Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales Read Online Free PDF

amble past them.
    When the big man returned, his barge had been unloaded, and his craft stood high in the water.
    ‘Will you take us across?’ asked Niccolò.
    ‘Two sesterces,’ growled the giant.
    ‘Agreed.’
    The three of them boarded the barge, and the giant raised the lateen sail, and the craft caught the current. They headed downriver, towards the sea.
    Romola looked puzzled, stared at the far shore, then into Niccolò’s face.
    ‘Where are we going?’ she snapped.
    ‘Away from here,’ answered Niccolò.
    ‘Out to sea?’
    ‘Yes. We shall be island-hopping for as long as necessary, staying one jump ahead of da Vinci’s people, I hope.’
    She nodded towards the giant at the tiller, with his knitted waistcoat and benign expression. Romola became angry, clenching her hands, making them into fists. Niccolò stepped away from her, warily.
    ‘The two of you are together—conspirators?’ she said.
    ‘We came to help da Vinci destroy himself, and now we are making our escape. Now, I realise you’re an ex-soldier, and I still have the lumps to prove it, but my friend Domo here,’ he indicated the giant, ‘is not an effete artist. He could snap you in two, like a twig, so no violence please.’
    She stared at Domo, who smiled broadly. He did indeed appear to be a man of enormous strength, and while all three of them knew Romola would put up a spirited fight, the outcome could not be in doubt. Especially since Domo had a wicked-looking baling hook in his free hand.
    Niccolò said, ‘We don’t want to kill you, Romola—at least, I don’t, though gathering from the looks Domo has been giving me, he thinks I am a fool, and jeopardising our mission. I’m afraid you got under my skin, out there in the desert, and I’ve fallen in love with you. However, if you try anything, anything at all, Domo will kill you where you stand, and throw you to the fish. Is that understood? I shall be unable to prevent him, or help you.’
    She stood a long while, as if weighing up the situation, and then turned her head.
    The craft eventually reached the ocean, and Domo set a course for the outer islands, behind which the sun was settling for the night. Niccolò stood in the bows, watching the prow cut through the water as the wind carried them westwards, into the red glow of the evening. When it was almost dark,
    Romola came and stood beside him.
    ‘How did you do it? The assassination?’ she asked.
    ‘Oh, he’s not dead yet, but he will be.’
    ‘How? Did you poison the statuettes?’
    Niccolò shook his head.
    ‘No, I gave him a gift—an imperfect gift. Perfection is an obsession with him. Now he is caught in a cycle of madness. He will not destroy the gift, for the angels have his face and it would be like destroying himself. Yet one of the figures mocks him—resembles him in a crude way, but actually has the face of a monkey. Without this figure the ring of angels is incomplete, an obscenity—three hundred and thirty-two statuettes. The pattern on the marble is broken, the circle unfinished, yet with it, the art is marred, twisted into a joke of which he is the brunt.
    ‘He will go mad, it will destroy him.’
    Her eyes were round.
    ‘You’re sure of that?’
    ‘I’m certain of it. He loved my mother very much—my friend the sage Cicaro was there at the time—but he had her executed after my birth, because... because her beauty was marred.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘Stretch marks,’ said Niccolò. ‘In giving birth to me, she was left with stretch marks on her abdomen. He destroyed her because she was imperfect, blemished by a natural act of which he himself was the author. He killed someone he loved because of his madness for perfection. Now he will destroy himself—he’s caught in the web of his own vanity. He has to have the circle of angels, for they immortalise his youth and beauty, yet he cannot have them, because one of them is a mockery. He will rage, he will consume himself with frustration and