Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales Read Free Page B

starvation when they arrived at the camps; thousands went down with the plague and never raised their heads above the dust again.
    And still the Tower grew.
     
    What do you think of da Vinci?’ asked Romola on the third night they were together.
    ‘He’s a genius,’ said Niccolò without hesitation. ‘He is the greatest architect and builder the world has ever known.’
    ‘Does his genius come from God?’
    She peered at him through the firelight.
    ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
    ‘I mean does God give him instruction?’
    ‘That sounds close to blasphemy,’ he said, staring hard. ‘You’re suggesting that God, not the High Priest, should take credit for the Tower. It is da Vinci’s work, not the Lord’s.’
    He drew away from her then, away from the fire, despite his fear of the night snakes amongst the darkness of the rocks.
    She continued to talk.
    ‘I used to be one of the Holy Guardians—until I was thrown out on my ear...’
    He looked at her , then behind him at the Tower, then back to her again.
    ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you didn’t come from the refugee camp? You came from the Tower itself?’
    ‘I...I didn’t know what else to do, when we were told to leave, I thought about looking for my parents’ former home, thinking it was a long way from the Tower and something of it might have survived.’
    ‘Why were you asked to leave?’
    ‘New guards were recruited, from distant places. The old Holy Guardians have been disbanded. We are no longer permitted to remain near the tower. Most of my friends have gone down to the sea, to try to get work on the ships, guarding against pirates. Fighting is all we know. I intend to ask the High Priest if some of his—his closer Companions at Arms can return to our former posts. We were his Chosen, after all.’
    Niccolò smiled.
    ‘You mean he doesn’t call you to his bed any more?’
    She lifted her head and shook it.
    ‘No, that’s a privilege reserved for the Holy Guardians.’
    ‘I see. So the fact that you, and most of your companions, had reached the age of thirty or thereabouts, had nothing to do with you being asked to leave? The new men and women, they’re not young, handsome or pretty of course?’
    She stared at Niccolò.
    ‘He recruited a new army for very logical reasons. They now consist of many small groups of men and women from different regions, different tribes.’
    ‘Now why did da Vinci do that?’ asked Niccolò, softly.
    ‘It’s said that he’s afraid of plots being formed against him, even amongst his trusted Holy Guardians. The separate new groups do not speak each other’s language , they use many different tongues . If they can’t communicate, they can’t conspire against the High Priest, can they?’ she said. ‘Since he has control over a small group of interpreters, he has complete control over the whole army.’
    Despite himself, Niccolò was impressed. It certainly was clever strategy on da Vinci’s part. There was much to admire about da Vinci, no matter how much he was hated. The Tower was a product of a brilliant mind. The architecture, the engineering, was decades ahead of its time. Where an old support might have proved too weak, da Vinci had designed a new one. He was responsible for inventing the transverse arch, the buttress, the blind arcade, and many other architectural wonders. The absolute beauty of the work— the colonnades, the windows, the ceilings—was indeed worthy of a god.
    Such a pity a million people had been sacrificed to feed his egoism.
     
    On the third Sunday Niccolò confronted her, waking her from a deep sleep. ‘You’ve been meddling,’ he said, angrily. ‘You’ve been sticking your nose in amongst my goods.’ She shook the sleep from her head, staring up at him. Comprehension came to her gradually. He could see it appearing in her eyes. ‘I was just curious,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean any harm.’
    Niccolò pointed to one of the packs that had fallen from a camel. Its