Surprisingly soon the blackbirds called through the wood, and Ramon Alonzo saw that the night had passed.
That day as Ramon Alonzo sat at his work his mind was full of his plans to rescue the shadow, yet he worked hard none the less, for he thought to be a better match for the powers of the magician when he knew at least one of his mysteries. He felt at first a momentary compunction at thus arming himself with one of his adversary’s weapons, but considered that the Master was getting his price. Indeed the gloomy room seemed unmistakably lighter than it had been the day before, and the thought came to Ramon Alonzo that this slight brightness, if brightness it were, might be some of the light that was gone from his own eyes, with which the magician might be lighting his room. Yet not for this brightness could he see among the dim shapes on the floor, under cobwebs, behind the crocodiles, any sign of such a box as seemed likely to hold a shadow. So he bided his time and learned the mystery all day, and the Master taught him well.
That day he sought out the charwoman again, who was scrubbing still at the stone.
“Anemone,” he said, “how shall I know the box in which he has hidden your shadow?”
“It is long and thin,” she said.
Then she shook her head and went on with the scrubbing, for she despaired of him ever finding her shadow. He would not consult her despair, but went away to build plan after plan of his own. And next day he discerned more closely; but even if the room were again a little brighter he could not distinguish such a box as she said amongst the lumber that ran all round the wainscot; the gloom on the floor was still too thick, and there were too many crocodiles.
He worked hard during those days, and soon was able to read the short words that had only one syllable; and still he worked on to unravel the whole of that mystery, and lesser wonders gradually became clear to him from things the magician said or from what he learned from Anemone: he learned how his food was baked by imps at a fire in the wood, little creatures of two feet high that could gambol and jump prodigiously; and he knew how the Hindu chants that haunted the air above the magician’s house had been attracted from India, a wonder signifying little to us, who can hear those chants in Europe at the very moment men sing them upon the Ganges, but curious at that time, even though it took many years to lure them from India; so that all the songs that Ramon Alonzo heard had been sung in youth by folk now withered with age, or by men and women long gathered to Indian tombs. He learned that the Master’s gratitude to his grandfather was genuine; and yet he thought he taught him the mystery of reading not so much from gratitude as from a desire to lure him to further studies, and so to further fees, luring him on and on till he got his shadow!
And so the days went by; and now to read the words of only one syllable needed no more than a glance, while the many-syllabled words gave up their mysteries after little more than a brief examination; till it seemed to Ramon Alonzo that the past and the dead no longer held secrets from him. In such a mood he sought avidly for writing, beyond the big black script in the Master’s book, for he yearned to solve his own mysteries; but book there was none in the house, outside the gloomy room that was sacred to magic. And then one day as he worked at some great four-syllabled word, there came a timid knock on the door to the wood, and the Master passing out of his sacred room like a great black shadow driven along dim walls by a draught, came with long strides to his door. And there was one Peter who worked in the garden of the Tower and Rocky Forest (sweeping the leaves in autumn and trimming the hedge in spring), with a letter for Ramon Alonzo from his father. And with stammered apologies, and even tears, for thus disturbing his door, he handed the parchment at arm’s length to the magician.
VI
There Is Talk of Gulvarez
To the Tower beside the forest rumour came seldom, for it was the last house that stood in the open lands; on the one side the forest cut it off entirely from converse with other folk, on the other only the strongest rumours that blew over the fields of men ever came so far as the Tower. But many rumours from over the fields were reaching the Tower now, and every one of them brought the name of Gulvarez.
Gulvarez was a small squire of meagre lands, twelve miles away from the Tower, where he dwelt in a rude castle and kept two men-at-arms. They knew his name at the Tower and knew that his pigs came sometimes to market at Aragona, and that their price was good, for the pigs of Gulvarez were noted.
But now they heard that the Duke of Shadow Valley, being upon a journey, would rest a night at his castle with Gulvarez. Nor did this rumour fade, as such often did, that came so far over the fields, but others came to verify it. They told how the Duke had sent messengers to Gulvarez, praying him to receive him in ten days’ time, when he would pass that way on his homeward journey.
This was that very potent Magnifico, the second Duke of Shadow Valley, of whose illustrious father some tale was told in the Chronicles of Rodriguez. He ruled over all those leafy lands that of late were held
