Karver nodded to the unarmed youths and casually spit on the well-used wooden floor. The spittle unfortunately landed on the boot of the mustachioed Dirk; he hurriedly wiped off his offended boot with the side of the other. His spur clanked.
“Get up, Egert,” suggested Bonifor cordially. “Say good night to your sweetheart. It’s time to go.”
Glancing to the side, Egert saw that the venomous barb of the stiletto was concealed in a tiny iron sheath attached to Fagirra’s bootleg. He could have passionately kissed all of them: Karver, Bonifor, and the mustachioed Dirk.
Karver, in the meantime, had stepped forward, and his hand adamantly seized Egert by the collar; some confusion followed because both Dirk and Bonifor simultaneously tried to carry out the exact same action. Fagirra stood up leisurely and retreated to the side.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” several voices yelled in admonishment. The compact group of students surged forward, and the learned youths surrounded the guards and Egert.
“Egert, what’s this about?”
“Oh, their buttons are so shiny! Let’s pluck them off, yeah?”
“Would you look at that, three on one, and they’re still baring their teeth!”
“Give Egert a pair of knives, let him throw them. Their buttons will fall off all on their own.”
Karver smirked scornfully and put his hand on his sword hilt; the wall of students moved slightly, but the scholarly youths did not disperse.
Just then Fox, having answered the call of nature, returned to the tavern in high spirits. Pushing his way through the crowd of his comrades and sweeping his eyes over the three armed newcomers who were looming over a very pallid Egert, Gaetan instantly assessed the situation.
“Papa!” he yelped, flinging himself on Karver’s neck.
Confusion reigned again. Dirk and Bonifor spun away from Egert and gaped in shock at the redheaded lad who was blubbering on the chest of their lieutenant.
“Daddy, why did you forsake Mama!”
Giggles could be heard in the mass of students. Karver was furiously trying to tear Fox’s hands away from his ribbons and epaulets.
“You … You…,” he snorted, unable to add anything further.
Fox wrapped his arms and legs around Karver, who was barely able to keep his feet under him. Gaetan gently clasped his ear and said in a theatrical whisper, “Do you remember how you dragged my mama to a hayloft?”
“Get him off me!” Karver snapped at his companions.
Fox emitted a distressed howl. “What! Are you denying it?” Leaping off the lieutenant, he fixed him with round, shocked, honey-colored eyes. “You’re renouncing your own son? Well, look at me: I might as well be a copy of you! We have the same disgusting snouts!”
The students were falling over themselves with laughter, and even Egert smiled wanly. Dirk was looking around nervously, and Bonifor’s bloodshot eyes darted around the room ever more rapidly.
Suddenly, as if stricken with a thought, Fox screwed up his face suspiciously. “But maybe … Maybe you don’t know how to make babies, after all!”
Finally getting his bearings, Karver drew his sword. The students sprang back, all except for Fox who, with a mournful expression, took a pepper pot from the table and, with a quick toss, emptied it into the lieutenant’s face.
The owner, the cook, and the servants all jumped out of their skins at the wild howl; gasping and coughing, Karver fell down onto the floor, trying to scratch out his own eyes. Dirk and Bonifor both seized their weapons, but their heads were bombarded from all sides by stools, beer mugs, and any cutlery that fell into the furious hands of the students. Showered with taunts and insults, climbing over a mountain of capsized furniture, futilely swinging their blades and promising to return, the gentlemen of the guards disgracefully retired from the field of battle.
On the following day, Toria climbed up her stepladder, peered into the lecture hall through the small round window, and did not see Egert Soll among the students.
Having run her eyes over the rows of students more than once, Toria frowned. The absence of Egert piqued her: after all, her father was on the rostrum! Climbing down, she thought for some time while observing the free and easy games of the library’s mouser; then, feeling querulous, she set off for the annex.
She perfectly remembered the way to this room even though Dinar had not been fond of her visiting there: undoubtedly he was ashamed of the small room. She visited just the same and perched on the edge of his desk while the poor fellow scurried about, gathering up stray items and wiping the dust off the windowsill with his palm.…
Calling Dinar to mind, Toria sighed. She walked up to the familiar door, suddenly unsure of herself. All was quiet beyond the door, and it seemed likely to her that there was no one in the room. How stupid I look, thought Toria, and knocking once, she entered.
Egert was sitting at the desk, his head gravely lowered; Toria noted in passing the sheet of paper lying in front of him and the quill stained with ink. Turning his head around to greet his guest, Egert flinched; the inkpot, grazed by his hand, teetered and overturned.
For a minute or two they were distracted by silently and intently wiping up puddles of ink from the tabletop and floor. Toria’s gaze involuntarily fell on the pages, full of writing, much of it crossed out, and without even realizing what she was doing, she read in Egert’s bloated, clumsy handwriting: and then we shall manage to remember all, and all that was … She hastened to avert her gaze; noticing this, Egert smiled wearily.
“I’ve never been one for writing letters.”
“There is a lecture now,” she remarked dryly.
“Yes,” Egert sighed, “but I really need, especially today, to write a letter to … to a certain woman.”
The autumn wind gathered strength beyond the windows; it howled and slammed into the loose shutters. Toria suddenly realized that it was damp in the room and chilly, and almost completely dark.
Egert turned away from her “Yes. I finally decided to write to my mother.”
The wind tossed a fallen maple leaf—yellow as the sun—against the window; sticking there for a second, the yellow leaf tore away and flew farther on, dancing playfully in the wind.
“I didn’t know that you had a mother,” said Toria quietly and almost immediately became confused. “That is, I didn’t know she was alive.”
Egert cast his eyes to the ground. “Yes.”
“That’s good,” mumbled Toria, unable to think of anything better to say.
Egert smiled, but the smile came out bitter. “Yes. The thing is, I am not a very good son. That’s for sure.”
Beyond the window the wind gusted particularly strenuously. A draft swirled through the room, proprietarily rustling through the papers on the desk.
“Somehow it seems to me…” Toria unexpectedly found herself speaking. “It seems to me that a son, even one who has gotten into trouble, would be loved regardless. Perhaps even more intensely…”
Egert glanced up at her quickly, and his face brightened. “Really?”
For some unknown reason Toria recalled a young boy, a stranger to her, weeping over a dead sparrow: she was fourteen years old, and she went up to him and explained in all seriousness that the bird needed to be left alone, for only then would the Sparrow King appear and bring his loyal subject back to life. Widening his tear-filled eyes, the little boy had asked her then with that same abrupt, sincere hope, “Really?”
Toria smiled at her recollection. “Really.”
Rain started drumming against the hazy window.
Whenever Toria returned home with yet another hole in her stockings, her mother, silently shaking her head, took her wooden needlework box down from a shelf. Toria peered covetously into its mysterious depths: there among a tangle of wool and silk thread, brilliantly lustrous pearl buttons gleamed at her like eyes. Her mother extracted a needle from the box and set to work, occasionally biting off a thread with her sharp, white teeth. Soon in the place where the misshapen little hole had been, a red bug with black spots appeared; after several weeks had passed, Toria’s new stockings were always embroidered with an entire swarm of red bugs, both small and large. She liked to imagine that they would come alive and crawl over her knees, tickling her with their little feelers.