Страница 25 из 66
I bowed as I had been taught in the Matachin Tower and told him my name and who had sent me.
Then I said, “And are you, sieur, the anchorite of the Last House?”
He nodded. “I am the last man here. You may call me Ash.”
He stood to one side, indicating that I should enter, then led me to a room at the rear of the house, where a wide window overlooked the valley from which I had climbed the night before. There were wooden chairs there and a wooden table. Metal chests, dully gleaming in the candlelight, rested in the comers and in the angles between floor and walls.
“You must pardon the poor appearance of this place,” he said. “It is here that I receive company, but I have so little company that I have begun to use it as a storeroom.”
“When one lives alone in such a lonely spot, it is well to seem poor. Master Ash. This room, however, does not.”
I had not thought that face capable of smiling, yet he smiled. “You wish to see my treasures? Look.”
He rose and opened a chest, holding the candle so that it lit the interior. There were square loaves of hard bread and packages of Impressed figs. Seeing my expression he asked, “Are you hungry? There is no spell upon this food, if you are fearful of such things.
I was ashamed, because I had carried food for the journey and still had some left for the return; but I said, “I would like some of that bread, if you can spare it.”
He gave me half a loaf already cut (and with a very sharp knife), cheese wrapped in silver paper, and dry yellow wine.
“Ma
“Rather she believes that I can help you. Master Ash. The armies of the Commonwealth are in retreat, and soon the battle will overwhelm all this part of the country, and after die battle, the Ascians.”
He smiled again. “The men without shadows. It is one of those names, of which there are many, that are in error and yet perfectly correct. What would you think if an Ascian told you he really cast no shadow?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“It is an old story. Do you like old stories? Ah, I see a light in your eyes, and I wish I could tell it better. You call your enemies Ascians, which of course is not what they call themselves, because your fathers believed they came from the waist of Urth, where the sun is precisely overhead at noon. The truth is that their home is much farther north. Yet Ascians they are. In a fable made in the earliest morning of our race, a man sold his shadow and found himself driven out everywhere he went. No one would believe that he was human.”
Sipping wine, I thought of the Ascian prisoner whose cot had stood beside my own. “Did this man ever regain his shadow. Master Ash?”
“No. But for a time he travelled with a man who had no reflection.”
Master Ash fell silent. Then he said, “Ma
I said, “Perhaps it would be possible for you to come with me and reassure the Chatelaine.”
“That I ca
Again I saw his faint smile, just such a smile as a carving of ivory might make when the motion of a torch altered the shadow of its lips. “I had hoped to have some news of the world from you,” he said.
“But I see that you are weary. Come with me when you have finished eating. I will show you to your bed.”
“I have no courtly ma
“The study of war has always seemed to me the least interesting part of history. Even so, there are certain patterns. When one side in a long war shows sudden strength, it is usually for one of three reasons. The first is that it has formed some new alliance. Do the soldiers of these new armies differ in any way from those in the old?”
Yes,” I said. “I have heard that they are younger and on the whole less strong. And there are more women among them.”
“No differences in tongue or dress?” I shook my head.
“Then for the present at least we can dismiss an alliance. The second possibility would be the termination of another war, fought elsewhere. If that were so, the reinforcements would be veterans. You say they are not, thus only the third remains. For some reason your foes have need of an immediate victory and are straining every limb.”
I had finished the bread, but I was truly curious by now. “Why should that be?”
“Without knowing more than I do, I ca
“You extend hope at one moment and snatch it away at the next”
“Not I, but history. Have you yourself been at the front?” I shook my head.
“That is well. In many respects, the more a man sees of war the less he knows of it. How stand the people of your Commonwealth? Are they united behind their Autarch? Or has the war so worn them that they shout for peace?”
I laughed at that, and all the old bitterness that had helped draw me to Vodalus came rushing back.
“Unite? Shout? I know that you have isolated yourself. Master, to fix your mind on higher things, but I would not have thought any man could know so little of the land in which he lives Careerists, mercenaries, and young would-be adventurers fight the war. A hundred leagues south it is less than a rumor, outside the House Absolute.’
Master Ash pursed his lips. “Your Commonwealth is stronger than I would have believed, then. No wonder your foes are in despair.”
“If that is strength, may the All Merciful preserve us from weakness. Master Ash, the front may collapse at any time. It would be wise for you to come with me to a safer place.”
He appeared not to have heard. “If Erebus and Abaia and the rest enter the field themselves, it will be a new struggle. If and when. Interesting. But you are tired. Come with me. I will show you your bed and the high matters that, as you said a moment ago, I came here to study.”
We ascended two flights and entered a room that must have been the one in which I had seen a light the evening before. It was a wide chamber of many windows, and it occupied the entire story. There were machines there, but they were smaller and fewer than those I had seen in Baldanders’s castle, and there were tables too, and papers, and many books, and near the centre a narrow bed.
“Here I nap,” Master Ash explained, “when my work will not let me retire. It is not large for a man of your frame, but I think you will find it comfortable.”