A Shadow All of Light (29 page)

That cat, I said to myself, must be Sunbolt, the beast within which Mutano's true voice was lodged.

*   *   *

I did not mention my conjecture for a time, thinking it preferable to let Mutano broach the subject, if he desired. We were sitting in the east garden of the villa on a willow-wood bench beneath a great holly tree, nibbling at stalks of orchard grass, having been denied access to the new beer in the larder by our contrarious cook Iratus. Veuglio had declared that he needed rest and he and Sibylla had taken to their neighboring rooms.

I spoke to Mutano in his cattish language. “Proof that our network of shadows may yet be efficacious is that there were no servants in the château. We have not yet given the baron our plan of the traps, and without it servants would be tumbling down stairways like barrels and dropping off balconies like walnuts from trees.”

“It may be that he will reside there almost alone,” Mutano said. “He claims no near kin. He seems to live in such fear of losing his treasure that he will abide no other company.”

“He is of no ordinary make,” I said. “I have conceived a curiosity about this treasure. What is so precious to a man that he will give over a château to contain its secret? Its worth is not to be valued in silver.”

“Something touching his very life, is't?”

“It will be of value perhaps only to himself and of little interest to your ordinary thief. But if so, why will he need such protection? We must know more of this baron. What have you heard rumored?”

“Little,” Mutano said. “I have not inquired directly, but when he is mentioned a wariness creeps into the tone of the conversation. Some of the dwellers of the lanes and byways know of him and show a fearfulness. He has a troop of armed men who obey his direction. I would call them disciplined and merciless. None of them goes alone to carouse and they do not speak to others than themselves. I have heard darker hints, yet as of now they are but wisps.”

“We will follow further. I should also like to know whether Veuglio is the only person with skill in the avoidance of our measures. I am puzzled by his art.”

“Some things we may surmise,” Mutano said. “Being blind, he is much aware of the differences in the heats o' th'air, the changes in coolness from one place to another. He will also feel the pressures of draughts upon his skin that you and I are oblivious to. Odors he readeth and, as we well know, every kind of shadow bears its own smell.”

“All true. Yet mass them all together and they do not account. He and the girl trotted through our mazes and around our pitfalls as if led by the hand.”

“You walked by his side through the château, but I walked behind and could see the shadows of the pair. Sibylla's umbra informed him of perils.”

“Her shadow?”

“I observed clearly that it swiftly recoiled, drawing close to her body when she approached a doubtful spot. At this recoilment, she changed the direction of her going so swiftly and smoothly it was difficult to see. Also, her shade would stretch out before her or to either side, as if a light were lowered beside her corpus. The look of it was like a dog sniffing the soil on the trace of a boar.”

“He receives intelligence from her shadow?”

“So I believe. At first, I thought this stretching and withdrawing to be illusory, but after watching closely, I was convinced that it was the case. The thought came to me that this ability might be common to the shades of those who guide blind men, for I have seen them make remarkable turns and recognitions, so cleverly done that they are hardly noticeable.”

“As have I. Todow, the blind juggler in Daia Plaza, can distinguish by touch one silver eagle from another though they be minted in the same hour.”

“And I thought, as we traced through the hallways, that perhaps for such guides their shadows act as do whiskers on a cat, to guard and guide them in the dark. But it is more than that. Some communication passes.”

“If such does take place and we could bring to light the nature of it—”

“This theme has much occupied Astolfo of late,” Mutano said. “I have suspicioned he hath in hand a momentous project he is not ready to unfold to us.”

“If shadows had motion and power of thought, they could be led to act. Imagine us, under Astolfo's direction, commanding an army of umbrae. If the girl's shadow spoke in some wise to Veuglio, perhaps that is what the maestro desired for us to observe,” I said.

He rose and began to make a circuit of the garden, stalking along slowly. I walked beside but kept silent, not wishing to disturb his course of thought. He spoke as if to himself, his feline sounds softened to a near purr, regular and unhurried. “I have conceived a hard notion. If we could learn the speech and custom of shadows, we could no longer buy and sell and alter their shapes and inner natures. Such cruelties must not be laid upon volitional beings.”

“Animals are such beings,” I said, “and yet may be brought under our sway.”

“Not all of them. The lion, the pard, the python do not bend to my will.”

“Nor did your mount, Defender, when first you encountered him. But by patient stages, the two of you have sealed a silent pact from which both of you obtain much good.”

“Yet we do things to animals that perhaps we should not. This thought hath plucked at my mind of late.”

“You lost your voice to the cat Sunbolt,” I said, “and since that time you have had to speak in the tongue of cats. This has drawn you close to animals. You do not look upon them now as you used to do.”

He stopped walking and did not reply for a space. Then he spoke in a tone almost mournful: “That is true.”

“And if I mistake not, you saw this Sunbolt at the château, perched upon a battlement.”

“I saw a cat.”

“And I saw the change of your countenance. You must not dissemble with me.”

“It was the one called Sunbolt. But I do not know if he still possesses my voice. I was surprised to see him there, alone upon the parapet. And the thought of him is strange, alone in the château, with all those rooms empty, including the kitchens and larders, which were stocked with only a jug or two of cream. Sunbolt walks a lonely patrol, inhabiting there almost alone.”

“Except when the baron and his occasional manservant are present,” I said.

“That is but one more puzzle. We know of houses, châteaux, and even of fortified castles built for the purpose of protecting treasures. Many princes and other nobles have built strong houses in which to lock up their gold and other baubles. Many a house has been constructed to keep a female chastely under key. The Lady Aichele has constructed a curious lattice-walled garden that only she could enter and in it planted the rarest of her many, far-brought plants. But what this baron secludes away, I cannot surmise, for the places most secure within his château are mean, dusty little rooms that would not dignify a hound turd.”

“We will visit again,” I said. “We shall go stealthily and observe what it is like when we are unknown to it. And we shall recover your voice from that cat, who can get no good out of it in any way.”

“He may find little use for it, but it is not likely he will willingly yield it up,” Mutano said. His tone was as glum as a pallbearer's cloak.

“But I have formed a scheme,” I said, “and you shall hear it at length tomorrow morning in the east garden.”

*   *   *

In truth, I had formed several schemes that had to be joined in overlapping fashion, like tiles on a roof, to be effective. As I outlined the steps, Mutano shook his head slowly, his expression a study in doubtfulness. “This plan you propose is more a maze than our shadow-tangle in the château.”

“A maze through which a blind man made easy progress,” I said. “Let us go at methodical pace, a step at a time. First, if a man were to have his shadow stolen in a tavern called The Double Hell, can we conjecture who the thief might be?”

“'Tis not a dishonest house,” he said, “yet sometimes the sly-fingered Mercurius awaits his prey therein. Even so, The Double Hell is where the unskilled go to dice their fortunes away. Thieving, being unnecessary, is uncommon.”

“I shall return to the musk-house of Nasilia and speak to the keeper of the door, the woman called Maronda. I shall tell her that I have discovered the culprit responsible for the loss of her brother's shadow. I shall tell her that I will deliver this person to her in return for a vial of the most alluring musk she has in store from a female cat in heat. This vial will cost us a silver eagle, or at least a handful of coppers.”

“This suits not,” Mutano complained.

“Suit it must, if you are to regain your voice. Unless we are willing to part with a little coin, she may not credit our story.”

“For what purpose, this vial of musk?”

“We will come to that. During the while that I arrange with Maronda, you are to take the largest of our lanterns from our herbage workshop, polish the mirror inside it to the highest degree of clarity, and make certain the shutter works easily and quickly. We must be able to prepare the lantern to emit the narrowest and sharpest of rays and then to snap shut upon the instant.”

“I will do as you say,” Mutano replied, “but if this flimsy web you weave ravels under your hand, you must replace my coin and add more to the sum.”

“Well,” I said.

We left by the same gate but parted company at the roadway,

*   *   *

There is a strangeness about a great deserted house like the baron's château; the emptiness speaks a light sadness to the senses, a kind of longing like that of a young wife, perhaps, whose husband is at sea. The hollowness of such an edifice in this early hour of the night caused me to fancy that if one would strike it on the far wall with a club the whole of it would resound like a kettledrum.

We needed to enter no farther than the courtyard. Before coming, I had sketched out a hasty diagram showing that we would place our vial of musk, embedded in a nest of velvet, close to the projecting wall that presented the great doorway to the entrance hall. We would station us behind the corner there, out of the cat's line of sight, and trust that the attraction of the musk would mask our presence.

The device worked as I had hoped. We unstoppered the vial and waited patiently as the hour grew longer and darker until at last we could make out the shape of Sunbolt in a lower window and hear him drop from it to the flagstones. We sensed more than observed his progress to the vial and then, just as he halted at the velvet-cloaked tube, I flickered open the shutter of the lantern. Sunbolt's shadow was starkly limned on the wall behind him. Mutano withdrew from his dark nook and sundered the shadow and clapped it into a dark, plush portmanteau.

Sunbolt gave a quick howl of outrage, his voice so exaggerated I could not tell whether it was human or not. Then he scrambled away behind the château walls.

Now we had the cat's shadow in our possession and came away to the villa feeling that our task had been neatly accomplished.

*   *   *

We ate, slept, and amused ourselves till past noon of the following day, then returned with light hearts to the château. There we sat ourselves on the bench by the well curb and waited for Sunbolt to greet us.

“How shall we manage this exchange?” Mutano asked.

“First, you had best engage in conversation,” I said, “for we have not yet heard him speak. It may be that he has lost the use of your voice or that it has been taken from him. Then tell him that we will return his shadow if he will but say a word or two into that device that captured your voice in the beginning.” The box with the enclosed, many-curled, membranous trumpet sat on the stones before us. I nudged it with my toe.

“I lack skill in trading,” he said.

“It will be a simple exchange. You have there the device within which your voice was imprisoned before. You have only to persuade the cat to speak into it and later you may restore it to your own body at your leisure. I doubt not that you shall spout odes and bellow ardent arias within the fortnight.”

“I pray it go so easy as you portray.”

“He will be wary of the two of us together. I shall withdraw to the farther bench and you shall make your bargain.”

As I spoke, Sunbolt appeared from behind an arcade column directly across. He ambled slowly toward us, pausing now and again to display an attitude of nonchalance by sitting and washing his paws and ears and underbelly. This cat carried himself with a posture that proclaimed he knew his worth and held it considerable. If he were a man, he might play the role of a youngish sea captain with a ready and playful sword.

I gave him a courteous nod, then strolled to the yonder bench and sat.

Though the day was mild and sunny with the fleece of milk-white clouds floating here and there in the bluest of skies, the atmosphere of this large, open courtyard, with its marble well curb in the center and its narrow arcade that promised coolness, appeared drab and dispirited, its air in keeping with the general disposition of the château. The light fell openly upon Mutano and Sunbolt as they conferred, yet it seemed to me that they stood at a distance farther than the one that in fact separated them; 'twas almost as if I were reading about them in an old romance poem.

Mutano sat leaning forward, elbows resting upon his knees. He peered into the space before him and took notice of Sunbolt only when the cat crossed his line of sight. On his part, the cat made no overt overture but only sidled slowly back and forth, sometimes sniffing the flagstones and peeping down into a drain grate. This exercise continued for a while and then at last Sunbolt eased down upon his haunches before Mutano and stared up into his face.

No language passed between them, neither feline nor human, but some sort of intercourse must have taken place, for Mutano nodded, placed the voice-box device before the cat, then stood and came walking toward me.