The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [56]
Anything at all.
But the tavern was just a tavern - hot and noisy - and the patrons were just patrons.
"Have you not seen them?" Chigi gazed curiously at Steven, and the pilot was struck by how soft his grey eyes were in contrast to his rugged, scarred face and close-cropped hair. Another mask?
"They fly above us, walk amongst us and swim beneath us. Venice is full of them."
"A riddle?" Steven asked.
"The truth. Oh, I am quite capable of turning the odd fanciful phrase - indeed I was once noted for it - but this time I am speaking God's honest truth. Or at least, I would be if I believed in God. But no matter - these demons are real enough. Some are as thin as sticks, with great horns growing from their heads, while others are shelled like crabs but have great wings which carry them aloft. I have seen them."
Steven shivered. At first he had thought that Chigi was lying - that or hallucinating - but the latter description sounded uncomfortably close to the Doctor's description of the creature that had abducted Vicki. From the sound of it, Chigi had come across it as well, which raised the obvious question: what was Chigi's part in all this?
"So what were you doing in the house?"
Chigi smiled slightly. "I suspect the same as you, my friend.
Investigating." He raised a hand and ran a finger along the scar that ran down one side of his face. "A pastime that has been my downfall before, and no doubt will be again. 'I see the better way and approve it: I follow the worse,' as Ovid said."
"Is that how you got that scar?" Steven asked.
Chigi nodded. "A fight - a sordid affair in Holland, some five years ago now. My skull was split open. A sawbones had to piece it back together. I owe him my life - for whatever that is worth." Chigi reached into his jerkin. When he pulled his hand out, he was holding a small, round metal object. "The sawbones claims that he found this inside my skull," he added. "I've never been sure whether to believe him or not."
Steven reached out for the object. Chigi shrugged, and handed it over.
"It's very light," Steven said, hefting it in his hand. "What is it - a musket ball or something?" Running his thumb over it, Steven thought he could detect striations in the sphere, indentations marking the outline of some hidden compartment perhaps, or symbols carved into the metal.
"If so, I know not how it came to be in my head, for I have never been shot." Chigi laughed, and picked the ball from Steven's hand, managing as he did so to run his finger across Steven's palm. "Or at least, I don't remember ever having been -"
He stopped abruptly, his gaze fixed on something across the tavern. Steven glanced across. A man stood in the doorway. His clothes marked him as a foreigner, and he was carrying a bag. His forehead was high and balding, and his face was fine-featured. He was staring back at Chigi as if he had seen a ghost.
"God's hounds!" Chigi murmured. "It can't be."
The newcomer walked slowly across to their table. His eyes never left Chigi. He dropped the bag by Steven's feet.
"You bear an uncanny resemblance to a man who has been dead for fifteen years, sir," he said. "My name is Shakespeare. William Shakespeare. Might I make so bold as to enquire... ?"
Chigi made no move to answer. Instead he just shook his head again, nonplussed. "I'm Steven Taylor," Steven said finally, rising from his seat and extending a hand. "And this is -"
"Marlowe," Chigi said simply. "My name is Christopher Marlowe."
Steven watched, dumbfounded, as Chigi reached out, pulled Shakespeare to him and hugged him like a long-lost brother.
CHAPTER TEN
"It appears to be heading towards Venice again," Galileo said, the brass of the telescope's eyepiece cold against his skin. He looked away from the spinning disc and refocused his eyes on the Venetian skyline: darker roofs and spires against the darkness of the sky. There was the beginning of a dull headache behind his forehead, and