The Descent (16 page)

“The doge has told me a little bit about you,” the bishop said as he tapped out a tiny measure of quicksilver. He seemed to be intent on making small talk. “He says your family is one of the oldest and noblest in Hungary, and that your father is a duke and trusted adviser to your king—King Béla, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Did your father send you here to make an alliance of some kind with Zeno’s court? Are you on a diplomatic mission?”

Adair cleared a spot on the table to rest his elbows, pushing aside flasks and bottles. “I wouldn’t say that, your grace.”

“Oh—so, your family is expecting you to return before too long?”

He wasn’t sure where Rossi was going with this line of questioning, but Adair answered anyway. “I daresay they do not. And it’s not as though I’ll be missed. I have two brothers, both older than me, and my family looks to them to manage
our estates and continue our line. I have no designs on my father’s title. He knows I wish to become a physician.”

“A physician!” the bishop said with forced cheer. “It’s commendable that you wish to minimize human suffering—though some might argue that a physician only serves to
prolong
a patient’s suffering—but I must say, it’s an odd choice of profession for a nobleman’s son.”

“Perhaps. But I have a passion to know things, especially to figure out how things work. I have been told that the human body is the most complex subject there is, and being one who likes a challenge, I decided to study medicine.”

The bishop frowned. “Isn’t one normally drawn to medicine in order to help his fellow man?”

Adair shrugged. “I decided to become a physician because I am seized by the mysteries of life. I cannot help but feel that we, the living, are allowed to see only
half
of what goes on around us. The world runs by a vast set of rules by which the tides turn, the seasons change, the sun rises and sets, plants grow and then wither, we live and die. There is a rhythm to all these things, a rhythm and pattern to life so complicated that we can’t begin to decipher it. Everything we see is bound by these rules, which are perfectly integrated one to the other, and they are all kept secret from man. I want the universe to share its secrets with me. I want to know who we are and how we came into being.”

Adair’s passionate soliloquy seemed to make the bishop see his guest for the first time—and he did not like what he saw. “Take care, young lord, for it seems to me that the half of the cosmos you wish to know is the realm of the Lord our God. We are not meant to know the ways of the Lord; we are only to
accept his will. The church might deem your line of questioning to be quite blasphemous.”

Adair rankled at the warning. “I meant that in the
context
of the Lord, of course, for he certainly must be the source of these rules. And yet he moves in mysterious ways—ways I would like to understand better. For instance, what is the soul and where does it reside in us? Is it a physical piece of us, like the heart or the brain? I would think it cannot be, since the Bible tells us that the soul cannot die. So it must go on,
persisting
, after the body has ceased to function.”

“And if the Bible tells us so, it must be true. If you have questions about such matters, you should feel that you can ask them of me,” the bishop said with an air of smug superiority.

The bishop’s lack of intellectual curiosity made Adair respect him less, and he let himself get a little impatient with Rossi. “Then, you can tell me where the soul goes after death? We don’t see them here with us on earth, so they must go
somewhere,
yes?”

Rossi made no attempt to disguise his irritation. “
The Bible
has your answers, my young lord: souls go to heaven, hell, or purgatory. Those are the choices. There are no others.”

“And all I wish is proof of it.”

The bishop gawked at him in amazement, too surprised by his guest’s temerity to be outraged. “Proof? You want proof? There is no proof.”

Adair knew he was skirting a run-in with the inquisitors, but he couldn’t stop. “As men of science, it is our duty to look for proof, don’t you think? Otherwise, what is the use of all this?” He waved a hand at the bishop’s assortment of fancy tools and props.

“I am interested in knowledge the same as you, but my interest lies in learning more about the things that God set on this earth so that I might understand God’s ways,” the bishop retorted, his voice trembling with indignation. “The minerals, the waters, the things that can be touched, not matters of the spirit. That is a realm that can’t be seen. That is the realm of faith. The way you talk, sir, it is as though you have no faith at all. When you question faith, you question God, my young lord, and to question God is to play into the devil’s hands. Do you mean to court the devil, with such heretical talk?” Rossi asked, aghast. “Tell me it isn’t so.”

Adair was about to give the bishop a contemptuous reply when he thought the better of it. Rossi was a superstitious fool who would not change his ways, but there was no sense in antagonizing him. If Adair argued too strongly against religion—a direction in which he seemed more inclined every day—Rossi might bring it up to the doge. It would be more prudent to string the bishop along. Why, Rossi—having the doge’s ear—might even come in handy one day.

Adair pressed a hand to his sternum as he made a low bow. “Oh no, your grace, I believe that you misunderstand me, no doubt due to my poor grasp of your language. Rest assured, our aims are the same, to better understand the ways of our Lord. Indeed, I am impressed by your knowledge of the Bible. It is so much stronger than that of my family’s priests.” Adair, still bowing, looked up to see how his words were being received by the bishop, and by the expression on the Italian’s face, Adair could tell that Rossi didn’t doubt him in the least. “Doubtless there is much I can learn from you, in religious matters as well as in the practice
of alchemy. Perhaps I can prevail upon you to be my spiritual adviser while I am in Venice?”

His request had the desired effect on Rossi: flattered, the bishop preened like a swan. “Oh, my boy, I would be only too happy to be your adviser. Your spiritual guide, as well as your friend.” The bishop clasped one of Adair’s hands in both of his and gave it an affectionate shake before the two men continued in their work.

Once the mercury reduction was under way in earnest, conversation petered out. As Adair sat with the older man in the dungeon room, breathing in the noxious air and sweating like the devil from the heat, he considered his position once again. Salvaging his relationship with Rossi had been an astute move: the bishop would’ve said something to the doge, undoubtedly, and Adair thought of his father and how mad he would be if his son were arrested for the very thing they’d tried to avoid by sending him to Venice.

He left the bishop’s palazzo in the hour before dawn, his host fallen asleep in a chair by the sweltering fireplace. With Adair’s attention elsewhere, the reduction was ruined, seized up solid into a tiny rock smaller than a baby’s fist. Good for nothing now. Adair left it on the worktable and slipped out of the sleeping household to make his way back to the doge’s palazzo.

In the weeks that followed, Adair noticed that whenever he went to see the bishop, usually late in the evening after one of Professore Scolari’s lectures, Elena would be waiting for him, laced into one of her beautiful silk gowns, her hair pinned and
her skin bathed in lavender-scented oils. Adair noticed that the bishop always managed to be detained each time he arrived, and wondered if his delay wasn’t intentional in order to give his ward a few minutes alone with the Hungarian nobleman. Adair couldn’t help but wonder why the bishop would encourage these unchaperoned exchanges with his goddaughter. After all, he was a foreigner; surely Elena’s family would prefer to see her wed to an Italian lord and not whisked off to a kingdom far away, where it was possible they’d never hear from her again.

In any case, Adair had no intention of returning to Magyar territory if he could help it, and without property of his own, he certainly could not take a wife. Besides, he was tiring of Rossi’s company—the bishop warming to his new role as Adair’s spiritual adviser and taken to repeating his favorite sermons during their sessions in the laboratory—and didn’t want to complicate matters with Elena when her godfather clearly had ulterior motives in having them spend time getting to know each other.

That evening, as he traveled through cobbled alleys in the dark, he realized he must make this plain to Elena, if not Rossi. He practiced what he would say to her:
Do not set your sights on me, because I have no interest in acquiring a wife, not now, not ever
. Huddled inside his great cloak, with his face hidden under the brim of his hat, he marched briskly through the square to the bishop’s handsome palazzo, summoning the courage to set Elena straight.

Telling her to her face would be another matter, however.

He had no sooner surrendered his cloak and hat to a servant than Elena hustled down the staircase, her timing so perfect it
was as though someone had rung a bell to let her know he was there. She was more radiant than usual tonight, in a pale yellow gown that set off her dark hair, and his throat caught at the sight of her. He bowed low to her, heat rising to his cheeks. As always her beauty brought out something awkward in him, made him clumsy and thick-tongued. His mother had always kept her sons from spending time with the ladies at court, and frowned on too much familiarity with serving girls as well. As a result, even though Adair and Elena were close in age, he felt that she had an advantage over him when it came to dealing with the opposite gender.

“Good evening, Elena,” he said cautiously. “How have you been since we last saw each other?”

Her dark eyes latched onto his as she described how she’d passed the time: going to mass in the morning, afternoons spent working on an embroidery project with the old nurse for company, dinners at the bishop’s table hearing about his day. Her days never changed. How boring it must be for her, he thought, shut up in her godfather’s bachelor household with no girls her own age with whom to gossip and play. Did Rossi let her go to balls or dances? What had she done to cause her family to send her away to Venice, he wondered? There was something about the girl’s and the bishop’s behavior that made him think there was more to the story. Or perhaps they’d sent her in the hope that she’d make a better match under the bishop’s guidance?

She placed a hand on his forearm to get his attention, and Adair imagined he felt the heat of her tiny hand through the layers of his clothing. “Tell me . . . don’t you wish to visit with
me
one evening, instead of my godfather? I think I would be
much better company. You might read to me from your favorite poems. I would like that very much,” she said.

“Why certainly, Elena, if your godfather would permit it,” Adair replied. Though he knew he shouldn’t encourage her, he felt pity for the girl. At his positive response, her pretty face lit up and she dropped her gloveless hand on his, so their skin touched for the first time. She might as well have set his hand on fire. After a momentary dizziness, he recalled his earlier decision—to never take a wife and be married instead to science—and opened his mouth to speak. It would be caddish to mislead her.

“Elena, there is something I must tell you, however—”

Her dark eyes widened at his words. “Oh no. You are already betrothed! Is that what you were going to say?” She clutched his arm, this time digging her fingers into his sleeve.

“No, Elena. It’s not that, not at all.” The emotion in her voice caught him off guard. With Elena, his head clouded. She was a thing of both extraordinary liveliness and tempting softness, from the glossy dark curls on her head to the organdy tucked along the neckline of her gown. The scent of warm lavender oil rose from her bare throat. She was a beautiful little present, wrapped in silk and lace.

“Then there is no problem if you were to kiss me.” She smiled at her own daring. She lifted her chin and closed her eyes, clearly expecting him to take up her offer. He tingled with fear and desire. He had little experience kissing in passion aside from a few experiments with his cousins back in Hungary. The few whores he had known did not expect, or even particularly want, to be kissed. He tried to put these thoughts out of his mind as he looked at Elena. Why
not
kiss
the girl? They were alone, no chaperones hovering at their side. The bishop’s footsteps echoed down the hall, but he was still a distance away.

The seconds ticking by, Adair closed his eyes and kissed her. Her softness yielded to him. He felt as though Elena wanted him—perhaps even more than he wanted her—and the idea of being desired stirred him. He leaned into her, pulling her tighter, and she responded, her mouth opening for him. And just as he felt he could pour himself into her until they became one, a hand fell on his shoulder. It was the bishop.

Adair sprang back, his heart leaping, but there was no enraged outcry from his host, no shove propelling him away from the young woman. Adair expected Rossi to lose his temper and accuse Adair of taking advantage of his hospitality, but no—Bishop Rossi was smiling. He clapped Adair on the back. “My boy, don’t be embarrassed on
my
account. It is only natural to have such feelings for a young lady as beautiful as my goddaughter.” Why, he practically beamed with happiness, and Elena, for her part, stood behind her godfather, blushing so furiously that her cheeks were like two perfect red apples.