PADUA: FIVE YEARS LATER

THE LITTLE boy ran, fear and excitement spurring him on. It was the first time he had been allowed to travel this journey alone, and the city had never seemed so big. He clutched the crackling parchment note to his chest as he dodged through the heedless citizens, his small feet flying in their green leather boots.

Breaking from the gloom of a crowded arcade, he emerged into the harsh light and sun-blasted stillness of the big piazza. It was midday, and the open spaces were relatively deserted. Even the shadows stayed close to the feet of the buildings, waiting for the heat to pass.

Pigeons scattered from the uneven ground as the boy skirted the bronze statue of the Man on His Horse. ‘Honeycat’, his mama called him. That always made the little boy smile; he loved the taste of the word in his mouth. Honeycat. It seemed such an odd name for so imposing a man.

As he jogged past, the little boy glanced up at the statue. He loved the man’s horse: he loved its wide, strong neck, he loved its knotted tail. Though, like his father, the little boy disapproved of the rider’s spurs. He never failed to wince at the sight of them, and shake his little head. A good rider should have no need of such a brutal tool.

The sun tyrannised the open air, hot as a furnace, and the little boy hurried across the piazza and into the protective shadows thrown by Il Santo. He raced along the smooth stone walls of the Basilica – past the first little door, past the great big door, past the second little door – and then out into the sunshine again before ducking into the shelter of another sottoportego and down a dim and quiet arcade street. It was time for siesta, and work on the new city walls had paused for an hour or so. In the absence of the usual dust and noise, the entire world seemed to be napping.

The little boy heard the End of Lessons bell just as he turned the corner and began to run down the sunny little lane that led to the compound and the site of the new hospital. Free from their classes, the bigger children began to trickle from the arched gateway, and the little boy slowed his progress, pretending to be preoccupied. It was not that he was afraid of the bigger children. Of course he wasn’t. But there was something about this particular group – a certain pride, a certain lack of courtliness – that made him uncomfortable. It was unfair to them, he knew; they had never done him harm. But still, he hung back.

The bigger children walked together, talking softly in their own strange language, their slates clutched at their chests, their satchels on their backs. The little boy was just about to crouch and pretend to tie his lace when a familiar figure came strolling out among them and the little boy straightened with a grin and ran on.

‘Good afternoon, Anthony!’ he called in his clear little voice. ‘Are you done your alphabets for today?’

The young servant turned and the little boy took great delight at the surprise and concern in his face. ‘My Lord!’ he cried. ‘Hast thou come here all alone?’

The little boy tutted. ‘I am well able to cross the city alone, Anthony. I am not a baby, you know.’

Anthony hefted his satchel onto his shoulder and scanned the arcaded streets behind the boy. ‘Does thy father know thou hast...?’ Something caught his eye and he smiled. ‘Of course, my Lord,’ he said, looking back to the child and bowing. ‘I do keep forgetting how big thou art.’

The child glanced suspiciously behind him, but there was no one there.

Anthony’s friends stopped to wait for him at the corner of the street. An equal mixture of boys and girls, they paused in a bright splash of sunshine, and it gleamed on their silver bracelets and shone in their long hair. They smiled, but did not bow. The little boy had long ago given up taking offence at this. After all, as his mama always said, a nod was as good as a bow where these folks were concerned.

‘I have a message,’ he said importantly, holding the parchment out to show them. ‘Papa entrusted it to me!’ Anthony’s friends raised their eyebrows and made impressed noises, and the little boy turned back to his servant. ‘You may go with your companions if you wish, Anthony,’ he allowed. ‘I shall not need you till much, much later. I am well able to return home alone, once my work is done.’

‘Thank you very much, my Lord,’ said Anthony, his lips tugging at the corners.

Bowing with a rather amused solemnity, the young servant strolled off to join his friends. They glanced back at the small child with undisguised fondness, waving and smiling with quite an appalling lack of propriety. The child watched them go with a patient shake of his little head. Anthony was a very good servant, indeed he could almost be called a friend – but on occasion he did keep rather dubious company.

Glancing behind him once more – there was most definitely no one there – the little boy ran beneath the sandstone gate-arch and down the lane that led to the compound’s stable yards. The sound of hooves on cobbles came to him as he rounded the corner, and he paused at the sight of the Chief of Horses leading one of the Arabians across the yard. The little boy faltered for a moment in the shadows.

It was not that the little boy disliked the Chief of Horses. In fact, he liked him very much, but there was something about him that made the boy shy. It was hard to define. There were those terrible scars, of course, and his horribly accented Italian. But it had more to do with a strange feeling of loss that the little boy felt around this man. There was a sense of hidden grief to him that made the little boy feel sad. He was often filled with the desire to clamber up the man’s wiry body and hug his scarred neck, but the man’s noble reserve made such a gesture seem inappropriate.

A familiar, nudging presence at the child’s back made him turn and he was greeted with a blast of musty dog-breath and a face full of slobbering kisses.

‘Dog!’ spluttered the little boy. ‘Stop at once! Or I shall be drowned!’

The hound, of course, declined to stop, and the little boy abandoned the pretence at annoyance and embraced his shaggy neck, laughing. The huge creature snuffled down the collar of the child’s tunic with great enthusiasm, and the child giggled at his tickling whiskers.

‘Boro,’ called the Chief of Horses. ‘Leave the lord be.’

The great hound broke off his slavering attack and trotted over to his master. Nudging the man’s hands and licking his scarred wrists, the dog rolled his eyes in adoration and whined like some ridiculously huge puppy.

‘Bloody fool,’ growled his master. ‘I take back of my sword to you if you not behave.’ The dog grinned and yawned and flopped down into the dust, showing his belly for a scratching. The Chief of Horses sighed and shook his head, but crouched down to oblige nonetheless. ‘My Lord,’ he said, squinting across at the little boy. ‘You come for to take out your horse? It a little hot for riding yet, nach ea? Maybe you wait for evening and then I bring you down along the river?’

‘I am on business, Freeman! I have come all the way here with a message for the Protector Lady!’ He held out the note with great pride.

The Chief of Horses’ face drew down in concern. ‘You come alone?’ he said. ‘Across the city? Your father knows this?’

‘Papa sent me, Freeman. I am quite old enough, you know, to deliver a message.’

As the child spoke, the man’s eyes drifted to the corner. Whatever he saw there wiped away his grim concern, and his weathered face softened into amusement. The child snapped his head around just in time to glimpse his father’s aide duck back behind the wall.

‘Marcello!’ cried the little boy. ‘I see you!’ He stamped his foot in rage. ‘Oh!’ he cried, ‘Papa sent you to follow me! After he promised I was to do this alone!’

The dapper little man stepped out into the sunlight. He smiled, and tilted his head. ‘I assure you, my Lord, your father did not send me. The Lord Razi has absolute faith in you, and trusts entirely that you shall deliver his message. I am here on separate business, and it is but a coincidence that we have arrived together.’

The little boy glared at him. Marcello Tutti spread his hands in all innocence. ‘I swear by the Holy Mother of Jesus, my Lord, I am here for my own ends.’ His dark-brown eyes lifted and met those of the Chief of Horses. ‘Is that not so, Sólmundr?’ he said softly.

The Chief of Horses ducked his head, and the small boy frowned curiously up at him. ‘You have gone very pink, Freeman,’ he observed. ‘You really should not go about without your hat, you know. Papa says the midday sun can quite fry a man’s brains.’

For some reason, this made Marcello Tutti chuckle, and the Chief of Horses went even pinker.

The child looked from one to the other of them in confusion. ‘Um,’ he said, waving the paper, ‘I must deliver Papa’s message. Now you must not follow me on the way home, Signor Tutti! I am very able to travel alone, you know!’

The Italian bowed his agreement, and the child turned in haughty pride and walked off, heading for the schoolhouse and the building site beyond. A soft conversation rose up behind him as he trotted across the yard: Marcello Tutti’s cultured voice, and the Chief of Horses’ quite awful, but warmly rasped, Italian.

‘You owe me a game of chess, my friend.’

‘I not play no longer, not till you agree to be honest.’

‘I will be honest. From now on, I will be unflinchingly honest. If you win, it shall be upon your own merits and not because I allow it.’

There was a brief silence. At the corner, the child glanced back at the two men. Marcello Tutti was squinting up at the Chief of Horses, a shy anxiety clear in his face.

‘So... I may visit tonight?’ he asked. ‘After I have seen the Lady Mary home from mass?’

The Chief of Horses gazed down at the dark little man, and something in his expression made the child wait. He wanted to hear the man’s answer for some reason. For some reason, it felt very important that he know it.

The Chief of Horses reached and plucked something from Marcello Tutti’s shoulder. ‘You got a leaf there,’ he said gravely. Then he met Marcello’s eyes and grinned his rare and charming gap-toothed grin. ‘I see you tonight,’ he rasped. ‘After you finish with your religions. You be honest, and we soon see who wins the game.’

Marcello Tutti relaxed into a smile. ‘Tonight,’ he agreed, and the little boy ducked around the corner, satisfied that all was well between his two friends.

Down the flagstone path and into the shadow of the schoolhouse, all was still and quiet now that the Protector Lord had closed up for the day, and the little boy’s footsteps echoed from the whitewashed schoolhouse wall, its blue painted snakes and bears watching as he ran past.

Then around he went into the resinous smell and sawdust of the hospital site, and came to a halt.

The great timber frame of the building itself was almost complete and it soared above him, cutting the seamless blue sky into mathematical slices. All was colour – the red timber, the dusty golden sunshine, the purple shadows. All was stillness. The heady, living smell of fresh-sawn wood and shavings spiced the air.

The little boy gazed upwards, listening.

There was a light thud as something hit the ground behind him and a warm voice lilted in his ear. ‘How do, Isaac? Have you come to learn your ABCs?’

The child squealed with delight as he was swept up by strong arms. He was instantly engulfed in that familiar spicy scent as the Protector Lord swung him onto his slim back. ‘You want to go visit the lass?’ he asked, smiling sideways over his shoulder as Isaac knotted his little hands beneath his chin.

‘Yes, please.’

‘Don’t choke me on the way up, mind. And don’t let go! I’ll never hear the end of it if you plummet to your doom!’ Tucking his long hair into his collar so that it wouldn’t get into the little boy’s face, the Protector Lord grabbed a rung on the first ladder and began to clamber, hand over scarred hand, to the top of the scaffolding.

Secure in the absolute certainty that he wouldn’t fall, Isaac clenched his legs around the Protector Lord’s waist and rested his chin on his shoulder. The lord’s necklace tickled the little boy’s wrist as they climbed up and up, and Isaac shifted so that he could watch it glinting in the sun.

Isaac loved that necklace. Recently, he had succeeded in counting all the ornaments upon it. He had numbered them all – twenty-four warm, amber stones, sixteen fangs of silver, eight of gold. The Protector Lord had been delighted with him. He had proclaimed him ‘excellent good at the ’rithmatics’ and asked when he could hire him as a teacher at the school. The Protector Lady had beamed with pride, but she had not allowed Isaac to take a turn wearing the necklace. It was the Protector Lord’s, she had said. He had waited too long for it. No one else must ever wear it.

Up they went, and up, until they were high above the sleepy towers and cupolas of the sun-baked city. The Protector Lord was not even slightly breathless when they finally breasted the rough planking of the uppermost tier and he stooped to let the little boy slither from his shoulders.

‘Christopher Garron! You best not have brought that child up on your back!’ The Protector Lady poked her head out from the A-frame of the hospital roof and glared. Her crotchety old grey cat slipped carefully from her shoulder and slunk across the red timbers like smoke. He looked his human companions up and down with the usual disdain, settled himself in a patch of warm light, and closed his beautiful green eyes. His name was Coriolanus, and he was so old and threadbare that Isaac thought he resembled nothing more than a dusty grey rag curled carelessly onto the timbers.

‘What did I tell you!’ cried the Protector Lady, as she clambered from the timbers and jumped onto the scaffold. ‘The boy comes up in a basket or he doesn’t come up at all! Isaac Kingsson? Do you want your good mother hunting the Protector Lord down and beheading him in a violent rage? Can I not at least depend that you shall keep a sensible head on your shoulders?’

The Protector Lord just grinned and leaned recklessly out from the scaffold, suspended above the sheer drop by his heels and one misshapen hand. His hair came loose from his collar and swung behind him, a dark raven’s wing against the blue sky as he turned his face to the sun and shut his eyes.

‘Oh hush, lass,’ he murmured. ‘Sure isn’t the lad as nimble as a little green monkey.’

At the sight of him hanging over the drop, the Protector Lady went a little pale. She placed her hand upon a strut, as if by steadying herself she might also steady him. If Isaac had not known her better, he would think she was afraid she might fall. But of course he did know better: the Protector Lady was famous for clambering the scaffolds, quick as any ship’s boy. She was never afraid she would fall. The little boy grinned as the lady called softly to her husband.

‘Christopher,’ she said, ‘come in.’ Her voice was so low that Isaac was surprised the Protector Lord heard her. But the lord’s clear grey eyes opened immediately, and he ducked his head to look in at her. ‘Come in,’ she said.

The Protector Lord swung in under the bar and landed on the wide scaffold boards with a bounce. He winked at Isaac. ‘Women,’ he said.

‘Huh,’ she said, releasing her hold on the strut and clearing her throat. ‘If you fall and sully all my lovely wood, your ghost will be mopping up the mess for all eternity.’

‘I have no doubt,’ murmured the Protector Lord. He crossed his arms and lounged against the beams, smiling tenderly at his wife.

The Protector Lady came and crouched by Isaac. She grinned at him, and Isaac grinned back. He knew very few women who would crouch down like that. It had to do with her clothes, he supposed. ‘How do, little pud,’ she said, tapping his nose and pushing back his sandy hair. As usual, her own hair had come loose of its long plait and was tumbled around her shoulders in messy auburn waves. Her face was a sunburst of ochre freckles after the long hot summer. ‘Is your da with you?’

‘Papa was called to the university very early, Aunty Wyn. They are to begin lessons again next week, you know! There is much to do.’

The Protector Lady smiled. ‘Your mama must be very happy that she can resume her studies.’

‘Oh, yes, though she tires of always sitting behind the curtain; it quite obscures her view of the tutors!’

‘She should bring scissors and cut a damned big hole in it,’ grunted the Protector Lord. ‘She will continue to press for recognition?’

‘Oh yes,’ nodded Isaac.

‘I despair of them ever granting her the blue robe,’ sighed the lady.

‘That don’t take her talents away,’ said the Protector Lord. ‘It don’t make her any less learned, just because they refuse her a doctorate!’

‘Papa says Mama is quite the best person he has ever met for cutting open and sewing shut a patient! He has crowned her the Lady Mary, Mistress of the scalpel, Master of his heart!’

The lord and lady laughed in delight, and Isaac, very pleased with himself, thrust the now crumpled message out before him. ‘I have brought this!’ he said. ‘It is from Papa. He entrusted it to me!’

The Protector Lady eyed it dubiously. ‘Isaac,’ she said, ‘if your father continues to expand upon his plans, this hospital will never be built! Please tell me he has not sent you with yet another extension to the wards or more storage for the bleeding-room or some manner of new dissection chamber?’

The child laughed. ‘No, Protector Lady, it is news of the baby!’

The Protector Lord straightened. ‘What news?’ he said.

‘I do not know. Papa read it, handed it to Mama, kissed her and left for the university. He entrusted me to take it to you. He said he will see you soon.’

‘How did he seem?’ asked the Protector Lady, taking the message and clutching it in her hands. ‘Was... was he sad?’

‘No, Lady!’ cried the child in surprise. ‘Of course not! Sad! How silly! He was just... Papa! Busy. Smiling. Just Papa!’

The Protector Lady opened the message and scanned its contents. ‘It is from Alberon,’ she cried. ‘Oh, it is a boy! Born last month!’ She looked up at the Protector Lord and quoted from the letter. ‘He says the child is a fine, bawling manling. I cannot wait until I have done overseeing the new fleet and can get around to buying him a horse... ’ She read on in silence and her smile faltered. ‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘Oh.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘The babe is to be called Oliver.’

There was a small moment of quiet. Then the Protector Lord said dryly, ‘An unusual enough choice.’ The lady met his eye.

Isaac frowned. The Protector Lord’s bitter expression was as difficult to understand as the lady’s tears.

‘Ain’t Jonathon afraid what people might think?’ said the lord. ‘Naming his new boy after the man what almost brought his kingdom down?’

‘Christopher,’ whispered the Protector Lady. ‘Don’t. You know someone had to take the blame. Better someone already beyond pain than those left alive.’

The Protector Lord tutted and turned to look out at the city. Behind Isaac, Coriolanus suddenly rose to his feet, muttered something about ‘the fickle fortunes of man’, and slunk away. The Protector Lady watched his stiff progress through the slats of sunlight and shade until he had moved out of sight behind the timbers, then she sat looking down at her hands, her face grave. The silence became itchy and uncomfortable.

Isaac squirmed. ‘Papa... Papa seems most pleased to have a new brother,’ he ventured.

The lady took a deep breath and sniffed. ‘Aye!’ she said. She shook herself, then waved the letter cheerfully in his face. ‘And you have a new uncle, little pud! How wonderful for you! Certainly the Royal Prince Alberon is delighted... he says you shall both have to take the little chap fishing whenever you get around to visiting your grandfather’s kingdom!’

‘I should very much like that!’

The Protector Lady dragged Isaac onto her knee and tickled him until he shrieked.

‘And what of Queen Marguerite?’ asked the Protector Lord quietly.

The lady subsided against the scaffold bars, the little boy cradled fondly in her arms. ‘Gone back home already,’ she said. ‘She took but two weeks’ rest after the birth, then headed North to finish her campaign against the Haun. Apparently she and Jonathon have decided this child shall be a Southland prince, by dint of his being firstborn.’

Christopher sighed, shook his head, then spread his hands and laughed. ‘Why not!’ he said. ‘It’s as good a way to choose as any, I guess.’

‘I doubt Jonathon will regret his darling wife’s absence,’ said the lady dryly. ‘One could hardly call their union a love match.’ She rose to her feet, lifting Isaac on her strong shoulders. ‘Speaking of which, a certain husband of mine promised coffee and manchet once his students had gone! Perhaps there’s something wrong with my nose, but I don’t smell coffee! Where’s my manchet, little man?’ She pretended to root in Isaac’s coat. ‘Have you hid it? Have you? Is it in your britches?’

Isaac squirmed and shrieked and wriggled. Finally the lady thrust him from her with a weary sigh. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘you will just have to cook this piglet. It’s all I can find to eat, I’m afraid.’

The Protector Lord swung the little boy onto his back with an order to hold tight, then launched himself over the edge. Isaac grinned at the lady’s faint, ‘Jesu!’ He glanced up to see her looking over the scaffolding, shaking her head at them as they descended the ladder. She was all lit up against the very bright blue of the sky, her untidy red hair ruffled and streaming out like ribbons on the hot breeze. As he watched her, she leaned her elbows on the scaffold bar, laced her work-hardened hands and gazed out across the huge and troubled magnificence of the city. Her face fell into that grave kind of watchfulness so familiar to him, and he regarded her with all the love possible in his small and happy heart.

The Protector Lord climbed down and down. Just before he reached the final levels, where the roof would no longer be in their line of sight, Isaac saw the Protector Lady catch sight of something down by the stables and straighten. She smiled, raising her hand, and Isaac’s heart leapt because he knew that look too – that beaming anticipatory grin. His father was coming! The lady must have seen him walking through the gate.

Just before the Protector Lord swung them both in and onto the ground, Isaac saw the Protector Lady swing herself out onto the ladder and begin to follow them down. The little boy laughed and slithered from the lord’s shoulders. He hit the ground running, determined to beat them all to it and meet his father halfway.

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