Academic Exercises (65 page)

“There’s nothing here.” He hesitated, then spread his fingers to obscure the text. “See for yourself.”

I looked. Under his left thumb I could see a few words of the directions for
ducis meliora
. Under his right thumb, the opening rubric for
ruat caelum
. Between them, half an inch of blank pearl-grey vellum.

He closed the book and put it back. “You’re sure that was the place,” he said.

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “There’s no such Form,” he said. “As I told you, it’s impossible.”

“But I can do it. I’ve been doing it for years. I make my living—”

“We ought to go now,” he said. “We’re not supposed to be here.”

Halfway down the stairs he stopped dead. “Which Room did you say?” he asked me.

“Excuse me?”

“The Room you go to, to do this Form of yours. Which one?”

“Fifth east,” I told him. “You know. It’s the only Room with a window in it.”

His face was completely blank, just like the Invincible Sun in an icon. “There is no east Room on the fifth floor,” he said.

Well, how was I to know? I was a piss-poor student. There were
thousands
of things I didn’t know.

It took me quite some time to get away, to persuade Father Methodius that I wasn’t interested in coming back as a research fellow (with an honorary Deaconate, a research staff of twelve, an office on the third floor of the North tower). He wanted to tell me about the great discoveries of the past and the bunch of apparent misfits, losers and inadequates who’d made them; Phylax, who’d stumbled on
lorica
while chasing after the Philosopher’s Stone, or Agrigentarius, who’d spent twenty years jumping off tall buildings in the misguided belief he’d learned how to fly before isolating the root of
fors partis
. He made it sound like I fitted the mould exactly, and I could see his point. Furthermore, he went on, several of the giants of the past had refused to take any credit for their epoch-making discoveries, claiming that they’d been told of them by teachers who proved never to have existed, or that the Invincible Sun had appeared to them in dreams and dictated the exact words. That, he said, is part of the extraordinary mystery of creativity, as manifested in both art and the Science.

I have my own views. I know that nine times out of ten, artistic creativity is the result of an alchemical reaction between a certain latent ability and a pressing need for money. Nor was I prepared to believe, even for a fleeting moment, that I was responsible for
talis artifex
. You’ve got to be a really exceptionally gifted adept to do research and come up with new Forms, and I’m hopeless, I know I am. No; I read it in a book, and that’s all there is to it.

The Scriveners’ chapel burned down. Apparently some careless idiot of a plasterer left a charcoal brazier burning overnight, to dry out wet plaster; it toppled over and sparks caught in the priceless old tapestries I’d admired so much, and the whole thing went up like a pine-resin torch. The roof-beams burned through, bringing that supremely graceful copper-plated dome crashing down, and the walls crumbled away like cake, and seven men who’d been trying to put the fire out were killed. The only thing that survived—

Yes. It was a miracle, they said. Everything else either burned or crushed or ruined beyond repair by smoke; but the Epistemius icon survived, completely unharmed. A clerk found it among the ashes. The frame was too hot to touch, but the icon itself was still perfect.

So I tried an experiment. Using intermediaries sworn to silence, I bought back, for three thousand angels, a Category Four I’d painted for six hundred. I rented a brickmaker’s kiln on the outskirts of the western suburbs, and told the man to stoke it up real good. A burn of best quality bricks takes three days and uses thirteen tons of first quality charcoal. When they raked it out afterwards, there was my icon, as good as new.

I promise you, I promise myself, if it had worked, I’d have got them back somehow—bought, stolen—and destroyed them, every last one, everything I ever painted and sold. But you can’t fight something like that. I sold the icon again, for four thousand. 

Naturally, I speculate. I have theories.

Fact; during my career as an iconographer I painted thirty-six icons. With the money I got for my stolen textbooks, I bought forty-five boards. Four I wasted when I was just starting up before I was satisfied with the results. I have five boards left. Also, my stock of paints, paint ingredients, fixatives, gesso and gold leaf is very nearly exhausted. But, apart from the experiment I’ll tell you about in a moment, I’ve never knowingly picked up a paintbrush since I started shaving. I assumed that that was how it worked; that the Form, mystical and utterly transcendental but at the same time despicably cheapskate, required me to provide all the raw materials. Some Forms do actually work like that. Bizarre, I know, but that’s the Science for you.

Fact; after I failed to burn the icon, I took one of the five remaining boards and the leftover paints and stuff, sat down at my table and tried to paint a Category Three, myself, unaided. Actually, the result wasn’t so bad. Proportions, light and shade, use of colour, composition, all perfectly acceptable; looking at it, you’d say it was the work of a technically accomplished amateur. But lifeless, devoid of power and passion, meaningless, dead. I washed the paint off with spirits of salt and scraped the board back to bare wood with a pad of sharkskin.

Fact; of the thirty-six Epistemius icons in existence, twenty-five have been owned by people or institutions that have come to harm in some way. The count so far stands at eighty-nine killed, sixty-seven injured. Of the other eleven, eight are in monasteries. One was stolen, and its whereabouts are unknown. Three of my icons have been involved in a series of misfortunes; in each case, after the death of the original owner, the icon was inherited by an heir who also came to grief. I haven’t included the death toll from the Antecyran plague, the Boc Bohec earthquake, the tidal wave, the Sembrai floods or the Vesani war, because the link is rather tenuous; in each case, my icon was displayed in a public building at the epicentre of the disaster, but I would like to point out that there have been any number of plagues, earthquakes, floods and wars in places where there isn’t a genuine Epistemius. Not everything is my fault.

I no longer paint, or practise the Science in any shape or form. Father Methodius died about eighteen months ago, killed by a collapsing floor in the West Gallery of the Studium. An unconfirmed report contended that he’d been using a room off the main Gallery as a studio for painting icons, though so far no examples of his work have come to light anywhere. I invested my money in a farm, a ropewalk, a copper mine, a coaching inn on the main East road, and two ships, one of which was lost with all hands off the Auxentine coast two months ago. But it was properly insured, and my other investments are doing very nicely.

I don’t blame myself. After all, a distinguished Father of the Studium certified that there’s no such Form as
talis artifex
, and that the effect I mistakenly attributed to it is impossible to achieve. Nothing can be proved or established. I’m in the clear, and all my troubles are over.

Well, let me see,” I said, as the innkeeper poured me a beer. “In the morning I discovered the secret of changing base metal into gold. In the afternoon, I murdered my wife.”

The innkeeper looked at me. “That’ll be two bits,” he said.

I dug in my sleeve for the coins. “You don’t believe me,” he said.

“I believe everybody,” the innkeeper replied. “It’s my job. Will you be wanting dinner, or just the room?”

Two bits from seven leaves five. “Just the room.”

“Ah.” The barman nodded and turned away. Alchemists, murderers and other cheapskates, the back of his neck seemed to be saying. I picked up my beer and looked at it. Worse things had happened, but not for a very long time. I drank it anyway. I was thirsty.

Saloninus the philosopher was born in Elpis towards the end of the reign of Philopoemen VI (the exact date is not recorded). He showed early promise during his time at the university, but was prevented from completing his studies by the death of his uncle, on whom he was financially dependent. The university authorities found him a job as a junior porter, and he was allowed to sit in on lectures when his duties allowed. After two years, however, he left Elpis under a cloud, and nothing is known about him until 2763 AUC, when he was arrested in Paraprosdocia on charges of highway robbery and violent assault. Condemned to the gallows, he was reprieved through the intercession of the Prince Regent, Phocas, a former classmate of his at Elpis, who employed him (much to the consternation of the court) as a scientific adviser. It was around this time that Saloninus began the alchemical experiments that were to culminate in his greatest achievement.

I’m Saloninus, by the way. And I tell lies, from time to time. Which goes to prove the old rule; never entirely trust a man who talks about himself in the third person.

It’s true, by the way, about me murdering my wife. At least, I count it as murder. Drink this, I said, it’s the elixir of eternal youth. She gave me that look, but she always—well, her opinion of me as a human being was always pretty low, and justifiably so. Saloninus is not a nice man, and that’s Saloninus talking. But she never for one moment doubted that I was—am—the finest alchemist the world has ever known. Also true. But even the best of the best makes mistakes from time to time. My mistake, I have since come to appreciate, was adding a quarter drachm of sal draconis. Her second worst mistake was drinking it.

I went up to the room. It was a room. There were four walls, a more or less level floor, and a forty-five-degree ceiling, which is what you get for sleeping right under the eaves. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t sleep alone (and, compared with some of the characters I’ve shared a bed with, the fleas were no bother. At least they didn’t keep pulling all the bedclothes off me).

But I slept, which surprised me. I think the six scruples of vis somnis I mixed in with the dregs of my beer helped a bit; but a man who’s just watched his wife die in convulsions on the floor has no right to sleep, no matter what. Nor did I have nightmares. If you must know, I dreamt about the sea (which definitely means something, but I’ve never quite managed to figure out what).

I know I must’ve slept like the proverbial log, because I distinctly remember being woken up. There were soldiers, two of them, in those shiny coal-scuttle-on-backwards helmets that only the Kitchen Knights are allowed to wear. They were looking at me as though I was something they’d found in an apple.

“Saloninus,” one of them said.

“No,” I replied.

“You’re with us.”

Actually, I’m not sure if one of them wasn’t one of the men who arrested me the time before last, when I tried stowing away aboard the avocado freighter. Soldiers in tall shiny helmets all tend to merge together in my memory and besides, I’ve never been that special with faces.

They let me dress, which was nice of them. I hate being arrested in the nude. But while I was dressing, one of them stood between me and the door, and the other one guarded the window. Well done, boys, I thought. It always pays to read the file first.

“What time is it?” I asked. They didn’t answer. Warning; do not allow the subject to engage you in idle conversation. He has the ability to suck men’s souls out through their ears. I wish.

All in all, I was fairly relaxed about it. Being arrested by the scuttlehats was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to me at that point. It meant prince Phocas had been told, and had decided to have his goons arrest me before the real law did. I had absolutely no interest in explaining my recent past to the Knights of Equity, thank you very much. Phocas, bless him, would make sure that wouldn’t happen.

Soon as I’d pulled on my shirt and pants and laced up my boots and put my coat on, they herded me to the door, like stockmen guiding a pig with a board. There was a third one outside on the stairs, which I found impressive and almost flattering. I did that palms-wide-open gesture that tells them you really don’t intend to give them any grief, and allowed them to sandwich me down the stairs into the bar.

My friend the innkeeper was there, next to the fire, moving grease around the plates with an old rag. He gave me the look that means he’d known all along it was just a matter of time. I grinned weakly at him. Then I stopped dead in my tracks. The two guards behind me froze in time not to cannon into me. “It’s all right,” I said. “I just need to pay the innkeeper for my room.”

There was a slight worried edge in the guard’s voice when he said, “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, please,” I said. “I hate owing money. Look, if you don’t trust me, I’ll give you the coins, and you can give them to him. All right?”

He looked at the innkeeper, who shrugged. “How much?” the guard said.

“Two bits.”

I smiled. “I’m going to put my hand in my coat pocket,” I said. “Nice and slow.” Which was what I did. Then I took it out again nice and fast, and threw the walnut-sized nugget of compressed pulveus fulminans that I never leave home without straight into the heart of the fire. What can I say? I have amazing hand-eye co-ordination. One of the very few gifts I was born with.

People have the wrong idea about pulveus fulminans, presumably because they believe what I wrote about it when I discovered it. They think that when ignited it goes off with a devastating roar, blowing out windows and cracking rafters. Not at all. What you get is an enormous whoosh, rather like a giant drawing in breath and sneezing, and a ball—often a perfect sphere, which intrigues me—of white smoke, and sometimes a sort of core of condensed fire, depending on how much of the stuff you use. Also depending on quantity, you can get a blast of hot air that’ll knock you sideways and singe your eyebrows if you’re too close. My standard getting-away-from-people nugget doesn’t do that. Last thing I want to do is risk hurting someone and getting myself in even worse trouble. I use five drachms of the stuff, pressed wet between two empty nutshells and allowed to dry on a windowsill for a day. That’ll more or less guarantee you three seconds when nobody’s looking at you, without trashing the place or setting light to the thatch.

To their credit, the three scuttlehats were after me pretty quickly. Running away from people, however, happens to be another of the very few gifts I was born with. It’s not the quantity, I always maintain, it’s the quality.

You may think, basing your opinion on what I’ve told you so far, that escaping from prince Phocas’ guards at this stage in my career was a stupid thing to do; shortsighted, also tinged with ingratitude. There’s Phocas, you’re thinking, going out on a limb to rescue his old college chum from the proper authorities—not for the first time, according to the subtext. All right, I may not have deliberately killed my wife (an unwarranted assumption on your part, I should point out) so maybe it wasn’t murder, but didn’t I just say the last thing I wanted was to get myself arrested by the civil authorities? Damn fool should’ve gone quietly, you’re thinking, and I can’t fault your logic.

Instead, I ran like hell for about five minutes, at which point I’d used up my emergency turn of speed and had to stop for a bit. Fortunately, it looked like I’d done the trick. Paraprosdocia’s the sort of town where people look the other way when they see someone running like hell, and it’d never occur to anyone who lives there to give a truthful answer to any question along the lines of
which way did he go?
Just to be on the safe side, I sneaked in behind a big stack of barrels, sat down and emptied my mind of harsh, stressful thoughts.

Free and clear, then, for now. Net assets; what I’ve got in my head and my pockets. Net liabilities; everything not listed under net assets. First time I’ve been in this position? No.

I was born with all the advantages and had a good start in life. It was scrupulous honesty and clarity of thought that made me end up in this mess. Really and truly.

I had five bits cash and a stack of barrels to hide behind. On the other side of the barrels it was daylight, which made moving about the city a dangerous indulgence. If I could only make it to Choris Seautou, of course, everything would be different. In Choris I had another name, twelve thousand angels in the Catholic & Apostolic Bank and at least one business associate I could trust; also, there’s no extradition treaty between Choris and the Empire, and the mayor of Choris was an old college chum. But Choris is seventy-nine miles from Paraprosdocia, any day of the week, no matter how you measure it, and the first thing the Knights would’ve done would’ve been to put men who knew me on all five City gates. Also, there were still things I had to do here before I could indulge in the luxury of escape. Considering my situation dispassionately and in depth, I was forced to the conclusion that I’d have to be brave, resourceful and imaginative. Depressing. I hate situations that bring out the best in me.

In my mind, I drew a map of the city. Luckily, I had a rough idea of where I was, because over the top of the barrels I could just make out the spire of the Early Day Temple, with the sun more or less behind it. That put me in Coppergate; not a bad place to be. For a start, it’s pretty much the centre of town, about as far from the gates as you can get, so they wouldn’t expect me to be there. Also, it’s a maze of yards, alleys, passages, roads that go nowhere. I’d probably hear a methodical search coming well in advance, because of all the yelling and swearing from the snarled-up traffic. Having reviewed all the data (scientific method, you see), analysed it and considered the various inescapable conclusions, I closed my eyes, stretched my legs out and went to sleep. It’s what animals do, and when it comes to being hunted by predators, they’re the professionals. Conserve energy, make yourself small and quiet in a dark, hidden place.

When I woke up, it was just starting to get dark. I could see the glow of lanterns on the far side of my wall of barrels, and a middle-blue sky.

Generally speaking, I don’t like sleep much. I tend to wake up with all the symptoms of a hangover—fuzzy head, furry tongue, sometimes a sharp pain in the temples, bitterly unfair when you consider that I very rarely drink strong liquor—and it takes me several hours before I’m human again, let alone intelligent. But sometimes, just occasionally, when I go to sleep with a really bad problem on my mind, I wake up with the answer suddenly there, fully-formed and perfect, like a chicken’s egg in the straw.

It says a lot about me that the answer to my problems was the
first
thing that came to me when I opened my eyes. There was an appreciable delay before the memory of the other big thing I’d done the previous day caught up with me. Killed my wife. Oh, that.

There are things you carry around with you wherever you go, like a snail’s shell; they slow you down and crush you, and you live in them. The image that came bounding to greet me was of my hand holding the cup—glazed pottery, because the sort of substances I work with do the most appalling things to metal, even gold and silver—and her hand taking it; and she said, “Are you sure it’s safe?” and I said, “Don’t be bloody stupid, of course it’s
safe
.” And she tilted the cup and swallowed twice and said, “God, that tastes revolting,” and put it down, and then there was a moment of dead silence, and then she said, “So now what?” and I said, “You’ve got to let it work, it’ll take a moment,” and she said, “Will I, you know, feel anything?” and I said, “Well,” and then she screamed.

I’m not proud of one of my greatest achievements. I’ve learned to lift certain things out of my mind, at least for a while. Let’s not think about that, I told myself. Instead—

My brilliant idea, which came to me in a dream (which sounds better than
came to me in my sleep
). I got up off the ground, didn’t stand up straight, kept hunched and low so I could peek over the top of the barrels. The yard was empty, but someone had been to the trouble and expense of lighting three lanterns and hanging them on hooks on the wall. There’s a common misconception that bright lights scare away thieves. Really, it just gives us, I mean them, light to see by. I straightened up and walked slowly and wearily (not acting; stiff neck) round the barrels, out of the yard, down an alley and into Coppergate.

I may have committed a lot of crimes, but I’m not a criminal, as such. Wish I was. Criminals, at least the ones I’ve known over the years, have a wonderfully instinctive way of doing difficult things, like walking unobtrusively down a street. A good thief is practically invisible. A basically honest man like me trying to walk innocently is the most suspicious sight you’ll ever see. Just as well there was nobody about—well, there wouldn’t be; day shift had just gone home, night shift not yet started. The ideal time to be out and about in Coppergate, and I wish I could claim credit for astute tactical thinking.

Walked up Coppergate, left into Old Street, right into The Mile; fifth left, second right. No reason whatsoever to assume he’d be at home. I stood under his window and looked up. A light burning behind the screens. I tried the door; open. Sometimes, you get bursts of good luck, for no perceptible reason.

I went up the stairs, which were dark and smelt of burnt tallow and urine. His door actually has his name on it. I knocked and pushed it open in one smooth movement.