'Yes?' The voice was unexpectedly gentle. Somehow, Quill had expected a gravelly rumble or a stentorian shout.
'Um. How do you do? I'm Sarah Quilliam.'
'You are.'
This was a statement. Not a question. Quill wasn't certain whether this was acknowledgment of her existence or mere inattention to the requirements of the spoken word.
'Mr. Blight? I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude, but... where did you get that coat?'
Evan Blight stepped vigorously into the sunlight. The picture on the book jacket had smoothed out the wrinkles in his sun-beaten face and not really done justice to the impressive beard. There were bits of things in it - small sticks, a clot of scrambled egg, and possibly bird droppings, although Quill wasn't certain. Her down coat concealed the rest of him, but Quill had the impression he was thin and wiry. He could have been anywhere from sixty to ninety.
'Ms. Quilliam! Delighted. Delighted!' He grabbed her hand and shook it. His own was hard, muscular, and calloused, the fingernails blunt and dirty. 'The irony implicit in the heart of the Flower series. The sardonic comment on the state of humankind! I saw the 'Chrysler Rose' in a traveling exhibit in New Jersey. Wonderful. Wonderful! There is a strong streak of the primordial male in you, Ms. Quilliam. The thrust of brush strokes! The intensity - if I may say so, the masculinity of the color - wonderful! Wonderful!' Quill felt an immediate (and cowardly) impulse to tell Evan Blight she was proud of her breasts and really missed sleeping with Myles McHale. She suppressed these politically incorrect (and socially inappropriate) responses and thanked him, in as hearty a voice as she could manage.
'You have read my Book,' he asserted. 'There could be no other explanation for the quality of your work. How pleasing to see the effects of my own small efforts to stem the tide of corruption of our basic, most natural drives.'
Quill, who had recently read a most interesting book on the way that men verbally dominate social and business conversations, interrupted firmly, loudly, and with a terrific feeling of guilt. 'Mr. Blight?'
'Call me Evan. Not Urban, if you please, which was the highly charged response to a review of my Book by the female reviewer of the San Francisco Chronicle. I was not offended. No, not offended. Was Hannibal offended by the piteous mewings of the Romans when he swept down on Trebia? I think not. Was the Khan himself dismayed by the pleas of the reindeer people as he led the mighty charge against their tents?'
He paused, either for breath or agreement, and Quill said hastily, 'That coat, Mr. Blight. Have you had it long?'
He looked down at himself. 'This coat? A gift of the forest, my dear.' He shrugged himself out of it with a decisive movement. 'But your softer flesh clearly is more in need of it than I. The garment you yourself are wearing must have clothed you as a child.'
'It's my sister's,' said Quill. 'She's shorter than I.' She took the coat, holding it by thumb and forefinger. He was wearing a baggy, hole-at-the-elbows gray cardigan, a knitted vest underneath that the color of a bird's nest, tweed trousers, and a pair of sensible boots. He shivered in the cold air. 'Oh, dear, Mr. Blight. Don't you have a coat of your own?'
'Nature's embrace is all that I need.' Any forensic evidence that might be in the folds of the down was already tainted, and Quill handed it back to him with a resigned sigh. 'Here. Take the coat back and get into the car. I'll turn the heater on.'
Blight accepted the down coat with an intolerant air, although what he was intolerant of, Quill couldn't imagine, since he'd been wearing the coat only moments before. He lowered himself into the passenger seat of the OIds with the tenderness of the arthritic.
'Why don't I drive you around to the front of the Inn so you can go inside?' Quill suggested. 'Then I'm afraid that I will need my coat back, Mr. Blight.'
'I am moving toward a profound Change,' he announced, 'an experience of a unique and perhaps Life Enhancing Kind. The Inn's My Destination.'
'You Bester,' said Quill, who occasionally read science fiction. She curbed her irreverence (but he would speak in capitals!) started the OIds, and backed carefully out of the garage. She pulled into the circular drive leading to the Inn's front door.
'Ah,' said Mr. Blight. 'They await.'
'They sure do,' said Quill, eyeing the crowd outside. 'My gosh. It's all of S. O. A. P. and Alphonse Santini. And Vittorio McIntosh.'
'They are waiting for Me. I am scheduled for an Address. Stop here, please.'
Quill braked. 'An address? You mean a speech?'
'On the link between the generosity of Nature and the generosity of the human spirit.'
Quill thought this through. The crowd of men, seeing Mr. Blight in the passenger seat, began to murmur and shift, like crows in a cornfield. 'Is this a fund-raiser for Alphonse Santini?'
Evan Blight's eyes were deep-set, gray, and, Quill realized, very, very sharp. 'That is very acute of you, my dear. Not what one would expect of the softer sex. Not what one would expect at all.' He maneuvered himself out of the down coat and opened the passenger door. 'I leave you now for whatever may be your Destination.'
'Syracuse,' Quill said absently. 'Channel Seven. My coat, Mr. Blight. Where did - um - nature present this to you?'
'At the base of the Root,' said Blight. 'Near the seed of the tree.'
'Beg pardon?'
He clasped her wrist with strength. 'Each Conclave of Men has a Center. A Totem. A Signal which - er - signifies the heart and thrust of male power. There is one such Totem here. Perhaps more. I will discover that in future.'
