… I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved:
therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.
Daniel 9:22-23
Basti awoke with a groan. No sunlight shone through his north-facing window, but his room had lightened enough to suggest the encroaching dawn. He tried to roll over and fall asleep again, but his arm hurt and all he could do was lie on his back, staring at the dark wooden beams of the ceiling. Finally, groaning, he sat up.
The air was painfully cold and the wooden floor was freezing under his bare feet. He pulled a heavy wool blanket around him as he slid out of bed and hurried to the window. He sat on the wooden chest under the windowsill, drawing his feet up beneath him to warm up again.
The rippled glass of his window revealed a narrow outer court and past the iron fence to the forest and peaks beyond. Grey morning light silhouetted bare branches and dark pines against a pale sky. Dry leaves blew haphazardly over the courtyard cobblestones. To his eyes, accustomed to the color and warmth of Italy’s kingdoms, Domagno seemed bleak and forbidding, a tiny country painted in stark black and white.
Basti leaned against the window-frame, cradling his bandaged arm against his chest, and sighed. Sometimes he wondered what he was doing and why he had chosen to do it so far from his family.
He’d left his home in the Kingdom of Napoli after his first master had been killed in a drunken brawl. From Napoli he had wandered north, trying one city after another, constantly seeking another master willing to take him on. And he’d found a few, worked in studios here and there for a time, but the road had seemed to keep beckoning him northwards, and he’d never settled in one place for more than year.
He absently rubbed the small, pale scar on his chin.
The journey had been hard and dangerous, but he’d kept his head down and his manner polite, and he’d tried to join traveling groups whenever possible — pilgrims, merchants, students, anyone who’d let a young stranger walk with them for a few days. Basti had learned a lot on the road, but when he’d seen Danti’s work, he’d fallen in love with the sculpture the way men were supposed to fall in love with women.
A gust of wind rattled the window panes. He frowned, remembering the night before.
“Just a waking dream,” he muttered, shoving his trepidations aside and sliding off the wooden chest.
He swiftly dressed in his simple brown breeches and white stockings, covering himself with an unornamented doublet and giaquetta. Shaking dark hair from his eyes, he made a face at the thin young man reflected back at him and stepped out to look for breakfast.
The hallway was even colder than his room. He paused outside the closed door next to his. Then, steeling himself, he reached out with his good hand and pulled the door open.
A dusty bedroom, just like last night.
He closed the door, shaking his head at his own imagination, and walked downstairs.
Flute music drew him to the great hall on the first floor, just outside the stairs. East-facing windows were flooded with sunlight, gleaming from white walls and bright tapestries and providing much-needed warmth. Basti stopped in a pool of light, basking in the warmth that soaked through his doublet. The stranger he’d seen last night during dinner leaned on a window’s ledge, playing a silver-banded flute.
Not sure he’d been seen, Sebastiano cleared his throat.
The stranger turned and took the flute from his lips. He was somberly dressed in black-patterned velvet, with graying black hair, and his face was still hauntingly familiar.
“Good morning,” Sebastiano said, bowing. The man watched him, unmoving. “I’m Sebastiano da Napoli, Master Altelune’s new apprentice. You must be Herr Hubert Naich, the musician?” He was pleased that the name had returned to him from Araciel brief gloss of the keep’s members.
The stranger nodded once. Dismayed by this cool reception, Basti tried again.
“I’m sorry, but could you tell me where breakfast is served?” he asked. “ I didn’t get much of a chance to look around last night, and I’m a little lost.”
Naich lifted a finger to his throat and mouth and shook his head, then pointed to the right, toward a door in the wall.
“Oh, I … I beg your pardon,” Basti said, heat rising up his cheeks. “Nobody told me….”
The mute made a brushing-away gesture, shrugging. Both were startled when Araciel spoke behind them.
“Good morrow, Herr Naich, Basti. I see ye have met.”
“Good morning, Araciel!” Sebastiano turned, relieved at the interruption. The older apprentice wore a bright blue doublet and rose-colored shirt beneath a modest dark-blue gown that did little to obscure the richness of the clothes beneath. A single sapphire glittered in Araciel’s velvet cap, pinning up a low brim. He has money, Basti realized with a start. Araciel might be an apprentice like him, but that’s as far as their similarities went.
The rest of his greeting died in a surge of self-consciousness.
Naich nodded to the newcomer, his gaze wandering back to the window and the rising sun. Araciel didn’t seem disturbed by the flautist’s vague manner, smiling sunnily at them both.
“Be thee on thy way to break your fast, Basti?” Araciel asked. Basti nodded. “As am I. Shall we go to the table together?”
“Um … yes. Thank you.”
Araciel began walking again, and Basti joined him.
“How be thy arm this morn?”
“It’s feeling better,” Basti lied. In fact, it hurt more than it had the day before — the exertion of climbing Gestern mountain, he was sure. But it wouldn’t do to complain. Danti could still decide to turn him away.
“I be pleased to hear that.” They entered the breakfast room, where they found Albrecht the cook already laying out plates. Araciel paused to gesture. “The dinner rooms be accessible from here by going ’round the rest of the keep, or by crossing through the inner court. The latter, however, be an unfortunate choice come the winter’s snow and chill.”
Basti nodded. He was starting to get a sense of the keep’s layout; a giant, hollow square built around an open inner court, with stair towers at each corner. I’ll take some time today to walk the whole thing, he decided.
“Speaking of snow,” the cook said, “I hope Caterina returns before the snows block off the pass.” He laid down the last place and turned to begin slicing a steaming loaf of fresh bread. Araciel and Basti sat down in the high-backed chairs, the first to the table. Basti wondered if the lord and lady breakfasted with the rest of the household or by themselves.
“Indeed; and it would be well if she returned early enough for her escorts to make their way back home, as well,” Araciel agreed. “As welcome as more winter guests may be, ‘tis unpleasant to find one committed to such a visit due to circumstance rather than volition.”
“Yesterday you were telling me about everyone who was here,” Basti ventured. “I’ve met the lord and lady and their son, and you two, and Master Danti, Master Alrune, and Master Naich. Who else is here?”
“None other,” Araciel replied. “Save Albrecht’s two lads from the village.”
“Nobody else?” Basti hesitated. “I thought I saw … maybe a man wearing a fur-trimmed robe?”
Albrecht looked up from the bread and Basti saw, for a moment, the cook’s gaze meet Araciel’s, as though some silent message were passing between them. He looked from one to the other, waiting.
“No others dwell within the Keep,” Araciel said after a moment. “Though betimes my lord or Master Dietrich might wear such a robe, to stay warm.”
The stranger Basti had met last night was neither of them, he was certain.
“No matter, then,” he said, making note of the almost imperceptible way both men relaxed and turned back to the food. They’re hiding something, he decided. Which suggested that last night’s apparition had been more than just a dream; or, if a dream, a dream that others had shared. But he’d traveled too long and had been a guest in too many strangers’ homes to push a subject others wished to avoid.
“Where’s Master Altelune?” he asked, instead. “I would like to begin work today.”
“Our Danti be a late riser, and doth seldom make the morning meal.”
“Especially when he’s had a jar of wine before bed,” Albrecht muttered. Araciel’s grimace was fleeting.
“Come, Albrecht, thou shalt convey the wrong impression to Basti,” he chided. He looked at Sebastiano. “Master Altelune’s work accomplished in the daylight hours, and his amusement taken in the eve; though he do rise later than the sun, he be no sottish master of ill manner.”
“On the contrary, he’s a sottish master of very commendable manner,” Alrune jibed as he entered. Basti’s eyes widened.
“I would not call him a sot at all,” Araciel said, stiffly. The dwarf grinned at Basti and dropped into a chair. He wore a fool’s motley, mismatched and ill-fitting.
“Of course you wouldn’t, sweet Araciel. You see an angel in Satan himself,” Alrune’s dark eyes gleamed.
Araciel’s expression grew cool.
“I confess it doth at time strain my faculties to see the good in all those who dwell here; and yet I persevere.”
“Your perseverance is an inspiration to us all.” Alrune reached for a slice of bread and cheese. “It’s almost as strong as your ambition.”
Araciel stood, his expression frozen, and looked at Basti. “I pray your pardon; it be time I go to serve my lord and lady.”
“Of course.” Basti looked down at his plate, tempted to flee the breakfast room, himself. “I’ll see you later.”
Sure enough, with Araciel gone, Alrune turned to Basti.
“And you, Neapolitan? Are you ambitious?”
“No.” Basti kept his tone and expression neutral. Several years on the road had taught him how to swallow his pride and avoid giving offense — especially when he was another man’s guest.
“Don’t be a fool! Of course you are.” Alrune crumbled a chunk of cheese. “That’s why you’ve come all the way from the Kingdom of Napoli to Domagno, isn’t it? Because you’re still looking for a master good enough for you?”
“The question is whether I’ll be good enough for my master,” Basti countered, his cheeks flushing at the dwarf’s ridiculous accusations.
Alrune laughed. “Yes, in cosmopolitan Gestern! Not much of a setting for an ambitious man.”
“Then it’s good that I’m not ambitious.”
“Shall we lay a wager as to how long you will stay?” Alrune asked, his eyes lighting.
“No wagering at my table,” Albrecht growled.
Alrune’s answer was cut off as the musician Naich walked in, his steps as silent on the tiled floor as if his shoes were made of silk instead of leather. The flautist picked up a slice of bread and sat.
“Good morning, Naich,” Alrune greeted him. “I hope you slept well.”
The flautist inclined his head, opening a hand and gesturing toward Alrune.
“Oh, yes.” The dwarf grinned. “I always sleep like an angel.”
The flautist began to serve himself, then looked up at Albrecht and swept a hand toward Araciel’s empty chair. The cook eyed Alrune, then sighed and sat.
“Thank you; I think I will. What do you think – is there storm coming?”
Naich shook his head, flicking his fingertips forward. Albrecht looked dolorous.
“Are you sure?” the cook pressed. “It feels like a storm, to me. The snow’s piling up behind those clouds. Any day now, I warrant, any day….”
Basti remembered the cook’s earlier comment.
“You said Caterina had to return soon? Is that the lord and lady’s daughter?”
“Donna Caterina spends the summer in the city with her aunt,” Alrune chuckled to himself. “It’s the perverse streak in her nature that compels her to winter here. Or perhaps she simply prefers to spend time with us when there is nothing and nobody else to interrupt her in the pursuit of her private pleasures.”
Albrecht shot the dwarf a warning look, then turned to Basti. “Yes, she’s their daughter. Their youngest child, sixteen. She’s due back any time now.”
“And at least one of us will be overjoyed to have her near again,” Alrune said, smirking.
“Oh.” Basti hesitated, uncertain how much he should pretend to understand. Alrune’s accusations were getting pointed, but he’d already been warned about the man’s delight in causing trouble. Better to pretend ignorance and keep my eyes open, he decided. “That’s good. I hope she returns soon. Er, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better see if my master is awake. Have a good morning, everyone.”
Stepping into the bright light of the hallway was a relief. He took a deep breath and began making the circuit back to the North Hall, where the stair tower to his bedroom was located. They have secrets, he thought to himself, unhappily. And I don’t think they like each other very much.
How was he going to be able to spend a winter locked in with a bunch of people who fought all the time? He’d been afraid of Danti turning him away, but maybe he should be more afraid of staying. If he hurried, there might still be time for him to get back to a decent-sized town before the roads were all snowed in. Surely he could find some work….
He gave his head a sharp shake, remembering Alrune’s needling words. No, he thought. I’ll be damned before I leave the Keep early and prove that jester right!
“Good morning,” Dietrich said, brushing past him in the hall and then coming to an abrupt halt. The lord’s son turned back to him, giving him a sharp look. “Do you have everything you need, Sebastiano?”
“Yes, thank you, sir.” Basti gave his best bow. Danti’s approval might be necessary for him to stay, but this man was host to both of them. “I’m very grateful to be here.”
“Good.” The young noble regarded him, his blue eyes settling on his bandaged arm. “I’m going to go out to hunt your wolf today.”
“Good luck, sir. I hope you catch him.”
Dietrich nodded, spinning back around and continuing on. Basti trudged up the stairs, holding his aching arm close to his side. He paused at Danti’s door and heard snoring. With nothing else to do, he returned to his own room and began to sketch.
Not much later, Araciel knocked and entered, carrying a fur-lined giaquetta and gown, and leather gloves.
“I did ask my lady an’ we had clothes that might suit thee,” he said, “and she show’d me where her nephews’ old clothing was stored. My lady says thou be most welcome to have the garments, as the boys have long since outgrown them, so if that do meet with your approval, I shall bring them to your room ere we dine this even’.”
“Thank you!” Basti scrambled to his feet, his heart leaping. Warmer clothes would be a godsend in this chilly keep, and such a kind gesture on the part of both Lady Elisabeth and Araciel was welcome. “You don’t need to fetch them to the room for me; I can do that.”
Araciel smiled and held out the garments he’d brought with him. “Can thou ride?”
“A little.” Basti replied. “If the horse is calm.”
“Then dress and come with me, and I shall show thee about the mountain this morn.”
Basti drew the giaquetta on over his doublet, grateful for the extra layer. It was a little large on him, but he was used to that, from wearing his older brothers’ hand-me-downs. Its fabric and detail were much nicer than anything he’d worn before.
“What about Master Altelune?” he asked, hesitating with the gown and gloves in hand. “Shouldn’t I be here when he awakes?”
“He will sleep another hour or two, and I will bring thee back by then. Moreover, my lady said it were well I made thee familiar with the keep’s grounds ‘ere it be too cold to go out, and he will not speak against her will.”
The mountain wind blew brisk and cold, and although the sky was clear there was a bite in the air. The view from the outer court made Basti stop to gaze. Araciel paused, too, standing beside him. After a long moment the older apprentice shifted to adjust the sleeve of his own padded and brocaded coat.
“A most fair morn, be it not?”
“It was getting dark when I came up the trail last evening,” Basti said, brushing windswept hair from his eyes with one gloved hand. “I missed most of the view.”
Gestern Keep overlooked a range of jagged grey mountains covered with dark pine, brightened here and there by the orange and yellow leaves of other trees turning for winter. Below them the valleys were still shadowed, the keep built with its front facing west. Basti knew that somewhere below them was the village of Gestern, and just past the mountains the larger town of Pacito, but at the moment he could imagine that the keep was a lone bastion of civilization against the wilderness, its occupants the only life from here to the horizon.
“It shall become dark earlier yet, ere winter be over,” Araciel replied. “And more isolated. We be oft unable to leave the keep, come the snows to block the trail.”
Basti shivered. He’d never been snow-stranded before, had never even seen much more than the few drifting flakes that had fallen in Firenze last winter. He pulled his gaze from the forbidding horizon to look at Araciel.
“Do you keep enough food here to last all winter?” he asked.
“Perhaps not all winter, but enough. An’ our stores grow too low, it be but the work of a few days to dig our way out, once the snows cease. Have no fear, Basti,” Araciel teased, “thou hast not traveled this far to starve to death.”
“It’s just strange to me,” Basti said with a rueful grin. “I don’t think it’s ever snowed in Napoli.”
“Indeed? I have been no farther south than the Papal States, ’though I’d much like to travel more.”
“Well, next time I go home, you’re welcome to come along with me,” Basti offered, surprising himself. Araciel smiled, a hint of wistfulness in his blue eyes.
“I should most like that, Basti, and thank thee for thy gentle offer … come now, here be the stables.”
Araciel introduced Basti to the horses one at a time with such formality that Basti was hard-pressed not to laugh. He didn’t wish to offend his new friend, however, and greeted the animals politely as Araciel named them.
“I believe it will be best an’ thou do ride Tommaso,” Araciel decided. He deftly saddled the chestnut gelding, which seemed calm-tempered and friendly as Basti hesitantly stroked its neck. His experience on horseback had been slight and temporary. He hoped that the impeccably mannered apprentice had chosen this mount for him precisely for its placid nature.
Bandore, Araciel’s own gelding, shone like a jewel in the morning sun, with a spotless white hide and a saddle of crimson leather and polished brass. As the apprentice tended to the horse, murmuring softly to it, Basti gazed at him, struck again by the young man’s beauty.
Why had such an obviously rich youth had taken apprenticeship with the lord and lady of Gestern, instead of enjoying the lazy privileges of an aristocrat? And why was he so kind to a mere artisan like Basti? He thought again of Alrune’s mockery and frowned. It didn’t seem right, for someone like Araciel to be jeered at by a dwarf in fool’s garb.
Araciel helped him mount, and, arm pressed tightly against his side, Basti followed the apprentice through Gestern Keep’s iron gates and down the mountain trail. The cold wind smelled like pine and horse. Sebastiano breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh, unfamiliar scents. Tommaso was calm between his legs, slow and steady, and Basti’s trepidation about riding vanished as he became distracted by the wild, foreign view.
They rode slowly down the trail, which often broke clear of the forest to reveal the mountains around them, early morning sun bright on their peaks. After a bit, Araciel guided them away from the main trail to follow smaller paths through the forest. As they rode, the apprentice kept up a steady flow of conversation, describing the lands around them and the keep’s association with the lower towns.
Basti smiled. Araciel had been right; he did talk enough for two. But the youth’s words were always informative, as though the scholars’ apprentice were eager to teach, for a change. Basti found pleasant just to follow and listen, letting the horse’s motion and the apprentice’s words lull him into a pleasant half-sleep. The aching in his arm had dulled.
“We be considered strangers here by the people of Gestern,” Araciel said cheerfully, “and have but a passing relationship with the gentlefolk of the village. My lord and lady be new to this land; they did adopt this keep when it was abandoned and much in need of repair, seeking the owner but ne’er finding one. ’Twas the work of some years to restore the keep so, and e’en yet there be much inside unfurnished and left alone. ’Twas during the keep’s restoration that I joined them, to be of what aid I might and also to further my own education.”
“But…” Basti looked over his shoulder, even though the keep was hidden by the trees. “It looks fine. It looks like it’s been restored for a long time.”
“Not so long. The keep has stood renewed now some thirty years and more; my lord and lady began their work soon after they were wed.”
Basti frowned, looking at the apprentice’s back.
“So, how many years have you been here?”
Araciel leaned over to adjust a stirrup, then looked over his shoulder with a fleeting smile.
“I have been with my lord and lady a long time. Gestern Keep doth collect people, methinks. Danti did join us seeking a patron soon after the keep was well enough restored for habitation. ’Twas but a year later that Naich did come to stay, at Danti’s request. Our sculptor sought a man of slighter and taller build than ourselves for a sculpture of Orpheus. An’ as Naich’s music did well please the lord and lady, and as Danti and I have some little skill at music ourselves, he hath stayed on as a welcome addition to the keep.”
“The Orpheus! That’s where I’ve seen him!” Basti grinned, happy to have solved his little mystery. “The Luciani Orpheus in Milano — it’s beautiful. I knew Naich looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure it out.”
“The sculpture be admired, then?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I be pleased to hear that.”
“I’m sorry, Araciel. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
The courtier’s chuckle floated over his shoulder.
“There be little more to tell. Albrecht did come to us from Germany, upon invitation, and we have servants from the village from spring to early winter, though we do not keep them from their families when the trails close and all hands be needed below to hunt and gather wood. My lady did have four children — Alfons, Sophia, Dietrich, and Caterina, though Sophia did die at the age of six.
“Alrune visited us one stormy night just this summer past, telling us he had read my masters’ treatises and wish’d to stay to study at their library. My lord and lady were delighted to welcome another scholar. Master Alfons hath left to Vienna to study, but thou hath arrived.” Araciel paused, taking a descending twist in the path. “And so we shall be ten this winter, when Master Alfons and Lady Caterina do return.”
Basti patted Tommaso’s neck with his good hand to reassure himself.
“I don’t understand why you don’t keep servants from the village with you over the winter. Surely some of them aren’t needed in Gestern.”
Araciel glanced over his shoulder.
“It be the arrangement they prefer.”
“Why?”
The apprentice sighed.
“Be thou easily affrighted, Basti?”
“No!” The defiant word slipped from his mouth before he thought about it. “I’m not scared to be in the keep if it gets snowed in. I was just wondering, that’s all. I’m not a coward.”
“Softly, Basti!” Araciel sounded surprised, and he looked over his shoulder again. “I did not mean to suggest you were. Do you believe me?”
“Yes.” Basti forced his shoulders to relax. The bite was starting to ache again. “I’m sorry. I thought —“
“I meant no offense.”
“It’s all right.”
After a moment of silence, Araciel continued.
“When my lord and lady did acquire the keep, the villagers below did warn them of apparitions that walked its crumbling halls and lights were seen on the mountain’s peak at night where these ruins stood. They do say the Erl King himself visits here to entertain his Unholy Hunt and spirit lost children away. But we saw neither light nor apparitions ’til the keep stood restored.”
“And then you did?” Basti asked in morbid fascination. One part of his mind assured him that this was just an older boy’s fun with the new apprentice; a ghost-story to frighten him. The other remembered the strange encounter of last night, and wasn’t so sure. A few years ago there had been a well-known ghost in Napoli who’d been responsible for three murders before a priest drove it away, and in his travels he’d heard many similar tales. Enough to make him believe damned souls did sometimes walk the earth.
“And then we noted strange things, yes.” Araciel ducked under a low-hanging pine bough. “Oftimes the rooms seem’d to be not as we remembered them – not the rooms we do live in, but the occasional room we might only visit once in a long while. And on occasion a hall would take us not where we intended, but quite someplace else, though we’d not remember taking the wrong turn. Then we’d sometimes see a person in the halls, or on the stair. We besought Father Völker from the village to drive the spirit away with the High Mass, but after he left, the haunt returned.”
“Then it couldn’t have been a ghost,” Basti said, uncertainly.
“That would seem to follow. There be tales of Kobolds and Heinzelmänchen in Germany, but e’en such sprites as those should leave before the Lord’s name. Ah — here we be. Enough of such tales. Come, look.”
Their winding path had taken them near the base of the mountain, but the valley their horses brought them to was not the valley in which lay Gestern, but another place entirely. A meadow spread before them, with a pond on one side covered with fallen leaves and a few lone, crumbling walls much overgrown with weeds and moss.
“What was it?” Basti asked, looking around. Araciel dismounted, stroking Bandore’s silken mane. The gelding affectionately nuzzled him.
“An old church,” Araciel said, with the faintest trace of melancholy in his voice. “The keep’s own, methinks, from the coat of arms on the floor; we saw similar on broken stone as we cleared and repaired Gestern. The gate posts before the keep still bear Gestern’s rampant wolf, though the carvings be near obliterated by the harsh winds and storms here. The church was, we believe, destroyed by brigands. When we first visited this vale we found bones yet unburied; not knowing whether they were priests or raiders, still we gave them proper interment. Yet I find this vale to be a quiet place. It doth hold some of the history of this land, and so I wished to show it to thee.”
Basti nodded solemnly, aware of the honor Araciel was giving him, showing him his private place.
Together they walked around the walls and remnants of cobbled floors, upon which one could just make out a shield device with a wolf rampant upon it, and then around the pond, letting their horses loose for the interim.
Finally, though, Basti decided that he’d better return to the keep to see if Danti had awakened. They rode up the winding trails in a companionable silence.
The lingering effects of Araciel’s ghost story faded when Basti found Danti in the kitchen, talking to Albrecht and the apprentices as he wandered through the room, pilfering a late breakfast. Albrecht glowered at the sculptor but said nothing as the big man’s hands filled with bread and dried fruit.
“Ah, Sebastiano!” Danti greeted him, waving a hand. His puffed silk sleeve dragged over the bread at the gesture, scattering crumbs across the table. If he’d been drinking last night, the way Alrune had suggested, he didn’t show any signs of it now. Basti was glad of that. “Sit down. No, bring over that jug of milk and two cups, and then sit down.”
Basti obediently brought over the jug and poured them both milk delivered from Gestern. Sitting was a mixed blessing, and he surreptitiously bent and straightened his legs under the heavy kitchen table. He had a feeling, from his twinging muscles, that he’d be feeling some more aches and pains by the end of the day. It had been a long time since he’d ridden last.
“So, we didn’t talk much about your apprenticeship last night.” Danti grinned, his teeth flashing through his short black beard. “I’m afraid I have a weakness for news from the outside world. Sometimes it can feel pretty isolated up here.”
Basti nodded.
“I’m not very familiar with apprenticeships,” Danti continued, digging into his breakfast. “My tutor was my father, and we never had a formal contract between us. It wasn’t a studio, you understand.” He waved a hand, narrowly missing his milk. “So don’t expect me to be like your masters down south. I’ll teach you whatever you need to learn and let you work on your own.” He frowned. “And there’ll be none of this business of me using your name, or you using my name, or however it’s done in those large schools today. I don’t get enough commissions to need that kind of help. All right?” He drained the milk as he waited for Basti’s reply.
“That sounds fair to me, sir.” Basti liked the way the man talked, blunt and straightforward. “You’ve been more than generous, just inviting me here.”
“It’s not a problem. Figured it might be time to take on an apprentice, before I get too much older.” Danti finished the last of his bread. “I work most of the day when I’m in the middle of something, but I won’t ask you to keep pace with me. Most of the work I need to do on my own, anyway, although you’ll be useful when it comes time to sand and polish. I expect you to ask questions – I won’t know how much you’ll need to have explained, and I don’t want you to make any stupid mistakes just because you were too shy to ask, understand?” At Basti’s nod, the grey-haired sculptor stood.
“Then I’ll show you around,” he said. “I’m scattered over several rooms.”
Danti worked on the second floor, in the south hall. He had two workrooms there, and he showed Basti the studio on the third floor where he kept his sketches and studies, as well as a few half-finished panels and oil paintings.
“The second floor is almost unused, except by me,” Danti explained as they walked back. “Over in the other wing there is the ballroom – which has never been used – and some,” he waved his hands, “well, frankly, I don’t know what they were in the old days, but the lord and lady have just left the rooms empty. This place is really too big; I can’t imagine what the former owners must have done to fill it up. I usually have the floor to myself. It’s not always convenient — moving my sculptures out can be a real project — but at least the noise and the mess don’t bother anyone.”
“I like it,” Basti said. It beat walking through the cold air outside to some external studio, and even though the thought of so many empty rooms around them was a little creepy, he appreciated the fact that there’d be room for him down here, if he were allowed to stay.
As soon as Danti stepped into his studio he pulled off his giaquetta and doublet, looking more comfortable in nothing but shirt and pantalones as he showed Basti around..
The workroom was pleasant and roomy, although Danti was quick to point out that the windows faced south and the light was poor. It was filled with wooden carvings and rough clay and wax figurines and dominated by a partially shaped block of marble with lead marks scattered apparently at random over it. Basti immediately felt at home. Marble dust stirred with every step, gently covering the sculptor and Basti with white powder.
He’d missed all of this, spending the last year on the road.
“What are you working on now?” he asked. Danti sighed, running his hands through his hair and leaving pale streaks behind.
“I should be working on a portrait for Dietrich, but I’ve gotten myself distracted by this sculpture,” he said wryly. “I decided to do a legend from the town,” he said, leaning against a work table and gazing at the block of marble. “The Erlkönig. Some sort of weather spirit; storms. It’s uncommissioned; I don’t know what I’ll do with it when it’s done.” He laughed wryly. “The other problem with living so far from everywhere is that it’s impossible to get any work.”
“Why don’t you move to Venezia, or Firenze?” Basti asked, perching on a small stool. “You’d have plenty of work there.”
“And I could start my own school, like everyone else? No … I can’t live like that.” Danti looked around the studio, thoughtful. “I like it here well enough. The lord and lady let me do what I please, as long as I satisfy them when they ask something of me. They’re generous patrons; better than I’d find anywhere else.”
The two spent the rest of the afternoon discussing sculpture, styles and skills; Basti found his new master easy to get along with and full of ideas. So engrossed in conversation were they that neither of them noticed time passing, or the long shadows that slowly crept across the floor. Araciel laughed wholeheartedly at them when he interrupted to fetch them down from the dark studio to supper.
As supper ended, Signora Elisabeth reminded the diners that they would rise early to ride down to Gestern the next morning, to attend Sunday mass at the Church of our Lady of the Snows. Basti had seen it when he’d been taken into Gestern after the wolf attack. It was a hallenkirche very different from the churches Basti was used to attending in Italy, constructed of brick in a Gothic style, with leaded glass windows and little interior decoration.
Araciel, Signore Johannes added, would continue his work in the laboratory while they were gone.
“I don’t understand,” Basti protested, later that night. Araciel would have him checkmated in three moves, and Basti’s mind had wandered while he gazed hopelessly at the board. “Why don’t you come to church with us?”
“I be no church-goer.”
Basti scowled at the board, then looked back up.
“Why not? Oh … you aren’t one of Luther’s followers, are you?”
“No. Not as such.”
“Did you get dispensation from the Pope?”
“No.”
“Well…” Basti looked at his friend, baffled. “Then what?”
The fair youth leaned back in his chair, eyes distant. After a moment, he sighed.
“‘But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret,’” he replied. “That be in the book of Matthew.”
Basti stared. He’d never heard the gospel translated out of Latin before.
“If that’s really in the Bible, why do we have to go to church all the time?”
“There be other passages, as well, such as this one from Matthew – ‘For where two or three are gathered, together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ The Church doth apply the first to private prayer, and the second to communal meetings. I fear I be not of a nature well-suited toward communal worship.” Araciel smiled disarmingly. “My avoidance of the church doth make Father Völker believe of me all terrible things, but I do pray and respect God’s laws, and my lord and lady object not to my whim.”
“I’m surprised.” Basti wondered a moment if he could get away with shirking Mass, and then decided he’d better not. He owed God for saving him from the wolf attack; better not to be ungrateful.
“Yes, they be extraordinary in many ways.”
Basti remembered a comment over the dinner table, his first night.
“Does Father Völker follow Luther?”
“I know not. It be thy move, Basti; or doth thou concede?”
Basti sighed.
“Have I won a game yet?” he asked philosophically, beginning to clear the board. This was their third match, and now Basti understood Danti’s warning. Araciel was a chess genius. “How about a hand of cards?”
The other apprentice laughed, ignoring the question.
“How comes thy work with Danti?”
“Well, we had a long talk this afternoon. I’m not going to be able to do very much until this arm heals. I’m glad Danti doesn’t mind. I thought he’d be angry when he found out he’d taken on an apprentice who couldn’t help right away.”
“Will you work on any sculpture of your own?”
“Maybe, eventually.”
“In stone?”
“Well, either marble or a bronze bas relief. You know that bronze hippocampus in the unused ballroom? I’d love to do a three-dimensional bronze like that, but Danti said he won’t teach me.” Basti sighed, thinking of the work that was hidden away in a corner of the keep. It would look gorgeous in a summer garden down south. What a pity Danti kept it here. Maybe he should write about it to some of his cousins and see if they could interest anyone in coming up to buy it.
“That sculpture be, as I recall, his sole successful excursion into the medium.”
“Yeah, he told me horror stories of spilling molten metal and finding huge cracks in his finished product.”
“Indeed, I recall that time,” Araciel reminisced with a smile. “For days the halls resounded with blasphemies, and in the end your master did storm furiously through the keep swearing he would never touch bronze again, and that stone be the only true medium for a sculptor.”
“So, I guess I’ll be working in stone,” Basti said with a grin.
“What manner of sculptures hath thou pursued in the past?”
“Not much. I finished up my old master’s paintings, helped him rough out some sculptures, did a lot of polishing.” Basti shrugged. “I’ve never worked on anything original.”
“That was when thou were in Napoli?”
“Yes.” Basti finished setting up the board for a new game.
“Thou hath said little of thy old master. An’ my questions offend thee, please forgive me.”
Basti glanced up at Araciel, whose expression was politely curious, but distant.
“No, they don’t. I just didn’t like working with Papa Giulio very much.”
“He was thy father?”
“No. They just called him that.”
“He was cruel?”
“Sometimes….” Basti unconsciously rubbed his chin, remembering. “He didn’t get along well with people. Someone knifed him in a bar fight. Killed him.”
Araciel’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“I don’t know. He drank a lot, and he liked to argue and fight. It was bound to happen sooner or later, I guess.”
The apprentice’s blue eyes lingered on Basti’s chin, and Basti dropped his hand.
“Thy master did that?”
Chagrined, Basti looked down at the chess board.
“Yeah. He got mad one day and threw one of the rasp files. It hit me.” He let his voice die as he remembered. The scar along his chin and jaw was the only one that was still visible, even though it had been the least of his injuries at the time.
“It be hazardous, to work with a drunkard and a violent man. Perhaps thou should have fled.”
“I signed a contract. I couldn’t go, or I’d be breaking the law. And my own word of honor.”
For a moment, a sad look darkened Araciel’s expression.
“Ah, Basti. So do we all find ourselves trapped between duty and desire. I pray thou shall find Danti a better master than your last, and stay here with us in contentment.”