Chapter 39 Magellan
Magellan
Two guards stood at attention outside the palace like Renaissance bouncers.
Father Giuseppe spoke imploringly to them and made several signs of the cross for good measure.
Finally they were allowed inside. A guard escorted them, weaving his way through hallways and courtyards.
Magellan’s stress only began to lessen slightly when she heard the singing.
Female voices were performing an exquisite madrigal, and she slowed down in wonder.
She was listening to a bona fide Renaissance a cappella group.
They arrived at a grand conservatory where Maddalena stood at the helm, directing five young women while they sang. Maddalena was a large woman, gorgeous and voluptuous, a true Italian Venus. The group of women were alone, obviously rehearsing.
The guard directed Magellan and Father Guiseppe to take a seat in the row of chairs by the door.
Magellan was too caught up in the performance to notice Father Giuseppe did not sit down with her.
He murmured something in her ear and then left before she could stop him.
Magellan tried not to panic at being abandoned and instead focused on listening to the women’s performance.
She tried not to think of Rhys still lying unconscious at the church or worry about the fact she spoke zero Italian and had only a medieval violin and a few coins in her pocket.
The nearby cabinet built into the conservatory wall caught her eye. It was opened to reveal a trove of musical instruments. Several lutes were toward the front.
Maddalena was a famous lutenist, and Magellan decided to forget the vielle in her hands. She needed to play the lute to make an impression.
The lute basically looked like an odd-shaped guitar.
Technically it was the guitar before the guitar.
The body was smaller, the neck wider, and there were more strings.
The hole in its belly was called the rose.
Two strings were often paired together and called courses.
Magellan had no idea how many courses those lutes had.
They were too far away for her to tell. She’d have to wing it.
Finally, the rehearsal ended. Maddalena made a speech to her singers, her voice rich and lush. No doubt she was offering a critique and instructions for next time. Then the group was dismissed.
A cleaning crew of servants came in as the singers filed out. They eyed Magellan with open curiosity. She was filthy. Magellan couldn’t remember the last century she had bathed. She stood up and smiled, trying to hide her nerves.
Maddalena was following her singers out and looked to be in a hurry.
“Wait!” Magellan called out, but Maddalena only gave her a sniff and headed for the door.
Magellan ran to the cabinet and grabbed a lute. One of the maids started yelling, probably thinking she was trying to steal it. She was seconds away from being thrown into the palace dungeon, which no doubt existed.
Wasting no time, Magellan started to play as she hurried across the room toward the door Maddalena had just left.
She played as loud and fast and hard as she could, using the lute in ways not imagined until Jimi Hendrix.
The cleaning crew froze in shock as Magellan began an impromptu lute rock concert.
She played in a fury of desperation. She played like Carlos Santana or B.
B. King or Prince. She was Eddie Van Halen in a dirty dress.
She couldn’t even glance up, too busy managing the strings and the frets.
When she finally finished, she looked up to find Maddalena standing in the doorway with a stunned expression on her face. Then the woman rushed forward.
She ordered everyone out of the room in a loud, commanding voice, until they were finally alone. Maddalena’s eyes were twin flames of intensity. She asked Magellan something, and Magellan shook her head in apology. “I don’t understand.”
They may not speak the same language, but they did speak music. Without hesitation Magellan played the song, the first three parts that she had, the symphony’s two movements, and let every note speak for itself.
Maddalena listened with a riveted gaze. Then she went to the cabinet and pulled out a lute of her own. She sat on the stool, nodding for Magellan to join her, and began to play her part. It was magnificent. A lively dancing minuet.
In symphonies the third movement is often called the trio, the scherzo, or musical joke filled with joy, beauty, and laughter. The guardian’s song’s scherzo had been hidden within the Renaissance and entrusted to this woman.
Magellan felt like a young girl watching one of her heroes.
Here was the artist who had trail blazed her way through her own time, where female oppression was rampant, and chastised everyone for thinking she couldn’t be powerful.
Maddalena was one hundred percent woman, unapologetic with her femininity, her generous breasts, rounded hips, and sensuality.
Watching her made Magellan aware how her own fear had stopped her from putting herself out into the world, of risking failure and being judged.
Instead, she had safeguarded herself. Only now was she realizing to truly live and love required risk, courage, and faith.
The trio. For life at its core was a scherzo meant to be enjoyed.
Maddalena held her eyes as they played their lutes together, their heads inches apart, and the five hundred years separating their lives dissolved away.
When they finished, a sense of knowing passed between them. Magellan placed her hand over her heart in gratitude. Maddalena was overcome with emotion too and nodded back.
Magellan relinquished the lute and took her vielle in hand again.
She could feel hope filling her. Maddalena had just given her the third movement of the symphony in its totality along with its energy.
In this moment, Magellan felt invincible.
She would make it back. She would heal Rhys. She would never give up.
Maddalena personally escorted her to the palace entrance.
Outside the sun was setting, casting Florence in a golden light.
Nearby a rough-looking group of young men sat on the wall’s ledge and catcalled to them.
Whatever they said must have been lewd, causing Maddalena to yell back, scolding them.
Then she embraced Magellan, clasped both her hands in goodbye, and left.
Florence’s rock star seemed to take all the sunlight with her when she went inside. The sky dimmed as rolling clouds began to gather in a mass to cover the sun. The wind picked up, and the men resumed their calling. One of them hopped off the ledge with a threatening glint in his eyes.
The rest of the men followed moments later like a wolf pack ready to hunt.
Magellan tried to ignore them as she set out to cross the bridge.
They were some distance away. Still they followed, jeering.
She picked up her pace, the pathway over the bridge back to the church suddenly looking like a gauntlet she would have to run.
Her time in Florence had ended. She had gotten what she’d come for. Now she and Rhys had to leave before the labyrinth closed in on them.
She heard and felt the moment when the vortex arrived.
The streets narrowed and every cobblestone darkened with shadows as the city’s golden light was eclipsed by a malevolence that had found its way in.
The dissonant sounds that came were paralyzing, a deluge of discordant vibrations.
Unmusical, unmelodious, screeching with pain and seeking to annihilate.
Her heart hammering in her chest, Magellan broke into a run, weaving in and out of the crowd as she tore down the bridge.
Right as she cleared it, the sound struck her like a blow and she stumbled. One of the men grabbed her from behind. She screamed and on pure instinct bashed his hand with her vielle. The man let go in pain, and she jumped up to keep on running.
The sound continued to attack her with sharp vibrations like sonic bullets, as if it had the power to invade her cells and destroy her from the inside.
In a blind panic she began to hum a primal sound.
A forceful chanting mantra to shield her body from its attack.
It took all her breath to do it and keep on running. Her lungs were on fire.
She was right outside the church doors when the men caught up to her.
Someone grabbed her and yanked her back, holding her neck in a vise while the other men circled her.
He began choking her to stop her vocal defense.
She kept the hum going as she clawed at his hands, knowing if she stopped the vibration she was generating in her body, the force would kill her.
People on the street erupted in Italian, witnessing the attack. An old woman began hitting one of the men with her cane, trying to help.
The commotion must have been heard from inside because the church doors flew open and Father Guiseppe and his fellow priests came running out with the entire congregation behind them.
They poured onto the street and overcame the men, wrenching Magellan free.
Father Guiseppe’s assistants rushed her inside and then returned outside to help.
Magellan collapsed on the floor but forced herself to get back up.
She ran down the hallway to her and Rhys’s room and locked the door.
When she turned around she screamed. Outside moving shadows covered the window, their vibrational force rattling the glass over and over, trying to find a way in.
The glass was splintering and seconds away from breaking.
Frantic, Magellan gripped the vielle and sat beside Rhys on the bed, wrapping his arm around her waist to secure him to her.
She began to play—not Bach this time but the song.
More voices came from outside the door. She could hear Father Giuseppe yelling over the din. Not daring to stop, she kept on playing as the air around her began to sift with power.
A glowing light bloomed in her vision, becoming brighter and brighter from the ring on her finger as every note of the song reverberated in her chest. She played on, wedged against Rhys to not let him go, feeling the music spiral around them.
Father Giuseppe unlocked her door and walked in to catch a glimpse of them bathed in the music’s brilliance before they vanished and dispersed into a thousand stars.
The priest sank to his knees in wonder, and Magellan heard the word from his lips right before she was gone.
“Miraculum.”
Miracle. For it was.