“Killed — ?”
“An accident, but still … ”
” — with a Bible. Surely not.”
“Well, that’s how the rumor went. Father Nicholas has been dead twenty years, so there’s no way to prove it or disprove it. Let’s hope it isn’t true, and if it is, hope he’s at peace with it now. The fact is, I’m glad I was never trusted with a parish. With a flock to tend. I couldn’t have done much for them.”
“Why not?” Zeffer asked, a little impatient with Sandru’s melancholy now. “Do you have difficulty finding God in a place like this?”
“To be honest Mr. Zeffer, with every week that passes — I almost want to say with every hour — I find it harder to see a sign of God anywhere. It would not be unreasonable, I think, to ask Him to show himself in beauty. In the face of your lady-companion, perhaps … ?”
Katya’s face as proof of God’s presence? It was an unlikely piece of metaphysics, Zeffer thought.
“I apologize,” Sandru said. “You didn’t come here to hear me talk about my lack of faith.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Well I do. The brandy makes me maudlin.”
“Shall I take a look then?” Zeffer suggested, “At whatever’s in here?”
“Yes, why don’t we?” Sandru replied. “I wish I could give you some kind of guidance, but … ” He shrugged; his favorite gesture. “Why don’t you start looking, and I’ll go back and get us something more to drink?”
“Nothing more for me,” Zeffer replied.
“Well, then for me,” Sandru said. “I’ll only be a moment. If you need me, just call. I’ll hear you.”
Zeffer took a moment, when the man was gone, to close his eyes and let his thoughts grow a little more orderly. Though Sandru spoke slowly enough, there was something mildly chaotic about his thought processes. One minute he was talking about furniture, the next about the mad Duke and his hunter’s habits, the next about the fact that they couldn’t make a hospital here because the Devil’s wife had cursed the place.
When he opened his eyes his gaze moved back and forth over the furniture and the boxes without lingering on anything in particular. The bare bulbs were stark, of course, and their lights far from flattering, but even taking that fact into account there was nothing in the room that caught Zeffer’s eye. There were some finely-wrought things, no question; but nothing extraordinary.
And then, as he stood there, waiting for Sandru to return, his gaze moved beyond the objects that filled the chamber, and came to rest instead on the walls beyond.
The chamber was not, he saw, made of bare stone. It was covered with tile. In every sense, this was an understatement, for these were no ordinary tiles. Even by so ungenerous a light as the bare bulbs threw upon them, and viewed by Zeffer’s weary eyes, it was clear they were of incredible sophistication and beauty.
He didn’t wait for Father Sandru to return; rather, he began to push through the piles of furniture towards the designs that covered the walls. They covered the floor, too, he saw, and ceiling. In fact, the chamber was a single masterpiece of tile; every single inch of it decorated.
In all his years of traveling and collecting he’d never seen anything quite like this. Careless of the dirt and dust laden webs which covered every surface, he pushed on through until he reached the nearest wall. It was filthy, of course, but he pulled a large silk handkerchief out of his pocket, and used it to scrub away some of the filth on the tile. It had been plain even from a distance that the tiles were elaborately designed, but now, as he cleared a swathe across four or five, he realized that this was not an abstract pattern but a representation. There was part of a tree there, on one of the tiles, and on another, adjacent to it, a man on a white horse. The detail was astonishing. The horse was so finely painted, it looked about ready to prance off around the room.
“It’s a hunt.”