A Shadow All of Light (17 page)

“I seem to recall there was some story of a statue and its shadow,” Astolfo said. “But it has been long since I perused the book.”

“I shall look into it,” I said. My promise was reluctant.

“Let us hope these children are not victims of some angry plot,” Astolfo said.

“We shall have enough dealings with a vengeful opponent when Mutano brings his quest for justice into full career.”

“What is happening with Mutano?”

“'Twill be a sober amusement,” Astolfo said. “You shall know all of it that is needful sooner than you may desire … But do not let me keep you from the library and its family trees and from the learned sentences of Morosius.”

*   *   *

Mutano had departed the library, but the hearth-fire needed only a little encouragement with a poker and a taste of unseasoned oak to set it crackling merrily. I fetched the requisite volumes of genealogical history to the armchair by the fireside, piled them in a stack of five, seized the topmost, and set to tracing the mainstream and tributaries of the race of Sativius. Soon enough I discerned that there would be little of interest in these histories. It was the old story of a race of yeoman farmers descended from soldiery. There once had been a great estate, but it had divided into smaller and smaller parcels as inheritors multiplied. The offspring of the former landowners joined the mercenary armies that formerly ranged the countryside or they went to sea or entered into various trades in the newly burgeoning towns. Our client, Matteo Sativius, father of the twins, had first followed the sea, where he studied the gear and tackle and trim of ships; he then borrowed money from his father when he abandoned the sail, and founded a rope-making enterprise which incorporated certain improvements in hempen tackle he had devised when a sailor.

Of the mother's lineage, little was recorded. I traced a few branches of farmers, petty tradesmen, and undistinguished warriors and let the book drop from my hand.

The rain had increased its force—the windows creaked as the storm beat upon the panes; drops sizzled as they fell down the chimney into the flames. The pleasure of the hour was so calm and somnolent I did not desire to distress it by reading in musty old Morosius, but duty impelled me to return the genealogical tables to their appointed shelves and again drag down the heavy folio of the
Annales
and lug it back to my seat. I predicted that it would work its soporific powers so efficaciously that three leaden paragraphs would put me slumbering.

But it is the way of certain books to present a different character to us each time we open them. The rain, the tall stillness of the room, the hearth-fire with the clump of massy shadow there in the ingle: These surroundings caused Moroisus to seem for the first time an appropriate companion.

I searched first for any story about a statue, since Astolfo would surely rogate me upon the point. But all I discovered was a tale concerning a certain well-loved priest, Prester Vonnard, who enjoyed in his lifetime such high esteem among the populace of his little village of Zenoro that they decided to erect a statue to him and perform an unveiling ceremony lavish with encomious speeches and the solemn chant of a children's chorus. But when the canvas was swept away from the bronze figure of this paragon of virtue it was seen by one and all that the shadow the statue cast upon the paving stones was of a vivid scarlet hue and seemed in texture almost as viscid as blood. A prudent, close investigation of the life of Vonnard was ordered and in a short time the statue was removed and the bronze melted and fashioned into armor. The shadow remained, however, an immutable stain, and any traveler to Zenoro still may inspect it. Morosius is, however, silent about the location of Zenoro.

Turning a few idle pages, I chanced upon a speculation by an unnamed philosopher who conjectured that if a lion eat a man, the shadow of the lion will contain, as an envelope contains a document, the shadow of that misfortunate and that this shadow, though indistinguishable, will not be part of the lion's shadow but a thing separate from it. The man is a spirit superior to the lion, saith this sage, and therefore can never be truly assimilated by an inferior spirit. Here was an interesting thought, but I reflected it must provide but small comfort to the man.

One overladen chapter was devoted to the Specter of the Summit, a phenomenon of northern latitudes that I had heard Astolfo discourse upon. A walker approaching the peak of a mountain cloaked in cold mist, and with the obscured sun behind him, will see a shadow advancing toward him and growing larger in its progress. Then, if the mist lighten but a little, he will see his own shadow, darker in hue, cast upon—within—the approaching shadow. At a certain point, depending upon the light and the density of the mist, both shadows disappear. Some travelers have tumbled into gorges trying to gain closer acquaintance with this phenomenon.

These were the passages that teased my attention. Other pages excoriating Morosius's rival philosophers or speculating whether the shadow of a rose truly possesses an odor or only the memory of one, etc., etc., I passed over with scant interest. But these instances of shadows-within-shadows seemed to point in a favorable direction and as I reflected upon them I fell into a contented doze.

*   *   *

My sleep was shortened by a difficulty in breathing. There was some obstruction to inhalation, at first so subtle I thought it part of a dream. It grew thicker about my mouth and nose and when I opened my eyes the room with its windows and candles was darkened as by a pall of smoke. I'd raised my hands to my face to claw away this weave of fog when it went from me suddenly. It gathered into a ball and then elongated to a ferretlike shape and streaked grayly over the worn carpet to the door. Now, of course, I recognized it as the shadow of Creeper.

Mutano was in another room, directing the movement of the large cat. He had found some way to position the animal so that its palpable shadow here in the library had covered my face and hindered my breath. Mutano was fond of vexing me with jests of a corporeal nature and after so many of them I had grown impatient. I called down curses on his square-jawed, shaggy head.

That is, I attempted to mutter these imprecations, but found that no sounds came from me. I tried again and then again, but all I could manage to utter was a raspy whisper that lacked any trace of my normal timbre. A brass ewer of water stood on a near table and I poured a beakerful and drank it down in three swallows, but there was no aid in it. My voice had departed my voice-box.

Everyone is familiar with the superstition that cats can steal away the breath of sleeping children and cause them to perish by suffocation. That is an old wives' tale foolish in every respect. Yet now the shadow of a cat had thieved away my voice. So I supposed the case to be, at any rate, and went in angry search of Mutano.

*   *   *

I had not far to look. The kitchen was occupied by Mutano and Astolfo and Creeper. Astolfo had taken his seat on the butcher block, while Mutano stood by a long counter beneath the west window. Creeper was crouched on the window ledge, but, at a sign from Mutano the big cat leapt from the ledge and covered a boule of wheaten bread on the counter with his body. I knew that in whatever other room his shadow was, it too was leaping down upon an object and embracing it closely.

Mutano gave a wide and happy and infuriating grin when he saw me watching, and my impulse was to return his japery with an arse-kick, but Astolfo held up his hand to restrain me.

“This is no inane trickery, Falco,” he said. “It is instead a demonstration of part of a plan Mutano has formed to take his voice back from his mortal enemy.”

I tried to speak but only buzzed like a cicada.

“Sit you by the oven,” Astolfo directed. “Quaff a glass of ale. The tale is soon told and you must hear it before you accompany Mutano upon his mission of restoration.”

I did as told. The light, nutty ale soothed my throat and calmed a little my disposition.

“It is the old story of rivalry for a woman's favors,” Astolfo said. “This was the Lady Stellina, a bright, beautiful woman of petite figure and immense charm. Have you not noticed how these broad-beamed bravos, thick-necked and huge-handed, are so often attracted by small females doll-like and delicate? It is not always true, of course. Tastes may change as experience is gained and the attractions of a sturdier breed of woman are acknowledged. But often in the beginning, it is the doll-like creature they prefer.”

I watched Mutano stroke Creeper and saw in my mind's eye how the cat's shadow, wherever it was, would be writhing with delight. Astolfo's description of his manservant was a just one: broad-beamed, thick-necked, and huge-handed. He might have added knuckle-scarred, excessively muscular, and, as a drillmaster, too joyfully severe.

“Stellina, the daughter of the Count Orlando of the Lovoso Marches, had harbored a taste for the large and horny-palmed lads since she was a child. Now that she had come into her eighteenth year, she was able to inform her taste with a wide experience and, after trying the pleasures of a strong dozen specimens of manhood, settled upon Mutano as one of her two favorites. The other was a tall, lean, hawk-featured young felon named Castilio from one of the western isles. He was a stranger to the garrison town of Rupz, where Count Orlando maintained a private militia. Quick-tempered and sharp-tongued, he was ready to battle man or beast as his whimsy dictated. Such recklessness appealed to Stellina's mineral heart. She had not heard the accounts of his abducting maidens of too-tender years and despoiling them with brutal handling.

“Yet she also favored Mutano, who, though less quick-witted than Castilio and less blade-eager, showed an easy good humor of sardonic cast. He feared nothing. In particular, he showed no fear of Castilio, and only deigned to acknowledge his rival's existence when Stellina bestowed on the lean fellow some mischievous epithet of high praise. In those days, Mutano was known for the quality of his voice—resonant, mellifluous, and compelling. He might have made his way in life as a minstrel had not the martial exertions claimed his allegiance.

“I will abbreviate this long romance of the foolish young. The rivalry developed to such a fevered heat that Castilio, in a fit of jealous imbecility, challenged Mutano to a wrestling match. Almost any other kind of combat might have favored the challenger, but Mutano has an especial liking for stuffing the elbows of his opponents into their ears and twisting their spines into sheep's-head knots. The contest concluded in the space of time it takes to sing one of Zandrio's ballads.”

I sipped at the ale and tried my voice once more. It was beginning to return a little, a soft, froggish croak.

“Castilio was as vengeful as he was foul-tempered, and he vowed to take from Mutano one of his proudest possessions: his beautiful voice. So he invited our friend to a drinking contest at a villainous inn whose proprietor was his crony. This occasion was supposed to mark a truce between them and I believe Mutano expected his rival to renounce upon this hour all claim to Stellina, the golden object of their rival desires.

“Mutano mounted the steps to a small room, as had been arranged. The room stood in dim light when he arrived, but when he fed more wick to the lamp on the table, he wished that it had been submerged in blackness. There, bound to a chair across the room, was the naked body of Stellina. Her throat had been torn out. Her features were contorted in agony and her body bore dread, gaping wounds.”

“Horrible!” My voice sounded, a raspy whisper.

“Yes. You can imagine the great shriek that Mutano uttered. All his strength was behind the force of his voice, and in that moment it was taken from him, captured. Castilio was in the room with a trio of cruel rogues and he had with him a device that enabled him to steal the sound of Mutano's melodious voice. He took it from him, and now he holds it captive still. Mutano is resolutely determined to repossess his voice. What other designs he has upon the fate of Castilio, I do not know.”

“But—”

“Oh yes,” Astolfo said. He smiled and shook his head. “That was no corpse of Stellina bound in a chair, but only a waxwork effigy of the woman, disfigured and maimed. The only purpose of this waxen mammet was to extract a great shriek of grief and outrage from Mutano so that the voice might be captured.”

“How can one make captive of a voice?” I asked, pleased that my own was at last returning. I drank the ale cup dry and poured a smidgen more.

“With an ingenious series of wooden boxes, nested inside one another, there being sufficient space between their neighbor walls that the echo of a voice rebounds within, again and again, until in the final, smallest box it is reduced to the essence of itself. You understand that I must speak in metaphors. Truly to describe this complicated device would require a long string of geometrical demonstrations, as well as some discourse upon a theory of sound as being transferred from one place to another by a succession of aerial waves. For our present purposes, it is enough to know that Castilio holds Mutano's power of speech in thrall and that our colleague has laid a scheme to gain it back.”

“But how may a voice be preserved over a period of time? It consists of breath and must soon fade back into its airy elemental state. No wonder box, ingenious as it may be, is capable of preserving it.”

“Correct,” Astolfo said. “Your studies are bringing you to sound ways of thinking. The voice must be given over to another entity with some power of speech. It must lodge within an animal that possesses a voice-box of its own. A magpie might be useful in this regard, or a pet monkey. Mutano believes that Castilio has preserved his voice in the throat of a lazy, red-orange cat he hath named Sunbolt.”

“Why does he think so?”

“I know not how he came to this conclusion. He is privy to some intelligence I wot not of. It may have to do with a set of verses Castilio dispatched to Stellina, comparing some portion of her anatomy to one of the nobler virtues of his cat.”