“Lucifer,”
said Cardinal De Medici, sweeping into the chilly anteroom, “here is your
charge. She is Salamander.”
Lucifer
dropped to his knee, kissing the Cardinal’s ring. When he lifted his head, he saw a figure,
small as a child, limping through the door.
She was a lizard, hobbling upright on her hind feet. No tail showed under
the chain mail skirt that was her only garment.
The
Cardinal continued brusquely, “You will take her to Florence and deliver her to
the foundry master. Here are your papers and travel expenses.” And with that,
he turned and strode back into his private apartments.
Still
on his knee, Lucifer looked directly into his charge’s crimson eyes. Intelligence looked back. Inexplicably,
Lucifer felt a need to assert his dominance.
Rising
to his feet, he tucked his papers into a pocket in the breast of his
doublet. “Come,” he commanded, “I have a
carriage waiting.”
“Signore,”
the voice was sibilant, light, scarcely more than a whisper. “I am small, weak and lame. We can progress
more swiftly if you will carry me.”
“Carry
you?” he barked. “How am I supposed to
carry a salamander? You could burn me to ashes with a touch.”
“If
I chose to, but I do not so choose,” she replied. “As long as I do the Cardinal’s will, then my
husband and children will remain safe.
If I incinerate his favorite messenger, the Cardinal will punish those I
love. You will not be burned by me.”
The
Cardinal’s favorite messenger was neither a coward, nor a fool. Lucifer watched the little creature limping
toward him, then bent and swept her up, holding her perched on his arm against
his left side like a skinny toddler.
She
was lighter in weight than he had expected, warm as a cat, with skin like
brick-colored suede. Her tiny hands
caught hold of his doublet. “You’re so tall,” she gasped. Then, after a moment, “Thank you, Signore.”
As
he strode through the halls of the palace, people stared, crossed themselves,
then looked away. The Cardinal’s servants
had seen stranger things than a tall man with golden curls down his back,
carrying a great lizard in his arms.
In
the courtyard, he lifted her into the waiting carriage, locked the door, and
swung to the back of his own mount. In
time, the seven hills of Rome faded behind them into the autumn smoke.
Dusk
fell before they reached the inn Lucifer wanted. The innkeeper and his wife were loyal to the
Cardinal, and had more than once accommodated mysterious personages under
Lucifer’s conveyance. A private room was
available. Lucifer unlocked the door of
the waiting carriage and looked inside.
The
heavy blankets provided for the occupant had been piled on the floor into a
sort of nest. She was curled in it,
waiting patiently.
“Come,”
he said, reaching in and plucking her forth.
Her lame foot knocked against the door frame and she gasped, jerking her
legs up and gripping his doublet with her queer little hands.
“Your
foot is sore?” he asked, as he carried
her into the inn. Servants and other
travelers stared after him. Salamanders
were seldom seen outside of the furnaces where they lived and worked.
“My
foot was broken yesterday. It is quite
sore.”
“How
did you break your foot?” he asked, carrying her up the stairs.
“My
foot was broken by the Cardinal’s torturer.
That was shortly after he crushed
my husband’s foot, and just before he was prepared to begin the same treatment
on my children. I agreed to attempt the
task my husband refused. My dear
husband, whose honor demands that he allow his wife and children to suffer for
his beliefs.” Her quiet voice was even
and steady.
“The
Cardinal works to do God’s will.” Lucifer said, opening the door and carrying
her into the small chamber. “Here is your bed.
I will sleep on the floor outside the door. What would you like to eat?”
“If
I may have a fire, I will sleep there.
You may as well use the bed. I
won’t run away.”
“You’ll
sleep in the fire?” he questioned, startled.
“I’ve never conveyed one of your people before. Is there anything else I should know?”
“The warmer I can be, the sooner I will
heal. If the landlord would allow me the
kitchen hearth, I would agree to clean his chimney and tend all the cooking
tonight. I will not run away,” she
repeated. “Your Godly Cardinal holds my
children.”
Lucifer
debated with himself. Were Salamanders
loving parents? He didn’t know. He had conveyed many things for the Cardinal,
always delivering them safely to their destination. A crocodile and two lions
had taxed his ingenuity. Two orphaned
children, being delivered to the care of their grandparents, had wrought with
his heart. Kindness, gentleness, comfort were not traits required by a
messenger, and he seldom regretted their lack, but those frightened, grieving
children still haunted his dreams. The mermaid he had brought from Venice had
wept day and night, yet he knew that if he had opened her cask to give her the
sunlight and fresh water she pled for, she would have strangled him in an
instant. He knew about mermaids, but
salamanders?
A
hesitant knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. He set the salamander
gently on the bed, set hand on the hilt of his dagger and opened the door a
crack.
“Signore,”
the innkeeper said, bowing low, “I am told your charge is a salamander?”
“Yes?”
Lucifer replied, “What of it?”
“Signore,
Madonna, if you would honor our hearth – we have oak and chestnut logs, dry and
solid, we could fetch coal from the blacksmith . . . “
“Coal
would burn too hot for your chimney and weaken the mortar,” the salamander
said. “Oak and chestnut would please me greatly though, if my – guard -- will
permit me?”
Her
red eyes and the landlord’s brown ones rested on Lucifer.
“Do
you have a soul?” he asked her.
“What?”
she fluted, “Of course I have a soul! I
have been baptized and confirmed in the church. I take communion weekly with
the other glassworkers in our guild. Why do you ask?”
“Will
you swear by your hope of heaven to cause no harm nor to try to escape?”
Lucifer demanded.
“I
do so swear,” she readily replied.
“Very
well,” he agreed, “but I will be within reach of you the whole time.”
“Perhaps
your coachman can lend you a pike then,” she replied. “Any nearer than that, and you will blister.”
He
carried her to the kitchen and put her down near the great hearth. She slid into the fire like an otter into a
creek. The flames dimmed, then surged up
around her. She crouched atop the largest log and wove the flames deftly to
lick up the sides of the chimney, to caress the pots, and the joint roasting on
the spit. Her injured foot rested in a
bed of coals. Heat smote Lucifer in the
face and he pulled away.
She
nested in the heart of the fire, murmuring to herself, trilling softly like a
blackbird. Lucifer stood beside the
hearth, getting in the way of the cooks and pot boys, sweat soaking his
clothing, plastering his fine blonde hair to his skull, trickling down his neck
in rivulets. The salamander whispered to
the kitchen workers as they approached the hearth, and soon one stepped up to
Lucifer, bearing a long iron spit.
“This will keep her within your reach, and let you get out of our
way. With a salamander to bless our
hearth we have much to do tonight.”
So,
armed with the spit, and seated on a cask beside the hearth, Lucifer stood
watch. The cook seemed to be filling
every pot in the kitchen. Women wrapped
in shawls and cloaks brought more crocks and pans to set in the flames, then
left to stand shyly in the inn yard, chattering together like a flock of hens
until their food had been cooked. The
inn-keeper’s wife, a rosy plump pullet with eyes as bright as beads sidled in
and held quiet converse with the salamander, and Lucifer heard his charge
whisper, “ . . . the joys of the marriage bed.
They must both drink from the same cup and then . . .” The rest was lost as the cook bustled forward
with a spitted goose to sizzle over the flames.
The
entire village feasted that night. As
soon as one kettle was taken off the fire, another one was ready to go on. Heat poured forth from the hearth, and log
after log of good dry hardwood was devoured by flames. Every woman who left the inn carried a
covered tankard, and a secret smile.
Lucifer
savored the delicacies passed to him by the beaming cook. The smells of roasting and baking, of
simmering and frying wreathed him round like memories. The Salamander made no
move to escape, but curled in the midst of the flames, directing the heat with
flickers of her fingers. With the long
day’s ride, with the warmth of the kitchen, with a full belly and a tankard of
the good local wine, Lucifer relaxed, nodded, dozed.
