A Shadow All of Light (21 page)

To speak more accurately, they send out mercenaries like myself and my colleague Mutano to make their searches for them, after having first consulted with Master Astolfo. Trusting to his knowledge of all that has to do with shadows, they gape their purses generously to acquire plants that will throw fantastically contoured shadows upon the ground, shadows to complement their fountains and statuary, shadows to cool an enclosure or adorn an open space. They are confident that Astolfo shall deliver happy result. Trust is justified, for in matters where he lacks informancy and skill, he declines commission. The enterprise of shadow-dealing is sufficiently dangerous, he declares, without adding to it the perils of attendant ignorance.

His ignorance would soon be detected, for the cult numbers within it a clutch of learned antiquarians. One of these, a certain Ser Alverius, was refreshing his acquaintance with Pausanias, that ancient encyclopedic travel writer, accompanied by his cat, hearth-fire, and wine, when he came across a passage that must have slipped his attention before.

The pages record an account of the Dark Vale in Arkady, an area that stretches southward from the eastern slopes of Mount Lykaion. Pausanias records that even though he had heard the tales and partly credited them, the rebel general Dousonious dared to march his army of seven thousand men through the valley, attempting to surprise his enemy's rear guard in the Lykaionian Meadows. On his bivouac deathbed he ordered his ministers to write down in the chronicles that the loss of his army was caused by plague. But the truth was known. The name of Dousonious now stands humiliated forever.

What seized the imagination of Ser Alverius was the detail that the plants of the Dark Vale are supposed to be sciophages—shadow-eaters. He communicated his discovery to his cult colleagues and they were immediately greedy for these mythical plants and unwilling to believe them fanciful. They in turn communicated their desires to Astolfo, and I was sent upon this perhaps useless mission.

*   *   *

All this substance I communicated to my host, the hill-country bandit Torronio, as we sat around the hungry small fire in this cave where he and his band had brought me as captive. They had taken me as I traveled the steep path through the pass below and offered violence if I did not follow them to their smoky lair and there deliver to them my gold.

This was an odd proceeding, I thought. Why did they not attempt to chop me down where I stood and lighten my quivering corpus of valuables? I discovered they were avid for news of the world beyond their hill. They would have had difficulty in putting my silver to use, exiled to the wilderness and with tall bounties prominent upon their heads.

Torronio passed to me a companionable jug of sourish ale and informed me that they would be taking my purse, as a matter of course.

“Let us negotiate,” I said. “I will hand over six eagles—one to each of your men and two to you. For this amount, I shall expect you to feed and water my horse, share your eatables with me, and lodge me here by your fire for this night.”

“Do you take me for your groom?”

“Signor Torronio, I do not. But my mount is thirsty. I should be pleased to spare a coin or two that we might be looked after.”

“You but invite us to take all your coin and your makeshift nag also.”

“The mount is not mine to bestow. I was reluctant to bring my own horse, the placid Torta, upon this journey and so hired this gelding whose name, I was told, is Belus. I have heard that there are bandits in this wood that prey upon travelers. Some, I understand, are so penurious they would make a meal of horseflesh.”

“Do you not think the five of us can work our will upon you?”

“Mayhap,” I said. “Yet the struggle would cost you sweat and hard breathing and at least two lives. Why should you suffer such exertion when I would share a few eagles willingly?”

He stared at me long, as if to judge of the soundness of my wits. Then he laughed softly. “Well, thou'rt no coward. It is also to your credit that you are so mindful of the horse. Yet five upon one make the chance strong in our favor.”

I looked where the others sat together on an uneven ledge of stone and studied their shadows where the fire threw them upon the cave wall. “I should begin by skewering that beanpole fellow in the patched hose,” I said. “He has no fight in him and his quick dispatch will undermine the courage of the others. Then I should look to the fate of that shifty little man there, he with the twitching squint. He only enters a fray when he sees the opponent already hotly engaged and he tries then to sneak about to the blind side. The red-haired lout with the vile laugh fancies himself an accomplished duelist and he does possess arm strength; but his feet are large and clumsy and are not always upon conformable terms with his intentions. That other gent, the dark, silent footpad, will pretend to engage with the sword while looking for opportunity to fling the dagger from his belt into my thigh. I should take pains to press him hard, so that he gaineth no space to ply his trick.”

Torronio's smile withered. “And I?”

“Thou art the ablest. If you were of a mind to spare lives, you and I might try our steels in a private set-to.”

“The night is long and you are travel-weary. You must sleep sooner or later and then we, having traded watch, will undo your head at the neck and count your gold. But this Belus seemeth too aged to make a palatable stew.”

“You would not play me such a scurvy turn.”

“Why say you so?”

“Your shadow belieth you.” I pointed to its shape on the moisturous wall. “The outlines of your colleagues are vague and hazy. These jacks lack true character and so might take my life underhandedly. But your lines are firm, and in the center of your shade there is a straight line so black it tendeth to a purple. Uprightness of character produces such a figure. You, Signor Torronio, are no bandit by nature but an upright man fallen upon stingy times.”

“These things you know by looking at mere shadows?”

“Let me unfold myself to you a little,” I said, and after telling him something of my situation in the port city of Tardocco and describing briefly some aspects of the shadow trade, I told him the story of the ancient Dark Vale and about the similar one in our province, about how men were reputed to lose their shadows there and how the herbs and flowers and shrubs and trees of that place would be in sharp demand among the obsessive wealthy and how I now traveled with the purpose of transporting some of these fabled flora out of their obscurity.

“And will you be well paid for this rooty plunder?” he asked.

“We shall all be well remitted—you and I the more handsomely, of course.”

“All?”

“You five and I would make up a competent troop. By all signs, you do not flourish grandly. As I came up the hill path, I observed that none hath traveled here since the rains of last sennight. Scant must be your takings. You will be highly desired by guard troops and shire-reeves if you squirm into such a hole and feed upon vermin like that stoat turning there upon the spit.”

“My history—our history—is no affair of yours.”

“Indeed not,” I replied, “nor of any interest whatsoe'er, unless you might wish to better your plight.”

“You speak,” he said, “as if you had expected to be waylaid by us. You give out your sentences as might an actor upon a stage. You came a-purpose to recruit.”

“If I know of you and your whereabouts, so must others. They only wait till stravation brings you out of hiding. Already the noose prefigures your neck in its hungry oval.”

“What is't you offer to better us? Only the opportunity to meet a death more spectral in your Dark Vale. Can you assure us that it truly exists? It resembles the matter of tales for children.”

“I have taken it on faith,” I replied, “the way I must accept many things I have not personally witnessed. We all know of the Mardrake; it is the sign of Tardocco. Yet no one living has seen it. And as for Arkady, that country is lost to the historied ages. I go up through the hills to the Molvorio Mountains. In their midst lies another Dark Vale said to snatch shadows and to put forth plants of great value. We can make up a company and seek a fortune, or you may stay hunched in this smoking hole to wither away. In any case, six eagles are all you shall gather from me this night.”

“Let me think on't till morn.”

“Think then. But meantime you should advise that dusky little hop-o'-my-thumb to stay his hand free of his dagger. From where I sit I can place mine in his ear before he turns toward me.”

He gave the fellow a look and quietly spoke his name. “Rinaldo.”

The man shrugged, assenting, and turned his attention elsewhere.

“Six eagles be it, then,” Torronio said. “We'll give thee meat and sup, poor though they are. We will water and provender your nag. Tomorrow we shall take consult upon the matter of your shadow bushes.” He put forth his hand for the coins. “Count out six.”

I did so, pleased not to have to cross blades. Torronio was of medium height, lithe and tawny, and his black eyes brooded with intelligence. I would have had difficulty blooding him without slaughter and I wanted sleep, that healing balm the poets prate of.

He gave over the jug again and I drank and it tasted less sour than before.

*   *   *

I woke to the sound of their jawing as they debated my offer. My sword was in my right hand and when I sat up, I took care they should see I had held it ready through the night. They looked me over incuriously, then took up their jangle again. I found a dented tin ewer and took a swallow of water to spit out and splashed my face and wrists and inspected what weather I could see through the cave mouth.

Then Torronio beckoned me to join the group. “We would put to you some questions.”

“I will answer four,” I said, “be they brief.”

The little dirk-flinger spoke. His voice rasped like a saw-blade over flint. “Do you know how to find the Vale or must we wander on the slopes like shepherdless goats?”

“I have a map.”

“I should like to see this map.”

“It is invisible,” I said, and touched my forehead. “Count two.” I did not tell that I carried upon my person two maps, a true one and a false.

“How can we know you do not draw us into a trap to reap the bounties?”

“What need for that? If I were intent upon bounty gold, my colleagues would surround us now. Count three.”

The red-haired louty one: “How should we provision us? Your supplies are as invisible as your map.”

“Are we not a merry band of cutthroats? We shall denude the sheepish we find in our way.”

He began: “But there are few who—”

“And so conclude,” I said. “Four are four.”

“I do not like the look of this,” said the tall, mopish one. He fingered the hilt of his hanger until I rested my gaze upon the weapon. Then he withdrew his hand.

“Thou'lt like it less till the success of the venture persuades thee otherwise. Thou'rt of a sour mien and henceforth shall be addressed as Crossgrain. You”—I gestured toward the dark, small one—“are to be known as Sneakdirk. Tall yellow-hair shall be named Goldenrod and Rinaldo shall be Squint. Accustom these names to your persons. Use them habitually. In the heat of affray, do not allow your former names to escape your lips. From this time forward, we are secret men.”

“And I?” inquired Torronio. “What insulting cognomen will you try upon me?”

“Thou art Torronio, since that was never your true name.”

“Thyself?”

I thought for a trice. “Call me Stalwart,” I said, “though by rights I should be called Quartermaster.”

“How so?”

“I have arranged to break our morning fast in a handsomer style than you are used to. If Sneakdirk and Goldenrod will take my horse down the path for about a mile the way I came, they shall find a little gray mule tethered by a stream in the grove. That mule is laden with provisions and weapons and maybe a pannier or two of stout wine.”

Torronio laughed aloud. “Well, we have been foreknown,” he said. “You have made it foolish to do else than follow your directives.”

“It is good to meet a man of sense.”

He replied jocularly: “And what shall be the name of the mule?”

“‘Woman' I call her, because she hath a mind all her own and will never learn by being beaten.”

*   *   *

Goldenrod and Sneakdirk returned a little before mid-morning. Their brightened faces told that they had searched through the bundles Woman had carried and had been pleased with what they found. Some of the implements and instruments would mean naught to them, but the dozen quick-edged swords and the array of smaller blades had struck their desires. They had discovered the brandy too and had a pull or two at a bottle that I did not begrudge them—a guard-troop customarily plies new recruits with strong waters as a means to fellowship. They had broken out the loaves of brown bread and Goldenrod brandished one of them above his head as he trudged along behind Sneakdirk on Belus, with Woman in tow.

We ate and drank a while and then I began the oration I had written out in my mind, telling them that the crimes for which they were hunted were no worse than what any ordinary men might commit; that is, upon finding a shipwreck perched on a reef on the coast north of Tardocco, they had undertaken to plunder it, according to the custom of salvagers. They could not have known that the murderous pirate Morbruzzo and his men had lured the
Silvereen
to ruin with false lights on the beach and then hid away till nightfall. Our four petty plunderers had been sighted bearing away some silks and casques by townsfolk, who described them to the local guard troops. They fled, abandoning their gains. These events had placed them in their present pinched circumstances.

“Better for my purposes were you of a more criminal breed,” I said, “for what I have in mind will require steady nerve in the face of dangers you have never bethought. Yet you may bring yourselves to the point if desire of gold can spur you.”