suggest you go to a monastery, but I’m afraid that, though it is the only escape, it would be unacceptable to you.»
«Is there somewhere else I could take refuge?» He wished to prolong his life, but his adolescent recklessness prevailed.
I waved with my hand in the direction of the rounded golden domes of the church belfry.
«Only there,» I said, and then added. «I don’t mean to turn you into a monk or lay-brother, but if you can get there you’d better not go out yet.»
I turned and wanted to go, but he stopped me.
«Does the Infanta really live with you?» He asked me hesitantly.
«Yes,» I said easily. «Did she call herself Infanta?»
«She said we could call her Infanta of the Shadows or Rosabella,» he admitted. «We didn’t know each other’s real names until you came to us.
«I mustn’t be too long, but I’ll see that you get to the porch safely, otherwise you’ll have to rely on yourself,» I did not add that Rose was already waiting for me. He was already a little upset.
«See you later,» I said goodbye to Clovis at the door, and added to myself, «I hope that you will be still alive.»
On the way, after picking up the gifts for Rose, which had remained untouched only by the cloak of invisibility, or their bright wrappings would have attracted someone even at this late hour, I headed back to the castle. Even before I flew over the square, I already knew that it was empty. All the shadows had scattered. There was no sign of Charlo on the platform, not even Clovis’s abandoned cloak. To the casual observer it would have seemed as if nothing had happened. The silence that followed the storm seemed unnatural to me, too. The storm had passed, the fire in the night had gone out, and the rage had at least reluctantly but temporarily subsided, if not cooled.
I returned to the castle at the moment that fate seems to have given us on purpose, to learn how to resist temptation. The writing-case I had noticed Vincent carrying more than once lay lonely on the table, while the owner himself was away. It would have looked abandoned had there not been a half-written sheet of paper on the writing-stand beside it, and the ink-stained quill had not yet had time to return to its hole in the inside of the case. A stack of neatly beaded sheets lay on top of the blank paper. The sandstone inkpot was half-empty, and small vials and bottles of colorful ink were designed specifically to highlight the most important lines in the manuscript. The pen-sharpening knife at the tip of its blade was painted in scarlet ink, as if the author had slit his wrists to sign the epilogue to the work in blood. A signature made in the wizard’s blood would burst into flames in a moment of danger to protect his copyright, but against my peeping, petty sorcery was powerless.
I could not resist the temptation. I had long guessed that Vincent was writing a book, most likely his own biography. It was something like a long confession. I wanted to know what he had experienced before he first met me and during our long separation, but I was too lazy or too delicate to dig into his thoughts or ask him directly. I feared that as soon as I began to read, some evil spirit would laugh at me, saying that the manuscript was only a decoy, the inked paragraphs would spread on the paper, and the paper itself would scatter with papyrus dust, but nothing of the sort happened. I settled myself in the chair in front of the fireplace, looked back at the door almost thievishly, to think I felt like a thief in my own house, but putting aside conscience and morality, I began to read, and I was unspeakably surprised. No confession on Vincent’s part. The charming weasel was too careful for that. What I held in my hands was the story of my own life, that is, of the section of it Vincent was watching. An incorrigible romantic, he had, either with Rose’s help or his own initiative, turned the whole novel into a love-adventure story. There was, of course, more fiction than truth. If Vincent had dared to put my entire background on paper, I would not have forgiven him. It was my right to tell the whole truth about myself, and I could not have a dodgy hanger-on confessing it for me. Fortunately, Vincent decided to be a fantasist. He sang the dithyrambs of my looks on almost every page. I was, of course, flattered. More than that, I was embarrassed for the first time. It turns out that Vincent saw me as a noble, almost blessed creature, which I had never been.
«What’s your opinion?» Suddenly Vincent’s voice came from behind the back of the chair. Rose had already crept quietly into the room, too, and it seemed to me that both she and Vincent had not entered through the doorway, but had grown right out of the ground.
«Who was that for?» Rose humbly clasped her hands behind her back and stared intently at the newly brought boxes.
«It is not for him,» I remarked about the gremlin, who, wielding his paws much more deftly than human hands, had already removed the lids from the boxes and was enthusiastically touching the soft orange ruffled skirt with his claws. He seemed to think that the whole pile of fancy rags had been brought here specially to make a cozy nest for him to sleep in.
«So how about my first… well, almost first literary audition,» Vincent insisted.
«Are you telling me you’ve written anything before that?» – I grinned, and then met his disapproving gaze. You can’t joke when someone has opened up to you about the most important thing. «Well, I guess no one’s ever made a villain a positive hero before.»
«Hmm…» Vincent was clearly expecting something more, at least praise for his labors, but instead of chiding me for being disrespectful, he nodded toward the carrier and suggested. «Open the secret compartment. There’s a hidden spring, push it.
I didn’t want to touch his personal belongings, the inviolability of which had already been violated, but since Vincent suggested it himself. I opened the stash easily and pulled out a stack of letters. There was no address on the envelopes. Half of them had a capital «B» written in ornate handwriting, and the other half had something like a red-ink-soaked fingerprint. All the letters were already printed out, so I unfolded the first one I picked at random and read it out loud:
«Your grace! I am your humble former secretary, having served under you as chief assistant, archivist, housekeeper, bookkeeper, housekeeper, cook, etc., etc.» I didn’t have the strength to list all the things I had read. My tongue was bony from what I had already read out loud. After skipping three lines, I continued. «Overcoming my innate shyness, I take the liberty of disturbing you, not through impudence or immodesty, but by virtue of grave circumstances. Our illustrious monseigneur has taken possession not only of the Lara, but of every acre of land around it, and there is not even a corner where I can rest my head without fearing every moment that it is about to fall off my shoulders. If I could find a corner in a warehouse or a cellar, where I could hide without the fear that a bat might fly past and report to its lord that there was an extra in town. No attic, alas, though it looks uninhabited, is actually so. Everywhere the servants of our sun-like monseigneur live, fly, or nest. Your humble servant would never trouble you with a request for intercession, knowing full well that it would be an impossible burden on you. You may wish to ask why I should not leave Lara, so I will answer in advance that, first, the protective ring of spells does not let anyone in or out of the city, of which you yourself are well aware, and that, second, I cannot afford to live anywhere else. On this point I dare remind you that you still haven’t paid me three-quarters of my regular monthly wages, and the whole of last month’s. Do not think that I resent you. I could have lived with my usual trade if all the purses in the city had not been counted among the servants of the new lord. Where one strong robber has gone, there is nothing for the smaller ones to do. Again,
