'Well, come around to the back of the house, then.' The man withdrew and the window was shut once more.
Kellen gazed at the closed window for a moment, then meekly did as the man said, picking up his discarded tunic—one of his most disreputable—on the way. The man was waiting at the door with a tin bucket and a towel.
'Rinse yourself off and come in. You've done a good day's work so far; I won't have you fainting dead away from hunger before you finish.'
Kellen took the bucket and stepped back to pour its contents over his head and shoulders. The icy shock made him gasp, and he shook his head, toweling his head and chest quickly dry before slipping into his tunic. He followed the man inside, setting the bucket and the damp towel down just inside the door.
'Come—come!' his host urged, more cordially now, and Kellen passed through the kitchen into the room beyond.
It was a parlor, dominated by a large table covered with a white cloth upon which had been set a sizable plain luncheon. His host was seated at the head of the table, and gestured for Kellen to sit beside him.
'My boots—' Kellen began, stopping at the edge of the rug.
'It's only a little mud,' his host said graciously, 'and my girl hasn't enough to do just looking after me. My name is Perulan. And yours?'
'Kellen,' Kellen said, sitting as he'd been bid. Perulan poured him a large beaker of cider, and Kellen drained it thirstily, then, at Perulan's urging, poured himself another, of water this time. He'd gotten very thirsty digging outdoors all morning.
The servant-girl Perulan had mentioned a moment before entered, carrying a large china tureen of soup, and for a while there was silence while Kellen satisfied the hunger honed by several bells of hard labor. There was hot thick vegetable soup, hefty slices of cold mutton, large chunks of golden cheese, and thick slices of warm bread with fresh butter. Perulan watched him eat, a faint approving smile on his face, but restricted himself to no more than his soup and a little cider.
'So, Master Kellen,' he said when Kellen had slowed down a little, 'what do you do when you aren't cleaning out cisterns for… former… writers ?'
'You're that Perulan?' Kellen asked without thinking. He suddenly wished he'd curbed his tongue, for the older man winced, as if Kellen had spoken of something very painful. 'I mean, I'm a Student, Gentlesir Perulan,' he said hastily, trying to remember if it should be 'gentlesir.'
'noble-sir,' or 'lord.'
'I study.'
'Just 'Perulan' if you please, Master Kellen. My family has disowned me long since, and I have no patience with empty honorifics, nor do they have any place between friends. As for study… it can be a broadening thing, if a bit dangerous,' Perulan said. 'You must be careful in your studies, Master Kellen. You might learn things you didn't wish to discover.'
'I know,' Kellen said, sighing. 'Look, I was wondering if you could tell me… do you know how deep that cistern is?'
Perulan had obviously been expecting him to ask something else: his face first showed surprise, then relief. 'I believe it goes down about ten feet. Certainly not much deeper.'
'And… do you know if it feeds into a spring? Or is it solid at the bottom?'
Perulan smiled. 'Quite solid, young Kellen. When I was a young man, and first bought this house, that cistern was still empty. I recall making plans to turn it into a fish pond, or something of the like, but those plans, like so many others I made as a young man, came to naught. But I think it best if you fill it in now, or people will simply come and throw more garbage into it.'
'That's what I plan to do,' Kellen said, relieved to have Perulan fall in so easily with his own plans. 'It needs doing.'
AFTER lunch, he worked for a few bells more, marking time by the distant echo of the carillons that sounded faintly over the roofs of the City, for the nearest bell tower was several streets away, and had not paid its bell tax in some time. He would have continued working far longer, but Perulan called him back into the house and insisted on giving him tea before sending him home for the day. It occurred to Kellen that the old man must be lonely, and he wondered if Perulan might be the source of information the Wild Magic had sent him to.
He wondered about that all the next day as well, while shoveling smelly black muck out of the cistern. From somewhere, Perulan had provided a bucket and wheelbarrow for his use: Kellen would fill the bucket, use it to fill the barrow, wheel the barrow to the back of the lot, and dump the contents into an ever-growing, stinking pile. Maybe the sun would dry the sludge out into something he could use. Maybe he could dig it into the ground and bury it when he dug up fresh earth to fill in the cistern.
