TWICE IN TIME

CHAPTER XXI The Christening

Close to the riverside, Guaracco's house never looked so quiet and yet so forbidding. I ran to the door and tried it. From within a voice challenged me quietly, cautiously.

"I am from Guaracco!" I called at once. "All is lost in the city."

There was a rattling of chains, as if the barrier was being lowered, and I did not wait for the door to open. With my shoulder I bore strongly against it, and it creaked back.

A cry of profane execration greeted me. One of the dwarfs, the ugly one I had stunned the night before, swung up his curved sword. But my own point was quickly in his throat and he crumpled on the threshold, his oaths dying into a blood-choked gurgle. I hurried inside without waiting for him to cease struggling.

"Lisa!" I shouted as I ran through room after room. "Lisa, where are you?"

"Leo!"

It was muffled, little louder than a whisper, but I, having come into the kitchen, traced the direction of her voice. She was beneath me. In the floor showed a great cleated hatchway. She must be in the cellar, among Guaracco's stacked weapons. Seizing the iron ring that served as handle for the door, I heaved it up. Light gleamed from below.

There was no ladder or other way down, but I swung myself into the hold, landing upright on the earthen cellar floor. She was there, seated like a stone figure upon a great chest that must be full of ammunition. Beyond were the stairs that led to the front of the house. Her eyes sought mine in the lantern light.

"Leo," she murmured, as softly as the sigh of wind heard far away. "You have come back."

"Fly away from here!" I gasped at her. "These devil's machines and weapons shall be destroyed within the minute. And we are leaving Florence forever— before Guaracco finds us. Or Lorenzo does either."

"But I must stay," she protested, as though she reminded me of the obvious. "I was told to wait."

"Told by Guaracco!" I cried hotly, for it now was manifest to me that he had bound her to her place by hypnotism, stronger than shackles.

"Guaracco, yes." Her head dipped a little in agreement. "He said that all would be well. A new Florence would be built, with no oppression."

"Lies, lies!" I cried passionately. "He tried to form himself a devil's kingdom here, erected on spilt blood and corpses." I caught her hand. "Come, Lisa!"

I got her to her feet, but it was like lifting a straw dummy.

"I was told to wait, Leo," she said.

My hands seized her shoulders, and I tried to shake her into consciousness.

"Lisa, do you love me? Or is that only an illusion, too, turned on and off by Guaracco like the spigot of a wine cask?"

"Love you, yes." She was definite enough.

"Then come, I say." I backed toward the stairs, drawing her along with me. She looked ahead, and saw something. Her eyes widened, her mouth opened to cry out.

"Leo—danger!"

She tore from my grasp and scurried around me so that she was between me and the stairs. I turned on my heel only swiftly enough to see what she had seen. * * *

Guaracco had descended upon me and his hand was lifted, holding something that gleamed. I heard the bark of an explosion, saw a sudden ghostly puff of smoke. And Lisa sagged against me, into my arms. Her eyes were suddenly bright and wakeful again, and her mouth tremblingly smiled. I eased her slackening body to the floor. I knew that she was dead.

"Do not move, Leo!" warned Guaracco hastily. Still at the foot of the stairs, he leveled his weapon at me pointblank. "This fires six shots! It is one of the guns I made according to the science I gleaned from you."

It was, indeed, a revolver. His thumb had drawn up the hammer, and the muzzle stared me between the eyes. I gathered for a spring, but paused. I did not fear to die, but I feared that Guaracco might live.

"You have failed," were the first words I spoke to him.

"Failed?"

His eyes flickered down toward Lisa. With his rebellion crumpled around his head, he could still smile in triumph.

"Failed," I said again. "Lisa was under your spell, but she broke it to save my life. She loved me. Her love was more than your dirty conjuring tricks."

"True, true," he admitted smoothly. "And I am glad, after all, that she did save your life. Leo, there is still time and opportunity for us to help each other."

I curled my lip in contempt, but he went on:

"Many have died today. Why should we? If you do not understand, Leo, look at what else I bring."

His free left hand extended toward me, and between thumb and finger flashed a globule of rosy-silver light.

It is a pearl," he intoned in a new voice. "The pearl of sleep, Leo. Look upon it!"

I looked. 1 felt my senses sway, but held them firm. It was only a pearl. The light did not wax or blur or brighten. I was resisting his spell. It was only a pearl that Guaracco held, trying to spellbind me with it. But I stared, and would not let it have power over me.

"You are going to sleep, Leo," Guaracco was intoning. "To sleep—and all is well between us."

I gazed, my mind at work. A way opened to revenge and victory, if I were cunning. Slowly, stiffly, simulating a trance, I made a step toward him. He thought himself the winner.

"Leo, Leo, I am your friend," he tried to din into me. "I am Guaracco, who adopted you as his cousin, made you great and wealthy. And you will be grateful and help Guaracco. You will tell Lorenzo de Medici that Guaracco, too, fought to put down this conspiracy. Those who can testify otherwise are dead."

It would have worked had he been able truly to impose his will. I let him deceive himself, and took another step. We were almost within arm's reach of each other. The leveled revolver was bigger and brighter to my gaze than the pearl. I kept my face gravenly rapt, my eyes staring, but I was awake and resolute. Would he suspect?

"Once we are believed, we can still work together, Leo," Guaracco was insisting. "Plan again, and better and bigger. We may yet rule the world!"

I threw myself upon him. * * *

He pulled the trigger, but my right hand was upon the revolver. Pain bit my thumb, that had thrust itself between breech and hammer, and the firing pin drove deep into the base of the nail. A moment more and I wrenched it away and flung it behind me. It exploded with the shock, and the bullet sang into the beam overhead. A moment later we had both drawn swords.

"You triple traitor!" howled Guaracco, parrying my first lunge. "Come then, if you will have death this way!"

I made no reply, but deflected his riposte—the trick he had learned from me. His chest was exposed to a return riposte, but I knew the mail that defended it, and swept my blade in a quick arc. He got his brow out of the way with millimeters to spare.

Falling back, he tried to clutch at another pistol, one of a heap in an open box, but I nicked at his outflung hand, and got home. He whimpered. Two of his fingers soared away, and blood fountained forth.

"Wait, Leo!" he changed his tune at once. "I must not die, if you expect to live and—"

I did not expect to live, and made him no answer. His sword was up, and I beat it momentarily aside and slashed at his face. Quickly he parried, but only half-broke the force of the blow. His cheek was laid open, and his beard suddenly gleamed a deeper red.

"The time reflector," he yammered at me, on sudden inspiration. "Only I can show you how to rebuild, improve, get back to your own age!"

He should have saved his breath, for he was panting and choking. His thrusts were unsteady, easy to foil. My digging lunge at his belly, while it did not pierce the chain mail, drove most of the wind out of him. It drove out the fight, too. He tried to retreat to the stairs, but misjudged and brought his back against the plank-faced wall. He threw down his sword and lifted his hands.

"Mercy!" he begged. "I surrender! Leo!"

His unwounded right palm spread itself against a stout timber. I darted my point at it, all my weight behind. A tremulous, unmanned howl from Guaracco—his hand was spiked to the wood by my blade, like a big pale spider on a bodkin.

Then I let go my hilt and stepped back. I spared no eye to my enemy's plight, nor ear to his prayers.

Lisa lay still and misty pale, but there was no blood on her calm face. I closed her eyes, straightened her body and folded her hands upon her quiet breast. In her last instant of life her mouth had fallen into the little close-lipped smile I had known. Kneeling almost to earth, I kissed her once, and her face was still warm.

"Leo, Leo!" sobbed Guaracco in shameless entreaty. "What will you do?"

He was trying to seize my sword and wrench it away, but the point was tightly wedged in the wood and his free left hand, shorn half in two by my previous stroke, could not grip the hilt. He remained a prisoner.

I let my actions answer him. From its peg I snatched the lantern. With my foot I stirred some straw and rubbish into a mass against the foot of a barrel. He saw what I intended.

"There is gunpowder in that barrel!" he shrieked.

I knew it, but still I spoke him no word. With all my strength I dashed the lantern down. The glass shattered, the straw blazed up. And then I raced away up the steps. Behind me fire gushed up luridly. * * *

At the door of the house I almost trampled upon Guaracco's remaining dwarf, the handsomer one. He stared at me in mute horror, then at the glow behind me. He seemed to read in my face what had happened, for he scuttled past and dived into that flaming cellar as into a swimming bath.

"Master! Master!" he screamed.

I gained the street, ran along it for more than a score of paces before the whole world seemed to turn into thunder and lightning. I was flung to my face, skinning my cheek on the pavement, but I rose and ran on. That was the end of Guaracco's house— his weapons—his dwarf—himself—Lisa.

Nothing remained for me to do save to go and give myself up to Lorenzo… .

In the evening I stood in the groined, frescoed chamber where first the ruler of Florence had given me audience. Lorenzo de Medici was seated opposite in his chair of state, across the ebony and ivory table. His collar hung loose over his neck bandage, but otherwise he was the same Lorenzo as ever— alert, self-contained, far-thinking.

"I am driven to believe all points of your strange story," he said gently. "And no one can deny that you have saved Florence and me. Poliziano says so, and so do the officers of the guard. I grant you full pardon, and I ask you to pardon me. It seems that I drove you away once by my misjudgment. It shall not happen again."

I bowed thanks, but I could think only of Lisa. He read that tragic thought.

"Sorrow touches you, my friend, as it has touched me. My brother died today, as did your sweetheart. But perhaps work will comfort us both, and Florence hath need of my rule and your science."

"You are right, Magnificence," I agreed.

"Yours will be a great laboratory," he promised. "Aye, and a studio of your own, in the gardens of San Marco. Above all, honor and safety. But one chief change must be made in you."

"And that?"

"This matter of your strange journey from another age which, though I believe, I do not begin to understand. It must remain a secret between us. Since the death of Guaracco and your lady Lisa, you and I alone know it. Others might think you a devil's apostle, and urge that you be borne to the stake." He paused, pursed his lips, as if completing some decision. "Therefore it is expedient that we provide you with an ordinary birth and family among us—a father, and all the rest."

"A father?" I echoed him, not comprehending.

"Aye, that. I know the very man—an attorney who is in my confidence, and who has several children already. If I ask it, he will gladly own you as yet another son. The records can be arranged in various offices to make it believable. Forget that barbarous, unpronounceable surname of yours. The name of the attorney, your new father, is Piero da Vinci."

"Da Vinci!"

I sank back into my chair, implications rushing upon me with bewildering shock and speed.

"Leave all arrangements to me," said Lorenzo. "It is my peculiar talent to make perfect all such little things." His bitterly ugly face grew suddenly beautiful with that warm smile of his. "From this day forward you are Leo—no, Leonardo da Vinci."

And I knew the rich life given me to lead, as crown of the age and inspiration of ages to come. My scientific gropings will show the way to doctors, master engineers. My paintings will dazzle nations. Michelangelo will hate me too much, and Raphael admire me too much, but both will be the better for my examples.

One greatest picture I shall create, with LaGioconda as model to be sure, but preserving the smile and spirit of Lisa, Mona Lisa. And I shall die old and great, with kings weeping for me.

I am Leonardo da Vinci.

THE TIMELESS TOMORROW