The Descent (17 page)

In the laboratory that evening, the bishop’s mind seemed to wander, and so Adair took command of the experiment, measuring ingredients onto tiny silver salvers and tending the furnace while the bishop continued to wax eloquently about his ward. “Have I told you about her family, back in Florence? It’s very old, a fine family. It goes all the way back to the duchy’s beginnings. Her family has had their estate in the valley for as long as anyone can remember.” Adair listened but didn’t
respond; the girl’s pedigree meant nothing to him since he had no intention of lengthening her family tree.

“And Elena is such a clever girl. She knows a little French, and Latin, of course, for mass. But she has other talents, too. . . . She dances like an angel, and sings beautifully. I always have her sing at my dinner parties for my guests and—why, we must have you over for one soon. We shall make you the guest of honor. Would you like that?” the bishop asked excitedly, as though the thought—after weeks of Adair’s company—had only just occurred to him.

“Certainly,” Adair replied, but only to end Rossi’s chattering. Even Elena’s kiss and snowy-white décolleté were fading from memory, unable to compete with the allure of the laboratory.

“Excellent! I will speak to my housekeeper to make the arrangements,” the bishop said, and beamed. Rossi clearly had no interest in their experiment that night; he was on a mission of a different kind. The old cleric studied Adair with an appraising eye. “She is a very lovely girl, wouldn’t you say? She’s considered one of the most beautiful girls in Florence, you know.”

She certainly spent enough of her father’s money on gowns and jewels, Adair thought. He put down the tiny pair of pincers he was using to count out crystals of salts of alum. “If that’s the case, why has she been sent here to live with you? If she is one of the most eligible girls in Florence, shouldn’t she be betrothed already?”

The bishop colored, having been caught. He leaned back into his chair, fussing with the billowing sleeves of his tunic to deflect scrutiny. “Well, if you wish to hear the whole story,
she’s the youngest of three sisters, and neither of the other two has yet been betrothed, you understand. Elena’s father has his hands full right now finding suitable young men for the older two. And though it pains me to make any comparisons between the sisters, Elena is the fairest of the three. My friend needed to send her away until the other girls’ matches could be made, her beauty being something of a distraction. . . .” The bishop gave a craggy smile, showing his yellowed teeth, and there was something about the way his eyes settled on Adair, watching carefully for his reaction, that Adair had to think there was more to the story than the old bishop was admitting.

They wrapped up the experiment that night—slightly more successful than the rest, but still a disappointment in Adair’s opinion—and on his walk back to the doge’s palazzo, Adair realized that he needed to find someone else with an interest in alchemy, so that he would continue to have access to another laboratory. It was plain that the bishop meant to arrange for Adair to marry his goddaughter, and Adair had already resolved that this was not going to happen. There was another reason that he wanted to quit Rossi, however, and that was because it was obvious that Adair was more skilled than the bishop, and Adair had no desire to waste his time with a dilettante. He wanted to work with someone better than himself. Henrik, his former tutor, had had his limitations, but he’d shown Adair how to use the instruments correctly and gotten him off to a good start. Adair’s skills in the laboratory were solid: he was a competent journeyman alchemist, but now he needed to study with someone with greater knowledge or risk wasting precious time floundering about on his own.

Adair knew that he couldn’t quit Rossi abruptly; he didn’t want to make an enemy of the man. In any case, he knew it would be difficult to find someone to take Rossi’s place. He’d have to find someone in Venice with a laboratory, and then he’d need to convince this person to share it. Without a laboratory, Adair couldn’t continue his studies in alchemy. Try as he might to think of someone to replace Bishop Rossi, Adair came up empty-handed. While he kept his ear to the ground for potential mentors, he began to reconnoiter in merchants’ alleys, the more obscure the better, looking for booksellers’ stalls where he could spend his spare hours searching for books of secrets that would allow him to teach himself while he still had access to the bishop’s laboratory.

There were few books of any kind for sale, let alone books of occult secrets. Most books of the time were religious in nature: Bibles, or excerpts of Scriptures and sermons. He began to feel as though he was picking through the same moldy tomes over and over, his quest destined for fruitlessness, until one day when he stumbled across a shop buried in the basement of a dingy building on a side street. The shop carried a sparse and odd assortment of merchandise. There were a few books, yes, but also bits of the arcane: a crystal ball, a skull inscribed with runes, a writing stylus made from polished bone. There were chests lined up behind a counter, and when Adair looked inside, he saw they were filled with all sorts of unidentifiable things, dark and dried until wizened to unrecognizability, but with smells that promised unknown properties, unknown delights. Adair’s heart raced as he poked about, each discovery more interesting than the last.

The proprietor came down the stairs into the narrow shop just as Adair was riffling through one of the wooden chests behind the counter, clearly shocked by the young nobleman’s presence. With this trade being dangerous business under the scrutiny of the church, he probably knew all his customers well and so he would be greatly surprised to see a stranger visiting him—and a nobleman at that.

“You’ve nothing to fear from me,” Adair said to put the man at ease, though his words seemed to have little effect. He recognized there was a dance to be done when it came to wares such as these, if the shopkeeper wished to be spared a visit by the inquisitors. This was Venice after all, and citizens were encouraged to tattle on their neighbors. There were even letter boxes at the doge’s palazzo for that express purpose.

The proprietor was an older man, bald with great wiry white whiskers, and over his tunic he wore a much-battered leather apron. He bowed his head in a show of deference. “Good day, my lord. To what do I owe the honor of your visit to my shop? Perhaps you came here on the recommendation of one of your lordship’s friends?” the shopkeeper asked, watching Adair closely for a reaction. “If you would be so good as to tell me the name, that would clear the matter up.”

Adair had no name to give and saw no sense in lying. “No, good fellow, I have no such recommendation to vouchsafe me. I was walking by your establishment and what I saw from the doorway intrigued me.” He gestured to the dusty shelves. “I’ve seen similar items before, you see. I come from another kingdom far away . . .”

The shopkeeper nodded. “I thought as much, from your accent.”

“Such objects are not as uncommon in my homeland as they are in Venice. I thought perhaps I might add to my collection, and came in to get a better look at your wares.”

“Your collection, you say?” the shopkeeper said, now curious. “And is there anything in particular you might be looking for?”

Adair leapt at this opening like a cat onto a mouse. “Why yes: I am looking to purchase a book of secrets. Have you heard of such a thing?”

The shopkeeper’s face clouded. “I’ve heard of them, yes . . .”

“Has one ever come into your possession?” Adair pressed.

The old man was obviously made uncomfortable by the subject and pursed his lips until his mouth almost disappeared in the thicket of his whiskers. “I have seen one or two, but never have had one to sell. These tend to be the property of collectors, such as yourself, and rarely are made available to purchase. It happens sometimes when a practitioner passes away, if the book is found among his things. But more commonly, the book is burned”—the shopkeeper glanced quickly again at Adair—“by the family, so as to hide the loved one’s interest in the occult.”

“Such a waste of knowledge,” Adair said, shaking his head.

“Indeed,” the shopkeeper agreed. But there was a fresh gleam in his eye now that they had an understanding. “But knowing of your interest, my lord, I shall keep an ear out should any such item find its way on the market. And in the unlikely event that one of these books should come into my possession, how might I get in contact with you?”

“You might send word to me.” He took the quill from the ink pot on the man’s desk and scribbled his name and address on a scrap of rough paper. He blew on the wet ink before handing it to the shopkeeper.

The man squinted at the writing before exclaiming in surprise, “But this address is for the doge’s palazzo!”

“Yes,” Adair said, his cheeks singed with embarrassment. “It is. I am a ward of the doge.”

The shopkeeper peered at him curiously. “I doubt you are a fool, sir, so I can only surmise that you find great sport in playing with fire.”

Adair thought about it and answered honestly. “Such is my interest in the topic, sir. I would risk everything in its pursuit.”

Before the new cycle of the moon, Adair received word from the bookseller, a cryptic note delivered by a kitchen boy that said he should come to the shop at his earliest convenience, but to come alone—as though Adair needed a reminder that such interests were best kept concealed. He went to the shop late in the afternoon on his way to a medical lecture at Professore Scolari’s.

The shopkeeper threw a bolt across the door after Adair entered, and led him to his residence on the upper level. It was a very modest dwelling, from what Adair could see, and very dim. There was only one window, which made for privacy. The shopkeeper gestured for Adair to sit at the table and went off through a doorway, and within a few minutes came back with a parcel in his hands.

“This book only recently came into my possession. It is one of the finest examples of its kind that I have ever seen,” he said as he put it on the table and peeled back the deerskin wrapping.
The book’s cover was such a brilliant blue that it cut through the room’s murkiness and commanded Adair’s attention. He held his breath as he picked it up, opened it carefully, and began inspecting the pages. It was so beautifully and precisely constructed that it had to be the work of a monk. The pages were parchment and adorned with bits of gold leaf inserted here and there. There were illustrations, too—magic circles, runes, and all manner of pictures Adair couldn’t make sense of it without further study. It smelled of candle wax and incense, and whispered of late hours in a scriptorium as its creator worked in secret, after his brothers had turned in for the night. Someone had risked his life and possibly his soul to make this book.

Adair’s hands closed around the book. “I must have it. What is your price?”

At this, the shopkeeper’s face puckered as though he’d bitten a lemon. “So, this is the tricky part, your lordship, which I beg to explain to you. There is another gentleman who is interested in the book as well. He is a longtime customer of mine. I dare not anger him by refusing him.”

“Then why did you bring me here if you have no intention of selling it to me?” Adair demanded. He felt his blood boil in his brain.

“It’s not that I have no intention to sell it to you. I wish that it were possible. I will speak to the other man, but I cannot see him stepping aside. He is a rabid collector, you understand. It’s just that I . . . I knew you would like the opportunity to see it, as you’ve surely never seen a book of its kind before,” he said, trying to assuage Adair’s anger. “I was acting in what I judged to be your interest, my lord.”

Youthful desire seemed to short-circuit Adair’s ability to reason. “I’ve dealt with crafty merchants before: you are obviously hoping to drive up the price by having us both make you an offer on this book,” Adair said impatiently, his grip tightening around the volume. “Very well, let me cut to the chase: I will pay double whatever your other customer offers. You have but to name your price and I will pay it.” His offer was reckless and he knew it. He had only so much money at his disposal.

The merchant’s face glowed pale in the dimness of the shop. “You’re very generous, my young lord, but I can’t accept your proposition. I beg you, let me speak to my other customer—”

“Consider this a deposit.” Adair dug his money purse from a pocket and slapped it on the table before the shopkeeper, who let his gaze rest on the plump sack for a long, silent moment.

Adair began wrapping the book in its deerskin cover, anxious to escape with his prize while the bookseller was distracted. “And need I remind you in whose house I am a guest? The man who rules the principality, the doge of Venice. Don’t be a fool. It would only take one word from me for you to end up in the dungeons . . .” he said, his bravado betrayed by a slight quaking to his voice.

At those unfortunate words, the bookseller’s servile demeanor changed. He gave a long, irritated sigh and stiffened underneath his leather apron. “Ah, my lord . . . I wish our discourse had not deteriorated so quickly. I’d hoped you would not besiege me thus with idle threats that would only harm us both. Getting the law involved in our private transaction would get
both
of us in terrible trouble. And which of us is the more serious heretic? I may be a peddler of the occult, but you
are the sinner who wishes to give over his soul to the devil, or so the inquisitors will see it. So while I doubt that you would make good on your threat, I prefer not to do business with men who would treat me thus.”

Though he sensed it would do no good, Adair decided to press his bluff. “I will not be made a fool of, or cheated. You summoned me here and dangled your wares before me. I’ve offered you good golden ducats at a more than fair price. If you wish to avoid any unpleasantness, I suggest you act like a merchant and sell the book to the first customer who offers to buy it, and that is I. I consider our business concluded.” He tucked the package under his arm and tried to brush by the shopkeeper, but the man put out his hand, catching Adair in his chest.