"Very well," said the jester with a laugh. "And now, since we are quite alone, why do you, an honest man, pretend to be the fellow of that rascally clerk?"
Alan always met an emergency coolly. "I did not know the country or the language," he said, "and I took this way of reaching Goslar in the hope of learning the truth about one Archiater of Byzantium."
The jester"s high cackling laughter broke in. "Truth from a fool!" he shrilled. "Oh, the wisdom of those who are not fools is past understanding! Why do you rake those ashes?"
"I have read some of his writings," Alan went on undisturbed, "and if there should be more--anywhere--I would risk much for the sake of them."
Stefano shook his head mockingly, and the bells mocked with him. "You English are mad after gold. They say here that Archiater sold his soul for his knowledge."
"That is child"s prattle," said the young man a little impatiently. "Gold is all very well, but a man"s life is in his work, not his wages. If you can tell me nothing of what I seek, I will not trouble you."
The fool clasped one knee in his long crooked white fingers. "You have no wife, I take it."
"I have not thought about it. But that has nothing to do with secrets of the laboratory."
"Heh-heh! Little you know of women. They have everything to do with a secret. But suppose the ma.n.u.scrips are worthless?"
"That is not possible," Alan returned. "The lightest memorandum of such a man has value. It is like a finger-post pointing to treasure. There are writings, then?"
"I said nothing of the sort," retorted Stefano. "I know all about your search for treasure. Your clerk is digging the hills up this very day for fool"s gold. It has the look of gold--yes--but it is copper and brimstone mixed in Satan"s crucible--fool"s gold and no more. Neither you nor he will get any true gold out of that mine."
"I tell you," said Alan in sharp earnest, "that I came here with him for convenience, not for treasure. A friend to whom I owe much desired to know whether the clerk"s story were true or false. For myself I seek only to know what remains of the work of Archiater, because he was a master whose work should not be lost. There must be those--somewhere--who could go on with it,--if we but knew."
"Aye," chuckled the jester, "if we but knew!" Then leaning forward he caught Alan by the shoulder. "Listen, you young chaser of dreams--what would you give to see what Archiater left? Eh? Would you guard the secret with your life? Eh? They burned the books in the public square--yes--but if there was something that was not a book, what would you do for a sight of that?"
Alan"s heart was pounding with excitement, but his face was unmoved. "I am not good at fencing, Master Stefano. I have been frank with you because I am a.s.sured that you are to be trusted, and I think that you trust me or you would not thus play with me. When you are ready to ask a pledge,--ask it."
"Well and straightly spoken," nodded the jester. "If I reveal to you what I know of this philosopher and his work, you shall pledge yourself to betray nothing, to say nothing--not so much as a hint that I knew him-- whether I am alive or dead."
Now and then in his life Alan had acted from pure blind instinct. This was the blindest, blackest place it had ever led him to. He did not hesitate.
"I promise," he said.
"Very good," said the jester, and drummed thoughtfully upon the table. "We will begin with matters which are not bound up in your promise--for they concern your friend who desires to sift out the clerk"s tale about his mine. This is the true story. Archiater found many metals and minerals in these hills, and made some of his experiments in the ruins of an old pagan temple close to the spot where he discovered a vein of copper. He was half a winter trying out what he found, from a.r.s.enic to zircon. Simon watched him by stealth, tracked him like a beagle, and finally went to one high in authority with the report that he was making secret poisons. This would have been no crime had the poisons been available for practical use. As it was, they felt it safest to have Archiater seized when he came back to the city, and tried as a wizard.
"They ransacked his house and got his books, of course, but Simon had stolen some stray ma.n.u.scripts he found in the old ruin and sold them.
Nothing, however, was gained by the person who paid the money, because the writings were partly in cipher, and the key to the cipher had been burned in the public square."
"Then the Templars may still have the ma.n.u.scripts," mused Alan disconsolately.
"Maybe," the fool said with a little laugh, "but I said there might be something that was not a ma.n.u.script. Come you with me."
Taking a rushlight from a shelf the jester toiled slowly up two flights of winding stairs, and then a short, straight flight of wooden steps,--opened a door, and stood aside to let Alan pa.s.s. The young man paused on the threshold in silent wonder.
The room within was not large, but it glowed from floor to ceiling like some rare work in mosaic or Limoges enamel. The walls were hung with such tapestries as Alan had seen on rare holidays in a cathedral, or in the palace of duke or bishop. They were covered with needlework of silk in all the colors of the rainbow, wrought into graceful interwoven garlands and figures. The cushions of chair and settle, the panels of a screen, the curtains of the latticed windows, displayed still more of this marvelous embroidery, subtly contrasted and harmonized with the coloring of a rich Persian rug upon the floor. The heart of all this glowing, exquisite beauty was a young girl in straight-hanging robes of fine silk and wool, her gleaming bronze hair falling free over her shoulders from a gold fillet, her deep eyes meeting the stranger"s with the sweet frankness of a sheltered, beloved child.
The jester bowed low, his gay fantastic cap in hand, all his fleering, mocking manner changed to a gentle deference.
"Josian, my dear," he said, "this is the young man of whom I sent you word. He has traveled many weary miles to see and speak with Archiater"s daughter."
TO JOSIAN FROM PRISON
I
Sweetheart my daughter: These three days and nights (Stephen has told me) thou dost grieve for me Silently, hour by hour. Yet do not so, My little one, but think what happiness We shared together, and attend thy tasks Diligently as thou "rt ever wont to do.
When thou dost add thy mite of joyous life To the great world, thou art a giver too, Like to the birds who make us glad in spring.
Be happy therefore, little bird, and stay Warm in thy nest upon the housetop high, Where may G.o.d keep thee safe. And so, good-night.
II
Dearest my little one: It hath been ruled That I shall go away to that far land Which I have told thee of. Men call it Death.
Thou knowest that our souls cannot be free Dwelling within these houses of the flesh, Yet for love"s sake we do endure this bondage, As would I gladly if G.o.d willed it so.
Stephen will care for thee as for a daughter,-- Be to him then a daughter; he has none Save thee to love him. For the rest, remember That in the quiet mind the soul sees truth, And I shall speak to thee in our loved books, As in the sunshine and the sound of music, The beauty and the sweetness of the world.
Three kisses give I thee,--brow, eyes, and lips.
Think wisely, and see clearly, and speak gently.
Thy little bed at night shall hold thee safe As mine own arms,--thine elfin needle make Thy little room a bright and lovely bower.
Thy household fairies Rainbow, Lodestone, Flint, Shall do thy will. Thy stars have said to me That thou wilt see far lands and many cities.
Await thy Prince from that enchanted sh.o.r.e Beyond the rainbow"s end, and read with him Thy magic runes. This charge I lay on him That he shall love thee--more than I--farewell!
Thy father, ARCHIATER
To Josian my daughter and sole heiress.
XI
ARCHIATER"S DAUGHTER
Alan was gathering his French for some sort of greeting, when the young girl spoke in a sweet clear voice and in English.
"I am glad that you have come," she said. "Father Stephen says that you desire to hear of my father."
"I came from England in the hope that I might," Alan answered simply.
"I cannot tell you very much of his work," the girl went on, motioning him to a seat, with a quaint grace of gesture. "I was so very tiny, you see, when he went away. He used to tell me stories and sing little songs to me, and teach me to know the flowers and the birds. My mother would have done so, he said, and he wished so far as he could to be both father and mother to me. It seemed to me that he was so, and I loved him--not as dearly as he loved me, because I was so small, but as much as I possibly could. Oh, much more than my nurse, although Maddalena is very dear to me.
"We lived almost always in the city, so that we had not any garden, but we had pots of flowers in the windows, and I used to tend them. Sometimes, when my father went into the woods and the fields, he would take me, and then I was happy; no bird could have been happier. I would weave garlands of flowers, singing my rhymes about colors, and he taught me how to arrange them to make every blossom beautiful in its place.
"When he sat writing at his table he called me his mouse, and if I kept still I had cheese for my dinner with the bread and fruit. But when I forgot and made a noise he would say that the mouse must be caught in a trap, and he would take me in his arms and call Maddalena to carry me away. And sometimes he went out alone, or shut himself in his own room for days and days. Once he came out in the twilight and found me asleep with my head on his threshold. After that he said that I must have work to do while he did his work, and he would have Maddalena teach me the use of the needle. He dyed the silks for me himself in beautiful colors, and when I had done my task he would teach me to read in the big books and the small, and to draw pictures of what I read. Here is one of the very books I used to read with him."
Alan would have thought what he saw was impossible if anything had seemed unbelievable in this elfin girl. She laid open upon the table a finely illuminated copy, in Greek, of Aesop"s Fables, written on vellum in a precise beautiful hand.
"He himself wrote books for me--not many, for he said there were books enough in the world. One was on the nature of herbs, and another was about the stars and their houses in the heavens. But they were lost, those books. Father Stephen brought me others, but they are not the same; my father wrote those only for me." "Had your father no friends?" Alan asked, with a great compa.s.sion for the lonely man bending his genius to make a world for his motherless baby.