by Julie Berry
Her wide eyes held my gaze. A thousand lifetimes lay there, and somewhere, the maiden Dolssa de Stigata hid behind them, behind her torments. Could she venture out, I wondered, into our world enough to feel this loss?
“Was she ill?”
“Not that we knew.” I sat down beside her. “Some illnesses, the eye doesn’t see.”
She closed her eyes for some time. Her lips moved.
She’d gone far away again. I wondered if she remembered what we’d been talking about, or even that I was still with her in the room. When she spoke, it surprised me.
“The poor little ones.”
“Oc.”
We sat. Up front, in the tavern, customers began arriving, looking for Sunday’s lunch. Plazensa’s dulcet voice greeted them as ever, but in a somber hue today. Through the wall, Lisette’s baby fussed, and his mamà’s footsteps paced.
“Do you have a mother, Botille?”
“I had one, of course,” I said, “but she died when I was six. A wasting illness.”
Dolssa’s lip trembled. “I am sorry.”
Was she crying for me? “Don’t be sad.” I put on a smile. “It was years ago now.” I leaned back against the wall beside her. “Little Sazia was only three. Like Felipa’s oldest tozẹt.”
Dolssa wiped her eyes on the nightshirt. Released from her dirty clothing, washed, and dressed loosely as she now was, she seemed a new creature altogether, as though some of her pain were bound up in the fabric of her old garments. She seemed younger and more frail. Her body, I considered, wasn’t all of her that was starving and wounded.
“You should eat your porridge while it’s hot,” I said. “I put cream in it for you. If you finish it, I’ll cook you an egg. We need to put some meat back on you before you disappear.”
Her long lashes opened slowly as she regarded the food. “Was it a peaceful death?”
I was taken aback. “Felipa’s? I don’t know, I haven’t heard—”
“Your mother’s.” She turned toward me again, and I felt the gaze of those eyes, like lanterns reaching both to me and through me. As though she could see me both today and that long-ago day, equally well.
“I wasn’t there,” I said. “None of us were. She faced her end alone. It was I who found her body.”
After midday, Sazia went to the de Prato home to look after the children. I promised I’d look in on her when things settled down at the tavern.
“So Sazia plays la maire today,” observed Plazensa as Sazia climbed the hill. “I wonder how she’ll do.”
“Well enough,” I said.
Plazensa shoved a chair aside with her hip. “Have you ever seen her tend to children?”
I tried to think. Surely, I must have.
“She has no use for them,” my sister said, “until they’re old enough to not be boring.”
“And what age is that?” I inquired.
Plazi winked. “Her own age, at the very least.”
Less than an hour had passed after Sazia’s departure when Joan de Prato entered the tavern. Or rather, his ghost did. His face was so sunken, and his back so stooped, I would have said he had thirty more years on his soul than the thirty-some he’d earned by rights. His elbows propped up a head too heavy to bear. Plazi poured him a cup of wine, no charge, and patted his hand.
He worked on that wine all afternoon. Men squeezed his shoulders. They embraced him. Some sat down and wept their sympathies into his ears. But Joan de Prato heard none of them. He couldn’t.
BOTILLE
n Monday we buried Felipa. Nights may have grown cool, but days were still too warm for a long viewing season. Her abject husband could no more greet mourners in his home all week than he could afford to offer them food and drink. So Na Pieret’s servants, Jacme, Andrio, and Itier, dug a grave in the churchyard, and we gathered around and listened as Dominus Bernard bid her keep company with the angels until the first trump should sound. He gave a very fitting homily, did our curly haired parish priest.
Sazia listened, with a child’s hand clutched in each of hers. Felipa’s stunned children, it seemed, had finally grasped what their mamà’s dying meant.
“I can’t bear it,” Sazia had confided in me earlier that morning. “It would be better if they would cry. It’s the most piteous thing. They just sit and stare. Yesterday wouldn’t end. I couldn’t comfort them even if I were the comforting sort.” She showed me her hand with a wry smile. “See how helpfulness is rewarded—their cat bit me.”
I gave her hand a kiss. “I’ll send someone else to relieve you, srre.”
Na Pieret came to the burial with Symo and Gui. They stood on either side of her like guardian soldiers. Like sons. It made me glad to see how proud of them she looked. Na Pieret had always been generous to our poor in Bajas. I hoped her nephews would carry on her legacy of courtesy when they inherited her place in the village.
Several times during our priest’s remarks I caught Astruga peering intently at me from under her shawl. She had meaningful glances for everyone—for Dominus Bernard, who would not return her gaze; for me; for poor, helpless Sapdalina, my other client; and for Gui, who took no notice of her whatsoever.
After the family threw handfuls of soil into the grave, Jacme, Andrio, and Itier finished the job. Symo and Gui joined them. I sidled over to Na Pieret to inquire after her health.
“Never better, Botille,” she told me in a low voice. “These filhs of mine have made me young, although”—she made the sign of the cross and glanced at the filling grave—“sometimes even youth is no protection.”
I slipped my arm through hers. “Such a sad tale. The poor eṇfans.”
“You’ll look after them, won’t you, Botille?”
I nodded. “I’ll poke my nose in.”
She squeezed my arm. “It’s what you do best.”
A sad commentary on my talents. “They are treating you well, then?” I asked. “These great big baby filhs of yours?”
She chuckled softly. “Oc. My sons are very good to me. Hard workers, too. My sister did a fine job with them.”
“Bonjọrn, Botille.” Gui of the Great Teeth returned to his tanta and greeted me. Symo the Troll only glowered from under his gigantic eyebrows.
“Bonjọrn, Gui. How do you like our little Bajas? Do you miss San Cucufati?”
Astruga appeared beside me and flicked her lashes at Gui.
“Won’t you introduce me, Botille, to our newcomers?” she said.
“Gui, Symo,” I said, “this is Astruga.” I fixed a winning smile upon her. “The tozẹts have come here to help their tanta Pieret look after her vineyards.”
All Bajas knew this, of course, but these were the courteous games we played. As matchmaker, I never stopped playing them.
More eyelashes. “How generous of you both.” By both, she meant Gui, whose hand she took and held tightly.
Gui’s eyes met mine in alarm. “How fares your sister, Botille? Is she in good health?”
I nodded toward where Sazia stood with the family.
“As you can see, if you look,” I said, “Sazia is in excellent health. Grácia.”
He coughed and extricated himself at last from Astruga’s grip.
“I’m glad,” he said. “Ahem. And how is your other sister?”
Astruga’s face bunched up in a fit of annoyance.
“You mean Plazensa,” I said. “Bossy as ever.”
“Plazensa,” Gui repeated slowly. “An enchanting name.”
“But you can’t marry her,” Astruga cut in.
We all stared at her. Symo cleared his throat noisily.
“Hsst,” Na Pieret said, rescuing us all. “There goes the family. Now we follow.”
Senhor de Prato shuffled away from the grave, following the measured footsteps of Dominus Bernard. Sazia took up the rear with the children, and the rest of Bajas followed in a somber clump behind. On we proceeded, with Astruga as determined to place herself beside Gui as he was to avoid her, and Symo scowling at the
whole business, while the rest of Bajas wept all the way to the de Pratos’ little maisoṇ, then dispersed to our homes.
Astruga dogged me all the way home from the burial that afternoon.
“Gui is very pleasing,” she said brightly.
I would have none of her attempts at cajoling me. “Is he, then?”
“The handsomest man in all Bajas!” she gushed. “Excepting the married ones, and those who can’t marry.” A fitting little burst of honesty from a girl pregnant with a priest’s child.
“High praise, from you,” I said. “Is it old Plastolf di Condomio who makes your heart beat faster? Or is it our Jobau?”
“You’re vexed with me,” she said. She gave me her meekest, humblest gaze, complete with eyelashes. The eyelashes went a step too far.
Oc, I was vexed with her for her selfish pique from yesterday. What she didn’t realize, because she was Astruga, and spoiled beyond all measure by her indulgent papà, was how livid I was for her cheek at Felipa’s burial. To flaunt and flounce herself so at Gui, amid all those mourners! Had she no courtesy whatsoever? No shame? No respect for the bereaved, or for the dead? I shuddered to think of Felipa looking down from heaven upon such behavior.
Truth be told, though, I was surprised Gui had no use for her. Perhaps he had better judgment than I had reckoned. No woman alive can compete with Plazensa, but Astruga was right. If Gui wanted my sister, he’d be disappointed. Thus he would be harder to marry off than I’d guessed. Oh, this I needed, atop everything else. A fastidious wooer and more desperate women.
I didn’t want to lead Astruga anywhere near Dolssa. So I let my footsteps follow the slope past our house and toward the water.
“I’m trying to find you a husband, Astruga,” I said. “Be patient, and give me time.”
“But time is what I don’t have, Botille!” she whined. “What am I going to do? It won’t be long before I’m fat, and everyone will know what I’ve done!”
I picked a spiral snail shell from the gritty sand and chucked it into the lagoon. “Nothing wrong with fat. Men love it.”
“You know what I mean.” There was that lower lip again. I hoped Dominus Bernard had enjoyed it in his season, for I was ready to yank it off. “Baby fat. A belly.”
“Then I suggest,” I said, “you eat like a cow, starting now, and pray you’ll grow nice and round all over to hide that baby longer.”
Her face fell. “You hate me, don’t you?” she said. “You think I deserve this, for my sin.”
There it was—the gleam of ordinary humanity, the window through which I could pity her. Was she toying with my sympathy on purpose? Or was she sincere?
“Astruga,” I said, “if you knew how many of Dominus Bernard’s pregnant enamorat I have led to that priest’s very own altar, you’d know how little I judge anyone for succumbing to him. I am not in the business of troubling over other girls’ sins. My job is to clean up the—”
“How many?”
“Hm?”
“How many girls has he . . .”
Santa Sara! “You’re hopeless, Astruga.”
She twisted away from where I could see her face. “He . . . he told me that I . . .”
I took her face between my hands and made her look at me. “Of course he did,” I said. “He’s a scoundrel, and that’s what they all say.”
Her eyes grew red.
“Oh no,” I said. “You’re not still fond of him, are you?”
She broke away and rubbed her eyes angrily with her sleeve.
“Astruga,” I said. “I don’t care a nut for what you did. I will find you a groom. But you act like I’m not to eat another bite of bread until you’ve picked your wedding flowers.”
She watched a handful of wet sand fall in indifferent lumps through her fingers.
“I’m driven mad by the fretting, Botille,” she said softly. “I need something to do besides wait for the secret to get out. Anything.”
Church bells tolled midday prayers. They reminded me of Felipa.
“Then get yourself to the de Prato home,” I said, “and look after those poor motherless children. Their father can barely see straight, much less tend to their needs.”
Her eyes grew wide with horror. Out came the lower lip. The old Astruga was back.
“I meant, what do I do to find a husband?”
I hitched up my skirts and headed up the slope. “I know what you meant,” I said. “Leave that to me, and go help those children.”
She ran after me. “But what do I do with them?”
“Feed them,” I said. “Clean them. Scold them. Don’t let them hit each other.”
“I know nothing about tending children!” she cried.
I stopped so suddenly, she collided with me, then glared at her belly.
“I . . . Oh,” she said. “Oc. I see.”
“Have you noticed,” Plazensa asked me that evening, one of the dozen times we collided behind the bar, serving supper guests, “how busy the tavern has been ever since—”
“My journey?” I supplied.
“Oc,” she said. “Your journey.”
It was true. We cooked three times the dinner and supper to feed the customers who now showed up regularly. Before, we often had days when no one joined us at all. True, the weather brought more ships into port, and harvest labor kindled appetites, but we’d never seen this.
“It’s her,” I whispered. “I saw this on the road. Blessings follow wherever she goes.”
“Ow!” Plazi burnt her hand on a hot turnip. “Listen to this, Botille. At noon we ran out of ale. All I had were batches fermenting. The soonest any would be ready was a week from now.”
I watched as she poured a foaming glassful from the jug in her hand. “So . . . ?”
“So, if you’re patient, I’ll tell you. Ordinarily, I would never do this, because ale needs its time. But something told me to try this jug. So I pulled the stopper. It was perfect.”
I sniffed the jug. It certainly seemed as ripe as any ale Plazensa had ever brewed.
“And,” she whispered, “I’ve been pouring from this jug all day.”
We stared at each other. Plazensa nodded solemnly. All day. No jug held that much. It was a miracle.
She placed another log on the fire and poked at the ashes. A second batch of turnips was already roasting in a pan buried in the coals, and she fretted over whether they would cook in time to feed her customers. “Oh, Botille, I need you to run to Na Pieret’s and buy more wine off old Garcia.” She grinned. “Too bad I don’t have wine aging in the cellar, but I suppose even miracles have their limits.”
If Plazensa was pleased about the increase in traffic at the tavern, Jobau was not. A full tavern disturbed his drunken reverie up in the loft over the great room. He slid down the ladder at dinner, to the wonderment of the guests, and limped down the hall to an extra room. Plazensa only just managed to steer him away from Dolssa’s.
The door opened then, and Sazia appeared. Astruga had kept her word and released my sister from her self-inflicted penance. She sat down on the one empty stool at the bar.
“I,” she said, “will never, ever, ever have children.”
Plazensa watched her with an amused expression. “Here, srre,” she said, “have some salmon.” She flaked off a generous portion onto a dish, added a turnip and a dollop of oil. “Tell us all about it as you eat.”
Sazia looked around at the floor for her usual welcome, but didn’t find it. She looked pale and worn tonight, and her face fell when she couldn’t find her cat. “Where’s Mimi?”
I nodded toward the back. “With her.”
Though Sazia would die before admitting it, I’d have sworn she envied Dolssa her place as our cat’s new favorite.
Sazia picked at her food, ate a few bites, and pushed her plate away. “I’m worn out,” she said. “Those children took all my strength. I feel awful. I’m heading to bed.”
Plazensa’s eyes flashed. “And leave my cooking to go to waste?”
Sazia ignored her. I reached for her abandoned dish. “I’ll eat her fish, Plazi.”
“She’s leaving all the cleanup to us tonight,” Plazensa fumed.
“Never mind,” I said. “Leave her alone. I’ll take her share of the work.” Sazia was often gloomy, but this wasn’t like her, to look so blue. She must still feel guilty about Felipa’s death, after the fortune she’d given her. Stubborn girl! We’d told her a dozen times it wasn’t her fault. Whatever troubled her, the last thing she needed was a furious Plazensa vexing her.
Plazensa stayed in a foul mood long after Sazia shuffled off to bed. She made sure to leave two-thirds of the dishes and mess to me. After such a busy day at the tavern, the pile was enormous. Plazensa made a point of heading to bed when her pile was done.
Finally I was free to undress and climb into bed beside Sazia. She slept, but uneasily, moaning and muttering to herself. What dreams, I wondered, could upset her so? She quieted down after I lay next to her, so I soon went to sleep myself.
I woke in the night to find Sazia’s hot arm splayed across my body. In pushing her away, I felt her skin. She burned with fever.
I called to her to wake her up, but she wouldn’t rouse. I called again, and still no answer.
I screamed for Plazi. I fell to my knees next to Sazia and prayed.
Plazi was there in an instant. She felt Sazia’s skin.
“She’s burning up,” she said. “I can’t see anything . . . Get candles. It’s her hand that’s hotter than anything. Sazia! Wake up!”
Her hand? I stumbled down toward the tavern and attacked the banked ashes with a candle from the mantel. The sleepy embers wouldn’t do their work. I puffed at them and watched them scatter.
Finally the lazy candle lit, so I lit another and hurried back down the hall. By their light we saw our little srre’s pale, damp face and dry, cracking lips. Her hand had swollen like a rising lump of dough. A dark red splotch appeared in the corner of skin between finger and thumb. She wouldn’t wake up.
“What happened?” Plazi’s voice was barely a whisper.
I stared at the horrifying hand. “I don’t know.”
