Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(2)

“My dear Gideon.” Damien clasped his friend’s calloused hands. “Come, you must see my new acquisitions!”

Gideon scanned the room warily before stepping inside. Damien felt a twinge of annoyance. Another change in the past few months: Gideon seemed increasingly mistrustful, actively avoiding Damien’s company.

Damien couldn’t abide the idea that Gideon might be hiding something.

He cloaked his anger with a broad smile and shepherded his friend into the study until Gideon stood just beneath the new mosaic crest on the ceiling.

“You see?” Damien leaned over his desk and spread out half a dozen charcoal sketches. “These are only quick studies, of course. But my agent in Florence tells me this artist, Leonardo, is a master and also quite an inventor of mechanical devices — which, as you know, are my passion. Leonardo just completed a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. He calls it the Mona Lisa. I thought I might commission him to do a portrait of me, and while he’s here, I can pick his mind for mechanical secrets. How does that sound?”

“Expensive,” Gideon murmured.

Vesper chuckled. Gideon was never easy to impress, which just made Damien more determined to impress him — even if today might be the last time.

He pushed aside the Leonardo sketches. “Perhaps you’re right. But surely you must admit this was worth the price.”

Damien gestured grandly at his new wall map — a series of twelve woodblock panels showing the entire globe brightly painted in blue and green. “The newest, most accurate map anywhere, Gideon. It’s an exact replica of one just commissioned in the duchy of Lorraine. Fellow named Waldseemüller created it. What do you notice?”

Gideon’s keen eyes studied the map for no more than a heartbeat. “The new continents. He has labeled them … America?”

“Yes, after that explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Seems a silly name to me, but no matter. Our world has officially expanded, Gideon! Don’t you find that exciting? Think of all those lands to conquer, all those kingdoms of savages with riches beyond imagining. Spain is already becoming wealthy, you know, bringing back shiploads of gold and silver. I tell you, if a man had enough power, he could set himself up as an emperor in the New World. It could as easily be called Vesperia, eh?”

Gideon frowned. “It seems to me, Damien, that we have enough trouble caring for the lands we already have. Forty-three more of our villagers died this week, you know. We must find a cure for the Black Death, and I doubt the answer lies in this … America.”

Again, Damien kept his annoyance in check. Gideon was the only one who would dare speak so boldly to him. In years past, Vesper had found his honesty refreshing. He even allowed Gideon to call him by his given name.

But now Damien wondered if he’d allowed Gideon too much familiarity.

Our villagers? These lands belonged to Vesper alone. And when had his friend become so narrow-minded? Vesper showed him the new continents full of thousands of would-be subjects — a world to be conquered — and Gideon was concerned about forty-three plague-ridden peasants.

“Well,” Damien said breezily, “a cure would be admirable, of course, which is why I’ve provided you quite a substantial amount of funding. How goes your research?”

There it was again: that slight hesitation. Gideon was definitely hiding something. The look in his eyes was almost fear. And yet physically he seemed so full of energy, standing tall and straight. He fairly radiated health.

A formula, a concoction, the housekeeper had said. Interesting …

“It goes slowly,” Gideon said at last. “The mercury is too poisonous. The iron solute does not balance the humors of the body as I’d hoped.” He looked up, as if just noticing the mosaic crest above him. “More new artwork?”

Damien ignored the question, though he was conscious of the trap’s release button built into the floor, just a few inches from his left boot. If things went wrong, Gideon was in the perfect position.

“Perhaps if you used live subjects,” Damien suggested, “human volunteers, as I proposed —”

“No, Damien.”

“We have more than enough to spare. And it would speed your work”

“Never.”

Damien pursed his lips. After all these years, Gideon Cahill still mystified him. So dedicated to finding a cure, and yet he refused to do the logical thing and experiment on peasants. Unless, of course, he had already tested his cure some other way….

“Then you have made no breakthrough?” Damien asked.

Gideon hesitated. “I have found no cure.”

“Ah. But you’ve found something.”

Gideon twisted his gold ring. “My lord?”

So now he addresses me correctly, Damien thought.

“I’ve known you for ten years, my friend,” Damien said. “You are a man of many talents, but deception is not among them. You are a poor liar. You’ve found something important, using my fortune, using equipment and ingredients that I have provided from the far corners of the globe, using this refuge island in my territory.”

“This island is Cahill family land, my lord,” Gideon corrected, “granted to us centuries ago by the Gaelic kings. We invited you here, gave you the use of this manor house —”

“Yes, yes.” Damien waved aside the technicalities. “But it is still in my barony, and you owe me allegiance. At the very least, you owe me the truth. What have you found?”