the crystals cracked under my skull. I shut my eyes to the present. I wanted to die in Florence, with Brother Guido beside me. I remembered what he’d first said to me: Luciana Vetra, it means the light in the glass; let the light out. Let the light out . . . I was a baby in a bottle, let the light out, let it out.
With the last of my strength, I smashed out at the crystals of the lantern and we both fell back into the fire. As if we danced, I turned the leper beneath me, and the flaming oil soaked us both. But the fire in the glass protected its namesake; my sodden cloak and hair did not burn, but the bone-dry leper caught like a beacon. Like a human torch, he ran about the little room; turned about and about in unnaturally silent agony as I watched, appalled. The oil had set the floor aflame and I beat at the fire with my saturated cloak, dousing the pockets that threatened to engulf me. The leper fell at last, his superhuman strength at an end, his silver eyes dull and dead. The fire had burned his bandages away and I could not look at what was revealed. I had not expected to feel pity for him, but if God had cursed me with such a disease, then I, too, may have become what he had become.
Now in near dark and alone with three corpses, one of the dead as hideous as hell, I busied myself with dousing the last of the flames, wondering all the time how Brother Guido did on the westward cliffs. I peered from the west window but against the battering rain could see no light on the cliffs. I was just praying that one day I would see him again, when God answered and, incredibly, I heard Brother Guido’s voice, bawling from below.
“Luciana! Luciana!”
“Here!” I shouted and waved, gladness filling me.
There he was, waving from below. He carried a small bark upturned above his head against the rain. Like a corno in his shell.
“Luciana, is the lantern out?”
“Nearly—I’ll be down soon. I’m dousing the last of it now.” I turned back, happy now to finish my task.
“No!” he yelled, with such desperation that I stopped at once.
“Listen to me carefully,” Brother Guido shouted from the rocks below. “Take the map and douse it with the olive oil. Set it alight and throw it from the window. Do it now.”
“What, why—”
“Just do it.” There was such urgency in his voice I did not question further. I took the map roll from my sleeve and rolled it in the spilled oil on the floor. I found the last tiny pocket of flame in the very heart of the lantern and willed the roll to light. My will was answered more than I desired for the roll went up with a whoosh which threatened to take my eyebrows—there had to be some compound in Signor Cristoforo’s ink which made the wood burn even more merrily, with a bluish flame like a torch.
I went to the window, holding the burning roll as far from me as possible, hoping I could cast it down before it burned down to my oily fingers. I watched Brother Guido set down the boat and wrap his sodden cloak around his hands. “Drop it to me carefully, Luciana.”
I did so, praying the fall would not douse the fire, but the torch fell like a comet with a flaming tail—and Brother Guido caught it skillfully and picked his way carefully down the rocks. I could not let him go without knowing. “What happened?” I yelled.
“I could not light the beacon. Too wet,” he shouted briefly.
“So you’re taking that flame all the way to the cliffs?” I screeched in disbelief. “It will never last till then!”
“I know,” he yelled back. “Signor Cristoforo has another idea. I am to take the firebrand out to his ship, which he will set afire and sail into the fleet. For the Muda are hard by—a thousand ships, not half a league from here.”
My mind boggled at the lunacy of the scheme. “You’ll be killed! Both of you! The storm, the fire—”
He cut across me. “Better two than thousands.” He set the boat on the churning sea, took the torch in his teeth, and fitted the oars in the rowlocks.
“Don’t go!” I screamed. “Let them come! Why does it matter?”
He looked up at me one last time. “You know