Arcanum (61 page)

He looked between his feet, and saw shapes and whorls embedded there. Some of them looked like snails, some like creatures he’d never seen except frozen in the smoothed, sawn rock. How did that happen? How did living animals end up trapped in something so permanent?

“Master Thaler?” Sophia’s hand was on his shoulder. “Have some water, please. You look terrible.”

He grimaced and tried to straighten up. “I assure you, Mistress, I am in rude health.”

“You can assure me all you like.” She motioned to Wess for a chair. “I’m inclined to believe the evidence of my eyes.”

“Which, it appears, do not radiate light as the Greeks suggested.”

“Didn’t Euclid disagree with Plato?” Sophia forced him down into the chair. “Though it was all forms with him.”

“Oh, I think they were probably both wrong.” He took the cup of water from her and drained it. Beer would have been nicer; the water tasted a little odd. “Almost everything we know is wrong.”

“Almost?”

“Trying to work out which parts are true is going to be a lifetime’s work.” Thaler handed the cup back, smacking his lips. He tested the ground under his feet. It neither shook nor rattled. Perhaps he should only undertake climbing again as a last resort. “You said something about books?”

“First, Master Thaler, the sefer?”

He had enough energy left to raise an eyebrow. “You’re not still going on about those, are you?”

She pointed to the long table where she’d placed a pile of folios. “I’ll even write the letter of authorisation for you. Frederik, this is important. If you want Jewish men to help you in here, you’re going to have to give them up.”

Thaler sighed. “Very well.” He dragged himself upright and walked the few feet to the table, where he sat down again. Sophia gathered ink, pen and parchment, and started to scratch out German words.

He watched her for a while – she had a good penstroke and wrote more evenly and cleanly than many a librarian – and then turned his attention to the returned books.

Speaking of Plato, there was a copy of
The Republic
among them: he heaved it down in front of him and checked it for damage. He turned the pages carefully, then looked down the spine. There was a fine copy, also, of the
Commentaries on the Gallic War
. Both books together would have been the start of a good private library, Greek and Latin. Of course, his library had several copies of both, and Thaler began to see a pattern: Thomm had only taken books that were duplicated. The master librarian’s attitude to his former colleague softened just a little.

“Ah, Mr Thomm. If only you could have kept it in your breeks.”

“Sorry, Master Thaler?” murmured Sophia, not looking up.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He reached for the third book, a much smaller volume, almost duodecimo in size. Looking first at the cover, he then opened it to peer at the title page.

She must have felt him stiffen. “What?”

“This book. Where did it come from?”

She glanced over. “That’s the one my father received instead of
On the Balance
. He clearly doesn’t want anything to do with it, so I brought it to you.”

Thaler slid it across to her. “Can you read it?”

She put down her pen and held the page closer to the lantern. “It’s in Persian. It says, ah,
Balance of Wisdom
. Yes, that’s right. Not
On the Balance
at all. There, it might have even been an honest mistake.” She ran her finger right to left across the curved lines and uprights. “Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham. That’s the author. You seem very interested in a book you can’t read.”

“The frontispiece,” said Thaler, “look at the picture. There is a man, presumably this al-Haytham, at the top of a tower. Can you see what he’s doing?”

She leant in very close. “He’s dropping things. Spheres. You can see some of them on the ground at the bottom.”

Thaler pointed to dotted lines proceeding from the man’s hands. “And these objects here are those same spheres in flight. They get progressively further apart. Is that what happens?”

Sophia looked up at the gallery from which Thaler had thrown the lunch-pails off the edge. “It might be.”

He took the book back and turned several pages until there was a diagram. It seemed to be of a large ball of fire surrounded by concentric circles, to which single smaller circles were attached.

“And what’s this?”

“I can’t tell without reading it.”

“Or this?” The same ball of fire was juxtaposed with stars, but, without being able to read the text, he didn’t know what it meant.

“Frederik, calm down. I’m not that good at Persian, but my father is an expert. When he gets here, he can read some to you. But remember, this isn’t what you’re supposed to be doing: you should be cataloguing, working out what we have, separating them into subjects.” She pried the book out of his hand. “Where would you put this?”

“I don’t know.” He was angry, with her, with this long-dead al-Haytham, with himself for having spent his entire life believing the explanations of Greek philosophers. “Astronomy?”

“Then put it in the catalogue. Shelve it with the other astronomy books. That’s where it’ll be when you need it.” Sophia picked up her pen again, but only after moving the Persian book to her far side, out of Thaler’s reach.

While they’d been talking – arguing – the library had filled up with people. Workmen were laying siege to the lowest ladder on the tower, and librarians were carrying piles of books in their arms, both away from and towards the table, loading and unloading barrows with quiet efficiency. Around the table itself, the more senior librarians had taken their seats, and the cataloguing had already begun.

Up above, out on the roof and out of sight, skilled hands assaulted the cover of the oculus. All of a sudden, what had been a tiny hole became a fist-sized space, which in turn widened out rapidly.

Light, natural light, poured in like a flood.

Everyone stopped and looked up, including Thaler. The effect was startling, eye-watering. A bright oval struck the side of the dome, and partially illuminated everything. The lanterns they were using looked dimmer, and the library larger and more solid.

Sophia smiled. “Vayomer elohim yehi or.”

Thaler didn’t ask for a translation, because he was already thinking again about the mirrors they’d need to put up.

Big mirrors.

The first thing Büber saw when he opened the door in the morning was the boy’s face wearing an expression of pugnacious desperation. He almost closed the door again in the hope that it would go away, but no, fuck it. Why should he?

He was hungry, and needed something to eat. The horse was catered for; there was probably only so much bulky animal feed that the townspeople could carry with them, and they’d rightly surmised there’d be grass lower down the valley. Human food? Not so much.

He went back into the stable for his crossbow, and the quiver of bolts, and strapped on his sword, making sure his knife was on his belt too. All that effort for one kid. He dragged the door mostly shut behind him and stalked down the narrow street, all too aware that he had a shadow.

Büber went back to the same tavern on the corner of the market square. He poured himself a beer and let it settle while he went through to the back room. There wasn’t much: pickled eggs, pickled vegetables, a jar of what looked like boiled fruit. The shelves were unsurprisingly empty. Certainly no sausage, or sauerkraut. Nor, apparently, plates.

He sat in the morning sunshine, behind the dusty windows, with his open jars and ate his fill. He’d not had to hunt or forage for it, so that even though it was mostly disagreeable stuff that was still hanging around after a long, hard winter, he didn’t mind. The beer helped, too.

All the while, he was watched.

Perhaps this was a tactic the boy used often, standing there and staring but not crossing that thin line between being a pain in the arse and an outright criminal. Even this far up into the mountains, outside of any palatinate’s control, people had a code of law and they stuck to it. No barbarians here.

It was meant to be intimidating, but it didn’t stir Büber to either fear or anger. A little while longer, and he’d be gone. He finished up, wiped his hands on his breeks and fixed the stoppers back on the jars.

The boy followed him all the way back to the livery. Büber left the doors wide open while he fitted the saddle and fastened the bridle. He unhooked his weapons and tied them on, then put the saddlebags over the patient beast’s back.

He was ready, and he’d not had to exchange a single word. One last look around, to make sure he hadn’t left anything, one last pat of his pocket to make sure his purse and shell bracelet were still there.

They were, and there was no reason to stay a moment longer. He led the horse out and they walked side by side up the alley to the space behind the gatehouse.

The boy, from following him, darted in front and stood between him and the open gate, the bridge visible beyond.

“You can’t just leave.”

Büber considered his options. “Out of the way.”

“You have to take me with you.”

“No, I don’t. Now, get out of the fucking way, before I make you.”

The boy hopped from foot to foot, the cut on his leg now hidden behind a clean pair of breeks. “Take me with you, or…”

“Or what? You’re no use to me, boy. You’re too stupid to learn that what you want isn’t what you need.” He mounted up, putting his foot in the stirrup and heaving himself onto the saddle. “This isn’t some sort of fairytale that mothers tell their children, complete with happy ending. Do you know why that is?”

“N … no,” the boy stammered.

“Because all the fairies are fucking dead, and you’re a complete shit. You want to be king of Ennsbruck, the big man in town? Well, you are, until a bigger, uglier shit wants to take it from you. Good luck.”

He dug his heels in, and the horse trotted forward. The boy had to dodge aside or get trampled. A moment of shadow as he passed under the gatehouse, and then he was on the bridge. The mountains were ahead of him, behind him, and to his left.

People. That was the problem. Maybe he’d have better luck with the dwarves.

Across the bridge, left towards the pass. Ennsbruck’s black walls slowly receded, and he began to relax, just a little. He looked around once, to make sure. The road behind him was empty.

Then it was lost in the trees, and his path went onwards. After a while, he dismounted and walked, his long legs eating up mile marker after mile marker. He wasn’t concentrating on anything but each foot fall, but he still heard the racket ahead while he was far off, the sound of many voices all shouting at once.

He stopped, listened, and decided they were stationary. Leading his horse off the path again, he tied it to a tree, and stalked off, weapons ready to see who it was.

They were trying to light a fire, and arguing over the best way of doing so. Getting a flame didn’t seem to be a problem – from his hiding place, Büber could see sparks and puffs of white smoke – but nothing to show that they’d caught so much as a pile of kindling alight.

The men themselves looked odd. Not just because of what they wore, which seemed ill-fitting, but because they all had a way of moving that made them look drunk. They stumbled, dropped things, and were all talking at the tops of their voices, growling and barking orders at each other that none paid the slightest attention to.

There was an awful lot of beard going on, too. Germans didn’t do beards: neither did the Franks, and the effete Italians shaved all the time.

Then the penny dropped, and Büber eased himself from cover.

His sudden appearance made the men scurry for their discarded packs: every one of them had an axe or a hammer. Büber slowed down and held his hands out wide. No, he wasn’t going to put down his sword or his bow, but he wasn’t going to use them unless he had to.

He approached them slowly. They were all short, some well below his shoulder, but he expected that. They were now silent, as was he. He wasn’t at all sure they’d understand him if he spoke. His actions would have to speak for him.

They parted and stood around him as he crouched down next to their lamentable attempt at a fire. He tutted, and sorted through the wood, discarding the green timber and the stuff that was thoroughly rotten, until only the dry wood remained. Breaking it into smaller lengths, he piled it up, leaving a hole in its centre.

That, he filled with crumbling bark and dry leaves from under the canopy.

Caught up in the ritual of fire-making, he pulled out his knife. Hands stiffened around axe-hafts, until he picked up one of the sticks and started to cut it into curls with strong, steady strokes of the knife-blade.

He was done. His own flint was back in his saddlebags, so he mimed to his audience the sharp, short motions of raising a spark. One of them reached into a pocket and handed him a small tin and a rough metal rod.

Büber wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. He popped the lid of the tin off with a thumb and sniffed the dark grey powder inside. It smelt of stone. The rod was hard, and he scraped his knife across it. Fat orange stars, brighter than the day, crackled and smoked thin trails through the air.

He didn’t want to look stupid any more than his hosts did, so he did what he thought was best: put a generous pinch of powder on the kindling and tried to light it with sparks from the rod.

The result was slightly more enthusiastic than he’d anticipated, and the hairs on the backs of his hands crisped with the wash of heat as a puff of acrid, sulphurous smoke billowed out.

He coughed, and kept on coughing, even while he remembered to feed the nascent fire with sticks and more bark. Then it caught properly, a tentative tongue of fire licking out and tasting the broken branches above.

A little longer, and he was able to sit back on his haunches and let the flames do the rest. Büber took a moment to study the onlookers: there were as many of them as he used to have fingers – shaggy haired, bearded men, alternately staring at the fire and scowling at each other.