Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)

Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)
Rick Riordan



Damien Vesper didn’t plan on killing anyone today.

It was a fine autumn morning. A crisp wind had blown away the fog, and sunshine sparkled on the Celtic Sea.

In the distance, the coast of the Irish mainland stretched out lush and green. All of that land, as far as Damien could see, had been controlled by the Vesper family for centuries. From this island, a mile offshore, Damien couldn’t see his ancestral estate — a castle he hadn’t visited in over a year. He couldn’t see his peasants dying or hear them crying in their squalor and misery. He couldn’t smell the stench of death. Far to the northeast, one pillar of smoke snaked into the blue sky — probably another village being burned — but otherwise everything looked peaceful and beautiful. No sign of the Black Death.

Damien sipped his mulled wine, enjoying the scent of clove and nutmeg. He found it ridiculous that in this modern age, the year 1507, he still had to flee the plague — the same sickness that had cursed Ireland in his great-great-great-grandfather’s time. So many advances in the sciences since then, so many amazing discoveries, and still the plague hampered his plans.

But no matter. The Black Death couldn’t touch him here. He simply left his lieutenants in charge on the mainland to collect his taxes. He ignored their nervous reports about the hundreds dying each week, his peasants’ annoying pleas for help. He continued his work in peace, enjoying the acquisitions his agents sent him from across Europe.

He gazed at the woodblock-panel map now adorning his wall — a beautiful piece just arrived from France. Reports and sketches from Italy covered his desk. Damien searched the world for rare treasures and powerful secrets. Yet a single message whispered in his ear this morning by his neighbors’ housekeeper might be more important than any intelligence he’d ever received.

Was it possible that the most powerful secret in the world, a bit of information that could help Damien realize his wildest ambitions, was hiding right under his nose?

This morning, he intended to find out.

His eyes drifted to the new mosaic on his ceiling: a circle five feet in diameter depicting the Vesper coat of arms, but it was more than decoration. He’d recently installed the trap for his amusement. He’d thought to try it out on some lazy servant or the next guard who fell asleep on duty. But now it would serve a much more important purpose. He would test his theory. If he was right, Damien Vesper might become the most powerful man in the world.

There was a rap at the door. His servant Balthazar stepped through, bowing low. “My lord, Gideon Cahill is here.”

Damien smiled. He didn’t plan on killing anyone today. But he did believe in being flexible.

“Show him in,” Damien ordered.

Gideon was dressed in his usual peasant clothes — quite unbecoming for a man of his talents.

His hair was a swirl of wild gray tufts like a bank of storm clouds. His rugged face was darkened from years of brewing mixtures in a smoky laboratory. Chemicals had turned his frock into a palette of stains, and his forearms were covered with notes in Latin — reminders that Gideon would write on himself when he couldn’t be bothered to find a piece of parchment.

Only Gideon’s gold ring, a family heirloom much too fine for a peasant, marked him as a man of worth. And his eyes — still fierce and bright as ever under bushy gray brows.

Those eyes had first caught Damien’s attention a decade ago, when Gideon Cahill stood up at the Christmas feast, at Damien’s own table, and dared to correct him on a point of astronomy, citing some new work by a scientist named Copernicus.

Damien was not used to being corrected. He might have had Gideon flogged for his rudeness, but the intelligent gleam in Gideon’s eyes gave him pause.

He remembered thinking: Here is a man I could use. Not a sheep. A man of intellect.

After the feast, the two of them had talked into the night, discussing learned subjects no one else in Vesper’s miserable backwater domain could hope to understand. It had been the beginning of a rare friendship.

True, that friendship had frayed since the Cahills and Vesper and his household had fled to this island together. Sometimes weeks would go by as Gideon secluded himself in his lab, only sending notes to Vesper’s manor when he needed supplies or money. If not for the Cahills’ housekeeper, Maria, Damien would’ve been intolerably ignorant of Gideon’s activities, but Maria was an imperfect spy at best.

The last time Damien had seen Gideon in person, about a week ago, Damien had been startled — even concerned — by how much his friend had aged. Poor, noble Gideon, who took the plague so personally and labored like Hercules to find a cure. He had looked no better than one of Vesper’s serfs, broken from years of hard fieldwork.

But now … just as the housekeeper had reported, something about Gideon Cahill had changed drastically. Gideon stood straighter. His shoulders seemed broader. Was his hair actually darker? It seemed impossible, but Gideon Cahill seemed healthier, younger.

He’s made something in that evil laboratory of his, m’lord, Maria had whispered nervously. Sick for a while, he was. But now he’s changed — turned stronger, quicker, even his hearing is uncanny! I heard him talking to himself about a formula, a concoction. He’s taken to witchcraft, I fear. M’lord, it’s not natural, the things I seen him do!

Damien did not believe in witchcraft, but Maria’s tone had been sufficiently alarming to get his attention. She’d spied on the Cahills’ household for him for years but never once come to him in such a state of panic. Now, seeing Gideon in person, Damien’s suspicions deepened.