CHAPTER 15
Her body leaned back in elegant surprise; the smooth undulations that composed Her face invited reverence. He leaned forward with parted lips.
‘She’s the real enemy, you know.’
Torbidda dropped the veil quickly and looked around. No one. Just the frozen ethereal silhouettes of shrouded statues. He cursed his stupidity in isolating himself with no escape route and prepared for ambush.
‘You’ll catch your death standing in a puddle all day,’ said Varro, emerging from behind a column. ‘I’d thought you’d have enough of it after that accident with the Confession Box.’
Torbidda stepped away from the statue as the old selector shuffled towards him. ‘How did you get in?’
‘Flaccus thinks he’s the only one who knows about this place. Ha! I know every secret. I roam these vaults with the ghosts and listen to the echo of the great days.’ Torbidda watched with mild nausea as Varro stripped the shroud from the statue and ran his hand, hungry as a blind man’s, over the form of the shy maiden.
‘The Madonna. Oh, I’m sure that you were thinking of someone else – a sister, a mother, a sweetheart – but the sculpture represents your enemy. The snake at Her feet? That’s us. That’s why She hates us. We would dispel the darkness of ignorance. Curiosity is the only sure path to wisdom.’
‘I’m not a lamb any more,’ Torbidda said. ‘The Madonna’s a myth.’
‘Oh, she’s real.’
‘She lived – but two thousand years ago. She’s dust now, like the Curia and its fancies. Engineers build with stone and iron.’ Although Torbidda did not respect Flaccus, by now he had little for Varro either.
‘Engineers require imaginary numbers to solve certain equations, do they not?’ Varro said equably. ‘Without them, certain truths would remain inaccessible.’
‘That’s different,’ Torbidda said impatiently. ‘They’re … useful fictions.’
‘We know that now, but someone somewhere once took a chance. Different problems require different tools, and faith can be useful as logic.’
‘Logic’s a tool for preserving truth. Its first law is that nothing true can be derived from false principles.’
‘Yet every law has exceptions. I’ve extracted nobility from base metals. Torture can compel truth from liars. Kings have been born in mangers.’
‘Selector, these are false analogies.’
Torbidda’s polite response was wasted effort. Varro wasn’t listening; he was lovingly caressing the statue’s curves. Torbidda cleared his throat and the old man leered at him knowingly. ‘I was a mason, you know, before the Re-Formation. I might even have carved her. I don’t remember. Our work was uniform. These days every craftsman’s striving to be original and the result is cacophony. We strove then to forget ourselves, to let ourselves be God’s hands. All Bernoulli had to do was insert himself in God’s place to acquire an army of devoted slaves.’
Although quick to criticise Flaccus and his coterie, Varro usually limited himself to bland generalities when discussing Bernoulli. Curiosity compelled Torbidda to ask, ‘What was he like, really? Tell me, no one’s listening.’
Varro smiled conspiratorially. ‘He had an eye for talent. I came to his notice on the building site of St Eco’s, as we called it then. I was always good at uncovering secrets, and bad at hiding them. When I realised he wasn’t building an ordinary cathedral he could have killed me. Instead, he told me his real secret and sent me out into the world to learn more. I wandered on his behalf and met other wanderers, older and more powerful, and when I returned, he showed me the Confession Box. He no longer had to search for secrets; they came to him and whispered the history of tomorrow. He told me one would come to destroy his work, and afterwards, another would come to complete it. I waited for so long that in my eagerness I mistook the signs! I thought his grandson, Giovanni, was that man.’ His fingers tightened around the statue’s throat. ‘How wrong I was.’
Torbidda said nothing.
‘You’re studying deep things down here in the dark. Flaccus lacks the wisdom to enlighten you.’
‘Can you?’
Varro walked across the puddle. Torbidda noticed that he did not disturb the surface. ‘Follow me.’
The Alchemistry Hall echoed with the sound of crashing waves. The pool was already drained. Below, a pseudonaiad stalked up and down, flowing over the curved walls, crashing against them and then reforming. When Torbidda approached the edge, the restless movement ceased.
‘See: it remembers you.’
Though it was eyeless and faceless, Torbidda felt it looking at him. ‘I can’t get in there. It’ll kill me.’
Varro pulled the ladder up. ‘If you don’t face your fears, I promise that you’ll die in Conclave. You know that Flaccus has been secretly training Agrippina. Do you think she’ll hesitate?’
‘Is that why you want to help me? To spite Flaccus? Perhaps Agrippina is willing to lower herself to simony, but if I win the yellow I won’t be a pawn.’
‘Precisely why it must be you,’ Varro said high-mindedly. ‘Girolamo Bernoulli wanted the best to climb the mountain. In this faithless time I remain his last faithful servant.’
Torbidda didn’t give much credence to that, but he was out of options; that was undeniable. With a silent prayer, he leapt down. As soon as his feet touched the ground the water rushed for him. His reflexes were considerably better now, and he dodged it – but only just. He backed away, but there was no escape in the cylindrical prison. The elemental hurled itself at him again, and again he rolled out of the way at the last moment.
‘Varro!’ This was foolish. ‘In the name of sanity, lower the ladder!’
‘No,’ Varro said simply.
Torbidda’s Water Style was sophisticated enough now that he could sense the water’s will, and he could anticipate its attacks. But no entirely defensive strategy could win here: the water never lagged, it never got tired or gave him space; it just kept coming. Eventually he’d make a slip, and then—
Soon he was up against the wall again.
Varro yelled, ‘You need to attack!’
Torbidda knew he was right, and in desperation, he threw a punch. His fist sank into the column, where liquid entrails gripped his fingers, pulled his hand in and swallowed his wrist, his arm — Torbidda leapt, kicked both feet against the wall and pushed himself into the pseudonaiad. He landed on the other side, thoroughly soaked, but free.
He gulped for air. ‘Damn you, Varro! How can I hurt what I can’t hit?’
‘Think, boy! It’s water – only water. You’re that and more.’
Torbidda’s mind worked desperately: water, air – could he harness air the way he harnessed water? Surely that was impossible. Water was in him, in his blood, saturating his matter. Air was outside. How could he control that? But with nothing to lose, he threw another punch, this time stopping scant inches before the column’s surface. The focused blast of air burst through the elemental and it reeled back, looking like a tattered flag, then reformed.
‘That’s it, attack! Attack! Don’t let it rest.’
Torbidda didn’t need to be told now. Another blow, and another: he had it now. The elemental fell back from the pneumatic onslaught shedding water from liquid wounds. He herded it back against the wall and, eyes shut, fists together, struck mercilessly, pushing air into it like a hammer, inflating it …
The explosion drenched him. He opened his eyes. to find himself standing in a cloud of mist. Around his feet small, trembling puddles were desperately combining. It wasn’t dead – it couldn’t die – but he had bested it.
Varro dropped the ladder and held out his hand. Torbidda climbed up and stood beside the selector, watching the pseudonaiad reforming. It moves sluggishly, punch-drunk.
‘Now you are ready.’
‘Varro,’ Torbidda gasped, ‘I’m grateful for what you did, but, please, tell me the truth. I know there’s more.’
Varro smiled proudly. ‘I can’t fool you. When the water recognised you, I knew you would be the perfect vessel. That’s all the Apprentices are – red, orange, yellow, they’re all just potential vessels. Like a thief in the night, the master will return – at what hour, no one can say, but it is imminent. One Apprentice must sacrifice himself so that Bernoulli can live again, and it must be the most worthy vessel. My dear boy, I think that honour is yours! You have all the requisite qualities.’
‘What if I don’t want this honour?’
Varro’s shoulders began to shake with mirth.
‘What if I refuse?’
‘Oh, poor boy, your wishes are irrelevant.’ Varro’s face creased in hysterical laughter. ‘You think your will could withstand Bernoulli’s? Your fate was sealed the day you entered the Guild Halls – AAHHhh!’
Crrackk
The selector landed badly. He had not expected the push. The distinctive egg-white colour of fresh bone glistened from his shin. The water sensed him.
‘Take your reward,’ said Torbidda, covering the pool with its shroud, ‘O good and faithful servant.’