So when an old man with a v-parted beard and a glass eye appeared at his door the next morning, urging him to gather his books and join him in his father’s old wagon, Isaac understood.
And when the judge took those books, having won them in a game of blackjack, Isaac understood.
And when the banker took the horse and wagon, having won them in a game of gin rummy, Isaac understood.
And when the old man led him onto this godforsaken isle and told the boy that he had won him in a game of Go Fish, Isaac understood.
He understood, too, that there was no use turning back. He understood that he was expected to nod and smile and act polite and so he nodded and smiled and acted as polite as he could.
“You are my new apprentice,” said the old man. “And I your new master. My knowledge is vast; my sight is great. I have looked into the past. I have foretold the future. There is much I can teach you, my boy, and I will teach you all of it. Oh, and the vanity needs dusting.”
So he dusted the vanity. An apprentice, he learned, was just a nicer word for a servant. (In turn, just a nicer word for a slave.)
For twelve years, Isaac dusted and wiped and spit-shined and hoped that his father would be along, any minute now, really, to rescue him.
Twelve years later, he was still hoping.
So while he might not look it at first, Isaac Edmundson was well on his way to being the unluckiest man in the whole wide world.
His luck, astoundingly, had just turned for the worst.
“You’re doing what?”
“Taking a trip. A holiday. A well-deserved rest. Vacationing. Disappearing. Playing hooky. Climbing every mountain and searching every path. I am, my boy,” he said again, “taking the day off.”
“But you can’t! You’re the Oracle of Blintz!” is what Isaac said.
But you can’t! Not before me! is what Isaac was thinking.
“And I will still be the Oracle of Blintz the day after tomorrow.”
“But what shall I tell the customers?”
“That even an Oracle needs a little time to sit back and reflect,” said the Oracle, smiling. It unnerved Isaac; when was the last time he had seen his master smile? “Besides, when it comes to matters of life and death, what difference is one more day?”
Isaac didn’t bother to point out that it was a whole lot of a difference. Instead, he asked again, “But what shall I tell them?”
“I hear the mackerels are jumping this time of year.”
“I meant—that’s not what I meant. You might not have noticed,” he said through gritted teeth, “but I can’t tell the future.”
“Of course you can. Well, a future, at least.”
“And your oh-so-sacred advice?” People came from far and wide seeking advice, which was just a nicer word for being told what to do. “I haven’t been farther than the mouth of this cave since I was five years old! What wisdom could I possibly dispense to match yours, O’ Oracle?”
The Oracle stared evenly at Isaac over his mustache in a way that said he’d overstepped his bounds. Isaac slumped and withdrew to the shadows, but he was burning inside.
Finally, though, the Oracle’s beards relaxed. “You don’t have to be wise, my boy,” he said. “You just have to be wiser than everyone else in the room.
“Now, could you fetch me a new cup of tea? This one’s a little bleak.”
And that was that.
In Isaac’s mind, however, that was not that. Not a little bit.
As he stared up at the ceiling of the cave that night, he started thinking again. He thought once more about his father’s ill-fated hand. He thought about the dips and curves of a bed he had slept in for the last twelve years. (Somehow, the bed, which had housed a young child, seemed built to the exact proportions of adult-sized Isaac. Almost as if he knew….) He thought about stains and scuffs and water damage. Most of all, he thought about his freedom.
The thought danced, unbidden at first, to the forefront of his mind. Once loosed, it could not be restrained.
Freedom. It had a kind of softness to it, didn’t it? Not like the hollow ring of apprenticeship, the sawing of binds, the roughness of a broom atop bedrock.
He thought about it often, but never very seriously. Where would he go? His mother was long dead. (Marrying one unlucky man and siring another did not bode well for your future.) He had no friends. He had seen no woman, either, except for the bust of Eugenia the Regular. He had no skills, other than washing dishes. He could not run a man through with his own sword. He could not snap a neck barehanded. He could not even, evidently, make a halfway cheerful cup of tea.
His thoughts turned then, naturally, to the master. All in all, the oracle was as good a master as one could hope for, though he smelled a bit of old peppermints and held the end of Isaac’s metaphorical leash.
There it was, thought Isaac.
As long as he still called another man ‘master,’ as long as he bent his knee to pick lichen out of the kitchen table, as long as he remained Isaac, son of Edmund, he could never be happy. He could never be free.
So it was decided.
Tomorrow, when the Oracle took his day off, his apprentice would do the same.
“Farewell, Master,” he said early the next morning. The sun had barely broken the horizon, but the Oracle’s walking stick and flies sat by the mouth of the cave. They had dined on shellfish and kelp. (They always dined on shellfish and kelp.) They were sipping tea. All preparations had been made, all goodbyes been said.
All that is, except this one.
“You seem excited, my boy,” said the Oracle, raising a feathery white brow.
“Only for you, Master,” said Isaac. “You deserve this.”
“I’m glad to see you’ve come around.”
“I did not mean to be so short with you last night—I mean—”
But he didn’t know what else to say. The Oracle reached over and patted his hand. “You’ll do fine, my boy. And if anyone does stop by, just remember this—a golden crown upon his head.”
“Master?”
“Everybody loves a king. Except a king, that is,” he added as an afterthought.
“The hour is growing late,” said Isaac, even though nothing of the sort was true. Still, the Oracle collected his walking stick and flies and limped forward.
Mackerel were slapping their scaled flukes against his gut now.
“Goodbye, Master,” he said as the Oracle neared the mouth of the cave, and Isaac looked once more and once forever at the old man with the v-parted beard and one glass eye. He had an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach. Déjà vu, they called it.
The Oracle looked back at him with the faintest of smiles.
“Watch the loom,” was all he said.
Yes, the loom, Isaac thought bitterly, the loom which stitched the very fabric of fate. This might be the last parting of master and apprentice, but all he cared about was some old machine. Didn’t he know?
What was he thinking? He was the Oracle. Of course he knew.
Not that this would stop Isaac. He had it all planned out. Just as soon as the Oracle vanished into spray and sea fog, Isaac would draw the curtains across the mouth of the cave, gather his scant belongings, pilfer a bit of silver and gold, and split. It was a foolproof plan, especially as the Oracle had not yet pointed out any flaws in it.
He watched the Oracle go, slowly at first, then with a bit of spring in his step. Fog clambered onto the land bridge, reached upward, and dragged the Oracle out of sight.
Isaac smiled the widest smile of his seventeen years. The Oracle was gone.
In such cases it was natural to say to oneself that time was of the essence, but he was in no hurry. Freedom unfurled before him like the sea, glossy and calm and full of promise.
First, he threw all the dishes out of the pantry.
Second, he let the teapot boil over.
Third, he tossed cloaks out of the hamper and scarves onto the floor.
Fourth, he stood b
efore the loom, matched it eye-to-eye, and gave it a small but deliberate shove. The loom weaved, wobbled, and toppled over.
Guilt floored him. He glanced away quickly, then hurried into his master’s chambers so he did not have to look at the ruined tapestry any longer.
He was stuffing his pockets with as much gold as he could carry when he first heard it.
It sounded like the scrape of footsteps on rock.
Just a crab, he told himself.
And then he heard it again.
This time it sounded like the murmur of voices amidst the waves.
Just a crab, he told himself. Well, maybe a few crabs. And a sea turtle. And maybe a pod of whales, too.
The din kept rising. He could identify tones and timbres through the morass—and they all sounded distinctly human. They sounded like the kind of distinct human who stands at the checkout counter and says so everyone can hear, “That’s some good service we’ve got here, huh?”
His spine stiffened. The coins slid through his fingers and rolled across the cave floor.
After a minute, he pushed himself up. Quietly, he crept along the walls. The din grew louder and louder. The pit in his stomach burrowed deeper and deeper.
Sunlight announced his error.
He had forgotten to draw the curtains. Instead, the mouth of the cave opened an invitation to any and all.
He looked outside and nearly fainted. There was a line winding across the land bridge onto the mainland. They looked wet, they looked disgruntled, and worst of all, they looked like they were expecting answers from the Oracle of Blintz.
The unfortunate geographical aspect of isles was that there was only one escape route. In this case, Isaac Edmundson found his blocked by a thousand angry customers.
“The Oracle isn’t here!” he tried to shout, but his words were snatched by the sea.
“Go home everybody! Come back tomorrow!” he made to scream, but this time the wind snared his warnings.
Nobody moved.
Isaac ogled the lot of them. What was he supposed to say? Gone fishing? The truth just somehow sounded wrong.
Besides, he did not want to shame the Oracle. Seventeen he might be, but he was still very fond of the old man.
Not even fondness, however, explained the words that finally reached those waiting ears.
“Come forth, ladies and gentlemen. The Oracle is now open for business.”
For the first time ever, Isaac perched on the edge of his master’s armchair. Somehow, it was not as comfortable as he’d always imagined. The cushions bundled up by his thighs and stray threads tickled his ankles.
“Enter,” he squeaked; he shook his head, spat, and tried again. “Enter.”
And so entered the first customer of the day.
Sunlight had long ago branded his face and forearms. His nails were cracked and his boots waterlogged. A bit of net snuck out his back pocket.
A fisherman, guessed Isaac. Right now, his knees were knocking just about as loud as Isaac’s. He squeezed his cap in his hands as he waited.
“O’ Oracle, O’ Oracle.”
Isaac’s jaw had stopped working. He merely bowed his head.
“I was shaving this morning and when I looked down there was blood inside the water.”
The laugh nearly broke loose, but he contained himself. Instead, he smiled and said, “Sorry to tell you, but…”
And then he remembered the Oracle’s words.
“Do you have a son?”
“Aye.”
“A golden crown upon his head.”
And so it went. Browned men came in and out, wringing their hands and smelling vaguely of fish. They spun their tales of woe: a strangled rooster…cows sleeping in the fields…a damaged plum tree branch…
Again and again, he asked—
“Do you have a son?”
Again and again, they answered—
“Aye.”
Again and again—
“A golden crown upon his head.”
He had just issued his thirty-third anointment when he yawned hugely and gestured forward the line. All he wanted was a nap, but the chair was just not that comfortable.
The next two customers entered together, but they were no pair. They split off and headed in opposite directions. They were, in fact, as far away as one can get from another in a very lived-in cave.
“Can I…” he stopped. “…Can I…” he stopped again. He did not know where to look. Finally, he settled on a point somewhere in the middle, which crossed his eyes. He looked quite mad.
He started again. “Can I help you?”
“I certainly hope so,” said the party on the left, who had wedged himself into a bookshelf.
“I just meant…what can I help you with?”
“Aren’t you an oracle?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then should you have to ask?”
To this, Isaac had no answer. The party on the right, however, did.
“Oh, you pompous fool. Do you think the Oracle wants to spend all day worrying about your problems? I imagine he’s got better things to do with his time. I imagine everyone’s got better things to do with their time.”
Isaac smiled gratefully at the party on the right, who was lounging somewhat awkwardly between a frying pan and a rolling pin.
“If you could hurry it up, though. I’d like to stop breathing his air as quick as possible.”
The smile slid from his face. “Right. Well, as I said, can I—”
“Yes, yes, we get it,” said the party on the left, who was now rolling his eyes to full effect. “Let me tell you, then—you can help me a great deal, I believe. You can help me get this thief away from my greens.”
“Your greens?”
“Yes, yes, my greens! Spinach and cabbage and a dozen rows of peas—”
“Yours? YOURS?” The party on the right brandished a spatula. “How dare you call those your peas—”
“They are my peas—”
“No, they’re my peas—”
“Gentlemen, peas—I mean, please!” Isaac waved his hands for silence. “If you’ll both just settle down again and explain what is going on. Some of us aren’t seeing very clearly at the moment.”
“As this crook was saying,” continued the party on the right, “there is a field, a field that this little grubber says somehow resides on his side of the border and not mine—”
“You liar—”
“You phony—”
“You’re neighbors?” asked Isaac, then shook his head. “Yes, I can see that.”
“So, can you tell us?”
“Can I…can I tell you what?”
“Who this field belongs to. I mean, quite obviously, it is the field of my fathers and my fathers’ fathers—”
“—as if it was not watered by the blood of my ancestors—”
They had a way of talking at each other which made Isaac want to hold his head very, very tightly. Finally, he let go and looked dead ahead.
They wanted him to decide who the field belonged to. Him! Isaac Edmundson, the Oracle’s Apprentice. Isaac, who’d never decided anything more difficult than ‘spit or elbow grease?’
He thought long and hard.
Then he said, “Could you share it?”
“No,” said the party on the left.
“Could you split it down the middle?”
“No,” said the party on the right.
“Could you give it away?”
“No!” they said together.
They were standing in front of him, side by side, equally furious. Isaac wanted some more time to think long and hard. But he didn’t have it.
So he thought quickly.
“Do you have a son?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the party on the left.
“And do you have a daughter?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the party on the right.
“Then marry the two and their child shall inherit the field,” he said, clapping his ha
nds together.
For a moment there was silence. Then the party on the left looked at the party on the right. The party on the right looked back. They both looked at Isaac.
And they smiled.
Then the party on the left reached into his pockets and withdrew a handful of silver pieces.
“How can we ever repay you?” he asked.
“Well, this is a start.”
“You have saved our lives,” said the party on the right, who produced a bag of gold coins from inside the folds of his cloak. “And certainly our sanity.”
“So you will go in peas—I mean, peace?”
“Yes!” they said, still beaming at each other.
“I expect an invitation!” he called after them as they took leave. He waved until they had disappeared into the sea spray, then stared at the gold and silver now mingling atop the kitchen table.
He had done it. He had faced a problem and solved it. And it hadn’t gone legs up! Maybe he wasn’t all unluck, after all! Maybe he wasn’t Edmund’s son to the core!
And, he thought as he scooped up the coins, what was the Oracle always mumbling and grumbling about? This job was…well, it was…it was easy-peasey, that’s what it was!
He stretched himself languidly across the Oracle’s armchair and cried, “Next!”
In walked a young woman, hooded, clutching a handkerchief to her chest and glancing around nervously. Eventually, her gaze landed on Isaac.
“Oh,” was all she said.
“Oh?”
“You don’t look like an oracle.”
“Well, I am,” he said.
“But you have two eyes.”
“So I can see twice as well.”
“It’s just…I thought you’d be older and, erm…” her cheeks flushed pink, “…wiser.”
Isaac was at that moment very acutely aware that he was seventeen and looked like a bruised Montgomery Clift, even though no one had ever told him so.
“May I?” she asked, indicating a chair.
“Of course,” he said.
Their fingers brushed. He was now acutely aware that he had not touched another woman in twelve years aside from the bust of Eugenia the Regular. His heart galloped.
Heroes: A Raconteur House Anthology Page 6