A Shadow All of Light (7 page)

Even so, I knew enough about the subject to begin by looking into a late edition of the Grand Albertus and to follow its hints into Rhodius's
Gemmae liminosae et lucidae,
thence to Cassurio's
Lux opali et carbunculi.

It was in these latter pages that I came upon the story of the Lady Erminia. This antique baroness always wore a dazzling opal in her hair. The resplendently milky stone closely matched the character of its mysterious owner, sparkling brightly when her mood was lightest, spitting out red gleams when she angered, clouding like a wheel-parted lane puddle when she wept. In her later years, when her heart was broken by a perfidious suitor, the opal cracked into five pieces, spilling its various, shattered colors upon the air and extorting from the miserable woman her dying breath. When her spirit passed from her, the five fragments of the stone crumbled to a dull gray powder, as did the shrunken form of Erminia herself.

I wondered if the legend of this opal could suggest fruitful application to the case of our countess. When I mentioned the possibility to Astolfo, who had now returned, he did not instantly reject it. He professed pleasant surprise at finding me at search in the library but warned me that the study of precious stones was a complicated and uncertain matter. “Superstition collects around expensive gems as thick as rumors around a beautiful woman,” he said. “And, as with the woman, the more pure and powerful the virtues, the darker are the conjectures that swarm. The brightest and clearest diamond will be accounted the most perilous to its owner.”

“How does this come about?” I asked.

“Partly because of envy,” he said. “If thou hast not the means nor the fortunate luck to possess the fine sapphire that your rival possesses, thou'lt impute every dire quality to it and find ready credence among your rabble friends.”

“But is none of the hearsay true? Ominous tales about jewels are thick as the winter fur of an Aurora wolf.”

“Some knowledge is certain. I for one would never wear a black pearl,” Astolfo said. “And I would not allow a mumbling priest with his stinking smoke and his murky sprinklings to come within half a league of any topaz I might have in store. But ware you of anyone who says a sard has been tainted by the poison of a dragon who guarded it in his hoard.”

“Are there any so gullible as to believe?”

“There is many a merchant sharp-eyed in accounting, in the surveying of lands, in the lading of ships, and in the interest rates of lending who will lose all compass when he comes to the subject of gems. Those small bits of gleam seem to have been created to drive men's wits astray. Here is another quality they share with women.”

“Is not the countess right to be concerned? Her diamond seems of no steadfast state. It is changing from its former condition, is't not?”

“'Twould seem so. But what have you observed of the countess? We had but short time in her company, yet I found her a striking figure.”

“She is a conundrum,” I said. “I could not even judge her age.”

“Tell me of her shadow.”

“The flicker of torches and candles made examination difficult, but I thought she possessed a double shadow.”

“Two primaries, you mean—apart from the many penumbrae caused by multiple lights.”

“Two primaries.”

“Describe them.”

“Both were small,” I said. “One was a playful, gray shade, lively in its motion, with flirting, fluttering outlines. The other was of a cast much darker, its shape somewhat crooked, the edges crabbed and ragged. It was bent in upon itself, reclusive, where as the first shadow was an outgoing thing, ready to engage with any surface or slant of light.”

“Which of these two would you say matched the countess herself both in body and in spirit?”

I hesitated. “Neither of them. Maybe both combined in some way I cannot explain. Yet not even such a combination would well connect to her.”

“And the diamond?”

“From where I stood I could not well see. Its size is it salience. 'Twould be shameful if it is damaged, for a jewel of that size, be it perfect or not, might bring a small realm as its price.”

“And the velvet?”

“Velvet?”

“It was placed upon the casket's purple cushion. What saw you there?”

Long I thought, closing my eyes. “There was a little space where the nap was depressed, just next the stone.”

“Good.” He nodded. “Perhaps this estimable gem had a companion in its casket.”

“May we conjecture that the diamond may have some spiritual bond with the countess?” I asked. “For I have read how a certain Lady Erminia was so closely soul-yoked with an opal that—”

“Enough of that old tale,” Astolfo said. “It is as moldy as a cave for cheeses.”

“Is it not true?”

“Even a truth, if too often cited, may lose some of its savor. And that antique instance carries us too far from our present one. We must keep close our attentions upon the countess herself. What kind of person will cast two shadows?”

This was a question familiar to apprentices in our profession. “One whose twin died at birth. Or one who has been loved, adored beyond all measure by one who lies in the grave. Or someone whose mind is distracted, split into two minds, so that the man or woman is twain. Or a mother or father who early lost two dear children. Or—”

“Good enough,” he said, and gave me a calm look. “You are not the blockhead that once you were. Now tell me, what manner of person will cast three shadows?”

“I am not certain. I have heard it said that priests who serve three gods or a triple-god-in-one may drop three umbrae, but I have not actual knowledge of this.”

“Sometimes there are born,” said Astolfo, “certain persons who embody the spirits of three others, being themselves but vessels. They will be triply shadowed, but none of the shades belongs to them personally and those shadows are only evidences of the entities that inhabit them. Among women, however, there occur figures who are themselves three-in-one and embody the three great powers of womanhood: the capricious candor of the child, the copious beauty of the adult, and the age-wise, humorous, secret lore of the crone. These triple figures are rare in the world and much revered by members of the female gender when recognized. I believe the Countess Triana to be such a figure. As such, she will be a remarkable, strong leader of her people, if she is not debilitated in some fashion.”

“She is a beautiful woman,” I said, “and it is easy to find in her much of the child, the spoiled brat. But I saw no trace of the crone about her. And I saw only two shadows.”

“She complains of being distracted in her mind, of not being at one with herself as formerly she was.”

“If she lost one of her shadows, that might mean one-third of herself was missing.”

“Lost? Stolen?”

“I cannot say.”

“I will suspect theft,” Astolfo declared. “Chrobius has warned us that there is something not right about our little ‘orbit,' as he called it, of her great hall. We need to pursue further. I am particularly interested in the diamond that was shown us. We must examine it at leisure, with our library of jewel lore and history at hand.”

“How is that possible?”

“You will have to steal it,” Astolfo said. “But only as a temporary stratagem. Being honest gentles, we could not plan to keep it.”

“Steal it? I? I could never—”

“Are you eager to learn the art of shadows or not? This is but one simple early step.”

“Very well,” I said, but my heart lurched within my breast like a skittish horse balking at a leap.

*   *   *

I had made no long-drawn vocal objections to Astolfo's statement that I was to purloin the diamond from the countess. He and Mutano, who was my constant and ever-vigilant drillmaster, would surely spend some weeks educating and training me for this unsavory and dangerous exercise.

So I thought. But once again I had failed to apprehend the design.

The theft was to take place on the second night from today—or rather, in the second morning, for I was to enter the grounds of the countess's petite palace two hours before daybreak and to make my departure just as the earliest dawn-light brushed the rambling brick walls surrounding the edifice.

“We must be brisk about this business,” Astolfo said, “for I believe that the countess stands in danger to herself and to the little realm that is loyal to her. The task is not so difficult as it may first seem. This is no iron fortress high-perched upon some vulturous peak but only a small habitation of many doors and corridors, many adits and exits. Formerly it was a religious institution with the great salon as its principal place of worship and the outlying rooms and buildings serving as quarters for the clerics and devotees. 'Twas never constructed to keep out intruders, expert or clumsy. Mutano will attempt to subtract some of your natural clumsiness, but it is unnecessary for you to gain the handiness of an experienced burglar. The place is not well guarded. The wealth of the countess is comparatively small—though I would not say meager—and her palace holds no strategic position.”

“What if I am apprehended?”

“'Twould be a sour business,” he replied, “for you will be recognized and the surmise shall be that you have come for the diamond.”

“As will be so.”

“And then they will attempt to discover if you have entered there at my order and whether I am involved in some intrigue against the countess.”

“What is to be my answer?”

“Why, that you came to thieve out of your own cupidity and that you have betrayed my trust in you and that I will be in a fury upon you when I am told.”

“Will they be satisfied?”

“After some period of torture, you would undoubtedly reveal all.”

“I do not savor this experiment.”

“Mutano will supply you with a delightful drug. The first moment you are threatened with torture, you have only to swallow this bolus to die an immediate and rapturous death.”

His gray-eyed gaze never clouded in its mild steadiness. When I looked at Mutano, he gave me a broad smile and held up a little sphericle, as carmine in color as a pomegranate seed.

“Very well,” I said.

Since the enclosing walls were of brick and stood at a height no more than half again my own, my scaling apparatus would consist only of a light horsehair rope attached with a small three-pronged hook of iron. The claw ends were naked; the rest of the hook was sheathed in leather to deaden its sound against the brick. My weapons were to be a short sword with a blade three hands in length, a poniard to tuck into the breast of my chamois doublet, and a short-steeled dirk hidden in my left boot.

“This is but feeble armory,” I complained. “If I am caught, there will be more than one to come at me.”

“If you bear more weaponry, you shall go clacking about like a pelican,” Astolfo said. “Your only true advantage is a stealth that more blades would diminish. Graceful stealth, that is your only method. And for that, you shall have the concealment of a shadow.”

“Indeed?” I was enheartened by the prospect. Astolfo had not yet trusted me to wear a shadow. I was too fumble-footed, he said, too sudden in my movements. The sturdiest shadow he drew about me would soon disintegrate to tatters and giblets, lose all its dark luster, and grow foul with my sweats and farts.

But now I was to don one, and I began to think that here was a real engagement, after all, and not another mere exercise drill to sharpen my skills and deepen my education and provide Mutano occasion to drub me. Of course, that would mean that the scarlet suicide dosage was a true and earnest poison and that the prospect of torture was not a figment of fancy. I was experiencing a creeping uneasiness of mind, but there was no turning back. I had given my yea and could never live down changing to nay or shill-I-shall-I.

One sandglass before daybreak was my time to enter the palace compound. “Late-reveling courtiers do not rise at cockcrow,” Astolfo explained, “and so there will be early light, fore-dawning, and then full dawn. A black shadow would be as noticeable as a camelopard and a gray one as visible as mist. So we must resort to colors, Mutano. What tints should we drape about our daybreak thief?”

Mutano replied with a swift twittering of his fingers. I had puzzled out much of the sign language in which master and manservant conversed and had learned that they communicated in three different gestural dialects. What they signaled now I could not fathom.

Astolfo smiled humorously and told me that Mutano thought I should have the choice of colors since I was to be the wearer. “What do you choose?”

The study of shadow color is long and intricate and I had barely touched upon it in my reading. Since whatever tints I named would be declared mistakes, I made the obvious choices. “If the day is to be fair and bright, the early light will be purple changing to yellow and silver. Perhaps a dun color might pass without note.”

As I expected they grinned at my blunder.

“So now, Falco,” Astolfo said, “it is time for a hasty lesson in the hues of shadows.” He signed to Mutano to draw the curtains of the tall library windows so that we were standing in a dimness close to darkness. Then he went to a small oil lamp sitting upon the smaller table, lit the wick with a single striking of flint, and set a concave, brightly polished mirror behind the lamp. He motioned me to step to his position at the table. I came to where he stood. He laid out flat before us a blank sheet of snowy paper.

“How many kinds of primary light have we in this room?” he asked.

“Two,” I replied. “A strong white one from the mirrored lamp and a duller, softer one that seeps through the linen curtains.”

“Very well. Now observe the shadow upon this paper. What do you see?” He took up a small dagger from the tabletop, customarily kept there to break the seals of documents, and held it perpendicular to the surface with his fingertip.