Arcanum (60 page)

“Step away. Over to the wall. Put your nose on the stonework.”

Barefoot, bare everything, he complied, and the huntmaster shook out the boy’s clothes. There was Büber’s purse with his silver and copper, and there was also a thin leather thong with a seashell tied to it.

The money, he’d expected that: the rat-faced kid was a thief and a chancer, after all. The bracelet? That was a different level of injury. Sticking him to the wall would have been surprisingly easy, and momentarily satisfying. He considered it, but eventually decided against it.

Picking the bolt from the stock, he slid it back inside the quiver, before easing the bowstring off the catch. He looked up and saw the boy watching him.

“Did I say you could turn around?”

“You’re not going to murder me?”

Büber’s eye twitched. Murder was a strong word. Justice was another. “There’s no law here except my own scruples, and I’d be within my rights.” He held up his recovered loot. “Keep away from me, boy. I’m in a dangerous mood, and you’ve used up what little mercy I keep about me.”

“Can I put my clothes back on?”

“You can prance naked from now until midsummer’s day for all I care.” Büber turned his back on him and stalked back across the empty market square to the beer cellar.

He patted his horse as he passed, then poured himself another mug. This time he sat at a window seat where he could keep an eye on things. The thief, all pale goose-flesh, picked up his pile of clothes and hurried away with them, out of the square and out of sight.

Büber held up the shell on its strap, and watched it twirl in the muddy, fading light. He didn’t want to lose the token, but he didn’t want to wear it either – too easily damaged. He silently toasted the woman who’d given it to him, and drank deep.

Time to move: find somewhere to stable the horse, and probably bed down next to it, the prospects of a soft mattress stolen from him by the mere presence of the boy. No wonder the rest of the town didn’t want him along with them. He was an irritant, incompetent and petulant, not worth the energy to deal with once and for all, but like a biting fly, draining.

He led the horse around the square and down side streets, eventually spotting something that resembled livery doors. He had to shoulder them open, but they gave, and inside was everything he needed. Unbuckling the tack, he set to brushing the animal’s brown flanks down.

As he worked, he was aware of being watched.

“I could have killed you, and you wouldn’t have known,” said the boy.

Büber shook his head and carried on his broad arm sweeps.

“Come on then, little assassin. Come closer with your sharp blade and I’ll leave it in your chest.”

The boy stayed by the doors. “I could have had a bow.”

“If you had both a bow and the wit to use it, I’d have strangled you with the cord by now. What do you want?”

“You’re not scared of me, are you? You should be.”

Büber peeled the mat of horse-hair from the brush and let it fall to the floor. “Scared of you? If it’ll make you go away, yes, I’m terrified. Now fuck off.”

“I know all the houses, been in most of them. Know all the routes across the roofs and alleys. They always suspected it was me, but they could never pin anything on me.”

“Of course they couldn’t. That’s why they tied you up and left you here.”

“They didn’t.”

“Then what are the rope-marks on your wrists and ankles? They’re fresh, made this morning, and you’ve a few bruises where they had to hold you down to do it. It’s a mark of their basic decency that they didn’t execute you because, for certain, that day was coming. Now …” – Büber turned and put his hand out for his bow, resting on a loose-tied bale of hay – “last chance. Leave me alone. I can break all of your fingers, hamstring you, break your knees in a way that’ll mean you’ll never walk straight again, or just cut out your tongue. Pick one.”

“I can tell you why they left.”

“You could have told me that at the very beginning, and I’m likely to have believed you. You could have shown me where the stable was, but instead you decided to rob me. You could have joined me for a drink. You had the chance to make a good impression on me, even if just to make me trust you. You didn’t. Instead you just carried on like you always have done. No wonder they hate you.”

The boy scowled hard. “They don’t hate me. They’re afraid of me. It’s different.”

Büber was weary, weary of everything, but right now so very weary of this. Most likely Ennsbruck didn’t even have a lock-up, or the boy would have still been shut in it. “Remember when I said ‘last chance’?”

He walked towards the doors, and the boy scuttled backwards to the house on the far side of the narrow street. Büber swung the first door shut, then the other, and dropped a pitchfork through the hangers to serve as a bar.

“Don’t you want to know why they left?” came the plaintive cry. “I can tell you. I was listening.”

Büber didn’t bother answering, just went back to his horse and threw a blanket over its back.

“Mister? Don’t you want to know?” The door rattled, then rattled again.

“Mister?”

No one else was in the library, and it was perfectly still. The great scaffolding had risen up from the floor and attached itself to the galleries, spreading out like the branches of an oak, reaching the apex of the dome. Ropes and buckets hung suspended from the framework, ready for the day’s work of chipping away plaster and opening out the oculus.

They’d started the previous evening, and in concert with their brethren outside, had made a small hole in the very top of the dome. Thaler could look up, and where no natural light had penetrated for a thousand years, a thin beam of pale blue shone through and washed against the inside.

Mirrors, thought Thaler. We can’t control the sun, but we can predict its movements. We can intercept the light and reflect it to where we want it most.

The beam brightened as the sun came out. Motes of dust danced in the shaft of light, and something attracted the librarian’s attention: a picture painted onto the pale plasterwork, of clouds and sky and distant mountains.

Upside down.

Despite everything, he started to climb. The scaffolding was substantial, perfectly secure. There were even ladders between the platforms, tied on with stout cord to stop them moving. The first level wasn’t so bad. The foot of the ladder was on the floor, its top against the planking. He could crawl onto that, on his hands and knees. The next one was more difficult, in that the ladder started in the centre of the frame, and ended dangling over the abyss. He’d have to turn around at the top to get to the next safe space.

He hung on to one of the uprights. The clouds in the picture were moving. Moving, as if they were real clouds. He cursed himself for his timidity, and climbed the ladder to the third level. He was sweating and breathing fast by the time he made it. The labourers made it look so easy, hanging off the edge with only a single foot to support their weight and a casual hand to steady themselves, throwing tools to each other and catching them without worry.

He was only as far as the first gallery, and there were plenty more to go. The tower seemed to be narrowing, so as well as having to manoeuvre backwards onto each platform, he had to swing himself out to even start the next climb.

Above him, always above him, the clouds blew by.

Finally, he was level with the image. It wasn’t just a picture of the sky. It
was
the sky, projected all around him – most obvious where it was best illuminated, but in fact running in a band – faint in places – around the whole circumference of the dome. He ignored his sweat-slick palms and his drum-beat heart for a moment, and realised he could spot the towers of the fortress on one wall, and the spine of the White Tower on another.

The sun went in, and the picture faded, though it was still just visible. When the sun came out again, the brightness flashed and the images grew in clarity. He could see outside, inside.

It wasn’t a painting. It wasn’t even a magical painting. Somehow, the opening of the roof had made this phenomenon possible. A bird flew past, and he could track its flight around the dome, and away. Things were distorted: angles weren’t true and straight lines appeared curved. That wasn’t the point though.

“How is this possible?” he asked the deserted building. Not quite deserted, as it turned out.

“Who’s up there?” called a voice.

“Master Thaler. Who’s down there?”

“Mr Wess, sir. I came to open up.”

Thaler risked leaning over the edge of the platform, and called down. “That can wait a little while longer. How are you with heights?”

Wess was much better with them than Thaler. He climbed like a squirrel, and his vigorous action made the whole structure shake. Thaler was dry-mouthed all over again by the time the under-librarian reached him. It was really a very long way up, and Wess seemed unconcerned about hanging off inconsequential handholds on his way.

In the end, Thaler had to close his eyes and hold on tightly until the scaffolding stopped rattling. There was one last solid thump as the man joined him, and then Thaler risked opening his eyes again.

“Look at the wall and tell me what you see.”

Wess leant forward – and out – to get a better look. When he started to tilt his head sideways, Thaler knew that he wasn’t just imagining things.

“That’s astonishing.” Wess stretched over and waved his hand in front of the wall, watching as his shadow blocked out some of the scene. Another cloud drifted over the face of the sun, and the image dimmed. “Oh.”

“Wait just a moment,” said Thaler, “and please be careful.”

The ribbon of cloud passed by, and the panorama was restored.

“How …?”

“I don’t know.”

“But…”

“I know. It must have something to do with the light coming in through the small hole, and then …” Thaler was mystified. “It’s not magic.”

“It looks like magic, Master Thaler.”

“That’s the one thing it can’t be, Mr Wess. Do we have any works in the library on the property of light and the nature of the eye?”

“We have Euclid and Ptolemy, among others. But, Master Thaler, doesn’t light come from the eye? At least, that’s what Empedocles said, and Plato agreed.” Wess tried again to make shadows on the wall.

“I’m becoming increasingly disenchanted with the Greeks’ theories,” said Thaler: “they appear to be so very often wrong. For one thing, if our eyes did indeed emit light, then where does darkness come from? It seems self-evident that light comes from objects that make light, and rays springing forth from our own eyes are an unnecessary complication. In fact,” he continued, “we seem to have been wallowing in ignorance for far too long.”

Wess stopped making shapes and turned towards Thaler. In doing so, he now had his back to the unguarded edge, and appeared oblivious to the danger. “We’re educated men, Master Thaler. Ignorant is the one thing we’re not.”

“I – and please do hold onto something, Mr Wess – am as guilty as the next man. I read Aristotle, Euclid and Plato, and clearly I take note of what they say. But some of their conjectures are contradictory, in that they describe the nature of things in different ways, and they cannot all be true. We haven’t actually thought about these things for ourselves.”

Wess was troubled by the whole idea, and Thaler hardly less so.

“What do you suggest we do then?”

“I’m at a loss. I mean, who am I to challenge the greatest geometers of any age? How would I do it? And yet, what they say about light coming from the back of the eye and illuminating the objects so that we can see them? Over here we can see the Bell Tower of the White Fortress, yet our eyes aren’t even looking at it – just an image of it on the wall of the library.”

Wess rubbed his hand over his chin. “Master Thaler, there has to be an explanation.”

“Of course. But how to arrive at one? That, my good man, is the question.” Thaler momentarily looked down, and wished that he hadn’t. “Open up the library. We have work to do today.”

“Are you going to be all right?” asked Wess, his gaze straying to Thaler’s death-grip on one of the uprights.

“Oh, I’m fine. No help needed. None. Not at all.” He nodded emphatically. “Off you go. I’ll just stay here and study the phenomena a little while longer. Yes.”

“As long as you’re sure, Master Thaler.” Wess sat on the edge of the platform above the ladder and lowered his feet until they made contact. “See you at the bottom.”

He was as vigorous climbing down as he’d been climbing up, and the structure vibrated with his footsteps. Thaler felt a curious weightless sensation in both his legs and the pit of his stomach, as if he were already falling, but he wasn’t really going anywhere. And that was the problem. The workmen would be wanting their scaffolding back shortly, and an overweight librarian perched at the top like an eagle’s chick who refused to leave the nest was an impediment that they’d probably rather do without.

“Master Thaler?” called Wess. “Mistress Morgenstern is here. She has books.”

“Good morning, Master Thaler.” Sophia paused. “What in heaven’s name are you doing up there?”

“I’m investigating a … a thing,” he called back.

“Well, stop it at once and come down. I’ve got the books Father bought from Thomm and they need to go back into the catalogue.”

There was nothing for it. He could be lowered from the roof like a sack of flour at a mill, and suffer endless ridicule and shame, or he could climb down by himself. It was perfectly safe: Wess had proved that. As long as he kept a hold of something at all times, it would be absolutely no trouble at all. Child’s play, even.

He started, and quickly found there really was no substitute for looking down and seeing where he was going. Closing his eyes was no good at all. The only thing that got him through the whole stuttering, terrifying descent, was the thought that he was now the master librarian, and that he needed to show some backbone.

If he’d sweated on the way up, he was saturated by the time he reached solid ground again. His whole body was trembling, and he had to resist the overwhelming urge to sink to his knees and kiss the stone flags.