The Veil Of Years - Isle Beyond Time Part 18

Pierrette shook her head. "Are you trying to get rid of me, now? Are you having second thoughts?" "I think you are. You're angry with me, and I don't know why. Take the time I offer you." He sighed.

"Go. When you come back, if you still wish it, I'll show you the way to my hidden chamber, where I labor day and night to preserve all that I have wrought."

Was that a promise? Pierrette asked herself. Was it enough of one? She sensed that she would not get more, and she had her own agenda, that required she get out of the palace. . . . "Very well," she said. "I'll tread your roads a while, and sup with merchants, shepherds, and fishermen, and hear what they have to say. The day is still early-which way should I go?"

Minho seemed pleased that she did not intend to postpone. "You can use your boat if you wish, though all the islands are joined by bridges and causeways. However, you'll surely see more afoot. Incidentally, the Hermit lives in the city you saw from the balcony. Perhaps you'll want to visit him."

Pierrette arose from the throne. Minho drew breath as if to say something else, but thought better of it.

Pierrette left him with his eyes fixed on the placid horizon where her great storm had formed.

In the seclusion of his narrow room, with a heavy cloak over the only window, Hatiphas's face was lit only by the dull glow of the foreign witch's crystal orb. It had not spoken to him, but he had heard her one-sided conversation with it, and he did not believe her mad. Thus, sooner or later, it would acknowledge him, and he would find out what it was.

"I am Hatiphas," he murmured over the bauble. "I am vizier to Minho, king of the Fortunate Isles. I will tell you things of great interest, and when you have heard enough, or are curious enough, I hope you will respond, and I will hear you speak." For an hour, then two hours, then three, Hatiphas persisted, murmuring at the inert gla.s.s. Its glow neither waxed nor waned, and the vizier's throat became coa.r.s.e and parched. At last, when he was about to get up and pour himself wine, Cunotar the Druid spoke. . . .

Gustave the donkey eyed the succulent watercress with great antic.i.p.ation-and great skepticism.

Ordinarily, watercress was a treat, a delight. The tiny, crisp leaves and stems were sweet and peppery, tingling his innards and making him feel spry as a colt. But ever since putting hoof to solid ground here, he had experienced only disappointments. Here, he wondered, would even watercress be without spice and savor?

He leaned over the cold, small spring, front legs splayed, and buried his muzzle in the water. With nose-flaps closed and jaw agape, he swirled up a great bite of the tender cress, then lifted his head, and chewed. Again, as so many times before, his skepticism was warranted; the leaves had no piquancy. He took bite after bite, each time hoping the next would be better than the last . . .

Chapter 28 - Black Metal.

and Bronze Once again dressed in her comfortable shipboard garb, Pierrette kicked her little vessel away from the mossy wharf. Now, at last, she understood. What had the G.o.ddessMa told her over and over, from thetime she was small? "Nothing is what it seems. Nothing is as it first appears. Nothing."

How could a little girl have known the feelings her older counterpart would feel? How could she help but color her vision with little-girl sweetness? When a prince, a king, begged her to marry him, what girl-child could imagine refusing? And all those years, while growing up, what young woman would know when to brush off the illusions she had created and examine the perceived event itself with cooler, more mature eyes?

How sad. All those years she had loved a Minho she had created. Sorcerer-king he was, with the knowledge and power to maintain this land in timeless beauty, but was his magic any better than her own? She now knew the flaw in his masterpiece-that even he did not. If indeed he must needs spend his hours tinkering with his spell, maintaining it against the continuing onslaught of changing premises brought about in the religious and intellectual ferment of the mainland, the breaking of ancient rules and the creation of new ones, then she alone understood why it was unstable.

Seventeen days? Perhaps. Or seven, or seventy. Where would she go first? She knew the answer, even as she asked her question: the city. Minho had said the Hermit was there.

Two hours sail saw her beyond the inner island ring, and in two more she reached a bridge between a pair of larger islands. By then, the sun had dropped below the peaks, and the city's lights and fires speckled the broad ap.r.o.n of land beneath them. She drifted into a creek mouth, clear and pristine even though it issued from among the city's streets. Befouled water, in the lexicon of the king of the Fortunate Isles, was surely an evil, and was not allowed . . .

The hair on the back of her neck stood up, p.r.i.c.kling, and she felt a chill. What waste was not foul? She sniffed, and smelled only the aromas of spices and flowers. Where were the jakes, the cesspools, and the middens? Minho, she remembered, did not know. Or did he?

Another key to the puzzle eased into place. She reviewed her time on the terrace with him. At the time, she had been seeing so many new things she had not noticed the important ones, such as: had Minho actually eaten any of the lovely, tasteless fruit from the platters?

She had no particular need to relieve herself, having had use of the wooden bucket aboard the boat, but nonetheless she squatted in the shadows of the creek bank, because she did not know when next she would have the chance. In the spirit of true inquiry, she considered waiting nearby for a while to see if anything . . . odd . . . transpired there-but she would have confirmation soon enough, if her hypotheses were valid.

It was now night. She was neither sleepy nor hungry, but if she could find an inn or a roadhouse, she would be able to begin her observations. She felt a bit like a spy or an unannounced inspector in a military camp: she would record everything she saw (though not in writing) and weigh it, and eventually judge. "You must destroy his kingdom, and he must die." She had not made any decision about that. She had pa.s.sed up one chance already. She began to hope that had been the right choice. Now she was almost sure there was another way, not a direct confrontation with Minho, that she might or might not win, and not a Pyrrhic victory that destroyed her as well, and . . . She had almost all the information she needed to do it. She only had to decide one way or the other.

She found no inn, instead spending the hours of darkness in a smith's open shed, leaning against his furnace, which retained much heat in its stones and clay mortar. She slept with her back warm, her sagusdraped over her knees and shoulders.

"What have we here?" asked a cheery voice, awakening her. Pierrette squinted against the clear, fresh morning light. The smith had returned.

"I had no place to sleep," she explained, rubbing her eyes.

Had this been any other land, he might have been angry to find her there, but this was no ordinary country-thieves had been banished from its inception, and the smith was only curious that she had no bed of her own. Travellers were unknown to him: why would anyone wander about, when everything a man needed was always close at hand? He laid a fire in his furnace, and lit it. He loaded a round-bottomed crucible with broken bronze knife blades and other fragments.

"Someone must bring you fresh bronze, from time to time," she reflected, "And someone must carry away the new tools you make. Someone must mine that copper and tin, and bring it here. Not everyone can stay at home all the time."

He eyed her oddly. "When a tool breaks, its owner tosses it in my basket, by the entrance, there," he said. "I melt it down, and cast a new one for him. No one-neither he nor I-need venture so far from his bed that he must sleep on the ground." He dribbled charcoal from a basket on top of the now-blazing wood.

"You mean you only make replacements for what is broken? You don't make anything new?"

"Why? What would I make? Who would want it? If I made a hammer with bronze from two knife blades and a scissors, what would the tools' owners do? Share the hammer? Would the olive grower bludgeon the fruit from his trees, the woodcarver beat designs into his wood, and the tailor hammer bolts of cloth into garments?"

The charcoal glowed brightly now. The smith nestled his crucible among the coals, and compressed his bellows-bag with one foot. Sparks flew up and red coals turned yellow. No conversation was possible while he labored to maintain that high heat, forcing air onto the coals, then tugging and pulling on the leather bag to reinflate it. Pierrette considered that process c.u.mbersome. On the mainland, a smith mounted his bellows-bag between a fixed plank and one attached to a springpole. He could both inflate and deflate the bellows with one foot on the movable plank, leaving both hands free for other tasks.

"Why would I do that-and what other work do I have to do while the bronze melts? Besides, I'm sure such things must be forbidden. Someone would tell the vizier's watchers, and I would be whipped through the streets." He eyed his crucible. "Now why isn't it melting?" he murmured.

Pierrette pondered his words. He replaced old tools with new, broken with sound, but made nothing except exact replacements. He had no motivation to improve his processes, no materials to do so with, and Minho actively suppressed independent thinking and change. That furthered her budding conviction that something was very wrong here, but she could not see, just yet, what it was.

"It isn't melting!" the smith exclaimed. Pierrette peered into his crucible, where the sc.r.a.ps remained inert and solid. She felt something warm near her hip, and moved away from the hot furnace stones, slapping at her skirt. But there was no burn mark on the blue cloth. The heat that she still felt was within the folds of her garment. It was emanating from . . . her pouch.

Her first thought was that her crystal "serpent's egg"-the blue-and-red-veined gla.s.s bauble that held thecaptive soul of Cunotar, the Gaulish druid- had broken, and that the spirit of the angry mage might at any moment emerge from its ruin. But nothing happened.

"Why won't the bronze melt?" cried the smith. "Why is it still black?"

"Are you sure it is bronze?" asked Pierrette, trying to be helpful. "Did you instead fill your crucible with iron sc.r.a.ps? Iron demands more heat than bronze."

"Nisi?Ensi?What does that mean?" For want of a Minoan word, Pierrette had used the ancient "nsi,"

which was "black metal." The smith had never heard of that. Or rather . . . "It is good bronze! It should not suck heat from the coals without melting." He lifted the crucible with a bent twig of wet willow, and dumped its contents on the slate floor. "It is bronze!" he exclaimed, his hand hovering over a broken cloak pin. "But it's not even warm!"

Pierrette's pouch, however, was all too warm. It felt as if it would burst into flame. She edged away from the furnace, into the street, then out of sight around a corner. She lifted her pouch and shook it. The "serpent's egg," the gold chain and cross from father Otho, and most of her gold, bronze, and copper coins remained inside. A few small coins gleamed against the dark pavement.

The little iron ring that had been her mother's glowed dully red. It was the source of the heat: iron-cold iron that sucked the heat from coals, the life from ancient souls. Wood sprites and tree spirits shunned it.

The elusive folk of the oldest breed fled from it. Pierrette's mother, of that ancient Ligurian stock, had only been able to possess it because she knew a spell to contain its greed for heat and for helpless spirits.

Pierrette, a half-breed, had never suffered from iron's ancient malevolence, nor did anyone of Gaulish or Roman blood. But here, in this ancient land removed from the progress of history, there was no iron at all, except . . . except one small, thin ring, that had stolen the heat from the smith's bronze.

She daintily touched the ring. The dew-damp pavement had cooled it somewhat; it was not too hot to touch. She heard the jangle of bronze as the smith returned his innocent metal to its crucible, then heard the wheeze of his bellows forcing air through the tuyere and onto the coals. Clutching her ring, she quickly put distance between herself and the smith's shed.

The Hermit was not hard to find. Everyone seemed to know the eccentric fellow, and Pierrette followed the pointing fingers of one person after another through the tortuous, winding streets. They were, of course, no more crooked than the streets of any town not laid out with Roman precision. When she found him, she was shocked and aghast. His domicile was no gilt-and-ivory mansion, a king's bribe, but a hovel of sticks and rags, furnished only with a worn pallet of coa.r.s.e cloth stuffed ungenerously with straw mostly gone to powder. The Hermit, she decided, had obviously had second thoughts following his betrayal of his Christian fellows, and had declared his own penance. Surely Minho had not forced him to live like this.

He himself was little better off than his surroundings. His iron gray hair straggled unbound down the sides of his face, and mingled with a disheveled beard. Dry leaves and gra.s.s seeds clung in both hair and beard. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes deep set and dull with fatigue, hunger, or apathy. Yet he welcomed her kindly, and offered her a seat on the worn curbstone beside his hut.

He seemed amazed that anyone from the world outside remembered him. "After all," he said in a voice gone harsh from disuse, that nonetheless resonated from nearby walls and tiles, "it has been a thousand years or thereabouts, and I betrayed my Master's cause before I had hardly begun to preach it." "That is so," Pierrette agreed matter-of-factly. "Those who remember you can be counted on the fingers of one hand, leaving enough free to play a three-stringed lyre. In that sense, Minho's plot to nip your religion in the bud succeeded."

"I feared as much!" he wailed. "But I beg you, tell me all is not lost, that my Master's apostles and their successors have not gone down false paths, worshipping carpenters' hammers and preaching His Word from the backs of wagons wrought with the tools of his carpenter's trade?"

Pierrette shook her head. "No one wields hammers, chisels, adzes or awls in the name of the Carpenter of Nazareth, but you have been forgotten, as if you never preached in Jerusalem, Rome, Athens, or amid the ruins of Babylon."

He covered his face with both hands. "Then all is lost, my betrayal is total, and the Black Time will engulf the world-and only I will remain a living Christian, here in this unChristian kingdom." He wept great silent sobs that shook his gangling frame.

Pierrette let him weep a while, because she did not approve of traitors, and thought he deserved to wallow in his despair. Then, in a while, she relented. "I did not say your Master's cause is forgotten, only that you are, and the words you once preached."

"How can that be?" He raised his tear-streaked face.

"Great spells-great concepts, if you will-have weight and substance of their own. If you pushed a rock off a cliff, would you need to jump after it, and continue pushing lest it stop falling? Even though you abase yourself, you still have too much pride. Another Apostle took up where you left off. He did not pick up the Master's hammer and tools, but the cross upon which he hanged, and this . . ." She reached into her pouch with two fingers, pushing aside the shapes of coins and the roundness of the serpent's egg, and withdrew Father Otho's tiny gold cross on its chain. " . . . this is the emblem of the Church Saul of Tarsus founded, in your stead."

The Hermit eyed the little symbol with something approaching horror. "But that is a cross! It is a symbol of shame and death! At least the hammer stood for labor at G.o.d's tasks."

"Don't remonstrate with me. I am no Christian, though I respect many Christian principles, when they are applied with sincerity. What cause do you have to complain? You were not there. You were here."

Chastened, he hung his heavy, overlarge head. "You are correct," he admitted. "I will meditate on this tiny cross-I am a traitor and apostate, and I dare not pray. Perhaps I will come to understand how this . . . distasteful symbol has become meritorious. May I . . . may I touch it?" He extended a tremorous hand.

Pierrette hesitated. What had Minho said about crossed twigs and shadows? He did not allow such symbols here, and if he had known what was in her pouch, he would surely have ordered it destroyed.

But who was he to command her, or to deny this poor old traitor the meager solace of a little gold bangle? She sighed, and dropped it, chain and all, into his outstretched palm.

He gasped, and picked it up between thumb and forefinger, holding the tiny cross upright. Stray flecks of bright sunlight reflected in his moist eyes. "Keep it," Pierrette said softly. "For me, it is only a bauble, the gift of a friend. For you . . ."

"For me," said the Hermit, rising to his feet (he now seemed much taller than before, and when Pierrettealso arose, he towered over her), "this day has become the one when I made my erring choice. I am once again young, and my mission is yet ahead. This time, I will not betray it. I will speak in the squares and marketplaces, on the beaches where fishermen draw up their boats and tie their nets, and this cross will be my warrant, my emblem and . . . when once I understand its import, my guide."

His eyes strayed over Pierrette's head, and he strode toward the center of the plaza, where several women were drawing water from a raised pool. He mounted the several steps and addressed his happenstance audience in a rich, mellow voice that no longer hinted at impending failure.

Pierrette was more than a little annoyed. He had spoken of the Black Time. Was that only a chance expression? She was not going to find out now. Should she wait around until he ran down, or the women threw water on him, or departed hooting and catcalling? She looked again. They stared raptly up at him, and several others had now joined them. Were they just curious, or had the prophet now found not only his voice and his message, but the beginnings of a following? It was impossible to tell. She would have to wait and see. Perhaps she could return here one more time before her seventeen days were up, and find out.

She made her way along the streets, somewhat remembering the way she had come, but to a certain extent merely keeping the westering sun at her back or over her right shoulder. She should emerge not far from where her boat was moored, in a reasonable time.

Chapter 29 - The Attraction.

of Opposites Not twenty-four hours had elapsed since Pierrette had begun her tour of Minho's kingdom, but already she suspected she knew what she needed to know. Still, she had seventeen days before Minho would receive her again. What now?

A delicious aroma swirled past her nostrils. Somewhere nearby, someone was baking bread. She turned first one way, and the scent lessened, then another and it became stronger. She began walking, tracking it toward its source. There: a small shop stood open to the street, and in front of it was a huge basket heaped with brown loaves. A slender woman clad only in a short wrap was removing steaming ovoids from a brick oven with a thin wooden paddle. She placed the hot bread on woven willow shelves to cool.

As Pierrette entered the shop, she saw that the loaves in the basket by the entry were all broken. She tapped one with her fingertip. It was hard and stale. "Your bread smells wonderful," she said.

"Doesn't it, though?" replied to the baker, smiling. "Here take this and break it." She handed Pierrette a hefty loaf, still quite warm.

Pierrette tore a chunk loose, and chewed it appreciatively. "Delicious," she said, not at all clearly, because her mouth was full. Actually, the rich-smelling bread had no flavor at all, but she couldn't saythat, could she?

The woman was eying her strangely. "What are you doing?"

"Why . . . I am eating your bread, and . . ." What did the baker mean? Pierrette was standing, she was breathing, and she was definitely wondering what she had done wrong.

"I see. But why are you doing it? I've never seen anyone do that before. What will become of the bread that is inside you?"

"I don't understand," Pierrette said, confused. "What should I do with it, if not eat it?" If all the woman's bread smelled so good, and tasted like dusting rags, perhaps it was solely intended to be enjoyed with the nose. She did not, however, express that ridiculous thought.

"You must be from some far island," the baker said, "where customs are different. I can't imagine why you put my bread in your mouth. How will you return it to the basket, now?"

"Return it to . . . to that basket?" Pierrette indicated the container full of stale loaves.

At that moment, a new arrival interrupted them, a man wearing a leather ap.r.o.n with wood chisel handles projecting from a dozen small pockets. "That was fine bread, Aphrosta," he said, tossing two broken loaves atop the others in the basket. "We enjoyed both of them."

"Then here, have two more," the baker said.

"Thank you. My wife will warm them, and we'll break them at dusk, and cut ripe apples to go with them.

There's nothing better than the aroma of fresh-cut apples and a newly broken loaf."

"It's one of life's genuine pleasures," the baker agreed. The woodworker departed with his fresh bread.

"Ah . . . what should I do with this?" Pierrette asked, holding the remains of her loaf.

"Just put it in the basket, of course. Can you also return the morsel you put in your mouth?"

"I've . . . no. I'm sorry. I ate it. But here . . ." She felt in her pouch for a coin. "Take this instead."

"But it is metal. What can I do with that? I would prefer to have my bread back. I can't crush metal with the stale crusts and bake fresh loaves from it."

Pierrette backed away. This was all too strange. It defied reason. Did she understand what she had heard, or had the dialect of Minho's folk diverged from the cla.s.sical Minoan she had learned from Anselm, so that she had misunderstood everything? "I must go," she said.

"Well, if my morsel falls out of you, put it in the basket. Still, I suppose no one will miss such a little bit, when it will be divided among all of the loaves I make tomorrow." She returned to her task, lifting loaves from the oven.

Though Pierrette had seen little enough of Minho's city, it felt like too much. If every encounter with its denizens were as troubling as those she had experienced, she would soon be begging someone to awaken her from this mad dream. Unfortunately, it was no dream, and her escape from it would not beso easy. She made her way back to the boat. Once afloat, things would hopefully return to normal, and she still had real food aboard, that did not taste like sawdust.

But something was wrong: the moist green moss and clumps of soft gra.s.s around her landing place were gone. The soil lay exposed, bare and black, as if fire had consumed everything. The bare patch was almost circular, and it centered upon the dead, dry branches of . . . of the bush beneath which she had relieved herself. That bush had been heavy with succulent green leaves, before.

She tiptoed gingerly across the ugly, barren ground, and waded into the creek to cleanse the soles of her sandals before climbing over the boat's rail, pushing off at the same time. When she hoisted the lugsail's spar, an offsh.o.r.e breeze filled the sail and the clean, sparkling gap between her and the infected sh.o.r.e widened.