Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales Read Online Free Page B

wings, drawing on cupid bows with tiny arrows.
    ‘But look closely my lord, at the features...’
    The High Priest did as he was bid.
    ‘... every one of them,’ continued Niccolò, ‘has your face, when you were a young and beautiful youth.’
    There was silence in the room for a long time.
    Finally, da Vince walked past his prisoner, looked down on the multitude of marble figures at his feet, all bearing his features from a time when he was at his most handsome.
    ‘Superb,’ he whispered, stroking the one in his hand lovingly. ‘Wonderful—’ But then he cried out, as if in pain, as he plucked a cherub from the holy ring.
    ‘There ’s one with a broken wing,’ he cried.
    A guard near to Niccolò moved uncertainly, as if he believed he was expected to do something about his master’s anguish, but da Vinci held up a withered arthritic hand.
    Niccolò spoke quickly.
    ‘An accident, father. I shall carve another to replace it. I brought enough of the marble with me to carve three more statuettes, should it be necessary.’
    ‘But the patterns...?’
    ‘I can match them. As a sculptor of figurines I have no equal, save yourself in the days when your joints were supple. I am you, when you were younger, without your arthritis.’
    Once more the middle-aged man studied the statuette, minutely, weighing it in his hands. Then he picked up another and did the same.
    ‘This is truly a great work of art,’ he said when he had finished, ‘but I shall have them inspected closely before I allow them into my chambers. After all, you may have hidden a spring-loaded trap amongst them? One of those cherubs perhaps, lets loose its arrow as I hold it up to my eye? Or some devious device to administer poison? Perhaps if I pricked my finger on one of those spearpoints? I have lived so long, because I am without trust.’
    ‘It is part of your genius.’
    ‘Which has rubbed off on you, it seems.’
    ‘Am I not my father’s son?’
    Da Vinci placed a hand on Niccolò’s head.
    ‘You are indeed. You took a great risk coming here, to give me these. I almost had you beheaded before I saw you. There are many plots against me. Many. But there was something very audacious in the manner in which you expected an audience. I was curious to see you before you died.’
    ‘Am I to die, my lord, for being your loyal son?’
    Da Vinci snorted.
    ‘Don’t put too much faith in flesh and blood. You can’t prove I’m your father, and it means nothing to me anyway. There are a thousand like you, by women whose faces I hardly looked at.’
    He paused and strolled across the room.
    ‘However, you have, as you say, great talent—no doubt inherited from me. I am an artist too. A genius. I have decided to let you live, at least until you carve the last figure. What use is three hundred and thirty-two? A broken circle? It must be 333—all with my face. Go down from the tower, find your marble, and do the work. Once you have completed your task, we shall see if you are to live.’
    ‘I understand, my lord.’
    The High Priest then said to his guards, ‘When you take him down, send me up a stone mason . I want to construct a raised circular platform, to display these pieces.’
    They then led Niccolò away.
     
    They released Romola, and she found Niccolò. He was pleased to see her. She had holes in her hands and feet, where they had tortured her, trying to extract some kind of confession. She knew the ways, knew the limits, having been one of them herself. She professed a profound hatred for her old master, wishing he would rot in hell for his treatment of her.
    ‘I sent him a message, telling him I was in the dungeon, and he ignored it for the first few hours, knowing they would torture me.’
    She went with Niccolò and watched him, as he spent the next week, carving the final figure to complete the circle. As he worked, he told her what had passed between his father and himself, high in that room above the world. They were staying at an