Scrivener’s Tale

Cassien lifted his legs to be in the classic handstand position before he bounced easily and fluidly regained his feet. He was naked, had worked hard, as usual, so a light sheen of perspiration clung to every highly defined muscle … it was as though Cassien’s tall frame had been sculpted. His lengthy, intensive twice-daily exercises had made him supple and strong enough to lift several times his own body weight.

He’d never understood why he’d been sent away to live alone. He’d known no other family than the Brotherhood — fifteen or so men at any one time — and no other life but the near enough monastic one they followed, during which he’d learned to read, write and, above all, to listen. Women were not forbidden but women as lifelong partners were. And they were encouraged to indulge their needs for women only when they were on tasks that took them from the Brotherhood’s premises; no women were ever entertained within. Cassien had developed a keen interest in women from age fifteen, when one of the older Brothers had taken him on a regular errand over two moons and, in that time, had not had to encourage Cassien too hard to partake in the equally regular excursions to the local brothel in the town where their business was conducted. During those visits his appetite for the gentler sex was developed into a healthy one and he’d learned plenty in a short time about how to take his pleasure and also how to pleasure a woman.

He’d begun his physical training from eight years and by sixteen summers presented a formidable strength and build that belied how lithe and fast he was. He’d overheard Brother Josse remark that no other Brother had taken to the regimen faster or with more skill.

Cassien washed in the bucket of cold water he’d dragged from the stream and then shook out his black hair. He’d never known his parents and Josse couldn’t be drawn to speak of them other than to say that Cassien resembled his mother and that she had been a rare beauty. That’s all Cassien knew about her. He knew even less about his father; not even the man’s name.

‘Make Serephyna, whom we honour, your mother. Your father must be Shar, our god. The Brothers are your family, this priory your home.’

Brother Josse never wearied of deflecting his queries and finally Cassien gave up asking.

He looked into the small glass he’d hung on the mud wall. Cassien combed his hair quickly and slicked it back into a neat tail and secured it. He leaned in closer to study his face, hoping to make a connection with his real family through the mirror; his reflection was all he had from which to create a face for his mother. His features appeared even and symmetrical — he allowed that he could be considered handsome. His complexion showed no blemishes while near black stubble shadowed his chin and hollowed cheeks. Cassien regarded the eyes of the man staring back at him from the mirror and compared them to the rock pools near the spring that cascaded down from the Razor Mountains. Centuries of glacial powder had hardened at the bottom of the pools, reflecting a deep yet translucent blue. He wondered about the man who owned them … and his purpose. Why hadn’t he been given missions on behalf of the Crown like the other men in the Brotherhood? He had been superior in fighting skills even as a lad and now his talent was as developed as it could possibly be.

Each new moon the same person would come from the priory; Loup was mute, fiercely strong, unnervingly fast and gave no quarter. Cassien had tried to engage the man, but Loup’s expression rarely changed from blank.

His task was to test Cassien and no doubt report back to Brother Josse. Why didn’t Josse simply pay a visit and judge for himself? Once in a decade was surely not too much to ask? Why send a mute to a solitary man? Josse would have his reasons, Cassien had long ago decided. And so Loup would arrive silently, remaining for however long it took to satisfy himself that Cassien was keeping sharp and healthy, that he was constantly improving his skills with a range of weapons, such as the throwing arrows, sword, or the short whip and club.

Loup would put Cassien through a series of contortions to test his strength, control and suppleness. They would run for hours to prove Cassien’s stamina, but Loup would do his miles on horseback. He would check Cassien’s teeth, that his eyes were clear and vision accurate, his hearing perfect. He would even check his stools to ensure that his diet was balanced. Finally he would check for clues — ingredients or implements — that Cassien might be smoking, chewing or distilling. Cassien always told Loup not to waste his time. He had no need of any drug. But Loup never took his word for it.

He tested that a blindfolded Cassien — from a distance — was able to gauge various temperatures, smells, Loup’s position changes, even times of the day, despite being deprived of the usual clues.

Loup also assessed pain tolerance, the most difficult of sessions for both of them: stony faced, the man of the Brotherhood went about his ugly business diligently. Cassien had wept before his tormentor many times. But no longer. He had taught himself through deep mind control techniques to welcome the sessions, to see how far he could go, and now no cold, no heat, no exhaustion, no surface wound nor sprained limb could stop Cassien completing his test. A few moons previously the older man had taken his trial to a new level of near hanging and near drowning in the space of two days. Cassien knew his companion would not kill him and so it was a matter of trusting this fact, not struggling, and living long enough for Loup to lose his nerve first. Hanging until almost choked, near drowning, Cassien had briefly lost consciousness on both tests but he’d hauled himself to his feet finally and spat defiantly into the bushes. Loup had only nodded but Cassien had seen the spark of respect in the man’s expression.

The list of trials over the years seemed endless and ranged from subtle to savage. They were preparing him but for what? He was confident by this time that his thinking processes were lightning fast, as were his physical reactions.

Cassien had not been able to best Loup in hand-to-hand combat in all these years until two moons previously, when it seemed that everything he had trained his body for, everything his mind had steeled itself for, everything his emotions and desires had kept themselves dampened for, came out one sun-drenched afternoon. The surprise of defeat didn’t need to be spoken; Cassien could see it written across the older man’s face and he knew a special milestone had been reached. And so on his most recent visit the trial was painless; his test was to see if Cassien could read disguised shifts in emotion or thought from Loup’s closed features.

But there was a side to him that Loup couldn’t test. No-one knew about his magic. Cassien had never told anyone of it, for in his early years he didn’t understand and was fearful of it. By sixteen he not only wanted to conform to the monastic lifestyle, but to excel. He didn’t want Brother Josse to mark him as different, perhaps even unbalanced or dangerous, because of an odd ability.

However, in the solitude and isolation of the forest Cassien had sparingly used the skill he thought of as ‘roaming’ — it was as though he could disengage from his body and send out his spirit. He didn’t roam far, didn’t do much more than look around the immediate vicinity, or track various animals; marvel at a hawk as he flew alongside it or see a small fire in the far distance of the south that told him other men were passing along the tried and tested tracks of the forest between Briavel and Morgravia.

Cassien was in the north, where the forest ultimately gave way to the more hilly regions and then the mountain range known as the Razors and the former realm beyond. He’d heard tales as a child of its infamous King Cailech, the barbaric human-flesh-eating leader of the mountain tribes, who ultimately bested the monarch of Morgravia and married the new Queen of Briavel to achieve empire. As it had turned out, Cailech was not the barbarian that the southern kingdoms had once believed. Subsequent stories and songs proclaimed that Emperor Cailech was refined, with courtly manners — as though bred and raised in Morgravia — and of a calm, generous disposition. Or so the stories went.

He’d toyed with the idea of roaming as far as the Morgravian capital, Pearlis, and finding out who sat on the imperial throne these days; monarchs could easily change in a decade. However, it would mean leaving his body to roam the distance and he feared that he couldn’t let it remain uninhabited for so long.

There were unpalatable consequences to roaming, including sapping his strength and sometimes making himself ill, and he hated his finely trained and attuned body not to be strong in every way. He had hoped that if he practised enough he would become more adapted to the rigours it demanded but the contrary was true. Frequency only intensified the debilitating effects.

There was more though. Each time he roamed, creatures around him perished. The first time it happened he thought the birds and badgers, wolves and deer had been poisoned somehow when he found their bodies littered around the hut.

It was Romaine, the now grown she-wolf, who had told him otherwise.

It’s you, she’d said calmly, although he could hear the anger, her despair simmering at the edge of the voice in his mind. We are paying for your freedom, she’d added, when she’d dragged over the corpse of a young wolf to show him.

And so he moved as a spirit only rarely now, when loneliness niggled too hard, and before doing so he would talk to Romaine and seek her permission. She would alert the creatures in a way he didn’t understand and then she would guide him to a section of the forest that he could never otherwise find, even though he had tried.

For some reason, the location felt repellent, although it had all the same sort of trees and vegetation as elsewhere. There was nothing he could actually pin down as being specifically different other than an odd atmosphere, which he couldn’t fully explain but he felt in the tingles on the surface of his flesh and the raising of hair at the back of his neck. It felt ever so slightly warmer there, less populated by the insects and birds that should be evident and, as a result, vaguely threatening. If he was being very particular, he might have argued that it was denser at the shrub level. On the occasions he’d mentioned this, Romaine had said she’d never noticed, but he suspected that she skirted the truth.

‘Why here?’ he’d asked on the most recent occasion, determined to learn the secret. ‘You’ve always denied there was anything special about this place.’

I lied, she’d pushed into his mind. You weren’t ready to know it. Now you are.

‘Tell me.’

It’s a deliberately grown offshoot of natural vegetation known as the Thicket.

‘But what is it?’

It possesses a magic. That’s all I know.

‘And if I roam from here the animals are safe?’

As safe as we can make them. Most are allowing you a wide range right now. We can’t maintain it for very long though, so get on with what you need to do.

And that’s how it had been. The Thicket somehow keeping the forest animals safe, filtering his magic through itself and cleansing, or perhaps absorbing, the part of his power that killed. It couldn’t help Cassien in any way, but Romaine had admitted once that the Thicket didn’t care about his health; its concern was for the beasts.

None, he’d observed, from hawk to badger, had ever been aware of his presence when he roamed. With Romaine’s assistance, he had roamed briefly around Loup on a couple of occasions. Cassien was now convinced that people would not be aware of his spiritual presence either.

Only Romaine sensed him — she always knew where he was whether in physical or spiritual form. The she-wolf was grown to her full adult size now and she was imposing — beautiful and daunting in the same moment. Romaine didn’t frighten him and yet he knew she could if she chose to. She still visited from time to time, never losing her curiosity for him. He revelled in her visits. She would regard him gravely with those penetrating yellowy grey eyes of hers and he would feel her kinship in that gaze.

He straightened from where he’d been staring into the mirror at his unshaven face and resolved to demand answers from Loup on the next full moon, which was just a few days away.

TWO

Gabe strolled to the bookshop carrying his box of cakes and enjoying the winter sunlight. Catherine gave a small squeal and rushed over to hug him as he entered the shop.

‘Happy birthday!’ And not worrying too much about what customers might think, she yelled out to the rest of the staff: ‘Gabe’s in, sing everyone!’

It was tradition. Birthday wishes floated down from the recesses of the shop via the narrow, twisting corridor created by the tall bookshelves, and from the winding staircase that led to the creaking floorboards of the upstairs section. Even the customers joined in the singing.

In spite of his normally reticent manner, Gabe participated in the fun, grinning and even conducting the song. He noted again that the fresh new mood of wanting to bring about change was fuelling his good humour. He put the giveaway bag with its box of treats on the crowded counter.

‘Tell me you have macarons,’ Cat pleaded.

Gabe pushed the Pierre Hermé box into her hands. ‘To the staffroom with you.’ Then he smiled at the customers patiently waiting. ‘Sorry for all this.’ They all made the sounds and gestures of people not in a hurry.

Even so, the next hour moved by so fast that he realised when he looked up to check the time that he hadn’t even taken his jacket off.

An American student working as a casual sidled up with a small stack of fantasy novels — a complete series and in the original covers, Gabe noticed, impressed. He anticipated that an English-speaking student on his or her gap year was bound to snaffle the three books in a blink. Usually there were odd volumes, two and three perhaps the most irritating combination for shoppers.

‘Put a good price on those. Sell only as a set,’ he warned.

Dan nodded. ‘I haven’t read these — I’m half-inclined to buy them myself but I don’t have the money immediately.’

Gabe gave the youngster a sympathetic glance. ‘And they’ll be gone before payday,’ he agreed, quietly glad because Dan was always spending his wage before he earned it.

‘Monsieur Reynard came in,’ Dan continued. ‘He left a message.’

‘About his book. I know,’ Gabe replied, not looking up from the note he was making in the Reserves book. ‘I haven’t found it yet. But I am searching.’

Dan frowned. ‘No, he didn’t mention a book. He said he’d call in later.’

Catherine came up behind them. ‘Did Dan tell you that Reynard is looking for you?’

Dan gave her a soft look of exasperation. ‘I was just telling him.’

‘And did you tell Reynard that it’s Gabe’s birthday?’ she asked with only a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

‘No,’ Dan replied, but his expression said, Why would I?

‘Good,’ Gabe said between them. ‘I’m —’

‘Lucky I did, then,’ Catherine said dryly and smiled sweetly.

‘Oh, Cat, why would you do that?’

‘Because he’s your friend, Gabe. He should know. After all —’

‘He’s not a friend, he’s a customer and we have to keep some sort of —’

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Reynard,’ Dan said and Gabe swung around.

‘Ah, you’re here,’ the man said, approaching the counter. He was tall with the bulky girth of one who enjoys his food, but was surprisingly light on his feet. His hair looked as though it was spun from steel and he wore it in a tight queue. Cat often mused how long Monsieur Reynard’s hair was, while Dan considered it cool in an old man. Gabe privately admired it because Reynard wore his hair in that manner without any pretension, as though it was the most natural way for a man of his mature years to do so. To Gabe he looked like a character from a medieval novel and behaved as a jolly connoisseur of the good life — wine, food, travel, books. He had money to spend on his pursuits but Gabe sensed that behind the gregarious personality hid an intense, highly intelligent individual.

‘Bonjour, Gabriel, and I believe felicitations are in order.’

Gabe slipped back into his French again. ‘Thank you, Monsieur Reynard. How are you?’

‘Please call me René. I am well, as you see,’ the man replied, beaming at him while tapping his rotund belly. ‘I insist you join me for a birthday drink,’ he said, ensuring everyone in the shop heard his invitation.

‘I can’t, I have to —’

Reynard gave a tutting noise. ‘Please. You have never failed to find the book I want and that sort of dedication is hard to find. I insist, let me buy you a birthday drink.’

Cat caught Gabe’s eye and winked. She’d always teased him that Reynard was probably looking for more than mere friendly conversation.

‘Besides,’ Reynard continued, ‘there’s something I need to talk to you about. It’s personal, Gabriel.’

Gabe refused to look at Cat now. He hesitated, feeling trapped.

‘Listen, we’ll make it special. Come to the Café de la Paix this evening.’

‘At Opéra?’

‘Too far?’ Reynard offered, feigning sympathy. Then he grinned. ‘You can’t live your life entirely in half a square kilometre of Paris, Gabriel. Take a walk after work and join me at one of the city’s gloriously grand cafés and live a little.’

He remembered his plan that today was the first day of his new approach to life. ‘I can be there at seven.’

‘Parfait!’ Reynard said, tapping the counter. He added in English, ‘See you there.’

Gabe gave a small groan as the man disappeared from sight, moving across the road to where all the artists and riverside sellers had set up their kiosks along the walls of the Seine. ‘I really shouldn’t.’

‘Why?’ Cat demanded.

Gabe winced. ‘He’s a customer and —’

‘And so handsome too … in a senior sort of way.’

Gabe glared at her. ‘No, I mean it,’ she giggled. ‘Really. He’s always so charming and he seems so worldly.’

‘So otherworldly more like,’ Dan added. They both turned to him and he shrugged self-consciously.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Gabe asked.

‘There’s something about him, isn’t there? Or is it just me?’ Gabe shook his head with a look of puzzlement. ‘You’re kidding, right? You don’t find his eyes a little too searching? It’s as though he has an agenda. Or am I just too suspicious?’

Cat looked suddenly thoughtful. ‘I know what Dan means. Reynard does seem to stare at you quite intently, Gabe.’

‘Well, I’ve never noticed.’

She gave him a friendly soft punch. ‘That’s because you’re a writer and you all stare intensely at people like that.’ She widened her eyes dramatically. ‘Either that,’ she said airily, ‘or our hunch is right and Reynard fancies you madly.’

Dan snorted a laugh.

‘You two are on something. Now, I have work to do, and you have cakes to eat,’ he said, ‘and as I’m the most senior member of staff and the only full-timer here, I’m pulling rank.’

The day flew by. Suddenly it was six and black outside. Christmas lights had started to appear and Gabe was convinced each year they were going up earlier — to encourage the Christmas trade probably. Chestnuts were being roasted as Gabe strolled along the embankment and the bars were already full of cold people and warm laughter.

It wasn’t that Gabe didn’t like Reynard. He’d known him long enough. They’d met on a train and it was Reynard who’d suggested he try and secure a job at the bookshop once he’d learned that Gabe was hoping to write a novel. ‘I know the people there. I can introduce you,’ he’d said and, true to his word, Reynard had made the right introductions and a job for Gabe had been forthcoming after just three weeks in the city.

Reynard was hard to judge, not just in age, but in many respects.

Soon he approached the frenzy that was L’Opéra, with all of its intersecting boulevards and crazy traffic circling the palatial Opéra Garnier. He rounded the corner and looked for Reynard down the famously long terrace of the café. People — quite a few more tourists than he’d expected — were braving the cold at outside tables in an effort to capture the high Parisian café society of a bygone era when people drank absinthe and the hotel welcomed future kings and famous artists. He moved on, deeper into the café, toward the entrance to the hotel area.

Gabe saw Reynard stand as he emerged into the magnificent atrium-like lobby of the hotel known as Le Grand. He’d never walked through here previously and it was a delightful surprise to see the belle époque evoked so dramatically. It was as though Charles Garnier had decided to fling every design element he could at it, from Corinthian cornices to stucco columns and gaudy gilding.

‘Gabriel,’ Reynard beamed, ‘welcome to the 9th arrondissement. I know you never venture far.’

‘I’m addressing that,’ Gabe replied in a sardonic tone.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Reynard said, gesturing around him.

Gabe nodded. ‘Thank you for inviting me.’

‘Pleasure. I have an ulterior motive, though, let me be honest,’ he said with a mischievous grin. Gabe wished he hadn’t said that. ‘But first,’ his host continued, ‘what are you drinking? Order something special. It is your birthday, after all.’

‘Absinthe would be fun if it wasn’t illegal.’

Reynard laughed. ‘You can have a pastis, which is similar, without the wormwood. But aniseed is so de rigueur now. Perhaps I might make a suggestion?’

‘Go ahead,’ Gabe said. ‘I’m no expert.’

‘Good, I shall order then.’ He signalled to the waiter, who arrived quietly at his side.

‘Sir?’

‘Two kir royales.’ The man nodded and Reynard turned back to Gabe. ‘Ever tasted one?’ Gabe gave a small shake of his head. ‘Ah, then this will be the treat I’d hoped. Kir is made with crème de cassis. The blackcurrant liqueur is then traditionally mixed with a white burgundy called Aligoté. But here they serve only the kir royale, which is the liqueur topped up with champagne brut. A deliciously sparkling way to kick off your birthday celebrations.’

The waiter arrived with two flutes fizzing with purple liquid and the thinnest curl of lemon peel twisting in the drinks.

‘Salut, Gabriel. Bon anniversaire,’ Reynard said, gesturing at one of the glasses.

‘Merci. A la vôtre,’ Gabe replied — to your health — and clinked his glass against Reynard’s. He sipped and allowed himself to be transported for a moment or two on the deep sweet berry effervescence of this prized apéritif. ‘Delicious. Thank you.’

‘My pleasure. It’s the least I can do for your hours of work on my behalf.’

‘It’s my job. I enjoy searching for rare books and, even more, finding them. You said there was a favour. Is it another book to find?’

‘Er, no, Gabriel.’ Reynard put his glass down and became thoughtful, all amusement dying in his dark grey-blue eyes. ‘It’s an entirely different sort of task. One I’m loath to ask you about but yet I must.’

Gabe frowned. It sounded ominous.

‘I gather you were … are … a clinical psychologist.’

The kir royale turned sour in Gabe’s throat. He put his glass down. At nearly 25 euros for a single flute, it seemed poor manners not to greedily savour each sip, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to swallow.

He slowly looked up at Reynard. ‘How did you come by this information? No-one at work knows anything about my life before I came to Paris.’

‘Forgive me,’ Reynard said, his voice low and gentle. ‘I’ve looked into your background. The internet is very helpful.’

Gabe blinked with consternation. ‘I’ve taken my mother’s surname.’

‘I know,’ is all that Reynard said in response. He too put his glass down. ‘Please, don’t become defensive, I —’