God's Fires

by Patricia Anthony

  “Less brandy, more water,” the herbalist told Senhora Teixeira. “All the water she will take. And in a while unwrap the bindings from her feet, throw away the old potato and plantain and give her fresh. If the seepage from her feet turns yellow or green, send for me.”

  She packed her things. Bernardo called for the jailer. He led the way up the steps, her presence behind him like a kiss to his nape. In the street, he forgot to lift his cowl, and she reminded him. He noticed that she had naught against the rain but her thin shawl.

  “You must take my cloak.” And when he took it back from her afterward, her smell would wrap him. He would sleep in it.

  She ran, splashing water, and took shelter under an overhang. Since she would not take the cloak, he let her have the refuge of the balconies while he walked the pelting rain. They passed through the warm light from a window, then another.

  “What is the nature of his indigestion? A vomiting? Does he pass watery or bloody stools?”

  Bernardo leaned close to whisper. O such danger. She was small, not much taller than the dove. So delicate that in his clumsiness he might crush her. To have something that Father Manoel so treasured; to share of his vigor, to possess that very thing which the tall Jesuit enjoyed. Bernardo caught from her a clean perfume of herbs, a whiff of sweat, the musk of passion.

  She turned, her lips suddenly too close. “What?”

  He backed, laughing, drunk from the glimpse of wet blouse clinging to breast, from wanting to see the nub of nipple, to thinking about the chaste little nub of the dove. He started to shake.

  “What?” she asked.

  He strode ahead and looked back over his shoulder. “Farts,” he said, and his voice shook with laughter. “An entire opera of farts, from coloratura to basso.”

  The rain fell harder. Ahead the windows were closed, the street dark. She who had been temptation, became a black nothing.

  Bernardo crossed himself. “Pro innumerabilibus peccatis et offensionibus, et negligentiis meis…”

  She hurried to catch up to him. “What are you saying?”

  “Praying.”

  “Is he so ill as all that?”

  “O! No, I pray for forgiveness. I should not have made light of his affliction.”

  They walked on. He heard her stumble and put out his hand to steady her. She recoiled from his touch, a gesture so timid that it nearly felled him.

  “I ask, for I have lost one patient today and would not care to lose another.”

  Bernardo slowed. “The guard said that you were called to the king, I…”

  “The king’s dark-skinned slave.”

  “What… How can that be? I saw her not two days ago and she seemed well. What killed her?”

  “When all the rest is taken away, I would call the death a suicide.”

  He crossed himself, offered up a prayer for her lost soul. He pictured those lush lips caked by grave dirt, those wanton eyes sunken, a playing ground for worms. He pictured a homed devil running his hands…

  “Here.” The Pinheiro woman’s voice came from the dark distance behind him.

  He turned, and caught a faceful of rain.

  She was standing by flagstone steps and an ornate railing. “This is the Castanheda house, sir. Here.”

  They went up the stairs together. A servant came and took his cloak, her shawl. She opened her basket, and gave over a handful of strawflowers, sprigs, and mint. “Boil this, please,” she told the servant. “Make a strong hot tea. Strong and hot as you can make it. Bring it to the monsignor’s room. And please be quick.”

  It was like a graceful dance, how the servant and the herbalist never joined gazes.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “O. Yes. Up here.” Bernardo led her up the stair.

  In his room, behind his bed curtains, Monsignor was moaning. She stopped by a table to put down the basket. She called for a basin, and washed her hands. “Are you dressed, sir?”

  The curtains parted. An eye peered out. “Nightclothes.”

  “That is enough.” She called for Bernardo to bring a lamp. He stood next to her as she parted the curtains. Monsignor lay sweating under a mound of blankets. She tugged them down, exposing the enormous lace-and linen-covered belly. Hands busy, she probed his right side. Under her touch, Monsignor fretted and twitched.

  “You hurt me,” he complained.

  She pulled the blankets over him again and walked to her basket.

  “What?” Monsignor asked of her back.

  “I have called for a hot tea of chamomile and anise and spearmint. Add to it the tinctures of bogbean and valerian. You must drink the mixture without sugar or honey. More, it will not work unless you drink it scalding.”

  Bernardo said, “I always used senna tea. And poppy for his distress.”

  She nodded without looking up—a flawless guardianship of the eyes. “The poppy constipates. Do not use it unless he cannot bear the pain. And the senna tea loosens his bowels, yes. But the bowel is not his weakness. It is an excess of gall.”

  Monsignor grunted and sat up. “Hah! That Italian doctor—remember him, Bernardo? He told me once gall. And there is a three-day fast for a remedy, and then the drinking of a liter of olive oil all at once—do you remember him saying? And something of an enema, too. He said I would shit out cups of stones, all green black. Remember? Not that I was prepared at the time for—”

  Her soft, “No.” Head lowered, she went to the bed, took down the covers again, and prodded him in the side. He winced. “You must never. For you have one stone too large to pass. I suggest a diet of lentils for him, sir.” She turned to Bernardo. “And grains. No butter. No meats—”

  “No meats?” Monsignor sat up, throwing the covers off.

  “No meats?” When he tried to rise, a cramp nearly toppled him.

  “Potatoes and greens, as much as he will eat. Vinegar on them. Nothing with a sauce. Dry bread, or sopped in turnip water.”

  “Good God!” Monsignor bellowed so, he passed gas at either end. He reached for the nightstand and pulled himself to his feet. There he stood, bent by pain, railing at his own toes. “Dry bread? No sauces? And you say I must eat lentils? I would fart to bring the house down.”

  “Sir, beans and cabbage are not at fault, but rich foods such as nuts and meats and butter sauces. Do you not find that when the indigestion comes upon you, it comes always an hour or so after eating? So, gall, sir. And if you do not eat more plainly, one day the body will try to expel the larger stone.” She touched Bernardo’s folded hands, and he felt all through himself the shock of that contact. “You will know if it happens, father. It is unmistakable, for there is no suffering so great. Use as much poppy as he needs then, for it will take him days to die.”

  “God! Malefica!” Doubled over, Monsignor shuffled to her. “You are a liar and an incompetent! See you, Bernardo? She means to frighten me. That is her game.”

  She picked up her basket. Monsignor seized her wrist, leering up into her averted face. “Where did such a pretty wench get such a pretty gold cross, I wonder.”

  Bernardo could see a swift pulse beat in the hollow of that fine neck. “A gift, sir. I did not steal it.”

  “Ah. A fine cross. An expensive gift. I noticed it at the tribunal. Yet when I asked, the townsfolk told me that it was the first time they had seen such.”

  She whispered, “Sir, they do not look.”

  “You lie, my girl. I know what you do. And I know your partner in fornication. I know that he cannot shrive you for it. You will burn in Hell for this, my child. Come, kneel down at my feet and beg God to grant your forgiveness. For the debauching of a priest is no small transgression.”

  She tore free and ran, leaving a trail of daisies and marigold behind.

  Bernardo ran after.

  “Bernardo!”

  “The tinctures, Monsignor. She took them.” And then he was gone. He saw the track of leaves dropped from out her basket. He heard her footfalls on the stair. “Wait!” he cri
ed.

  He rushed around the corner. She was below, by the door, tying her shawl. “Wait,” he said.

  She looked up, frightened, poised to flee. He came down the steps slowly.

  “I am a friend.”

  From the dining room he could hear the voices of the seculars as they dawdled over their evening brandy: “…advanced catapult, Emílio. Think of it.”

  In the shadows of the entry, her eyes were as luminous as a hare’s. He reached her, stood within an arm’s length. “You forgot to leave the tinctures.”

  She rummaged in the basket and brought out two corked bottles. “Three or four drops of each in his tea. Too much bogbean will cause him distress. And give the valerian not to settle his stomach, but to relax him. The gas passes easier if he is relaxed.”

  Their fingers met on the glass. He looked down at her, saw that her damp hair strayed from its bun. He studied the dusky lashes against her cheek. She was shivering.

  “Wait here.” He took the tiny bottles, and squeezed her fingers. “I’ll bring you something against the wind. Please. Will you not wait a moment?”

  A quick nod. Bernardo crept back up the stairs to the room where Scarecrow slept. In the ornate dresser he found a cloak. His heart twisted when he returned to see her still in the entry, and knew that she had trusted him enough to wait.

  He heard Goatee’s voice. “…Spanish could as easy turn the weapon to France.”

  And Scarecrow’s “How far do you imagine it can throw things?”

  “Kilometers! God help us. And throw acorns the size of a house.”

  The cloak was of thick Alentejan wool, embroidered with silken leaves. She passed a hand over its folds, then gave it back. “Sir, I do not steal.”

  “It is not stealing.”

  “It is Marta’s.”

  “Take it, or the Holy Office will. She is to be burnt.” He put it into her hands. After a hesitation, she wrapped herself in it, pulled up the cowl, and walked out in the rain.

  Bernardo went to the stoop and stood in the wash of light from the tall dining-room windows, watching her go. She was not two meters down the road when he heard a hiss of “Marta!”

  She halted. Bernardo peered down the steep side of the steps. In a cubbyhole among the planter boxes crouched a small figure. Such melody resonated in that voice that not even whisper could mask it. “Marta!”

  Bernardo’s heart leapt. There. Below, the dove was coming out of the shadows, cautious as a deer from out of the forest. Any moment he would run.

  “Hold him!” Bernardo cried.

  The boy was quick, the herbalist quicker. She gathered him up. “Rodrigo! Easy, easy. It’s only me, Berenice Pinheiro. I have borrowed your sister’s cloak. Please, my sweet, don’t fight. You remember me, don’t you? The herbalist? You’re cold as Death and shivering. Have you been out here all evening?”

  When Bernardo descended, he saw the two shadows joined, both quiet now. He approached, bending to the dove’s height. “Rodrigo? It is me, Father Andrade. I’m the father who brought you the lute. Have you eaten?”

  The dove shoved away the herbalist’s restraining arms. Rain soaked his dark hair, and rolled down that fresh, unblemished face. “You hurt my sister.”

  “No.” Bernardo crouched lower. He put his hand out. The boy’s cheek was as cold and smooth as that of a churchyard angel. “O, no,” he whispered. “I merely took down the words she said. It is my job. Have you not seen me write what is said at the tribunal? Well, then. Come inside. There is cod in clam sauce. And polenta fried in butter. There is warmth and oranges.”

  The boy hung back. Gently, the herbalist pushed him forward. “You have nowhere to sleep, Rodrigo. And it’s cold. He is right, truly. And it is your house, besides. Go ahead.”

  Bernardo took his hand. Such a tiny hand. Such little fingers. He rubbed the blood back into them. “We must be quiet, and not let anyone know you are here. I’ll get you food and dry clothes. You’ll have a warm bed to sleep in.”

  The herbalist bent and whispered, “Go with father.”

  The dove went. Bernardo pressed him against the folds of his robe. They walked together into the house, past the upraised voices of the seculars as they argued wars and weapons. Bernardo took him into the back, and there, in the room that had been assigned him, he lit a lantern. He sparked a fire in the hearth.

  “This is the mordomo’s room,” the dove said.

  “Yes.” Bernardo took a blanket from the bed and wrapped the boy in it. “You must take your wet clothes off. I will get you a nightshirt and dry clothes for the morrow. Are you hungry?”

  “No.” The boy stepped out of his breeches so quickly, so without thought of shame, that the sight left Bernardo staring. Those legs—man shape underneath soft childhood—pale skin mottled from the cold. The bashful nub between his thighs.

  Bernardo dug his fingernails into his palms and left the room. The chill of a stray draft reminded him that he was wet. He stood for a while, shivering, letting cold douse his cravings.

  The room where Goatee slept was dark. Leaving the door ajar, Bernardo searched dressers, and found a heavy nightshirt, some leggings, breeches and a tunic and cloak. Footsteps in the hall brought him upright. The steps passed, stopping at Monsignor’s room. Bernardo put his hand into his pocket and fingered the tincture bottles. He would not bring the nostrums now, but later, after the dove was safe and tucked and warm.

  When the footsteps receded, Bernardo stole downstairs. There, hidden like a gift, he found the dove waiting. The boy was by the fire, wrapped in the blanket, his clothes a wet pile in the corner.

  “You could have gotten a better room,” the dove said.

  “Monsignor told me this one.”

  “He cheated you. This room belonged to a servant.”

  Bernardo smiled. “No doubt.” He handed the boy the nightshirt, and his head swam when the blanket dropped. That clean-limbed, heat-blushed body was as beautiful as cherubs in paintings, as ingenuous as statues of Mary’s boy child. Then the nightshirt was in place, and Bernardo’s eyes could move elsewhere. “Take the bed,” he said. “Wrap yourself up well.”

  “Aren’t you going to sleep?”

  “Later.”

  Bernardo knew himself possessed by a demon which would rip innocence asunder and force hot appetite in. It was such a demon that could not be outrun. A plunge in cold water would not drown it. He was being tested, for God would have Bernardo bring lust to heel.

  Bernardo crawled to the corner, away from the warmth of the fire. He shivered. Tonight he would seek permissive remedies. He was tired, and would be stronger on the morrow. He took out his rosary and counted beads: the Apostles’ Creed, the Pater Nosters, and Ave Marias, the Glorias, the Ave, Regina Sanctus, and then the Oremus. Again and again, Bernardo pushed the demon back with litany and winter. He counted the hours through, kneeling on the hard chill of the flagstones, guarding the dove’s rest.

  DAY 11

  Bernardo awoke dull-headed and shivering. The fire had burned to embers and someone was knocking on the door. “A moment!” he called.

  He scrubbed his face with his hands. The dove was sitting up in bed, watching him.

  From beyond: “Father! Monsignor wants you!”

  “Yes! A moment!” Bernardo got up from his corner, whispering, “Rodrigo, let no one know you are here. I will be back to bring you breakfast, if I can.”

  Such a sweet sleep-muddled expression. Dark hair that stuck up in sheaves. Plump milk-white cheeks that wore the rosy imprint of bedclothes. Bernardo gave in to temptation and ran a fingertip down the dove’s face.

  The cry was desperate. “Father Andrade! You must! No one else can deal with him!”

  “Right away!” Bernardo opened the door a crack and slipped into the hall.

  The guard was pacing and anxious. He brightened when Bernardo emerged. “You’d best hurry. He’s in a mood.”

  Bernardo walked to the stair, shoving his hands into his pockets against the cold. H
is fingers touched the tincture bot-ties. Miserere mei. How could he have forgotten? Monsignor would not have slept the night. Now he would rail against everyone and everything. He would cuff Bernardo’s ears.

  But Bernardo found Monsignor bright-eyed and dressed. The room’s windows were open to a pearly morning fog. “Good God, Bernardo. What has happened to your hair? You look like a racehorse that has been stabled all a-sweat.”

  “They called. I came straightaway.”

  “Well, do something to yourself before the day progresses further.” He peered intently into Bernardo’s face. “Not an excess of drink, I hope.”

  “O no, Monsignor, I simply—”

  “Gird your loins, boy, for what is to come. Great events. Momentous battles. And for God’s sake, splash your face. You look stuporous.”

  “Straightaway, Mon—”

  “I go to visit our former idiot monarch, for it is time for him to put away his toys. It is time for all in this place to come to God kneeling and contrite.” Monsignor picked up his ivory-clad missal and studied himself in Guilherme Castanheda’s glass, first this way, then that.

  Bernardo caught glimpse of himself in the selfsame mirror: pale wisp in dark robes—a vision as mournful as forecasted Death.

  A rap on the door sent Bernardo to answer. A servant had arrived with Monsignor’s breakfast. Bernardo took the silver tray and laid it down on a fruitwood table. “Sausages, Monsignor? Fried pastry?”

  He turned frowning. “Perhaps… O, perhaps just that plain loaf there. It happens that I am not so ravenous this morning.”

  “And did the tea settle your stomach?” The air from the window was damp and smelled of salt marshes. Bernardo cut the loaf into thick slices, and brought the plate near to Monsignor’s hand.

  Monsignor plucked up a slice, frowning at it. “Well enough, I suppose, seeing that it was ordered up by a liar and a whore. It took three cups, but then I farted so that I near brought the walls down. Mind you remember the recipe, Bernardo. It makes a sweeter medicine than your senna tea, which merely sends a tempest out my ass.” He took in a great draft of air, puffing out his chest. “Ah! I feel utterly robust.”