Dark Shimmer (23 page)

“
A
ll you do is work.” Bini sits in bed with his arms crossed. He's been watching Biancaneve all morning.

She looks at the clump of celery roots clutched in her hand. These four were among the larger ones in the bin; they should be enough for the soup. She rinses them in the water bucket. “If I don't work, you'll throw me out.”

“No one's going to throw you out.”

“Ricci will.” Biancaneve peels the roots. She's learned to peel well, go way down, past the hairy parts; otherwise fibers stick in your teeth. She chops the root. If she had the right tool, she'd shred it. She's sure Lucia La Rotonda shreds celery roots, and they taste better that way. But chopping has to do.

“That's a pile of junk.” Bini puts his hands behind his head and leans back against the wall behind his bed. “You know Ricci is as wrapped around your little finger as the rest of us.”

“I know nothing of the sort.” Biancaneve throws the diced-up roots into the big pot, the only big pot, which is now on its second task of the day. She used it for the laundry, which hangs from the rafters. Without these rafters, she'd be at a loss. The household is so poorly equipped. The fireplace doesn't even have andirons. A vision of the brass andirons in her room in Venezia flashes in her head.

“Oh, yeah? Why else do you think he defends your honor?”

Biancaneve laughs. “Maybe because you're always attacking it.” She sighs. Bini probably isn't sick at all. He just wants to be alone with her. He's always trying to corner her. She takes down a long strip of dried boar meat and saws away at it, throwing all her weight into each push and pull of the knife.

“I never thought I'd say this, but I'm sick of boar stew,” says Bini. “Dried meat can last forever. Don't you know how to make anything else?”

“I didn't even know how to make this until Baffi showed me. Sometimes I helped my aunt Agnola, for special dishes. But only sometimes.” Biancaneve looks at her hands. They're raw and red, as red as Dolce's fingertips. She shudders. So far this morning she has fed the chickens, gathered the eggs, milked the goats, washed the nightshirts. She still has a pile of mending to do. She needs to sharpen this hateful knife. And Giallino told her to cut a couple of new bottle stoppers. That will keep her busy all day. And there will be more chores tomorrow. She hates them. And she needs them. They keep her from counting the minutes till spring, when Papà returns. She jabs the meat hard.

Bini gets out of bed. He's already fully dressed, thank heaven. He goes out the door. Good. He's going to use the latrine. She's already washed out the chamber pot.

The water boils. She throws in the chunks of meat and stirs. They need rice. If they had rice to put the stew over, it would be so much better. But the men don't grow rice, so they don't eat rice. The only thing they buy from others is flour. She pulls a garlic bulb off the braided strand that hangs on the wall and smashes the cloves. The sharp smell goes up her nose right to her brain. She sniffs and smiles.

Bini comes up behind her, clumping across the floor. His head is level with her waist. She turns around quickly. “You're not sick. Go help train the dogs.” Her voice is sharp. She wishes she could step backward, but the fire is right there. It warms her almost too much.

His eyes hold hers fast. “You lie, Neve.”

She shakes her head. “I haven't lied to you. I haven't lied to any of you.”

“You say we shouldn't call her The Wicked One. But you know she's evil.”

“I do not.”

He smiles. He looks like he almost feels sorry for her. “How come you're hiding out here, then? If she's good, if she loves you like a mother should, you'd go back to Venezia.”

Biancaneve lets out a little cry of despair. She didn't mean to.

“It's all right. I never had a mother's love, either. Mine died—which is bad, especially since I didn't have a father—but other people loved me. So maybe it wasn't as bad as having a mother who wants to kill you.”

“Bini, people are not just wicked or good. They're complicated. Haven't you ever known anyone who sometimes was wonderful and sometimes fell apart?”

He looks at her. “There was this man on Torcello. Venerio. The mirror maker. He grew mean. Horrible. But sometimes he was nice, like he used to be.”

The mirror maker? Biancaneve feels shaky inside. She can't hear any more of this. “What food do you know how to make, Bini?”

“Me?”

“Surely you watched Baffi and Giallino when they cooked—before I came. And you must have watched other cooks on Torcello. What do you know how to make?”

Bini looks away a moment. Then he grins. “Hazelnut sauce to put over roasted hedgehogs.”

“Good.”

“But don't think I'm going to cook. I'll show you the first time, then you have to do it.”

“That sounds fair. In fact, I've had venison with hazelnut sauce. So once you teach me the sauce, we can have venison, too.”

Bini gives a half smile. “Venison is rich people's food.”

“What do you mean? You live in the woods. You can kill whatever you want.”

“What gave you that idea? You can take down birds—partridges, skylarks, thrushes, pigeons, anything you want—but you can't kill big game. Especially not deer. You have to have permission if it's not on your land.”

“Alvise hunted this boar.”

“Not to kill it. We teach the dogs to hunt them down, but we don't kill them. The landlord lets us stay here in exchange for dogs now and then, so he can show off to his friends by giving them a fine hunter or a cute lapdog. But he forbids us to hunt.” Bini scowls. “Did you think we cheated our landlord? That would be as bad as dirty squatters, paying no rent at all.”

“I never thought about it,” says Biancaneve.

“Well, we're not cheaters!” His face goes red-black. “We don't steal from anyone.”

“I never thought you did.” Biancaneve talks softly. “I truly never thought such a thing. Please know that. You are decent men; you prove it every day. So”—she tilts her head and talks even softer—“why did Alvise kill this boar?”

“He didn't. Well, he did. But Pietro wounded it mortally first. It was Pietro's mistake. He said the boar was going to kill him. But I think that's a bunch of garbage; I think he did it because he wanted those offal.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Liver and lungs. He cut them out of the boar. That's why they were missing, Alvise told us. Pietro wanted the liver and lungs.”

Biancaneve stumbles away from the fire, past Bini, and sits on the foot of Giordano's bed. Liver and lungs. Dolce says liver and lungs fix anything. She says her mamma told her that. Biancaneve's fingers snake into her hair.

“Are you all right, Neve?”

Biancaneve may never be all right again. “We have plenty of dried hazelnuts, Bini,” she says with slow deliberation. “But no hedgehogs.”

Bini grabs a sling. Biancaneve knew he would. “I'll get Alvise. We can hunt hedgehogs this afternoon.”

“If you do, this boar stew can wait until tomorrow.”

“We will. We've got the best dogs ever.” Bini leaves.

Biancaneve feels unreasonably tired for so early in the day. This isn't really exhaustion, though; it's sadness. Her eyes are heavy.

Liver and lungs.

No, she can't think about that. It's a coincidence. It can't mean anything.

Heavens, she's tired. It's only early January. It's so long till spring.

She counts back in her head to the day they called Christmas. Oh. It's her birthday tomorrow. She'll be fifteen. She should be preparing for a party. She should have a new dress and all sorts of wonderful foods and sweets prepared. Venison? Sure. Anything she wants she should have. These men aren't allowed to hunt what lives all around them. Maybe they've never tasted venison. Maybe they've never had a roasted peacock. But Biancaneve has! And she should again! She throws herself backward on the bed.

The door creaks as it opens. The wind whooshes in.

Whoever it is better not scold her for lying down for a moment, because if he does, she just might scream at him, and if she starts screaming, she just might never stop.

“Sweet signorina, would you like to see my wares?” It's a woman's voice, croaky and broken.

Biancaneve turns her head toward the door. An old woman stands there, hunched over. Biancaneve's breath comes quick. It's easy to hunch over, pretend to be old. White wisps of hair stick out from under the woman's bonnet. Well, wigs are simple to find. The woman's coat is thick and coarse. Peasant clothes are easy to find. This could be Mamma—only nothing about her is familiar. The woman straightens a little and Biancaneve sees:

Her hands are gloved.

Biancaneve lunges for the fire poker. She stands facing the woman, poker in hand. “Take off your gloves.”

“I'm so cold.”

And it must be true. The woman's hands shake as she puts down her basket and pulls at the fingers of the gloves. She tugs and tugs, the way old people do when their joints are swollen and painful. But, really, she could be putting on a show—she could be a good actress. She's not making any progress on the gloves, after all.

Still, her eyes are rheumy. And it's not just her hands that shake; she shivers everywhere. She shivers so hard it seems she'll come apart, just fly to pieces. Her ribs show through the back of her dress as she turns this way and that, struggling with the gloves. She's shorter than Mamma….

“It's the burns, you see,” says the woman apologetically. “I made soap this week. I'm so clumsy.”

For heaven's sake, Biancaneve should show a little human decency. “Don't worry about it. Keep the gloves on and come in, please,” she says in a burst. “I'm sorry I spoke so brusquely. Shut the door behind you, would you? Come sit by the fire. Please.”

“Thank you.” The woman closes the door and moves to the table faster than Biancaneve would have thought she could. She must be half frozen. The woman puts her basket down, then sits on the stool closest to the fire.

Biancaneve stirs the fire with the poker. She wonders about that basket. But so long as she has the poker in her hand…

The woman pats her cheeks. There's something wrong with those cheeks. They look caked with some kind of gunk.

“You've got a lot of makeup on.”

“Pigeon droppings.”

Dolce would never put that on her face. Besides, Venetian women know how to use makeup that doesn't look cakey. Venetian women know all about how to fix their faces. They're experts. “It's thick,” says Biancaneve.

“The only way to cover a multitude of sins.”

Biancaneve grips the poker tighter. “What sins?”

“Scars from a pox in childhood. I try to make it easier for others to look upon me.”

Biancaneve has heard about horrible skin conditions among the poor. “I didn't know peddlers came around here.”

“I don't ordinarily come this way. I took a shortcut through the woods and seem to have gotten lost. The whole time I was terrified of boars. They say this is the best country for boar hunting.”

“Probably they say right.”

The old woman bobs her head. “And I haven't seen a single other cabin. If smoke hadn't curled up from your chimney, I wouldn't have seen your cabin, either.”

“Would you like something to drink? I have—”

“Water. Hot water will do. I don't want to ask too much. Thank you.”

Some people expect nothing of life. That's what Biancaneve needs to learn—to expect nothing—at least until spring. She moves the poker to her left hand, and with her right she puts a dipperful of water from the bucket into the small pot.

“The stools are low,” says the old woman. “The beds are short.” Her voice cracks, as though the sight of the beds makes her sad. Does she think they are for children?