That night Manuel Milho concluded his story. Sete-Sóis asked him if the King's soldiers succeeded in capturing the Queen and the hermit, and he replied, No, they did not capture them, they scoured the kingdom from end to end and carried out a house-to-house search without finding any trace of their whereabouts, and with these words he fell silent. José Pequeno asked him, So this is the story it has taken you almost a week to narrate, and Manuel Milho replied, The hermit ceased to be a hermit and the Queen stopped being a queen, but it was never discovered whether the hermit succeeded in becoming a man or the Queen succeeded in becoming a woman, in my opinion, had any such changes occurred, the effects would not have gone unobserved, and should anything like this ever come to pass, it will not happen without a clear sign, but there was no sign, and it all happened so many years ago that they must be long since dead, for all stories end in death. Baltasar tapped with his hook on a loose stone. José Pequeno rubbed his stubbly chin and asked, How does a drover become a man, whereupon Manuel Milho replied, I don't know. Sete-Sóis threw a pebble on the bonfire and said, Perhaps by flying.
They spent yet another night on the road. The journey from Péro Pinheiro to Mafra took eight whole days. When they arrived on the site, they looked like the survivors from some disastrous battle, dirty, ragged, and bereft of spoils. Everyone was astounded at the dimensions of the stone, It's so huge. But looking up at the basilica, Baltasar murmured, It's so small.
...
SINCE THE FLYING machine landed on Monte Junto, Baltasar Sete-Sóis has gone there some six, or was it seven, times to examine and repair as best he can the ravages caused by time and the elements despite the machine's protective covering of foliage and brambles. When he discovered that the iron plates had become rusty, he took along a pot of tallow and greased them thoroughly, repeating the process each time he went back. He had also got into the habit of carrying on his back a bundle of reeds that he collected on marshland he encountered along his route, and these he used to repair such cracks and rents in the cane framework as had been made by natural causes, such as when he found a lair with six fox cubs inside the shell of the Passarola. He killed them as if they were rabbits by striking them on the crown of the head with his hook, then tossed their lifeless bodies here and there in the vicinity. The parent foxes would discover their dead cubs, smell the blood, and almost certainly return there no more. During the night the foxes could be heard yelping. They had scented out the trail. When they found their dead cubs, the poor creatures made a great din, and since they did not know how to count, and were uncertain whether all the cubs were dead, they approached the hostile machine that had been their downfall, a machine capable of flying, although now grounded and motionless, they drew near cautiously, worried by the scent of a human presence, and sniffed once more the spilled blood of their offspring, then retreated, snarling and bristling as they went. They were never to return to that spot. But the story might have ended differently if,. instead of being a tale about foxes, it had been a tale about wolves. This also crossed Baltasar's mind, so, from that day on, he carried his sword with him, the tip of the blade somewhat eroded by rust but still perfectly capable of beheading a wolf and its mate.
He always went alone, and he was planning to go back on his own, when Blimunda said to him for the first time in three years, I'm going too, and this caused him some surprise, and he warned her, It's a long journey and will tire you out, but she had made up her mind, I want to know the route in case I should ever have to go without you. This made good sense, although Baltasar had not forgotten the danger of encountering wolves in that wilderness, Come what may, you mustn't go there alone, the roads are bad, the place is deserted, as you may remember, and you could be attacked by wild beasts, whereupon Blimunda replied, You should never say, Come what may, for something unexpected might happen if you use that expression, Very well, but you sound just like Manuel Milho, Who is Manuel Milho, He worked with me on the building site, but he decided to go back home, he said that he would rather die in a flood, should the Tagus burst its banks, than be crushed to death under a stone at Mafra for, contrary to what people say, all deaths are not the same, what is the same is to be dead, and so he went back to his native province, where the stones are small and few and the water is soft.
Baltasar was reluctant to see Blimunda make the long journey on foot, so he hired a donkey, and after making their farewells, they set off, they had not answered when Inés Antónia and their brotherin-law inquired, Where are you going, and warned them, This journey will cost you two days' wages, and if any crisis should occur we won't know where to find you, the crisis to which Inês Antónia referred was probably the death ofJoão Francisco, for death was already prowling around the old man's door, it took one step forward as if about to enter, then relented, perhaps inhibited by João Francisco's silence, for how can anyone say to an old man, Come with me, if he neither speaks nor responds but only sits there staring, confronted with such a stare, even death loses its nerve. Inés Antónia does not know, Álvaro Diogo does not know, their son, who is at an age where he is interested only in himself, does not know that Baltasar has already confided in João Francisco, Father, I'm going with Blimunda to the Serra do Barregudo, to Monte Junto, to see how the machine is faring in which we flew from Lisbon that time when, you may remember, people claimed that the Holy Ghost had flown over the building site at Mafra, it wasn't the Holy Ghost, but us, together with Padre Bartolomeu Lourenço, you remember the priest who came here to the house when Mother was still alive, and she wanted to kill a cockerel, but he wouldn't hear of it, saying that it was preferable to hear a cockerel crowing than to eat it for supper, besides, it would be unkind to hens to deprive them of their cockerel. João Francisco listened to these reminiscences, and the old man, who rarely spoke, assured him, Yes, I remember it well, now go in peace, for I'm not ready to die yet, and when the moment comes I shall be with you wherever you may be, But Father, do you believe me when I tell you that I have flown, When we get old, things that are destined to come about start to happen, and at last we're capable of believing those things we once doubted, and even when we find it difficult to believe that such things can happen, we believe that they will happen, I have flown, Father. My son, I believe you.