The Sculptor

a short story by Garry Kilworth

Niccolò reached the pale of the Great Desert at noon on the third day. He dismounted and led his horse and seventeen pack camels towards the last water he would see for six weeks. There at the river’s edge they drank. Some would have said that so many camels was an expensive luxury, but Niccolò knew the value of too many over too few. Only eight of them were carrying the statuettes. Of the remaining camels, two were loaded with his and his mount’s personal supplies, three were carrying water, and three were loaded with fodder to feed the other camels. The last camel was packing fodder for the fodder-carriers but not for itself. It was possible that this camel, or one of the others, would die of starvation before he reached the Tower.

Niccolò had had to call a halt at seventeen. When he had consulted the sage, Cicaro, the old man had recommended that to ensure survival he take an endless string of camels with him. Distance, food-chains, energy levels, temperatures, humidities, moisture loss - when all the relevant information had been given to Cicaro, and the calculations made, the result was camels stretching into infinity. Impossibilities were not the concern of the sage. He merely applied his mathematics to the problem and gave you the answer.

At least they were flesh and blood. Towards the end of the journey Niccolò could begin eating them, if it became necessary. At that moment he found the thought distasteful, though he was no sentimentalist, and had refrained from even naming his horse. Niccolò knew, however, that when it came to the choice between starvation or butchering one of the beasts, whatever he promised himself now, he would use the knife without hesitation. He had eaten worms, even filled his stomach with dirt, when he had been without food. Man is a wretched creature when brought to the level of death. When he has shed his scruples he will eat his own brother, let alone a horse or a camel.

Yet there was a mystery there. Man also perplexes himself, Niccolò thought, as he filled his canteens from the river. When he and Arturo had almost run out of water in this very desert, they had fought like dogs for the last few mouthfuls, would have killed each other for them. Then rescue had come, at the last moment, preventing murder.

Yet, not two months afterwards, Arturo ironically committed suicide, hung himself in the back room of a way station, for love of a whore.

Why does a man fight tooth and nail to live one day, and kill himself the next? It was as if life was both precious and useless, not at the same time, but in different contexts. Life changed its values according to emotional colours. In the desert, dying of thirst, Arturo had only one thought in mind - to live. It had been a desperate, savage thought, instinctive.

Yet that instinct had vanished when Arturo had climbed on that ale barrel and tied a window sash around his neck. Why hadn’t it sprung out from that place in which it was lurking, waiting to perform, to kill for life? Perhaps it is hopelessness that kills the instinct in its lair? In the desert, if he fought hard and callously enough, the water might eventually belong to him. The love of the lady though, no matter how savagely he battled, could never be his. If she withheld it, could not feel such for him, then he was helpless, because he could never in a million years wrench love from her grasp like a water bottle.

A craft came along the river, silently, the helmsman apparently happy for the most part to let it follow the current. The cargo was sheltered from the sun by a palmleaf thatched cabin, which covered the deck with an arch-shaped tunnel. The sail was down, unnecessary, even a hindrance in the fast flow.

As the boat went by, Niccolò was able to peer inside, through a window-hole in the thatch. A giant of a man sat in the dimness within: a clumsy-looking fellow, appearing too big for his craft, but a man with peace, contentment, captured in his huge form. He was knitting. His great hands working the wooden needles while his elbow occasionally twitched the tiller, as if he could steer sightlessly.

It seemed he knew the river so well - the meanders, the currents, the sandbars and rapids - had travelled this long watery snake for half a century - he needed no eyes. Maybe he could feel the flow and know to a nautical inch, a fraction of a fathom, where he was in time and space? Perhaps he navigated as he knitted woollen garments, both by feel, on his way to the sea.

Niccolò signalled to the man, and received a reply.

Afterwards he made camp by the river that wound beneath the star patterns visible in the clear sky. The campfire sent up showers of sparks, like wandering stars themselves, and though Niccolò did not know it they gave someone hope. A lost soul was out there, in the desert, and saw the glow in the heavens.

The following morning, Niccolò woke to the sound of camels grumbling, kicking their hobbled legs, shaking their traces. The horse took no part in this minor rebellion. A nobler creature (in its own mind) it held itself aloof from dissident camels. Niccolò fed the camels, then he and the horse ate together, apart from the other beasts.

Three days out into the desert, Niccolò came across the woman. Her lips were blistered and he had trouble forcing water past them. When she opened her eyes she said, “I knew you would come. I saw your fire,” then she passed out again.

In the evening he revived her with some warm jasmine tea, and soon she was able to sit up, talk. She was not a particularly pretty woman. At a guess she was about the same age as he was, in her very early thirties. Her skin had been dried by the sun, was the colour of old paper, and though it was soft had a myriad of tiny wrinkles especially around the eyes and mouth. Her stature was slight: she could have been made of dry reeds. She wore only a thin cotton dress.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked her.

“Looking for water,” she said, sipping the tea, staring at him over the rim of the mug.

He gestured irritably.

“I can see that, but how did you get lost? Were you part of a caravan?”

She shook her head, slowly.

“I was searching for my mother’s house.”

“Here, in the desert?”

Her brown eyes were soft in the firelight.

“It wasn’t always a desert,” she said. “I thought there might be something left - a few bricks, stones, something.”

Niccolò nodded. He guessed she was one of those who went out searching for their roots. Lost now, but lost before she even came into the desert. One of those who had been separated as a child from her family during the exodus, and had found out her father’s name, where her parents had lived, and had gone looking to see if there was anything left.

He stared around him, his eyes sweeping over the low and level plain. Only a short three decades ago there had been a thriving community here, the suburbs of a city. On the very place where they were sitting buildings had stood, streets had run. The city had been so vast it took many days to travel by coach-and-six from its centre to the outskirts.

Now there was nothing but dust.

“I can’t take you with me,” he said. “I’m heading for the Tower…” he nodded towards the marvellous structure that dominated the eastern sky, taller than any mountain in the region, so tall its heights were often lost in the clouds. Since it was evening, lights had begun to encrust the Tower, like a sprinkling of early stars.

She said timidly, “I can come with you.”

“No. I don’t have the food or the water to carry a passenger. I have just enough for my own needs, and no more. I’ll point you in the right direction. You can make the river in five, maybe six days, on foot. The first refugee camp is two days on from there.”

She looked at him with a shocked expression on her face.

“I’ll die of thirst.”

“That’s not my fault. I came across you by chance. I didn’t have anything to do with your being here. You might make it. I’ll give you a little water, as much as I can spare.”

“No,” she said firmly, hugging her legs and staring into the fire, “you’ll take me with you.”

He did not answer her, having nothing more to say. Niccolò of course did not want to send her out there, and he knew she was right, she probably would die, but he had no choice. His mission depended on him making the journey safely. To ensure success, he needed to do that alone, without any encumbrances. She would hold him back, drink his water, eat his food, spy on him, probe for his secrets. He would probably have to kill more than one camel to get to the Tower, if he took her along too. It was not in his plans.

Finally, he spoke.

“We must get some rest, we both need it.”

Niccolò gave her the sleeping bag and used a horse blanket himself. Once the sun was down, it was bitterly cold, the ground failing to retain the heat. She moved closer to him for warm, and the fire blocked his retreat. He had not been with a woman for so long, he had almost forgotten how pyrotechnical the experience could be. Just before dawn she crawled under the blanket with him and said, “Take me - please,” and though he knew that the words had a double-meaning, that he was committing himself to something he wished to avoid, he made love with her.

In the morning, he knew he could not send her on her way. He wanted her with him, in the cold desert nights, and afterwards, in his bleak life.

“You’ll have to ride on one of the pack camels,” he said. “Have you ever been on a camel?”

“No, but I’ll manage.”

“What’s your name?” he asked, almost as an afterthought, as he helped her up onto her perch. He had chosen one of the less vicious camels, one that did not bite just out of pure malice, though it was inclined to snap when it got testy at the end of a long hard day’s walk.

“Romola,” she smiled, “what’s yours.”

“Niccolò. Now listen, Romola, we’ve got a long way to go, and your… you’ll get a sore rump.”

“You can rub some cream into it, when we stop at night,” she said, staring into his eyes.

“We’re not carrying any cream,” he said, practically, and swung himself into the worn leather saddle.

They moved out into the desert, towards the wonderful Tower, whose shadow would stretch out and almost reach them towards the evening. He and Arturo, eight years ago, had set out on a mission of murder, and had failed even to cross the desert. This time he was well prepared, but carrying a passenger. If anything happened, he would have to abandon her, for the mission was more important than either of them.

The city was still there, of course, he reminded himself. It was vertical, instead of laying like a great pool over the surface of the continent. It was as if the houses had been sucked up to the clouds, like water in a waterspout, and now stood like a giant pillar supporting heaven. The city had become the Tower, a monument to artistic beauty and achievement: a profound and glorious testament to brilliant architecture. Perfect in its symmetry, most marvellous in its form, without parallel in all the previous accomplishments of man. It was grace and elegance, tastefulness and balance, to the finest degree possible this side of heaven. The angels could not have created a more magnificent testimonial to art, nor God Himself a splendour more pleasing to the eye.

And at its head, the great and despised architect and builder himself, its maker and resident.

The Tower had been started by the High Priest designate, da Vinci, when he was in his early twenties.

“We need to get closer to God,” he had told his contemporaries and the people, “and away from the commerce and business of the streets. We have the cathedral’s steeple of course, but think what a great monument to the city a tower would be! We could use the bricks and rubble from condemned buildings, to keep the cost of the construction low. The air is cleaner up there.”

Da Vinci was now truly a ‘high priest’ living at the top of the Tower, away from the people, protected by his army of clergy. It was said that oxygen had to be pumped to his chambers, night and day, in order to breathe up there. It was also very cold, and fires were maintained constantly, the fuel coming from the stored furniture of a million inhabitants of the old city.

He had begun the work, as he had promised, by using the debris from demolished houses, factories, government buildings, but gradually, as the fever for greatness took him, so he had urged his priests to find more materials elsewhere. Gravestones were used, walls were pillaged, wells were shorn of bricks. The people began to complain but da Vinci told them the wrath of God would descend upon any dissenter, and since he was God’s instrument, he would see to it that the sentence was death.

By this time the Tower had become a citadel, within whose walls a private army grew. The Holy Guardians, as they were called, went forth daily to find more building materials, forcing people from their homes around the Tower, and tearing up whole streets to get at the slabs beneath.

Not all the citizens were unhappy about da Vinci’s scheme, or he never would have got as far as he did. Many were caught up in his fervour, added fuel to his excitement and determination. The guild of building workers, for example, a strong group of men, were totally behind the idea of a Tower to God. It promised them work for many years to come.

Also the water-carriers, with their mule-pulled carts; the tool makers; the waggoners carrying supplies for the builders and the Holy Guardians; the weapon makers; the brick workers; the slate and marble miners. All these people put themselves behind da Vinci with undisguised enthusiasm.

Da Vinci began recruiting more youths, and maidens, as the Tower’s demands for a larger workforce grew, and these came mainly from the city streets. When the guild could no longer find willing, strong people to join them, they sent out press gangs and got their labour that way. Eventually, they had to get workers from the farms, around the city, and the land was left to go to waste while the Tower grew, mighty and tall, above the face of the world.

Churches were among the last buildings to be stripped, but torn down they were, and their stained-glass windows and marble used to enhance da Vinci’s now fabled monument. The High Priest strived for perfection in his quest for beauty. Inferior materials were torn out, removed, shipped down to the ocean in barges and cast into the waves. No blemish was too small to be overlooked and allowed to remain. Every part of the tower, every aspect deserved the utmost attention, deserved to meet perfection at its completion.

Flawlessness became da Vinci’s obsession. Exactness, precision, excellence. Nothing less would be accepted. There were those who died, horribly, for a tiny defect, a mark out of true that was visible only in certain lights, and viewed at certain angles, by someone with perfect vision. There was no such thing as a small error, for every scratch was a chasm.

This was the form that his obsession took.

By the time tower was half-built the population had already begun to leave the city. Long lines of refugees trekked across the wasteland, to set up camps in the hanging valleys beyond, where there was at least a shallow surface soil for growing meagre crops, though the mountains cast cold shadows over their fields, and high altitude winds brought early frosts.

Or people made their way to the sea and settled on a coastal strip that could barely support the fishermen who had lived there before the multitudes arrived. Many of them died on the march, some travelled by river and drowned when the overcrowded rafts were thrown by the rapids; others perished of starvation when they arrived at the camps; thousands went down with the plague and never raised their heads above the dust again.

And still the Tower grew.

“What do you think of da Vinci?” asked Romola on the third night they were together.

“He’s a genius,” said Niccolò without hesitation. “He is the greatest architect and builder the world has ever known.”

“Does his genius come from God?”

She peered at him through the firelight.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean does God give him instruction?”

“That sounds close to blasphemy,” he said, staring hard. “You’re suggesting that God, not the High Priest, should take credit for the Tower. It is da Vinci’s work, not the Lord’s.”

He drew away from her then, away from the fire, despite his fear of the night snakes amongst the darkness of the rocks.

She continued to talk.

“I used to be one of the Holy Guardians - until I was thrown out on my ear…”

He looked at her, then behind him at the Tower, then back to her again.

“Ah,” he said, “you didn’t come from the refugee camp? You came from the Tower itself?”

“I… I didn’t know what else to do, when we were told to leave, I thought about looking for my parents’ former home, thinking it was a long way from the Tower and something of it might have survived.”

“Why were you asked to leave?”

“New guards were recruited, from distant places. The old Holy Guardians have been disbanded. We are no longer permitted to remain near the tower. Most of my friends have gone down to the sea, to try to get work on the ships, guarding against pirates. Fighting is all we know. I intend to ask the High Priest if some of his - his closer Companions at Arms can return to our former posts. We were his Chosen, after all.”

Niccolò smiled.

“You mean he doesn’t call you to his bed any more?”

She lifted her head and shook it.

“No, that’s a privilege reserved for the Holy Guardians.”

“I see. So the fact that you, and most of your companions, had reached the age of thirty or thereabouts, had nothing to do with you being asked to leave? The new men and women, they’re not young, handsome or pretty of course?”

She stared at Niccolò.

“He recruited a new army for very logical reasons. They now consist of many small groups of men and women from different regions, different tribes.”

“Now why did da Vinci do that?” asked Niccolò, softly.

“It’s said that he’s afraid of plots being formed against him, even amongst his trusted Holy Guardians. The separate new groups do not speak each other’s language, they use many different tongues. If they can’t communicate, they can’t conspire against the High Priest, can they?” she said. “Since he has control over a small group of interpreters, he has complete control over the whole army.”

Despite himself, Niccolò was impressed. It certainly was clever strategy on da Vinci’s part. There was much to admire about da Vinci, no matter how much he was hated. The Tower was a product of a brilliant mind. The architecture, the engineering, was decades ahead of its time. Where an old support might have proved to have been too weak, da Vinci had designed a new one. He was responsible for inventing the transverse arch, the buttress, the blind arcade, and many other architectural wonders. The absolute beauty of the work - the colonnades, the windows, the ceilings - was indeed worthy of a god.

Such a pity a million people had been sacrificed to feed his egoism.

On the third Sunday Niccolò confronted her, waking her from a deep sleep.

“You’ve been meddling,” he said, angrily. “You’ve been sticking your nose in amongst my goods.”

She shook the sleep from her head, staring up at him. Comprehension came to her gradually. He could see it appearing in her eyes.

“I was just curious,” she said. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

Niccolò pointed to one of the packs that had fallen from a camel. Its contents had spilled out, over the desert floor: marble statuettes, of angels, of cherubim, of seraphim.

She stared where he was pointing.

He said, “When you retied the knot, you used a knot that slipped - there’s the result.”

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to…”

“To spy,” said Niccolò.

He could see he was right by the expression on her face and he grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. She immediately struck him a sharp blow with the heel of her hand behind his ear, then as his head snapped to the side, she kicked him in the groin. He went down in the dust, excruciating pains shooting through his neck, a numbness in his genitals which quickly turned to an unbearable aching.

She had been, after all, a soldier.

“Don’t you dare try that again,” she cried. “My mother was an assassin. She taught me the martial arts. I could kill you now…”

In his agony he didn’t need to be told.

By the time he had recovered, she had gathered his statuettes, carefully wrapped them in their protective rags, and tied them inside the pack. He hobbled over to it and inspected the knots, satisfying himself that this time they were correct and tight. Then he swung himself into his saddle, winced to himself, and then gestured for her to follow on with the camels.

“Those figurines,” she said, obviously trying to make friends with him again, “they’re very beautiful. Where do they come from?”

“I carved them myself,” he said, “from the finest block of marble the eastern quarries have ever disgorged.”

She seemed impressed, though she was obviously no judge of art, nor could she know the work that went into just one of the three hundred and thirty-three statuettes. There was admiration in her tone.

“They’re very beautiful,” she repeated.

“They’re flawless,” he remarked as casually as he could. “It took many years to carve them all, and I have only just completed them. They are a gift, for da Vinci. He can no longer carve minutely, the way one needs to be able to carve if one is to produce a piece just six inches tall - objects that need a younger steadier hand - especially since he developed arthritis.”

She was silent after this.

The Tower grew in size and height, as they drew nearer to its base, until it filled the horizon. Its immensity and resplendence overawed Niccolò so much that he almost turned around, forgot his mission, and went back to the mountains. It would now take him a day to ride, not to the end, but to the edge of the Tower’s shadow. The Tower was like a carved mountain, a white pinnacle of rock that soared upwards to pierce the light blues of the upper skies. Its peak was rarely visible, being wrapped about with clouds for much of the time. The high night winds blew through its holes and hollows, so that it was like a giant flute playing eerie melodies to the moon.

By this time they had begun to eat one of the camels, and two others had been set free, their fodder having been consumed and their usefulness over. The water was almost gone.

Romola showed him how to produce water, by using the stretched membrane of the dead camel’s stomach. She dug a conical pit in the sand, placed a tin cup at its bottom, and shaped the membrane so that it sagged in the centre. Water condensed on its underside and dripped into the cup.

“I’m an artist,” he stated, piqued by her superior survival knowledge, “I don’t know about these things.”

“So, an artist, but not a survivor?”

“I make out.”

They reached the Tower, footsore, weary, but alive. The Holy Guardians immediately took them into custody. Romola protested, saying she was a former soldier, but she could not get them to understand what she was saying. All around the tower was a babble of voices, men and women talking to each other in a dozen different tongues. Romola’s pleas were ignored and she was thrown into the dungeons.

Niccolò found a Holy Guardian who spoke one of the three languages he knew and explained to them that he had brought some gifts for the High Priest and that da Vinci would be greatly angered if Niccolò were not permitted an audience with the one on high.

“I am the High Priest’s son,” said Niccolò, “and I wish to pay homage to my father.”

Messages were sent, answers received, and eventually Niccolò found himself being hoisted in silver cages up the various stages of the Tower: pulled rapidly aloft by winches through which ran golden chains with counterweights. An invention of his father. With him went his bundles of statuettes.

He reached the summit of the tower and was ushered into a huge room on his knees, before the powerful presence of the High Priest, da Vinci. The room was decorated to the quintessence of perfection, its ceilings painted by great artists, its walls carved with wonderful bas-relief friezes, and on the cloud-patterned marble floor stood statues sculpted by the genius da Vinci himself.

A thin middle-aged man stared at Niccolò with hard eyes, from a safe distance. He rubbed his arthritic hands together, massaging the pain, while the guards stood poised with heavy swords, ready to decapitate Niccolò if their master so gestured.

“You claim to be my son,” he said, “but I have many sons, many daughters - bastards all of them.”

Niccolò replied, “It’s true, I’m illegitimate, but how could it be otherwise? You’ve never married.”

The old man laughed softly.

“That’s true. I loved only one woman - and she failed me.”

Niccolò assumed a puzzled expression.

“How did she fail you, my lord?”

“She scarred herself, making her loveliness ugly to my sight. She was a vision of beauty, that became horrible to my eyes…” The memory was obviously painful to da Vinci, for he paused for a moment in deep thought, a frown upon his face, then his mood changed, and he said, “What? What is it? Why did you request, no demand to see me?”

“I bring you a gift, my lord,” said Niccolò. “A present for my father. Three hundred and thirty-three statuettes, all carved with great skill by a talented artist - a genius - every one of them a masterpiece.”

“Who is this artist? Raphael? Michelangelo?”

Niccolò raised his head and smiled.

“I am the artist, my lord.”

This time da Vinci roared with laughter.

“Let me see the gift.”

The guards unwrapped the rags and the statuettes began to appear, were placed carefully upon the marble floor, until they covered a huge area of the great room. Eventually, they were all on view, and the High Priest motioned for the guard to bring one to where he stood. He studied it, first while it rested in the guard’s hands, then taking it in his own and turning it over and over, cautiously, but also admiringly.

“This is indeed a beautiful work of art,” said da Vinci, holding up the figurine so that the soft light caught the patterns on its buffed and polished surface. “How many of them did you say are in the set?”

“Three hundred and thirty-three.”

Da Vinci smiled.

“You know the value of numbers. Three - the Perfect Harmony.”

“Or union of unity and diversity…”

“Both. And here we have the perfect number - three threes.”

“Angels, cherubim, seraphim,” said Niccolò. He began to arrange them in a large circle on the marble floor. “As you see,” he continued as he worked, concentrating, not looking up at da Vinci, “they are also an interlocking puzzle. Each angel fits into another, but only one other. You will notice that the pattern of the marble flows through the figures, like an ocean current, following the holy circle. I defy you to find where the pattern begins and where it ceases, for it is one continuous flowing band.”

“Marvellous…” Niccolò heard the High Priest breathe.

There were angels of every kind, some nude, some clothed in flowing robes, some wielding swords of justice. There were seraphim brandishing spears of truth, and cherubim with little wings, drawing on cupid bows with tiny arrows.

“But look closely my lord, at the features…”

The High Priest did as he was bid.

” … every one of them,” continued Niccolò, “has your face, when you were a young and beautiful youth.”

There was silence in the room for a long time.

Finally, da Vinci walked past his prisoner, looked down on the multitude of marble figures at this feet, all bearing his features from a time when he was at his most handsome.

“Superb,” he whispered, stroking the one in his hand lovingly. “Wonderful - ,” but then he cried out, as if in pain, as he plucked a cherub from the holy ring.

“There’s one with a broken wing,” he cried.

A guard near to Niccolò moved uncertainly, as if he believed he was expected to do something about his master’s anguish, but da Vinci held up a withered arthritic hand.

Niccolò spoke quickly.

“An accident, father. I shall carve another to replace it. I brought enough of the marble with me to carve three more statuettes, should it be necessary.”

“But the patterns…?”

“I can match them. As a sculptor of figurines I have no equal, save yourself in the days when your joints were supple. I am you, when you were younger, without your arthritis.”

Once more the middle-aged man studied the statuette, minutely, weighing it in his hands. Then he picked up another and did the same.

“This is truly a great work of art,” he said when he had finished, “but I shall have them inspected closely before I allow them into my chambers. After all, you may have hidden a spring-loaded trap amongst them? One of those cherubs perhaps, lets loose its arrow as I hold it up to my eye? Or some devious device to administer poison? Perhaps if I pricked my finger on one of those spearpoints? I have lived so long, because I am without trust.”

“It is part of your genius.”

“Which has rubbed off on you, it seems.”

“Am I not my father’s son?”

Da Vinci placed a hand on Niccolò‘s head.

“You are indeed. You took a great risk coming here, to give me these. I almost had you beheaded before I saw you. There are many plots against me. Many. But there was something very audacious in the manner in which you expected an audience. I was curious to see you before you died.”

“Am I to die, my lord, for being your loyal son?”

Da Vinci snorted.

“Don’t put too much faith in flesh and blood. You can’t prove I’m your father, and it means nothing to me anyway. There are a thousand like you, by women whose faces I hardly looked at.”

He paused and strolled across the room.

“However, you have, as you say, great talent - no doubt inherited from me. I am an artist too. A genius. I have decided to let you live, at least until you carve the last figure. What use is three hundred and thirty-two? A broken circle? It must be 333 - all with my face. Go down from the tower, find your marble, and do the work. Once you have completed your task, we shall see if you are to live.”

“I understand, my lord.”

The High Priest then said to his guards, “When you take him down, send me up a stone mason. I want to construct a raised circular platform, to display these pieces.”

They then led Niccolò away.

They released Romola, and she found Niccolò. He was pleased to see her. She had holes in her hands and feet, where they had tortured her, trying to extract some kind of confession. She knew the ways, knew the limits, having been one of them herself. She professed a profound hatred for her old master, wishing he would rot in hell for his treatment of her.

“I sent him a message, telling him I was in the dungeon, and he ignored it for the first few hours, knowing they would torture me.”

She went with Niccolò and watched him, as he spent the next week, carving the final figure to complete the circle. As he worked, he told her what had passed between his father and himself, high in that room above the world. They were staying at an inn, on the far side of the river. Accommodation for those not directly connected with guarding the Tower, was on the north bank, while the Tower itself stood on the south bank. It was another safety measure, to protect the High Priest. All river traffic ceased at sundown, and anyone found on the south bank, after dusk, was immediately put to death.

“When we were out in the desert,” she told him, “I often wondered… well, why didn’t you bring the statuettes by river, on a barge? Why risk that terrible journey over the wasteland?”

Niccolò had left the carving of the facial features until last, and this he had completed within the last five hours of close work. He held the statuette up to the light coming through the dusty window, inspecting it. The piece, as always, was pristine, immaculate. It would fit, patterns matching exactly, into its place in the holy ring of angels. It was the sibling of the other 332 figurines - with one exception.

Instead of da Vinci’s youthful countenance, it had the face of a monkey. Worse still, a monkey whose features resembled those of the High Priest. A cruel caricature.

He wrapped the statuette in a piece of cloth, before she could inspect his final work, and answered her question.

“The river is crowded, full of his agents and spies. I know how fanatical they are. I knew I could convince him, once I was here, but they would never have allowed me to reach this far. Besides, one is only permitted to carry agricultural goods by river craft, unless one bears the authority of the High Priest. I had no such authority. They would have killed me simply on suspicion, before I reached the Tower.

“The river is a deadly place, as you know. Then there are the pirates… I stood far more chance of being murdered on the water, than I did from dying of hunger or thirst out on the sands.”

“That’s true, and it’s also true that you could cross the desert relatively undetected, until you came within sight of the Tower, of course. Yet… you took me along with you, knowing the risk. I might have been one of his spies.”

He stared at her.

“Yes, you might. I think you were - and still are. It is fascinating, and horrifying to me, that people like you are prepared to go through torture for the sake of discovering his enemies. It’s an enigma I don’t think I shall ever solve… but I am glad for my father’s sake that he has his devoted servants.”

“You wrong me,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“No,” replied Niccolò, “I don’t think so. You are still besotted with the mystique of the man, and you think that if you can uncover some plot against him, he will reinstate you, and you’ll return to his favour. You have been blinded, Romola, but I shall restore your sight.”

Niccolò dispatched the statuette to da Vinci by courier. Then he asked Romola to walk down to the river with him, so that they might cross, and gain audience with the High Priest, once that man had had time to gaze upon the final figurine.

On their way down to the river, Niccolò said to her, “You have been asked to guard me, haven’t you?”

She stared at him, then nodded.

“Yes. That’s why they let me out of prison.”

“I thought so. Da Vinci would never let me run around loose, of that I was sure. So it had to be you.”

They reached the jetties, and waited for a boat to come which would carry them across.

A short while afterwards a barge came down the river with a giant man at the tiller. He had a gentle face, a good face, and he was wearing a knitted waistcoat that looked new. When his boat reached the jetty he clambered ashore. The Holy Guardians swarmed over his craft, inspecting every spar, every beam, before allowing the dockers to unload his cargo. The only goods permitted to be carried by river barge, were food and drink, and if you were found with any other freight you were executed on the spot, no excuses excepted. The big man nodded to the two people who watched him 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 fury. He will destroy himself…”

“You are a genius,” she said.

“I am… subtle.”

They stood, watching the water sliding beneath the craft, as darkness fell. When it became cooler, once the sun had finally gone, she put her arm around him.

© Garry Kilworth 1992, 1997

‘The Sculptor’ first appeared in Interzone # 60 (June 1992), later winning that year’s readers’ poll for Story of the Year.

Elsewhere in infinity plus:

- fiction - The Sculptor; an extract from the novel Land-of-Mists;Shadow-Hawk; We are the Music Makers; The Green Man Tennis Club.

- nonfiction - reviews of Garry Kilworth’s work.

- features - about the author.

- other stuff - a detailed bibliography.

Elsewhere on the web:

- Garry Kilworth at Amazon (US) and at the Internet Bookshop (UK).

- The Garry Kilworth website is packed with news and information about his writing activities.

- Gwyneth Jones interviews Garry.

- ISFD bibliography.

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