Chapter Twelve: The Calm Before

   Antonio was pacing back and forth, his footsteps throwing up little maelstroms of glittering dust that quietly spun off behind him into the dark corners of the library, his face ruddy with anger.

   ‘You had no right!’ He huffed. ‘No right at all to pursue us and steal that which was not yours!’

   Gaspard watched him. He lay with his his feet in the air, limbs sprawled over the large, well upholstered chair that Francesca had spent the night in, and exhaled a blue cloud of tobacco to one side. ‘But Antonio ...’

   ‘Monsieur Tigullio!’ 

   ‘Sorry, Monsieur Tigullio.’ He corrected himself. ‘That is what a thief does, he thieves, and I was not acting out of any personal desire, or gain ...’ He paused, taking another pull on his cheroot while trying unsuccessfully to catch Rudolpho’s eye, but Rudi was intently spinning a gyrating globe of the Earth that was perched on one end of the writing desk. He frowned, turning back to Antonio. ‘As I already said, it was Leo who instructed me to get it!’

   Antonio stopped and kicked at the base of a large, oak, over-crowded cloak-stand, causing a sudden shower of garments to flutter down to his feet. He stared at the pile of fabric a moment and then turned away. ‘My brother should mind his own business, is what he should do!’ Why should he be sticking his considerable, colossal nose into my inventions?!’

   Rudolpho giggled at this, especially as Leo and Antonio shared almost identical noses. ‘Colossal nose!’ He laughed ‘Yes, colossal! Ho ho!’

   They both looked at Rudolpho, who only stared back. ‘What? Is funny, no?’ He gave the globe another spin and stopped it with a finger. ‘Francesca! Come look! I find Italy heeere.’ He tapped at the small detail of the country painted on the globe with a well chewed fingernail, but Francesca was stretched out on a red velvet chaise longue she had excavated from beneath several leather-bound novels of questionable taste. 

   Sighing extravagantly, she poked her nose out from behind one of them.

  ‘Hm? Yes, that is nice uncle.’ She turned over another page and sank down further into the chaise muttering to herself. ‘Dreadful book ... really ... dreadful.’

   Antonio stared at the group silently fuming, and then took two steps to Gaspard’s side and thrust out a pudgy hand.

   ‘Well then, let’s have it!’

   Gaspard, who was staring up at a detail in the stained glass, turned round and squinted up at the angry Italian.

   ‘What? ... Have what?’ He asked, with the tiniest of smirks upon his lips.

   Antonio balled up his hands into a fist, took a deep breath, and then flicked Gaspard upon the forehead with his finger.

   ‘Don’t be impudent, boy!’ Just because you have some questionable alliance with our brother does not give you the right to treat us with any less respect. Now ...’ He held his palm open again. ‘The plans please!’

   Gaspard blinked at him.   

   ‘Plans?’

   Francesca giggled from behind her novel as Antonio spluttered.

   ‘The plans, boy! That you stole! My diagram of the excelo-chronometre!’

   ‘Ah.’ Gaspard took another pull off his cigarette and blew a series of smoke rings, ‘the thing is ...’ he waited for the smoke to dissipate above him.

    ‘I haven’t got them.’

   Antonio’s eyes began to ever so slightly bulge from their sockets. He turned around, and scanned an uneven row of leather-bound books, suddenly picking one up off the shelf, which caused a small shower of grey dust to cascade down his front. He carefully flipped it open and began to thumb through the serrated pages, whispering to himself.

   ‘He hasn’t got it, the boy says he hasn’t got it ...’ Antonio, still turning through the pages, stopped, and pounced at Gaspard, thrusting the open book into his face. ‘Do you recognise this boy?! Do you?!’

   Gaspard, still laying upside-down in the chair, twisted his head around so that he could make out what was on the open page. 

   At first glance, he thought it was a diagram of a compass, a clock and sundial. But then he noticed it was something more. It was akin to an incredibly ornate and beautiful calendar. It portrayed the detailed movements of the sun circling round the Earth, phases of the moon, the equinoxes, the seasons, days and even the zodiac. It was breathtakingly delicate, and, he had to admit, not at all unfamiliar, but he didn’t want to acknowledge that, so he pretended ignorance.

   ‘Um ... no. No Monsieur, I do not.’

   Francesca, silently observing the proceedings from behind her novel, lay the book down across her chest and cleared her throat.

   ‘Gaspard, you dolt! Don’t you?’ She was quick to notice from the binding of the book, that it was one of many she had yet to read from home. ‘For someone whose famous father discovered the properties of stepping through glass, you really shouldn’t be so dense.’

  Gaspard parted his hair between his fingers and looked at the page again, and then glared at Francesca. ‘It wasn’t my father. I told you, it was my mother who discovered the properties ...’

   Antonio looked up at his niece and back at Gaspard. ‘What’s this? Your father is aware of the principles of the Mirror? Who is your father young man? ‘

  ‘Not my father, my mother...’ said Gaspard, waggling a finger in the air, it was my mother who discovered the properties of stepping through the glass, my father discovered that the glass had the layers ...’ he rolled himself around in the chair and sat upright, looking at Antonio, ‘his name is right there.’ He pointed at the bottom of the page, below the ornate diagram.

   Antonio snatched the book back, pushed his spectacles down his nose and peered over them, his lips silently moving as he read.  Stopping suddenly, he shut the book with a snap, ‘But this can’t be!’ He stared at Gaspard, and then turned away, furiously pacing back and forth, much to the astonishment of Francesca.

   ‘What?! She exclaimed looking first at her uncle, and then back at Gaspard. ‘Gaspard?’  She asked. ‘Uncle?!’

                                                  Gaspard

   Once upon a time there was a very great man who worked at the court of a great king. He had an adoring wife and darling children, and they all lived together in a magnificent house. The man had three young children, to be exact, the oldest a beautiful baby boy, of no more than six. This boy was an astute youngster, and he knew he grew up in a house of privilege. The boy knew his father was terribly important, and he knew how lucky they were to all be living in this grand house with his younger siblings and adoring mother. 

   He loved the time they spent together, the long summer days they played in the garden and the long winter nights they would sit by the fire in the great library singing, talking and laughing.

   What he didn’t know was that his father’s work, the experiments, had proven unsuccessful time and time again. His father had slowly fallen out of favour with the king, and perhaps, worse - the court. His experiments were costing the court too much money, and there were no appreciative results! This situation could not go on thus, and before long the inevitable happened and he lost the support of the court and the finances with which to continue his experiments.

                                           The man slowly went mad. 

  Madness is a funny thing, it creeps into one’s mind, it nests there and grows there, completely burrowing in. It hibernates comfortably among everyday thoughts. 

   This man was proud and dedicated to his work, so much so, that when he discovered that he was running out of funds with which to continue, a decision had to be be made to rid himself of those belongings that held the most value. 

    In this way, he knew his work could continue. One by one, the wife watched as this gilt chair, or those favourite porcelain vases were sold. The work! The work! It had to continue. The family became poorer and poorer, the grand house became darker and darker, the candles were burnt down to their last stubby ends, the friends and acquaintances stopped calling, and the glorious rooms, unused, were shuttered against the living, the remaining pieces of unsold furniture covered with old bed clothes to protect against dust and age.

   The little boy remembered walking barefoot through the empty halls of the house with his siblings, he heard his mother crying behind closed doors.

    The father has explained to her that he has spoken with the physician, and that the children, the dear children are sick and surely will not live through the night.

    The boy lay awake in bed. The night was one of tears, of terror, of the wails of a young mother being led from room to room as her children were slowly being silenced, protected from the harm of the court, from the terrible debtor’s prison.

   He remembers lying in the darkened room, the feel of his nightshirt against his skin, the way the shirt pulled as he squirmed underneath the heavy quilt. Someone had explained that he had consumption, that he would cough and cough, his lungs slowly filling with fluids. He would find it more and more difficult to breathe ‘ ... so really, my darling wife, you see we are doing the child a service, don’t you see?’

   The boy lay in bed and thought perhaps he could feel a scratching at the back of his throat, he imagined it was becoming harder to breathe, but then he heard the floorboard outside his door creak, the light of a precious candle glowing. The glow stretched out into the room as the door slowly opened, the shadow, his father, came in looking tired, so tired.

    The father explained that such a great house was expensive to run, that his work, his precious work was costly, and without the money of the court he found it more and more difficult to go on, surely the child understood? For, a man with no children had less debt, and less debt meant more money for the experiments. ‘You understand don’t you son?’

    The boy coughed a little, showing he understood, and his father tousled his hair, raising the sheets up over his son’s head, and, sighing a little, pressed them down over his little boy’s face. 

    The boy was willing to do his duty, at first, but then the panic set in. He squirmed beneath his father’s hands, he fought and fought. He bit through the cloth of the sheets until his sharp young teeth found purchase upon flesh, his father’s hand.

    And then the boy yelled.

    His mother, not willing to permit this any longer, suddenly appeared in the room. She snatched her son away from the man she once loved. She ran with her boy down the darkened stairs, and locked herself in the room with the experiment. She was the one, she had figured out how it worked. She placed the boy among the cool reflections and promised him he would live, he would live far away from here. She pushed him into the light, he remembered the rainbows of colours, the feel of the hard glass against his back as he slowly fell through it, and most of all, he remembered his mother’s voice telling him that he would be all right, everything would be all right.

                                                           ***

   Antonio looked up from the book in his hand, holding Gaspard’s eyes with his own, before sliding it back into its dusty home upon the shelf. He then wandered over to a Venetian window, and pressed his head against it, so that he could better peer up at the darkening sky.

   ‘Francesca,’ he said at last. It is not our place to pry. A man’s past is his own, and none of our affair.’

   Gaspard smiled, relieved, that Antonio wasn’t going to reveal the unpleasant past, and this secrecy clearly infuriating her.

   ‘But!’ Antonio continued, turning around and pointing at Gaspard, ‘that does not excuse you your thieving ways, and passing on my work to Leo!’ Antonio caught Rudi’s eye. ‘Leo always has to be in the limelight,’ he grumbled.

   A few drops of rain began to splash against the outside of the colour-stained window, tracing a pattern in rainbow as the water slid along the leaded glass.

   ‘Now then ...’ Antonio turned back to Francesca.  ‘Seeing as our Monsieur Gaspard has decided to play at being ignorant, perhaps you will enlighten me as to what he is keeping from us.’

   ‘Delighted!’ Francesca clapped her hands together, and dropped the novel she was reading back onto the chaise longue. Smiling sweetly at a now glowering Gaspard, she started. ‘It’s not yours, you know!’ She exclaimed at the blonde thief. ‘Just because you live here does not give you the right to keep it a secret. Uncles ...’ She affected a curtsy at each. ‘Please follow me.’

   Francesca stepped lightly onto the faded Turkoman carpet and wove her way around the clutter of unevenly stacked manuscripts and ancient furniture, making her way to the door. Giving the large handle a tug, and, meeting the expected resistance, she turned and batted her lashes at Gaspard.

   ‘Do be a dear, and unlock the door would you?’

   Grumbling, Gaspard got up, pulling the large iron key from within his robes, and unlocked it. He stepped into the dark hall, with the two uncles trailing along behind him.

   Their steps echoed over the worn paving stones as they walked through the corridors of St-Etienne-du-Mont. Gaspard silently ran his hands along the cool, stone wall, his fingers tracing the fissures where the rocks had been fitted together. He looked up as they entered the cloister, still brilliant in the dim light, the seventeenth-century stained glass windows reflecting the steady rain in mottled patterns around them. Francesca grabbed her uncles by the hands and rushed them to a window, the window which she had discovered the night before. She knelt down, pulling them with her and gesticulated excitedly.

   ‘You see? Here, and here!’ She pointed to the diagram in the glass.

   ‘My word! Antonio breathed, pressing his spectacles further down his nose, how can this be?’

   Rudolpho reached out, and had his hand smacked away.

   ‘Ow!’ 

   ‘Don’t touch Rudi!’ Antonio hugged a beaming Francesca closer to him. ‘Our little niece has made an important discovery! Why, look at this,’ he whispered excitedly. ‘It’s obviously the same clock, and here ...’ He signalled excitedly at his frowning brother. ‘Come look closer at this depiction of a pendulum.' He paused, thinking aloud. ‘These two rows of inverted numbers must be ... what?’ His brow furrowed.

   Gaspard stepped up, and leant over, interrupting them. ‘Why not ask Francesca here?’ He thumbed at her. ‘She’ll tell you what it’s all about, won’t you Francesca?’

   She glared at him a moment, and then turned away, facing her uncle Antonio.

   ‘They are a longitude and latitude, I checked at home, and I found the first row corresponds to Bohemia, and ...’

  ‘Prague!’ Breathed Antonio, finishing her sentence. ‘It’s Prague, but of course! The damned astronomical clock is what our Leo has been using as his key! He clapped his hands together, ‘it all makes sense!’ He chuckled, and then turned to Rudolpho, winking, before punching him in the arm, causing him to fall flat on his behind. ‘But what about the second row here, he gestured, looking back at Francesca, ‘are these a latitude and longitude as well?’

   Francesca frowned. ‘Those I couldn’t figure out.’

  Gaspard, inspecting a worn inscription in the marble against the wall chuckled under his breath, schooling would only get you so far it seemed.

   Rudolpho loosened his rapier in its sheath, and Gaspard quickly moved away, his attention suddenly concentrated on an inconspicuous spot on the ceiling. 

   Antonio watched the two of them, and, satisfied that Gaspard would behave, turned back to the stained glass, rubbing his scalp with a fleshy hand.

   Francesca gestured at the small depiction of the man with the blindfold beneath the virgin Mary.

   ‘I didn’t understand this here, uncle ...’

   He looked up at it. ‘Eh?’ Ah, well that is obviously Monsieur Hanuš. He was the one that rebuilt the clock mechanism.

   Francesca wrinkled her brow. ‘But wasn’t it ...’ She bit her lip, remembering her studies. ‘Wasn’t it Mikuláš of Kadaň who built the clock?’

   ‘Very good dear!’ He smiled at her, nodding. ‘Yes, Mikulas and Ondrejuv are, in fact, the original builders of that marvellous timepiece, but when it was time to do some actual fine-tuning of the clock, Hanuš stepped in and made it what it is today. Unfortunately, the city councillors were a jealous, spiteful group, and were very keen that he would never, ever build another clock like it for any of their neighbouring cities.’ Antonio looked back at the tiny figure in the stained glass. ‘So ...’ He sighed, tapping the glass. ‘They had him blinded.’

   Francesca started. ‘But that is horrible!’ 

  ‘Yes, yes it was dear, and that is why he is depicted here with his eyes bandaged. In retaliation, Monsieur Hanuš deliberately damaged the clock so seriously that nobody could ever fix it again! Antonio straightened up, stretching. ‘He also placed a curse upon the clock, a curse ensuring that anyone who has ever tried to tamper with it has gone either mad ... or missing.’

   Francesca inhaled sharply. ‘Uncle Leo was going to visit it, wasn’t he?’

   He looked grim, and silently pulled her up next to him. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Yes dear, he was, but I wouldn’t worry so about him, you know Leo doesn’t do anything without reading ten volumes in fifteen different languages first, don’t you?’ He pinched her cheek, and she nodded, smiling a little.

   Gaspard, doing his best to ignore the proceedings, watched the rain through a large, painted windows. The sky seemed to be at its darkest just now overhead, and the falling rain slowly congealed as it smacked into the dirt just outside. The drops quickened as they hit the ground around the church harder and harder, until they began to bounce back into the air as growing stones of hail.

   A flash of lightning, preceded by a shock of thunder suddenly shook the walls of the church. 

   Francesca’s hair floated up off the nape of her neck, the air was charged so with electricity.

   ‘Uncles?’ Her voice came out as only a whisper. ‘I don’t like this, not at all.’ The two men exchanged a worried look, and gathered her up between them. They quickly marched back down the corridor. Antonio waved Gaspard over beside him.

   ‘This ...’ He waved his hand distractedly. ‘This storm is too sudden .. and too violent. Our differences aside ...’ He looked at the boy. ‘Have you heard anything about storms from Leo?’

   Gaspard shook his head. ‘No, nothing about storms ...’ 

   Blue lightning skipped across the sky outside, seeming to set the clouds on fire. The corridor was instantly illuminated with the after images of the stained glass pressed into the stone walls. They all jumped as the thunder rolled across the church, a wave of noise roaring over them, and then ...

   The windows imploded at the ferocity. 

   Francesca shrieked as rain and hale poured into the church.

   Rudolpho protectively wrapped his large frame around her, and Gaspard grabbed Antonio by the sleeve and yelled into his ear.

   ‘We should move down to the crypt! It’s the safest place to be right now!’

   Antonio nodded his assent, and they all ran to its entrance. Gaspard watched as they disappeared into the darkness below, and started in after them, but, as he did so, Gaspard paused. Something caught his attention - a flicker of movement, no, a shadow. It slid by the broken glass and stopped. He pressed himself down against the cold steps and peered over them, waiting. 

   It was the queerest thing. 

   A young girl stepped in through one of the shattered windows, the storm whipped the rain around her, the water falling into the church. The thick curls of her hair blew around her face like serpents as another flash of lightning illuminated the sky, and reflected off her face ... Gaspard gasped.  

                  This young girl looked exactly like Francesca.