by her promises. On the one hand, he knew it was insane-how could she possibly guarantee to save his sister’s life? No one could do that. But on the other, there was that business card, with the one-million-dollar offer on it. What kind of treatments or care or special attention could a million bucks bring? Plenty, he thought. He kept the card tucked away in his wallet, but he was never unaware of its being there. It just didn’t feel right-and he wondered if it was the kind of thing he should divulge to Dr. Armbruster… although he noticed, guiltily, that he hadn’t.

  In an effort to forget about the distractions and just get on with the work, he had thrown himself into reading through the remaining pages of The Key to Life Eternal, presumably written in Cellini’s own hand. And as the secrets of the manuscript revealed themselves, he had come to understand what was driving Kathryn Van Owen and her search for La Medusa.

  She believed in it.

  She believed that the book was true, and that the glass truly held the power of immortality. As she had told him outside the Newberry, she had never entrusted this particular document, in its entirety, to anyone but him.

  “Guard it carefully,” she had said. “You are the first person that I believe can make sense-and use-of it in your search. Do not disappoint me.”

  As it turned out, the Key was not only an account of Cellini’s experiments with sorcery-the disinterment of dead bodies from holy ground, the construction of strange devices designed to nurture homonculi, the quest for the Philosopher’s Stone-it was also a detailed account of his own obsessive quest for immortality. Not content with the marvelous creations he had already made, or the artistic genius he had been blessed with, he had enlisted the help of a Sicilian magician named Strozzi and gone in search of the greatest gift of all-life everlasting. What he wanted was nothing less than all the time in the world-time in which he could re-create Nature in its most idealized forms, and craft things, from statues to fountains, paintings to glittering parures, of unmatched beauty and ingenuity. He reminded David of another great, if fictional, figure-Faust-who was prepared to sell his own soul for the knowledge acquired through immortality.

  And in perhaps its eeriest passage, he recounted a hallucinatory (or so David had to assume) expedition to the underworld, led by Dante himself. Cellini claimed to have found not only the secret of invisibility-in a clump of bulrushes-but the secret of eternity, too. It lay in the water from the infernal pool, a few drops of which he had preserved beneath the glass of La Medusa. The mirror, Cellini wrote, could grant this gift, but only “ se il proprietario lo sa come approfondire ”-or, “if its owner knows how to use it.” In his Tuscan dialect, he went on to explain how the mirror must be held-“closely and directly, as if staring into one’s own soul”-and graced by the light of the moon, “the constant, but ever-changing, planet above us.” He concluded with an admonition: “But it is a boon less simple, less desirable, than may be thought, and I do fear that great anguish and misfortune may ensue.”

  Tell that, David thought, to Mrs. Van Owen, as he distractedly embarked on one more circle of the rink.

  “Amanda!” Emme screeched, before abruptly dropping her uncle’s hand and skating off to join her best friend, who was just teetering her way onto the ice.

  David took that as his cue to skate over to the edge of the rink and plop down on the bench next to Sarah.

  “Looks like she got a better offer,” he said, unlacing his skates.

  “Don’t feel bad. She and Amanda are pretty much inseparable.”

  “How are you holding up? Should we pack it up and head home?” Her face had the cold translucence of ice, and with her eyebrows gone from the chemo, she looked alarmingly like a glass mask. Only her eyes-as dark a brown as David’s-still held any spark of color
and life.

  “No, Emme’s having such a good time, it makes me feel better just to watch. I never know how many more chances like this I’ll have,” she said matter-of-factly.

  It was the very offhandedness of her remark that struck David most forcibly. He tried like hell to keep his sister’s mortality out of his thoughts, but of course he knew that the subject was never far from hers. How could it be? For over a year, she had been living under a sentence of imminent death. She had gone from one surgery to another, one treatment to another, one special protocol to another, and while there were occasional respites in her decline, the general direction was unmistakable. Remission, if it came, would not come for long.

  “You know what I’ll miss most?” she said, musing aloud.

  He hated this line of thought, but if she needed to express it…

  “Getting to watch Emme grow up.”

  Just then, her daughter whirled by, laughing, and swinging hands with Amanda.

  “But you will get to see her grow up,” David said, meaning the best, even if he knew-and he knew she knew-that any reprieve was temporary. “You’re looking better all the time, and Gary tells me that this new regimen they’ve got you on has shown some real improvements. You are going to get better.”

  She patted the back of his hand, still following Emme, and said, “Put your boots on, or your feet will freeze.” He finished removing the skates and pulled on his boots, which were cold as icicles inside.

  “I’d give anything to make that true,” she added, and David could not help but flash again on his strange conference in the book silo with Kathryn Van Owen.