Immortal

Chapter One my name is luca and i am dying. It's true that every man dies, that cities fade and principalities ebb and whole brilliant civilizations are snuffed out into thin scrims of gray smoke. But I have been different-the blessing and the curse of a Laughing God. These last one hundred eighty years, I have been Luca Bastardo, Luca the Bastard, and if I knew little about my origins, I knew about myself that I was exempt from death's call. It was not my doing; my life simply flowed on through the shining city of Florence like the volatile river Arno. The great Leonardo da Vinci once told me that capricious nature took pleasure in creating a man with my lasting youthfulness, to watch the spirit imprisoned within my body struggle with its longing to return to its Source. I don't have the Maestro's brilliance, but in my small opinion, my life has amused the Lord. And if it weren't for the hand of the Inquisitor claiming to do His work, life would use me still. But now the burns and broken bones, the gangrene putrefying my leg and nauseating me with its odor, curtail my time. It's just as well. I have no wish to ramble on like a braggart, boasting about the great men he befriended, the beautiful women he touched, the battles he fought, the marvels he witnessed, and his one incomparable love. Those things are true, and they mark my life, as have wealth and hunger, sickness and war, victory and shame, magic and prophecy. But they are not the reason for my story. My story must be told for other purposes. I offer it to those whose souls long to know the soul of the world. From almost two centuries of living may be learned what matters in life, what is truly valuable upon this earth, and in what music the voice of the Laughing God leaves behind irony and becomes immortal song. i never knew where i came from. It was as if I woke up on the streets of Florence in 1330, a boy already grown nine years. I was smaller than most physically, perhaps because I never had enough to eat, but alert, of brutal necessity. In those days I slept in alcoves and under bridges and scrounged for dropped soldi during the day. I begged alms from rich women and slid my fingers into the pockets of well-dressed men. I spread a rag at the feet of elders alighting from their carriages on rainy days. I emptied chamber pots into the Arno and cleaned brushes for grooms and chimney sweeps. I climbed up onto high roofs and repaired terra-cotta tiles. I ran errands for a peddler who knew me to be quick and dependable. Sometimes I followed a priest around, chanting Hail Marys and long sections of the Mass in Latin, because I was a natural mimic who could repeat whatever I heard, and it amused the priest into rare Christian charity. I even let some of the older men pull me under the bridge and stroke me, holding my breath while their greedy hands roamed over my back and buttocks. Anything for a coin for a meal. I was always hungry. One of my favorite activities was scouring the ground at the market for fruit that rolled off carts and stands. Usually it was abandoned as bruised, dirty, and worthless, but I was never that finicky; I always thought a few dark spots made anything more interesting. Sometimes I found dropped coins, and once a pearl-studded bracelet that, sold, kept me in bread and salted meat for a month. I couldn't visit the same market often, because the ufficiale della guardia were always on the lookout for ragamuffins like me and would beat us, or worse, if they caught us. But every week or so I would go early to one of the dozens of markets that served the hundred thousand inhabitants of Florence and let myself be dazzled by the wares. The markets were voluptuous in both scent and appearance: sweet-smelling red apples and piquant speckled apricots, golden rows of thick-crusted breads exuding the warm fragrance of yeast, herb-cured haunches of pig and pink ribs of beef and pale, soft cuts of lamb that smelled like fSlatton, Traci L. is the author of 'Immortal' with ISBN 9780385339742 and ISBN 0385339747.