and a projection of authority, ever ready to stand by your words. If you were truly broken you wouldn’t write a word. And if the words aren’t worth anything why read them? Oh, and it has to be fresh, even ancient wisdom has to come over as fresh. Herodotus is fresh as a bell. Cicero is sitting at your elbow, whispering. Those are the three things you need, he tells me, if you want to write. And it doesn’t hurt to have something to say. At that he throws his head back and starts to hoot and gurgle, screwing his left eye tight in the laugh spasm and rolling the other wide and scary to the ceiling. He slaps his chest and stretches a paw to the chunk of glass on the worktop. I hear the rim chime as he pours and taps the bottle. I’ve been in colleges and among the cannibals, says Riverman. And found each in the other.
Stealing lines again, I tell him.
Borrow and make better, he answers, with a smile.
