A Shadow All of Light (27 page)

Along the upper edges of this figurative leaf will be the graceful, tree-lined avenues where the houses of the grand perch upon the rise that looks down upon the less peaceful parts. The houses become none so prosperous as one descends, and in the center of the town a network of busy streets is interrupted at points by spacious plazas, many of which encircle small green parks attractive to lovers and to nursemaids with their charges. The nethermost area is an extended belt which sweeps alongside the bow-shaped harbor, and here lie the fiddlers' greens, the greasy taverns, the cockpits and bullrings and fighting-dog kennels, the brothels and flea markets and warehouses and tun cellars. Here there be snatchpurses, ratkillers, coney-catchers, footpads, cloak-twitchers, and drunken soldiers and their chuckaroos.

There is one large area a little westward of the center of the city where wide, crossing boulevards enclose tall-treed estates, and at this point of the city stands Astolfo's villa, as proud in its posture as are the houses of the wine merchants, counting-house proprietors, and well-eagled military commanders which are its neighbors. I held it a matter of some pride that this villa was built upon the traffic of shadows and hoped that my life in the trade would be similarly well rewarded.

I had only the barest suspicion where Mutano had betaken himself. In late days he had become more and more despondent, sinking into dark moods that allowed him little of his accustomed cheeriness. I supposed that his disposition might have soured because our enterprise with our shadow-devouring plants was not thriving. Then there was the problem of his voice. He had lost his own voice to the machinations of a foe and it had been supplanted with the voice of a cat. For two long seasons now he had been confined to a cattish dialect. I had learned to comprehend much of it, though I could speak little. The meowing and growling and purring which rose from his throat were bound to try his patience most sorely and the burden of the feline tongue must soon undermine his naturally sanguine temperament.

The thought had come to me late yesterday, as I visited a tavern where Mutano and I used often to repair for long tankards of a wheaten beer we relished, that my colleague might be engaged in trying to recover his voice. He was formerly possessed of a fine tenor, as clear in timbre and nimble in music as a clarino; his voice was an asset in which he took a justified pride and with which he could ardently woo beauty after beauty, supposing each successive one to be a paragon of virtue and modesty and of an ideal comeliness of carcass. A number of bitter disappointments had not halted his quest for his dreamed-of female, but the loss of voice had caused a hiatus.

To the best of our knowledge, Mutano's proper voice was lodged within a great orange cat named Sunbolt. This was a feline peremptory of manner, cool of address, and casually unimpressed with humankind. It would be inaccurate to say that Sunbolt ever belonged to a master, but for a long while he had kept company with a swaggering bravo who suffered a painful humiliation at Mutano's hands and afterward had departed Tardocco to take up, as 'twas rumored, the life of a celibate eremite. Sunbolt was now lost to sight and it was undecided whether that cat kept in his possession Mutano's tuneful voice.

Yet he would try to seek out the orange cat, methought. It would seem a futile essay, Tardocco being a well-catted town, its gentry fond of the feline race and its harbor alleyways plentifully furnished with dark nooks and crannies, wharf rats and mice and scavenging sparrows. A man might spend his life and discover one particular cat no sooner than he would light upon a true sapphire in a street-seller's jewel stock. Even so, desperation is a sharp urgement to enterprise and Mutano had shown the signs of a desperate man—pacing about nervily, meowing raggedly to himself, and displaying a short temper over such trifles as a misplaced dagger sheath.

He was no featherbrain; he would not roam the pavements. There are two thriving catteries in Tardocco and I assumed he would inquire of them first of all and then ask among the well-known fanciers of the breeds.

At the end of an alley off Chandlers' Lane stood the establishment of Brotero, who captured, trained, and fed cats he let out for hire. Ratkillers they were, bred to the trade and prepared to live up to their brave repute. The rats of the harbor environs are often as large as good-sized terrier dogs and just as eager for combat. A flock of them can in two nights despoil half a cargo of wheat and eat into a bale of silk and hollow out a foul nest. The ruin they will make of a bin of green pears is as unsightly as it is inedible.

Dogs made much less effective opponents than cats, for they were not sufficiently fleet to keep up when the rats darted along high rafters or wriggled into narrow holes. They could pinch their bodies so as to squirm through apertures hardly larger than keyholes; yet when they stood to fight, their bulks swelled like bakers' loaves rising in an oven. An especially hot-blooded rat would not scruple to attack a man, first giving warning with a tooth-baring snarl.

This rat, though, would be no match for Brotero's cats, for he had trained them to work in pairs in ordinary circumstances and in packs when the odds grew large against them. A pair sent to extirpate a champion rodent would consist of a large, deep-chested, yellow-eyed, brawny beast accompanied by a small, lithe, spring-spined specimen, in shape something like a stoat. Brotero named the large cats Maulers; the lesser, swifter sort were Worriers. A Worrier harried the big rat flank and tail while the Mauler braced his enemy froward.

If an edifice such as a granary or molasses warehouse were being overrun with the pestilent species, Brotero would stage full raids upon the premises, loosing a good two dozen cats of each size within the premises and letting them scour the walls and niches and crannies ratless. These squealing, growling, gut-spattered wars made fine spectacle, and Brotero gained additional copper by charging admission and brokering wagers.

Sunbolt, the object of Mutano's quest, bulked not large enough to work as a Mauler, nor did he own the quick responses of a Worrier. Falling between the two types, he would not be enlisted in Brotero's armies, but the wily ratter could have intelligence of him. It was rumored he knew the name and the pedigree and abilities of every cat in Tardocco. It was whispered he even knew the secret names of many, the names which, given in antiquity by forgotten gods, passed down through each lineage from the times of primal millennia.

Of Sunbolt, however, he could tell me little. He rubbed his spraggle, gray moustache with a forefinger and peered up into my face. He was a slight, restless, narrow-shouldered knave whose corpus throbbed and jerked with tics and twitches. He resembled much more the prey of his animals than the cats themselves.

“There must be uncommon value in this Sunbolt,” he said. “Two others have asked already. One was your amicus, that Mutano fellow.”

“Who was the other?”

“He claimed to be a steward for a noble, a Baron Somebody. I forget.”

“You spoke with Mutano?”

“He spoke and I with difficulty made out his meaning, though I think that someone not well acquainted with cats might find the trick impossible.”

“He chooses to converse in the feline tongue. I know not why.”

“Nay-nay. 'Twas evident he had no choice in the matter. I conjecture that Sunbolt hath purloined his language. That is a thing that occurs with very young children, but it is nigh unheard of among those come of age. Your Mutano appeared to be of about forty years.”

“He is on the trace of the cat Sunbolt and I trace the steps of the cat-speaking man. Otherwise, I know naught.”

“As he departed, methought his way led toward the house of Nasilia three streets over. Fortune might show a fairer countenance at her cattery. Here our employment is useful and necessary. Nasilia's business may tend more conformable to his—and to yours. For I know that the two of you are in hire to the shadow thief Astolfo. But mine is an honest trade and forthright.”

“Then long may you thrive,” said I, “and I am grateful for your words.”

But as I came away, heading toward Nasilia's place, I reflected that Brotero lacked the physic and comportment of a hearty man of business. His manner was more that of someone you might trust to filch your purse while he performed his agitated little dance of tics and quivers.

*   *   *

Nasilia's establishment was a squat building with yellow walls of baked clay and a roof of dark red tile, but for all its brightness of color, it appeared sad, with an air of mute misery. I had visited here before, in company with Astolfo when I was early with him. In this place cats were slaughtered to get at the musk pouches. We were closely associated with perfumers, shadows lending influence to scent in countless ways. Nasilia, whose specialties were of the heavier sort wherein muskery was most utilized, was one client for our darker shadows, hues tempering from light mauve to deep purple to the blackness of a midnight grave.

I was long in coming to distinguish such shades of odor. At the beginning, I could smell only the gross corpus, as 'twere, of a perfume and had to spend many hours in a shuttered room, wafting scents to my nose with a poplar-leaf fan, before I learned how a perfume too suggestive of clove can be lightened and freshened by tincturing it with shadow taken from the boughs of an apple tree in bloom; or how a perfume delicate as the scent of an early spring rose may be given keener interest by storing it a fortnight in violet umbrae, from which it will gain force of contrast.

I learned a little too of the character of women, having my suppositions stripped from me by example. The older woman does not always prefer the stronger scent; if she go forth in a dark blue gown, she may tease the senses of males by wearing a perfume as light in texture as the smell of white clover. If a maiden trip about gaily in a white frock bedecked with intricate frills, she may put on the scent of a red, red rose which has stood a while in magenta shadow, bringing an unexpected contrast to her visual appearance.

Such combinations of scent and shade have been the study of fashion since ever the first female enwrapped herself with cloth. In Astolfo's libraries thick catalogues of scents and shades, herbs and humors, stand ready on the shelves and are often consulted. A man or woman who fancies the possibility of taking up a profession in shadows will discover that it consists in a great deal more than sly snippery and sharp sundering.

The knocker of Nasilia's door was of heavy iron shaped like a cat's curled tail. I rapped with it seven times before the door was opened by a tall, broad-shouldered woman wearing a leathern apron over a stiff white linen smock. An almost visible cloud of cloying scent boiled out of the dark room behind her and I stepped back unthinkingly, the way I would avoid the puddle-splash of a passing carriage.

“You are Falco,” the woman said. Her voice resounded as if it proceeded from an empty rain barrel. When I admitted to this truth, she told me that my unintelligible friend Mutano had already paid a call here and, receiving no news to his liking, had traveled on.

“Did he chance to say—”

“He did not and I did not stay to ask. I desire no close acquaintance with your unsavory sort, O stealer of shadows.”

“And what may you be called?”

“I am Maronda, chiefest assistant to Nasilia, a woman famous in the perfume trade.”

“You are Maronda, murderess of helpless pusses,” I said. “Let not the black iron pot malign the polished brass kettle.”

“A fine polish it is you sport. Know you, Falco, that my brother lost his shadow to such a thief as you. He wasted nigh to nothingness before I could afford to replace it.”

“What is your brother's name?”

“He was named Quinias and hath been called Quinny since childhood.”

“Does he suspicion some person or other?”

“He believes that it was taken from him at a tavern, The Double Hell. Other than that, he can say nothing.”

“If you had applied to Maestro Astolfo, we could have aided in his restoration. We provide many similar services which tend to the good of the citizenry.”

“Well, he is hale once more, all praise to Asclepius. And now I have no more to do with thee.” She clapped to the heavy door, sealing in the musky, unseen fog that had enveloped us.

I went from that place desirous of a river to plunge into, to wash away the smells that I thought must hang upon me like a woolen cloak. Since no river conveniently presented itself, I thought to repair nearby to The Red Stallion, where a tapster named Giorgio would furnish a basin of clean water and a tankard of clear white wine.

*   *   *

So he did, for one copper, and I carried the basin into the courtyard where a stout bench was set under a spreading white oak and laved my face and beard and then rinsed and finger-combed my hair as best I could before returning the basin and seating myself at a table. I inhaled the fresh, green-grape smell of the wine and imbibed it in tiny sips, savoring its cleanliness. I had got through a good half of the tankard before discovering that the large fellow at the table in the dim far corner of the room was the man I sought.

I might not have recognized him had I not been seeking. And though he looked directly at me, he seemed not to know me; he seemed, in truth, to take no notice of his surroundings. Mutano sat staring in a black melancholic trance, his gaze fixed upon a moteless point in empty space, his mind sunken in cloudy thought. When I rose to approach him, his eyes did not follow me, and when I spoke he gave a little start before responding.

“Ah, Falco.” He spoke cat speech.

“You seem in a dumpish state, old comrade.”

“I have grown tired of this world as it corkscrews. Naught keeps its savor in these drear days.”

“So I have heard report. I have followed in your track and your despondency hath been remarked.”

“You followed me?”

“You have been sent for.”