“I see too that this drawing is fresh. You must have come by it recently.”
“He completed it only a sennight past.”
“And the shadow itself is in your possession?”
“It is.”
“I congratulate you. That shadow is a treasure to make any collector proud.”
“Proud, perhaps. But not entirely happy.”
“The reason?”
“I have a great, an overweening, desire to know what woman cast this shadow and where she is.”
“Did not your purveyor tell you these things?”
“He did not know, for the one he got it from did not. It is possible that it passed through many hands before it came into mine.”
Astolfo stepped forward and leaned in for a closer view of the drawing. “Perhaps. It is difficult to tell from a drawing. If I were to see the original—”
Rutilius said, “Before I chance showing the property I shall need to know if you accept my commission and what your terms may be.”
“You wish me to find out about the person who cast the shadow?”
“I want you to find her, the woman herself, and tell me who and what and where she is.”
“I can accept your tender only provisionally,” Astolfo said, “because I cannot foresee what may be involved. A tedious, long search might be necessary, and might well prove fruitless.”
“True enough. Yet you are the most experienced hound in the kennel to set upon the trace. Your renown must have been well earned. And you should be fitly rewarded.”
“Provisionally, then—yes. Let us see the original. Then I may say more.”
* * *
Ser Rutilius unlocked the heavy door with a key he kept in his sleeve and we entered.
In this other smaller salon that opened off the collection room, I watched Astolfo to try to discern how he judged the way in which Rutilius tended his shadows. Many collectors and dealers believe that shadows should be put away in secret recesses—closets, armoires, and cellars—so that the surrounding darkness might keep them fresh. But darkness drains them of vitality, gradually absorbing a little of their natural vigor. A dim light is best, light that is not a steady glow but a fluctuating or flickering convergence of beams. These varying conditions keep the shades exercised, furnish them tone, and lend them suppleness. Their odors keep cleaner in a light like that of an overcast morning, and their edges are less likely to lose definition than if they are stored away in some dank hole.
For his most dearly prized shadow Ser Rutilius had ordered the construction of a special cabinet. It was a hand taller than myself and its glass sides enclosed an array of lightly smoked mirrors, together with bright ones, wherein the shadow floated in an ever-changing, vague light. These mirrors revolved slowly by means of a clockwork mechanism attached to the side of the cabinet. The shadow hung amid their surfaces like the carp wafting in the tiled pool in the foyer.
Astolfo walked three times around this cabinet, leaning this way and that to see the different angles. I could tell that he was considering how he might improve the construction of our storage mirrors in the manse. I noted too that his gaze often left the glass box and its shadow to take in Ser Rutilius.
The baron must have looked upon this sight some hundreds of times, yet now he stood transfixed, again devouring it with his eyes. He had hooked his thumbs into his brocaded linen sash and his fingers played restlessly, hungrily, upon the band of cloth.
Ah …
It drifted there in ineffable beauty. There was about it such refinement and grace, such a lilting freedom, that it lightened the heart. Astolfo has described some of the most beautiful of shadows as being music, and, to speak in that vein, this one was a cool, clear soprano aria of purest tone. I was not so deeply enamored of it as our host; my taste is for the darker shade, the more satinlike texture, and the deeper fabric. But for those who prefer the shadow that verges on the edge of disappearance, an image that is but the whisper-echo of an image, this shade was paragon. And it required some moments well after Astolfo had finished his examination before our host was able to tear himself away.
“Any collector,” Astolfo began, “of the greatest wealth or noblest blood, would consider this shadow his crown jewel.”
“And so for me it is—and more than that,” Rutilius replied.
“Your love for the object has persuaded me,” Astolfo said. “I will accept the commission, as long as I am not bound to guarantee favorable result.”
“And your fee?”
“I cannot tell that yet, but it will not discommode you.”
* * *
In the coach as we rode back to our manse, Astolfo said, “This is to be a delicate business. We must tread gently. Perhaps we shall require from Ser Rutilius a bond for our safety from his hand.”
“Why should he wish to harm us?” I asked.
“Because lovers are madmen and may do violence in a passion. Did you not see how he looked upon the thing? He is in love.”
“With a shadow?”
“In his mind he sees beyond the shadow.”
“How so?”
“He has imagined the woman who shed upon the air so graceful, so lissome, so lyrical a shade, and this picture he has imagined has fastened upon his heart like a kestrel taking a sunfish.”
“You make him out a blushing virgin,” I said, “but someone of his position—”
“A man who has had his fill of women in the flesh, who has tired of their jangle in his ear, their depletion of his purse, their weight upon his loins, may perhaps seek a different and nobler experience with a shadow-woman.”
“The caster is no shadow. She is flesh and bone like the rest of us.”
“Flesh and bone, yes—but not like you and me.”
“How do you mean?”
“What sort of person will cast so delicate a shadow?”
I pondered. “Some saintly lass, maybe. An ascetic student or a devoted temple maiden.”
Astolfo nodded, but his expression was dubious. “Or a prophetess—except that those figures rarely attain to gracefulness and when they do, their grace is in a strongly individual, eccentric mode. The movements of this shadow have a high degree of finesse unavailable to the temperament of the hermit.”
“You speak as if you have formed conclusions as to the identity of this female.”
“A thin conjecture, no more. Let us try to lure the artist who drew the shadow to our dinner table for tomorrow eve.”
“Petrinius? He will not come. He is said to disdain all company but his own.”
“And even with that he is none too pleased. Yet I think he might make an exception for our invitation. At any rate, we shall send it round.”
* * *
The silent, broad-shouldered Mutano ushered Petrinius into the large library where Astolfo and I stood by the great fireplace awaiting his arrival. It was too warm an evening for fire so Astolfo had ordered the hearth-space cleared and had installed small agate flame-sprite statuettes within. From various rooms and corners of the mansion he had brought all his best works of art—paintings, drawings, tapestry screens, ceramic fooleries, ornately bound books—and distributed them around the room. He evidently thought it worth trying to impress our distinguished artist guest.
He even began, after the usual greetings, to make a witty speech of welcome, but Petrinius cut him short. “I came to wolf down your meat and swill your wine and to hear what sort of business you have with me, Astolfo. Let us not waste the hour with rhetorizing.”
He was unperturbed and held Petrinius in one of the mildest of his mild gazes, unruffled by the artist’s calculated gaucherie, a commodity he seemed to possess in abundant store. Petrinius was a short, almost dwarfish man whose gestures fluttered swiftly and jerkily. I could imagine him as a marionette whose strings were manipulated by a palsied puppeteer. He abounded with nervous energy; it crackled from him as from amber rubbed with lynx fur. His fingers twitched, his feet stuttered on the worn carpet. When he spo
ke his words flew like darts, and when he was silent his face betrayed his every thought and impulse in a succession of grimaces. One of the common sobriquets bestowed upon him was “Candleflame,” and he did indeed flicker with a fiery spirit, every motion animated.
“I am pleased that you have come to taste my wine,” Astolfo said. He poured from a dragon-spout flagon a draught of aromatic inky wine for each of us.
Petrinius tossed his portion down his gullet and at once held forth the glass to be filled again.
“I feel no urgency to broach my question,” Astolfo said as he poured the proffered glass to the brim, “for I believe you already know what I wish to ask.”
Again, Petrinius drained the draught with one noisy swallow and put forward the silver-enchased goblet. “This will be in the matter of the drawing commissioned by Ser Plermio Rutilius. Am I correct?”
“You are correct,” Astolfo said. He smiled gently as again he filled the glass.
“I do not think we can content each other. I have no real knowledge of the shadow to impart and the little I do know must come at a cost to you. I believe you already divine what I shall demand.”
“A certain shadow,” Astolfo said, “or, more accurately, a portion of it.”
“Yes.”
“It must be that you are still designing your great mural. What is the title you have given this long-planned masterwork?”
“At present it is called ‘The Dead Who March to Shame the State.’ Tomorrow it may take a different name. What do you offer me for the bit I can tell?”
“Of the shadow of Malaspino a cutting two fingers’ length in breadth. More, if your replies answer to my desire.”
“What, then?”
“Do you think Ser Rutilius says true that he knows nothing of the provenance of that shadow you so brilliantly sketched?”
“Brilliantly? Do not spend your breath upon flattery. I am aware of my capacities. It is in the interest of Rutilius to tell the truth. Why should he deceive you, his hireling, in the matter?”
Even the mean term, hireling, did not discompose Astolfo. “The way of shadow-dealing is as crooked as the shaft of the Great Wain. Did you form any surmises about where it came from?”
“Let us bypass catechism,” Petrinius said brusquely. “These things I know from observing the object itself: It passed through few hands before it came to Rutilius; it is fresh and without wear or soilure; it maintains its essential character. I would think the thief entrusted it to a middleman with Rutilius in mind as the sole buyer.”
“The one who took the shadow was no thief by vocation or the middleman would have gained the name of the caster from him as a means of protecting himself.”
“Of course, of course.” Petrinius waved an impatient hand. “It implies too that the price the middleman obtained was of secondary importance to the taker. He wanted chiefly to be rid of the thing.”
“Yet not from fear, for the shadow is that of a young woman who could offer little harm.”
“Unless she had a lover, brother, or some other protector who would pursue the taker.”
Astolfo nodded. “And yet—”
“And yet sufficient time has passed and no one has appeared. And I have some conceit that the lass might be an outcast or orphan.”
“A slave girl, mayhap?”
“She is no clumsy bumpkin like your man here,” Petrinius said, with a quick contemptuous gesture in my direction. “She has a grace not entirely inherent. She has been cultivated after some fashion.”
“As I thought also.”
“You have thought already all the things I have said to you. Did you call me here merely to annoy me? Lead me to the table. I will eat my fill and depart.” He held out his goblet again.
Astolfo complied, saying, “We shall dine on trout and sorrel, lamb and flageolets shortly. The cook must set his own time to bring us to table. I promise you will not regret his tediousness in the matter.”
“Even the most savory of meals is but fuel for the body’s brazier,” Petrinius said. Then he looked directly into my face and I saw for the first time that his eyes were of different colors, the left an opaque, steely gray, the right a brilliant ice blue. “Has this briar-muncher learned the difference between mutton stew and oat straw? He would seem to be ill fitted for your machinations, Astolfo.”
“Oh, Falco does well enough. He only requires a bit of polish.”
“As does mule flop, but polish never improves its nature.”
“At what weight would you estimate the shadow’s caster?”
“No more than eight stone. She will be right-handed, though in walking she will favor her left side. The bones of her arms and especially of her feet will be prominent, her instep a high arch. She is capable of swift movement and also of holding a set pose for a long while. The carriage of her shoulders is almost military in its steadiness and serves to emphasize a long, graceful neck. Her hands are puzzling to me; sometimes I think them too small for her body, sometimes too large.”
“How was the shadow stolen from her? Forcefully, with a sudden violence? Or slowly and carefully, when she was unaware?”
“Not by violence. And yet not gradually either. The edges are not abrupt, yet neither are they vague in boundary.”
“I will give over three finger-breadths of the shadow of Malaspino. And now we have done with this subject and you may speak at length of the plan of your mural.”
“It is to be dark, gloomy dark, in its center. Only the shadow of an evil man taken from him as he stood upon the gallows will supply the necessary blackness. You were on the scaffold with Malaspino, were you not? I have heard the rumors.”
“Since all excepting myself now are dead, I can affirm them. I bribed one of the hangman’s prentices to keep at home. I wore his robe and the filthy hood he lent. It was his duty to bind the feet of Malaspino just before the trap was sprung, and when I knelt to the bonds, I slipped the shadow away at his boot soles. I had never at that time seen so black a shadow. The doomful poet Edgardo has been using minute parts of it as an admixture to his inkwell for some time now, and his lines grow ever more ominous and sardonic.”
“You allude to his poem ‘Chance,’ of course. ‘Bow down before the daemon of the world—This monstrous god, half idiot and half ape.’”
“And to other poems he judges too bitter for auditors of our generation.”
“Methinks he too much prides himself,” Petrinius said. “His horrors are but apparitions. The ones I portray may be found in council chambers, in courts of law, in the streets of this greasy city. My horrors are the more frightening by far.”
“A point well made. And since your appetite is so keen, let us go in to dinner,” said Astolfo. “My nose tells me the dishes are ready. We must speak more of your great mural.”
He was not loath to do so. Between bold goblets of wine and weighty forkfuls of lamb loin, Petrinius spun out at length his scheme for his beloved project. The name of it kept changing as he warmed to the subject. Sometimes he called it “The Triumphal March of Justice Upon the Contemptible Species”; another time it was “The Furies Well Deserved, or Look Upon Us for What We Are.” It was to be his revenge upon history as he knew it, upon life, regarded more as a crime than an affliction. “There shall appear upon my wall figures who will recognize their shames and wail in anger.”
“’Twill be a most passionate masterpiece.”
“Passion, yes, passion!” Petrinius sputtered fragments of lamb. “I shall put into it all my brimstone heart and all my skills of hand and eye.”
“Will not the images you thus produce work ill upon the actual subjects?” Astolfo asked. “For I have heard it told of Manoni his art was so powerful that when he drew in ill will a person’s likeness, that one fell sick. Some, they say, came near death.”
“Pah.” Petrinius took a generous swallow of wine. “Those are legends merely. Old superstitions. And I am not certain that Manoni deserves all his musty repute. I can show you clumsy passage
s in his best work.”
“So then, it is not true that an artist’s portrayal may alter the condition of his subject? I had always heard otherwise.”
“It is not true, though many of the brotherhood promote the falsity. But of shadows, however, it is a truth. It can come about that the portrait of a shadow can affect the appearance of that shade, for good or for ill.”
“I see. Is it the passion of the artist which effects this result?”
“That is one of the things, but now I perceive you work to worm secrets from me. Yet I am no longer thirsty or hungry and so will depart.”
“Mayn’t we tempt you with one thing more? A sweet wine of the Sunshine Isles? A fresh melon?”
“Useless to squander fine manners on me, Astolfo. I bid you good night.”
* * *
After Petrinius had taken his brusque and tipsy leave, brandishing happily above his head a moleskin packet containing his patch from the shadow of Malaspino, Astolfo proposed that we go into the small library for a last glass to invite slumber. Mutano was already there and sat at his ease by the writing table. A decanter of sherry and three small glasses stood ready.
At first Astolfo and Mutano conferred in one of their finger dialects with which I was unfamiliar and I wondered what their discussion concerned. Astolfo poured and we sipped in a momentary, contemplative silence. Then he turned to me: “What did we discover this evening?”
“That this Petrinius is eager to have his ears boxed,” I said. “His artistry, however estimable on paper and canvas, does not extend to courtesy.”
“Yes, he too referred to you as a cowherd chaff-brain. You are recognized in every place.”
“Under your tutelage I shall become an urbane scholar, a polished wit and silken murmurer of vain compliment,” I said. “You shall yet be proud of your creation.”
My little sally must have caught him unawares, for he paused to consider. “There might be something in this widely held apprehension to your advantage. It is rarely a mistake to appear less able than you are. The more willing others are to think you a fool, the more you should strive to appear so.”
I nodded. His words strengthened my hope that our association might continue for a while. I now counted four years in his service and calculated—or hoped—that four more would establish me in an independent enterprise.
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