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"And yet," Alan persisted, "some one had those parchments some one who may have received them from Archiater himself." "Take care," the old man said with a rather melancholy smile. "That a thing is possible and desirable, is no proof that it is true. To search for that man seems to me like hunting the forest for last year's leaves. But here come friends of yours."
Except ye heal him forthright, I will put the whole of you to death." The Archiater replied, "O King of the Age, in very sooth we know that this is thy son and thou wottest that we fail not of diligence in tending a stranger; so how much more with medicining thy son? But thy son is afflicted with a malady hard to heal, which, if thou desire to know, we will discover it to thee."
Await thy Prince from that enchanted shore Beyond the rainbow's end, and read with him Thy magic runes. This charge I lay on him That he shall love thee more than I farewell! Thy father, ARCHIATER To Josian my daughter and sole heiress. Alan was gathering his French for some sort of greeting, when the young girl spoke in a sweet clear voice and in English.
A friend to whom I owe much desired to know whether the clerk's story were true or false. For myself I seek only to know what remains of the work of Archiater, because he was a master whose work should not be lost. There must be those somewhere who could go on with it, if we but knew." "Aye," chuckled the jester, "if we but knew!" Then leaning forward he caught Alan by the shoulder.
"Oh, the wisdom of those who are not fools is past understanding! Why do you rake those ashes?" "I have read some of his writings," Alan went on undisturbed, "and if there should be more anywhere I would risk much for the sake of them." Stefano shook his head mockingly, and the bells mocked with him. "You English are mad after gold. They say here that Archiater sold his soul for his knowledge."
A madman with ideals is bad enough, but Barbarossa's son is a diabolically sane person without any. A man is not called 'the Cruel' without reason." "But what object " Alan began, and paused. "Archiater the physician, as I knew him, would have been rather worse than useless to that prince as I have heard of him," answered the Paduan deliberately.
Archiater found many metals and minerals in these hills, and made some of his experiments in the ruins of an old pagan temple close to the spot where he discovered a vein of copper. He was half a winter trying out what he found, from arsenic to zircon.
"My dear son," he said, "when we learned the secrets of Archiater those secrets which mean death- -we promised one another, all of us, never to use them save to the glory of God and the honor of our land. Which of these, think you, would be served by lending them to the evil plots of a traitor?" Padraig caught the hand of his master in both his own. "It is beyond endurance!" he cried piteously.
But he could not have known what these scripts were or he would have kept them in a sealed packet under his own hand." "He could not have read most of them," said Tomaso. "Archiater usually wrote his diaries in cipher. Who is this clerk?" "Simon Gastard his name is. He was very anxious to leave England when last I saw him.
"And now, since we are quite alone, why do you, an honest man, pretend to be the fellow of that rascally clerk?" Alan always met an emergency coolly. "I did not know the country or the language," he said, "and I took this way of reaching Goslar in the hope of learning the truth about one Archiater of Byzantium." The jester's high cackling laughter broke in. "Truth from a fool!" he shrilled.
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