“Yes. When I was a witch, then being that came first. It had to. A witch must be true to his senses first, before anything else.
“But an artist—a musician especially—he must be that first, and there is not much left over.” Damiano spoke very earnestly, fearing it was impossible to communicate what he meant. “And music is far more important than magic.
“That, at least, is what I believe.”
“You are muddled, Damiano,” Saara answered him, but not with anger. “They are not two things, music and magic. Unless you want to say my small songs are not magical. Or not musical.” And she smiled at this last.
“Neither one, little nightingale.” And with these words the prickle and tension between them dissolved and was gone. In the dim and fusty warmth of the wagon they heard one another breathing. On impulse, Damiano took her hand.
She let her fingers rest on his. “So,” she whispered, “there is an old question unanswered. If you love me, Damiano, what are you going to do about it?”
It was not a large gap between them: two feet at most. Damiano reached across and placed both hands on either side of her waist. He pulled her to him, so that she sat between his knees, both of them facing the green world at the foot of the wagon. The blanket, which had fallen back as he stretched forward, he arranged once more, wrapping them both in.
He laid his chin on her shoulder. “Saara. I also said I had nothing to give.”
“Not even time, you said. Does that mean your practicing the lute leaves you no…”
“No.” He chuckled and softly kissed her at the nape of the neck. “I’m not such a madman. But I have struck a bargain with the Devil. Do your people know the Devil—the most evil spirit?”
She nodded, and her hair tickled his nose. Saara was very warm to hold, and Damiano grinned to think that had he been a little bolder, he might have given his blanket to Gaspare.
“Yes. We know many wicked ones, like the bringer of famine, and the ice-devil, and others whose tricks do harm. But the worst of the devils is the one called the Liar. Any man who deals with him we call a fool.”
Damiano’s grin went hard-edged. “It is the same all over. Father of Lies. Yet I struck a bargain with him, and I am no liar and— usually—no fool.”
Saara twisted in an effort to see his face, but Damiano held her tightly. It was easier to say certain things while staring out at the grazing horse. “It was after we fought, you and I, and I felt full of ashes. I traded him my future for the sake of my city. It is to have peace for fifty years, and I may not return to it.
“And I am to die,” he said. “Very soon, now, for he said the situation could not permit my living more than two years more, and that was over a year ago.”
And now he could not hold the woman, who writhed snakelike around and fixed him a look of astonished accusation. “What? Are you about to walk up to his door and say, ‘Throw me in your caldrons of mud and sulfur?’ “
He, in turn stared at her shoulder. “No, certainly not. He said it was not he who was going to… to kill me at all, but circumstance.”
“And you agreed to this?”
“Yes, of course. Saara—that was the smallest of my concerns. He also said Partestrada itself would shrivel and die unless fed on the blood of violence, as is Milan. I am an Italian, my lady, and my city means to me what a mother would mean to another man. That was why I came to you, rather than accept the evil one’s judgment.”
“And I said to you ‘go away.’ I sent a man to whip you away.” Beneath his hands, her shoulders hardened like steel.
“No matter, Saara. He did not succeed. Anyway, all my efforts turned bad; neither my city nor I am meant for greatness. We will be forgotten,” he said, but without bitterness, and he rested his head against hers. “But we will not be murderers: neither Partestrada nor myself anymore.”
Now he turned her face to his by force. “Saara, don’t start crying. I was not trying to make you unhappy.”
But the witch was not precisely crying. She was tight and trembling under his hands, but full of rebellion, rather than sorrow. “What is it?” she asked herself aloud. “That every man that I touch…
even as much as touch…” Her gaze was wet and angry.
“Why couldn’t I have met you thirty years ago?” Saara took Damiano in a hug that squeezed the wind out of him. “Thirty years ago, when I was as foolish as you are.”
“Thirty years ago I wasn’t yet born,” he replied, hugging back. “And I’m heartily sorry for being so tardy. Hey, dry up now. Don’t be a mozzarella, like me, crying for every little thing,” he chided, rubbing a large, square finger over her reddening eyes.
And Saara’s leaking tears did cease, between one moment and the next. “You’re a fool to give up, Damiano. The Liar does not keep faith with men, and does not expect any better in return.”
“I still want the bargain, Saara. It is a good bargain.” He scratched his head furiously, as his eyebrows beetled over a scowl. “It is just—just that this year and a half has been a very long coda for a very short song.”
The Fenwoman’s face was stern, but filled with an odd fire, neither cold nor hot, but wild like the green lights of the north. “Damiano— witch—I say to you you are a fool, but you are not as easily killed as you think. Take yourself back to yourself. The Liar cannot hurt you.”
Damiano closed his eyes, bathing in her fierce radiance. “He cannot hurt you, my lady. That I’ll grant!” His hands held her closer, and his knees pressed against her.
There was a moment’s silence, and Saara leaned back her head. Their mouths were very close. “What if I were to say,” she whispered, “that all I want of you is to couple together, and let the future go hang?”
His reaction was something between a snort and a chuckle. “I would say, Saara Fenwoman, that you should learn a more elegant vocabulary. But if you thought I intended to let you go now…”
He was wearing only one piece of clothing. So was she. Soon the blanket covered them both.
“You feel so warm to me,” murmured Damiano in her ear. “That must mean I feel cold to you.”
“No, Damiano. Don’t worry.” Her reply was even softer.
And then he giggled. “What if Gaspare returns now?”
Playfully she pinched his ear. “You sound like a young girl behind the shed!”
He ran his hands down the length of the woman’s body. His mouth was dry, and his throat full of pounding. With her hot flesh against his, he seemed to be embracing the summer earth itself, lying prone upon it, dissolving into it.
And it seemed he was touching himself as well, for there was a familiar fire, the floating strength he remembered as a birthright. He heard the mole scrabbling in the earth beneath the wagon. All the planets, too, reached out and spoke to him, with the voice of a long, black flute.
And of course he was touching himself—touching that part of him he had exiled, and exiled with reason. Fire sprang through his hands into his head and heart, flame as blinding as the punishments of hell.
He snatched himself away. “Saara!” he screamed, still half-choked with passion. “What are you doing to me? You… you…”
Saara lay wide-eyed and panting on the blanket. Naked, she shone like a sword in the black cavern. No words came out of her, but only a grunt of animal surprise.
Damiano shrank from her to the wall of the wagon. He was shaking. He shook his head as though flies were buzzing, and his eyes were staring mad. “You knew what would happen. You tricked me.”
He hugged himself tightly until the shivering slowed. “It’s gone again,” he whispered at last. “I have only just escaped.”
Saara was grabbing her dress. “So have I. Only just. Goodbye, Damiano.”
Gaspare came whistling back at noon. He found Damiano still in the wagon, blanket-wrapped. “Eh! Why didn’t you put on the white shirt?”
“There is no warmth in it,” replied Damiano, and indeed, he seemed to need more than the warmth of wool,
for he was shivering and blue. His eyes wandered hungrily in the dark.
“Where’s Saara?” asked the boy, plumping himself down on the boards beside his friend. His jerkin pockets were hugely distended.
“Gone,” said Damiano shortly. “Flown away.” His eyes, seeking somewhere to rest, fixed on Gaspare’s pocket, from which protruded a brown, dead hare’s foot, its black claws spread like spokes of iron.
Chapter 5
It was the blackest time of the night, and it was raining. Gaspare lay huddled under every blanket of their mutual possession, listening to Damiano practice the lute. First the fellow spent a half-hour practicing every scale in common usage, taking it through various times and rhythms.
These ought to have been simple exercises, boring to the player and listener, but Damiano’s playing tonight held such a brooding intensity that Gaspare listened in a sort of tranced horror, as though to a madman who whispered to himself while the rest of the world slept. Just as the boy began to fear for the lutenist’s mind, ornament appeared in these repetitive exercises, as though squeezed by effort out of the structure. Finally, after almost two hours had passed and gray light was beginning to leak in through the cracks of the poor wagon wall, he exploded into melody.
Gaspare said nothing. Who was he to criticize the pursuit of excellence, especially in one whom he considered rather his own creation? So what if the sounds were not restful? Gaspare, too, was an artist and he understood.
Besides, he was a little afraid to talk to Damiano anymore. Especially when the musician had the lute in his lap.
He let the covers slip from his head, only to discover that the air outside was not cold. The lute player saw the movement. He stared at Gaspare with wide black eyes.
“Good morning,” the boy was emboldened to say.
A moment’s silence followed, and Damiano sighed heavily. It seemed by his face and by the strain of his breathing that he was approaching Gaspare from a distance, laboring to get close enough to exchange words. Finally he said, “Today I want to try that castle we saw off to the east. They may be interested in entertainment, even though it is Lent. There is certain to be a village with inns nearby.”
Gaspare squirmed uneasily, exposing one shrimp-pink foot and a portion of his rib cage to the air. “I… would like to get to Avignon as quickly as possible. There are only two weeks—I think— until Easter.”
The dark, drugged gaze didn’t waver. “Three, by my count. We are very close to the Rhone, I think. In the village we can find out whether we are on the right road. And I thought you had objections to being hungry.”
Gaspare wanted to shout that Damiano’s argument was a cheat, that they both knew full well that the musician wanted to play because he wanted to play, not because he was worried about his own hunger or Gaspare’s. There was little Damiano did anymore besides play the lute, in a music which grew more fluid and yet more passionate every day. When he spoke, it was usually either to himself or to his angel; Gaspare rarely knew which for sure, and never asked.
All the strings of the battered lute were fraying.
“I’m up,” said the boy apologetically, as though it had been a case of his lateness instead of Damiano’s inability to sleep. He slipped out into the rain to void his bladder.
Damiano did not like to see the daylight well up, for it intruded upon a world he had created for himself alone, and which he had filled with order. When he played the lute he was not a witch grown blind, deaf and witless. When he played the lute he was not a man who had thrown away life and love. When he played the lute he was all the musician he could be, and let the rest of the world burn. Now that the sun was rising, he would have to go back to being maimed. His fingers hit the lute neck harder and plucked with more force. The lute whined and a wild overtone sang out of the treble. As if in answer, the horse called out to him.
Indeed rioting peasants had not swept the local landholders (nor any other fief of Provence). The Comte de Plessis sat in his fortress as had three hundred years of his ancestors, bestowing law and breaking it. Requiring entertainment, one hoped.
Damiano did not know how Gaspare arranged for him to play before the comte. Damiano himself, were he a seneschal of some great nobleman, would find it difficult to take seriously a ragamuffin like Gaspare.
But Damiano did not appreciate how Gaspare changed when acting on Damiano’s behalf: how the honor and responsibility of the position of artist’s agent turned the disreputable boy into a man of character. Or in other words, how confident Gaspare was as a salesman that his goods were the best. Damiano only knew that Gaspare had a gift for getting jobs.
The ancient wagon creaked up through the village that the castle had spawned and into the nobleman’s demesne. It was a few hours before sunset and the two companions held ready expectations of being offered a cooked dinner before playing their part in the comte’s grander meal. And there was always the chance that Festilligambe might take some share in the oats of the fortress destriers.
Gaspare, who never had to be shown the way more than once, led Damiano through a field of adhesive mud, along a wall of pearl-gray buttresses and into the kitchen quarters, where the seneschal had his offices.
He was a sandy man of no great size, taut of skin and sharp-faced, as Gaspare himself might be in twenty years. He glanced at the boy with recognition but no great welcome, and when he saw Damiano his ragged eyebrows shot up.
“This is the lute player?” The man’s voice was as tense as his appearance. “He can’t go before people like that.”
Gaspare bristled. Damiano merely stared.
“He looks like a lout.”
Gaspare’s right arm went up in an Italian gesture of devastating scorn which was quite wasted on the Provençal. “This is the finest musician you have ever had in your establishment, and the finest you will ever have!”
“Certainly the shabbiest,” added the seneschal in an undertone, but Damiano’s opaque black eyes had locked on his own, and the tawny official fell silent.
Damiano took a step forward. His square, spatulate hand rested on the tabletop. When he spoke it was in good langue d’oc, and very quiet. “Shabby clothing makes an outfit with an empty purse. Employment can alter both together. We have traveled all the way from the borders of the Italian Alps in a bad season, and our appearance only reflects that. My friend Gaspare’s purse has a few oats sticking to the lining, so he is less shabby than I, for my purse is completely…”
And he slapped the small leather bag on his belt, only to discover that his words were false; there was something in the bag after all. Something hard-edged and tiny.
Between two words, regardless of the others in the room, Damiano sat himself on the carved oak table. He pulled the pouch from his belt and upended it onto his open palm. A small twinkle of gold slipped out of the leather, dotted with bright blood.
“Ah, yes,” he murmured to himself. “I had forgotten this, which was given to me in Petit Comtois—to induce me to play.”
Gaspare, standing behind, could not see what Damiano was holding. But it was understood between them that their visit to that town of the pest was not to be mentioned in public, lest the reputation of the place had spread to discolor their own. So he cleared his throat, and when he saw the face of the seneschal fall open like a book of blank pages, he feared his lunatic charge had ruined their hopes.
Then “That… is a ruby?” asked the tawny man.
Damiano shrugged. “I believe it is. Once I could have told you with more certainty, for the ruby and the topaz are the stones my family is accustomed to wear on their person. But of late my… eyes are not what they were, and this could be some other stone of similar coloring but other virtue. For all stones have their virtue, you know, and the most precious is not always the most useful.”
The seneschal took this lecture meekly enough, his eyes resting in a kindly manner upon the jewel which dangled by its golden chain from Damiano’s fingers. Then, gazing at the dark man with new apprai
sal, he cleared his throat.
“I think, monsieur,” he said at last, “that you are not too different in size from myself, and I may be able to find an outfit to suit.”
“You forgot?” whispered Gaspare once more, as Damiano slipped the shirt of black brocade over his linen. “You simply forgot you had been given a ruby?”
His colleague regarded him as if from a great distance. “It was a day crowded with events, Gaspare,” he replied, and Gaspare shivered at something in the sound of Damiano’s words. The musician adjusted his somber velvet sash. Lace shone at his collar and cuffs, white as teeth against his sun-darkened skin. “Besides, I can’t wear it or I’ll scratch the top of the lute.”
“I wasn’t thinking of your wearing…” began the boy, and then fell unaccustomedly silent.
He was afraid of Damiano, now. This was no more the gentle simpleton he had shepherded from San Gabriele to Provence, whose greatest fault had been absence of mind, (along with an unreasonable concern for the proprieties). This fellow had a face like Damiano’s but it was a face carved in stone.
It occurred to Gaspare that he had traveled with this man for exactly a twelvemonth, and had never known him at all.
Damiano now was staring out the arrow-slit window, drumming finger-patterns on the stone: three beats with the left hand, five with the right. He carried the rich brocades as though he’d worn nothing else in his life. That was encouraging, but could this black presence be trusted to play tonight before important people? Gaspare bit his lip.
He might break out in tears—the old Damiano had been known to do that (always for reasons that made no sense to Gaspare, like seeing that kid with a worm in his eye in Chamonix, or finding in ruins a church he had read about once in a book).
But no, this Damiano was dry as sand. He wouldn’t cry.
He might kill someone, however. Squinting critically at the lean figure (hard as an English mercenary, the phrase went), Gaspare imagined him with those big square hands around some pasty throat. He might easily kill someone and get them both hanged, the boy reflected, but this Damiano wouldn’t cry.
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