Thorn by Fred Saberhagen (reading like a writer TXT) 📕

He was blond and undersized, dressed in travel-worn jeans with white road dust on them, and a plain T-shirt, once white. A small knapsack of fabric dull as camouflage lay on the floor beside his chair, one of its straps still resting limply in his slack right hand. His snub nose and beardless cheeks made him look no more than fifteen or so. But Ellison was sure that he was older.

      Several components of Ellison’s mind, one of them artistic, considered that young face with growing fascination. Here was one of Del’s people, certainly. The face was beautiful. And, leaving aside whatever might be due to present tiredness, there was that inward something that was very wrong, that had told Ellison at first glance that the boy was here for some real purpose. His coming meant trouble, maybe, but there was nothing accidental about it. Ellison wondered: Did Del send him here?

      He asked: “Have you been here before?”

      “No.” A hesitation. “Though I got the feeling that maybe I seen you someplace.”

      Ellison looked at him.

      “I guess I’m mistaken. Hey, if Annie’s not here, how about Helen? It just occurred to me, maybe it’s possible that you and I know this girl by different names? I mean, sometimes when people run away they’ll use a different name?”

      The blue eyes shifted from Ellison to Stephanie and back again. It was impossible to read just how much was truth in them, and how much guile.

      Ellison looked at his wife, trying to get some cue from her, but he couldn’t. She kept regarding the visitor very thoughtfully. At last Ellison said: “There was a girl named Helen in this family once, living in this house. She’s dead.”

      The boy considered that. He had slumped down in his chair until his head rested on its padded back. The strap of the backpack had fallen free of his limp fingers.

      Stephanie crouched down gracefully beside the chair. “Helen was my daughter. If we’re really talking about the same Helen. It’s true, she did run away from home once. And she is dead—there was a lot of publicity about it at the time. You must have read some of that? Seen it on television?”

      Then the visitor opened his mouth, then closed it again, evidently reconsidering whatever he had been going to say. “I didn’t know she was dead. Sorry.”

      “Where,” asked Ellison, “did you think that you had seen me before?”

      “I dunno. Maybe I was wrong about that, too. Sometimes my ideas get all, all screwed up.”

      Stephanie straightened up. She was smiling briskly, almost like a nurse, as she touched the youth on the shoulder. “You must be hungry and thirsty,” she said in bright inviting tones. “Come along with me to the kitchen, and we’ll see what we can find. What’s your name?”

      “Pat.” And Pat got up out of his chair quickly, following Stephanie like a puppy entranced by a first kind gesture.

      A few moments later, Ellison followed them both, keeping a little distance. Peering into the breakfast room, he could see the youth seated at table there, his back to Ellison, already chewing on something. Stephanie was pouring milk into a plastic tumbler for him. Beyond, in the kitchen, the sink was modestly stacked with dirty dishes from lunch. It would be tomorrow morning before any of the help came back.

      Once the wanderer in his dirty T-shirt had been launched on a meal, Stephanie rejoined Ellison for a conference. “What do you make of this?” she whispered.

      Ellison tugged her a little further from the kitchen, into the next room. “I don’t like it,” he answered in his own almost rumbling whisper. Then with a gesture he retreated further still, to where the boy had left his pack. Ellison bent and opened it. A dirty, lightweight jacket came to view, along with a few other items of spare clothing. In the bottom were some granola bars, their wrappers worn with a long time of jostling in the pack.

      Ellison stood, grunting. “And I don’t know what it’s about. But I’m going to take whatever steps are necessary to find out.”

Chapter Seventeen

      Oh, I could regale you now with all the sights and sounds and smells of fifteenth-century Rome. But it would be misleading, insofar as my story is concerned. The truth is, that at the time of my first visit to Rome I was scarcely aware of my surroundings except as they affected my search for Helen. I was beginning truly to wonder whether I might be the victim of some enchantment, so obsessively had the woman’s image, in paint and sketch and memory, come to dominate my thought. Of course I wanted revenge on her, and on her lover—but gradually I was coming to realize that I wanted something more as well. More than mere vengeance, however ferocious, would be needed to give me satisfaction. What exactly the other thing might be, I did not know. But I hoped I would know, in the first moment when I looked on her again.

      From Roman church to Roman church I plodded like a pilgrim, searching for the artist Perugino. I had not imagined there would be quite so many Roman churches. At my waist was the dagger that had once been left on a pillow, aimed at my head. Folded into my purse was a small bundle of sketches by Leonardo da Vinci, likenesses of the sister of the King of Hungary. I was having trouble finding any places to dispose of these pictures where I might reasonably expect them to be helpful.

      On the third day of my Roman search I found a small church where, one of its priests told me, an artisan named Perugino had been painting some murals a few months past. But the painter was certainly gone from the neighborhood now, gone completely away from Rome the priest thought, and his mistress with him if he had had one. The priest had never noticed any woman at all in Perugino’s company, let alone one speaking Hungarian and