not meant to be seen, like the knocker folk, but what
harm to see Temon's face again, or old Trip, haven't I seen 'em in dreams, just
the same, in the ends, working away with their faces sweating same as life? Why
not? So I come along. But you're no ghost, nor miner. A deserter you might be,
or a thief. Or are you out of your wits, is that it, poor man? Don't fear. Hide
if you like. What's it to me? There's room down here for you and me. Why are
you hiding from the light of the sun?'
'The
soldiers...'
'I thought
so.'
When
the old man nodded, the candle bound to his forehead set light leaping over the
roof of the stope. He squatted about ten feet from Guennar, his hands hanging
between his knees. A bunch of candles and his pick, a short-handled, finely
shaped tool, hung from his belt. His face and body, beneath the restless star
of the candle, were rough shadows, earth-colored. 'Let me stay here.'
'Stay
and welcome! Do I own the mine? Where did you come in, eh, the old drift above
the river? That was luck to find that, and luck you turned this way in the
crosscut, and didn't go east instead. Eastward this level goes on to the caves.
There's great caves there; did you know it? Nobody knows but the miners. They
opened up the caves before I was born, following the old lode that lay along
here sunward. I seen the caves once, my dad took me, you should see this once,
he says. See the world underneath the world. A room there was no end to. A
cavern as deep as the sky, and a black stream falling into it, falling and
falling till the light of the candle failed and couldn't follow it, and still
the water was falling on down into the pit. The sound of it came up like a
whisper without an end, out of the dark. And on beyond that there's other
caves, and below. No end to them, maybe. Who knows? Cave under cave, and
glittering with the barren crystal. It's all barren stone, there. And all
worked out, here, years ago. It's a safe enough hole you chose, mate, if you
hadn't come stumbling in on us. What was you after? Food? A human face?'
'Water.'
'No
lack of that. Come on, I'll show you. Beneath here in the lower level there's
all too many springs. You turned the wrong direction. I used to work down
there, with the damned cold water up to my knees, before the vein ran out. A
long time ago. Come on.'
The
old miner left him in his camp, after showing him where the spring rose and
warning him not to follow down the water-course, for the timbering would be
rotted and a step or sound might bring the earth down. Down there all the
timbers were covered with a deep glittering white fur, saltpeter perhaps, or a
fungus: it was very strange, above the oily water. When he was alone again
Guennar thought he had dreamed that white tunnel full of black water, and the
visit of the miner. When he saw a flicker of light far down the tunnel, he
crouched behind the quartz buttress with a great wedge of granite in his hand:
for all his fear and anger and grief had come down to one thing here in the
darkness, a determination that no man would lay hand on him. A blind
determination, blunt and heavy as a broken stone, heavy in his soul.
It
was only the old man coming, with a hunk of dry cheese for him.
He
sat with the astronomer, and talked. Guennar ate up the cheese, for he had no
food left, and listened to the old man talk. As he listened the weight seemed
to lift a little, he seemed to see a little farther in the dark.
'You're
no common soldier,' the miner said, and he replied, "No, I was a student
once,' but no more, because he dared not tell the miner who he was. The old man
knew all the events of the region; he spoke of the burning of the Round House
on the hill, and of Count Bord. 'He went off to the city with them, with these
blackgowns, to be tried, they do say, to come before their council. Tried for
what? What did he ever do but hunt boar and deer and foxen? Is it the council
of the foxen trying him? What's it all about, this snooping and