In the Arms of Immortals

by Ginger Garrett

  “Be at peace, Lazarro,” she called. “The truth will find you soon enough. Then you will weep!”

  Gio stormed from the church.

  Someone was waiting for her. Jerking her down the steps, out of sight from the church, he stuffed a thick, dry rag into her mouth as she tried to fight off his restraints, the wires that dug into her wrists as he tied them together, yanking the wire up and tight, cutting her. Forcing her against the side wall of the church, he began pouring brandy all over her clothes. She smelled the torch burning, the wax and fat making it burn white, and saw the torch lowered to her skirts.

  Mariskka’s soles ached; there was no such thing as medieval sandals with arch support. Worst was the pain in the balls of her feet, stinging with every step. Her body needed rest. How long had it been since she ate or drank? She couldn’t remember.

  She daydreamed about white foaming milk skimming a perfectly drawn latte. She didn’t need a lot to make her happy. Or maybe a latte with a hot bubble bath … that would be nice. She could fill her Waterford bowl with a pile of chocolates and then pour a scented bubble bath. Then the latte would taste even better, and she could eat chocolate until the bath water turned tepid. Or she could skip the latte and the bubbles. She could just fill the tub with chocolates and get in. She could eat her way through the rest of the day.

  Another stone nicking her foot made her wince and stumble out of the daydream.

  Mariskka staggered across the lanes, picking her way through spitting crowds and little girls who reached out to pinch her in their disgust. Mariskka was a dirty foreign woman. She was easy to blame for this new illness. She smelled it on them and wanted to cry. It was here. Death was here.

  What had they taught her in school? She knew the Black Death killed a lot of people. It had been interesting when it was in a book.

  A stone caught her in the shoulder, hitting hard. Mariskka grabbed the spot, trying not to look afraid. She could hear someone cursing her.

  She had done as much to the foreigners when working in the hospice, always whispering about those maids who spoke no English, and the funny way valuables went missing after a room was cleaned. Even if Mariskka was the one doing the stealing, she was an American. Mariskka felt a lump of guilt in her throat. She would give anything to apologize to those women.

  Another stone clipped her hard in the back. Mariskka fell onto her knees but couldn’t help it. Sometimes patients did that, she knew, when pain was too much.

  “Mbube, I know what they’re doing!” she called. She felt a peace that made no sense right now.

  Mbube was beside her, walking, taking her by the hand and leading her away from the crowd of angry mothers beginning to draw together as they watched her. The hostile whispers were growing louder. They were angry at the foreigner. They blamed her.

  Mbube’s breath came in low huffs. His palms on her arms were firm and rough, like the pads of a bear. Mariskka tried to pull away from his touch, and iron claws came out, drilling down into her skin.

  “Why you grab Panthea?” he asked. “You scare her.”

  “Someone needs to save her,” Mariskka answered.

  “She not want to be saved,” Mbube answered.

  “It’s all over her!” Mariskka said. “Like a fog, or a web. It’s wrapping around her.”

  Mbube frowned. “Your eyes opening fast,” he replied.

  “I can help her,” Mariskka said.

  “She not want your help,” he replied. “Not for that.”

  “Mbube, the plague: it’s not the real danger, is it?”

  Mbube was silent, turning her to look into the lane again.

  The mists were taking shape, walking and gaining in colour and form, until one looked right at her. It was Death, one of many creatures stroking children’s hair like women choosing fruit at a market, licking the skin of weary old men, who brushed at their cheeks thinking it to be a fly. Death liked the young ones, she could see that. They cried out.

  The old ones were silent, staring at the mists without expression, infuriating them. Mariskka had seen this face in the dementia wards. She had thought the old, silent patients didn’t have anything to say.

  She had not been wrong. Silence was the last great voice.

  Silence had said so many things in those rooms, and she had not listened.

  If she could go back.…

  Mbube grabbed her, forcing her to focus on him. “You not see all. People always quick to see darkness first. There is more.”

  “I can’t wait, Mbube. These people need help.”

  “They think you crazy,” he said. “You be spat on, hated.”

  “I’m a nurse, Mbube. I’ve been spat on. I’ve been vomited on. I’ve been peed on.”

  “Everyone die, Mariskka. No medicines. It called the days of the Great Death, the Unimaginable Suffering. You not enough. Your little truth not enough.”

  “You sent me here to fight the darkness.”

  “You not know who fight with you. That big truth. That truth you still need.”

  “This is what I know: Death doesn’t want their bodies. He has no use for them. Bodies are not eternal, not in any world. Spirits are. These are what he seeks. That’s why the Enemy appears as a disease. There is no one visible. No one to blame but God.… Oh, wow, listen to me. I do sound crazy.” She laughed.

  He flashed his teeth at her, long yellow canine teeth with needle-sharp points. “I not laugh. Not about you.”

  Pulling her up off her feet until her face was pressed against his, she saw fine gold hairs all over his face. She looked into his eyes with the gold irises, and caught his scent, the scent of air after a storm.

  He lowered his head and kissed her eyelids, once on each side. “Now you see more truth.”

  He set her down and she opened her eyes.

  She did see more; the mists now appeared as angels walking the streets. Some had wings made of scales, like snakeskin, that rippled and moved as the angel walked. Those angels had frightening faces—thick-scaled brows, eyes a tornado green, the colour the sky turned before the earth was ripped open. Some had mottled wings, browns and tans, like the skin of rattlesnakes she had seen crossing the roads on summer afternoons. They had black eyes, so you could not tell when their gaze was fixed completely on you. One might strike or move on, you never knew. Even as a child, she’d known it was foolish, but she always locked her car door when her mother drove her down those county roads where rattlesnakes sunned themselves.

  “Seraphim,” he said. “They are dangerous if you do not know Him.”

  One stared at Mariskka, his head flicking in her direction without warning. She went cold and looked away.

  Mbube clicked his teeth at the seraphim, who glided past. “Many of them follow Satan. Those hide in darkness. Always best avoid.”

  Mariskka grunted, trying to hold her breath and not panic. Fear was takings its toll on her stomach first. She wished God had sent back a porta-potty with her. She wasn’t much for squatting over holes, and the age of the outhouse had not arrived.

  Mbube had probably seen her at her worst, anyway. She tried not to think of the parties in nursing school, where she woke up the next morning with leaves in her hair and the sour taste of cheap booze in her mouth. One fine morning in particular she remembered waking up facedown on the dean’s front lawn, wearing only her bra and underwear. Not her best moment. But she had avoided being punished. She had written an apology note and signed her roommate’s name to it. The girl was expelled, and Mariskka finished the semester with honors. The dean said he had never gotten a good look at the girl’s face anyway.

  Mariskka knew why God made angels eternal: We’d all want to kill them if we could, just to blot out their memories.

  “How you say it?” Mbube asked her.

  She shook her head, not knowing,
trying to say something. It might help her recover faster from all these shocks.

  He lifted a finger to stop her. “Welcome to my world, Mariskka.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I cannot believe a plague is upon us,” Panthea said. She did not withdraw from Armando’s arms. “Plague occurred in the ancient worlds, when God inflicted punishment on His children, and in the land of the Greeks. Never in Sicily. Plague has been dead for centuries.”

  “Plague is an immortal,” Armando answered.

  “Only God is immortal!” she said.

  “No, Panthea. Immortals cover the earth.”

  “That is not true.”

  “Nero and I saw death many times in our journeys. We saw things that cannot be explained.”

  Panthea was silent. He had never spoken of his years in the desert before, the years of his pilgrimage, fighting infidels and making a name for the house of Dario Campaigna.

  “You talk foolishness. I do not like it,” she said.

  “It is not such a horrible death, for another man to kill your body. There are other ways to die. There are spirits among us. It is not our mortal bodies they want.”

  “I cannot believe you talk like this to me,” Panthea said. “You who will not light candles for those in Purgatory or pay for their release. You believe in nothing.”

  “One night as I slept in the desert, I felt the earth tremble all around me, as if a great army approached and halted. I jumped up but could see nothing, though the stars were bright. I believe in many things.”

  “In what?” Panthea asked.

  “That we are not the only ones with secrets.”

  He stroked her hair and sighed.

  “Go on,” Panthea said, pushing his hand away from her hair.

  “I climbed a mountain once, a very big mountain,” he said. “There was snow near the top and the wind blew hard enough to peel my skin off.” He dropped his hand back to his side, holding her with less attention.

  “The wind saved my life. I was a loud, careless climber. The locals there moved with the silence of mist. They would have heard me that day and killed me on sight. But the wind howled and screamed, and Nero and I climbed higher, until I looked below me and saw a clearing. There were a few shrubs and rocks but nowhere to hide. An old man moved down there, weak and slow. His back was bent at a terrible angle and I knew he could not raise himself up to see me. I was slipping back down, out of sight, when I saw a man, a youth really, with a knife in his hand. The boy pulled back as if to launch the knife at the old man’s back. He meant to kill him, to cut the old man down without mercy.”

  Armando shrugged, as if to justify the decision to himself once again. “It did not seem right, so I instead rushed down upon him, cutting off the boy’s head with one blow from my sword. He looked surprised to see me, and I do not think the boy felt pain. The old man heard us, though, and turned with difficulty to see what was above him. He saw me, a foreigner to his home, standing over a local boy, whose head now lay a distance from his body.

  “I do not know why I didn’t turn Nero and flee. I had acted like a warrior, a man of justice, but I suddenly felt ashamed. He had been only a boy. The old man looked between me and the body and motioned for me to approach. I edged Nero down toward him. There was an old man, with no weapon. No one else. He could not harm me.

  “When I reached him, I saw his eyes. Green, greener than the soil of Verona. His face was brown and rough, and he kept his hair hidden under a great turban wrapped around his head. He motioned for me to dismount, and then he embraced me as I stood before him. From his gestures I understood that I had saved his life from a mortal enemy. I was pleased. It was not right to cut down an old man like a dog. The boy had gotten what he earned.

  “The man—I guessed from his slow words that his name was Amar—led me to a cave deep within the mountain, a cave with many shadows. I heard voices and saw strange shapes flying through the darkness. As they drew nearer, I realized they were children, rushing to welcome home this man, taking him by the hand to lead him deeper in.

  “The deepest part of the cave was unlike any palace I could imagine. Light flooded in from above, revealing a home of a god. There were riches there I cannot describe, even to this day. It overwhelmed me. Most of all I saw fabrics woven with gold, woven gold flowers with stones in the center, beautiful coloured gems that glistened like they were wet. The fabrics made rooms, separating boundaries for the children, I think, and the old man. Some fabrics were draped over the most searing light, creating purple flames along the walls. I tell you, no other fabric has ever been seen like these. It would take our women years to construct one like it, and none of our women even have such skills as this weaver. I wondered, in my daze, if this was the home of the lost Greek gods.

  “The old man clapped his hands—so soft was his strike of flesh on flesh, I was sure no one heard it. But these were quiet people. The children ran into the darkness, returning with plates of dark, hard bread and clotted milk. It was offered to me first, and I ate. A goat’s hoof would have tasted better.

  “The children gave me something else, a green pudding of sorts, chewy. It was made from some kind of plant and when I tasted it, I left this earth. I saw the colours around me in new ways. The voices thundered in my ears, and I saw the old man dancing all around me, laughing.

  “As I lay there, the world spinning, my mouth numb, my tongue running over my lips, trying to find feeling, I saw a dark spirit. A figure in black, thin as a winter branch, swaying above me. It had no face. All was shrouded in black, the image of every fear I had ever known. From the shroud came a woman’s hand, small but strong and smooth, and it pressed against my mouth, sealing my lips to keep me from yelling. She smelled of a desert rose, of a woman’s oils, and I felt her touch against my lips. I thought I would die from the kiss, the taste of a woman’s soft palm against my mouth. I breathed into it, feeling my breath move along the surface of her skin. The old man hissed at her, and she rose at once. As she pulled away from me, I thought I saw a glimpse of her hair. Long and black, the kind of black you would see before you dove into deep water, shutting your eyes.

  “The old man stretched himself out, taking my sword and setting it at his own side, grinning at me. He ran one hand along its handle, tracing the marks. He fell asleep, his mouth open, ropy strands of saliva running down his chin as he breathed in and out. Such little breaths, I thought. He was an old man, a small one.

  “I was too weak to move, my legs feeling heavy, my arms unable to hold my weight as I tried to lift up. But she was there, beyond the veils that trembled when herdsmen above moved across the mountain. That was all there was between us, these veils of gold and purple. All night I lay there, listening for her, remembering the feel of her palm against my lips.

  “Did you know, Panthea, that if you tie a tiger’s neck to a stake in the ground when he is young, when he is old, he will not strain against it? He will remember when he resisted and the rope burned, twisting into skin. The fiercest among us can be ruined if they are caught young. That was me. She was tightening the rope around my neck.

  “A storm came upon us while we slept,” Armando continued. “Lightning blasts that shook us. The walls of the cave began to glow blue from the strikes all around us. My host, the man, awoke, saying nothing to me. He went outside, right into the beast, to relieve himself. When he returned, his hair wet and dripping, he sat cross-legged and clapped once. She appeared, lifting the veil between us, carrying a tray of figs and flatbread. Still, I could see nothing of her face or form, nothing but those exquisite hands. My mind was clearing. I saw she must be young, for the hands were so smooth. I did not trust myself in her presence, and I clasped my hands together before my face. I feared I would rise and throw off her veil for the thrill of seeing her face, though my host who owned her would surely kill me for the dishonour. This is the onl
y time I have considered a dishonourable death.

  “‘Who is the man I killed?’ I asked my host.

  “Hunched over his breakfast, fig seeds trailing down his stubbled chin caught here and there on coarse grey hairs, he grunted. ‘A boy. From the village below.’

  “‘Why would such a boy kill you?’ I asked. ‘You are a white-haired father, unarmed.’

  “He grunted again, but I think it was a laugh. ‘The young ones get excited about my coming death.’

  “He was more interested in his breakfast than this tale, which upset me. The old man saw I was not eating, and he grabbed my plate away. He ate like a rodent, working his two good teeth in front with ferocious speed, tearing, smacking, and swallowing. It was vulgar, but who could scold an old man?

  “When he finished, he looked at me with disdain. I had not eaten what was set before me.

  “‘These clothes. My wife makes them. No other man has such a wife. I grow rich by her.’

  “‘The young boys want to kill you so they, too, can have her and grow rich?’ I asked.

  “He spat, a thick clump of fig seeds in the sand between us. ‘Are you a eunuch?’ he wheezed. ‘I am old, but still I know what they want. It is not cloth.’

  “It offended me, though I would not admit it. I would not suggest a rude motive to my host.

  “‘I bought her in the open market when she was just a girl. She wore a veil as she climbed onto my donkey for the journey here. No one has seen her unveiled, save me, in fifteen years. Legend tells them she is a daughter of gods. Beautiful.’

  “‘Why do you keep her veiled? Surely no one enters here and may look upon her.’

  “‘I do not command she wear a veil,’ he replied. ‘Do you think if we planted these seeds near the cave, in a spot safe from the wind, we could grow figs? I hate paying market price. A man should grow his own food if he can.’

  “‘Why does she wear it?’ I asked.

  “He began picking out the seeds from the wet mush. ‘Why do you care? She is my wife. A good wife. Does not complain.’ He cupped his palm and counted the seeds. ‘Will you stay one more night? I must reward you for your deed, but the journey is long for an old man. I need a full day to go and return. Will you wait?’