Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1940 Read Online Free

kinds. For them I spare your
life. You will be yet another of the chief agents in my service," HEtold
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 Verrocchio. 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 shoulred, 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 of 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.