Read Count Scar - SA for Free Online Page A

scriptural knowledge can recognize it straight away. Looks all right to you, then?"
    "It is magnificent, elder Brother." But in fact something about the king's pose struck me as odd. Stooping over, I saw that one of his legs was bent in a manner that defied normal anatomy very slightly. It also greatly increased the effect of a normally strong man reduced to shrinking terror, however, so I supposed it must have been an artistic decision by Brother Quercus.
    "You're looking at that leg, aren't you?" he creaked as if reading my thoughts—was he, perhaps? "Thinking I did it that way for the effect. Well, look a little closer."
    I obeyed, and after a moment I saw a little flaw in the limestone: a bit of quartz crystal, just at the place where King Saul's leg should have bent if it had been carved naturalistically. "A happy accident, then," I said.
    "It's a scar, a scar in the stone." Brother Quercus abruptly laid down his tools and thrust out his hands in my direction. After an instants confusion, I understood that he was requesting me to help him rise. "Getting chilled; that's enough work for one day. Take me along to my cell, Brother Melchior. I'd like to rest and pray for a little while until it's time for the evening offices and meal. The boy will fetch in the tools from the damp when he comes."
    We walked slowly, as I carefully matched my pace to his. He didn't speak again until we were turning down the corridor that led to his cell. But then, "Funny things, scars, on stones or on men.
    You have to work around them, you know."
    "So you couldn't carve across the scar then."

    "Funny things. Stuffs often the strongest right around them. But you can't strike right onto them, or something may crack. What shows on the surface is only part, you see. Scars always go down deeper than you can see. They can be the key to the whole fabric, even in the strongest block." We had reached the door of his cell, but as he was about to enter, he turned sharply about, his face directly toward me though his yellow old eyes were rolled sightlessly upward beneath his bushy brows. "You hear all that, Brother Melchior? You hear what I just said?"
    "About scars in stone? Yes, Brother Quercus."
    "Stones and men, Brother Melchior, stones and men. Just you remember that; you may find it of use before you expect. Scars can be important things, in stones or men. Other men—or yourself."
    As soon as he made this pronouncement all the oaken hardness seemed to go out of him, and I found myself only looking at a blind, weary old man. He turned and shuffled into his little cell, and I set off for mine, puzzling as I went over the question of whether I had just listened to something extremely vital or merely the random vaporings of a holy but crumbling old mind.
    2

    2
    I arose after fitful slumber an hour before the singing of matins the next morning and took a last walk inside and outside every part of the Orders buildings. After the singing of the first office, while the eastern sky was still just reddening with the coming dawn, I went along to see Provost Balaam once more. I found him already at his desk, writing by the light of a candle. "Ah, good morning, Brother Melchior. Are you ready to be on your way?"
    "One of the novices is loading my baggage onto a packhorse, my father. I shall depart as soon as our interview is over."
    "Excellent; then I shall endeavor to be brief. There are just one or two matters you should be acquainted with before you leave." He looked at me for a minute with the same expression he habitually wore when perusing a questionable bill from one of the tradesmen who supplied our house with necessities from the village down in the valley. "You passed your first fourteen years in a mountain holding, so I presume you gained at least some knowledge of the Im-Perfected, did you not?"
    I stared at him in deep dismay, wondering what might be hidden behind this question. Could this be a trap; had the provost somehow discovered what I had