"Do you suppose he's looking for some hidden meaning in a book everyone else treats as nonsense?"
"Exactly. And he offered an outrageous price for my amulet." What he drew from beneath his garments was a pendant of mellow brown-and-gold-striped amber carved in the shape of a griffin's paw. "I think this was originally a book pointer to protect pages from readers' fingers. I've put it on a cord and wear it as a charm to keep my breathing easy—amber's good for that, you know. And I've no wish to sell it, even if Brindle would let me."
The tree-cat flicked ragged ears at the sound of his name.
"Look how the amber matches his coat, Tomazio."
As Romrad held out the amulet for my inspection, Brindle reared up on his hind legs to bat at it, fortunately with his claws sheathed. To my own touch it felt warm as a living thing. I was loath to return the talisman and continue our earlier train of thought.
“That's not much evidence against Hansper," I said. 4 'Could your instincts be detecting some subtle Thotharn stain?"
"Don't assume that all this world's evil stems from that vile sect. Most of us sin perfectly well by ourselves."
“Do you think Hansper's flaw is greed? They say he boasts, ‘When I find a gold piece in the mire, I do not sell it for the price of silver.' "
"No. This new corruption is something other than avarice or even twisted pride."
As we both knew, Hansper was reputed to be the by-blow of some Rhos nobleman. Exaggerated shame at his condition had been the spur driving him to excel.
“If it'll ease your mind, Romrad, I'll try to probe for hidden rot in Master Hansper. But now I'd best be off if I'm to do both that and make an appointment for you with a heal-all."
We parted. I strolled around the area, trying to keep my movements casual. I ignored the bankers and money-lenders with their scales and counting boards, but there was no need to feign interest in the splendid merchandise offered for sale in this section of the fair. Whole fortunes glowed and rustled and glimmered on racks and counters and well-fed bodies.
After a bit of aimless drifting, I looked in on dealers I remembered from earlier years. The first booth on Romrad's left belonged to Lenise and Lensay, jewelers who were twin sister and brother. They had just sold a bridal crown to a beaming family of wool traders. Afterward, the proprietors showed me choice gem specimens—displayed on exactly the right shade of velt—simply for the pleasure of discoursing on lapidary lore.
Then I commiserated with an automaton maker whose perennially popular wares had been eclipsed by another craftsman's magically animated gaming pieces. Apparently, the traditional clockwork images of the Three Lordly Ones hatching from their Egg could not compete with lifelike toy warriors storming across painted battlefields.
At last my leisurely pace brought me to Hansper's stand. Heavy crimson hangings surrounded it like a gaping maw. Just inside sat the merchant, a large man with the fleshy blond good looks of the Rhos. He was attending the same sulky lordling who had earlier brought his scroll to Romrad for healing. The lawyer was nowhere in sight.
“And so, Lord Vingho," said Hansper, "you have but to choose a spell-word from the list, and the figure will enact your desire in the most delightful fashion." His supple voice engulfed the customer but left open the question of price. Since Lord Vingho must still be living on his expectations, what future advantage did Hansper hope to reap? "Do take this pair to your quarters," the merchant continued. "Examine them overnight so you may fully test the perfection of the illusion."
The nobleman smirked. I was glad not to have seen what went into the box Hansper gave him.
After bidding him farewell, Hansper turned to me. He stroked his crisp beard with a ring-laden hand and asked, "What rarities might tempt an underlibrarian?"
"As a chief librarian, I really couldn't say, Master Hansper. Anything you show me is sure to be interesting."
"Now, Father Tomazio, even you devoted servants of the Three Lordly Ones must retain some appetite for novelties." Hansper's smile tightened as he laid out his wares. "Which of these would beguile you best? A shimmershell mask that changes from man's face to dragon's at the twitch of a string? A lead-and-crystal coffer filled with relics from the Death Swamp? Or perhaps this prayer bracelet whose beads are ivory skulls? Notice how they split open." He demonstrated. "Observe the extraordinary carvings within."
The alien images he held up to my eye writhed as I tried to view them, but I managed to match Hansper smile for smile. ''Every cabinet of curiosities worthy of the name will be clamoring for these rarities." Except our temple's, I added silently, blessing our bursar's parsimony that would spare us such pollution.
"Let them clamor or not as they please." He shrugged, no longer smiling. "It suffices that I know the value of what is mine."
I pleaded priestly duties and took hasty leave of Master Hansper.
I now agreed with Romrad: something was amiss here. Formerly, Hansper's astute taste had won him a distinguished clientele. Only a few years earlier he had sold our temple a magnificent cloisonne ewer for the jubilee purifications. But what he had just shown me—and what I had glimpsed on his shelves—looked morbid, even blasphemous. Yet personal revulsion gave me no grounds for complaint to the fair-wards.
The next few days passed peacefully. From time to time I spied Hansper within the temple precincts, presumably making deliveries to our guests. He went unattended, carrying packages in his own smooth hands as if distrusting others with their contents.
Meanwhile, our heal-all's medicine had restored suppleness to Romrad's fingers. Now freed of pain, he worked with his old deftness, if not quite his own joy. Fear of Hansper still seemed to haunt him.
The library's needs kept him well occupied. I brought blemished books to his booth in the morning, and he returned them sound to the library at night. This arrangement gave us ample opportunity to confer and browse.
After more than two decades of watching Romrad work, I still marveled at his dedication. His art was his life: he truly was a healer of books. To him, a torn page deserved the same gentleness as torn skin. He would replace crude stitches, mending a tear with a transparent membrane that left only a fine scar at the join. He could close the wounds left by corrosive ink or coax flaking pigment to recover bare spots.
Then, one sultry morning at the end of the first ten-day, I found Romrad in an oddly reflective mood. Wearied by the unseasonable heat, he sat idly stroking Brindle while waiting for paint to reconstruct a damaged initial.
"Tomazio," he began, "do you think that words are somehow alive—that writing outlives the writers?"
"Perhaps. I've heard that there are lands where folk believe each word, sound, and letter of their scriptures is a kind of god."
"But I say more," Romrad continued. "To me, every individual book has a life of its own, cursed or charmed as the case may be. So we should treat even commonplace texts with reverence."
"I fear few would agree with that principle. Parchment gets scraped and reused, pasted into bindings, or cut up for the sake of its illustrations."
Romrad's sharp groan sent Brindle springing from cushion to counter. "Lords! May there be a hell for those who injure books!"
"And a heaven for those who heal them." I touched his bowed shoulders. "If vandals had to face tree-cats, they'd speedily reconsider their intentions."
As I pointed toward Brindle, the animal laid his ears back and growled. I turned to see Hansper stalking away from the booth. How long had he been listening to us? But why should it matter? The oppressive weather must be addling our wits.
A storm continued to gather all day, then broke after sundown. I was watching the first flashes of lightning from the library window that evening when Romrad arrived with a newly repaired volume. But instead of settling in for a session of scholarship and sweet wine, he checked doors and windows to confirm that we were alone. Then he removed a few unbound leaves from a slim leather carrying case and laid them on my reading desk.
"What do you
have there?" I asked. 'The ruins of some private prayerbook?"
He ignored my question. "Tell me, Tomazio, will you share a burden I have borne for many long years? Can you keep my crushing secret?"
"What ails you, old friend?" I cried.
"Those."
I peered at the manuscript fragments. They numbered perhaps a ten of pages in both single leaves and binions. Except for a few blank sides, they were richly illuminated in a random assortment of styles. Subjects were equally diverse: a garden where noble lovers danced might face a pit where fiery monsters devoured malformed men. All the portrait miniatures were uncommonly lifelike.
"They're splendid, Romrad. But what are they? What's a Zenthal carpet page doing on the same sheet as Delrend line drawings? Those studios flourished two centuries apart at opposite ends of the country."
"I've been asking myself those questions for more than forty years." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Tomazio, have you ever heard of a book called The Scale of Scales?"
It took me a moment to place the title. "The one legend calls The Key of Heart's Desire?"
He nodded.
"It's said to have been written before the Sky Lords came, but I've never seen a copy nor know of anyone who has."
"It lies before you."
"These bits and pieces?"
My bewilderment vexed him. He sighed again and joined me at the desk. Distant thunder rolled as he fanned out the leaves. He spoke like a master scribe with a slow pupil.
"You remarked on the variety of decorative styles, Tomazio. Be more specific."
I inspected each piece carefully and ventured an opinion. "These were all written on the same material, a creamy supple parchment. It's thicker than the uterine vellum used on luxury volumes nowadays."
"Also notice the needleholes down each seam."
"They match. But if these were originally bound together, why is each illumination different? No modern painter could duplicate so many archaic styles. He couldn't even get the proper pigments to try."
"Yet they're genuine, Tomazio, not copies. When I was a lad studying here at the temple, the blessed Illardo taught me how to identify and date manuscripts. I've extended his vision, though only as a dwarf perched on his great shoulders."
"Did you learn of The Scale of Scales from him?"
"Yes. I so badly wanted that legend to be true, I vowed to find the book. Other manuscript hunters had met with success, why not I? A few years later, while rebinding an ancient book, I slit open the cover and found this." He pointed to a purple-dyed leaf inscribed in gold ink. "Unnaturally slight effort restored it to the pristine condition you see.
Turning it over, I was amazed to discover that the verso side was unstained. No trace of color showed through on the blank surface.
"So you suspected magic from the appearance."
"The text itself had told me that. For a librarian, you seem to have forgotten how to read."
I blushed. I had to squint to decipher the rustic script of centuries past. Surprisingly, the spell—which I took care to read with eyes alone—did not confer power on the user. Instead, it weighed his soul against the stylus of truth, which is sharper than a word's point.
"What do the other pages say?" I asked.
"Exactly the same thing. Insofar as I can read the various dialects and expand the abbreviations, the spell is simply repeated on each page."
"But how does one cast it?"
"I've puzzled over that longer than you've been alive,
Tomazio. Something more must be required to activate it: disposition, surroundings, a talisman, the time of year? Whatever it is, I haven't discovered it yet."
"Yet with mystery piled on mystery, one expects the magic to work."
"Or perhaps we should rejoice that it doesn't." He shuddered. "Meanwhile, the responsibility for the leaves that I have as well as the hunger to find more are growing unbearable."
"So does the threat of Hansper. Do you think he suspects you have The Scale of Scalesl"
He nodded sadly and gripped my hand. "Sometimes I wish—"
A crack of lightning sent me scurrying to close windows. Rain and hail beat against the small panes. There was no question of Romrad leaving just now.
As we waited out the storm, he told me the story behind each leaf. He had gathered them over the decades, in the course of ceaseless travels through all the lands this side of the sea. Pages emerged from the oddest places: glued into bindings, rolled up with merchant's tallies, hidden in false-bottomed coffers. One had served to wrap comfits. Another had had a love letter written on its blank side. But ponder as we would, we were no nearer to solving the riddle when the rain ceased.
By this time, Romrad was exhausted. I tucked the box holding The Scale of Scales into my sleeve and offered to escort him back to the wagon in which he slept behind his booth.
We walked slowly through a pall of soothing mist. Lenise and Lensay joined us en route. They had been detained by the storm while visiting customers at the guest house.
Praise their grace, we were with Romrad when he found the wreckage. Someone had plundered both wagon and booth. The tailgate was down and the canvas slashed. Tools, clothes, and bedding were strewn about in sodden heaps.
Worse yet, books had been ripped apart and flung into the mud.
"Brindle!" the old man cried. "Brindle, where are you?" His voice rose to a scream.
No tree-cat answered his master's call. I shone my lantern inside the wagon. On a heap of smashed crockery lay Brindle's body. His back was broken, and his claws were clotted with blood.
Romrad clung to me, limp as his ruined goods. His sobs turned to wheezes, but he gripped his amber amulet and his breathing eased. Lenise righted a bench for him to sit on while Lensay ran for the gatehouse fair-wards.
The uproar roused every dealer sleeping in that section of the fair. No one had heard the thief at work because of the violent storm, which had also, of course, washed away footprints. The other merchants closed ranks around then-dazed fellow with outpourings of sympathy and rage as well as helpfulness. Even Hansper expressed regret and demanded swift justice. I left Romrad in his neighbors' care.
Only after returning to my own quarters did I realize that The Scale of Scales was still in my sleeve.
Early the next morning I found Romrad conferring with a sergeant of the fair-wards, a swarthy veteran armsman, short but powerfully built. His efficient manner seemed to steady the grieving old man.
I listened in silence as the warden asked, "You're sure nothing's missing, Master Romrad?"
"Everything's been accounted for, even my money."
"So the thief mustn't have found what he wanted. Amateur, most likely. Professionals can't afford to make a mess. You say no one's threatened you?"
"No."
The fair-ward's dark eyes narrowed. "By all accounts, you're well regarded here. But you've got at least one enemy. It took special meanness to wreck your property that way."
''Thank the Three no client's goods were lost."
“Now about your tree-cat—"
Romrad winced, but the fair-ward continued in the same flat tone: "The blood on his claws came from the thief. But none of the heal-alls we questioned treated such wounds last night. My men are checking people with bandaged limbs."
"Excuse me," I interrupted. "What if the thief knows how to heal himself?"
"Then a routine sweep won't catch him. You're Father Tomazio, the chief librarian?"
Romrad apologized for failing to introduce us. The fair-ward's name was Rinfer.
"Temple friends are useful," said Rinfer, looking squarely at me. "The hierarchy's taking a direct interest in this crime. They don't tolerate violence at the fair. They especially don't tolerate it within their own walls. Neither do I." He hefted his bronze-bound staff and continued, "So they're lending us a seeress for tomorrow's inquest. You don't see that every day when a commoner's been wronged." He warned us to expect the summoner and left.
Even then w
e dared not speak of The Scale of Scales. Romrad merely touched the sleeve in which I was carrying it. He still had enough wits about him to realize what had become of his treasure. If he chose to keep quiet while the thief was at large, I would do the same.
The fair-court assembled early next morning in a room used the rest of the year as our novices' meditation hall. Fresco images of the Sky Lords stared down upon us, as if measuring our justice against the lofty standard of their own. Traces of incense warred with the smell of closely packed bodies.
Every dealer in the affected section had been compelled to attend. Although a few grumbled about the time lost to trade, most were eager for a speedy solution. They had had two nights to worry over what such a vandal could do to their own booths. I could have been dispensed from appearing by right of my priestly status, but for Romrad's sake I stood penned in with other potential witnesses behind a rope 'railing.
Discovery procedures are less formal than trials, but any brush with the majesty of the law has a way of making people anxious. I suspect these rituals were contrived with that in view, so nervous malefactors would unmask themselves.
We paid reverence to the magistrate when he and his retinue of clerks and bailiffs entered the chamber. Today's presiding officer was Lord Nacol, by repute an honest man with a questing mind. He would not be today's central figure, however. Instead, attention would focus on our judicial seeress Melha, a serene, dark-skinned woman of indeterminate age. She was rarely seen outside the inner temple except on court duty. Her seeings and showings were matchless tools for revealing truth in perplexing cases. But the high priest did not permit her to exercise her gifts as often as folk would wish, perhaps for fear of exhausting her strength.
Melha took her place in an egg-shaped white chair below the magistrate's bench and crosswise to it. The gold-and-crystal wafers fringing her chain of office clattered as she smoothed her long robes and adjusted the padding of the chair to match the exact shape of her body. Then she caressed the Sky Lords' emblem bound to her brow and slipped effortlessly into a trance.
Norton, Andre - Anthology Page 15
