A Shadow All of Light (22 page)

“Gold is ever a reliable spur,” Torronio said. “Tales of gold are ever unreliable.”

“We shall be mining gold from shadows, as I explained. We shall be gathering plants to carry from the Dark Vale to be sold in Tardocco. I will demonstrate how to transport this herbage with as little damage as possible. You will be astonished to see how much a single
Herba umbrae supplex
can bring.”

“In the supplies you loaded on Woman were no sorts of agricultural tools,” said Goldenrod. “No spades or shovels or mattocks to dig with.”

“We shall trust to the Fates to throw such things in our way.”

At these words they declined their polls doubtfully.

“How much?” asked Squint.

“Two hundred eagles at the least—fifty for Stalwart, thirty for Torronio, the rest divided as you see fit.”

“If so much gold accrues to mere husbandry—digging plants and carting them away—why do not venturers flock to the place and make themselves wealthy with ease?” This was Torronio's pointed question.

“Reasons three,” I said. “Few know the location of the ancient and fabled vale, and fewer still have heard of these strange flora. Foremost, though, is the danger. We may lose our lives and the manner of our deaths, while mysterious, is reputed most unpleasant.”

“Whom must we fear?” asked Goldenrod. He thrust his chest forward to signify bravery.

“I know only that they are shadows.”

They gazed at me, then at one another.

“I fear no shadow,” Squint said.

“Then naught stands in our way.”

Torronio shook his head. “I stay doubtful. You have not told us all. Something in this matter conturbeth me.”

“I say again: Dangers abound.”

“Well,” he said, “we shall go to this vale. We have long since left a life of safety behind.”

*   *   *

Torronio was wise to doubt, for I had told them only so much as might persuade them to fall in with me. I had not told them that a great deal more gold than I spoke of was at stake and that some part of it, should we end happily, must go to Maestro Astolfo, by whose commission the enterprise was undertaken. It was he who would inspect these plants, pass on their authenticity, and market them to the vanity of that circle of nobility who named themselves the Green Knights and Verdant Ladies, they who harbored such passion for their sumptuous and curious gardens. It was Astolfo who had outfitted me for the venture—and not me alone.

This horticultural task was not only a commission, it was a test of skills. I had been now six years in service to Astolfo alongside his manservant Mutano. Ours had become a companionable rivalry which lately had risen to such a pitch that Astolfo proposed this present quest for us as a matching of our abilities. He told us of this particular Dark Vale, described its treasures, spoke of the attendant perils, and then set this trial of judgment: “Which of you first delivers to me handsome specimens, truly desirable plants, shall possess as much as seven parts of our profit. From the remaining portion I will pay all accrued expenses and keep for myself only what is left from the rest. If all goes well, one of you shall amass heaping chests full.”

His proposal suited. I had been gaining skills and knowledge, laboring in the craft, and had scored successes by my own efforts, prompting Mutano to become jealous of me; he found me mounting the ladder of Astolfo's esteem while he remained in his accustomed station. Too, he had suffered a mishap. In attempting to reacquire the beautiful voice that had been robbed from him by violence, he had acquired instead a voice not his own at all. These days he could speak only in the voice of a cat, a voice that had fastened to him like a disease of the throat. He burned with fury—not against the maestro or myself, but against the unjust circumstances that sometimes betrayed him to ridicule and scarlet embarrassment.

For these reasons, I thought I might have an advantage. Mutano was eager to shine; he would be impatient to make a start; he might neglect some point of thoughtful preparation. If he misstepped, I must seize opportunity to repay some of the knockabout, kick-arse treatment he had visited upon me in our early days together. Here lay a chance to make myself his equal.

Accordingly, I gave myself to long study of certain of the villa's library of books, manuscripts, codices, and maps. One edition of Mandeville's
Travels
was inlaid with many a map, richly colored and decorated with mermaids and mardrakes, but I soon thrust it away as untrustworthy and inspected more recent cartography in the
Collecteana
of Gaius Junius Solinus and in the anonymous
Imago Mundi
. In short, I examined every source with any least promise down to its last majuscule.

Meanwhile, I studied also Mutano, marking in my mind the pages and maps he most often turned to and gauging what sheets most keenly roused his interest. When the day came that he decided to desert the company of ancient authors and strike toward the northern mountains, I was confident I knew what route he had inscribed in his mind.

Over and again he had studied De Casa's
Mappae Mundi Magnae,
and he had copied out one page on a sturdy vellum that could withstand the rigors of hard journeying. He must have been pleased with his thoughts because he began insensibly to emit a feline purr so resonant that it filled the silence of the room like a bowed viol string. He had even been so neglectful of his best interest as to trace out lines on the page with his thumbnail, so that I was able to follow the projected course of his route with ease.

Keeping that track in mind, I consulted the newer maps and journals of the region by Duclessis, Filomorio, Amerigus, Getzner, and the brothers Muzzino, among others. I had hoped I might discover a swifter and more efficient path to the Vale than Mutano's, a path that might cross his own at a farther point so that I should be ahead of him on the track.

My hope was fulfilled. I hit upon a more efficacious trail to the valley, one less littered with obstacles, and made a serviceable map. I also made another map, a feigning one of no use to a traveler, of the kind ship captains wary of pirates preserved, along with false logs. If one of my maps were to fall into the hands of others, this false one must be it.

Then it was necessary that I should try to confirm some of the rumors I had heard in the street-stalls and taverns about the flight from justice of a luckless quartet of fishermen who plundered the vessel that Morbruzzo the pirate had lured to reef-wrack. They had afterward leagued, it was said, with the dispossessed scion Eleazar del Binnoto, also a fugitive, though not from public justice. He had become embroiled in a tiresome family squabble over estate property, had boxed a cousin's ears, and had offered to duel. His father had disowned him—or pretended to, for the sake of propriety—and Torronio, as he now called himself, had exiled his existence to the savage wilds, there to bemoan his fate to the trees and rocks like a lovesick shepherd.

Holding all this matter in mind, I depleted my small personal treasury, gathered weapons and other usefuls, provided my pouch with eagles, and set out to be captured by the Wreckers, as the townspeople named the ill-starred five. In the rumor galleries of Tardocco they were reputed a fearsome group. I did not credit such report.

*   *   *

These were the reasons, therefore, that on our second day of the journey toward the Dark Vale, I gave my band of illicit dependents certain orders.

“In a short while, we shall come to a place where the path widens to receive the jointure of another trail to the west. We shall go past this fork two furlongs or so, then we shall return to efface every trace of our coming there. No pebble, no hoofprint, not a displaced leaf shall show disturbance. Then we shall go back to the farther point, set up a cold camp, dig holes to cache supplies in, and await our guest.”

“Who is this guest to be?” Torronio asked.

“He is our provider,” I said. “He bringeth the spades and other implements we must labor with. And if I mistake not, he will be supplied with wine, cheese, salt meat, and bread. These stuffs will provide for our meals into the Vale and back again and on to Tardocco, where I will merchant our prizes.”

“He must be a generous soul, so graciously to charitize.”

“He is as yet insensible of his munificence. You must employ persuasion.”

“
You
—and not
we
?”

“You will have an easier time if he see me not. The sight of my visage would redouble his fury and he would fight like twelve devils.”

“How furiously will he fight with you viewless?”

“Be well prepared,” I said, “for you must not take his life or wound him in any serious fashion. If he come to real harm, we are all done for.”

“How so?”

“He hath powerful friends. In particular, he claims one friend whose reach is long and whose grasp would be merciless.”

“Who is this all-powerful eminence?”

“You need not know. Sufficeth that I have provided easy takings necessary for our enterprise.”

“The more I learn of you, the more I find to mistrust,” Torronio said.

“Your misgivings are natural. But do be mindful of this man's person. He will be of use to us in other ways at a later time.”

“If so you say.” He shrugged and turned away.

*   *   *

The business went almost as planned. Attentive to my request that Mutano not be harmed in any serious way, they decided to overpower him rather than to brandish steel. Sneakdirk shinnied up into an oak which overhung the trail and knotted a rope to climb before dropping it to Squint. There in the leafage they made seats as comfortable as they might and then Sneakdirk climbed out to the tip where he could overlook the trail behind.

I stationed myself in a thicket to eastward where I could observe unseen and hoped that I had calculated with some accuracy the pace of Mutano's passage. He had taken the shorter route as it was laid out on his favored map but neglected to search into the condition of the track. Washed away in places, with two bridgeless streams to cross, hindered with fallen timber, it was the slower way. I computed Mutano at about seven hours in arrears of me and, if I proved correct, he must be nearing us now.

And here he was, pat on cue like the cat i' th' adage. Sneakdirk clambered to his lower perch and told groundlings Crossgrain and Goldenrod that our man approached from the west, mounted on a roan horse and leading in train two mules laden with boxes and chests lashed with diamond hitches. Squint uncoiled his rope, saw to the loop knot, and snugged into the leafage so closely I could hardly make out his form.

Along came Mutano, careless under a cloudless sky, thinking no doubt of the profit he would soon turn with easy spadework. But when Squint dropped the loop around his shoulders and began to spin the rope about him like a spider enwrapping a hornet, Mutano let out a ferocious roar, loud as any lion waylaid by pygmies in the Hyrcanian deserts.

I had heard Mutano's feline voice only in domestic setting, when he would purr to himself or meow to me in hopes I might begin to decipher his cattish dialect. This great, hoarse roaring startled me. One would not think that a man's breast held breath sufficient to give it utterance. The hairs stood erect on my neck.

The sound startled his mount also and it bounded from beneath him and galloped up the trail ahead. The mules, being loosed, ran off into the bordering woods, for they took fright equally with the horse. If Squint had not already twirled two loops around Mutano, the large man would have landed on his feet, ready to defend himself. As it was, he swung there in the air for a short space, time enough for Crossgrain and Goldenrod to emerge from the bushes and tether more rope upon him.

Mutano growled and spat and hissed as loud as a lynx caught in a forester's net. If I closed my eyes, I might declare it was not my colleague there but a large, dangerous animal bristling with fight.

In fact, this description fit Mutano at this moment, as he gave battle with legs and feet and tried to wrest his arm free to get at his sword. He was beginning to make some headway out of his toils when Goldenrod wrapped his arms around his legs and pulled Mutano down as if plucking an apple from a limb. Then they bound him tightly, Sneakdirk and Squint dropping down to aid, and all taking care to keep clear of his boots and his teeth—for he snapped at them as he spat and hissed and his eyes glowed greenish-orange, tiger-wild.

Crossgrain tied Mutano to a sturdy ash tree and stood by to keep guard. The others set out in search of the mules and I struggled to the other side of my thicket and stalked up the trail in pursuit of the horse.

In about half an hour, I found Defender, Mutano's mount, cropping grass beside the trail. This horse knew me of old and did not gallop away as I came to take the reins and lead him a little farther still, to where we had set up camp. There I awaited to hear the approach of the Wreckers with Mutano in tow, and when I heard their voices and the shuffle of the mules on the trail I slipped away into the surrounding wood where I could observe the doings in camp.

So far, all had succeeded as I'd I planned, except for the leonine roar that had cost us some bit of trouble with the mules. And my makeshift band of hapless highwaymen followed my orders in regard to Mutano. They made him a place by the fire, which they now set spark to, not knowing that he had exchanged his own tongue for that of a cat.

In a while Torronio strayed casually from the site and sought me out. “Well,” he began, “it has taken place as you said it would. I may now be willing to believe these miraculous tales you tell of man-eating shadows and gardener nobility and easy wealth.”

“'Twill be none so easy. We have but made a start. We will push on tomorrow sunup and make the longer part of our journey.”

“What of our captive?”

“Before we set out, you shall give him his freedom, leave him sufficient eatables, and tell him that you shall return to rescue him from the wilderness. Also you must hide away, in the hidden cache-holes we dug, food and drink to enable us to march back to Tardocco from here. Tell him also that if he have patience, he shall possess his mount again.”