Remember ye not the former things,
neither consider the things of old.
Isaiah 43:18
The next morning dawned grey and cold. Danti had been working all night on a new project and had gone to bed while the rest of the keep was breaking its fast. Disappointed, Basti walked up to the studio. The marble block had taken rough shape now, showing a man with a muscular body and bold stance. It was still too rough to bear any resemblance to the man Basti had seen, that first night. He swept the room out and then curled up in the corner of the studio’s window seat and leaned his head against the glass.
Heavy clouds darkened the sky, piling up to the horizon. The keep was cold already; Basti could only guess what its stone halls would be like once it had snowed. He was already wearing his giaquetta and lucco inside. Maybe he could borrow a fur-lined coat in the German style from somebody. His southern blood wasn’t ready for a Domagnan winter.
His breath fogged the window, hiding the grey courtyard and dark pines beyond. Basti rubbed the condensation away with a finger. Something was moving under the trees by the iron fence; a deer, maybe, or a wolf.
With such steep terrain, it was unlikely that the lord and lady of Gestern Keep staged the great hunts so popular in his land. There, hundreds of nobles, musicians, servants, hounds and hawks would set off to hunt through game-stocked forests with a clamor that would frighten off any animal, if special measures weren’t taken to drive the game toward them beforehand.
That kind of high-spirited carouse would never work in Gestern Mountain’s sharp crags and dark forests.
Hunting in these mountains was the real thing, he guessed. Hunters tracked down their prey until it escaped their hounds or was finally forced to turn and attack. Funny that there weren’t any kennels in the keep. Someone down in Gestern must do the hunting for the keep.
Another movement caught his eye. He tilted his head to gaze down into the courtyard. A man was striding across it, dressed in a stark black riding outfit, his midnight-dark hair tossed wildly by the wind. Basti caught his breath as the stranger stopped and turned, looking directly up at his window.
The Erl King!
The Erl King smiled, his thin lips making the expression look more cruel than friendly. With one gloved hand he gestured – come here.
Basti jerked his face away from the glass, shivering convulsively. By the time he summoned the courage to peer out again, the stranger had disappeared.
He leaped from the window seat and dashed out of the studio, determined to see if there was any trace left of the man in the courtyard. With one hand on the wall, he hurled himself down the stairs and rushed outside without even pausing to grab a cloak.
The air was bitterly cold, and when he reached the spot where the man had stood he stopped, lungs burning. With a dry cough, he looked from side to side.
The Erl King might have left tracks, if there were any snow on the ground, but the cobblestones were still dry and the dead leaves that skittered back and forth in the gusting wind revealed nothing. Basti coughed again and breathed into his cupped hands to warm his lungs. He walked to one side and looked around the west corner of the keep. Nobody was there. He walked back. Nobody could be seen around the eastern corner, either.
Frustrated, he kicked the leaves. He should have run out as soon as the Erl King had gestured. Why was he so scared? If the Erl King was a ghost, he was the strangest ghost Basti had ever heard of, appearing in broad daylight and acting like any ordinary human.
And the Erl King had gestured to him.
Basti looked up and found the workroom window with his eyes. Tracking from it, he walked across the courtyard to the fence and knelt on the cobblestones. Trees came just up to the fence, then vanished quickly down the slopes of the mountain. The dirt beneath the trees was dry and crumbly, covered with pine needles and leaves.
A track had been left there, the pawprint of a large dog, or a wolf. The creature had come close to the fence, but then turned and left.
Basti stood, rubbing his healing arm.
Wolves this close to the keep. Maybe he should warn Master Dietrich.
Just as Basti walked back, shivering, and reached the keep’s doorway, Naich turned the corner and walked toward him. His flushed cheeks suggested that he’d already been out for a while, although unlike Basti, he wore a warm, fur-lined cloak.
“Naich! Did you see a man walk by a little while ago? With dark clothes and hair?”
The thin-faced flautist nodded. Basti felt a surge of excitement.
“Who is he? He’s the ghost, isn’t he? Why is he here, in the middle of the day?”
Naich’s grey, storm-cloud eyes regarded him thoughtfully; then the mute composer pointed to where the stranger had walked, and laid a long-fingered hand gently on the stones of the keep wall.
Basti shook his head.
“I don’t understand.”
Naich shrugged. Seeing that he was about to leave, Basti impulsively reached out to touch the composer’s coat sleeve.
“Wait! Please. I’ll try to figure out what you mean. Give me another chance.”
Naich looked down at the young Neapolitan, then at the boy’s hand. Basti let his fingers slide off the coat fabric.
“Why is he here?”
Naich’s eyes rose to the windows and towers above them, then dropped again. He gestured slightly, stepping past Basti into the keep. Basti followed, surprised by how warm it felt inside. Hadn’t he been thinking that the keep was cold just a while ago?
The flautist stood in the entryway, taking off his cloak and hanging it the wooden hooks by the door, which had been carved by some long-ago artisan into the shape of beasts’ heads.
“Naich … why is he here?” Basti insisted. “What does he want?”
Something in Naich’s expression made him suspect the composer knew something — maybe something Araciel and Caterina didn’t know … or something they weren’t willing to talk about in front of him.
The flautist turned. In his dark, starkly cut clothes, he looked like some kind of forbidding spirit himself, a ghost in grey and black. He reached out and placed his fingers softly on Basti’s chest, then on his own. The feathery touch sent a shudder down Basti’s spine. He surreptitiously gestured with one hand behind his back to ward off the evil eye.
Naich held his gaze a long moment, then turned and walked off.
That was strange, Basti thought, swallowing. Feeling the need for company, he decided to find Araciel.
The apprentice was in the library, taking notes from a large book.
“I thought I saw that ghost walking outside,” Basti said without preamble. “And Naich said he’d seen it, too. In fact….” he had a thought. “You know, Naich was coming in to the keep when I saw him, not going out. I wonder where he’d been?”
Araciel wiped his pen clean and set it down.
“Surely thou would not suspect our Naich of ill-doing, Basti?”
“No, it’s not that. But he saw the Erl King, too! And I think he knows more than he’s saying.”
“No doubt,” Araciel observed, “since he be mute.”
Basti rolled his eyes.
“Come, Basti, thou be nervous, and I blame thee not, for to see our ghost be always passing strange. But suspect not Master Naich; artists do make it a habit to wander alone, and men do, at times, keep romantic trysts in the woods.” At Basti’s startled look, Araciel smiled. “I know not whether Naich be one such,” he said with gentle humor. “More like, he sought only a silent place to compose.”
“Why isn’t anyone worried about the fact that there’s a ghost walking around in the middle of the courtyard?” Basti demanded, changing tack.
“We have seen it before. Thou, too, shall become easy with our spectral resident, in time.”
“I doubt that,” Basti said, darkly. He glanced over Araciel’s shoulder. “What are you working on?”
“A fellow scholar’s writings, in the German. How be thy mastery of the language now? Can thou now read the page?”
Basti stood next to Araciel’s chair and slowly worked his way through the first paragraph. He was about to begin the next when Caterina entered the room.
“That be most well done,” Araciel said, with approval. “Mayhaps thou shalt yet be able to carry on a fair conversation by the end of this winter. Understand thee what thou hath just read?”
“Most of it,” Basti said. “But why do all of these authors always have to quote in Latin or Greek? Just figuring out German is hard enough.”
“They do it to prove they be learned,” Araciel shrugged. “Save that this author’s Latin be only passing fair.”
“That’s the consummate insult,” Caterina confided to Basti, joining them and glancing at the book. “Everybody who reads somebody else’s Latin feels obliged to make fun of it. I think it’s another way for them to prove that they’re learned.”
“Yet some scholars do write it better than others,” Araciel protested, mildly. “Thy brother Alfons writes quite well. Which doth remind me, the new translations from Greek that he did send with thee, my lady, yet await our perusal.”
“You’d better read them,” Caterina said sternly, “or else he’ll be disappointed when he returns. I think he’s looking forward to arguing with you all night over syntax again.”
Araciel smiled, blue eyes twinkling.
“Then I shall set to at the first opportunity.”
“Will your brother be here for winter?” Basti asked. Caterina twisted a strand of her hair around a finger.
“I hope so, but Father’s business is probably keeping him too busy. We haven’t had any letters from him in almost a month, so I’m afraid he may be too far to get back before the roads are blocked.”
“If not, the winter will be the longer for his absence,” Araciel said. Caterina nodded.
“At any rate, I didn’t mean to interrupt, Basti. I was on my way to find Dietrich when I heard your voices and decided to stop a moment.” Caterina swept up her skirts and took her leave.
“She’s a little different from other girls,” Basti remarked, after she left the salon. Araciel raised a golden eyebrow. “I mean,” Basti tried to explain, “she’s very much herself, isn’t she? She isn’t just word-games and flirting, like lots of other girls her age.”
“The Donna Caterina has not been raised in a lively social environment,” Araciel said. “Childhood in a house of scholars does lead one to adopt a sober demeanor, I fear.”
“Will that make it hard for her to get married?” Basti watched Araciel closely.
“Do not mistake me; Donna Caterina be quite able to engage in more pointed discourse than that with which we indulge ourselves here.”
“She’s pretty, too, isn’t she?” Basti asked, slyly. Araciel’s face grew even more solemn.
“She be so.”
“Come on,” Basti needled him. “You can say more than that about her, can’t you?”
“I cannot.” Araciel looked down at his book and ran a hand over the page. “It would not be seemly.”
“Why not?” Basti pulled up a chair and sat down. “You’re well-born, aren’t you? You must be.” He indicated Araciel’s fine clothes with a jerk of his head, but a shadow passed over his friend’s face.
“I was once of high station,” Araciel admitted slowly, “but through my own fault I am in exile, no more to return to the house of my father.”
Basti drew in a sharp breath, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I would keep no secret from thee,” Araciel said, meeting his eyes. “I would have thee a friend, and shall answer whatever question thou might ask.”
Basti blushed. He didn’t deserve such a calm response, not after prying into Araciel’s private business.
“It’s all right,” he said, hastily. “It doesn’t matter to me, anyway.” He leaned on the table. “But what about Donna Caterina?”
“What of her?” Araciel asked, almost too softly to be heard.
“Well, it’s pretty obvious you like her.” Basti felt hot under the collar; he’d never been much of a matchmaker, and romance was more or less foreign territory to him. Still, after growing up with three older brothers and an older sister, and acting as the intermediary between them and their amours, he recognized the signs of a crush. “And it kinda looks to me like she likes you too. And her parents do, too.”
“There be no future in this line of thought,” Araciel said, flatly. “
Basti forged ahead anyway, with Neapolitan recklessness.
“Look, she already told me she hates the thought of getting married and leaving the keep. If you two —“
Araciel’s head jerked up, and Basti faltered, instinctively drawing back from the icy fire that burned in his blue eyes.
“I do not court Donna Caterina, Basti.” His friend stood, his voice soft but fierce. “I may not e’en think of such a thing.”
Basti sat in wordless surprise.
“Moreover,” the apprentice continued coldly, “though they may possibly hold me in some small regard, my lord and lady would never allow such a courtship, nor would the world at large. If you have any suspicion that Donna Caterina feels gently toward me, let her know there be no hope, for she would turn her back upon me, did she but know me as well as her parents; as would you, yourself, Basti.”
Basti regained his wits as Araciel turned and strode out, and astonishment gave place to outrage. He leaped to his feet and caught up to his friend halfway down the south hall, grabbing a handful of Araciel’s slashed velvet and puffed silk. Pain shot through his injured arm, but he ignored it.
“Hey!” he shouted, jerking Araciel around to face him. “Just wait a minute!”
Araciel’s expression was remote, chilling. Basti stuck out his chin.
“You’ve got no right to say that about me. You don’t know how I feel about things, about whatever you might have done in the past.” He gave Araciel’s arm a shake, trying to drive the point in. “If you want to call me a friend, you can’t insult me like that!”
Araciel took a deep breath and slowly covered Basti’s hand with his own. Basti looked down, startled by the heat radiating off his friend’s flesh.
“Forgive me, Basti,” Araciel said softly. “I meant not to cast doubt upon thy friendship. I be much distraught o’er other matters, that wear upon my nerves and manners.”
Basti took a deep breath, fighting to regain the same composure Araciel was showing. He hadn’t realized how angry he was until he’d actually spoken, and now his heart pounded against his chest with released tension.
“I just don’t understand,” he said at last. “Isn’t there anything I can do?”
“No. There be nothing.” Araciel lifted his hand away, and Basti slowly let the apprentice’s gold-embroidered sleeves slip from his fingers. “Save, encourage not my mistress’ misconceptions, if indeed thy perceptions regarding her feelings be accurate.” He stepped around Basti, and continued down the hall.
Basti turned to stare after him, frustrated. Between Araciel and Naich … sometimes it felt like everyone around him was speaking in riddles.
“So, boy, did Araciel tell you to get behind him?” Alrune asked, leaning in the kitchen doorway. Basti turned his pent-up frustration on the dwarf.
“What would you know about it, anyway?”
Alrune sniggered. “Don’t tempt him, Basti. He doesn’t deal well with temptation.”
Basti narrowed his eyes, sensing a clue to his friend’s past.
“What do you mean?”
“He says he’ll tell you anything; ask him how he came here, some night,” Alrune called, turning and walking away down the hall.
Basti slowly rubbed his bitten arm, scowling after the scholar.
Had he been tempting Araciel? With what? Caterina?
What had Araciel done in his past? Temptation — women — he drove the images from his mind with a shudder.
Not Araciel. Whatever Araciel had done to get himself disowned and exiled, it couldn’t have been anything like that.
Much later, when Danti arose and began to work, Basti looked up from the pens he was cleaning. Much disturbed, he slowly turned and walked upstairs.
“Do you know Araciel very well?”
Danti looked up from his inspection of the statue.
“Well enough. Why?”
Basti set down his cleaning rag.
“This morning he said something about his past. It sounded like he’d done something wrong, when he was younger.”
Danti pursed his lips slightly.
“Do you know what he was talking about?” Basti continued, doggedly.
The sculptor leaned against the worktable and regarded him through weary eyes.
“Yes, I do. But I don’t think it’s my place to be the one who tells you. Have you asked him, yourself?”
“I –” Basti grimaced, then shook his head. “He didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t want to push him. I mean, I trust him. Whatever he did, it couldn’t have been that bad, could it?”
“He’s different, now,” Danti said. It wasn’t a reassuring comment, Basti thought.
“Was it really bad?”
“There are some things people never forgive.” Danti straightened back up. “And that’s all I’m going to say about the matter, so don’t bother me with it again.”
“Yes, sir,” Basti sighed, returning to his work. I should have just asked, he thought to himself … but the memory of Araciel’s expression, that split-second of anguish, haunted him. No. He couldn’t have asked. Some things, friends just leave alone.
“You know,” Danti said after a minute, “we all have things in our past that we aren’t proud of.”
Basti looked up.
“It’s not always easy to start a new life. Like me. I was a hellraiser when I was your age. My friends and I used to terrorize the streets and canals of Venezia, drinking, dueling, staying out until all hours with actors and prostitutes.” He leaned against the table, remembering. “One day it got us into a lot of trouble.”
Basti sensed a story and pulled his feet up onto the chair.
“What happened?”
“Well, we were hired to kidnap a wealthy girl from her family so she could elope with her suitor. The suitor was the one who hired us, you understand, for six hundred ducats. It sounded noble and daring, and it was a hell of a lot of money, so we took it and broke into her father’s house, snatching her away from her servants before the guards could be called. But by the time we got halfway to the meeting place, we realized that she wasn’t just screaming to convince the household staff that she was being kidnapped. She really didn’t want to go. And all of the sudden, we weren’t accomplices to Eros anymore. We were just common criminals.”
“What did you do?” Basti asked, gazing at his master with amazement. It was hard to imagine stern, focused Danti as a young hellion.
“Well, we argued with each other for a while, and then we put the lady on a gondola back to her father’s house with our deepest apologies and a warning about the man who’d hired us. We weren’t aristocrats, but we had honor. When we confronted our employer he was furious and threatened to have us all thrown into prison for returning empty-handed. When we realized he was serious, we turned tail and ran. He was one of the doge’s grandsons, and he had a lot of powerful family and friends.
“So we left. I traveled to Padova with a friend and started looking around for work as a sculptor there when one night my friend never came back to our flat. The next morning I hit the road again. My friend had been poisoned, and I knew who must have engineered it.”
“Is that why you came here?”
“More or less. I stayed in Milano for a while, doing the odd commission here and there, but one night I thought I noticed someone following me, so I left again. I traveled around a while through the Swiss Confederacy and eventually I ended up here. I think I’ve finally been forgotten, after all these years.”
“That must have been scary,” Basti remarked, trying to imagine it. All he could think of was being attacked by the wolf, and how afterwards he’d imagined it lurking in every shadow he passed.
“Yes, it was. And the reason I’m bringing it up – it’s no secret, of course, I think everyone here has heard the story – the reason I’m bringing it up is to make a point about Araciel. He’s in a … somewhat similar situation. The wrong word could ruin his life all over again. That’s why he has to be so careful.”
Basti met Danti’s eyes. He regretted he’d ever pushed Araciel into getting angry.
“I won’t bother him anymore,” he promised.
Danti nodded.
“Good. You know, sometimes it’s better not to know everything about your friends.” The sculptor frowned, turning back to his work. “It makes it much easier to stay friends.”