The Very Best of Kate Elliott Read online

  Later, as it grew to dusk, Aunt Martina came back. “Widow Angelit is dead. I helped Bobo Milovech pull his daughter from the ruins, but I doubt she’ll live. She lost one of her legs below the knee. We bound it up as well as we could, but she’s too frail to sustain the loss of blood. Bobita went to see about a doctor, but what’s to do when everyone needs a doctor? At least none of us were hurt.”

  Mama looked at her strangely for a long moment. “Ai,” she said at last. “I’m so tired, Martina.” She was weeping, but quietly, and Martina hugged her. They stood that way a long time while Jontano watched over them, watched over the well and the garden. Then, leaving Jontano on watch, the two women crouched beside the root cellar stairs to discuss their predicament with Uncle Martin.

  Jontano stood in an eerie silence and listened to Roman sneeze and cough, listened to the hopeless sobbing of a woman farther up the street—Bobita Milovech, perhaps—to a single shot followed by a second, then a third, echoing through the empty streets.

  “Water,” said a child’s voice, weak in the twilight. “Do you have water?”

  Jontano started around, raising the musket. A small girl stood at the gate, a waif in tattered clothing. She held a battered tin cup in one hand.

  He peered down the musket at her, his hands shaking, waiting for the adults who were with her to show themselves.

  But there was no movement in the shadows, no threats, whispers, or coughs. The girl had preternaturally pale hair—Marrazzano hair, people called it—and gorgeous brown eyes and a sweet face only partially obscured by dirt. She couldn’t be more than seven or eight years old. She was alone.

  Jono glanced back toward the shell of the house, but one of the walls hid the entrance to the root cellar from view. Hastily, he dragged away the boards that protected the opening of the well and lowered the bucket, having to winch it hard to get it around, now that a stray hit had bent the axle. The bucket came up half full of clear water, and he dipped her cup in and gave it back to her.

  “Now go,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not allowed to give any away. Don’t come back.”

  Mutely, she drank the cup dry. He filled it again. This time she padded off, barefoot, down the street, cradling the precious cupful of water against her thin chest. Where were her parents? Lost? Dead? But he heard Mama’s voice, calling to him, and as he turned round, he faced the dead house and knew that even if, before today, they might have managed to feed just one more, they had too little left to do so now.

  “Martin is going to stay here,” said Mama, picking her way around the house. “We’ll set him up in the corner, rig a blanket to protect him from wind and rain, and he’ll guard the well and the fountain. The rest of us will have to find shelter another place. Roman is getting sicker, the grippe. It’s going down into his lungs, I fear. We must find someplace dry and warm for him tomorrow.”

  “I’ll watch tonight,” said Jontano. “It’s clearing, and I’d rather be up here than down in the cellar.”

  He caught her answering smile, a ghost in the twilight, and then she went away. So he stood watch, but after the terrible bombardment of the daytime, after the loud, pounding rains, it was now oddly silent. It made him nervous, because unlike the silence in the forest, it was an unnatural quiet.

  In the morning, Jontano helped Aunt Martina haul Uncle Martin out of the root cellar. While Martin took the parts of several broken chairs and repaired them into a semblance of one good chair, Mama and Aunt Martina divided up their possessions. Roman huddled in a blanket, coughing so that Jontano’s lungs hurt to hear him.

  “No sense you staying with me, boy,” said Martin when Jontano offered to bide with him. “You’ll come over every day and weed the garden and bring me bread, but until this cursed weather lets up, we won’t have a chance to rebuild here.”

  Rebuild! Jontano couldn’t reply. How could Martin even think of rebuilding the shattered house? What was the point? If the Marrazzanos had better guns and better positions, it would just be destroyed again. And yet, Martin had been born here, as had he himself.

  “Go to Rado Korsic’s shop,” Martin added. “That’s the first thing to do today, once you get Roman to a safe place. You must give him the musket and the pistol to repair.”

  Aunt Martina and Mama each gave Martin a kiss on the cheek, then slung bags over their shoulders and set off down the street, Roman trudging between them, his thin shoulders shaking under the blanket. Jontano picked up a blanket wrapped around the cooking gear and the bag containing plate wrapped in a cushion of clothing, said good-bye to his uncle, and with a heavy heart picked his way through the ruined house.

  A flash of white, the suggestion of green life, the respiration of trees, the dense scent of unbroken loam . . . He bent down and pulled the six painted cards from underneath a fallen plank.

  “What is it, Jono?” asked Uncle Martin sharply. “Are you well?”

  “I’m fine,” said Jono, straightening up and steadying the bag of plate. He set both bag and blanket down, stuck the cards inside his shirt and cinched his belt more tightly so that the cards lay snugly against his skin. “Just thought I saw something.” He hoisted up his burdens again and left the house behind, following his mother and aunt down the street.

  Mama and Aunt Martina were arguing in low voices. Go here? Go there? No, I won’t ask Widow Vanyech, not after what she said about Stepha. They’ll know in the marketplace. It isn’t safe. Nowhere is safe, not after yesterday.

  So they walked down into the bowl of the valley, down toward the central marketplace, down toward Murderer’s Row. Heavy clouds scudded in, blanketing the sky, and it began to rain again. Roman coughed and snuffled, and began to cry.

  “Here, I’ll carry you.” Jontano lifted the boy up and was aghast to realize how light he was, how slight a burden even with the other things Jontano was carrying. Roman lay his head on Jontano’s shoulder and promptly fell asleep.

  Even in the rain the marketplace was thronged with other refugees, fleeing their ruined homes. Still holding Roman, Jontano stood guard over the bags and blankets under cover of an empty stall while Mama and Aunt Martina forayed out into the crowd to see if they could find someone they knew who would offer them shelter.

  As if they knew and understood—and why not? Why shouldn’t they know?—and chose now to launch a new attack because it might demoralize and kill more and even more of their hated enemies, the Marrazzanos opened fire.

  The marketplace erupted into cacophony. People screamed, ran, bled, died. Paralyzed, Jontano huddled with Roman in the empty stall. Was it better to stay here, where Mama and Aunt Martina knew he was, and risk being crushed by bricks, if the stall fell in? Was it better to run outside, where rounds filled with shot might explode, scattering like thrown knives into every person within a stone’s throw of their landing? He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t think. Roman was too terrified and sick to do more than sob quietly against his chest. They were all alone, and outside the panicked crowd surged this way, that, trying to win free of the open market square but for what safety? There was no safety in Trient, not any longer.

  The stall rocked, and a few bricks tumbled down. Roman’s sobs cut off, and he lifted his head and stared with a glazed expression at the wall.

  “Mama!” he said suddenly.

  There! In the crowd, Jontano saw Aunt Martina fighting her way through the mob toward them, but then the press of the crowd shoved her back, to one side, farther and farther away, and she was lost.

  “They’ll meet us at home,” said Jontano with more force than confidence. Another hit nearby sent a second avalanche of bricks tumbling from the stall next door. Jontano eyed the bags, sorting through their contents in his mind: Which to take? Which to leave? He grabbed the firearms and a blanket stuffed with clothes, kettle, the butcher knife, and the last two jars of pickled figs. With Roman clinging to his chest, he heaved the blanket over his back and strode out.

  By now the crowd had begun to disperse, fleeing down sid
e streets. Jontano hesitated. The clouds opened up, and it began to pour down rain. He darted into the nearest boulevard, looking for shelter for Roman. If he could only find a place, he could put the boy there and come back for the other things, come back to find Mama and Aunt Martina. He was halfway down the first block of shattered buildings before he realized he was on Murderer’s Row.

  Roman, drenched, began to cough heavily. More explosions sounded from the marketplace.

  “Mama,” whimpered Roman between coughs.

  “We’ll find a dry place to hide,” said Jontano. “Then I’ll go back and look for her. Don’t worry.”

  Ahead he saw a doorway. He ducked inside. One wall had fallen in, but the rest of the shop looked reasonably sturdy. It smelled dry, oddly enough, musty, as if perfumed with old herbs. A wooden counter ran along one side of the shop, and he set Roman down in its lee and wrapped him in overlarge clothes and in the two blankets. The boy was shivering with fever, half asleep.

  Straightening up, Jontano stared into a forest. If he stepped past the counter, he would step into the woodlands. . . .

  Shaking himself, he realized that he was staring at a huge picture, a painting, a painting of a forest. A moment later, he knew he was in old Aldo’s shop. Without meaning to, he reached inside his shirt and drew out the painted cards. He held up the card depicting the forest, and in the gray light of the overcast day, he saw that the card and the painting were the same. Except the painting, as tall as he was, was somehow more lifelike. It seemed to pulse with life, as if he could step inside it. It called to him. It would be safe there. If only the trees grew again in Trient, it would be safe. There would be no more fighting.

  “Mama,” whimpered Roman. Jontano jerked, startled to still be standing in the dim shop. He knelt. The boy was hot, too hot. He needed a doctor. He needed his mother.

  Oh, Lord, thought Jontano. What if Mama was killed? I couldn’t bear it. I just couldn’t bear it.

  “Listen, Roman, I must go out and look for Mama and your mother. You must stay here and not move. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Don’t leave me.”

  “Just for a little while. I’ll come back.”

  “Just for a little while,” echoed the boy weakly.

  Reluctantly, Jontano left Roman and the forest behind. Intermittent shelling still peppered the central city, but the worst of it had moved toward the north. There was more musket fire than anything, as if a skirmish had broken out along the eastern line.

  Only a few shapes, more ghosts than people, haunted the marketplace. Jontano hurried, giving them a wide berth, and found the stall where he and Roman had sheltered. It had collapsed, burying their possessions. He scrabbled at the bricks while the musket fire got louder.

  “Jono! Oh, Lord, Jono.”

  He leaped up. It was his Mama.

  She crushed him against her. “No time,” she said. “No time. They’re coming.”

  “Who is coming?”

  “Martina went back to warn Martin. I don’t know what they can do. The Marrazzanos have broken past General Vestino’s troops. That’s what everyone’s saying in the streets. I came back, hoping to find you. Ah, Lord, what’s to become of us?”

  “We must get Roman,” said Jontano. “He’s down—he’s down in old Aldo’s shop.”

  Mama looked at him. A brief spark of something—fear? anticipation? anger?—lit her eyes, and then it fled, leaving her looking tired and resigned. “We’ll go get him and try to get back home if we can. We might as well die there as anywhere else.”

  She said nothing more as they ran down Murderer’s Row, hugging half-fallen walls, until she knelt beside Roman, who had by now lapsed into a feverish sleep.

  “Poor child,” she said. “He deserved a better death than this.”

  “He doesn’t have to die!” cried Jontano. Mama looked up at him, and with a horrid shock, like a claw at his throat, he knew that she had given up, that the years of fighting to survive had all become too much for her to bear.

  “I’m so tired,” she said. “We’ll just rest here a few moments.” She lay down beside Roman and between one instant and the next, she was asleep.

  She had given up. Jontano shivered. He wanted to cry, for her, for himself, for everything, but he had no tears.

  The forest breathed, exhaling its scent around him. His hand clutched the card, the leaves unfurled to their full glory, the spring flowers passing into the blooms of summer—for it was almost summer. Tomorrow would be summer. He remembered that with mild surprise. He smelled, not rain, but the scent of the forest shedding moisture after rain, warmed by the new sun of summer. He heard the rustling of leaves, the scrambling of mice in the undergrowth, not the musket fire, louder now but strangely dull, too, as if from behind the mist, behind an impenetrable hedge.

  Once there had been no war in the valley of Trient, though there had always been wolves.

  Mama slept, curled around Roman. Perhaps she would sleep forever, never have to wake to the death of all that she had held dear, never have to remember everything she had lost.

  Jontano circled the counter and came right up to the painting. It seemed to have grown since he last saw it. It filled the entire wall, as if it was straining, trying to fill the shop. He lifted his arm and pressed the card against it. If only he could find a way through, for himself, for Mama, for Roman and Aunt Martina and Uncle Martin. For the graves, so that the dead could lie in respectful silence, as they deserved.

  If only the trees could grow again in Trient, as they once had, filling the parks and the boulevards, filling the once-handsome city with their summer fullness and the stark lines of their winter beauty.

  He felt the paper-thin bark of a birch tree under his hand, peeling away where his fingers scraped at it. He felt the flowers blooming under his feet, vines twining up his legs. A glade of sweet grass filled old Aldo’s shop, and a lilac bush grew, lush and thick, to shelter Mama and Roman.

  Oaks burst up in the marketplace, an ancient grove, watchful and airy. Murderer’s Row erupted into an orchard of pears and apples and cherry trees, all mingled together, and the musket fire faded as the Vestino Line, the ruins of Saint Harmonious Bridge, the far hills were swamped by ash and beech. Aspen sunk their roots into the low places of the valley, blanketed with ponds and pools of brackish water left over from the rains. In the northern hills, tulips and elms lifted toward the sky, and in the meadows where blocks of houses had once stood, around springs made by wells, great patches of flowering shrubs spread out into a sea of color. Jasmine, bougainvillaea, and twining wisteria wrapped themselves around the shell of the house where Uncle Martin sat watch and Aunt Martina cooked over an open fire, her eyes red from weeping, and filled the ruined walls with their fragrance.

  There were no more than a few startled comments, which Jontano heard on the wind as if from another life, so quickly did the forest take root in lands it had once had all to its own self.

  The cannon, the barricades, the buildings whole and shattered, the boulevards, all were subsumed. Trees sprang up where people stood, Marrazzano and Trassahar alike, beech and oak, birch and aspen.

  Night fell and passed and with the new sun, summer came to Trient, which was no longer a city but a vast woodland, populated by trees and the many small, quiet inhabitants of the forest.

  The valley lay at peace in the calm of a summer morning.

  WITH GOD TO GUARD HER

  Preface

  NOW IN THOSE DAYS it was not unknown for a man of high birth to put aside one wife, with whom he had become dissatisfied, and marry another. Indeed, when kings indulged in such behavior, then dukes and counts might choose to emulate them. But what seems permissible in the world, God may well judge more harshly, as I shall relate.

  One

  At this time a man of free birth worked fields adjoining the estate of Duke Amalo, near the River Marne. With him in his house lived his mother, Theudichild, his wife Ingund, his two young sons and a daughter, and a few servants
. The daughter was called Merofled.

  It so happened that the duty of paying the tax to the church fell one month to Merofled.

  She was a girl of good stature, having always been granted good health, and was now old enough to marry. Her family bore a respectable name and they had nothing to be ashamed of in their ancestors. Her mother’s father was a canon at Vitry and it was said that his great-grandfather was dedicated in martyrdom in Lyons.

  But she had not yet married, nor had her father betrothed her to any man. Some said her father and mother favored her excessively, making her too proud to wish to submit to another man’s lordship, others that she was too pious to wish to marry. A few had been heard to whisper that her grandmother, Theudichild, an irascible old tyrant, preferred Merofled’s sewing to that of any of her servants or even to that of her daughter-in-law’s, and would not allow the girl to leave her father’s house so that the vain old woman would not have to do without the luxury of finely sewn garments.

  On this day, Merofled received the pot of candle wax from one of the servants and, with only a young serving girl as attendant, walked down the road to deliver the wax to the church. In this way, with each household paying its portion of the tax, candles always burned at the altar.

  The two young women were forced to move off the road when a great entourage rode by. The serving girl bent her head and knelt at once, but Merofled neither knelt nor looked down.

  First walked clerics in their vestments, and after them the kinsmen, friends, and vassals of the Duke, for Merofled realized that this must be the retinue of Duke Amalo. They came in a crowd, kicking up a wide swathe of dust.

  She had never seen the Duke except at a distance and so did not recognize him at once when suddenly a rider pulled to a halt and stared straight at her. He was tall, finely dressed, and rode a horse with silver harness and a saddle trimmed with gold. The rest of the column pulled up beside and behind him.