“As always!” added the man beside him, laughing. “We never expect anything less here!” There was a general hum of conversation about the table, festive and neighborly.
After the stew had been served to all, Ivana picked up the empty serving bowl and returned to the kitchen.
As she pushed open the door from the banquet hall, there was a sudden silence and Jan said the brief prayer of thanksgiving for the meal. The door swung shut behind her and she heard the guests begin anew their chatter as they took the first sips of the stew.
Susanna sat on her bed. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and sniffled one last time. She had run upstairs to her room when Michael had pulled David back to the kitchen by his ear. She was so ashamed. “I should have thought that Michael might come down for something or come looking for David.” she told herself. She rubbed the back of her hand across her face again. She didn’t want to face Michael again. He might box her ears, as well as David’s, if she appeared in the kitchen.
“Jan!” She suddenly remembered the innkeeper. “He will be even more furious if I do not appear at the banquet!” In her haste to escape the watchful eye and powerful fist of Michael, the banquet had slipped her mind. “What will Jan do if I leave Ivana to serve at the banquet alone?” She knew. He would dismiss her from the inn. She would be even more ashamed of being sent away than being found kissing her betrothed in the wine cellar.
She splashed water from the wash basin on her face and straightened her apron. “I will do the best I can to avoid Michael’s fists,” she resolved, hoping that the cook was so busy that he would be too preoccupied by the feast to be distracted by her presence in the kitchen.
She descended the steps to the kitchen. Passing the door of the inn, she saw Jan’s daughter Anna on a stool by the door. She was swinging her legs in the air and waved at Susanna.
“Did you see the dog?” the ten-year-old wanted to know. “Did you see the big black dog run through here? It was scary!” Her grin belied how exciting it had been for the scary dog to come running past.
Susanna shook her head. “No, I didn’t see the dog,” she answered. “Silly girl!” she thought. “How could I see a dog here if I was upstairs?” She ducked down the last few steps to the kitchen and saw Ivana and David wrestling with a roasting pan and large goose.
The fragrance of all the foods mingled in the air and Susanna licked her lips, realizing that she was hungry. She peered into the pot still hanging over the fire and picked up a wooden spoon from the table to scrape at the remains of the stew.
“Come help us with this goose!” barked Ivana. With David’s burned hand, they were having a hard time moving the bird onto the serving platter. Susanna dropped the wooden spoon and it clattered on the bottom of the pot. She stepped to Ivana’s side and helped to move the goose onto the platter and arrange the sprigs of herbs around it.
“Where is Michael?” Susanna asked as he gathered another handful of sprigs from the table, keeping her eyes on the goose lest her nemesis appear.
“We don’t know,” David answered her. “I burnt my hand and when I came back into the kitchen, he was gone.” Susanna considered what this might mean. Ivana gestured toward the still open door of the oven. The two girls pulled out the second roasting pan and placed the second goose on the next platter. David stepped back to supervise. With his good hand, he deftly placed the decorative sprigs alongside the second goose’s wings and thighs.
The two girls scooped up the platters to take to the banquet hall. David stepped around Susanna and opened the door to the hall.
Both girls screamed and dropped the platters. The geese slid across the floor. Susanna screamed again.
“What happened?” David asked, coming behind Susanna’s shoulder to see what the girls were screaming was about.
Susanna was first overwhelmed with the din of the banquet hall. The braying of more than a few donkeys struck her, as did the snorting of pigs and goats. Several squirrels ran along the length of the banquet tables while pigs buried their snouts in the pieces of shattered crockery of broken bowls that littered the floor together with the discarded clothes that the guests had all been wearing. Goats nibbled at the bread on the table. A donkey lifted its hind legs and kicked at another that came too close. The table fell over onto its side, all the bowls and utensils crashing to the floor as it toppled. The tablecloth fell onto the floor as well, revealing a serpent curled around one of the legs of the table.
A peacock strolled through the chaos, its majestic tail unfurling through the air. Another peacock, its tail sweeping along the floor behind it, stepped gingerly among a handful of toads that scattered in its wake.
Jan’s daughter Anna appeared behind Susanna and Ivana, wanting to know what happened. “Did the dog come back through the inn?” She jumped up, trying to see over their shoulders before she pushed her way through between their legs. She slipped on the grease from the fallen geese and landed on her back, her startled eyes wide open and her mouth gaping. A toad jumped onto her chest and she screamed, scrambling across the floor to her father.
Jan stood immobilized in his place at the table, his chair pushed over onto the floor behind him. He was pale and clutched the table before him for support, presiding over the roomful of creatures.
Another black dog leaped up onto the sideboard, snapping at the donkey that kicked at it as well. This dog’s yellow eyes were also filled with a strange, mad light, and Susanna wondered if this was the dog Anna had seen earlier. The dog barked viciously, spraying spit and drool, and then leaped at the donkey and buried its sharp teeth in the base of the donkey’s skull as it swung past. The donkey brayed wildly and kicked madly, attempting to dislodge the canine hanging from its neck, but the dog would not let go. Blood spurted about the room and splashed against the walls. The other animals scattered, avoiding the donkey’s hind legs. Growling rumbled in the dog’s throat while the terrified donkey kept braying and kicking, gradually growing weaker and finally collapsing. The dog released its death grip on the back of the donkey’s neck and grabbed the front of the ass’s throat with its fangs. The donkey twisted and convulsed before it was finally still.
The peacocks screamed. The serpent—either untwined from the table leg or a second one that she had not seen earlier—slithered across the floor. A toad jumped onto Ivana’s foot and she shook it off in disgust. Anna clutched at her father’s leg, loudly crying and squeezing her eyes closed, trying to shut out the horror around the room.
The guests of the inn tumbled down the stairs, drawn by the screaming of the girls and the noise of all the animals. They pushed and shoved, trying to see what was going on in the banquet to which they had not been invited. Human cries and exclamations mingled with the cries and squeals and screams of the animals. Susanna disentangled herself from the crowd filling the doorway and ran back into the kitchen, leaving Ivana to stare, dumbfounded.
“What is happening here?” demanded a familiar voice. “Make way! Let me through!” The innkeeper’s wife descended the stairs.
In the kitchen, Susanna collapsed in a chair and buried her face in her hands, overwhelmed by what she had just seen. Trembling with fright and racked by sobs, she felt a hand on her shoulders. Glancing up through her tears, she saw David standing over her, looking badly shaken.
Jan’s wife pushed through the people blocking her way. She saw Ivana in the midst of the crowd and grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her towards Jan and Anna. Jan still stood, staring at the scene unfolding in his inn. His wife blanched as she looked around the room in shock. Ivana realized she had just stepped in the excrement of the pigs.
A squirrel ran up to Jan, chirping and waving its tail as if to scold the innkeeper. Another squirrel followed its lead, and soon the half-dozen squirrels were all chiding the innkeeper. One jumped at him, clutching his fine garments and running onto the man’s shoulder.
Jan suddenly came back to life. As his daughter ran to her mother, Jan began to shout and flail about to dislodge th
e squirrel that ran across his back and down his other arm, leaving a trail of rips in the innkeeper’s suit. Just before it leaped back onto the table, it tried to sink a tooth into the back of Jan’s hand—but missed.
The black dog looked up from the carcass of the ass, whose blood it had been licking from the floor. Distracted from the donkey meat it had been about to consume, it reared back and bayed like a wolf. The other animals whipped around to look at it, the entire inn suddenly silent except for the howl that echoed through the building. Then the dog sprang across the fallen tables and chairs, bounding towards the door. The people standing in the brute’s pathway cowered and scattered, and it dashed up the stairway. The one guest still upstairs screamed and glass shattered, shards tinkling down a few of the steps, as the animal must have broken through a window and out onto the city street. The townsfolk out to enjoy a winter holiday stroll screamed.
As if heeding the command of the mad canine, the squirrels all clambered up the steps in its wake and out into the street. Some of the toads hopped toward the steps even as the goats bleated and scrabbled up the stairway, their hooves clicking along the wood. The other donkeys balked at the steps and milled about among the humans.
The serpent hissed at a peacock, which screamed in response, swinging its tail about and knocking over the wine bottles standing on another sideboard. The bottles crashed to the floor, shattering and spraying their contents about.
“How did this happen?” demanded the innkeeper’s wife of her husband. “How did these animals get in here?” She looked around, afraid. “Where are the guests from the banquet?”
Ivana was surveying the carnage and damage around her and nearly fainted, jerking her head around to see Jan’s face as he stammered, “We had just begun to eat the stew….”
Away from the noise and crowd that filled the banquet hall, David scraped the last bits of the stew from the pot into a bowl and placed it on the table before Susanna.
“You should eat something,” he urged her. “It will help calm you.”
She raised her head, her cries subsiding. She reached for the spoon beside the bowl.
“The stew was delicious, the best Michael has ever made,” Jan said, thinking back to what had happened. It seemed like hours ago, though it could not have been more than a few minutes. “I tasted it and we all tasted it and toasted Michael’s skill in the kitchen when suddenly all the guests began to cough and scream. I saw them all transform—before my very eyes!—they all became donkeys and squirrels and peacocks! They screamed and shouted and their voices all became the sounds of the animals, crying out as if in distress or pain. It was terrible, terrible to watch. They dropped their bowls and spoons as their hands became hooves and paws or claws, tangled in their clothes. Chairs got knocked over and bowls fell to the floor. Then David opened the door,” Jan pointed to the entrance from the kitchen, “and Susanna brought in the goose with Ivana. Then they screamed but—but the girls remained human. The girls screamed but did not change into animals.” He stared at his wife.
“You all ate the stew?” she asked him. “But only you remained as you are? All the rest became these animals?” The goats bleated frantically as if to agree with her retelling of Jan’s story. She dropped her tone to a frightened whisper. “They’ll say you are a witch and were spared because you are the one who transformed all the guests.”
Jan pulled aside his holiday vest, exposing the aged, bloodstained shirt beneath it. His wife’s eyes stared at it uncomprehendingly and then grew wide with amazement.
“Your mother told me to save it,” he whispered. “This is the shirt the midwife used to catch Anna and Milena. She said it would protect whoever wears it from witchery.” He blushed. “I put it on because of the witch’s curse in the Old Town Square, the old witch who was burned last autumn. I was afraid that her curse might settle on the banquet but I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“Never take it off!” His wife embraced him, looking relieved. Everyone would agree this tragedy was the result of that old woman’s curse. Jan would be held blameless.
A shout and cry came from the kitchen. There was the sound of chairs overturned, a table falling over. David ran into the banquet hall. “Susanna!” he exclaimed. “It’s Susanna! She’s become… become…” He swallowed and tried to finish his sentence, but the words caught in his throat.
The sharp cry of a fowl pierced the air. A third peacock swept into the banquet hall, its head bobbing as it scanned the floor for something to eat.
It took several men the rest of the day to persuade the donkeys to climb the stairs. They brayed wildly and kicked angrily as the men pulled and tugged at the ropes they had lashed around the animals. Finally, the exhausted men led the donkeys out the inn’s door. Watching crowds, having heard of what happened at the innkeeper’s banquet, cheered their success and led the donkeys away to a stable. The goats and pigs were led up to the street next and also taken to a nearby stable where they could be fed and cared for, at least for a few days before being taken to either a permanent home or a butcher. Luckily, there had only been the one dog at the banquet and neither it nor the earlier one that had dashed from the kitchen and out the door past Anna were discovered, though another group of men promised to hunt for them up and down the lanes and alleyways of the Little Town.
Toads and the serpent were gathered—with difficulty, the boys engaged in this task laughing and thrusting each toad they captured toward the faces of the girls that had gathered to watch them, causing the girls to shriek and dash about—into baskets and taken toward the river. The peacocks screamed at those who attempted to drive them up the stairs and out of the inn, slashing at their human tormentors with razor-sharp beaks and feet. The birds were, at last, driven into wicker cages that had been brought to the banquet hall and then were carried away, possibly to be given to the archbishop to patrol the cathedral grounds.
It was late that evening when the doors of the inn were finally closed and all the animals gone, the carcass of the donkey that had been killed by the mad dog being the last animal to be removed from the inn.
Jan shut the door of the banquet hall.
“Washing the blood from the walls and floors will be difficult.” He sighed to his wife, who surveyed the damage with him. “It might be better to simply whitewash the hall rather than scrub it clean.”
“The girls clean the rest of the hall tomorrow,” agreed his wife, who must have momentarily forgotten that only one girl—Ivana—remained to serve at the inn. Jan had sent David and Ivana away for the afternoon, thinking they would be too upset to help clean the hall that day. Ivana had gone upstairs to her room. David had gone to his room upstairs for a short time but had then left for Susanna’s home.
“Someone needs to tell her family what happened,” he had reasoned. In fact, he and Jan met each other on the street before her home and knocked on the door together. Susanna’s father answered the door and knew immediately that something was wrong. The look on the faces of the two men standing at his door allowed no other interpretation.
The next day, Jan attempted to identify which of his banquet guests had become which animal, or at least which kind of animal. Based on his recollection of where each guest had sat, he tried to remember which kind of animal had appeared at that seat. In the end, he was unable to do more than say that the guests on either side of him had become squirrels, and everyone had seen them escape from the inn and become lost among the trees on the edge of the river near where the gypsies camped each summer. The animals that remained in captivity were distributed among the families of his guests, but with no certainty that each family had reclaimed their own husband, father, brother, or son. Only the peacock that had been Susanna could be identified as the former girl at the inn and was able to be returned to her proper family. Her mother wept when the wicker cage containing the large bird was deposited in her home.
Ivana was unsure how the seeds had gotten into the stew served at the banquet, but she was sure that they
were involved in the animal transformations at the inn.
“The women said the seeds would reveal the truth, not change people into animals. Even when Susanna ate the stew, it should only have prevented her from telling any more lies to David, not change her into a peacock,” Ivana argued with herself. “Should I go back to the women in the bathhouse? They told me that the truth can never be taken back, once it was spoken. Did they mean that the transformations can never be undone? Or maybe they gave me the wrong seeds and they can do something to set everyone right again.” She hoped so.
The day after that was Sunday. The parish of St. Nicholas was full of people eager to hear the sermon.
“Do you think Fr. Krystof will mention what happened around the corner from the church?” “Will he preach about the animals at the inn?” “What else can he preach about? He has to tell us if we are safe from that curse. He has to tell us how to protect ourselves!” Everyone in the town seemed to expect to hear the priest console the families of the men who had been transformed and explain how to avoid such transformations in the future.
Ivana pushed herself through the crowd to stand as close to the pulpit as she could. She didn’t want to miss a single word of Fr. Krystof’s preaching today. She noticed that Jan was still wearing the shirt he said had been stained with blood at the birth of his daughters, but now he wore it proudly on the exterior of his other clothes as he stood in the congregation with his family.
The priest mounted the pulpit, blessed himself, and looked out over the sea of faces. He seemed to brace himself.
“My dear brethren,” he began, stretching out his arms to those gathered before him, “our faith is sorely tried in these days of wickedness and deceit.” Murmurs of agreement rippled through the congregation and heads nodded in assent. People poked their elbows into their neighbors’ ribs.
“These days try our patience and make us wonder concerning the providence of God. Why does He not protect His people against the power of the great Enemy of mankind? How can God allow those who celebrate His wonderful deeds on their behalf to be harmed in the midst of those very celebrations?”
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 59
