The old man relaxed beneath the formal intonation. Politeness, in his culture, ranked with deference to acknowledged skills and the respect due to age.
"Confidence must be respected," he said. "Even if only implied. Now, as to the box, some things I can tell you for they are common knowledge. The contents, for one, though they could be varied aside from the essential basics. We are actually at work on one now. If you would care to see it?"
He led the way into a back room where the casket stood supported on stands in the center of the floor. Men were busy at work within the interior, soft scrapings coming from beneath their hands, small tappings, rasps, the sound of abrasions. They rose and stepped back at the old man's command and Dumarest looked at the product of their labors.
The carvings were incomplete as yet but recognizable. A row of tiny depictions ran around the upper surface of the interior-animals, birds, people, fish, insects-a gamut of life-forms, each image a potential gem. The artistry converted something hard and cold and efficient into something no less efficient but far more pleasing.
As yet the outside was untouched, smooth surfaces bearing a soft sheen. The lack seemed to make the container larger and uglier than the one Carina had depicted. Perhaps she had distorted its true dimensions to achieve an artistic symmetry. Dumarest measured it with his eyes: twelve feet long, half as much high and wide. Huge for a coffin, large even for a sarcophagus, but small for a miniature world.
"The outside?"
"Will be decorated in due time."
"According to instruction?"
"Naturally." Nisbet lifted his head as the deep notes of a bell echoed from somewhere outside. "The evening bell and the time of relaxation."
"About the decorations," said Dumarest. He raised his voice against the bustle of noise as craftsmen rose and stretched and put aside their tools. "Could you-"
"Later," said Nisbet. He was curt though his tone remained polite. "For today, work is over. Come again tomorrow."
The tavern provided accommodation as it provided a meal.
Dumarest sat with Carina in the long, low-roofed chamber and ate succulent vegetables served with tangy sauces and a variety of nuts. A dish between them held livers of meat roasted and spiced and set on long skewers. The bread was rough but pleasingly flavored. The wine the same.
"Nice." Carina leaned back and sighed with enjoyment. "At times, Earl, everything seems to be just right. This place, the food, the atmosphere-it's what they mean when they talk of perfection."
"Who?"
"All those who've never had it but have imagination enough to guess what it must be like." She sobered a little. "Of course the right company helps."
He said nothing, looking through the window toward the hills, dusted with gloom now but still bright with their golden mantle.
"In a few weeks the ships will come," she said as if reading his mind. "The blooms will be near-venting then and, when they open, the air will be a cloud of spores and perfume. Golden spores in a scented mist." Her eyes, her voice, held the fascination of a dream. "A time of wonder, Earl, when reality yields to magic and all things are possible. Love, friendship, companionship." Her hand reached out to rest fingers on his own. "That, I think, is the most important. To be close to someone on equal terms. To share his life yet to remain an individual. Something a wife can never do."
"Or a lover?"
"What is love? A man says he loves you and what he really means is that he wants you to love him. For some, it seems, it is enough but there is so much more. To stand beside someone, to be important to him, to be a comrade, a friend." Carina shook her head and sipped at her wine, then, apparently casual, changed the subject. "What do you think of life here?"
"It goes on."
"But better than most. To sit and create a thing of beauty for its own sake and the pleasure of doing it. To sell it or not as you please. A man could work for a year and set his work in a window and wait for someone to offer something he is willing to take in exchange."
"Money."
"No, Earl, not always. That's what I like about this world-they are not contaminated by greed. And they are right. Money isn't everything. There are so many things it can't buy."
He said, smiling, "Name three."
"You're a cynic."
"Name them!"
She responded to his challenge. "Happiness, honesty, health."
"How about truth?"
"Truth?" She picked up a scrap of bread and crumpled it between her fingers, not meeting his eyes, her own fastened on the dusty hills. "A thing to be searched for and not often to be found. Still less to be recognized when it is. Always to be hated when revealed. Truth is reality. Dreams shield us from it."
As the boxes shielded those who used them. Dumarest looked at the window; her face was dimly reflected in the pane. Like these people Carina had built defenses against a universe not to her liking. Did she travel to find one she could accept?
Gently he said, "Why don't you stay here? As an artist you would be welcome. You could make a home here for yourself. A place to call your own."
"I could," she admitted, and turned to face him. "I've thought about it and been tempted. My work on display for those who come to look and examine and buy. But I'm a creator, Earl. I need stimulation-what did you think of Nisbet?"
He sensed her meaning. "Old and rigid in his ways."
"A stickler for tradition and this world is full of others like him. It's a good world, Earl, a kind one, but the price you pay to enjoy living here is to yield your independence of thought and imagination. To stop wanting to know what is over the next hill. To live by the sound of a bell."
The curfew at dusk and morning signaled the time to eat, sonorous echoes which punctuated the hours of existence.
The echoes to Dumarest would have been the bars of a cage. He said, "Stay here and finish your wine. I'm going to take a walk outside."
He stepped with long strides away from the building, heading west down the main street, taking the next left and then another. He slowed as he neared the corner forming the last side of the square he had traversed, halting at the junction to look at the tavern. Carina was nowhere in sight and he moved up the street to examine the blank wall where Nisbet's old shop had stood. The mortar was almost new, dry but unstained by weather. The place itself held half the capacity of his new premises.
In the street where they had stood he walked slowly past, pausing to casually scan the area. The shop was closed with heavy shutters, the door to one side leading, he guessed, to the upstairs quarters, open to reveal a flight of wooden stairs. An inner door set into the wall would give access to the shop, but, like the shutters, it was closed.
Dumarest walked to the end of the street and back up the one beyond so as to study the premises from the rear. The dying sunlight tinted the upper windows with a golden haze, touching the summit of the rear wall which circled a yard with amber sheens. The low wall could be easily climbed and was devoid of spikes or shards of protective glass. The offices would be to the rear of the workshops and so would open on the yard as did the large assembly area inside, as he had noticed. Unless workers lived within the shop itself the place would be deserted after the curfew bell had sent all to their beds.