In the Arms of Immortals

by Ginger Garrett

He stood at the back of the crowd, with coarse, hairy arms crossed over his chest, blood all over his apron and legs.

  All seemed troubled to hear his voice—one more strange event.

  “It is the one called Damiano who brings death,” Del Grasso said. “You did not listen to Del Grasso.”

  The crowd whispered, some feeling their stomachs, the food from the feast still there. Damiano had been at the feast.

  A hunched old man got in Del Grasso’s face. “Shut up, you blistered fool! This is God’s judgment upon your wickedness, all of you! If you repent, He will spare you!”

  The baker grabbed the old man, shoving him to the ground. “What sin did my wife commit?”

  Lazarro lunged to restrain the baker.

  “Wolf!” a woman screamed, pointing down a lane behind the church. “I saw its eyes!”

  Gio was sure it was just a dog, one of the many who watched in hope for Del Grasso to sleep with his door open and a bone unattended.

  A young man took control of the crowd, cutting off Lazarro from their sight. “Kill anything you see in the village that does not belong here, whether man or beast.”

  The younger men liked his words, Gio saw. They were pleased to have cause to fight.

  “Search the houses! Eat and drink nothing until we find the cause!” Lazarro pushed the young man aside, commanding the crowd. “If people fall ill, send them to me at once. This death moves fast. May we be saved before it takes another!”

  The mass that had huddled together so close now scattered in all directions. Women fled to their homes; men brandished knives and sticks and whatever they could uproot. Eyes wild, arms flexed with weapons at their shoulder, they marched down every path, beating on every shop door, kicking every drunk still sleeping in quiet corners. Some of them stood and tried to wipe the boy’s blood from their clothes, before it contaminated the air and gave the evil a chance to spread. A woman saw a bloodstain on her child’s face and stopped him, spitting on her sleeve to wipe clean his face. Licking the spot on her sleeve again, she wiped one more time to make sure no trace of the curse remained.

  Del Grasso crossed his arms over his chest. “You need my help.”

  Lazarro squinted at him in the morning light, releasing the baker, who was cursing them all under his breath.

  “I see the heart of man,” Del Grasso said. “Not all sins are confessed to you.” He bowed his head, then turned, walking toward his shop.

  Gio should have run then, before anyone thought again to drown her. She did not think they would find wolves, and they would find no poison, at least none from her hands. Fear told her to run. Gio felt it there, roiling in her stomach, but it did not hurt her. Gio was encouraged. Last night had made her stronger.

  Looking in the distance, to mark where the others had run, Gio recognized a noble, one of Dario’s favourite allies, a man whose name she did not remember. He was riding out of the city with speed. Trying not to breathe the air, he wrapped his robe, with its blood spatter from the unfortunate boy, around his face and mouth as he rode.

  Lazarro saw him too. “The angels be with him. With all of us.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Armando kept her from falling off Nero, one hand wrapped against her waist, the other holding the reins.

  He was spurring Nero to ride harder, but the climb up the stone streets to the castle was steep with a heavy load. Panthea could not look up. She pressed her face against his shoulder, breathing in his scent, feeling the warm skin of his neck.

  He might have taken her away if she had surrendered last night. She would not have sinned or seen. This vision, this thing she had seen in her father’s chamber, it was her fault. Everything was her fault.

  Armando would know how to fix this.

  The mute woman grabbed at her ankle and she kicked her hands off as Armando pulled her tighter. The woman opened her mouth, releasing Panthea’s ankle to gesture at her, scraping her fingers against her face, motioning for Panthea to do the same. Red scratches ran down the woman’s face from her efforts, and she grabbed Panthea again, nearly taking her off the horse.

  Panthea kicked, hard, catching the woman in the chest, knocking her to the ground. Armando spurred Nero, and Panthea craned her neck to watch the woman. She was clutching her chest, trying to get a breath back, and tears were running down her face. She began staggering toward Panthea, determined to catch her.

  “Faster, Armando!” Panthea cried.

  “There are too many people to ride fast,” Armando said, his grip loosening. “Look.”

  Women were pushing children in behind closed doors, slamming the bolts down behind them. Men were dragging grain or whatever they could grab from broken shop windows into their homes. Peasants, too, carried more than their children on their backs. Panthea saw a boy’s dead body lying on the steps of the church. No one was attending to it. A black pool surrounded him. His eyes were open, staring into the sun.

  A group of teenage boys in threadbare clothes were the only still bodies in the piazza. One nudged another as Panthea and Armando rode by, making Panthea afraid. They did not look away when they saw the crest on Nero.

  The miller’s wife was walking straight down the street, her children pulling on her hands and crying. “Sshh! Not now, bambini! We must find your father! Come home! Matins are over, and we must grind the flour!”

  Sweat soaked her bodice. Dark stains spread from her armpits and neck to her stomach and skirt. She wiped her face with her sleeve; her hair was matted and wet. It was still morning. No one should be that hot.

  The mute woman caught up to Panthea but did not move. She was transfixed, staring at the miller’s wife, her mouth opening for a gasp. The woman reached limply for Panthea but did not touch her leg.

  The miller’s wife collapsed in the street. “I need water, children. Go and fetch your mama some water.”

  The children cried and would not leave her. One caught Panthea’s eye. “Mistress, we need water, please!”

  Armando’s grip tightened. “Do not get down,” he whispered.

  The woman stood and kissed her children, extravagant kisses on their faces. “It is no matter, children! See, God has sent Mama a drink!”

  She walked toward the sea, singing a snippet of Latin that Lazarro often sang in church. When she got to the cliff, she did not stop or slow. Her body fell and disappeared as her song lingered above.

  Panthea screamed. Armando’s grip tightened around her waist as the woman turned, her eyes fierce, lunging for Panthea.

  Gio was kneeling before the boy. With a light touch, she closed his eyes, and then brushed locks of dirty hair back from his forehead. She removed a silver coin from her skirt pocket and pressed it into the boy’s palm, curling his fingers around it so it would not be lost. It was all she could offer him.

  He had no mother. She had seen him on the streets, stealing when he could, begging when he could not. He had been too strong to ever need her medicines, but she tried to help him in her way. She saw to it that her coin purse tipped down as she walked by, so that a stray piece of silver would fall near him, especially in the barren months when vendors huddled over their carts and there were not enough customers to distract them from one pie gone missing.

  The boys of the street mocked her, grabbing at her skirts when they were drunk, pretending to die of her hexes, staggering into the lanes clutching their throats. She had given them much cruel amusement.

  Still, they had no mothers. Gio could not let them starve. She had filled her stomach with water and chewed on bark so she could sleep on those nights. It was easy to sleep hungry, knowing they were fed. They would have laughed to know of her sufferings, but she brushed their hatred away. They could not be held in account for it.

  Lazarro’s arms went under the body, lifting the boy up, away from her.

 
“Where will he be buried?” she asked. She would pay for a proper burial, a fine casket.

  Lazarro did not answer her question. He carried the body up the church stairs. Gio caught up to him, opening the doors for him. Lazarro passed through and walked to the altar, the morning sun making the dust in the air visible, a thousand swirling worlds under the mighty cross. None ever touched, Gio saw. They all moved, dancing, falling, blown by small currents she did not feel. They never touched. Gio wondered if one even knew another existed.

  Lazarro laid the boy on the steps of the altar. Sweeping a gold cup through the Holy Water basin, Lazarro began washing the boy.

  “By the waters of Christ you came into new life. By the waters of Christ now you go to the next. God be praised,” he said.

  “He is eligible for Communion?” she asked. She had never seen the boy going into the church.

  “All are eligible, Gio. Few are obedient.”

  The space between them widened again. Gio felt it in the air.

  “He was obedient?” she asked, straining to move closer.

  “He did not renounce God, like you,” Lazarro replied. “God blessed the boy in the midst of his suffering, always keeping him fed. You would have done well to know him.”

  “Lazarro, you do not know the truth,” Gio began.

  “Is this the hour for you to talk?”

  He was right. Her time had been last night. She had told herself there was more time.

  “I must go and collect Rosetta and the miller,” Lazarro said. “I must order coffins and collect money for Masses. A boy will need to be hired to ring the bells. There is much work to do.”

  “Father,” Gio said, hoping the term would startle him and he would look at her, “you must leave these details to others now. Search the Scriptures and pray. This thing is not of me, not of man. You must seek God’s face.”

  Lazarro was not listening. “They will all be buried as soon as Marzcana and his sons have built the coffins. We will have a noon Mass.”

  Gio shook her head. “Do not make my mistake, Lazarro.”

  “Which mistake is this?” he asked.

  “You do not know what you will be doing at noon.”

  “I know this, Gio; you will trouble me no more. You will probably be dead by noon.”

  Nero rode up the path to the castle, trees brushing past them on the narrow turns, Armando not slowing as they flew through them, the branches tearing at the hem of Panthea’s skirts that billowed out. She was being torn apart with every leap. What would be left of her by nightfall?

  Shapes were moving all around the castle. This encouraged Panthea. The servants were working, and quickly. Good. She knew about control. Only the matter of her father, and the horror of the upstairs chamber, was beyond her power. She needed Armando for that, and he had come when she asked.

  The servants must be brought inside, Panthea thought, and all the stores of grain and wine secured. Fires need to be lit around the perimeter.

  Let the village worry about wolves. Panthea would worry about keeping the hungry peasants out. None would enter until this madness was sorted out. Any servant with children would be permitted to leave. She did not want to feed those who could not work. Letting them go would cause hardship for the other servants, who would have to work harder, but Panthea had learned mercy, had she not?

  “They’re running away,” he said.

  The dark shapes she saw were servants, but they were not working. The bags they carried were not being brought inside. No, every servant was carrying bags of grain and fruits, straining to get into the forest and steal away. Armando drew his sword from the sheath alongside Nero’s saddle. When the servants saw it, the slower ones dropped their bags and ran without them. The young ones readjusted their loads and bore down, running faster, disappearing into the trees,

  Armando released Panthea and she swung her leg over Fidato, jumping to the ground and chasing after the servants. She caught up to an older woman heaving a sack of grain. The woman dropped it at once and held up her hands as if to explain. Panthea slapped her, hard, grabbing the sack, pulling it back toward the castle.

  Armando had run Nero into the trees and circled back around. “Secure the castle,” he called.

  There were servants standing who had not fled. Panthea wondered if they were loyal or just slow. Maybe they were both, she thought. She did not doubt she would be left with the worst of the lot.

  Armando rounded them inside, Panthea standing at the door to mark their faces as they went past. She would punish their families if they went missing now.

  As the last servant approached, Panthea lifted a torch from the wall and gave it to a servant. “Set fires all along the castle. Set them so close that no man may pass except by the main door, and set two guards at this door. The post must not be abandoned.”

  Armando grabbed Panthea’s hand and led her upstairs.

  “No!” Panthea screamed. “You go alone!”

  He pulled her up the stairs as servants watched her with surprised faces.

  Cold fear pierced at her throat, cutting off her breath. Stabbing through her stomach, it impaled her, shaking her without mercy. She thought she was going to die from fear, but still Armando pulled her up the stairs.

  He did not pause at her father’s chamber but rammed both doors open. A group of servants huddled over the bodies inside, most especially that of her father.

  “Oh,” Panthea wept, holding her shaking hands to them, “oh, mercy upon you!” She tried to focus on their faces, their eyes, so she would not look down at the bodies. “You attend my father!”

  Armando thrust his sword into one leaning over her father. The man fell at an angle, exposing Panthea to the full view of her father.

  He was half-naked, his clothes torn, pockets in his robe pulled out and split apart. The man had been pulling a locket with a woman’s picture painted in it from her father’s bare grey chest. The gold chain swung from the thief’s dying hand, like an executioner’s saw, back and forth, back and forth. Panthea snatched it, surprised at her speed when her mind was numb.

  “I cannot take this …” she said, holding the locket away from herself.

  Pain was a wall that fell upon her, blunt and wide, breaking every bone and tender place. It forced the air from her lungs, and she fell to the floor, gasping like a fish.

  The remaining servants jumped over her, fleeing. She thought one stepped on her hand, breaking a finger under his heel, but she wasn’t sure. She could not hear her own thoughts, as if her mind were calling to her from another, distant place.

  Armando’s arms went under her, lifting her and carrying her to a couch in the hall. He laid her upon it, brushing her hair back, kissing her upon the forehead. She put her arms around his neck, pulling him to her. She couldn’t breathe. His breath felt so warm on her dead, cold skin. If she pulled him close enough, pulled him from the cold distance to her mouth, she would feel life again.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered.

  He pulled against her hands, shaking his head. “Not like this,” he whispered.

  “I cannot breathe,” she said.

  He pulled her up, resting her back against his chest, wrapping his arms around her bodice, pulling hard. Her ribs felt his wrist bones digging in, his forearms crushing against her. She felt his breath move through her, his ribs expanding, forcing hers out and in, so that she moved with him, his body mastering hers. She surrendered, and she breathed. She let him move in and through her, the first time she had ever been held by him so completely, ever felt a man sustaining her at her point of weakness. She rested against him, knowing why God had given men their strength.

  “What was that?” Armando asked.

  “I do not know, as Mary and the angels are my witness. What is happening, Armando? Why do the villagers steal grain? Why do m
y servants flee? What man would dare kill my father?”

  “I do not think it was a man, Panthea.”

  “It was no animal. There were no teeth marks.”

  “I do not think it was an animal, Panthea.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” Panthea spat the words. “What else is there but man and beast?”

  “Plague,” Armando answered.

  “You must go,” Lazarro said. “They will come for you. I will not allow blood to be spilled in my church.”

  “I can help,” Gio said.

  “If you stay, it will only be out of fear for your own life. Go back to your home, Gio. Pack what you can and flee.”

  “The Old Man lies dead on my threshold, covered in these same marks.”

  The truth burst out between them, ugly and raw. Like life, truth had a will and timing all its own.

  Lazarro stopped, his hand in midair over the boy, performing his final baptism. “What did you do?”

  “I did nothing!”

  “You loosed something,” he said.

  “Why must you always believe the worst of me?”

  He kept going about his work. “I cannot force you to do the right thing, Gio. It was never your talent.”

  “It’s a wonder you became a priest, standing here for God, telling others to repent. You are the sinner, Lazarro.”

  “This is not the time, Gio. This hour is not meant for you or me. Whatever debts you owe me, I forgive.” He pointed to the door, flicking his hand as if to brush her away.

  “Have you smelled the boy?” Gio asked, pausing at the door. “We do not know what this death is.”

  “It is of the Devil,” Lazarro said.

  “What do you know of the Devil? You do not even know your God.” She swung the doors of the church open, the light blinding her as she stepped out of this house of shadows.

  “Gio!” he called.

  She paused but did not turn to him.

  “Gio, if I find you had any part in this, if you profit in any way from this suffering, I will drown you myself.”