A Shadow All of Light Read online

  “Will they be satisfied?”

  “After some period of torture, you would undoubtedly reveal all.”

  “I do not savor this experiment.”

  “Mutano will supply you with a delightful drug. The first moment you are threatened with torture, you have only to swallow this bolus to die an immediate and rapturous death.”

  His gray-eyed gaze never clouded in its mild steadiness. When I looked at Mutano, he gave me a broad smile and held up a little sphericle, as carmine in color as a pomegranate seed.

  “Very well,” I said.

  Since the enclosing walls were of brick and stood at a height no more than half again my own, my scaling apparatus would consist only of a light horsehair rope attached with a small three-pronged hook of iron. The claw ends were naked; the rest of the hook was sheathed in leather to deaden its sound against the brick. My weapons were to be a short sword with a blade three hands in length, a poniard to tuck into the breast of my chamois doublet, and a short-steeled dirk hidden in my left boot.

  “This is but feeble armory,” I complained. “If I am caught, there will be more than one to come at me.”

  “If you bear more weaponry, you shall go clacking about like a pelican,” Astolfo said. “Your only true advantage is a stealth that more blades would diminish. Graceful stealth, that is your only method. And for that, you shall have the concealment of a shadow.”

  “Indeed?” I was enheartened by the prospect. Astolfo had not yet trusted me to wear a shadow. I was too fumble-footed, he said, too sudden in my movements. The sturdiest shadow he drew about me would soon disintegrate to tatters and giblets, lose all its dark luster, and grow foul with my sweats and farts.

  But now I was to don one, and I began to think that here was a real engagement, after all, and not another mere exercise drill to sharpen my skills and deepen my education and provide Mutano occasion to drub me. Of course, that would mean that the scarlet suicide dosage was a true and earnest poison and that the prospect of torture was not a figment of fancy. I was experiencing a creeping uneasiness of mind, but there was no turning back. I had given my yea and could never live down changing to nay or shill-I-shall-I.

  One sandglass before daybreak was my time to enter the palace compound. “Late-reveling courtiers do not rise at cockcrow,” Astolfo explained, “and so there will be early light, fore-dawning, and then full dawn. A black shadow would be as noticeable as a camelopard and a gray one as visible as mist. So we must resort to colors, Mutano. What tints should we drape about our daybreak thief?”

  Mutano replied with a swift twittering of his fingers. I had puzzled out much of the sign language in which master and manservant conversed and had learned that they communicated in three different gestural dialects. What they signaled now I could not fathom.

  Astolfo smiled humorously and told me that Mutano thought I should have the choice of colors since I was to be the wearer. “What do you choose?”

  The study of shadow color is long and intricate and I had barely touched upon it in my reading. Since whatever tints I named would be declared mistakes, I made the obvious choices. “If the day is to be fair and bright, the early light will be purple changing to yellow and silver. Perhaps a dun color might pass without note.”

  As I expected they grinned at my blunder.

  “So now, Falco,” Astolfo said, “it is time for a hasty lesson in the hues of shadows.” He signed to Mutano to draw the curtains of the tall library windows so that we were standing in a dimness close to darkness. Then he went to a small oil lamp sitting upon the smaller table, lit the wick with a single striking of flint, and set a concave, brightly polished mirror behind the lamp. He motioned me to step to his position at the table. I came to where he stood. He laid out flat before us a blank sheet of snowy paper.

  “How many kinds of primary light have we in this room?” he asked.

  “Two,” I replied. “A strong white one from the mirrored lamp and a duller, softer one that seeps through the linen curtains.”

  “Very well. Now observe the shadow upon this paper. What do you see?” He took up a small dagger from the tabletop, customarily kept there to break the seals of documents, and held it perpendicular to the surface with his fingertip.

  “I see two shadows. The one produced by the lamp is bluish; the other, a dusty yellow, comes from the window light.”

  “So you believe you see,” Astolfo said. He signaled Mutano to draw the heavy satin drapes over the curtains. “What see you now?”

  “The blue shadow made by the lamp has turned black.”

  “And the edges?”

  “They were somdel indistinct before. Now they are sharp.”

  He nodded and Mutano opened the drapes. Astolfo doused the mirrored lamp.

  “The dagger shadow now?”

  “It is a thin, gray wash, dim, with withered edges. A common shadow, I should name it.”

  “There are no common shadows. This lesson you have been taught many times. The lamplight and the curtained light are complementary and result in a falsity of vision. Your eyes deceive you because of this commixture of lights. When you are at your business in the palace of the countess, there will be two kinds of light. The early light of the east will commingle with the retreating darkness of the rest of the sky, a dark gray shading to mauve. The shadow you wear must be of a complementary color that will not be invisible to sight—that is not possible—but only deceptive to it.”

  “What color, then?”

  “I put it to you.”

  “I can do no better than the evidence of my senses, deceived though they may be,” I said. “This mild blue is complementary, is’t not?”

  “It is one of the complementaries, but do not forget that as the hour toils onward, the light will change in intensity and hue.”

  “So then…?”

  “We shall have a parti-colored shade of several tints,” Astolfo said. “They shall flow in and out of one another like the shades in a rainbow where a waterfall pours into the pool of a forest stream. In this wise, you may go from place to place and seem to be only a part of the natural changes of morning.”

  It did not seem plausible. “But will not so many colors present a garish, anomalous sight in a peaceful dawning?”

  “Do you trust already the depth of your knowledge in this lore?”

  “I suppose I must not. From what person did you gain this shadow of many colors?”

  “From the renowned actor Ortinio. A man who has portrayed many characters with true and convincing manner will have a various and variable shadow. But this particular shadow lacketh strong texture. It is a consequence of the actors’ trade that they have but pallid personalities themselves and must rely upon the playwright to supply them with character. The shadow must be suggested by an undergarment. You shall wear a many-colored tunic of several light fabrics to help to sustain the delusion. The correct stratagem with colored shadows is to cause men to see what they already believe that they see.”

  “Very well. How am I to enter the grounds of the palace?”

  He laid down the dagger, took up a sharpened stick of charcoal, and began sketching a series of squares upon the paper, elaborating upon the small sketch I had studied. “Here is a rough plan of the palace and the grounds. How shall you proceed? Where do you think you should try entrance?”

  “That depends on where the stone is kept,” I said. “Best to come as close as possible to that place unless it be heavily guarded and most closely watched. If it be so, then better to enter at a more distant point and make way to it by degrees.”

  Mutano and Astolfo traded gazes, nodding agreement.

  “And where will the diamond lie?” Astolfo asked.

  “I cannot say. I think the countess will want it close by her, but now she has begun to mistrust her faculties. Perhaps she entrusts it to Chrobius or another councilor for its safety. Perhaps it is in a separate room by itself and under armed guard.”

  “Will you then steal into three p
laces at once?”

  “Time is lacking. On succeeding nights I might do so, but the choice to begin with is easy. I would try the room set apart for it where I would stand less chance of being recognized.”

  Again they nodded agreement.

  “Can you find this place on our little map?” Astolfo pushed the paper toward me.

  His sketch showed a long north-south rectangle with the large palace building against the east wall, flanked on both sides by a dozen adjoining squares. In the middle of the whole he had drawn a square divided into two, and this I took to be an armory and barracks for the guards. He had not indicated entrances there, but I supposed it to have four, faced in opposite directions.

  “Here.” I touched the third square on the left side of the main palace. “I can go over the wall, onto the roof, and then along here to the left.”

  “Well enough,” he said. “I believe that to be a sort of dormitory for the bachelor courtiers. I picture them sleeping in their cots, giving off wine-sodden snores, as you tiptoe catlike above them. Only look below when you come to the corner to begin your descent and make certain that guards are not hiding out of sight in the several doorways to lay hands upon you.”

  “I shall be wary.”

  * * *

  His warning was a prediction.

  The night passed tediously and as soon as I had made my cautious, finger-straining descent of the terra-cotta drainpipe at the corner of the building, eight burly guardsmen appeared as if summoned by a silent bell. Beyond them a group of twenty or so stood in close order in the great courtyard. Six of the eight ringed me with drawn blades while a seventh sprang to pin my arms behind my back. The eighth, a villainous, scar-faced captain every inch as large as Mutano, searched me over efficiently, tossing away my short sword and dagger and fishing from my boot the favorite little dirk I had thought so cleverly hidden.

  “Your name?” he asked in a voice that was accustomed to transmuting the blood of new recruits to cold cat piss.

  “Osbronius,” I said, pronouncing the full name of the brother who had tormented my earliest years with his bullying.

  “Doubtful,” he grunted. “Your occupation?”

  “Thief,” I said.

  “More doubtful still,” he growled, and his brothers-in-arms seconded this statement with derisive guffaws.

  “How came you here?”

  “I say no more. Do your worst.”

  “So we may—and without your permission. But please, I entreat you, answer one thing further. Why do you come clothed in this ridiculous, gaudy motley? A man, be he thief or sea cook, will be seen in it seven leagues off. Do you think to celebrate by yourself the Feast of the Jester long before its proper moon?”

  I looked down at myself and was astonished. No subtle shadow of slowly shifting tints and flamy shapes enwrapped my shoulders, torso, and arms. Instead, I wore a filmy, light mantle or robe of ungainly cut all pieced together of vivid ribbons, with colors of lime, azure, scarlet, emerald, ember-gray, and inky purple. No self-respecting harlequin would ever don such an outfit. Now that I saw it plain I could feel its weight upon me, slight but palpable.

  “See his face,” crowed my chief captor. “His mouth hangs slack like a gate unhinged. Is he not the very paragon of ijjits? Should not our countess take him just as he stands for her court jester?… But hold. He is too tall for the Jester’s office. We must subtract an ell or so.” He drew his sword and came close upon me, garlicky breath and all. “Where shall we lessen you, Sir Jackanapes? Shall we take from the bottom?” He thwacked me across the knees with the flat of his blade. “From the top?” He scratched a horny thumbnail across the knob of my throat. “Or from the middle?” He traced the sword tip across my chest, tearing open the flimsy contraption of ribbons.

  All his smug japeries brought forth unbounded hilarity from his whiskery, overfed troop, and I vowed that if ever I enlisted in a guard troop, I would choose one whose leader did not fancy himself a humorist. But at this moment I was so abashed by my capture and by my beribboned motley that I could form no response but to repeat my former challenge: “Do your worst.”

  “Our worst?” He laughed a gravel-throated long minute. “Sir Harlequin, you would not beg for the worst if you could conceive what it might be.”

  With this sentence, the troop parted ranks and Astolfo came ambling toward me. He was dressed in his military best, a sea-colored caftan belted with a broad sash of cloth-of-gold, a short-sleeved red cloak, and a tall, broad-brimmed black hat with a white plume. A sword hung from his left shoulder in a brightly jeweled sheath and he bore a tall lance in his left hand. He stood directly before me and said again, “The worst is mine.” With that he balled his right hand and delivered me such a blow to the neck that I fell backward to the ground. The dawning sky, the roof of the building, and the faces of Astolfo and the soldiers twirled round in my sight like fern leaves circling the mouth of a drain.

  I tried to speak, but the blow to my neck, just at the base of my throat, had made words impossible. I could not cough or croak and heaved for breath like a fresh-landed carp.

  “Stand him up,” Astolfo commanded, and when the captain gestured, two obscenely grinning troopers jerked me to my feet. If they had not gripped me on both sides by elbow and shoulder, I surely would have toppled again.

  Astolfo strode round in a circle, striking the dust with the butt of his lance and seeming to plod in deep and furious thought. Finally he halted and addressed the guards at large:

  “Gentlemen! Behold the spectacle that treacherous ingratitude and sneaking rebellion may make of a man. This Falco, when first I took him into my employ, was but an unlettered, unmannered peasant boy still aromatic from dunging the stony fields of his father. Like many another trusting man of elder years, I believed his innocence and gave him a berth in my household and a place at my table. His only duties were to better himself with study and to perform some light labors under the guidance of my faithful manservant.”

  He ground the lance into the dirt and paused. “But—see him now. He has wantonly entered your palace compound, intent on I know not what villainy. He came armed, and that is always a sureproof of evil purpose. He has clothed himself in this tatterdemalion rag-taggery for no reason I can put a name to. This outfit once belonged to my young sister, who wore it to Midsummer Eve festivals when she was a child of twelve years or so. Perhaps he dreamed ’twould serve to excuse him as a madman if captured, rather than the perfect natural he shows himself to be.”

  The soldiers laughed in hearty appreciation and Astolfo came to accost me again. “It was a happy accident that led me to discover, by means of certain papers found in his quarters, that he planned to come here tonight and steal what valuables he could lay hands on. Then he would hide them away in my own domicile and one night before the last quarter of the moon, on the eve of the Feast of the Jester, he would slit my throat as I lay sleeping, ransack my meager belongings, and join with the infamous pirate Morbruzzo to plunder all the city of Tardocco, murdering and burning.”

  He lifted the butt of the lance and thrust it sharply into my belly. My knees went water. My gut surged with pain. “As soon as I found these darksome, infernal papers, I hurried here to warn your good minister Chrobius of Falco’s miscreant plans. That is why you were all turned out for the successful capture. The countess will be pleased with your dutiful performance.”

  He turned his back upon me and lifted his voice, which, though still mild in tone, carried with powerful strength. “Look upon him and ware you,” he declaimed. “See what the low taverns and fleshpots of the town have wrought upon a lad too simple to withstand the easiest temptations, too weak to learn a skill, too cowardly of mind to take stock of his own character and embrace proper discipline. Your wise Chrobius proposed that we hang him from the scaffold yonder at the far corner of the wall, but I have persuaded him that certain interrogations must first proceed, for we know not what other designs he hath formed nor which confederates might be leagued w
ith him. We shall lead him back to my house, gentlemen, and put questions to him in such manner that he shall plead with tearful eyes and broken bones to be hanged with all dispatch. Your good captain has offered a detail of men to guard us homeward, and I have gratefully accepted.”

  With this sentence two men fell into rank on either side of me while Astolfo and a shaggy corporal posted themselves before. Then we were off on a dolorously sluggish march out of the compound as the soldiers rattled their weapons in derision. Through the gates we went, over the road through the fields of knee-high grain, and into the highway to Tardocco. The pace became a little brisker, yet still was slow enough that early risers—the farmers carting eatables to market, the night watch returning sleepily homeward, unsteady revelers ceasing their rounds—had a good long view of the sorry spectacle of dejected Falco trudging the streets in soiled and bedraggled motley.

  When we reached Astolfo’s manse he unlocked the gate to the east garden and led us to the springhouse there under the great hemlock. Into that cold, dank space he booted me, wrapped a chain around door-slat and jamb, and secured it with a massive lock.

  “There he’ll cool his senses, gentlemen, and my manservant will come shortly to guard over him. Meantime, let us go into the house and try what the larder might supply to break our fast. I seem to recall a platter of kidney pies and a small keg of new country oat ale.”

  They responded to this invitation with ready good cheer and marched off, Astolfo leading them while whistling a merry martial tune. I heard him say, “I should not be surprised if your generous countess and the sage Chrobius do not reward us handsomely for this morning’s labor.”

  I sat down weakly on the edge of the spring run where jugs of fresh milk, oilskin packets of cheese and butter, and jars of wine were set to cool. As I was rubbing my tender belly and nursing my throbbing noggin, my eye fell upon a basket of woven willow in the corner by my left boot. I dragged it open to disclose a pewter mug, a loaf of black bread, a knuckle of boiled beef, and some table cutlery.