1
 
 
Out in the fields the men worked under the declining sun to bring in the last of the harvest; in the vineyards grapes were being taken from the vines for making frost-wine. From his vantage-point in the gate-tower window, Francois de Saint-Germain, Sieur Ragoczy watched these labors while his athanor slowly heated. He saw the men were eager to finish their work and be done. He glanced over his shoulder as his manservant entered the six-sided room, and then turned away from the window.
“Has the Estin boy left yet?” Rogres asked his master.
“Yes.” Saint-Germain did not quite sigh. “He is inquisitive, which in another time or another place would serve him in good stead. But here? now?”
“You said there would be risks when you first agreed to teach him,” Rogres reminded Saint-Germain in a carefully neutral tone.
“And there are.” He gave a single, tiny shake of his head.
Rogres posed a question that had troubled him for the last year. “If that is the case, why tutor him? What can it gain him, or you, to—” He stopped himself and waited for an answer.
“He does not want to be ignorant,” said Saint-Germain quietly. “And he wants to travel. His father, merchant that he is, wants profit and encourages the boy. He dreams of jewels and spices. The boy dreams of distant lands and ancient wisdom. If he spoke of this to his Confessor, his liberty could be forfeit.”
“But why should you—” Rogres broke off again. “Your liberty could also be forfeit.”
“So it could. Fortunately the priests in Orgon dismiss me as a foreigner who has fought the enemies of the Church, which affords me some protection that the boy does not have.” He tapped the surface of his trestle table. “If he wants to study, who else is there? Everyone around him knows the stars are the celestial river flowing from Heaven to earth as God wills it. They know that the Devil stalks the earth personally seeking out souls to corrupt. They know that anyone foolish enough to sail west or south will fall off the earth into outer darkness.” He lifted his hand in a gesture of despair. “What else could I do, old friend?”
“You could think of your own safety,” said Rogres, no rebuke in his manner.
“I have only agreed to tutor this one boy before he goes to sea,” Saint-Germain reminded him. “And Gaspard is not going to tell tales to his Confessor.” Heturned back to the window and watched awhile in silence.
“The men should be paid today, now that all but the end of the harvest is over,” Rogres said without any sign of a change of subject beyond a nod. “If you are planning to do it yourself—” He made a gesture to the window. “They will want to leave before sundown.”
“Yes; you are right to remind me,” said Saint-Germain. “It would be wise to pay them myself. They might have doubts about me if I do not.” His smile was fleeting, filled with ironic humor. “It would surely be imprudent to be any more remote than I already seem to them.”
Rogres nodded, a faint amusement in his dignified features. “They do speculate about you.”
Saint-Germain chuckled. “Of course they do. I am a foreigner, and therefore the object of curiosity. I am wealthy, and that makes me enviable. My land is productive, which is the most reprehensible of all. Neighbors may be disliked, even loathed, but neighbors are familiar. Foreigners are unknown quantities, despised for nothing more than foreignness. As we have seen many times before.” He shook out the long, knotted sleeves in his Burgundian cotehardie of black Antioch silk; the black cote of fine wool beneath was Roman in style, the hem reaching his ankles and decorated with red embroidery displaying his eclipse device. The high collar of the cote was slightly stiffened so that it did not hang limply around his neck but instead curled elegantly, just as his fashionably cropped, wavy dark hair did, and his neat, short beard. “Well, I will be with you shortly, old friend. I have a few things I still must attend to here.”
“You are making scent?” Rogres asked, cocking his head in the direction of the athanor. Now that they were no longer discussing Saint-Germain’s student, he was once more neat and reserved, his manner was a meticulous blend of respect and affection. His cote was shorter than Saint-Germain’s, and made of dark blue-grey wool instead of silk, but he had a better appearance than most of the domestic servants outside the Papal Court at Avignon.
“No, not this time. Today I work with moldy bread,” said Saint-Germain.
“The sovereign remedy,” said Rogres knowingly. “I did not realize your stores were low.”
“They aren’t,” Saint-Germain replied. “But winter is coming, and with it comes illness. I thought it wise to be prepared. Even in this mild climate, putrid lungs are not unknown.”
“Even in midsummer,” Rogres reminded him.
Saint-Germain thought a moment. “True enough.” He looked back toward the window. “At least in this part of the world they bathe twice a month.” When Rogres did not say anything, he went on, “Tell the men I will come directly.”
“Very good, my master,” Rogres said, and bowed slightly. “There will be taxes on the harvest soon.”
“Yes; yes. I realize that,” Saint-Germain assured him. “And, being foreign, we will have a higher assessment than those who were born on their lands.” He shrugged, dismissing the melancholy that threatened to take hold of him. “When has that not been the case. Even my native earth is taxed as if I were a foreigner, I have been away so long.” His people who had claimed the land had left it more than two thousand years before, long after he had gone from it.
Rogres sensed Saint-Germain’s unspoken ruefulness; he left Saint-Germain alone in the tower room with his alchemical equipment.
By the time the sun had dropped to the edge of the crested western horizon, Saint-Germain came down to the courtyard at the rear of his villa, a large sack of coins in one hand, a ledger in the other. Rogres had set up a small table with an ink-cake with a trimmed quill on it, and put a chair behind it for Saint-Germain’s use; he took his seat and opened the ledger as the workmen gathered in the courtyard. None was younger than ten or older than thirty; all wore cottelles and breeks tucked into brodequins and held their caped hoods in their hands. They kept their distance until their names were called, and accepted their payment without comment. Each man was given a small bonus for his labors. Their participation in the harvest festival a few days ago had seemed more truly the end of the season than this last flurry of work, and the extra money nothing more than an appropriate gift for their continuing labor. When all the men had received their money, Saint-Germain addressed them.
“I will pay your masters for the loan of your labor. They will have no cause to make claim against you. If there is any attempt to tax a portion of your hire, inform my manservant and the matter will be settled by me. I thank you for...