VIII

“We are at war and you will make me war machines,” Cosimo Medici said, standing up from his seat and pointing an angry finger at Galileo. He was not used to being defied. “No more toys,” he said. He gestured around at the clockwork mechanisms that filled the side tables that he had once delighted in. A wind-up bird that could sing. A hand-turned screw that could raise water up from a basin and then have it cascade down, turning water wheels to make a windmill turn, sending out a rainbow of colour. A glass for viewing small objects that made them larger.

“They are not just toys,” Galileo said defiantly. “They are machines of science. Each of these can be produced at a larger scale and benefit the citizens of the city in some way. Each one adds to our knowledge of the world.”

“There will be time for knowledge of the world later,” Cosimo said. “First we need to defeat the Lorraines so that we can have peace once more.”

“I seem to recall we had both peace and the Lorraines for a long, long time,” said Galileo.

Cosimo fumed and withdrew his pointed finger into his hand, making a fist. He now wished that he had dismissed his advisers from the chamber. He did not want them to see Galileo defying him like this while he sat there in ceremonial battle armour, and he did not wish them to see him losing his temper with the man. They well knew his worth and tended to trust his counsel. But today they should not. “You tell me that you seek the knowledge of the ancients,” he said. “You tell me that will make us great. And yet the ancients possessed mighty war machines.”

“And that is why they faded from our memories. Their wars cast us into a thousand years of darkness. Almost all their knowledge has been lost to us. Their ways of building. Their ways of healing. Their ways of understanding the world. They buried their greatness with war machines.”

“We will be different. We will only use them to restore peace.”

“The peace that could exist without them.”

“The Lorraines tried to assassinate me! They killed my beloved brother Giuliano. How can you stand there before me and deny this?”

“So you obtained a confession from the attacker?” Galileo asked.

Cosimo turned away and shook his hands in the air. “If not the Lorraines, then who else?”

“That is the question we should be devoting our energies to, rather than declaring a war that is not based on any sound evidence.”

“Evidence?” said Cosimo. “You insist on evidence? I know it to be the Lorraines. I feel it in my breast that it is the Lorraines.” He banged a fist upon his metal breastplate and looked to his advisors to see if they supported him in this, but not a one met his eye. He felt like he was at school, with his teachers asking him to debate some point of logic and sitting there in judgement of him. Even Galileo’s apprentice was following the arguments of each man carefully, he could see, hiding back there near the chamber door. He felt he was being judged harshly in his own governing chamber, where his word should have been law. But it was his own decree that no man would be punished in this chamber for speaking his mind. He paced back and forward like an animal in a cage.

Galileo said nothing for a while and waited for Cosimo to return to his seat and then said, in a soft and fatherly voice, “I have always mistrusted my feelings as leading me in directions they wanted to go rather than in directions that the evidence dictated. That is one of the lessons I’ve learned from the ancients. One of the basic tenants of science. Evidence is the only truth we can rely on.”

“In the absence of such evidence I must rely on my instincts,” said Cosimo. “They have always served me well in the past, in business, in matters of employment – such as seeking you out and offering you a position.”

“I would like to think it was based on the evidence of my successes and your successes in business in turn,” said Galileo, with a bow.

Cosimo the Great could not deny that and so ground his teeth in response. Then he said, “But you defy me and you infuriate me.”

“For infuriating you I apologise,” said Galileo, “That has never been my intent.”

“Then what is your intent?” Cosimo demanded.

“To help you make the best decisions possible.”

“You suggest I am making a poor decision?”

“They are your words, not mine.”

Cosimo ground his teeth again. Many evenings he and Giuliano had enjoyed such bantering with Galileo, trying to keep up with the way he jousted with words and demanded sharp thinking of this. But today such behaviour was uncalled for.

“I will ask you once more,” said Cosimo, bringing his voice back to a low but firm level. “Will you make me war machines?”

“And I can only reply that it would fly in the face of my duty to you, my Lord, to the citizens of this city and the very future of civilisation. It would throw us back into the darkness. I may as well throw open the gates for the plague victims to enter the city.”

Cosimo glared at Galileo. He needed him to know it was a very dangerous game he was playing with him. But the old man seemed not to care. “I could have you crushed,” Cosimo said, in a low dangerous voice.

Galileo bowed to Cosimo, acknowledging his power over him, but then said, “But who then would make your tools of commerce, let alone machines of war? My apprentice

Lorenzo?” Lorenzo looked up and felt his mouth go dry. He had no desire to become a pawn in this battle between his masters. “Come forward, Lorenzo!” Galileo commanded.

Lorenzo walked forward slowly, keeping his eyes down at his feet. “Can you make our lord war machines? Like those the ancients had?” Galileo asked.

Both men were looking at him. The advisors were looking at him. They all believed they knew what his answer would be. He was suddenly an orphaned ward again. No different in their eyes than the nameless boys who mucked out the stables and swept the floors. He could almost see the opportunity before him being held out on a silver plate to him. All he had to say was the truth. “Yes, I can make you armoured carts that do not need horses to pull them. And I can make you clockwork crossbows that shoot at five times the speed a man can shoot them. And I can make you devices that a single man can use to tumble the huge stones off a wall or tower.” He only had to say it and he would be an apprentice no more. He would be seen as a great man of science in his own right. He would no more be the boy in-between floors. He would be welcomed to the upper floors of the palace. And he only had to tell the truth for it to happen.

But he could not stop thinking of the Medici men toppling the tower where Lucia lived and burying her in the stones of her own chamber. How could he assist Cosimo in attacking the Lorraines when Lucia was a Lorraine? And he could not bring himself to betray Galileo again. With his face burning with shame he kept his eyes at his feet and said, “No, my Lord. That knowledge is lost to us.”

“Enough,” said Cosimo, “You are both dismissed!” The old man and his apprentice bowed low and withdrew from the chamber.

It took some time for the first advisor to gather the courage and step up close to Cosimo’s seat and say, “Perhaps there is wisdom in avoiding going to battle. There would be losses to us as well. Perhaps we should consider other ways to end this war?”

“Deathseekers?” asked Cosimo, the word a bitter one in his mouth.

“Think more of it as fighting fire with fire,” said the advisor.

Cosimo turned his head up to admire the ornate gold ceilings decorated with frescos of the ancients, their great cities and great civilisation. Then he nodded. “We have men inside the Lorraine household. Let them know what needs to be done.”