Nicanor - Teller of Tales Part 2

"Dost know of any lord would have a fine stout serving-man?" he said with a wheedle. "One who can carve, be it swine or human, skilled with sword or sling, who can drive a chariot, pair or single-span?"

"Not I," Nicanor answered. "I be a stranger in these parts."

"Bound for Londinium?" asked the black-haired man.

"Nay, for the Christian church of Saint Peter's, on Thorney which is called the Isle of Brambles," said Nicanor, without guile.

"Why, then, I'll go there too," the stranger said amiably. "For I am most devilishly lost, driven from town and camp, the first time sober in a week; and money I must gain, or starve. Eh, Bacchus! the women--the women!" He sighed, shaking his black head dolefully.

"What concern had they with it?" Nicanor wished to know. "Did they turn thee out from camp and town?"

"Ay, boy, turned me out and turned me inside out," said the black-haired man, and grinned. "Never a little copper a.s.s have I left upon me. See, now, our paths lie in the same direction, since my path is any path.

Shall we go together? For I swear I'll not get lost again. Behold me, Valerius, sometime of the Ninth Legion at Ratae, now, by the grace of G.o.d, of no legion at all. I have my tablet of discharge from service; a follower of fortune you see me, with my sword as long as the purse of him who hires it."

Nicanor, half shy, half pleased with his new acquaintance, told in turn his name and station.

"Thou and I will be good friends," the soldier said. "I love a lad of spirit, such as thou. I'll fight for thee and thou shalt steal for me.

'Tis a fair division of labor. Hear you how my tongue waggeth? For a week it hath been sleeping off the wine, and now that it be sober again, it runneth by itself. Come, friend, art ready?"

On the way Valerius talked irrepressibly, with many strange oaths and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, mixing his religions impartially. He told weird tales of life in camps and teeming cities, so that Nicanor's blood tingled, and he longed to go also and do these things of which he heard. The tales of Valerius did not always hang together, but Nicanor cared not at all for that. By and by Valerius took to asking questions, his tongue in his cheek at some of Nicanor's replies. In half an hour he had learned the boy's life, deeds, and ambitions, and had extracted a promise that Nicanor would get the worthy Tobias to provide him also with employment, preferably around the church, where would be fat pickings and little work. At noon they ate by the roadside with two kindly disposed merchants, and later continued on their way, meeting other folk, with whom Valerius pa.s.sed the time of day.

So, toward sunset, they came with many others ahorse and afoot, to Thorney, the Isle of Brambles, at the foot of the road. And here Nicanor thought he had never seen anything so wonderful, and stood staring wide-eyed, while Valerius hummed his drinking-song and chewed a piece of metyl leaf, which turned his lips and teeth quite red.

For here the country broadened out into a great marsh, vast and spreading widely over the land, dotted with eyots, where birds flew low among the sedge. Away to west and east were low grim hills, with a sense of unending s.p.a.ce and loneliness upon them. And at the foot of the street was the ford, crowded here with men,--soldiers and serfs and freedmen,--with horses and mules and heavy carts. Through the ford they all went splashing; and it was wide and shallow, marked out by stakes and with stepping-stones showing above the water. And beyond the ford, under the gray skies, was Thorney, the Bramble Isle, alive with a swarming throng of people. On the right of the island was Saint Peter's church, upon the spot where next Saint Peter's Abbey, and centuries later the great Westminster, would stand. It rose silent in a smother of confusion and a babel of noise of men shouting, and horses neighing, and the songs of boatmen on the Tamesis which bounded the southern end of the island. There was a temple of Apollo close beside it, for old G.o.ds and new dwelt side by side. To the ancient faith of their pagan fathers the aristocracy of Britain still held true; the new G.o.d was for slaves and humble folk, who had derived no benefits from the old creeds and were willing to try any which promised help. And old Rome had seen the rise and fall of many G.o.ds, for she was aged and very wise. Jupiter, best and greatest, Isis, Mithras, Astarte, Serapis--what was one more or less in her pantheon?

Around the church was a formless huddle of houses, thinning out and straggling at the water's edge; and fires were blazing here and there, and men were hurrying to set all in order for the night. For Thorney was a halting place where travellers from north and south and east and west rested a s.p.a.ce and went their way,--a noisy, crowded place, where centred traffic for all Britain pa.s.sing to and from Londinium, the great port, and the greater inland cities.

All of this Nicanor took in with delighted eyes. He ran down to the ford, dodging between pack-mules and jolting two-wheeled carts, and slipping eel-like past other pedestrians, forgetting Valerius, who hurried after. He strode from stone to stone, splashed by straining horses that tugged beside him, and sprang to sh.o.r.e upon the island. So he won to his journey's end.

"Now to find that good man Tobias," quoth Valerius, and shook his wet feet daintily, as a cat that has stepped by accident in a puddle. "He will give thee food and lodging, which thou wilt share with me--so?

Knowest thou his house? Jesus, Lord! Did ever man see the like of the nest of houses? Hey, friend!" He laid a hand on the shoulder of one pa.s.sing. "Canst tell us where dwells the worthy Tobias, worker in ivory to the Christian Church?"

"Nay, not I," the man said, and hurried on. Over his shoulder he called back: "Ask the good priest yonder."

Valerius doffed his brazen cap to this holy man. He, in frock of sober gray, with head shaven to the line of the ears, and worn, pale face, walked toward the church, his beads swinging by one finger. At Valerius's question he looked up.

"The house next the open s.p.a.ce on the right," he answered; raised two fingers in benediction upon them, and went his way. Valerius and Nicanor betook themselves to the house appointed.

It was then that Nicanor began to realize that he wished himself alone.

Valerius hung to his arm affectionately, and Nicanor was too shy to shake him off. He did not know what to do; wherefore he did nothing. The house next the open s.p.a.ce was low, of stone and timber. It was evident that Tobias was well-to-do. Valerius pounded upon the door; the heavy shutter of a window swung open, and a man's head peered out. It was a pink head, very bald, with flabby cheeks, a full-moon face, and pursed lips, and the beaked Hebraic nose of his father's race.

"Who comes?" the man asked, and stared at them.

Nicanor said:

"Art thou Tobias, the ivory carver?" and the pink head nodded.

Then Nicanor said:

"From Rathumus and Susanna his wife I come, and I am Nicanor, their son, and would be prentice to thee."

"And Valerius, thy friend," whispered Valerius, plucking at his sleeve.

"And Valerius, my friend," said Nicanor, obediently.

"Why, holy saints!" Tobias said. "From Susanna--and would be prentice to me! Hold a minute till I let thee in."

His pink head disappeared and the shutter slammed. Soon the door was opened, and Tobias welcomed them to his house. And a very good house it was, for Tobias was wealthy. He called his slave, and she brought food and wine, and they sat at the trestled board on cross-legged stools and ate until they could eat no more. Then Tobias asked questions, and Nicanor told of his home and of his parents and of his mother's words, while Valerius, full-fed, dozed with his head on the table. And as Nicanor talked, Tobias watched him, for to save his life the boy could not open his mouth without a tale coming out of it; and when he had ended Tobias rose and kissed him on both cheeks, and said:

"Thou'lt stay with me, boy, and learn all that I can teach thee, until thou'rt master-workman. And thou shalt live with me, and be my son, for sake of her who is thy mother--and it is not my fault that thou art not my son in very truth. Marry, but thou hast a silver tongue in that shock head of thine. Now come to bed; thy friend here is snoring like an ox.

And in the morning we'll begin work, and one of my lads shall tell thee what to do."

So they roused up Valerius and took him off to a room with one window and a bed. And here Valerius, slipping out of his baldric, pulled the blanket from the bed, flung himself, dressed as he was, upon the floor, and was instantly as one dead.

IV

But Nicanor went to the window and opened the wooden shutter and leaned out. He heard the roar of the many camps, blending into one vast undercurrent of sound; he caught the red gleam of fires half hidden behind intervening houses; now and then a bellowed chorus reached him.

Also there were sweet tinkling sounds, of a kind which he had never heard before, which thrilled him strangely. Sudden desire took him to be out in the midst of this new stirring life; to see the crowded places, the mingling of many men. Preparations for the night were going on, for it was dark by now, with high twinkling stars. He could see, by leaning far out, the moving glare of torches held high as belated wayfarers crossed the ford, the reflection of the lights dancing on the shallow waters. The fascination of it, this his first sight of Life, gripped him, not to be denied. He sprang to the ledge of the window, writhed himself through, and dropped to the ground outside.

Then, at once, he was in a new world,--a world of flickering flames and black dancing shadows, and strange sights and sounds, and restless figures pa.s.sing always to and fro. And, quite dazed, he stumbled against one, not a rod from the house, who laughed, with a laughter which made him think of the tinkling music he had heard, and beckoned him, drawing him in the darkness. But Nicanor, thrilling through all the awakening soul and body of him, turned and ran, shy suddenly, but at what he did not know.

So he came to a fire burning in a ring of stones; and around the fire men were sitting, eating and drinking, and the light played on their faces. With them were women, at whom Nicanor stared agape. For they were very fair to look on, with jewel-bound hair and slumberous eyes, lithe as snakes, with bare shoulders and dress of strange clinging stuffs.

These were dancing girls, being taken to the great inland cities for sale or hire. And near by, huddled close for warmth, were slaves,--men, women, and children, chained in long strings, on the way to be sold in Gaul. Here were fishermen, also, and boatmen, gathered by themselves, a noisy crew, with loud jokes which Nicanor heard and did not understand.

All about him was a babel of voices and laughter, boisterous and profane; now and then an altercation, short and violent. It went to Nicanor's head like wine. Never had he known anything like it; life like this had pa.s.sed his bleak northern home entirely by. He drew nearer the groups around the fire, drinking it all in greedily,--new sights, new sounds, new impressions. His face was flushed with excitement, his breath came short; so much he found to interest him that he stared bewildered, uncertain what to look at first. The smell of cooking food was in the air, mingled with the aromatic pungency of many fires of wood. Horn cups clashed; at intervals hoa.r.s.e laughter drowned the shouts of teamsters and the creak and strain of wheels.

And suddenly, under the intoxication of it all, Nicanor found himself speaking in a new, fierce mood of exultation. What he was going to say he did not know; but his voice fell into the old measured chant, regular as the tramp of marching feet, which carried through all the tumult of sound around him. His heart beat hard, his hands clenched, but he flung back his head with eyes which glittered in the firelight. Those nearest looked on him in amazement, ready to scorn. Then they held silent, and listened. Others drew closer, to see what might be going on. More came, and more. Women left men's knees and joined the little crowd, smiling, then with parted lips of wonder. Nicanor neither saw nor heard them. For the first time in all his life he was carried beyond himself; in a physical ecstasy he spoke out that which clamored at his lips, caring nothing for his audience, unconscious of them utterly. And because that is the one thing which will grip men's minds and compel them, he held them spellbound, in spite of themselves,--until, abruptly, in a flash, he became conscious of himself, seeing himself, hearing himself. That moment he lost his hold of them. And he knew it, and stopped short. And for an instant there was silence.

Then a woman drew a long breath which was like a sigh, and a man muttered something into his beard. The spell snapped; and like a flood let loose their talk leaped at him. They shouted, "More!" They would know who he was, and whence he came, and he must finish the tale for them. But Nicanor shook his head, dumbly, with a new and strange emotion surging through him. He was frightened at himself, at his feeling, at what he had done. And back of his fear lay something deeper, something which he could not name,--half exultation, half truest awe, as though he stood in a presence mightier than he and knew himself for but the tool with which the work was wrought.

There came a woman, very wonderful, and hot as flame, and put into his hand a broad piece of silver, looking into his eyes. A man with a broken nose thrust a copper coin into his palm; others followed. For a moment he stood staring at the fire-lit faces around him like one foolish or in a trance, with his own face quite white. That he might receive money for his soul had never entered his head. Then he broke away from them all and ran--ran as though for his life--back to the house of Tobias, and clambered through the low window and flung himself upon the bed, laughing and sobbing and shaking, and clutching his coins in sweating hands.

For he had entered into his heritage at last, and the Future had become the Present.

V

The working-place of Master Tobias was a small room half underground, with three windows on a level with the street. Long boards on trestles were ranged upon three sides, leaving the centre free; these were much chipped and scarred, and black with oil and dirt. On these tables were small list-wheels for polishing, formed of circular thicknesses of woollen stuff clamped tightly between two wooden disks of smaller diameter which left a pliant edge of wool projecting, held firmly in wooden frames and turned by hand. There were trays of tools for carving and graving and sc.r.a.ping, and boxes of fine sand and of gla.s.s-parchment.

In a corner was a grindstone; and the unclean floor was littered with sawdust and sc.r.a.pings of bone. Here half a dozen men were working, in oil-stained ap.r.o.ns of leather. The wheels hummed continuously, with a steady droning; at intervals the great saw shrieked and grated; from the storeroom a boy brought long tusks ready for the first cutting.

Men have worked in ivory before ever history began, and of all known arts it is the most ancient and one of the most beautiful. And no two master-workmen have gone about it after precisely the same manner, but each has followed his own method of treating the bone, of cutting, which is a delicate business, of smoothing, and of polishing. At different ages widely differing means were employed to bring about the same effect. There were many curious things to be learned in the way of what and what not to do,--how to treat bone with boiling vinegar, and secret processes of rolling out ivory and joining it invisibly, for the making of larger pieces than could possibly be cut from any one tusk. Lost secrets, these, to us; and being lost, by many doubted as having ever been. These things Master Tobias had learned, many years before, from a workman of Byzantium, where the work was already famous, and far and away ahead of all. This man, dying, had left Master Tobias all he knew, and tools such as never otherwise could he have obtained. So that the fame of Master Tobias went abroad through the province; and he did much work in the way of tablets, diptychs, caskets, figures of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses and of Christian saints. Many a carven comb and jewel-box found its way to some haughty Roman beauty's dressing-table, the work of Master Tobias's own fat hands. He found good markets for his wares, since Roman love of bijouterie was strong, and he had few compet.i.tors.

It was not until the establishment of Saxon dominion that the art obtained a permanent foothold in Britain; and then it went back to its first crude beginnings, as did nearly all other things at that second conquest.

So behold Nicanor, bare-armed and in leathern ap.r.o.n, carrying tusks to and fro, cleaning them after their arrival from the merchants' hands, and giving them out to the workmen as required. Thus he came to learn the various shades of coloring; how to tell when bone was healthy and might be expected to take the cutting well, or when it would be apt to crack and split under the saw. Having come to know the differences in degree, he was put to checking off the lots as they arrived, according to kind and grade. Mammoth tusks of elephants, sometimes ten feet in length, weighing close on a hundred pounds, solid to within six inches of the tip; teeth and tusks of the wild boar, walrus-bone and whale-bone, used for coa.r.s.er work and filling,--all these he must tell apart at a glance. For to the untrained, bone is bone.

This was light work, and left him time to watch what others did; whereby, quite unconsciously, he absorbed much useful knowledge, which was as Master Tobias intended. Then, being well acquainted with color and texture and grain, he was put to help with the big saw, coa.r.s.e-toothed, worked by two men, and had to learn to cut his lengths to a fraction of an inch as required, with the least possible waste.

This took him some time, for a bone is full of twists and turns which render it liable to be cut to pieces, so that much care is needful. So he went up, step by step, knowing well each detail before he undertook the next, until at last he began to work under Master Tobias's own eye.

And then, for the first time, having acquired an insight into the art, was he able to appreciate the skill of the master-workman. And this is the way of all art from the beginning, and as it must be to the end, since only he who knows may understand.