Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset Read Free Page B

humiliating that man should be earthbound.
    Kieron remembered that, on this day of days, Hobart would be waiting to welcome him with some ceremony.
    He sighed, picked up the deerhide bag and marched resolutely towards Arundel. Ahead of him there would be months and years wherein he would have to master all the secrets of Hobart’s craft. But when he was a man, when the apprenticeship had been served with honour, that would be the time to learn to fly.
    Meanwhile, there was always the time to dream.

3
    Winter came, turning the land bleak, capping the downs with freezing mist, weaving a delicate tracery of frost over trees, grass, hedgerows and the walls of houses, bringing ice patches on the placid Arun river, making the air sharp as an English apple wine.
    Hobart coughed much and painted little in the winter. The rawness ate into his bones, brought pains to his chest. He spent much time sitting by a log fire with a shawl or sheepskin round his shoulders, brooding upon projects that he would undertake in the spring. There was the mural for the great hall to consider; and Seigneur Fitzalan had commissioned a symbolic work, depicting the fall of the First Men, to the greater glory of Ludd, and for the Church of the Sacred Hammer.
    Widow Thatcher, who cleaned house for Master Hobart and cooked for him, made many nourishing stews of rabbit or pheasant or lamb or venison with parsnips, mushrooms, carrots, potatoes, and the good black pepper for which Seigneur Fitzalan paid exorbitant sums to the skippers of windjammers that sailed as far as the Spice Islands.
    Master Hobart would take but a few spoonfuls of the lovingly made stews. Then he would cough somewhat and draw shivering to the fire. Kieron, waiting properly until his master had finished eating, would gorge himself until his belly swelled and he felt the need to walk off his excess of eating in the frosty downs.
    Though Hobart himself was idle during the dark months, he did not allow his young apprentice to remain idle. He instructed Kieron in the art of making fine charcoal sticks from straight twigs of willow, in the mysteries of fabric printing, in the newly fashionable art of collage, and in the ancient disciplines of colour binding and the preparation of a true canvas. He was even prepared to expend precious whale oil in the lamps so that on a dull afternoon Kieron would have enough light to sketch chairs, tables, bowls of fruit, hanging pheasants, and even the protesting Widow Thatcher.
    Master Hobart was a white-haired old man, nearing his three score. The pains in his chest warned him that the summers left to him would not reach double figures. But he was stubbornly determined to live at least the eight years Kieron needed to complete his apprenticeship. Ludd permitting, he would see the boy established before he was lowered into the flinty earth of Sussex.
    He permitted himself a small heresy – only a very small one, which surely Ludd would excuse. He permitted himself the secret delusion that Kieron was his natural son. Hobart had never lain with a woman. His art had been enough. But now he felt the need of a son; and Kieron, a boy with bright eyes and a quick mind, was all that a man could desire.
    So Kieron escaped many of the usual rigours of apprenticeship. He was well fed, he had much freedom; and Hobart slipped many a silver penny into his purse.
    Kieron understood the relationship very clearly. He loved the old man and did not object to the presumptions of a second father. Besides, Hobart was a great source of knowledge, and knowledge was what Kieron desired above everything.
    In the evenings, before Hobart retired to an early bed, he and Kieron would sit, staring into the log fire, discerning images and fantasies, talking of many things. Hobart drank somewhat – to alleviate the pains and the coughing – of usquebaugh, or akvavit, or eau de vie, depending on which brigantines had recently traded with the seigneurie. In his cups at night, he was