Page 229 - The Grotesque Children's Book

“No, not an enemy. A friend, a friend.” Francesco slapped Zaccario on the shoulder, in a
drinking-companion sort of way. Francesco ignored Zaccario's scowl. “Yes, well, back to the
rites. Tell me more about these rites. You have no idea how important it is that Joanna bears me
a son. We won't really get a second chance. There's a whole parade of Medicis standing right
behind me, happy to slip me some poison so they can carry on the family line, lest it end without
a male heir from the Grand Duke.”

“Surely not; no one could wish you harm, sire,” he asked, leadingly.

“How little you know. My younger brother, Francisco is already a Cardinal, but I would
wager the entire Pitti Palace he would just as soon poison me and become Duke, than settle for
mere Cardinal. And that's just one relative.”

Zaccario sensed a second opportunity. “Poison? My alchemy can protect you from
poison.”

“It can?”

“Very powerful stuff is alchemy.”

“It must be. So, Zaccario, let's do two things. Of all the doctors and spellcasters and
charlatans I paid to try to get Joanna pregnant, you were the only one who succeeded, so I'm
going to put you in charge of doing those rites to make sure she has the baby and that it's a son,
but I'll also, for a second salary, put you in charge of keeping us safe from poison.”

“My fee is fifty florins a year.”

“Fifty florins!”

“For each of those posts.”

“Well, hmm, yes, very much worth it!”

“With no guarantees.”

“I'm beginning not to like you, Zaccario.”

“You can hire someone else. If they make you a guarantee, they're lying to you. At least
you know I'm telling you the truth. Compare what I’m saying to the grain of the wheat. The
grain becomes corrupted in the earth, assimilates the gross elements of the soil to itself and,
through the work of a long digestion, molts them into pure wheat in the ratio of a hundred to one.
This digestion is more or less activated by the environment. In certain climates the harvest takes
place three months after sowing, and in the tropics the vegetation has something almost
instantaneous. It is thus altogether rational that a ferment endowed with great power and
projected onto matter submitted to a high temperature may cause it to evolve at a speed that
borders on the miraculous.”

“You're such a comfort, Zaccario.”

So Francesco enshrined Zaccario at the end of the long hall of I Magistrati, giving him
his own magnificent suite of offices, which he proceeded to turn into a vast, shadowy, secretive

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