The Promise of Pain

by David Penny

  “We don’t need to go to the village now,” said Jorge. He patted his belly as if sated.

  “I thought it was you who wanted to go there. To meet these beautiful women. Besides, I’m curious about the soldiers Luis told me about.”

  “Come back to Gharnatah with me and forget all about this place. You don’t belong here.”

  “I don’t belong anywhere,” Thomas said. “This will be a distraction. Something to pass a little time until I decide what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.” Even as he spoke, the prospect of enduring more of the pain that ruled his every moment brought a sense of despair, and he wondered if he could ever be healed, or if he even wanted to be.

  They passed an old man tilling a field with an azada, his movement rhythmic, energy-conserving. He looked up and watched them pass, leaning on the long wooden handle. He said nothing and then, when they had passed, began to work again. Thomas thought he had the look of someone who could work all day long.

  The village was no more than a half-mile distant when they passed a track that led away to the left. Thomas slowed, turned aside, not yet ready for the chaos of meeting more strangers. The track led to a clearing surrounded by the cliffs of a small quarry. A wooden hut sat near the path, but the quarry appeared to be no longer worked. The broken rock face had weathered to a faded brown.

  “Why are we here?” asked Jorge.

  “Curiosity.”

  Jorge shook his head, and Thomas knew he was right. There wasn’t much here to be curious about, but he went to the hut and tried the door. Locked with a padlock that was easy enough to pick if he could be bothered. He peered through a gap in the planks but saw little. Barrels stacked one on another, some picks and iron rods and heavy mallets—the tools of trade for a quarryman. He turned away and followed Jorge, who had returned to the main track. Thomas had closed half the distance when Jorge turned and ran toward him.

  “Men are coming!” Jorge tugged at Thomas’s sleeve. “Hide!”

  “There are men everywhere, why should we hide?”

  “No, there are not. I was going to tell you, but it didn’t seem the right time.” Jorge pulled Thomas around behind the hut and sat with his back to the wooden wall, which creaked against his weight.

  Thomas continued to stand, staring at him. He walked to the side of the hut and looked into the quarry. He could hear horses now, more than a few but no more than a score, he judged. Then voices. He stepped back so he was almost hidden by the hut, just in time as two men rode into the quarry and stopped. Their heads turned, scanning the empty clearing, then tugged at their reins and trotted away again.

  Thomas sat beside Jorge. “What were you going to tell me?”

  “The last two weeks when I was following you, every town and village I passed through was full of women, but no men.”

  “Heaven for you, I would imagine.”

  Jorge ignored the comment. “I asked where their menfolk were, but they wouldn’t tell me. They were afraid of me. Me. Women afraid of me!” He shook his head at the unpredictability of the world. “Some places chased me away.”

  Thomas stood and offered his hand to Jorge, pulled him to his feet. “This is a strange country. It’s like nowhere else I’ve been in Spain or al-Andalus. I don’t even know who rules here.”

  “I can tell you who rules,” said Jorge. “Nobody.”

  They reached the main track and stopped. The horsemen they had heard were at the village. A clutch of women confronted them, but the soldiers simply rode past, knocking two to the ground. Thomas watched the scuffle, his hands twitching with the need to do something. But what? He knew he no longer possessed the strength he once had … but did the skill remain? It might be enough.

  Before he could come to a decision the men re-appeared. They stopped, and their leader argued with one of the women. For a moment Thomas thought he was going to get off his horse and hit her, but instead he turned and rode away toward the quarry.

  Thomas grabbed Jorge and dragged him back to the hut, crouching beside him, but nobody entered a second time, and once the sound of the horses had faded they came out again. All but one of the village women had disappeared. She stood in the sun, shading her eyes. Thomas turned and looked in the same direction, up the hill. The group of soldiers—he counted and came up with sixteen—had reached the farmhouse. The sound of clashing steel came clearly through the air, but the distance was too great to make out any details of what was happening.

  Thomas started back the way they had come.

  “There are too many,” said Jorge.

  “Pedro and his wife offered us hospitality. I won’t leave them at the mercy of those men.”

  Jorge looked toward the village. “I should go this way to see if there’s anyone who can help. At least see if they have weapons.”

  Thomas looked at him for a long moment before nodding. “All right, but I’m going to the farmhouse.” He left Jorge standing at the entrance to the quarry and began to climb. He started at a run, but before he had gone far his lungs burned and his legs had turned to water. He slowed, plodding up the slope, knowing he was going to be too late.

  Chapter Four

  Thomas could do nothing, still too far away when the soldiers gathered themselves at the edge of the hillside readying to leave. One man lifted in his saddle and stared down toward the village. Thomas threw himself to one side, trying to burrow into the ground. He was afraid, a new emotion for him, and one he didn’t welcome. The fear had come with the pain, and he wanted both gone.

  The soldiers turned east and rode out, in no hurry. Thomas tried to see if Pedro or Luis were with them, but if they were he failed to make either out. The reason, when he reached the narrow plateau, was clear. Pedro lay on his back, arms spread, eyes wide and staring unseeing at the cloudless sky.

  Thomas knelt beside him, even though he was clearly dead, and felt for a pulse in his neck. Nothing. He looked around but there was no sign of Elvira or Luis.

  He found Elvira inside. He had more than half expected her to be violated, because as Jorge had said she was a handsome woman, but her clothes were intact, her limbs arranged more neatly than her husband’s, a small puncture wound over her heart the only damage done her. But it was enough. Thomas closed her eyes as he had done for Pedro and began to search the small space. Someone had mentioned a cellar and it took him a while to find it, and when he did cellar was an exaggeration. There was a space below a small wooden door barely wide enough for Thomas to push his head and shoulders through. Beyond this there was enough room for one man to hide, if he was flexible enough to curl his legs to his chest. The space was empty, with no sign anyone had hidden there or been discovered and dragged out. Thomas explored the other rooms. A small bedroom contained a marital bed that would never be used again. Another, smaller room had a horse-hair mattress on the floor and a small table. Above the table was a narrow set of shelves holding notebooks and drawing materials. The table faced the single window so that light fell across it. A sheet of paper lay on the surface, the start of a sketch only half completed. Thomas turned it as a familiarity came to him, and discovered he was looking at his own face. Except the face he saw was gaunt, lacking any trace of humanity. He reached for one of the other notebooks, sure that Luis, who must have drawn the sketch, lacked in skill and had made a poor job of it. But what he saw made him realise how much he had changed, for Luis drew well.

  The first book contained drawings of Pedro and Elvira, another of a girl and boy, both captured at various ages as they grew up. Thomas flicked through the pages, finding other people, drawings of animals, birds, trees. Each shone with a remarkable clarity and Thomas knew Luis had captured his true essence.

  He stopped, flicked back, because there were a series of sketches different to the others. These were of the youth, older now, close to Luis’s age or near enough. He was good-looking, smiling. Further on the young woman was captured, and Thomas let his breath go in a sigh and sat. There were six sketches of her. The firs
t showed her facing out from the paper with a challenge on her face. Three sheets further on the same challenge remained, but now Thomas saw why the expression was there. She posed naked, hands in her lap to cover her sex, her perfect breasts displayed. Whoever the girl was, she was both beautiful and wanton.

  Thomas looked along the shelves. There were more notebooks, but he was reluctant to take them down. He closed the one he held, uneasy after looking at the images. The book had been in plain sight, available for Luis’s parents to see if they chose to leaf through it. Thomas was sure they must have—almost any parent would. Had they approved of their son sketching a naked girl? Did they know the girl? Almost certainly.

  Thomas rose and walked from the room. It was none of his business, and irrelevant to the task he had to carry out.

  He went outside and searched for what he knew would be there, found an azada and took it to the vegetable plot beside the house where the soil was already loose. By the time Jorge arrived Thomas had removed his shirt and sweat streaked his chest and belly, but the hole was almost deep enough.

  “Where are Elvira and Luis?” Asked Jorge, who would have seen Pedro. He stood beside the house in the shade, as if not wanting to get too close to the grave or see Pedro’s body again.

  “Elvira’s inside,” Thomas said. “There’s no sign of Luis. I’m nearly finished here, but I’ll need help with the bodies. I’ve no idea what God they followed, but if they’re in the ground by sunset that should do.”

  Jorge looked away, not meeting Thomas’s eyes. “I can’t. I would help if I could, but I can’t. I’m sorry, Thomas.”

  “Then why did you come here? What did you expect to find?” Thomas began to dig again. The ground was harder now, and he was starting to think four feet would have to be deep enough.

  “What about the dog?”

  “Run away, I expect. Or with Luis, hiding out somewhere.”

  “Luis isn’t hiding,” said Jorge. “He’s been taken.”

  Thomas stopped digging again. He looked at the hole and decided it would do. He tossed the azada out and climbed after it.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Jamila told me.”

  “Who’s Jamila?”

  “The woman in the village,” said Jorge. “She’s their leader. Only until the men return, she said, but I can tell she doesn’t expect that to happen.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  Jorge pushed away from the wall and looked into the freshly dug grave. He dragged air deep into his lungs, let it go. “All right, I’ll help, and then we go to the village and Jamila can tell you everything she knows.” Jorge stared at Thomas. “I think you’ll want to hear what she has to say.”

  Thomas ignored Jorge and went inside the house. Elvira was light enough for him to lift by himself, and he carried her outside cradled in his arms and around to the newly dug grave. He knelt and lay her softly on the ground beside the hole. Pedro was heavier. Thomas took his shoulders, Jorge his feet, stumbling as he tried to help without actually looking at the body.

  Thomas slid into the grave and eased Pedro to the base. He pushed him onto his side, then reached for Elvira and repeated the operation until they lay face to face. It seemed appropriate.

  “Do you know any words?” he asked, once he had climbed out.

  “Many, but none that will help here. I never gave much attention to religion when I was a boy, and none at all since. I don’t like the priests from either side.”

  Thomas nodded, agreeing with the sentiment, but it didn’t seem right to simply push the earth back over the two of them without saying something. He searched far back in his mind and began to speak aloud. It didn’t take long.

  “What was that?” asked Jorge.

  “English,” said Thomas.

  “It’s an ugly language, isn’t it.”

  “Probably the way I spoke it. It’s been a while.” He looked around, half expecting to see Luis coming down the hillside from where he might have watched the burial of his parents, but there was nothing. Thomas picked up the azada and began to push earth over the bodies, mounding it where there was too much.

  “Will this Jamila know what God they followed?” he asked Jorge when they were finished.

  “She might. She said they came down to the village now and again to buy supplies or sell animals. She told me Luis went down there more often. He was keen on one of the girls.”

  Thomas thought of the sketch but said nothing. It was none of his business, nor Jorge’s, even though Jorge would no doubt understand what had gone on between the two better than he would himself. He turned away, a sour taste in his mouth.

  The day had softened toward evening by the time they entered the village. A small party came out to greet them, or repel them. Six women, three with swords too heavy for them, the others with sickles and pikes. A pack of almost feral dogs barked and growled, bouncing on their front legs.

  “We haven’t come to fight you.” Thomas stopped at a safe distance. “And you know Jorge.”

  One woman came forward, dragging the sword beside her, the tip digging into the dirt.

  “That is good. So you can go on your way and leave us in peace.”

  “I bring news.”

  “We don’t welcome news here. Whenever news comes it is always bad for us.” She waved the hand not gripping the sword. She was younger than most of the others, and Thomas suspected Jorge would find her attractive. He assumed this was Jamila, the leader.

  “We come from the farmhouse.” Thomas half turned and pointed. “Pedro and Elvira have been murdered.”

  He watched the woman wince but suspected she must have already known. The soldiers would have been visible from here.

  “I buried them, but I don’t know what God they followed, if they followed one at all. I said some words, but they may have been the wrong ones.”

  “They will have been good enough. Are you a priest? You don’t look like a priest. Are you sure you didn’t kill them yourself?”

  “Where is Luis?” A young woman stepped from the small group, and Thomas felt a shock of recognition run through him. She was the girl Luis had drawn. Despite the skill of the sketch, she was even more beautiful in real life. Paper and charcoal could not capture the glow of her skin, or the spark of mischief in her eyes.

  “He wasn’t there,” Thomas said.

  “And Kin?”

  “Gone too. They might be hiding out.”

  The girl shook her head. “No—he’s been taken. No doubt they killed Kin and he’s lying dead somewhere up there.”

  “Who?” Thomas said, his question addressed to Jamila, who glanced at Jorge.

  “I take it you told him nothing,” she said

  “I thought it would be better coming from you.”

  “Of course you did.”

  Thomas liked her. She was firm, determined, and unlike most women she had not fallen for Jorge’s charm, looking deeper than the surface. Oh, Jorge had depths, Thomas knew, but they were only ever revealed to those he truly loved. All else was surface vanity and pleasure.

  “You are right—you are no danger to us, even less if you turn and leave now.” The woman made no move as Thomas closed the distance between them, then she dragged the sword in front of her. “That’s close enough.”

  The dogs came snarling around his feet but Thomas ignored them.

  “Who were the men who came here, the soldiers? They killed them, didn’t they?’”

  Jamila nodded. Her eyes tracked Thomas up and down and he knew what she saw—a tall man, too thin, hair long and matted, beard the same. Dressed in ragged clothes that had gone unwashed for too long. Far too long.

  Thomas waited as she considered her response, knowing that to push too hard would result in being rebuffed, even if he might prefer that option.

  Finally, she took a step backward. “You don’t look like trouble. And if you gave them a Christian burial then you deserve a few answers.” She started to turn away, then stopped.
“Are you hungry?”

  “Jorge will be.”

  “It’s you who looks like he needs food. We can offer you something to eat and a place to sleep tonight if you want. There are plenty of places to sleep.” She turned and walked away, dragging the sword that was too heavy for her behind. Thomas twitched with the need to take the burden from her but managed to restrain himself, knowing she wouldn’t welcome help.

  The other women drifted away now their protective presence was no longer required. A young man stepped from between two houses, a sword held in his strong hand. Thomas recognised him from Luis’s sketchbook.

  “Send them away,” he said to Jamila. “We don’t want strangers here. How do we know they’re not scouts?”

  “They are not those you fear. Why are you showing yourself? If they are who you say then others may be watching, waiting for you to appear.” She slapped the young man across the face, but he was not finished yet.

  He came toward Thomas, dismissing Jorge as no danger. The sword came up.

  “You’re not welcome here. Turn around, or die where you stand.”

  Thomas stared at him, at the show of bravado, the sword cutting through the air offering no danger—unless it was to the youth.

  He stepped close and saw the young man wanted to move back but couldn’t lose face. Instead, he made the mistake of taking Thomas for someone weak, and attacked. It was not a killing blow, and Thomas suspected the youth would have pulled the strike before it landed, but in case he didn’t he reached out and snatched the blade from the air. A twist, a reversal, and the sword lay in his own hand.

  Now the youth did step back.

  Thomas tossed the sword in the air, caught the blade and held the hilt out to him.

  “Jamila is right, we are not who you fear. Here, take it.”

  The youth hesitated, perhaps believing it some trick but unable to see what it might be. After a while he gripped the hilt.

  “Put it away,” Thomas said, and the youth sheathed the sword. “Is she your mother?” He nodded to where Jamila stood watching the outcome of the confrontation, and the youth nodded. Thomas walked toward her as she turned and passed between two houses. Whatever was happening here was none of his business, but his curiosity had been sparked, and he would need some answers before he could put things from his mind. Someone was dead, and he would know the why of it.