my plan that one day I would have a library of my own, and I would fill it with the newest books, brimming with the latest ideas. There was no chance that on Tristram’s shelves I would find Francis Bacon’s Essays, or Abbot’s Geography, or even Rowland’s The Letting of the Humour’s Blood in the Head-Vein. A copy of Castellio’s On the Art of Doubting and of Knowing caught my eye and I sat down by the window to read. Outside the sky had brightened and the clouds were breaking up. The light was dazzling and I turned the chair to put my back to the window that the brightness might fall on the pages I was reading.
I was just coming to the chapter on Moses when the door opened and Tristram lumbered in, walking tenderly on his gouty leg and using a carved walnut stick to support his weight. I rose from my chair.
“Good day to you, Uncle.”
“Soren, is that you there? I have sought you the morning long, my lad. I should have known to look for you here. You were always more at home with dead books than with living men. No, no, sit down, lad.”
Tristram waved me back into my seat and he pushed along the length of the room to place himself near me. The chair he sat in creaked and he sighed to have the weight off his leg. There was a spot of egg in his beard.
“Uncle, your leg betrays you.”
“Aye. The surgeon forbids me all manner of delicious food and drink, yet my leg still purples and swells like a melon. I am bled, I am given potions of mercury and oil, I suffer through the most bland meals a man could imagine, and I drink nothing but water and milk. I am an old man, my lad.”
“You have two score more summers before you, I warrant.”
“It is the winters that worry me. Sometimes I cannot feel my fingers and toes. Day by day, a man’s health will fall to earth in bits or in bushels, just as a tree drops its leaves. I do not wax healthy.”
“You are by no means waning, Uncle.”
Tristram grunted and shifted in his chair, the wooden frame groaning as he moved.
“I am fat, you mean.”
“Healthy, like a sturdy calf.”
“Your flattery comforts me not. You have not outgrown your sharp wit, I see. When I last spoke with your father—”
“Enough on my father, Uncle. I have not come to Elsinore to pay him my respects.”
“You should.”
“I have duties here, and soon on Hven.”
“Ah, Hven. It will not be so pleasant and pretty there as you remember it. The walls have all come down. Just as your father warned they would.”
“How goes the tax collection? Do the townsfolk still call you Sir Tollbooth, Uncle?”
“You cannot turn me from my pursuit. I mean to speak of your father.”
“Then I must take your leave, Sir Tristram.”
I stood, put the Castellio on an empty shelf, and made to move past Tristram. He clutched my hand and his grip was still that of a strong young man. I twisted but could not escape.
“Stay a moment, Soren. I will leave off on your father. But stay.”
“To what purpose?”
“A favor.”
“To me or thee?”
“To me. Sit, prithee.”
He released my hand.
I sat and crossed my arms. Tristram squinted at me. The sunlight streamed into the room from behind my back and I must have been but a shadow to his eyes. Were I in a kinder mood I should have sat where he could see my face.
“You come so rarely home, Soren. I know this visitation was not of your own inclining, but here you are and here I am. We have known each other almost your entire life. I saw you baptized. I stood with you and your father when your mother was buried. Your father—”
“Enough.”
“He was a good man.”
“He was a man. Take him for all in all, Tristram.”
“We will not look upon his like again, lad.”
“God willing.”
“Now, lad—”
“Enough, Tristram. If you wish to weep at his grave I will not stop you, but neither will I join you. And that’s the end.”
Tristram heaved himself forward toward me. The chair protested beneath his weight. He reached for my hand, but I was out of reach.
“Soren, I do not mean to upset you. I was only hoping that by speaking to you kindly of your father, I might make you remember that once you were fond of me.”
“Oh, Uncle. The less you speak of that