"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."