I knew what had happened. It was never enough for these men to empty themselves of their forbidden desires and fill my mother with shame and disgust. They had to make sure she knew who was in charge. They took their anger out on her so they could return to their wives sated and calm.
She nodded at the low table beside the bed where a pile of bronze coins sat.
‘Perhaps tomorrow you can go to the market and buy us some meat and eggs? It has been a long time since we ate something you didn’t have to catch.’
I gave her a tight smile and bit down on my lower lip. I wouldn’t let her see me cry. For too many nights, I’d heard her muffled sobs and prayers to the gods for help and guidance. Sometimes she would accept wine from the men instead of money. She said it softened the edges of her world, but wine couldn’t clothe us or pay our rent.
‘Mamá, I think maybe it’s time I went to work. There is a respectable family in Florence advertising for a maid. I could send you money?’
Her eyes cleared and she looked at me properly, like she could finally see me.
‘Arabella, no one will hire a servant with a crippled hand.’
‘We need money, Mamá. You can’t sell yourself forever.’
‘I won’t have any daughter of mine be a slave.’
‘I wouldn’t be. I’m sure I could work in the kitchens where no one would see me, and they would allow me a few hours a week to visit and give you money.’ I thought of my brother lying on the floor with an empty stomach and an emptier future. ‘Tommaso is smart, Mamá. Maybe he could study a little longer so he doesn’t have to toil the land like all the other men around here. Maybe I will meet a rich man in town and we can get out of Fiesole. Maybe…’
‘Enough “maybes,”’ she said, dabbing at her eyes with the dirty hem of her dress. ‘I am the adult, and I will do what I must to bring in money. The women in the bathhouses said soon the soldiers will be marching through Fiesole on their way north. They will be looking for a place to rest and someone to cook for them. I need you here to help. They prefer younger girls.’
There was talk of Rome conquering Germania. I remember as a child watching the legionnaires march through town, their bright red tunics and shining armour easy to spot among the crowds in the street. With soldiers came work and money…but there also came trouble. The soldiers rarely stopped for long, but when they did it was for wine and women.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Arabella,’ she said, straightening the sheets on the bed. ‘There will be a town full of strong young men in need of fun; one of them may even be desperate enough to overlook your flaws and take you off my hands. Make yourself beautiful and available.’
• • • • •
I couldn’t sleep that night. Even though it was hot in our room, Mamá insisted on closing the shutters on the windows and locking the doors. My brother was fitful beside me and the bed sheets smelled of wine and sweat—male sweat. I lay staring into the darkness, wishing for it to swallow me up. I didn’t want the same job as my mother. She said it was easy and quick and good money could be made, but I wanted a normal life. I thought about the blue-eyed boy on the other side of the wall. Who was Zadkiel? What was he? I had to see him again and get as far away from this house as possible.
III.
The next morning, I lied to Mamá—I was getting good at saying untruths. As soon as the sun rose, I slipped the coins she had earned into my pocket and told her I would head to the market and return with a chicken or a duck. Then, as soon as she shut the front door, I ran in the opposite direction.
It was another hot day, but this time I’d remembered to fill an animal skin with water. Even though my heart was heavy, I smiled at the thought of seeing Zadkiel again. We had hardly spoken the previous day, but just sitting beside him had filled me with hope. I didn’t know how, but he felt like the answer to our problems.
I clambered over the wall again and ran all the way to the shepherd’s hut, my heart hammering in my chest. I expected to see him sitting with his back against the wall again, staring at the goats or seeking shade from the nearby cluster of trees, but he wasn’t there. In his place was an eerie silence that unnerved me. The goats were gone, and the dry grasses hummed with the deafening sound of crickets. I stood motionless, afraid to take another step. Where was he? And where was his herd?
From inside the stone hut came a solitary bleat of a goat. I walked hesitantly into the enclosure, deeper and deeper into the building, until my eyes grew accustomed to the dark.
It was a massacre! I recoiled at the sight of the rough white walls of the hut streaked in red. There were scarlet splashes on the ceiling and puddles of thick blood pooled at my feet. The smell of hot metal was intoxicating. A goat lay on the ground, the contents of its stomach spilling out onto the dusty earth as a fat fly buzzed around the body, looking for a place to land. A baby goat collapsed beside his dead mother and butted her with his head, bleating in confusion, while two other goats stumbled and fell as they attempted to get back on their feet. All around me lay animals at different stages of despair, and at the back of the hut was Zadkiel, his face wet with blood and his hands dripping red.
I backed away, my legs threatening to collapse beneath me like those of the injured animals. So, it was true what they said about him. He was a demon. A murderer like his witch of a mother, not to be trusted.
‘Arabella?’
I refused to look in his direction as I edged my way out of the hut.
‘Arabella! Stop.’
I said nothing.
‘Please,’ he cried. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
The desperation in his voice pulled at something deep within me. I dared myself to glance up. His eyes were not those of a monster, unless monsters wept. As I continued to slowly back away toward daylight, the blue-eyed boy raised his hand and the door behind me slammed shut. We were in complete darkness now, save for the dim glow of sunlight streaming through the shuttered windows.
‘You’re scaring me, Zadkiel.’
He carefully stepped over the injured goats. Once he reached me, he leant over and opened the door again.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to leave.’ I flinched at the stench of blood that emanated from him. ‘It was the wolves. After you went home yesterday, I left the goats for a few hours while I delivered some milk to the market trader. It was getting dark, but I thought I had enough time to get there and back before I had to move the goats inside. I was wrong. When I returned, there were five wolves and they had struck down every single animal from my herd. I spent the night dragging them back to the safety of the hut. I tried to help them, but it was too late. None of them will survive.’ He wiped his bloody face with his arm. ‘Look at them! These creatures were good and innocent—they were all I had. My only friends. My livelihood. What do I do?’
It was clear he wasn’t lying. It was rare for wolves to venture so close to town but not unheard of. Although I was no lover of goats, neither would I stand by and watch them die. I picked up one of the tiny animals; he looked more like a fluffy rabbit than a goat. He had scratch marks along his back and blood seeping from a wound on his head. I cradled him in my arms just as I had done with Tommaso when he was born. My mother hadn’t been interested in my brother from the moment she birthed him. She didn’t know who his father was but told our neighbours that Papa often returned home from work trips. I think she’d started to believe her own lies, although nobody else did.
The baby goat rested his head on my shoulder, his stomach rising and falling beneath my hand. His tiny puffs of breath, warm against my neck, were getting shallower by the second.
‘There’s nothing you can do now, Zadkiel. Perhaps you should simply comfort them.’
He crouched down beside a large white goat who attempted to raise her head. He placed his hands on her stomach and closed his eyes. A tear escaped and ran down his bloody face, like a stream working its way through the burnt earth of the Tuscan hills. I hugged the baby goat to me, thinkin
g of how much I wanted to take Zadkiel in my arms and comfort him too. His grief filled the room as thick as the stench of death.
Then it happened.
The magic.
‘Zadkiel, the goat is trying to get up,’ I whispered, struggling to get my words out. We watched the animal get to her feet, slowly at first, and then shake her head and scamper out into the field. She ran in circles, bleating and bounding from rock to rock. I laughed and Zadkiel stared at me, his bloody face etched with confusion.
‘I think you healed her,’ I said.
He looked down at his hands and then at the goat.
‘Try again,’ I continued excitedly, handing him the baby goat in my arms. It began to kick out and bleat as soon as Zadkiel took hold of him. Then, within less than a minute, the goat wriggled out of his arms and ran out into the field to join his mother. This time Zadkiel laughed.
‘I can heal?’
I thought back to the legend of the blue-eyed boy’s mother and how according to local history, people from the surrounding villages travelled for days to beg the witch to cure their ailments. Maybe she did. Maybe it was more than a legend.
We set to work, and one by one Zadkiel got the goats back on their feet. Not only were they healed, they appeared shinier and healthier than they’d been before the attack. After a couple hours we were left with just one animal, the goat with its stomach ripped open. I pointed at the poor creature at our feet, my hands and clothes soaked with blood and sweat.
‘You can’t save them all,’ I said to him.
He shook his head and wiped his brow on the crook of his elbow, the only clean part of his body.
‘You can have the meat. It’s fresh. I will cut it up for you to take home.’
‘I can’t, Zadkiel. You must sell it. A whole goat is worth a lot of money.’
He gave a sad smile.
‘I don’t need money, Arabella. But I do owe you my thanks.’
I helped him carry the dead animal to a table at the back of the hut where he cut into its flesh with the small knife he kept in a pouch at his waist. I swept away the blood-soaked earth and opened the remaining windows until the hut no longer smelled of suffering.
He placed the meat in three cloth sacks and handed them to me. There was enough to feed us for weeks if I preserved it well, and maybe there would be some spare meat I could sell to the neighbours.
‘We don’t need to attract any more wolves,’ he said, heading into the woods with the animal’s carcass. ‘I need to bury this first, and then I will show you the stream so you can wash yourself.’
I looked down at my hands, one dark red with blood and the other a useless gnarled lump. My crippled hand didn’t worry me often, but then I rarely spoke to anyone that mattered. The boy hadn’t remarked on it yet. Did he pity me? Did he find me repulsive like the other men in town did?
I was still staring at my hands, lost in thought, when he returned.
‘You have nothing to worry about, Arabella. You are beautiful.’
It was the first time anyone had called me beautiful. Yet what did Zadkiel know about beauty? I doubted that he’d seen many women on his travels.
‘That’s kind of you, but it isn’t true,’ I said, my head bowed. ‘I’m a cripple. My mother has always said no one will want me as a wife or a worker. I know she’s right.’
Zadkiel went to take my twisted hand but I hid it behind my back. He looked at me. He had a way of holding me down with his gaze that should have scared me but didn’t. His eyes were a different shade of blue every time they met mine. This time they were the colour of the sky before a storm.
‘The stream is this way,’ he said suddenly, pushing his way through a cluster of trees.
It was past midday, and the sun was at its hottest. My frayed sandals were but a few strips of leather held together with thread, and they were rubbing my ankles. I hobbled behind him until we reached a clearing in the woods and a rough wooden fence. Beyond it stood a cottage made of mud and wood with a thatched roof. The garden surrounding it was well maintained, and in the distance I could see fruit trees and a row of vegetables in a neat line. I couldn’t see the stream, but I could hear it.
‘Is this where you live?’ I asked as he held the gate open for me.
‘Yes. Most people don’t venture this far into the woods. It was where my mother lived; she built this house with her bare hands. When the old shepherd who adopted me died, I decided to search for my childhood home. I have rebuilt it in places and planted a garden. It’s good enough for me.’
It was lovely. I thought about what Zadkiel’s life must be like, to wake with the sun and tend to his herd, to eat the plants from his own garden and the meat from his own animals. He had no reason to ever leave this clearing. Most townsfolk feared or pitied the legendary demon boy, but I was beginning to envy him.
I followed him into the house. There were three rooms, and the first one had an open fire and a few pots and plates. Another smaller room contained sacks of grain and dried chickpeas alongside terracotta bottles of oil and some dried fruit. The last served as a bedroom. The bed was simple with a wooden frame, a hay base, and cotton sheets topped with animal furs.
‘Your home is like a palace,’ I said, walking around the rooms and running my hands over the thick glass in the windows—something I’d only ever seen in the larger houses in town.
‘I want for very little. Any money I make I spend on my home. At first, I imagined that my mother would come back. I wanted it to be perfect for her. Now, I’m not sure she will ever return.’
‘Was the house empty when you found it again?’
‘Yes, but it had been ransacked. All that was left was a sack of my childhood belongings that I’d hidden in a hole in the wall after she disappeared. Among them was an old shawl of hers from which I made this.’ He lifted up his arm to show me the tattered braid wrapped around his wrist. ‘This way I get to keep her close at all times. It’s all I have left of her.’
I’d heard some wicked things said about his mother, but I didn’t know if Zadkiel was aware of the rumours the village folk had been spreading for years.
‘I know what they say about me,’ he said, as if reading my mind again. ‘There’s no need to be polite. I know the people of Fiesole fear me. I, too, have heard the stories about her. My mother the enchanting whore. My mother the witch. My mother the child abandoner.’
‘Do you remember her?’
‘Not everything. I remember her long hair feeling like silk. I would wrap it around me like a scarf while she carried me on her hip around the garden. I remember the smell of her neck as I fell asleep in her arms at night and…’ a muscle twitched in his jaw as he looked out of the window, ‘I remember the sound of her laughter when she taught me how to swim in the stream. She loved to watch me have fun. She had such a wonderful laugh. My mother was a powerful woman who wouldn’t let anyone cross our threshold, but she wasn’t dangerous. She was just a normal loving mother.’
I don’t know what possessed me to ask, but the question was out of my mouth before I had time to think it through. ‘What happened to her?’
His handsome face fell as he turned it away from me, staring out of the window as if he could see all the way back to the past.
‘One day, when I was about six years old, she sent me to the forest to gather firewood. We had plenty already and it had been raining the day before, so I found it a strange request. But I was an obedient child and did as I was told. When I returned, she was no longer there. The house was exactly as I’d left it, but instead of my mother waiting for me with open arms, there was nothing but a few giant feathers caught up in the jasmine plant.’ He pointed outside at the green-and-white bush that grew along the perimeter of the cottage. ‘I picked them up and hid them in a sack along with a clay doll she’d made me and her old shawl, which I stuffed in a hole beside the fireplace. That’s all I remember. After that, I spent weeks searching for her and begging for food until a local shepherd rescued me an
d took me in.’
‘What were the feathers like?’
I didn’t know how much he knew or believed about the winged gods taking her away, but I wasn’t going to mention that part of the story.
‘I have them here somewhere. Ah, here they are.’ He reached inside a clay urn and lifted out a handful of feathers. I had never seen a creature with plumage as magnificent as these. They were larger than the feathers of any bird and very full, one full and jet black and the other like a sharp white blade dipped in blood, its tip a deep scarlet. He placed them back inside the urn, a look of sorrow passing like a stormy cloud over his face.
I placed a hand on his cheek; I couldn’t help myself. I’d never touched a man’s face before and was surprised to feel such smoothness and warmth beneath my fingers. The sensation contrasted wildly with the sharp angles of his cheekbones and jaw. This time I wasn’t afraid to stare into his eyes. He smiled and tucked my hair behind my ear.
‘You hide away too much, Arabella. Beauty like yours should be allowed to shine.’
My face was burning red while his was still black with dried goat’s blood.
‘We are both filthy. I can’t return home like this,’ I said.
He walked into the smallest room and returned with two tunics, handing me one.
‘We can bathe in the stream. Wear this while your clothes dry. It shouldn’t take long in this heat.’
He picked up a clay bottle of oil from a shelf along with a strigil. I’d seen women in the bathhouse use the same curved metal instrument to scrape themselves clean; it was a luxury I’d never possessed. I followed him outside, but before I had a chance to ask him which part of the stream I should bathe in, he’d already taken off his tunic. He was naked beneath. I’d never seen a naked man before. Considering all the men that frequented our home, my mother always made sure the bedroom door was kept firmly shut.
Men were a mystery to me, although I’d seen plenty of naked women at the local bathhouse where my mother and I visited regularly. She said it was a good place to be seen as respectable members of the community, although I knew it was where she gossiped and discovered which neighbour was unhappy in her marriage. It was easier for her to collect dissatisfied husbands than to hunt for desperate men in the street.
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