The House of War and Witness

by Mike Carey

  The shop itself, when she finally reached it, surprised her by being sturdy and well built; made of wood, of course, but far from the shack she had expected. The joints were dovetailed, the walls straight and smooth, sealed against the weather with some preparation that had turned the planks a rich chestnut. The windows had overhangs to keep out the rain, and the door opened smoothly. Hanna had been right to praise the man’s skill.

  The inside was less neat but had the same look of substance and purpose. A bench along the back wall was strewn with works in progress and lined with tools crammed together on hooks. The floor was full of shavings and the air thick with motes. A man was bent over a long table in the centre of the room, planing a length of pale wood from end to end. He nodded briefly as Drozde entered and bent over his work again. It was a full two minutes before he completed the job to his satisfaction and looked up.

  ‘Sorry to have kept you, lady,’ he said. ‘The trick is to keep a steady hand all the way along; I didn’t want to stop halfway. How can I help you?’

  He seemed young to be the master carpenter: no older than Drozde herself, a wiry, alert-looking man, as clean-cut and brown-skinned as one of the carvings on the bench. ‘Meister Stefanu?’ she hazarded.

  He laughed. ‘Not me! The master works at home most mornings. I’m Anton Hanslo, the journeyman here. But tell me what you need, my lady, and I’ll see if I can help.’ This time the glance he gave her was one of frank appraisal, and Drozde sighed inwardly. If the detachment was to spend the winter in Narutsin she might have to patronise this workshop regularly, and she could do without complications. She put both hands on the work table so he could see the wedding ring and told him crisply what she needed: cylinder shapes of ash or beech wood, a dozen of finger-width and eight more in varying, wider thicknesses. She marked out the widths she needed in the sawdust on the tabletop and had him note down the dimensions on his slate, which took him some time.

  ‘Or if that’s too difficult,’ she added, when he didn’t answer at once, ‘I’ll take thin slats, the same width. Four each for the bigger sizes and forty of the little ones. Can you manage that?

  ‘You’ll get your rounds,’ Hanslo said quickly. ‘No trouble at all there. But I’m curious, is all. You going to work these yourself? What are you making, if I might be so bold?

  He’d dropped the ‘lady’, Drozde was pleased to see, and was looking at her now with a certain respect. She allowed herself to unbend a little. ‘I make puppets,’ she told him, and produced the coquette. ‘This one has an older sister who’s been scratched up a bit and needs a new nose.’

  His eyes widened in surprise. He reached for the little doll, and after a moment’s hesitation Drozde handed it to him. ‘She’s well made,’ he said, turning the puppet over delicately in his calloused hands. ‘So you’ll copy her head to replace the other?’

  ‘Just the nose.’

  He whistled softly, studying the detail of the coquette’s unpainted hand. ‘Tricky job. You’ll need a fine-grained wood: I’ll try to match up this one. And how do you fix it on? A peg, or glue?’

  They talked for a while about finishes and varnish, the price of nails and the relative merits of knife and chisel for detail work. Drozde found she was enjoying herself. It was pleasant for once to be treated as a fellow craftsman. She told him something about the shows she put on and heard in return about his work: very little fine carving, he said sadly; mostly house repairs, door hangings and coffins, though sometimes one of the better-off villagers might commission a table or a new set of chairs after a particularly good harvest.

  ‘But carving, now, that’s what I like the best,’ he said, his tone warming. ‘I never had much learning; can’t write much, as you see.’ He looked down ruefully at the numbers he had scrawled on the slate. ‘But I can do fine work if there’s a call for it. Have a look at these.’

  He led her over to the workbench and showed her a row of carvings pushed to the back. An angry goose, beak open, with her gosling pressed against her feet; two boys fishing, their backs against a stump; a girl scrutinising a limp chicken at arm’s length. It was skilled work, and Drozde said so.

  ‘It’s my record,’ Hanslo said, reddening a little but clearly pleased. ‘Sometimes you see a thing that you remember.’ He picked up a smaller, unfinished carving; a skinny cat, sitting expectantly with its head to one side. ‘Like this one. She used to come to the door for scraps when I was a boy.’

  Drozde was looking at the girl with the chicken. Her face, with its look of deep suspicion, was so well captured that she had the feeling she had met her before. ‘That’s Bosilka, the master’s daughter,’ Hanslo told her. ‘It was a few years ago when that happened. A feast day. She got to the market late, and there was only the one chicken left. She wouldn’t have it in the end; we had to eat fish, and the master wasn’t pleased.’ He laughed. ‘I think that’s why he won’t keep this one in the house.’

  His face was younger when he smiled, cheerful and reckless. The carpenter was good company, no doubt about it, Drozde thought, and not at all bad-looking. But of course it would not do. She thanked him for his time and arranged to come back and pick up the wood in a few days. ‘How much will it be?’ she asked, reaching for her purse.

  ‘Oh, as to that,’ Hanslo said, ‘it’s a small job, and as much a pleasure as a chore. If you’ll take a drink with me when it’s done, and maybe show me your work afterwards, we’ll call it quits.’

  ‘I’ll pay what I owe you,’ Drozde said firmly. For an instant the man looked almost comically downcast, but he recovered himself quickly and asked for two cruitzers, a reasonable enough sum that she felt no need to haggle. As she counted out the coins he painstakingly wrote the amount on a slip of wood.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘That’s to say you’ve paid in full.’

  There was something a little hurt about his formality; Drozde felt inclined to laugh. ‘I’ll be glad to show you the other puppet, though,’ she said. ‘When I’ve mended her.’

  He brightened up at once. ‘That would be good! And then we could have that drink.’

  I didn’t say anything about a drink, Drozde thought. It was not a good idea to get into a man’s debt, however pretty his smile. But the carpenter seemed well-meaning, and she held her peace for the time being.

  As she went to collect the puppet from where Hanslo had left it on the table, the door opened and a girl came in. Drozde recognised the big basket on her arm, now full of parcels: she was the one who had come to the clothier’s stall as Drozde left. A moment later she realised why the face was familiar. She was also the girl in Hanslo’s carving, the master carpenter’s daughter who had gone to work for the burgomaster. No wonder Hanna had stopped her gossiping so suddenly when she appeared. The girl certainly didn’t have the air of a husband-hunter: she was small and slight and demure, her light brown hair neatly braided beneath a cap and her dress fastened at the throat.

  ‘Silkie!’ Hanslo greeted her. ‘Won’t your mistress be wondering where you are? It’s nearly mid-day.’

  ‘You can run up there yourself, Anton, if you’re so worried,’ the girl returned, with the quizzical look that Hanslo had captured in his carving. ‘I’m sure you could polish the candlesticks better than me.’

  ‘Ah, no.’ Hanslo shuddered theatrically. ‘Have you bought something good for our suppers?’

  ‘For father’s supper,’ Bosilka told him pertly. ‘You’ll get yours if you behave yourself.’ She saw Drozde and dropped her a quick curtsy, then turned back to Hanslo. ‘Eggs, good large ones, and some bread,’ she told him, removing each item from her basket as she named it and laying it on the table. ‘Onions, a leek and a cabbage. And I found some nuts too.’

  Nuts, Drozde remembered: she’d promised Molebacher to look for some. She was about to ask Bosilka where in the market they’d been on sale when the girl gave an exclamation.

  ‘When did you make this, Anton?’

  She was looking at the coquet
te, running a finger over the painted face. ‘She’s beautiful. You should make more like her.’

  ‘Not mine, Silkie!’ Hanslo said. ‘This lady is a puppet-maker.’

  Bosilka turned to Drozde, her face alight. ‘You carved her! May I pick her up?’

  She handled the puppet reverently, stroking the material of her dress and admiring the detail of her face and hands. She asked Drozde how the joints were made, and what sort of paint she had used. She clearly understood the tools of the carpenter’s trade: her father ought to have made the girl his apprentice, Drozde thought, rather than sending her off to clean the burgomaster’s candlesticks. She glanced at Hanslo, wondering if he resented the loss of Bosilka’s attention, but he was looking at the girl with an expression of kindly indulgence.

  ‘Give the lady her puppet back, Silkie,’ he said. ‘She has somewhere to go, and so do you.’

  The spark left Bosilka’s face. She curtsied again with lowered eyes, returned the puppet and busied herself with her groceries. Drozde felt a sudden irritation with Anton Hanslo. She raised a hand in farewell and left the workshop to do her own shopping.

  It was late afternoon before she returned to Pokoj. She had made a half-dozen more useful acquaintances, learned some gossip which was mostly too trivial to be of use to her, and worn out her shoulders. The haversack Molebacher had given her was too small for all the foodstuffs he’d told her to get, and she had bought herself a basket almost as big as Bosilka’s, which bumped painfully against her leg on the long walk back.

  Molebacher was satisfied with her haul. When she gave him the hazelnuts he grunted, and rewarded her with a full half-share of the mutton stew he had made for their supper. He was serving the officers and their wives again tonight, he told her, and drinking afterwards with the artillery sergeants, who were much in demand. Jursitizky had promised to show them all the great gun Mathilde, he said, and explain how she worked.

  She! Drozde thought. Gertrude. Mathilde. Why was it that whenever a man had a murderous tool, be it a cleaver or a big gun, he insisted on turning it into a woman? But she swallowed her irritation, smiled, and left Molebacher to his chopping. She had gifts for the other women in the camp: mushrooms and fresh plums that had sold cheaply as the market closed, and willow bark to make tea for Alis, who was suffering her cramps. She spent a pleasant half-hour regaling them with some of the filthier tales she had heard at the market. But then Ottilie and Libush were called away by their corporals, and Sarai gathered most of the others around her for a card reading. Drozde often enjoyed the readings – she had no faith in the predictions, but Sarai was a good performer. This evening, though, she didn’t have the patience. She was tired of company, she told herself.

  When Molebacher left the kitchen to attend to the officers, she slipped downstairs to visit her puppets in the kitchen cellar. If he was going to have more of these gunnery nights, she might use the time to whittle a new puppet or two: another little girl, perhaps. Her paints and glue were fairly fresh, and she still had some ends of cotton material as well as the new ribbon. She sat down with her sharpening stone and put in some time restoring the edges on her chisels, promising herself that she’d borrow Molebacher’s leather strop tomorrow for the knives.

  By this time it was dark. Drozde sighed, and acknowledged to herself that she was bored and lonely. She went upstairs and wandered through the house until she could no longer hear the buzz of conversation and clatter of cutlery from the officers’ dinner. Then she stopped and closed her eyes.

  ‘Magda,’ she said aloud.

  The child was there. She felt the light pressure of her hand before she had finished speaking, and opened her eyes to see her ecstatic smile.

  ‘I knew you’d come!’ Magda said. ‘Do you want to play a game?’

  ‘I’m tired tonight,’ Drozde said. ‘Let’s just sit and talk, if you don’t mind.’

  Magda was serious at once. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘you should hear someone else’s story.’

  Drozde had listened to too many stories today. ‘Not now,’ she began. But the girl was already pulling her down a corridor. She couldn’t understand how a touch so nearly non-existent could be so compelling.

  ‘It’s like you always say,’ Magda told her. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world, but that still might not be enough.’

  ‘I’ve said I’m tired!’ Drozde protested. But Magda only tugged harder.

  ‘That’s all right! You only have to sit and listen. And the stories are important. You said that!’

  Drozde gave in and let the child lead her. They went to the ballroom, as she had known they would – clearly it was a part of the ghosts’ ritual, as necessary to their tellings as she herself now seemed to be. Perhaps, Drozde thought, they congregated here every night, in the hope that she or someone else who could fulfil her function would turn up. But when she opened the door they had never once looked surprised to see her. They knew that she would come, just as Magda had known that the kitten would live. And she saw again a couple of figures who withdrew as she came in, almost as if they had only waited for her arrival to go about some other business. She could not fathom their behaviour: not how they could expect her so confidently, nor why those few seemed to flee her, nor – especially – why most of them received her with such pleasure. And she felt a sudden desire, stronger even than her tiredness, to sound the bottom of this mystery.

  As she reached the centre of the ballroom, the murmured conversations of the ghosts ceased, and there was an expectant silence. She turned in a slow circle, meeting the gazes of the ghosts immediately around her. ‘Whose story shall we hear tonight?’ she asked, and she felt now the subtle weight those words carried, a ritual significance which gave the atmosphere in the room a different quality, as hard to define as the difference in quality between the air in the evening and the morning.

  The figure who came forward this time wavered for a moment as if approaching from some great distance. Drozde could not see it clearly at first, but the voice she heard was a woman’s, though deep and strangely accented. Then the speaker was fully there: very short, with long tangled hair, wearing a shapeless tunic that reached no lower than her knees. Her feet were bare, but there was a glint of gold around her neck and a matching glitter in her dark eyes.

  Drozde leaned against the rail, surrounded by shadows, and listened with growing amazement to the day’s last story.

  13

  It is hard to say when my time was in relation to your time. It was a handful of handfuls of handfuls of years ago, and probably some years more. My people lived on this ground, and we called it Khethyu. We called ourselves Khethyu also.

  It was very hot and very humid, with warm winds coming all the time from the east. Like living inside the chest of a man who is snoring, or in a bread oven when the bread is rising. It was a blessed place. The earth teemed with life and the possibility of life, so that if a man chewed tree bark and spat on the ground a tree grew in that place. And if a woman squatted to piss, the stream became an oasis and deer came there.

  The blessings came from the river goddess, Panafya. She loved the Khethyu as any mother loves her children, and wanted all good things to come to us. We gave her our love and worship in return. We promised never to drop stepping stones into her body: the proper way to cross a river is to wade or to swim, trusting the goddess not to take you though she always could. And whenever we dipped so much as a foot in her waters, we felt Panafya’s caress and knew her love for us.

  We had no other gods, but there was one devil who we were compelled to acknowledge. His name was Shin and he lived in the great well that he dug out with his claws in the before times – the well that gave us water even in the dry season. It was Panafya’s water, of course. She gave water freely to everyone. But sly Shin never drank his water. He hoarded it at the bottom of his well and counted the drops the way a farmer counts his goats.

  So when the dry season came and the only water to be had was from Shin’s well, we Khethyu
came to borrow it. But we placated the devil with prayers, and we always paid him back in the spring when the river flooded.

  We placated him in another way, too. Every year a boy and a girl were chosen to dance for Shin on the great flat stone beside his well – a very difficult and complicated dance. They danced naked, and afterwards they fucked with all of the Khethyu looking on and singing a praise. In this way they dedicated both their skill and the beauty of their bodies to the devil.

  But one year the girl who was chosen for the dance was Arinak, a vain and empty-headed thing. It is no spite or envy in me to say this, because Arinak was me. I had no thought in my head beside the thought that I was cleverer, more beautiful and more admirable than any woman had ever been. I thought the devil was lucky that I’d been chosen to dance for him, and the boy, Dimut, was lucky that he would get to fuck with me. I thought the sun was lucky to shine on me and the earth to bear my feet.

  And those were the thoughts that were in my heart when I danced.

  It was a glorious day, a wild dance, and a joyful lovemaking. I had never been so happy. When we were done, Dimut asked me if I would walk under the marriage tree and pick a fruit and eat it with him. I kissed him – because his admiration made me happy – but I told him no. I wanted an older man with more than a single handful of goats to his name. I was sure that plenty of older men would come to court me.

  But that was not how things fell out.

  The morning after the dance I pushed my friend Venni in play and she fell the wrong way, so that her leg broke. Her furious family demanded half our herd and half our honour stones in compensation, and the elders agreed it. They were right to do so. The leg healed thwart and Venni was crippled.

  Then my mother fell ill of a fever that would not abate, until in the end her wits left her and she could no longer talk. Only sit in the fire pit and run her fingers through the warm ashes as though she had lost something there.

  Then five of our goats died in five nights, one after another, with no sign of sickness. They just fell to the ground as though someone had hit them with a stone.