by Luz Gabás
She looked at Neli, murmured, “I’m sorry,” and fled. She needed to get away, not only because of cowardice or shame, as the others would probably think, but also to escape the gripping anguish in her chest. She ran by Corso, making sure not to touch him, crossed the hall, ran out to the patio, turned left, and headed toward the back of the tower. She flew down the narrow path in the dark, as if her feet had walked those rocks thousands of times and her hands had gripped those very walls.
When she heard a pebble tumbling downward, she stopped short. A hollowness in her stomach told her she stood at the edge of a precipice.
Inside the house, Neli saw that she’d have to manage the embarrassing situation on her own. Brianda’s reaction had been excessive, but she could imagine the mixture of shame, frustration, and fear that she had let Corso down.
“We weren’t expecting you—” she began. Depending on how Corso responded, she would give him more or less information.
“I’m so very sorry to have spoiled your plans,” he replied. “You break into my house in the dark, my private writing desk is open, you are hiding something behind your back, and Brianda has fled. It’s hard for me to imagine you as robbers, but you are rooting through my things without permission.”
“Before you jump to the wrong conclusion,” said Neli calmly, “let me explain. Following the clues we found in some old documents, we were led here to this piece of furniture.”
“Clues, huh? Is this some sort of live-action role-play thing?” Corso moved closer and maintained his sarcastic tone.
Neli took a step back, intimidated by his size and the horrible scar she still wasn’t used to. She thought about Brianda’s regressions where she relived the life of a young girl in the sixteenth century. It wasn’t a bad comparison.
“Yes. It’s like a role-playing game.”
“And what’s Brianda’s role?”
Neli smiled, realizing the only thing that interested him was Brianda.
“I’d rather she told you.”
“So, did you find what you were looking for?”
“We’re not sure.”
“Do you mean I interrupted you?”
“More or less.”
“Who planned this game for you?”
“We still don’t know.”
Corso laughed loudly, and Neli knew that he didn’t believe a word of what she was telling him. However, for whatever reason, Corso seemed content to let the lie stand.
“Your husband’s the only one with keys to this house, so it must be him, unless he gives them out all over the place—”
Neli got serious.
“I give you my word that Jonas guards Lubich very well. I stole the keys without him knowing. Please, don’t say anything to him.” She smiled briefly. “He thinks we’re at the bar.”
“I won’t say a word,” Corso assured her. “But are you going to tell me what those papers you’re hiding behind your back are?”
“The instructions on how to continue,” improvised Neli.
“Fine.” Corso raised his hands in mock defeat. “I don’t want you to reveal any secret that prevents your team from winning. But tell me one thing: Was Brianda acting when she ran out looking as if she had seen the devil incarnate?”
Neli thought for a few seconds.
“Go after her,” Neli said. “Maybe I’m sticking my nose where I shouldn’t, but with you she is incapable of acting. With you, she is always the real Brianda.”
The outside lights came on and Brianda heard Corso calling her from afar, but she did not answer. His voice grew louder and more insistent as he came down the narrow path at the base of the tower.
“You’re always leaving me without saying good-bye,” said Corso when he made out Brianda’s outline in the darkness. He watched her for a few moments in silence.
Brianda felt his eyes running over her body, as if assessing her after so many months. She turned at last and looked at him, aware that her eyes betrayed that she’d been sobbing.
“I’m so very sorry about this. I can’t imagine what you thought. We shouldn’t have come. It was my idea.” She spoke without pausing, with her jaws clenched to control the shaking in her voice.
Corso took his time before answering.
“I still don’t know what to think. If you wanted to see the house again, all you had to do was ask—”
Brianda flushed. She didn’t know if it was a real invitation or an allusion to their encounter in the tower.
“Neli said something about a role-playing game, but she didn’t want to tell me what your role was.”
Brianda arched an eyebrow. Corso’s tone was no longer sarcastic, though maybe a little skeptical. She was grateful for Neli’s quick thinking. It would allow her to avoid lying without having to tell the whole truth.
She straightened up and said, “I am a young woman from the end of the sixteenth century. My father has just been murdered by the enemies of the local count in revenge for the death of a rebel leader.” She paused. “Now I am the master of Lubich.”
Corso leaned over her.
“I like that you want to imagine yourself as the owner of this place,” he whispered. “And tell me, if I wanted to play, what would my character be?”
“The foreign soldier that in the end becomes the master of Anels.”
Brianda held her breath. If Corso came any closer, she would throw herself into his arms.
Corso smiled astutely.
“Interesting. And what is the reason behind this property swap? Who wrote this story?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Right.” Corso’s tone changed. “Seriously now, you sneak into my house and you can’t even tell me why?”
“I will, just not yet,” Brianda insisted. “We found some papers in the writing desk that I need to look at first.”
Corso frowned.
“The papers Neli was trying to hide? All the drawers in that desk are empty.”
“Not all of them.”
“And why are they so important to you?”
“Can I tell you once I’ve read them?”
Brianda wanted desperately to tell him the truth, but she didn’t dare, not yet. Corso squinted his eyes.
“Very well,” he agreed. “But first you have to ask me for them. What will you do to get them?”
“Anything you want!” she replied impulsively. Not for an instant had she imagined she might have to relinquish the papers.
Corso’s eyes shone.
“Then I’m asking you for tonight.”
Brianda blinked several times while trying to control her breathing. It could only mean he had returned alone. From the moment she had seen him in the doorway, she’d felt that, at the slightest invitation, she would let everything go, forget her conscience. She would forget Esteban and the fact that Corso was married. Yet, now that he’d spoken the words, she was filled with fear that it would be a huge mistake.
“I’ll stay for a while … ,” she said cautiously.
Corso took her hand in his, playing with her fingers, before whispering, “Good enough.”
Brianda savored that moment of peace at the edge of the chasm. She had missed him so much. She did not know how this story would end, if there was any possibility of it continuing beyond tonight, or if she would ever be able to confess the whole truth about her strange visions, or if he would believe her. They barely knew each other! And he was married. It was one thing to desire someone, idealize him, and a very different one to face material reality. She did not know whether his marriage was happy. And she was still with Esteban. Maybe this was just an outlet for them in a moment of crisis. No. For her, their connection went beyond all reason. All she wanted was for Corso to remain by her side forever, taking her as she was, supporting her in her search, no matter where it led.
“I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t pressure me to tell you about the papers yet,” she told him. “I hope it’s not too weird.”
Corso squeezed her hand.<
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“I can’t deny that you have me intrigued,” he said. “But what I find really incredible is that you ran all the way out here without killing yourself. Let’s get you back to the house safe. Everything else can wait.”
A note on the table told her that Neli had taken the car. Brianda was grateful for her friend’s intuition and discretion.
“The papers aren’t here,” said Corso. “Why did Neli take them?”
“She has to transcribe them for me.”
Corso looked curious, but he didn’t ask any more questions. He told her he was going to get a bottle of wine and left her alone for a few minutes. Brianda used the time to try and close the secret compartment of the desk. She manipulated the sides of the small compartment and repeatedly attempted to remove the key, but she failed.
“Be careful,” Corso warned her from the door. “It’s a fragile piece.”
He put down the glasses and the bottle on a small table beside a dark red sofa and came over.
“I wanted to leave it like it was before, but I can’t,” explained Brianda.
Corso ran his hands along the inside of the desk. He frowned.
“I had no idea there was a secret compartment. How did you open it?”
“With this key—” Brianda guided his hand—“that doesn’t want to come out.”
“But where’d the key come from?”
Brianda blushed and decided to tell him the truth.
“Remember the day you showed me the house?”
Corso nodded.
“I felt a small slot inside the desk,’” she continued, “like a keyhole. The other day in the church, I noticed the key hanging around the Virgin’s neck and thought it might fit. I suppose these old locks open with almost anything—”
“Maybe,” Corso said. “And you found the documents …” Perplexed, he shook his head. “Who could have put them there?”
Brianda shrugged. What if it had been her, four centuries ago?
Corso leaned down and fiddled with the interior walls of the compartment, but they refused to return to their original position. He slid his hand along the edges.
“It seems like there’s something stuck inside.” He pulled and there was a faint metallic sound. “I think it’s a chain.” He picked up a letter opener and used it as a lever. “It’s coming out!” The object lazily dragged over the wood before Corso gathered it up and announced, “It looks like a pendant.”
Brianda’s head swam. Corso opened his hand and there it was, the delicate glass encased in tarnished silver.
“A locket.” Corso held it close to his eyes to study it. “It’s beautiful, and very old. Its owner had exquisite taste! But I don’t see any holy image inside. Actually, it looks like—”
“Edelweiss,” mumbled Brianda.
Corso gaped at her. “How did you know?”
She did not answer. She raised her hand and tenderly took the pendant. In silent delight, she contemplated its strange and calming beauty, locked away in darkness for centuries. She closed her eyes and saw a young girl getting dressed in petticoats and a jerkin, braiding her long hair and putting on some earrings before hanging the locket around her neck.
Corso observed her. Her expression was one of calm, of contained bliss and satisfaction. He took the locket, extended the silver chain, and put it over Brianda’s head.
“It’s like it was made for you,” he said slowly.
Brianda caressed his cheek. For the first time in a long time, she did not feel tears behind her eyes or any tightening in her chest. On the contrary, her gaze was firm and clear, her breathing calm, and her sense of self serene. She knew she would not spend that night with him, and probably not any night soon, but every moment would be for him. Now that she had found the locket, she could open up time as far as her mind and her heart wanted to take her. An undefined sensation of certainty overcame her.
“I have to go. There is something I must do.”
Nothing could be more important than being with him. Yet, something told her that if they had waited so long to meet again, they could wait a little longer. Come what may, Brianda knew that Corso was the love of her life. She would live with that love for the rest of her life.
Corso understood that her mind was made up. He nodded and said, “I’ll saddle Santo.”
Honor. The world of dreams. Eternal love that never fades … the edelweiss flowers in her locket.
Brianda’s hand gripped her locket as she read, with Luzer at her feet, the transcribed pages Neli brought every afternoon.
In the heat of the same sun that had ripened the fields of wheat, rye, barley, and oats for centuries, Brianda questioned her perception of time. When had her real life begun? Almost thirty-eight years ago? Perhaps the previous summer, when the first nightmares had guided her to Tiles? The watch on her wrist marked the length of all the events of her past, the changing seasons and years, her birthday on the first of May. Her heart’s clock, however, whispered to her of perpetuity without beginning, middle, or end—as if her life were interminable, as if she would expand over the centuries and ages, as if she would endure beyond death.
Eternal and perpetual …
How many souls would sell themselves to the devil in exchange for those two words? she wondered when she had finished reading all the papers. It had been a week since she had found them.
Perhaps Isolina would have done it for just one more afternoon with Colau.
And what would she herself not do for immortality if what she’d read had really happened to her?
She didn’t yet know everything; the diary ended abruptly, leaving new questions in its wake. Still, it was clear to Brianda that she would do the same as the young woman who had left brushstrokes of her fears, her doubts, her hates, and her desires on those pages.
She would think of the precise words and would utter them with the absolute conviction that, beyond the limits of reason and understanding, she would delve into the minds of others, unsettle hearts, take over healthy bodies and abandon them decomposed in an eternal recurrence, in an incessant repetition, until finally finding the one to whom she would announce, “I am returning to your skin.”
29.
1587
“It’s been many months, Brianda. Time to move forward.”
Marquo stopped pacing the great hall of Lubich and sat in a chair beside her, opposite the stone fireplace where an enormous log burned. He stretched his hands toward the fire. The new year had started with the same winter fury that for weeks had enveloped Tiles in a persistent squall of wind and snow.
“I respect that you are grieving,” he continued, “but I must insist on some confirmation of your intentions. If things were different, you and I would already be married.”
Brianda righted herself in the chair without taking her eyes off the flames.
“If they were alive …”
Although nobody knew, “they” referred not only to her father and Nunilo but also to Corso. She had promised to wait for him, but then that letter came saying he’d been killed fighting the Moors. Each time she pictured his face, an unbearable pain gripped her heart. For months, she had refused to admit he was dead. She often dreamt of him reappearing suddenly, but each new day confirmed the absurdity of her hopes.
“It’s all the count’s fault. And where is he now? Their deaths were for naught.”
“Don’t go over it all again,” said Marquo.
He knew Brianda was right. If his father or Brianda’s were still alive, Count Fernando would not have dared to treat the rebels with such leniency, and Marquo, as justice of the county, would not have had to grudgingly sign pardons for so many wastrels. And to top it all, since the day they took Aiscle, the count had not so much as shown his face in the county. He’d left all responsibility in the hands of Pere of Aiscle, who only had fifty soldiers to maintain a peace that was not real. In many parts of the county, the count’s insignia was still not accepted, so regular shows of force were required, fueling rumors that
the count’s supporters committed abuses, robbed houses, and raped women. Orrun was in disarray. People swapped the boxwood for the gorse and vice versa as they pleased and, taking advantage of the turmoil, bandits had taken over the roads, villages, and estates. There was no safe haven left.
“What’s troubling you so? The rebels?” Marquo took Brianda’s hand. “They will never return to Lubich, I promise you. And Count Fernando will put an end to all of this. Pere has told me that he is in France organizing a force to take control of the situation. If I were here every day, you would feel safer.”
Brianda let Marquo play with her fingers. The contact was not disagreeable, but it did not make her heart leap either. She knew that, sooner or later, marriage to him was inevitable. Her unease had nothing to do with that or with the continuing attacks.
It came from the certainty that the enemy was already in Lubich.
She had been so devastated since Johan’s death that her senses had been sluggish, functioning just enough to keep her alive. Now that she was beginning to pay attention to outside stimuli again, she realized she had abandoned the house.
She took her hand from Marquo’s and rubbed the ring Johan had given her before he was murdered. She’d wrapped a thin strip of leather around it to make it fit on the middle finger of her right hand, and she never took it off. That small object was a daily reminder of her father’s request. No matter how deep her pain, she had a responsibility to keep living. And, after all, she should be grateful Marquo had not abandoned her. He came to visit each week, waiting with laudable patience for the moment she would finally show excitement about something. She knew the young man’s truest desire was in climbing socially, but he had never pretended otherwise. The same day he had kissed her for the first time in Monzon castle, he had told her the only option for a second-born son like him would be to leave Tiles, unless he found an heiress to marry. Since the count had named him justice of the county, his situation had improved, but his salary was not enough. Becoming the master of Lubich would guarantee his future. And hers.