In the Arms of Immortals

by Ginger Garrett

  She slipped a hand free and grabbed the cross from the minstrel’s neck before his hand caught hers again.

  He spat on her. “Gold and silver cannot save you. Was not our Lord betrayed for it?”

  He glanced at the window and she followed his gaze. The snake was gone; a tiny flap of light shone through a space in the window frame.

  “Come with me! Now!” he said.

  “No.”

  “I cannot save you if you stay.”

  “You said I did not deserve to be saved.”

  His face softened. “Do you believe that?”

  She wouldn’t answer. The truth humiliated her.

  “If you tell me you believe that, perhaps I will let you go now. Say it. Say you will not accept the Lord’s mercy … that it could never blot out your sins.” His fist landed near her head. “Say it! Say you do not deserve mercy! Renounce God’s grace forever, and I will let you go!”

  “I cannot renounce God,” she said.

  “You fool, I do not ask you to renounce God. Renounce yourself. You know you do not deserve to be saved. Cling to who you are, what you have done, and I will let you go. I will even save your father.” He nodded toward the window.

  Panthea licked her lips, trying to prepare herself to say it. He was right, she knew.

  “My time here is done. I must move on. Give me your pledge, speak the truth out loud between us, and you will be free.”

  His touch called up every evil she had done, the foul images and lusts she had entertained, the countless ways she had betrayed the goodness set before her by God. How many chances had Armando given her to love, or even speak kindness, and she had repaid him with wounds. She had torn her house apart with her own hands, and now there was no time to build it again.

  She looked straight at him. “I deserve no grace. I have done evil in the sight of the Lord and betrayed every kindness shown me. It is who I am, and I cannot change. I will never receive enough mercy to cover my transgressions. I am damned.”

  His face came closer, and she smelled rancid death, a dead animal left to rot, away from the light.

  “When you awake in a dark wood, and there is no light, I will be there. I will carry you across the burning river.”

  Chapter Ten

  The straw mat crunched as a weight lifted off of it. Gio opened her eyes; the Italian sun was charming its way in again this morning, finding the gaps in her old thatched roof.

  She was alone, of course. She always woke up alone. Why, then, did she feel someone’s absence this morning? The empty air haunted her, and she tried to remember what she had felt as she drifted to sleep.

  Italy was a land of wonders. No one ever spoke of ghosts, though angels were known to walk freely in the streets. Some of the peasants said they had seen them, great men following the children as they harvested, so that snakes shied away and sickles never swung too close. The children, of course, had many more stories. The children said you could hear angels laughing in the streets at night when the adults slept.

  Gio had seen the angels her pigments had created in the churches, the sample boards the painters discarded as they tried her pigments, carried about by the monks seeking more of the same colours. These angels were mighty guardians dispersed among the Bible stories along church walls and ceilings. She considered them fanciful embellishments to the story. She had never considered they could enter her story. To believe they were real made a strange chill sweep over her, as if invisible hands had guided artists’ brushes, revealing a world she had yet to imagine.

  Gio looked around the room. Someone had watched over her during the night, she was sure. If someone had stayed so close in here through the dark hours, why? What other strange creatures might walk the earth? What else was she blind to?

  Something sharp scraped down her door, like the slow rattle of a snake. Gio clung to her blanket, not daring to set her feet on the floor. She pressed her hand into her stomach, forcing herself to breathe.

  “Who is there?” she called.

  “Help me, my sister,” someone said. “There is blood!”

  She slid her feet to the floor, curling her toes to test it, to see if this was real and not a dream. The dirt and scattered straw bunched up between her toes, prickling her. This was real.

  Grabbing a shawl, she set one unsteady leg in front of the other, walking to the door. She saw the door as if a hundred miles away, and her tiny faltering steps did nothing to bring it nearer.

  Gio wished for someone to slap her, the way she slapped the new mothers during their deliveries. They panicked, saying they were too weak, or the baby was too big.

  She lurched, taking hold of the door like a drowning woman grabbing an oar.

  What would flood in when she opened it?

  She turned once to look at her masterpiece, the bitter confession that had become beautiful as she poured out her heart. The sun was dancing around it, the pigments bursting from the paper, casting rainbows through the air.

  Taking a deep, painful breath, she forced open the door. A man fell upon her, his wide, dead, open eyes flying toward her as she screamed and fell under his weight.

  She kicked at the corpse with one leg, wresting herself out from under him, throwing his lifeless arm behind him so she could move.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou among women. Intercede for me now at the hand of the Son!” she cried.

  She pushed herself into a corner, repeating the words she had heard at so many bedsides. The body did not move.

  The robes of the man were familiar. She told herself not to see that, but she did. She knew those robes.

  She wanted to turn him over. He is dead, she chanted in her head. He is dead. He cannot harm me.

  Standing, she grabbed one arm and pulled straight up so that the body lifted on one side, then she jerked it over.

  The Old Man landed with a wet thud at her feet. Gio averted her face, covering her mouth as she screamed.

  No one deserved this death.

  His skin was covered in deep purple blotches, blood pooling just beneath his skin. They still moved along his skin, though he was dead. Great swellings, the size of market oranges, ringed his neck. They were black and split open, with horrid black, stinking fluids running down them onto her floor. The black fluids reached her feet and she gasped, jumping back. She had never seen this. She looked up, around into the air, remembering the world she was blind to. This was not a death of her world; it was a punishment from the next.

  The rancid fluid from his mouth and ears and eyes made Gio retch. The smell was strong and sour, like a wet, rotted animal left in a dark place. She stumbled backward, feeling along her wall, trying to find her way to the door, keeping her eyes on the corpse. Her fingers recognized the edge of the door joints and she felt the open air.

  Gio turned and ran.

  Panthea opened her eyes, alone in the garden. Gasping for air, she sat up, running her hands across her mouth, still tasting rancid blood.

  She held the hand at her face out, looking at it. The hand was clean.

  The garden was empty. There were no bodies, no blood, no broken or bent blades of grass or leaves. But the birds, she noticed. The birds were not singing. She looked to the edge of the garden, where tall trees separated her world from the next, the land of the common. A robin fell from a tree, twitching as it died, its beak opening and closing.

  What had she dreamed? Something awful, something she had stirred up from her shame and secrets. She had been light-headed when the servants brought out the wine at dinner. The room had been warm. She had been provoked by Armando and the stranger, too. Her hand went to her neck; her mother’s necklace still rested upon it.

  She tried to sit up; she must never drink wine when she was so warm and preoccupied again. She had probably drunk her share
and more, staggering into the garden to dream frightful things, just like the filthy peasants the sheriff dragged from the streets and beat.

  She looked in all directions to make sure no servant was trying to catch a glimpse of her. But where was Armando? If he had seen her like this, he would have carried her into her chambers. She would upbraid him if the matter arose.

  The marriage would happen today. The stranger had no doubt upset the plans for it to occur after last night’s feast.

  It was too much for her to think of, undressed before Armando, his last conquest. He would be gentle and kind with her. She couldn’t bear the thought. When she was undressed before him, alone, with no one to pretend for, no prize to win, no bolts of cloth and weights of gold shielding her, he would know. She wouldn’t be able to hide herself forever, not in that chamber. He would not love her.

  She had not yet kissed him. Her stomach tightened as she imagined the feel of his lips, of his hands upon the small of her back. Realizing she was already submitting in her imagination, she broke away from the thought, shaking her head. She was not trained in this art, this way other women had of submitting. She did not know how to yield and no man had yet to force her.

  Gold caught her eye, something gold hidden in the grass at her side. Reaching for it, parting the grass with her hand, she saw it was a gold crucifix, covered in blood.

  Her breath caught in her chest and burned.

  “I did not dream.”

  She looked at the window above her, where her father was meeting with his advisers. The candle was still burning, though it was almost dawn now and the sky was lightening. No voices came from the room.

  She clutched the crucifix to her chest.

  “I did not dream.

  “I did not dream.”

  She found no strength from the cross, just a sharp, cold accusation piercing her palms.

  Shoving her hand into her pocket, letting the cross tumble into her skirts, she stood. Her legs could not find their balance. It felt as if the ground was shifting beneath her.

  “My father is up there,” she whispered.

  Running in the fragile dawn air, Gio leapt across the rocks and hollows of the path. The lights in the village were all burning, the festival over for the night. Those who had drunk would be passed out in doorways, and the somber wives would be sweeping them from their thresholds, muttering about the tempestoso nature of men. The church bells broke the predawn silence. Lazarro was beginning Matins.

  She felt the vibration of the church bells in her legs. Every peasant she knew relied on the bells to tell time, having not the wits to read an astrolabe. This made the merchants angrier still at the hapless workers. It was one argument Dario did not bluster into, and all were glad. Of course, Dario would grow rich either way. If the peasants told time by church bells, they would still rely on the church for the fundamentals of life, the counting of hours. They would remember the necessity of prayer and tithes. Dario’s Church would do well.

  If, however, the peasants learned to tell time by mechanical clock or astrolabe, they had less need of the Church. The working hours would rule the day. Prayers would be forgotten. Time would become nothing more than a silent reminder of duties to earthly masters. Church bells reminded the people that God owned each of the hours. All of Europe was debating the matter; Dario was content that he would prosper either way.

  Lazarro would be tired by now. He had had little sleep. He rang the bells for Compline prayers just after dark, then watched for the appearance of stars. He would read the Psalms aloud, standing in the doorway of the church, using these readings to count time until he could say Nocturn prayers just after midnight. Then it was sleep, but no food, until Matins. After Matins came Terce, Sext, and finally None, when he could break his fast at lunch. The peasants came to call it noon, having not the tongue for Latin.

  Gio heard the bells finish and knew Lazarro was beginning his long day of service without adequate sleep, without adequate food. He would be weak.

  Gio stopped. She had put enough distance between the horror she had witnessed and her path here. Clear thought was returning. What right had she to add to Lazarro’s burdens? Her heart had changed toward him last night, but had not his been hardened? Would he even receive her in the church? She had thought today would be a day of confession and reconciliation, and instead she was running to tell him that his friend and servant was dead of a gruesome death. The villagers would want the body burned at once, and it would be Lazarro who must do it.

  Worse, the Old Man had died without Last Unction; his time in Purgatory was now extended. She had not even tried to save him. Lazarro would think she had spited him again by letting his friend die. This was a new death, one never before seen. Who would believe her? No, he would hate her for this news and her failing. She thought of the masterpiece. It was ruined. She should have run with it last night, rousing him from sleep, confessing it all and making amends. There had been time. She thought she could wait until the new day, but the new day had its own intentions. Now he would never want it even if she offered it to him.

  Her steps slowed. Herbalists who let their patients die, especially blind old men, could be beaten or worse. Some might say she was a witch. That she had poisoned the blind old man. His body looked the art of witchcraft. Gio stopped, surveying the path around her. No one had seen her yet, and the sun was not fully risen. She could get rid of the body, carry on with her plans. No one would know. She glanced back toward her home—it would mean a return to her life of secrets. But these would be new secrets. Perhaps they would not be as heavy to bear. She hesitated.

  Whimpering, a large dog, its belly swollen with pups, staggered toward her from the low brush. Gio bent down, offering her hand, coaxing it out from the leaves and branches. As it came closer, she saw huge black swellings on its neck, and a thick black bile seeping from its jowls. It collapsed at her feet.

  Gio stood back, running her hand over her mouth. “What is this thing?”

  Pressing her fingertips onto her closed eyelids, she tried to awaken herself. This could not be real. At her feet the stones twitched. Blinking, shaking her head, she looked closer. Birds were dying, wings twitching as they lay on the path all around her. The world had been poisoned.

  Another movement came from the brush, heavier, like the dragging of feet. It came from higher up, behind her. She grabbed up her skirts and tried to get around the dog on the path, not letting her skirts touch it. They snagged on the brush, and Gio heard them tear as she jerked them free and tried to keep moving, her eye on the path above her.

  “Murder!”

  A woman’s scream rose from the village just below.

  “My husband lies dead!”

  Gio was not safe. A dead man in her home, someone else dead in the village, all these animals. It had to be witchcraft. She would be blamed. She would be the convenient solution.

  She pushed each leg forward, her skirt snagging with every step. She stopped to yank it free with both hands.

  From out of the trees, a figure in black swooped down on her, its arms raised, face blackened, forcing her to the ground with a snarl. Gio struck the attacker, pounding with her fists, kicking with her legs, but the figure was heavy. Pain had no effect on it. The attacker caught her hands as they slowed, pinning them at her sides, sitting on her legs. Gio’s heart was beating too hard; she feared it would burst if she didn’t slow her breathing at once.

  Gio tried to see past the burned black oil covering the face. The robe was torn enough for her to view a leg patched with clean cloths.

  “It’s you,” Gio gasped. “The woman of no name.”

  The Old Woman did not move, just kept her pinned and still.

  “Do it then!” Gio yelled.

  The woman’s face crooked at an odd angle.

  “You’ve come to have your revenge on me. I burne
d you.”

  Gio saw the woman’s chin tremble, but no tears followed. It was not a good sign. She was dehydrated. This woman needed wine, or ale, or milk. She would die within hours if she did not drink.

  “You need to drink,” Gio said, making a motion for drinking. Maybe the woman didn’t want revenge. She could be driven by nothing more than thirst.

  “The man I traded with said it would do no harm,” Gio offered. “I suppose I should have tried it first.’

  The Old Woman began to rise, releasing Gio’s legs and arms, motioning for her to follow. Gio scrambled to all fours and stood. The woman was pointing away from the village, moaning. She pointed to the forest beyond them, grabbing Gio’s hand, trying to pull her in that direction.

  “Why must we flee?” Gio asked. “What has happened?”

  Falling to her knees, the woman clutched Gio’s skirts, imploring Gio to do something.

  Church bells were ringing. It was not time for the next prayers. Gio looked down into the village, wondering what Lazarro knew. When she turned back to face the woman, a man stood with them. His appearance was too sharp, too bright, so that looking at him pierced her eyes like the noon sun.

  Gio fell backward, landing on her rear, toppling the woman with her. The mute woman began to crawl to the man, but Gio grabbed her. The woman shook her off, saying something in a strange voice to this man.

  Together, they spoke in a language Gio did not know.

  “I’m trying to save her, Mbube!” Mariskka said. “They have no medicines, no painkillers. They don’t even have hand sanitizer. No one knows what a virus is.”

  “Truth sound crazy, in any age,” Mbube said.

  “You’re not going to let me save anyone, are you?” Mariskka asked. The realization made her stomach sink.