[Galazon 00] When the King Comes Home

by Stevermer, Caroline

  “You know how to use such a device, I’m told,” said Rigo. “You’ve been trained in this craft.”

  “I’ve been trained, yes. What are you going to do with it?”

  “We’re going to recast something. The preparations are nearly done. You’ve been very forbearing. I hope to begin work tomorrow. Please be patient until then.”

  “You can’t start until you’ve seen Maspero’s work. You never visited the archives, so I had to come here. Daniel says that the treatise on alchemy has been stolen.”

  “The treatise? What treatise? Ah, Maspero’s treatise.”

  “Yes. The theft has been reported to the authorities, but there’s nothing else to be done. The book is gone.”

  Rigo looked thoughtful. “Stolen? A pity. A great pity. You’ve looked for it yourself?”

  “Daniel won’t let me.”

  “Ah.” Rigo went to his worktable. Eventually he found a sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the inkwell, and wrote. “Here’s your authorization. You may search the archives until I summon you. Conditions should be favorable tomorrow morning. Be prepared. In the meantime, perhaps you will be able to busy yourself with the search.”

  Daniel spoke firmly. “I beg your pardon for the intrusion, Magister. The archives have been searched. Thoroughly. The treatise has been stolen. Other books too. The theft was reported and a complaint lodged against the thief.”

  “You know who stole it?”

  “Of course we know who stole it. How could anyone come and go without our knowing it?”

  “Why didn’t you stop them?” I demanded.

  “We would have, had we known. As it happens, we didn’t know until soon afterward. The authorities have the full report.”

  “What authorities would you be referring to?” Rigo asked.

  “The prince-bishop’s administrator. We directed the report to him. That’s why I hoped at first that the message Hail brought from His Grace meant that he’d chosen to interest himself in the problem.”

  “Oh. Unfortunately, that was not the case.” Rigo seemed resigned. “Perhaps you wish to tell me the report’s conclusions?”

  “The treatise was among a number of works stolen by one of the archivists. A trainee, so to speak.” For some reason, Daniel looked at me. “She was a countrified creature, for all that she was born and raised in Aravis. Her name is Betula Ansel, but she was always called Bet. She was very enthusiastic about the archives. We were all shocked to learn what she’d done.”

  “What, besides fail to return a few borrowed books in a timely way, had she done?” asked Rigo.

  Daniel looked shocked. “She stole books, Magister. Irreplaceable books, the only known copies. She took them for her own exclusive use. Had she stolen the same weight in gold, she would have done less damage to the public good. What greater wrong could she have done?”

  “Are you sure it was her doing?” I thought of Gabriel and his threats toward me. “Perhaps there was a misunderstanding.”

  Daniel shook his head. “It was Bet. After five years in the archive, she had discovered that she was not to be among those selected for further training and responsibility. Her work in the archive was sound enough. She would have been welcome to continue it her life long. But her interests were limited. Advancement in the archive requires a more general enthusiasm. In her disappointment and pique, she stole the books and ran away. We know she left the city by the Shene gate on the seventh of January. We’ve heard nothing of her since.”

  “What were these limited interests of hers?” Rigo asked. “Anything unusual? Anything … abstruse?”

  “Bet’s interests were strictly confined to what benefited her. Her concern for general knowledge and the importance of enlightening others was nonexistent.”

  “Presumably, she was interested in alchemy, then? If she took Maspero’s treatise. And what other books?”

  “The report to the prince-bishop contained the full list. I can remember only a few. Boethius on the consolation of philosophy, Pico della Mirandola on the nature of the soul, and Michael Scot on the sun and the moon.”

  “An intriguing selection. All unique to the royal collection? A pity. I’m familiar with the book on the soul. I regret not taking more detailed notes the last time I read it. Can you describe this errant librarian?”

  “A full description is in the report sent to the prince-bishop.” Daniel sighed and surrendered. “Betula Ansel is an unmarried woman between twenty-five and thirty years of age, slender, of middling height, with red hair and green eyes.”

  “She should be hard to miss,” said Rigo. “Not many match that description.”

  “It doesn’t do her justice,” said Daniel. “She is a shrew. She looks daggers and speaks venom. The only thing worse than her frown is her smile. Her voice is too sweet, like poisoned music.”

  “Harder still to ignore in a crowd. I will have a word with the prince-bishop,” said Rigo.

  I realized that Tig was looking at me hard. I kept myself from asking What? aloud. He lifted one eyebrow and stared at me harder. I frowned. Rigo noticed and asked, “Is there some difficulty?”

  “No, nothing,” I said hastily.

  “I think your assistant has something he wishes to say.” Rigo regarded Tig benignly.

  Such an affront startled Tig out of his customary silence. “I’m not her assistant. And I don’t wish to say anything. Only, it was Candlemas when Red Ned of Ardres hired that sorceress. And she’s red haired, same as he is.”

  Like the touch of a cold hand, the memory of Dalet’s voice came back to me. Poisoned music? “You think Dalet and Bet are the same person?”

  “Betula Ansel is pretending to be a sorceress?” Daniel looked thoughtful. “I suppose she’d be convincing in the part.”

  I rounded on him. “It isn’t a play. Dalet has the power. She has only to open her hand and say the right words to make you do her bidding. I didn’t even notice her doing something to me.”

  That seemed to amuse Rigo for some reason. After a moment, he a said, “I’ll go to the prince-bishop’s clerks myself. I want the entire list of the books Betula Ansel stole.”

  “Something in those books gave her the ability to pass herself off as a wizard?” Daniel looked bemused. “Of course, in some parts of the a world the mere ability to read is considered magical.”

  “It’s Maspero’s treatise. Whatever else she found, it’s Maspero’s work that gave her the power to . .” I broke off, having remembered a belatedly that the return of Istvan and Julian ought not be known in the world at large. Rivers running milk were one thing, frank testimony a from an eyewitness like me quite another. “…to ally herself with Edward of Ardres.”

  “Whatever she called herself originally, Dalet is a powerful woman. a In allying herself with Edward of Ardres, she has gained strength, powerful arms and legs to carry out her wishes. What has Edward gained?” asked Rigo.

  “Eyes and ears,” said Tig. “That witch woman sees it all and hears it all. The wind whispers to her when she wants to know something.”

  “Someone to frighten the children with when they go to bed at night, apparently,” said Daniel.

  “Someone to blame things on,” said Rigo. “Suppose all Edward’s schemes come to pass, whatever they might be. If he succeeds, he can blame any excesses on Dalet and say that he will make sure there are no such frights in store for innocent people if we will just let him do as he wishes.”

  “But doesn’t Dalet realize that?” Daniel asked. “She must know that he could use her as easily as she uses him.”

  “No one could use her as easily as she uses other people,” I said.

  “I thank you for bringing me this information,” Rigo said to Daniel. “It is tempting to equate your missing librarian with Tig’s witch woman. Whoever Dalet is, our hypothesis changes nothing. Our work continues. Please continue to sustain Hail’s researches in the royal archive.”

  Daniel nodded and turned to escort me away.

  “I
t does change things,” I began. The link between Maspero’s work and Dalet’s power over Julian was the siege medal. Any attempt to counter that power had to involve Maspero’s work. Daniel’s touch on my sleeve disrupted my argument. “Let me go. I’m not finished.”

  Daniel dropped his hand. He looked apologetically at Rigo. I interpreted his expression, and belated comprehension angered me. “Pardon me. I mistook you for an archivist. In fact you are a nanny. Are we late returning to the nursery?” I turned to Rigo. “You never intended to join me in the archives, did you? You only sent me there to keep me quiet. I’ve told you all I can about Maspero, and you refuse to hear me. The treatise on alchemy is crucial. I don’t care if Dalet used to call herself Betula or Mary Magdalene. It’s Maspero that matters.”

  “Maspero, Maspero. Enough of Maspero!” said Rigo. “You may return to the archive if you wish. The preparations are taking longer than I’d hoped. I won’t need you until tomorrow at the earliest, perhaps the day after. Go now, quietly. I’ll send for you.”

  “Why won’t you listen? Why won’t anyone listen? Maspero is the key. What preparations can you be making without studying what Maspero did?”

  “If you refuse to follow my instructions, I’m afraid the prince-bishop will demand sterner measures. It’s not as though you haven’t given him reason.”

  “You don’t listen—”

  Rigo turned to Tig. “Fetch the guards. Confine her to her quarters. I must know where to find her when I need her, and in this humor there’s no telling what she’ll do.”

  “Will you listen…”

  But no one listened. Tig and the other guards escorted me to the room where I’d wakened from Dalet’s spell. There they locked me in and left me to shout or to be silent as I pleased.

  FIFTEEN

  (In which I look out the window.)

  My room had a window. It had a door, which was locked except when my meals were brought; four walls, none of which yielded to a secret passage; a floor; and a ceiling. The furniture consisted of a cot with clean bedding, a three-legged stool, a candlestick, and a slop bucket. I knew I could attempt escape at any time, for I was permitted to keep the clothes and other articles I’d traveled with, which included Istvan’s pistol and ammunition. Unfortunately, the guards visited me two by two with my meals. At best, I could shoot only one. I didn’t want to shoot anyone at all. Shooting Dalet had been unavoidable, but I didn’t want to repeat the experience, least of all with Tig or someone like him.

  So I did not attempt escape. Instead, I looked out the window. It was a small window, and rather far from the floor for comfort, but if I stood on the stool, I could lean on the sill and crane forward. The view was worth the slight inconvenience. If I looked straight down, a sheer drop to the courtyard below, I could see a scrap of gravel walkway bordered by ramparts. Below that, I looked down on the crooked streets of the northern quarter of Aravis, where the city wall curves within the greater arc of the river Lida. That view was not so different from the one Saskia loved best. Beyond the river the hills gathered to conceal the Lida from me. I had walked and ridden along that river. It seemed impossibly long ago that I had first fled the city. The streets of the city seemed impossibly far away. I was pent up alone, unable to help Istvan or Julian or even myself.

  I had the pistol. I had the stool. Even the candlestick could have been useful. What I lacked was the will to escape my captivity. I knew that Maspero was the key to everything, and I knew that Rigo disregarded his importance. But I had read everything of Maspero’s that I could have shared with Rigo. Nothing I had read would convince Rigo of Maspero’s importance unless Maspero’s importance was already apparent to Rigo. So why escape? Where could I go? What could I do to aid my friends?

  Thus the guards came and went in safety for two full days while I could muster no more resolve than to look out the window and think.

  On the morning of the third day, I was permitted a visitor. Madame Carriera arrived when my breakfast did. There was a guard with us, but she ignored him.

  “Saskia informs me that you are working here for the moment.” Madame Carriera looked around my cell, crossed to the window, and looked out. “A pleasant prospect.”

  “I asked Saskia about Maspero—”

  “Yes, yes.” Madame Carriera seemed impatient. “I’m afraid Saskia is far too busy working to spare the time to visit. I only came to be sure you were decently housed. And to return the book you loaned me.” She handed me a slim volume and turned away. At the door, she paused. “I took great care of it. I know you would wish me to. Keep up your studies.” With that, she was gone. The guard closed the door, and the bolt scraped into place.

  I was left alone with my bowl of porridge and the book. I ignored the porridge, for I had never loaned a book to Madame Carriera. The book she’d given me was one I’d never seen before.

  I opened it with care. The volume was, in its purpose, the same as the notebooks of Maspero, but the handwriting on the pages was legible and measured. The sketches and notes were the work of Madame Carriera, done when she was an apprentice. I turned the pages, marveling, until I found the motive for the loan.

  Madame Carriera, in the days of her apprenticeship, had studied the works of Gil Maspero. As well as sketching his masterpieces, she had taken notes on his writings. She had studied the treatise on alchemy.

  “M.’s line is good but not his sense of color. M.’s work merely decorative,” she had observed at one point. At another, “No depth.” All the same, she had copied out whole paragraphs of the treatise.

  The prime matter, Maspero believed, was the clay of which all things were made, the clay we are born into, the clay we leave behind us when we die. What interested Maspero was the life within the clay and the methods by which the particular life of a subject might be caught and set down in a likeness. Maspero’s interest in capturing the life of a subject went far beyond mere portraiture. It was his belief that the proper technique could catch the essence of the subject and infuse an object, mere matter until the hand of an artist went to work, to create an emblem. That emblem would contain in miniature the spirit that animated the original. The artist could symbolize his model. His work would live as long as the work of art survived, capturing within it something vital of the model, long after the model had died.

  How this process took place was not expressed in words but in pictures. There was the salamander again, in even fewer lines than Maspero had used. There was the tree with the crows turning into doves, in a silverpoint sketch. There was the design for the obverse of the siege medal, the city of Aravis triumphant, pennons flying from every tower, all battlements secure, the Lida flowing in a neat arc, orderly as a moat.

  I turned the page, expecting the profile of King Julian. Instead there was the floor plan of the Chapel of St. Mary’s by the south gate. After that, for the rest of the volume, came working sketches of the Madonna in the chapel there. Even in her youth, Madame Carriera had been a great admirer of the work of Andrea Mantegna of Padua.

  I pored over Madame Carriera’s pages again and again. I studied all the notes she’d made, scrutinized all the drawings. Maspero’s alchemical notions seemed more easily expressed in images than in words. Given his problems with Latin grammar, the images were probably more reliable than words. The only solid conclusion I came to was the melancholy one that color had been the nearest thing Maspero had to a weakness. I wondered what it said of me that it took me so long to notice.

  At last I put the notebook carefully away and returned to the window. Madame Carriera had been right about that too. It was a pleasant prospect.

  The city wall rises and falls as it circles the city. Fortifications thicken the wall at intervals. There are sound principles of engineering behind those forms. The rise and fall of the ramparts is as orderly, though more graceful.

  From outside the gates, the city seems all force, all solidity. From within, the crooked streets of the city seem bounded by the wall, straight and tight as a hoop
round a barrel. From above, the rise and fall of the ramparts was a dance, a pattern of protection.

  Though I could see only a portion of the wall, the curve of its arc held the whole implicit. To see one part of the wall was to deduce what the rest of the pattern had to be.

  I am still ashamed it took me days of gazing out the window before I looked past my own thoughts and saw the world beyond. Three days of thinking about myself and my troubles instead of thinking about the problem at hand.

  I was remembering St. Istvan’s at Dalager, wondering what I could have done differently. I was thinking of the talk I’d had with Julian, the slow walk we’d taken down the nave and along the aisles of the church cut deep into the stone of the hillside, the search for the votive crown.

  Maspero me facit, the notebook had said. Maspero had made the votive crown, the jasper ring, the siege medal. Maspero had also designed the fortifications of the city. That rise and fall of masonry, that pattern of protection, could also say, Maspero me fecit.

  Belatedly, I saw the world beyond. Remembering the time at Dalager, I looked out at the curve of the river, the curve of the city wall within. Belatedly, I looked at the wall and saw the curve of the votive crown. At last I looked and saw what was spread out below me. The rise and fall of the crown, the rise and fall of the ramparts: alike, Maspero had made them. The circle of the walls was the circlet of the crown. What Julian had dedicated to St. Istvan was no mere emblem of his rule, it was his own city, the symbol of his realm. Maspero had made them alike.

  I asked for more candles, and they brought them. It wasn’t the best sort of wax for my purpose, but it was better than nothing. The frustrations of working it helped me pass the time. On the fifth morning of my captivity, I welcomed my second visitor with the arrival of breakfast. Ludovic Nallaneen came to see me.

  “Good morning. You’re making quite a habit of this,” I said. A guard observed us from the door as we greeted one another with decorum.

  “At least I know where to find you when you’re under lock and key. Madame Carriera sent me to borrow your book, if you’re not busy with it.”