Nicanor - Teller of Tales | Page 2

THE MANTLE OF MELCHIOR
BOOK I
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

NICANOR: TELLER OF TALES
Book I
THE MANTLE OF MELCHIOR
I
Nicanor the story-teller was the son of Rathumus the wood-cutter, who
was the son of Razis the worker in bronze, who was the son of
Melchior the story-teller. So that Nicanor came honestly by his gift,
and would even believe that his great-grandsire had handed it down to
him by special act of bequest.
Now Rathumus the wood-cutter, tall and gaunt and fierce-eyed, coming
home with his fagots on his shoulder in the gloam of the evening, when
the fireflies twinkled low among the marshes, saw Nicanor on the side
of the hill against the sky, sitting with hands clasped about his knees,
crooning to the stars. Rathumus bowed his head and entered his house,
and to Susanna, his wife, he said:
"The gift of our father Melchior hath fallen upon the child. I have seen
it coming this long, long while. Now he singeth to the stars. When they
have heard him and have taught him, he will go and sing to men. He is

our child no longer, wife. His life hath claimed him."
Susanna, the mother, said:
"He will be a man among men. He will be a great man among great
men. It may be that the Lord Governor will send for him. But--oh, my
boy--my boy!"
Rathumus answered gravely:
"Pray the holy gods he will not misuse his power!"
Presently Nicanor came in, with the spell not yet shaken off him,
wanting his supper. A smaller image of his father he was, lean and
shock-headed, with gray steady eyes changing from the stillness of
childhood's innocence to the depth and wonder of dawning knowledge.
Rathumus said:
"What hast been doing, boy?"
Nicanor stretched like one arousing from sleep.
"I know not," he answered. "Perhaps I slept out under the moon last
night and she hath turned my head.--Father, I have been thinking.
When I am become a man I shall do great things. Even you have told
me that the destiny of a man's life lieth between his hands."
"Son," Rathumus said quickly, "remember also that men's hands lie
between the hands of the gods, even as a slave's between the hands of
his over-lord. Keep it in mind, child, that thou art very young, that thy
first strength hath not yet come upon thee; and strive not to teach to
others what thou hast not learned thyself. For that way lies mockery
and the scorn of men."
"Now I do not understand where thy words would lead," Nicanor said;
and his gray eyes, in the wavering torchlight, were doubtful. "I teach no
one. Perhaps--it was not I who slept under the moon, after all."

For he was young, and though his parents saw what had come upon
him, he himself saw not.
So Nicanor had his supper, of black bean-porridge, taking no thought
of those parents' loving thought for him; and later climbed the ladder to
the loft where he slept. After a while, Susanna, yearning over her boy
in this, the first dim hour of his awakening,--yearning all the more since
she saw that he was following blindly the workings of his own
appointed fate, without any sense or knowledge of it himself,--went up
the ladder also and sat beside him, thinking him asleep. But Nicanor
put out a hand and slid it into hers, and shuffled in his straw until he
was close against her. She gathered him into her arms, his shaggy head
upon her breast, and rocked him to and fro in the darkness. To-morrow
he would go where this fate of his called him; but this last night he
must be hers, all hers, who had borne him only to give him up. Nicanor,
stupid with sleep and comfort, murmured drowsily, and she bent close
over him to listen.
"Mother, three nights ago my father spoke of Melchior, and the name
hath lingered in my head. Who was he? What was he?"
"Thy father's father's sire," she told him. She saw it coming; the chains
which bound his heart to hers were stretching. "He was a teller of tales,
son, and--thy father thinks a fold of his mantle hath fallen upon thee.
He it was who was first servus in the family of our lord. Little one, tell
mother; what thoughts hast thou when the night comes down and the
wide earth hushes into drowsy crooning? Hast ever felt dreams stirring
at thy heart-strings like chords of faintest music?"
"Mother!" Nicanor cried, and tightened his arms about her. "Thou hast
it--the words--the words! Tell me how to do it! Thoughts I have, and
visions so far away that they are gone before I know them--but the
words! I cannot say the things