Between the rain and the advancing evening, Rome seemed dim, half-real. Nikki picked his way through a waste of ruins and past the dark plumes of cypress, his feet uneasy on the sodden earth. The mist that rose about him held a faint chamel reek, a warning of the fevers that lurked in it.
If this hunt ever ended, no doubt his mind would still continue it, set in a firm mold of habit. Sometimes he saw himself as a hound weaving through coverts; sometimes he was a cat stalking a prey it could almost see.
Tonight he was a hawk on the winds of the mind-world, riding them in slow spirals, letting them carry him where they would. Yet he was also, and always, aware of his body, of the cold kiss of fog on his face, of the dampness that worked through his cloak and the growing wetness of his feet. They would be glad to rest by the brazier in Stefania’s house; she would insist that he linger, and old Bianca, recovered now and utterly smitten with his black eyes, would press food and drink upon him, and Uncle Gregorios keep him there with the plain joy of the Greek in exile who had found a countryman.
How easily they had taken him in, though not, to be sure, without suspicion. Even in his hunting he smiled to remember his first encounter with Bianca: returning from the market that second day with Stefania and finding the servant not only up but about, ancient, gnarled, tiny as old Tithonus who in the extremity of immortal age shriveled into a grasshopper.
But she had the voice and the will of a giantess, and for all her ears’ lack, her eyes were piercingly keen. She could see a handsome young man well enough, and roar at him for a rake and a corrupter of maidens, and purr when he smiled his best and whitest smile. Although she trusted nothing that was both young and male, nor ever would, she had been heard to admit that that particular specimen seemed less dangerous than most. Especially under her watchful eye.
He stumbled. His power plummeted in a flurry of feathers; battled for control; strained upward. A gust caught it, bore it up, and as it settled once more into an easy glide, hurled it madly skyward.
Vast wings opened above him. A monstrous creature filled the sky: an eagle, a roc, a dragon. Its talons were hooked lightning; its cry shattered stars.
It could not see him. That was his single greatest gift, the one that was his alone, to pass unperceived by any power. Next to the reading of thoughts, it had been his first skill; he had never had to learn it, nor had he ever been able to teach it. While he wielded it he was safe even from that immeasurable might which loomed over him, its wings stretching from pole to pole.
And yet he made himself as small as he might, small as a merlin, as a sparrow, as a hummingbird. His body shuddered with terror; his brain reeled. If he could only cling close, could follow, could—
An eye like the moon bent upon him. Widened and fixed; saw.
Impossible, impossible. He was invisible. No one could see him unless he willed it.
The cruel beak opened. Laughter shrilled, high and cold and cruel. The talons struck.
Full between them Nikki flew, seared by the heat of their nearness, racked with the pain of it. But free and fleeing to sanctuary, the high-walled refuge of his mind.
It was deathly quiet. The world was like an image in a glass, clear and present yet remote, even the rain and the cold touching him only distantly.
He floated through it with little care for where he went; he could not make his thoughts come clear. When he tried, he found only the memory of alien laughter.
oOo
Stefania was determined not to fret. She was a woman of both wit and wisdom; she had every intention of becoming a philosopher, whatever the world and the Church had to say. And a true philosopher should not care whether, or when, a pretty lad chose to favor her with his presence.
Even when he had promised to come before dark, and the hourglass had emptied once already since the last grey light failed. Even though he had never before failed to appear precisely when he said he would. What did she know of him, after all? Maybe he had found another and prettier girl to call on.
Bianca had cursed him, exonerated him, and fretted over him. Now at last she had vanished into the kitchen to raise a mighty clatter. Uncle Gregorios was gone, called away on some urgent business. Stefania had only herself, half a page of Pindar, and a blot on the vellum that she could only stare at helplessly.
He was only a boy. A friend, maybe. Amusing; pleasant to look at; useful for carrying packages and scraping parchment and arguing theology. He listened wonderfully and never showed the least sign of shock at anything she said, although she shocked herself sometimes with how much she told him.
Even her dream, outrageous and lunatic as it was and probably heretical, to have a house that was all her own with no man the lord of it, and a company of women like herself, women who had a little learning and wanted more. Like nuns, maybe, but neither cloistered nor under vows, brides not of Christ but of philosophy, each prepared to teach the others what she knew.
Nikephoros had not even smiled at that wild fancy. Of course, he had said; it would be like any other school, except that both masters and students were women. Nor had he been mocking her as far as she could see. And that was rather far; he was marvelously easy to read.
She thrust book and copy aside and stood. He was not coming. He was a guest in a monastery; he had companions who might have kept him with them. His brother was ill, she seemed to remember; maybe there had been a crisis.
He could have sent a message.
She shook herself. This was disgraceful. An hour’s wait for a stranger she had known a scarce fortnight, and she was good for nothing but to pace the floor.
Her cloak found its way about her shoulders. She snatched up her hood and strode for the door.
She had not so far to go after all. Arlecchina cried on the stair above the street, her coat dappled with the flicker of the wineshop’s torches. Something dark moved beyond her, swaying, turning.
Stefania tensed. A drunkard or a footpad, and she unarmed and the door open behind her.
The shadow flung out a hand. In the near-dark she knew it as much by its movement as its shape. Nikki’s face followed it, his hood and hat fallen back, his eyes enormous. His weight bore her backward.
Somehow she got both of them up the steps and through the door. He was conscious, breathing loud and harsh, stumbling drunkenly. Yet she caught no reek of wine.
Warmth and lamplight seemed to revive him a little. He pulled free and half sat, half fell into Uncle Gregorios’ chair. He was wet through, shivering in spasms, his face green-pallid.
Stefania wrestled with the clasp of his mantle. He did nothing to help her. His hands were slack; his eyes stared blankly, drained of intelligence.
The clasp sprang free. The cloak dropped. She coaxed and pulled him out of his gown, his sodden boots, and after three breaths’ hesitation, his shirt. He was well made, she could not help but notice, with the merest pleasant hint of boyish awkwardness.
Quickly she wrapped her own mantle about him and heaped coals on the brazier, reckless with fear for him. There was no mark on him, she had seen more than enough to be sure; he had not been attacked or beaten, not by any of Rome’s bravos.
He was sick, then. He had taken a fever. Except…
“What is this?” shrilled Bianca. “What is this? Where’s the boy been? Sweeping up the plague, I can see with my own eyes. Don’t cry on him, child, he’s wet enough without. You make sure he’s dry; I’ll make him a posset. Fools of pilgrims, they should know the air’s got demons in it, thick as flies around the Curia.”
Stefania was not crying. Not that she was far from it. Bianca renewed her clatter in the kitchen, to good purpose now and with suspicious relish. “Old ghoul,” muttered Stefania.
Nikki huddled in her cloak. His trembling had stopped.
“Nikephoros,” she said, “you should never have come here with a fever.”
He did not respond.
She frowned. “I know. You thought it was nothing. Just a touch of the winter chill. So you came out and you went all light-headed and maybe you got lost. It’s God’s good fortune you wandered in the right direction.”
She touched his hair, which had begun to dry. He started violently to his feet, nearly oversetting her. His eyes were wide and wild, and they knew her; he reached almost blindly.
She must have done the same. Hand met hand and gripped hard. His fingers were warm but not fever-warm.
The green tinge had faded from his face. He looked almost like his proper self; he even tried to smile. He had let the cloak fall. She looked; she was no saint to resist such a temptation. Yes, he was comely all over, slim and olive-smooth, his only blemish a red-brown stain on the point of his shoulder. It looked like a star, or like a small splayed hand.
It begged her to set her lips to it. His skin was silken, but firm beneath, with nothing in it of the woman or the child. She rested her cheek against it. “You frightened me,” she said. “In a little while I think I’ll be angry. If you don’t fall down in a fit first.”
She stepped back a little too quickly. He did not try to stop her. She reached for the cloak, shook her head, took Uncle Gregorios’ housegown from its peg. It was warm and soft and only a little too short.
She did not know whether she was glad or sorry to see him covered, seated again and submitting meekly to Bianca’s fussing, even forbearing to grimace at the taste of the posset. His hair, drying, was a riot of curls; she wanted to stroke them.
Bianca babbled interminably, hobbling about, bringing food and drink, poking at the coals. Nikki ate willingly enough, even hungrily, to the old woman’s open satisfaction. “There now, nothing wrong with you but rain and cold and monastery food—Pah! Food they call it, no better than offal, fit to starve any healthy young lad. No wonder you fainted on our doorstep.”
Stefania swallowed a thoroughly unphilosophical giggle. It was that or scream. A fortnight’s acquaintance and a night’s anxiety, and it seemed that she was lost. Just like the wise Heloise away in Francia, all her learning set at naught by a fine black eye.
She glanced at him, pretending to sip Bianca’s fragrant spiced wine. He was a little drawn still, a little grim as he gazed into his own cup. Concern touched her. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.
He was not listening. She reined in her temper, reached for the jar, filled his cup. He looked up then. “Tell me,” she said again.
She watched the spasm cross his face. Pain; frustration; a sudden and rending despair. He shook his head hard, harder, and pulled himself up. His lips moved clumsily, without sound. “I—I must—”
“You’ll wait till your clothes dry. All night if need be.”
He shook his head again. His shirt was in his hand, the borrowed gown cast off. He dressed swiftly, fumbling with haste, but he did not precisely run away.
In the moment before he left, he paused. He regarded Stefania; he bent, taking her hands. In each trembling palm he set a kiss. Promising nothing. Promising everything.
Fools, they were. Both of them.