Burly Tales

by Steve Berman

  It was Don Esteban himself who rode out to fetch me. “You are known throughout the pueblo for working miracles,” he said. “You must come and provide one for my son.”

  I grabbed my bag and headed out, riding hard beside Don Esteban.

  But when I arrived, my padrino stood at the foot of Don Lorenzo’s bed, expression neutral as he gazed down at him.

  I ignored him and examined my patient anyway, desperately seeking a means to cure him that meant I need not use the hierba vida, but my hope quickly died. Don Lorenzo must have hit his head on a rock when he’d fallen, because there was a deep gash in the back of his skull. I tugged open his eyelids, only to see the pupils fixed and dilated.

  “Please,” Don Esteban wailed. “Save my son as you did me!”

  “Por favor, Padrino,” I said so only my guardian could hear. “Please change your mind. Do not take him.”

  But my padrino gave no answer. I knew it was foolish to ask; not once in all the years I’d known him had he been swayed by tears, pleas, or love. I thought now of his warning: Some lives are shorter than others.

  He’d known my lover was going to die, and had done nothing.

  “Please!” Don Esteban said again. “Just save him, and I will give you anything you desire. Money, a fine estate, a place here, at my son’s side.”

  His offer cut with a pang. I wanted nothing more than to be Don Lorenzo’s companion. He would have to father a son, at some point, to carry on the family name and hand down lands, but otherwise he could be mine. We would ride together, care for the estate during the day and make love at night. I wanted his body against mine; heavy flesh snug and warm.

  I looked once more at my padrino, who cared for his duty and for the life and death of every living creature, but who understood nothing about love. If he did, how could he allow so many terrible deaths to happen? His face remained passive as he waited patiently for Don Lorenzo to die.

  Then, in a sudden fury, I pulled the sheets from the corners of the mattress and tugged and tugged until I got Don Lorenzo turned fully around. The servants and Don Esteban must have thought me mad, but I didn’t care. Now that his head was at the foot of the bed, my padrino was at the end meant for healing.

  I dared wait no longer; I thrust the gourd of hierba vida between Don Lorenzo’s lips.

  A heartbeat passed. Another. And another.

  Don Lorenzo gave a great, deep sigh and opened his eyes.

  The moment he did, El Muerto grabbed my wrist in his icy fingers and yanked me into the night.

  THERE WAS A SICKENING SENSE of disorientation, a swirl of blackness, then flickering brightness that caused me to blink. When I could see once more, I found that I was in a huge cave filled with hundreds of thousands of candles lined up in neat rows. Some were tall and burning well, others so low as to be nearly sputtering. Here and there lights went out, only to spring up elsewhere on fresh tapers. I dared not move, lest I commit some infraction.

  Yet my padrino moved among them effortlessly, causing no breeze to threaten the flames. “Do you know what these are, ahijado?”

  I shook my head, still stunned by the abrupt transition from sickroom to cave.

  “These are lives. Here,” he pointed to a lengthy candle, “is a child, just born yesterday. And here,” he gestured to one nearly burned out, “is an old woman with a mere handful of days left.”

  It made sense, now that he knew where and when to appear in a sickroom. “Which is mine?” I asked, expecting to have one of the taller candles, or at the very least, one half-burned.

  Instead, my padrino gestured at a candle sputtering in melted wax.

  “Ai, Padrino,” I said. “I have only just discovered love. I risked your anger for the well-being of another. Would you see my life cut so short?”

  “I warned you. From the first day I showed you the hierba vida, you knew not to disobey me.”

  Even so, I was hurt beyond measure that my guardian would take my life himself rather than make an exception. “After all this time, I have served you well, cared for you, done as you bid. I have asked for nothing. Will you not grant me this one favor?”

  “You are but one brief life among so many.”

  I could not believe he was so truly lacking in compassion. “I know you have been at your duty for years beyond count. You’ve treated me with kindness and patience, and although you seem to be passive and indifferent in all your actions, I know you are not incapable of feeling something deeper.”

  Frightened, desperate, I played the one card I had left. “I saw you one night, up on the mesa. You wept as I have seen few men do. It could only have been for love, for someone lost to you forever.”

  His pale eyes flashed, and I could see him struggling to maintain his equilibrium.

  “I am your ahijado. Do you not love me as well? I, who have been your only family? Light another for me. Let me be with my beloved. Let us live a happy life together.” I was pleading, and hating myself for it. “You know the pain of loss. Don’t wish that upon me as well.”

  At last, he slumped, and I could see defeat written in his gaunt form. “I cannot light another for you.”

  My heart sank. “Is there nothing you can do?”

  He went down a row of candles and lifted one that was half burned. “This is your Don Lorenzo.”

  I watched, perplexed, as he took a wick and threaded it carefully into the melted wax of the candle.

  “Once I join yours to it, the candle will burn twice as fast. And when at last it is extinguished, you will die together. This much, I can give you.”

  Relief and gratitude made me giddy. “Thank you, Padrino.”

  I kissed him on his papery cheek, filled with affection and relief. “I swear, on my life, that I will never deceive you again.”

  “No. You will not.” He spoke with such finality that there was no chance of argument.

  Heart pounding, I watched as he lifted the remnants of my sputtering candle to the new wick in Don Lorenzo’s. The flame caught, flared, and I had one moment of intense brightness and warmth before the cave fell away …

  … and I came to on the road leading to Don Esteban’s hacienda.

  I NEVER BREATHED A WORD to Don Lorenzo of what had passed in the cave. It would benefit no one, and it was no kindness to a man to know that his life had been cut short.

  Don Esteban, true to his word, made me welcome in his hacienda and provided me with a workshop to create and mix whatever medicines I needed, although I kept my little adobe home near the pueblo so patients could visit me there. And if the servants or Don Esteban had any issue with Don Lorenzo and I sharing rooms, none spoke of it. That is, other than an occasional lament from Don Esteban about wanting grandchildren.

  This, too, was solved when I was sent to the bedside of a family newly arrived from Spain but stricken with smallpox. The parents passed on, but their son, a healthy two year old, survived, and Don Lorenzo was given leave to adopt him. Don Esteban happily acted as grandparent, and took the child with him on rides around the estate.

  “I need not fret about a son now,” Don Lorenzo told me one night in bed. I was tucked up against him, comforted by his bulk. “All will be well, as long as we are together.”

  I had no doubt of that, although I always kept an eye on the foot of the bed, watching for my padrino.

  EVERY SO OFTEN I WENT back to the base of the black mountains to that small, beautiful grotto. I’d kept that secret as I had so many others, and was just gathering the herbaria vida when I felt my padrino nearby.

  “Is it time?”

  “Not yet. But soon.”

  Soon, to him, might mean ten days or ten years. Either way, I was content.

  I stood to face him. “Thank you. For everything.”

  We’d had little chance to speak over the past few years, despite the number of times I saw him at a bedside. He hadn’t changed; still faded and thin, yet his finely embroidered coat showed not the slightest hole or loose thread.

  �
�Ahijado.”

  From his tone, I knew he had something serious to speak of. So I waited, puzzled and curious.

  “I did love, once. Her name was Lucia. She knew me for who I was and did not fear me, but her candle was short, her flame so brief. I did nothing to help her and I’ve regretted it every day since. You, I do not regret.”

  It was the closest he would come to expressing his love and affection for me, and I accepted it as it was. “Gracias, Padrino.”

  His fingers brushed my cheek, and then he was gone.

  Perhaps a month later, I returned home after tending to a patient to see Don Lorenzo seated by the fire. A plate of food rested on a table beside him, but it worried me to see it only half finished.

  Taking his hand in mine, I asked, “Are you well?”

  “Never better.” He rested his other hand on his ample stomach. His belly hadn’t shrunk with age; if anything, it had grown, and I loved him all the better for it.

  “Come to bed. It’s late.”

  He came with me, straining more than usual to climb the stairs. His breaths were harsh and he lacked the strength to undress himself, so I did it for him, then bade him lie down.

  As the godson of El Muerto, I knew, of course, but I did not fear.

  I made love to him that night, slowly, tenderly, taking in every part of him, whispering sweet words into his ears. He smiled, contented, and drifted into sleep.

  In the hour before dawn, my padrino came to the foot of the bed. There were no more tricks, no deceptions. He held out his hand and I went to him, grateful for a life well-lived and well-loved.

  Lesson Learned

  Rob Rosen

  A LONG TIME AGO IN a land far, far away lived a prince, namely me, Prince Theodore, who was imprisoned by his father, namely my father, King Henry, for doing unspeakable acts. Repeatedly. And with various men employed by the castle. And with various men not employed by the king. And by myself around the castle grounds when various men were not to be had. By me, that is.

  In any case, imprisoned I most sadly was, forced to live high above that aforementioned far away land in a long-unused tower until such a day that my father deemed that I had learned my lesson, though what that lesson was remained a mystery. Again, to me.

  Did he mean sleeping with men? With various men? With too many men?

  Or was it the quality of the men and not so much the quantity? Because, fine, he might have had a point there.

  These questions were moot, however, because how could I answer them while locked away in the tower, fed through a hole in the door, no one to talk to, no one to do unspeakable acts with, mainly because there was no one to speak with, let alone to do acts with?

  Though I tried. Because there was still a hole in the door. And any port in the storm, I always say.

  Alas, the hole was promptly plugged and placed far too high to do unspeakable acts through. I know this because still I tried before promptly falling off of various bits of furniture piled on high. And landing from up on high while attempting unspeakable acts was, ironically, a lesson learned, though, alas again, not the correct lesson.

  So alone I did live, if you could call it that, staring out at the trees and birds, missing my life. And the men. Various and lowly though they that might have been.

  My father would visit me from time to time, to see if my lesson had been learned, but, seeing as I did not know what lesson he spoke of, his visits proved less than fruitful.

  Still, years into my ever so lonely banishment, I did have yet another visitor. A woodsman. I could not see him, my perch too lofty, but I could nonetheless hear him as he felled a nearby tree.

  “Hello?” I shouted down, belly fluttering with butterflies at a chance for company, however distant said company might be.

  “Hello?” came the response from below. “Where are you?”

  I tossed an apple core from my window. “Up here! I am imprisoned!” I shouted his way. “Afforded meager rations!” Well, meagery. I mean, I was still a prince, after all.

  “Too bad!” yelled the woodsman. “Why are you imprisoned? Murder? Thievery? Treachery?”

  I paused. “Um,” I ummed, before adding, “Buggery!” To which I also added, “Repeated buggery!” At least I thought that’s why I was imprisoned. Sadly, I was quite good at buggering, and so it truly was a shame to be imprisoned for it.

  “Were you any good at it?”

  Again, I laughed. Again, I cried, “Very!” I wiped tears from my eyes. “Or so I was told.” Repeatedly.

  “Shame, then!”

  I eagerly nodded my agreement. “That’s what I say!”

  His name was William, a woodsman employed by my father to thin out the trees around the royal grounds. Made it easier for hunting, he said. Or, rather, hollered. I pictured him as a big man, a burly man, which is to say, William the woodsman’s deep voice caused my own wood to grow to tree-limb proportions.

  It would not be the last time this would happen.

  He visited me the next day, in fact.

  I craned my neck and chest out, but the building was slightly wider atop, narrower below. I could just barely see a hand, a shoulder. He moved away from the tower, but at my perilous height, he looked small and squat, the boulder looking more like a pebble.

  We ate lunch together. I tossed him a whole apple this time, and all the times thereafter. Over the course of several weeks, he told me about his life in the woods—or shouted about it, his voice bouncing off the ages-old trees as if to surround me like a cocoon.

  He lived alone, worked from sunrise to sunset, tending to the woods as need be. It was a solitary life. In his retelling of it, he sounded sad. Or he echoed sad, but still.

  I told him while we ate, day after day, of my life. Of what it was like to be a prince, eventually relating my exploits in and out of numerous beds. In my retelling, I too sounded sad, which was surprising, given how much fun I seemingly had.

  “Sounds lonely!” he shouted. A moment later, he added, “I mean you!”

  Me? I thought. But that does not sound right. And yet, up until I’d met—well, sort of met—William, I had been alone. At least come morning. Or at least come come. I had everything I wanted. I had nothing I needed. Was that my lesson? Had I at last learned it?

  When my father came to visit a fortnight later, he said, “Theodore, you are indeed looking older, but it is wiser I was hoping for.”

  I nodded. William told me that the tower was abandoned because locals thought it cursed by its former occupant, a wizard with severe social anxiety. Magic explained why I know possessed a beard of golden hue that reached my knees. “I have become wiser, your highness,” I explained. “I have learned that to want for nothing is not a goal in life, that to need for more than the fineries is more important, and that one can be lonely even when surrounded by servants.” Randy servants, but still…

  He nodded, smiled, the skin around his eyes bunching into wrinkles. He had also grown older. “Yes, my son,” he said. “I see that you have grown wiser, but this is not yet what I need from you in order to set you free.”

  I sighed, my head hung low. I thought of William pressed against me. Of me beneath the bulk of him. Of meeting him face to face. Or other body parts to other body parts. Of simply of a kiss.

  THE DAYS ROLLED INTO MONTHS, the seasons changed, but my one true constant remained William. I did not know what he looked like, but my heart swelled each time I heard his voice from the woods below.

  I leaned out each day, perchance for a better view, but as always, I was simply too high up.

  “Your beard, Your Highness, has grown long,” he noted one day. In truth, it filled up so much of the tower room that I often draped some of it out over the window ledge. Brushing it took forever.

  “The hairs on my chinny chin-chin ache as I ache to be nearer to thee, William,” I told him, trying for a rather poetic tone.

  He laughed, a flock of pigeons taking wing at the sound. “You should write that one down!” he yell
ed. “Maidens would swoon at your prose!”

  “And what of a certain woodsman?”

  There was no answer.

  Worried, I moved to the window.

  “I …,” he started. “I …,” he started again. “I would rather tell you my thoughts in person!”

  I sighed. Yes, good luck with that. Unless he grew wings, meeting in-person was not to be.

  Or was it?

  For an idea came to me.

  “William, with your axe why don’t you break down the door to this tower and climb the stairs and tell me how you feel?”

  “Of course,” he said and laughed. Minutes later I could hear the sound of him hacking away at the locked door at the base of the tower. Only, soon I heard William curse.

  “It must be enchanted wood for it shattered the blade of my axe,” he called out. “I shall search high and low, Your Highness, for a better axe.”

  And William left me, and I sulked the rest of that day, all of that night, feeling despair. And when he returned with three brand-new axes and still could not break down the door, I shouted down for him to stop.

  “Could you not fell one of the nearby trees. It will fall against the tower, and then you can use it as a ramp to reach my window!”

  “Possibly!”

  It took him two days, misery swelling within me during those two days. Though, at the edges, there was hope.

  The sound of the tree crashing against the tower’s stonework echoed throughout the forest.

  I looked at the tree, it wasn’t one of the verdant pillars I saw throughout the forest. The word scrawny came to mind. And I voiced my doubts that its trunk would bear his glorious heft aloft.

  “It will be enough!” he replied. “Trust me, my prince, it will be!”

  I trusted him. I trusted him with every ounce of my being.

  “In person at last,” I cried out, my heart nearly bursting forth from my chest. And as I cried, I stared down below, all while he climbed. “Hurry, William! Hurry and be careful!”