The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick Read Free Book Online Page A

Medici’s dinner plates, and if we act quickly we can dominate the city.” / “It was sacrilege to pluck a man from life’s garden in the cathedral. You must distance yourself from anything associated with it.” / “The murderers may be a plot by a lesser house to start a war between the Lorraine and Medici Houses that they will benefit from.” / “We must be decisive.” / “We must be cautious.”
    â€œFor the sake of the ancients,” the Duchess suddenly snapped, “Would you stop playing with that toy!” And the room fell silent. Each of the men looked to the Duke for a sign that they should leave, but all he said was, “It is not a toy, petal of my rose, it is a scientific device of Leonardo’s that can control the weather.”
    â€œDon’t be absurd,” his wife said pointedly. “Nobody can control the weather.”
    â€œNo more than they can control the birds in the sky or the creatures in the sea?” he asked. She folded her arms and glared at him. “Let me show you,” he said. He turned the device around and showed her the dial on the front. “These markings indicate high pressure and low pressure. And when a storm is coming the air pressure is lower than it is during calm weather when the air pressure is higher.” He looked up at his wife but still she glared at him. “Have you not felt a change in the air when a storm is coming?” he asked. “That is the air pressure changing. If you boil water and capture the steam in a glass chamber you can measure the increase in pressure even as the steam builds up.”
    â€œSo?” his wife asked.
    â€œSo watch carefully,” he said. He turned a brass dial at the base of the device and the dial moved to low It took a moment, but the councillors did feel the air in the room change. It became heavier, as if steam was being released into the room from some hidden device. They looked at one another uneasily. “Does it smell like rain?” the Duke asked. Several of the advisors admitted that it did, while the Duchess said nothing.
    â€œNow,” said the Duke, “if I turn the dial the other way.” He turned it and the change in the room again took a moment but there were murmurs of surprise all about him as the air became drier and cooler.
    â€œIt is like magic, your grace,” said one of the advisors.
    â€œIt is science,” said the Duke.
    â€œI understand it not, and I like it less,” said one of his oldest advisers. “I have always preferred the strength of observation and reason.”
    The Duke looked up and met his wife’s eyes. “And what does observation and reason tell us we should do right now, do you think?”
    Her lips curled into a mocking smile. “It tells us we shouldn’t be sitting here in this chamber, playing with toys that have no practical use while we are attacked by our enemies.”
    The Duke waved his hand in the air and the councillors and advisors then beat a hasty retreat from the room. The Duchess rose to her feet and made a grab for the device in front of her husband, but he pulled it back towards him. “You are a man with no metals in his backbone,” she hissed. “My father warned me you were a straw man.”
    The Duke sat impassively. He had heard it all before. She had married beneath herself. He owed all his success to the wealth she brought to the marriage. The Walled City was her prison. She should have never left her native land. He let her talk on for some time and then said, “Yes, my rose amongst roses. I know all this. As I know that your family and most of those of your homeland are undoubtedly all dead of plague, and you are only alive because after leaving me to go and live with them, you then fled back to live in the Walled City with me.”
    â€œEnough!” she said and banged her palm angrily on the table. “Don’t taunt