‘Jean!’ said Zola interrupting. ‘You talk too much.’ Then turning to Marek: ‘Your sister is anxious to meet you. We cannot delay another day. If you would just let me take care of the matter concerning Celeste. There will be plenty of time later for you to help her find her family.’
‘I am keen to meet my sister, Zola, but I must do this. And if my sister has expressed urgency to see me then why couldn’t she be here?’
‘It is just not possible. She has been indisposed for travel.’
‘Is my sister unwell?’
‘Not quite as serious as you think,’ said Zola, exchanging a look with Jean. ‘But a condition that must keep her housebound for a period...’ We were interrupted by a servant girl. ‘Ah… time for dinner.’
We entered the dining room but Marek pulled Zola close to him to continue their conversation, while Jean asked me whether I preferred garnets or emeralds and proceeded to boast about the jewellery on his fingers that was worth more than Zola’s house. He seemed uninterested in the conversation behind him, yet I had one ear listening intently and taking check of my exits from this madhouse.
‘Your sister will grow impatient if we do not leave tomorrow.’
‘I simply cannot leave here yet,’ Marek said to Zola. ‘I promised Celeste that I would look after her until I could find a better place. And if that means delaying seeing my sister then it is a choice I have made and one she must accept. Celeste cannot come with us. She would not feel comfortable, and the other alternative is just as bad. I cannot abandon her here alone. She can neither speak nor write. What would she do? I must find her suitable accommodation before we leave.’
Zola bowed a moment in thoughtful pose. ‘Yes, I see your point.’
Marek looked across at me with a frown of concern and my heart performed a somersault in my chest, this time without the fear.
We sat down at the table, Marek and me on one side as a couple, facing the extravagantly coiffed and pampered beauty and her special guest. The conversation between the three was relaxed, and Zola continued with perfection as host. Jean was effusive in his descriptions of the city while we tasted short pastries from silver trays. I nibbled at mine, fearing that it may have been tainted with magic or poisoned.
Jean talked about living in another city and how he spent his time between the circle, his family and Zola’s place. The very use of the word circle took my attention, first conjuring up images of animal sacrifices. But yet as I sat there it was like being in a dream, and feelings of wellbeing overtook any concerns. Jean’s courteous manner seemed to put me somewhat at ease and I found myself imagining what it would be like to travel in style also. I was curious to know why Jean had told me I would one day be wealthy. It was surely demon’s words used to lure me into thinking my future was firm and safe, yet the ease with which I felt in this stranger’s company temporarily transcended any thoughts of danger. I was mesmerised by their stories and listened to the pair describe how they had danced together in exotic cities and how they shopped for cloth and trinkets in merchant stalls across the lands. My head lightened and my spirits lifted while I began to imagine myself with Marek in the places they had visited.
‘Now where is this boy you speak of?’ asked Jean keenly.
‘In bed, dear Jean. It has been too eventful. He is sleeping now.’
‘What a shame! I’m so looking forward to meeting our new protégé.’
‘Oh, Jean, you say the strangest things,’ said Zola, tapping his arm affectionately. ‘Behave yourself.’
Marek asked Jean how well he had known Oleander.
‘She is like my own sister,’ said Jean. ‘We are part of her circle and I hear she is preparing a wonderful celebration when we arrive as she commences a new chapter in her very long life.’
‘It all sounds extraordinary,’ said Marek. ‘Everyone seems to know more about my sister than I do.’ I could detect from a break in Marek’s voice that he was feeling less confident with every passing minute, so overwhelming was the other man. Zola began laughing louder than normal, and Jean was most talkative and animated.
‘Oleander is the most wonderful creature that ever set foot on this earth and grows more beautiful by the day.’
‘Then I cannot wait to meet her,’ said Marek.
Zola had hired plenty of workers this evening. Serving women entered the dining room carrying dinner plates; steam and the busy sounds of cooks wafted in from the galley behind them. The aromas of parsley and fennel, and other delicious and unusual flavours, filled the air. On the platters placed before us were decorated portions of meat as thick as my wrist and saliva pooled under my tongue. Never had I seen such fine cuisine.
Jean took his serviette, shook it out, and laid it on his lap. He did it so naturally like he had done it a thousand times before, all the while keeping the conversation going with his stories. I was given rich, sweet, red wine, something I had never tasted before, and I drank it greedily.
I watched how Zola ate with her spoon and an unusual two-pronged utensil. I copied though it was without finesse, and I was suddenly ashamed being so ignorant of table manners. The feeling of awkwardness passed when I sensed the room floating around me.
The room began to spin and objects seemed to disappear from my vision replaced by patches of blackness. Faces were turned to me as though waiting for a response, yet I had not heard any question. Jean crushed handfuls of food and thrust these uncouthly into his mouth. Where had his perfect manners gone? Or had I imagined that?
Marek took several sips of his wine, closed his eyes, and then grasped the side of the table. Faces then became blurred. My eyes felt suddenly heavy as I began to slip from the chair. It was the last I remember of the dinner, and our night of pretence was over.
Chapter 6
Marek
The sky was so white it was blinding, making it difficult to open my eyes. It felt as if I had slept for days, so dulled was my mind.
I lay in a soft bed beside a low window that allowed me to see the street below. Servant girls carried empty baskets on their way to the market, which suggested it was still early. Well-dressed men walked past with intent. Servants had put firewood in my hearth and I was coddled in warmth. I wanted to sink back into the folds and fall into another heavy slumber but images danced on the surface of my mind, marring these momentary feelings of comfort.
Celeste! I stood up and my legs felt heavy as if I had run a hundred miles or more through the night. I was wearing only my undergarments and saw my clothes discarded on the floor. The bottoms of the trousers were wet, and my shirt from the previous evening was stained with splashes of red. My fingernails were filled with dirt and there was a strange metallic taste in my mouth. Then slowly I remembered the events from the night before.
Fragments appeared in my head in flashes. We had been enjoying dinner. The conversation was light and I had been marvelling at the taste of the wine, then the floor seemed to wobble beneath my feet. Nausea overcame me. When I went to excuse myself, Celeste fell to the floor from her chair. I did not have time to catch her. Jean said that everything was all right, that our bodies weren’t used to such rich foods.
Jean carried Celeste to her room after dinner and said she needed to rest. When I tried to enter her room to check on her he had patted me on the back and told me that it was best to let her sleep. I too then headed towards my room but Zola and Jean both pulled at my arms, telling me the night was young. My frail protests were met with even more force and they dragged me playfully down the stairs and out the front door. I remember feeling alive again when the icy night air hit my face, and thinking it odd seeing steam rising from my own mouth, but not from theirs. Jean and Zola were on either side of me as we walked through the town, bound together by our secret. We passed people who nodded their greetings and Jean made insulting comments to everyone who walked by. I can still see the shocked faces of some. He thought it was humorous.
We came to the river where several men sat in a moored boat, drinkin
g from skin casks. Zola asked if we could sit with them but Jean did not wait for their reply and boarded the craft anyway. The two of us followed. Jean stood in the middle of the boat and started rocking it and I felt I would be sick with the swaying motion turning over the contents of my stomach. I was annoyed that he was behaving like a child yet I found it difficult to gather my thoughts, and my speech was barely coherent.
The bearded fishermen grew angry and shouted for us to get off their boat. One of them grabbed a handful of Jean’s jacket. Jean looked at his creased jacket and at the hand twisting his lapel, his cruel joviality coming to an abrupt end. His white jacket was marked with fish gut and dirt. He turned and looked at the fisherman who had threatened to gut us like fish. It is difficult to know how long these moments took and whether some of my description is interpretation. The smaller man’s lips were drawn back in anger but his expression was slowly turning into terror. The next memories are inconceivable, and I have had to wade through the events inch by inch, which are as murky and horrible as thick grey mud, to determine what I saw, or what I thought I saw.
Whatever was in the wine clouded my memory; parts of which was shapeless colour swimming in mist, and other in vivid horrid detail.
Jean leant over the man and I remember twisting my neck to see exactly what it was he was doing. Jean put his hands on the fisherman’s shoulders and placed his mouth on his neck. The man struggled to release himself from Jean’s embrace before collapsing like a large puppet whose strings are tangled. There was a loud splash as Jean pushed what seemed to be a lifeless body off the boat.
I sat stunned, attempting unsuccessfully to blink away the image. I used to listen to the stories that men, young and old, would tell at the osteria. They were drinking stories told proudly and worn like badges of great achievement. The men did reckless things, each helping the other piece together events from the nights before, recalling their drunken stupors. But the one I could tell now, though I never would, was not about drunken friends trespassing and breaking clay casks of beer, nor was it about brawls over women.
The two other fishermen tried to flee the boat by launching themselves off the side, but one never made it. Zola called for me to catch him before he got away. I cannot say why I grabbed the man by his coat and pulled him up again, knowing that he had just seen his friend die in an inexplicable manner. The spell I was under – which I am convinced more than ever was from the beverage at dinner – made it impossible to carry out my own commands, or exercise independent thoughts effectively. Did I know I was pulling him back towards his death or did I think that in some way I might be saving his life?
Jean patted me on the back as reward for such quick action, saving ‘bravo’ like I had done something noteworthy, won a fight or come into some money, saving him from having to dive into the water. It was nothing like that, I can assure you.
The fate of this man was the same but this time it was Zola who put him into a trance, with fangs like a spider into his neck. I have a clearer picture of this man. With every breath I took, the man’s skin grew greyer until he appeared shrunken and bloodless. Zola’s full lips were around the man’s mouth, her eyes closed, as in a lover’s embrace. As she drained whatever life she could from him I suddenly realised what I was party to. It was repulsive. These people were savages. I pulled the man free, his weightless body hanging over me, my arms around him protectively. I had not realised that he was already dead. Zola’s eyes opened immediately, a flash of anger across her face, her mouth bloodied, and she struck me hard before clutching at her own chest as if she had lost something valuable. She screamed at me to never do that again, and then her eyes widened over my shoulder and she was screaming at Jean. And that’s where my bizarre night suddenly ended. However, there is one further memory that makes the least sense, though I believe this may have been imagined.
Jean was in my room, his eyes blazing. I felt teeth on my neck and someone holding my shoulder. When someone else entered he stopped abruptly. There was a flash of green, a scuffle, the door to my room slamming, and shouting on the stairs.
The next moment I was awake in my opulent bed and the previous night and its events seemed like a bad dream.
I searched for my leathers and the shirt made by Silvia, but they were missing from my room, perhaps to be laundered. I put on a fresh pair of trousers from the wardrobe and a new shirt then felt behind my head. There was a lump the size of a baby’s fist yet I could not explain its origin.
I knocked on Celeste’s door but there was no answer. Downstairs, I intended to confront both Zola and Jean but found only Zola in a large day room sipping herbal water from a Chinese cup.
When I asked her what she did the night before she looked perplexed before laughing musically like a bird. I enquired of Jean’s whereabouts so I could confront him about his lewd and murderous deeds. She said that he’d also had a bad reaction from the wine and apologized, fearing that the beverage was very old and probably had certain ingredients that had aged over time causing one to conjure apparitions. She recalled that near the end of the night I fell down and cut my head, and she and Jean had to help me to bed.
I told her what I remembered and she looked bemused as if I had some unusual handicap that she would not expect from me.
‘You do have an imagination, Marek,’ she said softly, calmly. ‘But to call us murderers of innocent fishermen is quite preposterous. We did pass by some fishermen but I assure you that none of them were innocent. We had to get away quickly before they exposed their own sinister intentions.’
‘No!’ I exclaimed a little too loudly. ‘The trousers I wore last evening are wet, my shirt has blood…I know what I saw.’ Zola tried to explain that I fell into the river and that the blood was from the cut on my head. But the explanations were neither convincing nor sincere.
‘Perhaps Celeste was right to fear you,’ I said. And then Zola’s expression turned serious.
‘Believe what you like, but remember without me you will not find your sister.’ She returned to sipping her drink while the volume of liquid appeared to stay the same.
I returned upstairs to find that Celeste was not in her room. Her bed looked as though it had not been slept in. The green dress that she had worn the night before was missing.
Back downstairs I demanded to know where she had gone.
‘What?’ said Zola, frowning with faked concern. ‘She has run away again?’ There was slight mockery in the way she touched her cheek in thought. I felt a mixture of frustration and rage about the absurdity of this situation and yet again the absence of concern for my friend. I rushed at her, grabbing her arms hard and a sharp breath of shock escaped her. Never had I been so forceful with a woman, but this was no ordinary woman.
‘Where is she?’
‘Somewhere else I presume.’
I started to shake the answers from her but quite suddenly a sharp pain erupted in my ears. I released her and sank to the floor.
‘Do not touch me like that again,’ spat Zola, and through narrow slits I caught a glimpse of glowing eyes, and her fingers stretched like claws.
The pain worsened and I covered my ears, which gave me no relief. I curled into a ball on the floor thinking that only my life ending would free me from so much agony. ‘Please stop,’ I whispered, unsure if I had even uttered a sound.
Gradually the pain eased until there was just a numbing feeling in my ears. I stayed on the floor, afraid that if I moved, the pain would return.
‘Now,’ said Zola, brushing down her skirts. ‘Once you are calm then we can talk. We are leaving today. Your sister wants you quickly now and I must obey her. We must not talk anymore about last night. You had a bad dream and Celeste has left. Do you understand? You cannot tame the wild beast within her, Marek. She is a free spirit. She does not want to belong to you.’
I nodded in resignation to prevent a repeat episode, my head still pounding a little, although disbelief was perhaps evident in my face. Yesterday, I could see that Cele
ste’s trust in me was returning.
‘Be patient. And before you judge me too harshly, come with me and learn much from your sister and the circle. I have a carriage to take us the rest of the way for you are too weak to journey on foot, and there is Zeke to consider. The effects of this wine may continue for days and you will hold us up. It appears you are still just an untried youth after all, Marek.’
Her words hurt more than the physical malady she had inflicted. I experienced sudden guilt that I could not protect Celeste and guilt that I had assisted with something unspeakable the night before; something I could not explain even to myself. And despite all the trauma and self-doubt, I still cared what Zola thought of me. I had an overwhelming urge to tell her that I was frightened, that perhaps she was right: I was just a boy. She put her small hand on my shoulder before I could say anything.
‘Marek,’ she said softly, her eyes a paler shade of blue-green in the morning light. ‘I know that you are fond of Celeste and want what’s best for her but my job here is to protect you. I’m sorry if I hurt you. There is no permanent damage I assure you but sometimes, as a woman in this world, I have to use such measures.’ She lowered her eyelids coyly. ‘It is because I care deeply for you that I had to disable you.’
A warning bell sounded inside me, telling me to run. If I believed all that I thought I had witnessed, this woman was a monster. But I could not run. She was not only a link to my sister, her charms brought out new feelings in me, and such attraction I had not experienced before.
‘Marek,’ she continued. ‘I cannot read you anymore because we are almost of the same blood now. We cannot read the thoughts of our own kind unless we deliberately send them. Yet I feel I understand you. Perhaps I have been waiting to meet someone like you my whole life.’
‘You had better let Jean know…’ I said cynically.
‘Jean is just a friend,’ she interrupted.
Zola leaned into me and put her head on my chest. My breathing was still heavy and my cheeks were wet with tears. Everything in my head seemed jumbled, my sense of purpose clouded. I had no choice but to trust the girl who might have saved my life, and not just once. I put my arms around her instinctively. In that moment, she seemed so small and vulnerable, and I wondered if it ever came to it whether I could protect her too.
Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) Page 10
