Path of the Eclipse Read Online Free PDF Page B

twitched.
    “Oh, very,” Kuan Sun-Sze said with perfect gravity. “Though it is not always easy to discern how the behavior of wild crickets, which I have been known to study, will be mirrored in human society.”
    Saint-Germain got to his feet. “My good and treasured friend, I would be delighted if you would accompany me to the with-drawing room on the floor above. My kitchen will provide some trifling refreshment for you, and we may continue our conversation in more congenial surroundings.”
    “It is always a pleasure to spend an hour in the company of well-spoken men,” Kuan Sun-Sze said as he followed Saint-Germain to the door. “And since I rose unusually early, I broke my fast some time ago and light refreshment would be welcome.” He walked at Saint-Germain’s side down the wide hall to the beautiful staircase leading to the next floor. A large brass lantern hung from the ceiling, two stories above, and shone in the pinkish light that filtered through the tall, narrow windows that flanked the door. “There is no other house like this in Lo-Yang,” he remarked to his host.
    “I’m not surprised,” Saint-Germain said as he started up the stairs.
    “What possessed you to design your windows thus?” the scholar asked, gesturing over his shoulder toward the main door.
    Saint-Germain shrugged. “I have seen such windows before, in lands far to the west, and I learned to like them. It seemed foolish to ignore them here, when they provide precisely the light and privacy I require.”
    “And your lantern?” Kuan Sun-Sze was aware that his manners were atrocious this morning, but was enjoying himself too much to apologize for his impertinent questions.
    “My own design from various influences: a little Greek, a little Frankish, a little Moorish and a touch of Khemic.” He said it lightly enough, wanting to dismiss the matter, but his memories flooded in on him. There had been that long debate one afternoon in Athens; how many years ago? It was about the time Alcabiades had been banished for breaking the phalluses off the Herms. There had been an evening when he stood in a small, drafty castle in Aix-la-Chapelle, listening to monks chant while an illiterate man in threadbare purple upbraided a motly crew of unwashed and cynical knights. That was more recent, but the years between distressed him in a way they had not done before. The Moorish influences had come from Spain not so long ago. He recalled an uneasy morning with a Mohammedan prince. What had been the trouble? The prince had been angry—after a moment it came to him: they had begun with a discussion of mathematics and astronomy and ended with an argument about the relationship of learning to religion. The Khemic was the most distant of all, remote, though he could still see in his mind the long-vanished majesty of the temple of Thoth in the first blue moments of dusk standing above the bend of the Nile. The sacred poems of the priests of Imhotep resounded within him …
    “Shih Ghieh-Man?” Kuan Sun-Sze said as his host continued to wait on the stair, gazing at the large brass lantern.
    “Ah?” He turned quickly to look at the scholar beside him. “Forgive me. When one is far from home, reminiscences are overwhelming at times. Your question, I fear, brought back much I had not thought of recently.”
    Sun-Sze nodded sympathetically and quoted one of Li Po’s most famous poems as he climbed the rest of the stairs beside Saint-Germain.
    The withdrawing room was small, cozy without being cramped or too cluttered. The door panels were drawn back and the terrace over the garden stood ready for them, the sound of the brook rising softly through the whisper of the leaves. Lacquered tables and deeply upholstered chairs were attractively arranged for easy conversation and a lack of formality. On the walls were three large mosaics Saint-Germain had commissioned some years before in Constantinople. They were out of place in the room, but neither man