Black Spring (24 page)

I dressed hurriedly and ran downstairs, my heart beating fast. I had not spoken to the wizard since my return; in truth, I had barely seen him, aside from glimpses on my errands to the village. As I hovered in the kitchen, stoking up the fire in the stove and waiting nervously for his knock on the door, it occurred to me that perhaps he was on some mission to the hills behind the manse, perhaps to investigate the death-site of Old Kiron. This seemed more likely than his coming all the way on purpose to the manse, since vendetta is true wizard-business. I told myself to calm down and began to fill the kettle for a tisane to steady my nerves. But no: there was a loud rap on the front door that made me jump so badly I spilled the kettle. I threw down a cloth over the water on the floor and hurried to answer his summons.

He stood on the front doorstep, clutching his blackthorn staff, looking no different than he had looked when I had first gazed on him, when we returned to Elbasa all those years ago. I had the strangest sensation, as if history were being repeated: it was as if I were my mother, standing terrified to her marrow by the front door of her home, gathering herself to defy him. I wiped my hands on my apron to gain time, greeted him respectfully, and asked him his business.

“I will not come in,” he said, as if I had invited him. “I want to speak to you.”

“To me, sir?” Involuntarily I met his eye, but he was not looking at me unkindly.

“I hear you are a woman of virtue and good sense,” he said.

If I had not been so frightened, I might have laughed at this description. Not that it was entirely inaccurate, mind, but it was so much a man’s description of a woman he barely recognizes in the street. Instead, I mumbled something inane, feeling my face burn, and waited. He surely had not stridden all this way to tell me that.

“I also know that you have known Mistress Alcahil since you were milk sisters.” For a brief moment I wondered why he spoke so of Tibor’s mother, before I recollected that it was Lina’s married name.

“Aye, sir, we have known each other since we were children,” I said cautiously.

“She will trust you as a messenger, then. I wish you to tell her something. Tell her the peace she sought from me will be withdrawn if she continues as she does.”

I understood him, but I asked him what he meant all the same, ready to bristle in defense of Lina’s honor.

“You tell her,” he said. “I’ll not tell her myself. She barely deserves the warning.” He turned his face and spat, and then, without any further speech, gathered his cloak around him and walked back the way he had come.

I watched him and his mute until they vanished in the mist and trees, and then I realized that my knees were trembling. I went back to the kitchen and mopped up the water I had spilled. Then I made myself a tisane, and sat coddling it until the rest of the household began to descend and I had to attend to the business of the day. I wondered about Ezra’s claim that Lina had no witch powers, and if it were really true, and what the wizard wanted from her, and whether Ezra had also spoken to Damek. The wizard’s words seemed to be freighted with an ominous weight beyond their immediate meaning, a shadow which I sensed, even if I failed to understand it. I felt that I stood shelterless and alone on a wide plain, watching as giant thunderheads rolled down from the Black Mountains, their looming darkness veined with giant lightnings, to bring a storm beyond my imagining.

I told Lina of the wizard’s visit after breakfast, when Tibor had left the house. Things were still a little stiff between us after the scene of the night before, and after that and my fright that morning, I was in no mood to humor her. A momentary skepticism crossed her face, making me suspect that she thought I was making it up to drive home my argument, but she thought better of voicing her disbelief. Instead, she thanked me with a distant politeness and walked heavily across the room to rest on her divan, drawing her shawl around her shoulders, and picked up a book. I saw that she was only pretending to read and took it as a sign that she was more disturbed by what I had told her than she allowed. But it could have been simply tiredness and distraction: her face looked puffy and pale, and her movements were sluggish and awkward.

Once I had seen she was comfortable, I went back to my chores. From her appearance that morning, I thought, without knowing anything about it, that she must be very close to her time and wondered whether we ought to call the midwife up from the village, and whether to alert the doctor as well. As so often with Lina, I found myself torn between concern and irritation, fear and love. I was, after all, no older than she was, but lately my responsibilities felt as heavy as those of a mother for a small child. It might have been bearable if I had the experience and wisdom of another twenty years under my apron, but I didn’t. I knew myself unequal to the task in every way.

Damek arrived as usual after breakfast. Before showing him to Lina’s room, I took him aside and told him of Ezra’s visit that morning. He looked at me narrowly and then showed me a silver ring, very like the one you wear, which he bore on his middle finger.

“I care
that
for a petty village wizard,” he said. “Don’t think I didn’t come here without protection.”

“It’s not you I fear for,” I answered tartly. “It’s Lina. She’s close to her time, and what with you and Mr. Tibor squabbling over her like a couple of dogs, she’s beside herself. The last thing she needs is the Wizard Ezra sticking his nose in.”

This made him thoughtful. He studied my face as if he were seeing me for the first time.

“A dog? Is that what you think I am, Anna?”

“You might as well be,” I said. “It’s not like you ever think about the position Lina is in. She’s a married woman, and you are bringing scandal to her name when even she says she’s finally happy! If you knew what was good for her, you’d just go back where you came from.”

“I’ll wager if you said as much to her, she would tell you to go to hell,” he said.

I couldn’t deny that, after what Lina had said the night before, but I had had enough. “All the more reason for you to leave, if she can’t make the right decision on her own. You might take some pity on her, Damek.”

Damek laughed. “Pity Lina? You should know her better than that! You should tell her to pity
me.
”

If I had dared, I would have slapped him for his selfishness. He must have seen it in my face, for his expression changed, and he took my arm, holding it so tightly that I cried out.

“If you knew what I suffer! I live under a curse, and she is the witch that has cursed me — my heart is in a red-hot vise, and every day it is jabbed and rent by demons, every day the wounds bite deeper. And they will not heal — no, not as long as I draw breath. I know that you despise me because I do not believe in God, Anna. But believe me, I know that hell exists. I know because I live there. And Lina knows it, she knows it in her bones. She sent me there when she betrayed her own heart. No, I won’t pity her. She doesn’t deserve it.”

All this was said in a low, urgent voice, with such rapidity and passion that I scarce understood what he said. I pulled my arm away, and at last he let me go, and I stepped back from him.

He laughed again at my white face, although there was no mirth in it. “I know you think me a monster. Maybe you always have,” he said. “But I tell you, I am not so inhuman. I wish I were. With all my soul, I wish I were.” And he brushed past me and went upstairs, where Lina awaited him in her bedchamber.

I
returned to the kitchen and tried to gather my scattered wits by chopping vegetables and gutting a chicken and other sundry tasks, but my hands were shaking so badly I could hardly hold a knife. Finally I poured myself a nip of plum brandy, and that helped with the shakiness. I had poked up the fire and set myself to stuffing the chicken when a scream echoed through the house. I knew at once it was Lina, even before she called my name. Then I heard Damek running down the stairs and shouting for me.

I have no recollection of moving from the kitchen to Lina’s room: it just seemed that suddenly I was there. Lina was curled up on the bed, panting like a wild animal at bay; her hair was disordered and her bodice was ripped. I thought that they must have been making love and my heart plummeted at the scandal that must surely follow, but I didn’t have time to reflect on this. Lina groaned and lifted herself on her hands and knees, and I saw that blood was seeping through her skirts.

I turned, wondering whether to run for the doctor or to stay with her, and saw that Damek was just behind me. He looked panic-stricken, the only time I have ever seen the like in him: all the blood had drained from his face, and his knuckles were white. In my distraction, I grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“What have you done? What have you done to her?”

He didn’t deign to answer me; instead he asked in a shaken voice what was wrong with her.

“It’s her time, you fool!” I was beyond caring what I said. I didn’t know anything about childbirth, but it looked wrong to me, and I didn’t know what to do. “What do you think is wrong?”

Lina heard me and twisted on the bed, calling my name, so that I ran to her and took her hand. She grasped it blindly; her eyelids were shut tight, although tears escaped from beneath them and coursed down her face. “Anna, it hurts! It hurts so! Ah, I’ve never felt anything like that. . . .” Her heart was pounding so fast I could see its pulse in her breast, and her hand was cold as ice and slick with sweat. I murmured some words of comfort and wiped her forehead, and she grimaced and then sighed.

“It’s gone now,” she said. She opened her eyes and looked up at me, and I cried out and almost snatched back my hand in my shock: for the eyes that blazed out of her white face were the violet eyes of a witch. In that moment I thought that she wasn’t Lina at all but some hellish apparition sent to torment me. Then I recollected myself and tried to think what to do.

“You’re bleeding, Lina,” I said as firmly as I was able. “I am going to get the doctor.”

She gripped my hand even tighter. “Don’t leave me!” she said. “Don’t go away!”

I stroked her hair and told her to be calm, but she wouldn’t let go of my hand until I promised that I would stay with her. I gave my promise and then persuaded her that I had to organize some help.

Damek was standing still as stone by the door, watching us. I went up and talked to him in an undertone, because I did not wish Lina to overhear.

“God rot that man in hell,” he said. “He’s killing her with his brat.”

“No, it’s you killing her,” I said. “I told you she was near her time! I told you to take care! What have you done? Her eyes . . .”

“She is Lina again, Anna.” He grasped my shoulders and stared intently into my face. “She is herself at last. Do you not see? I could burst with the joy of it! But now . . .”

“But now she will die, if you do not help. Get out of here — this is no place for you. If you value Lina’s life, you will ride for the doctor this instant.”

He stared at me a moment longer, then thrust me aside and rushed to Lina’s bedside and snatched her violently in his arms, kissing her wildly all over her face. She wound her arms around his neck, and I saw that she was sobbing.

“It has stopped hurting, my dear,” she said. “My dear, dear Damek.”

Damek did not answer; he gathered her greedily in his arms, and I saw that his shoulders were shaking. Then he mastered himself and raised himself up so he could see her face.

“By God, Lina, how could you do this to us?” he said in a low voice. “How could you? What if you die? What would I do without you?”

Lina laughed shakily, but it was a poor imitation of her usual mockery. “Dying? Who’s talking about dying? I told you I would live forever. . . . I’m only having a baby. Life, not death . . .”

“But you’re so pale,” he whispered. “And why all this blood, Lina?”

“There’s always blood,” she said.

“So much?” he said, lifting her sodden gown. “Surely not so much?” He kissed the cloth and then kissed her face, so that her mouth and cheeks were smudged with the bloody prints of his lips.

I stood irresolute — I felt I should stop them but didn’t know how. Then there was a timid knock on the door. It was Irli, who was come to see what the fuss was about. She craned her neck to see into the room, but I would not let her look and shut the door behind me; then I hurriedly gave her instructions, telling her to send for the doctor and the midwife, as quickly as she was able, if she valued the life of her mistress.

I paused on the landing a short time, to catch my breath, and then returned to the chamber. Lina and Damek were no longer embracing; Lina lay on her side, her hair scattered over her pillow. Her belly seemed enormous, almost as if it were not part of her body. Damek was seated next to her on the bed, stroking her face. Even as I neared them, Lina’s belly rippled, like the earth during a quake, and she groaned, and her back arched violently, so that Damek was pushed off the bed. I saw that she was still clutching his hand, but by then she was in such a state she knew not what she was doing.