TWICE IN TIME

CHAPTER III The Service of Guaracco

I cannot but be ashamed of the way I broke down. I might have faced out the surprise; I might have defied the danger. Together, they overwhelmed me. Then and there, with Guaracco leering at me through his red beard and the two dwarfs, who no longer seemed like little children, standing with swords ready to slash me to death, I told the truth, as briefly and simply as possible.

Guaracco heard me out, interrupting only to ask questions—most intelligent questions. When I had made an end, he nodded slowly and sagely.

"I know that you will refuse to believe—" I started to sum up, but he interrupted.

"But I do believe," he assured me, in a tone surprisingly gentle. "I believe, lad, and in part I understand. My understanding will be made perfect as we discuss things more fully."

He snapped his big fingers at the dwarfs. They lowered their swords, and with a jerk of his head he dismissed them through their respective doors. Immediately there was less menace in the atmosphere. I felt relieved, and thirsty. But when I put out my hand for the goblet, Guaracco moved more quickly than I, and spilled the wine out upon the carpet.

"That draught was poisoned," he informed me. "I meant to destroy you, as a spy or rival. But fill again, and we shall drink to our better understanding.'

I poured wine, and we touched goblets and drank. His eyes above the brim were as knowing as Satan's own, and for the first time I was sure of their color— deep violet-blue, almost as dark as ripe grapes.

"This is better," I said, and smiled, but Guaracco did not smile back.

"Do not think," he returned, in a level tone of warning, "that I cannot kill you later, if such a course recommends itself to me. Those little entitites you saw, frail though they appear, are half-parcels of fate. They can handle their blades like bravos, they can scale the tallest towers or wriggle between the closest bars to deal death at my will. The skulls of their victims, destroyed in my service, would have all the streets of Florence, yonder. Nor"—and his voice grew still colder—"are they my only weapons."

He stepped suddenly close, so that his proud, lean nose was within an inch of mine.

"In fact, your life could have been taken in two dozen ways between the yard and here, to say nothing of the poison and the steel I have seen fit to show you. Sit down, lad, and hear my plans for you."

I sat down, with an unheroic show of acquiescence. He felt himself my master, for his teeth flashed in a relishful grin.

"Hark you, I seek power," he told me. "Much power I have already. I wield it through the coven of deluded witches you have seen and others like them, through my spies and creatures in the guilds and companies and councils, and through my influence on many individual persons, base and noble, here and elsewhere. But I want more power still. One day I shall not fear"—his narrow chest expanded a bit—"to give my orders to Lorenzo himself."

"Lorenzo il Magnifico— the Magnificent!" I murmured. "He rules in Florence, of course."

"Yes, he rules, prince in all but the name—for the nonce. His time, I dare predict, will be short." He strode across the room, hands behind his velvet back, then turned and stood over me. "Hark you, man from the future. Your world, what you tell me of it, is not so strange nor so great as I would have expected; yet you have many sciences and devices to show me. Machines, organization, foreknowledges of myriad lands. For them I spare your life. You will be yet another of the chief agents in my service."* * *

He told me that with flat assurance, and I did not have the resolution to question his decision. All I could manage was something about my surprise that a sorcerer would be so interested in honest science.

"But sorcerers are scientists," he fairly snapped. "We offer our learning to the simple, and they gape as at a miracle of demons. For effect's sake, we mouth spells and flurry gestures, but the miracle is science, sane and practical. If I am a sorcerer, so was Albertus Magnus. So was Roger Bacon, the English monk who gave us gunpowder. Well, if I escape the noose or the stake, I may be as great as they. Greater."

As he spoke, I pondered how history was showing him wise and truthful. Magic always foreran science. From alchemy's hokus-pokus had risen the boons of chemistry, physics, and medicine, and the quibblings of astrologers had made astronomy a great and exact field of scientific study. Also, could not psychoanalysts look back to the ancient Chaldean magicians who interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dreams?

But now I was dealing with things in the future from which I had stepped, things that had happened in that future. Again I attempted, and almost achieved, the feat of rationalizing the memory of things to come. If I could do it, I felt, the clouds would leave my mind.

"This traveling in time that you accomplished, it is of deep interest to me," Guaracco was continuing, pacing back and forth. "I feel that we may attempt it again, together. I would dearly love to see that world of which you speak, four centuries and more ahead of us. But these things are not more wonderful than others you mention. Tell me something about weapons of war."

Slowly, and vaguely, I ventured a description of the magazine rifle, then of the machine gun. My explanations were faulty and imperfect, yet he was deeply interested, and brought forth tablets and a red-leaded pencil with which to make sketches.

He drew crudely, and I took the pencil from him to improve his representations.

"By Mercurius, the god of thieves, you depict things well!" he praised me. "Your left hand is surer than my right. Perhaps you studied the arts? Yes? I thought so." He squinted at me knowingly, tweaking the point of his foxy beard. "I am inspired concerning you."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Tomorrow we go into the city of Florence," he decreed. "I shall introduce you there as a kinsman of mine, newly from the country, who seeks to enroll in the ancient and honorable guild of Florentine painters. I know a fitting teacher—Audreadel Verroc-chio. I shall pay his fee to enter you in his bottega as a student."

"I am to serve you there?"

"Serve me there, or through there in other places. Verrocchio is well known and well liked. Lorenzo and the other great nobles patronize him. I have not yet a proper agent among the arts. You will suit nicely in that position."

Again I agreed, because there was nothing else to do. He chuckled in triumph, and actually patted my shoulder, saying that we would get along famously as adopted cousins. Then he led me to another room, in which were a bed and a cupboard.

"You will rest here tonight," he informed me. "Here"—he opened the cupboard—"may be some clothing that will furnish you. We are a height, you and I, and not too dissimilar in girth." * * *

Despite Guaracco's confidence in this last matter, his hose stretched drum-tight upon my more muscular legs, and his doublet proved too narrow in shoulder and hip.

"We shall have that altered," he decided and, going to the door, raised his voice. "Lisa!"

"My lord?" replied a soft, apprehensive voice from another room.

"Come here at once, child, and bring your sewing tackle." He turned back to me. "You shall now see my greatest treasure, Ser—Leo, I think you called yourself? That is the name of the lion, and it matches well with that tawny mane of yours."

Into the doorway stepped a girl.

In her way, she was nearly as impressive to me as Guaracco had been. Not tall, of a full but fine figure and as graceful as a dancer, she paused on the threshhold as though timid at sight of a stranger. Her face was finely oval, with large, soft eyes of midnight blue and a shy, close-held little mouth that was so darkly red as to be purple. These spots of color glowed the more vividly because of the smooth ivory pallor of her skin.

Her hair was thick and sooty black, combed neatly straight under a coif as snug as a helmet. She wore a chemise of sober brown with a black bodice over it, and a black woollen skirt so full and long as to hide her feet.

In her thin, steady hands she held a flat iron box, the sewing kit Guaracco had commanded.

Have I described a beautiful woman?

She was that, and nobly modest as well. And so I call her impressive.

"Lisa, I present to you Ser Leo, a new servant of my will," said Guaracco to her. "He is to be of value to me, therefore be courteous to him. Begin by altering this doublet to his measure. Rip the seams here and here, and sew them again in a fuller manner."

He turned to address me.

"Ser Leo, this girl Lisa is for you a model of obedience and single-hearted helpfulness." He raked her with his eyes, not contemptuously, but with a dispassionate pride, as though she were a fine piece of furniture. "I bought her, my friend, of her beggarly parents, eighteen years gone. She was no more than six months old. I have been father and mother and teacher to her. She has known no other lord than myself, no other motive than mine."

The girl bowed her head, as if to hide her confusion at being thus lectured upon, and busied herself with scissors and needle. I pulled Guaracco's red cloak around my naked shoulders. My self-appointed master smiled a trifle.

"That flaming mantle becomes you well. Take it as a present from me. But to return to Lisa—I trust her as I trust few. She and the two imps you have seen are the closest to me of my unorthodox household. She cooks for me, sews for me, keeps the house for me. I, in turn, shelter and instruct her. Some day, if it will profit me greatly, I may let her go to a new master—some great lord who will thank me for a handsome, submissive present. She will cherish that great lord, and learn his secrets for me. Is that not so, Lisa?"

She bowed her head the lower, and the ivory of her cheeks showed pink, like the sky at the first touch of morning. I shared her embarrassment, but Guarracco chuckled quietly, and poured himself a half-goblet of wine. This he drank slowly, without inviting me to join him.

In a surprisingly short time, Lisa had finished broadening the doublet for me, and it fitted my torso like wax. Guaracco was moved to another of his suave compliments on the appearance I made. * * *

As evening was drawing near, the three of us took a meal. It was served in the hedged yard where Guaracco's dupes had prayed to infernal powers for rain. Whether by prayer or by coincidence, the rain did arrive not long after we had finished the bread, chicken, and salad that Lisa set before us. As the first drops fell, we went indoors and took wine and fresh peaches and honey by way of dessert, in a great front room that was luxuriously furnished with gilded couches, tables and tapestries.

After the supper, Guaracco conducted me to his workshop, a great flag-floored cellar.

Here was a bench, with lamps, retorts and labeled flasks for experimentation in chemistry, and in this branch of science I was to find my host—or captor— amazingly learned.

The greater part of the space, however, was filled with tools and odds and ends of machinery, both of wood and metal.

At Guaracco's command, I busied myself among these. But my strange memory-fault—I was beginning to think of it as partial amnesia—came to muddle me again. I could make only the most slovenly demonstrations, and when I sought to explain, I found myself failing wretchedly.

"You cannot be blamed for these vaguenesses," Guaracco said, almost comfortingly. "A drop backward through time, four hundred years and more, must of necessity shock one's sensibility. The most delicate tissues are, naturally, in the brain."

"I hope to recover my faculties later," I apologized. "Just now, I progress in generalities only."

"Even so, you are better grounded in these things than any man of this present age," he encouraged me. "Your talk of that astounding power, electricity, amazes me. Perhaps things can be harnessed with it. Steam, too. I think I can see in my mind's eye how it can be put to work, like wind in a sail or water flowing over a mill-wheel." His eyes brightened suddenly. "Wait, Ser Leo. I have an inspiration."

"Inspiration?" I echoed.

I watched while he opened a small casket on the bench and fetched out a little purselike bag of dark velvet. From this he tumbled a great rosy pearl the size of a hazelnut and glowing as with its own light. Upon his palm he caught it, and thrust it under my

nose.

"Look!" he commanded, and I looked.

To be sure, it must be a valuable jewel, to be as full of rose-and-silver radiance as a sunset sky. It captivated my soul with the sudden impact of its beauty.

"Look," repeated Guaracco, and I gazed, as though my eyes were bound in their focus. The pesirl grew bigger, brighter.

"Look," he said, yet again, as from a distance and, though I suspected at last his motive, I could not take my eyes away.

The light faded, consciousness dropped slackly from me like the garment. I knew a black silence, as of deep sleep, then a return to blurred awareness. I shook myself and yawned.

A chuckle sounded near by, and I opened my drowsy eyes to find Guaracco's foxy face close to mine. * * *

"You are awake now?" he asked, with the false gentleness.

"How long did I sleep?" I asked, but he did not reply.

He polished the pearl upon his sleeve, and slid it carefully into its velvet bag.

"I think that some, if not all, of the forgotten things are buried in your mind," he observed. "With you I tried a certain way that fools call black magic."

Hypnotism, that was it. Guaracco had hypnotized me. Had he, in reality, found in my sub-conscious mind those technical matters that I seemed to have almost forgotten?

"Every minute of your company," he was continuing, "convinces me that I did well to spare your life and enlist you in my service. Now, draw for me again."

I obeyed, and he watched. Once again he praised me, and swore that I should be placed as a student with Andrea Verrocchio. It had grown late by now, and he escorted me to my bed chamber, bidding me goodnight in more cordial terms.

But, when the door closed behind him, I heard the key turn in the heavy bronze lock.