A twig snapped outside her door.
She knew he was outside, straining to hear noises within, eager to steal what he could. She sighed. She was hungry, too, but she had no time left. Tearing off a portion of bread, she stuffed it in her pocket. The market would be open late tonight for the beginning of the Blood Month festivals. She had to sell what she could, and quickly. Free flowing wine made good buyers. Winter was coming, making all of them long for a few more minutes’ sleep under warm blankets, and she would have more trouble getting her money out of their pockets. Reaching to the shelves, Gio selected a few remedies that the nobles would be looking for tonight: charms against sickness and charms to win true love, all tied with red wool strings and to be worn in secret, dried bundles of vervain for happiness, lemon balm for excess passion, and St. John’s herb for melancholy. The nobles could afford Lazarro, yes, and all believed that God alone sent sickness and God alone healed, but some people had the money to be wrong. They ate the witching herbs, tucked their amulets under their robes, and never missed Mass.
She opened her door, clearing her throat, and left.
The Old Man was out there, in the shadows that began to fall, waiting. He stole from everyone in the village, but Gio was the only one careful to feed him first. Over time, he had stolen less and eaten more from her, and Gio was at peace with that.
She picked her way through the narrow lanes, made pitch-black when clouds flowed over the moon if the torches had not yet been lit. Tonight torchlights graced her path and she could hear the distant sound of the festival in the piazza. Her stomach growled at the thought of enjoying a bowl of pickled antipasti or shrimp or even a quick mouthful of her favorite, pistachio sherbet. These lanes, and this food, were all gifts from the Arabs who had built Sicily. Wrenching her body to an awkward angle, she scooted past a shrine mounted against the wall of a home, sticking out into the lane. These shrines had been plastered, hastily, against every available wall when the Normans invaded. Now Sicily belonged to no one but Sicilians.
Gio felt someone sneaking up behind her, but she did not turn. If an enemy ever struck her down from behind, it was all the more to his shame. She held her pace steady, listening for his. The breathing gave him away.
He moved quickly and almost without sound, except for his breathing, as he was really rather large for his work. He was sensitive about that. He had been born for another life, and this is why she hated him.
“Gio.”
“Lazarro,” she said, waiting for him to catch up. Springing up, the cursed thing still alive in her heart drank in his scent, tried to force her to speak kindly to him or extend her hand.
Forcing the feeling away with a shake of her head, it disappeared, carrying the moment to the secret place of the dead, where her memories were covered with the bitter salt of tears, and her heart waited to see if dead things would grow.
His steps were muffled by the long brown robe he wore. Truthfully, it probably was his white wool hat that made him struggle for a cooling breath on these warm evenings, giving his presence away. His constant presence in the town, the sight of his swirling brown robes and the white dollop of a hat had led the children to name their morning drink after his order of monks, the capuchins.
“I hear you have stolen purslane from my servant,” he snapped, stepping into pace beside her. “He is an old man, Gio. Have pity on him, though you would show it to none else.”
There was so little room in the lanes. Focusing on keeping her arms against her sides, Gio was careful not to touch him. She was afraid if she touched him, she would use claws. This hate was a mystery to them both. They were both healers. But she had a wound of the sort never discussed among the healers, a wound that festered with time and kind words and was made angry by happy dreams.
“I cannot steal what your God freely gives me, can I? Those herbs belong to whomever picks them first,” Gio replied. “Tell your servant I am not afraid of false witness.”
“You should be,” he said.
“I am not of your faith anymore, am I? I am not under your law,” Gio replied.
“The past should be both your teacher and your law, Gio. Dishonour only brings suffering.”
Gio stopped. She hated him when he talked like this, as if he knew anything of suffering.
“Should you not remember? Can you not try harder, Gio? Sicily is full of eyes, even among blind old men.”
“Why have you come? To punish me a second time?” Gio asked. “Be on your way, dog. I want no talk from you tonight.”
“I did not find you to punish you. I came because I know your secret. It is not worth dying for,” Lazarro said.
“Which secret is this? That my herbs cure better than your prayers?”
“The villagers say you do evil upon the volcano … that you stir up its anger.”
“You forgive sins and promise paradise. At least I do not charge the poor for my lies.” Gio walked faster. It was no use talking to him.
“I know what you do up there. I know why your fingers are raw when you return, and you sleep for days. Up there, that is where you free yourself of your pain and guilt. It is not witchcraft. It is worship.”
She pushed him against the wall. “Do not blaspheme it, or I’ll put a knife to your throat and be free.”
She held him against the wall by his arms, surprised at her own strength. She dug her fingers in, hoping to leave a bloody bruise. She wanted to cut through the heavy brown robe and leave a mark, forcing his flesh to bear a memory of her.
“A ship! A ship! One that brings much gold—we have seen it!” A rush of children swept past them, separating Gio and Lazarro, pushing them against opposite walls as the children ran through the lane.
“Come and see!” they cried.
Shutters above them opened, women and nursemaids popping their heads out like hungry baby birds.
Gio allowed herself to be swept along with the children. A ship in port, in this late month, could only bring the most coveted goods. There would be spices and herbs and perhaps minerals and stones for her secret work. Gio wanted first pick. She had to have first pick, especially of the herbs. Too many poor women bore children in winter, even in these lean years, and they would beg her help for their ailing children before the winter was out. Once, Gio had thought her heart would break that she was denied the hope of ever being a mother. She had lived long enough to know that the world broke a woman’s heart in many different ways. Burying a child, any child, was a horrid act. Her heart broke each time, and even she, the legendary healer, even she could not heal it.
Chapter Five
“If you cook the prawns now, they will be tough when they are served!” Panthea pinched a servant on the ears. “Did you learn nothing from your mother, or was she a fool too?” she scolded the girl again, relieved to see her cry. The faster they cried, the sooner they learned.
Panthea paced through the kitchen, checking courses, counting plates. She wanted an accurate count of everything. She would recount the plates and goblets later tonight to make sure all were returned. There must be no loss, no abundance of food—only what was necessary for proper appearance and stopping up idle gossiping mouths. She counted the fish, filleted and lifeless on her table, seasoned by an indolent man with bushy eyebrows who cared nothing about her insults. Being a woman, she could not intimidate him, but she could fire him. That would be disaster just before a lean winter. She wondered if he hated her more because she was a woman or because she was his master.
Seeing all the servant keeping their eyes on their work, she stuffed a handful of cooked prawns into a linen and shoved it into her skirt pocket. She grabbed a hunk of cheese as well.
“See that all is accounted for by the end of the evening,” she called out. “I want every plate returned in perfect condition, and every morsel of food to be justified. If I hear of any of you steal
ing the food for yourselves, you’ll be gone by morning, and your children will starve this winter.”
Looking at them work, she feared for her father. He knew they stole from the kitchen, but he had no will to punish them. She tried to make up for what he lacked.
She left to dress. She would give the cinnamon to her father, along with a lecture about his health, and then go to her room, alone, to eat. Her mouth was already watering.
Gio’s lungs were on fire after her run through the streets with the children. She stopped, a hand over her ribs, watching them run on to the water. In summer, they would keep running and jump in.
A broad slice of rock lay at one end of the waterline like an open palm, and the smaller children would stand at the edge, testing the water with their toes before easing into the blue abyss. Below were fish of all colours, treasures from lost ships, and swirling sands that tickled their feet.
The old women swam too, but they were too old to be cautious anymore. With nothing to hold onto for balance, and with frail bones, they could not test the water with their toes and ease in gradually. So they stood with their arms outstretched, leaned forward, and fell. With no toehold or certainty of the temperature, they simply fell forward, trusting the water to be good. Gio was in awe of them.
The children picked up speed as they ran down the steep descents. Gio feared they would tumble, one after the other, into the smoky mist rising from the water. The butcher, Del Grasso, stepped from his home some distance down, watching them without expression. His home, the farthest out in the village, sat near the water because of his work, the stream of blood flowing down into the water all day, and during this month, the night as well. He stank, continuously, of flesh and blood and fish bones.
Peasants stood in line in front of Del Grasso’s home, holding ropes slung low across cow necks, waiting for their turn at slaughter. Some smiled at Gio, those who had found good outcomes with her. Some glared or turned away—those who had received no relief at her door. It did not matter. They stood in line, the fiume perse flowing to Del Grasso’s door tonight, hungry and fearful. Del Grasso would slaughter what they had tenderly raised and prayed over, and the river coming to his door would turn to blood and find the sea.
The black rocks of the harbour below were hidden by a white fog that crept up to the village. Lightning shot through the night air, illuminating a tall, thin man stepping off the ship. She saw him reach for a writhing snake as thunder crashed overhead, sending the younger children screaming in fear and the older children howling in delight.
Gio stepped back, repulsed, but the children pushed forward, knocking her off balance. She fell to the ground, rolling her shoulder in while trying to protect her hands, causing her cheek to scrape the rough path. Wincing, she touched her cheek, then pulled her hand back to see how much blood it held.
“A curse upon that ship!” she said.
“I have offended you,” a man replied.
She lifted her eyes from her bloody palm to see a twisted wood cane with a green and blue iron serpent climbing to the handle, its bulging black pearl eyes shimmering in the moonlight. The serpent’s mouth was opened wide to strike, but it had no fangs. Its teeth looked to have been broken long ago.
Standing, but without his hand to lift her, she looked at the man who owned such an odd cane. Long, curling brown hair swept past his shoulders, with eyes that did not seem to move or blink, making her want to wrap her shawl more tightly around herself. His mouth, though, was beautiful. It was everything a mouth should be in a man—succulent, thick lips, parted at the top and bottom by little indentations that made her want to run her fingers, or her own lips, across them and know again what it was to be kissed.
She blushed. It was an awful thought, and she did not welcome it. Once she had known passion and praised God for life. But this sneaking desire made her think of Eve, how she hid naked and trembling in Paradise. This desire, she knew, this kind was wrong. For all women, it changed the way they felt about God—or did it change the way God felt about them? She did not know. She did not like patients who had ruined themselves with it.
“Forgive me,” he said. He seemed to take deep pleasure in the words.
“How did you appear before me so fast?” Gio asked.
“You half-wit!” a fish-wife screamed.
Gio flinched, expecting another humiliation. Turning her head away, she saw Del Grasso standing behind her.
Del Grasso was holding a stained saw, crusted blood all over his apron. He looked like a savage, staring in contempt at the visitor. The fish-wife smacked him across the back with her towel. She cursed him for thinking of only violence.
“You’re more troll than man!” she yelled as her husband pushed her back into the crowd.
Pushing his way through the crowd, the baron Dario Campaigna extended his hand to the stranger. “Put your tools away, Del Grasso,” Dario called. “Please excuse our welcoming party,” Dario laughed. “We were at festival when you arrived and had no word a ship was due.”
The stranger bowed to Dario but kept his eyes on Del Grasso.
“This is Del Grasso,” Dario said, gesturing to the hulking man while pinching his words in a way that let everyone know what an idiot the butcher could be.
“A man of blood,” the stranger said. “There is no need to apologize for him. I understand his work.”
“Yes, well, and …” Dario began.
The children held their breath. If Dario used more than twenty words when ten would do, one of them would win an extra share of chestnuts from the others at the festival.
“And work, your work, that is,” Dario said. “What has brought you to us in this month? We have not traded since the last harvest was first in, and we rather expected a quiet winter. But we are most glad to receive you, and I now offer you our town. May you walk here as a prince and have everything you desire while among us! We would be most pleased to offer you what comforts we have, and shelter, and food. Of course, I am the baron and banker, Dario Campaigna, and although Sicily belongs to no one truly, the people here consider me a father of sorts. You may find I hold the keys to profitable transactions.”
Gio wiped her dirty hand on her skirt. Not a sound was heard that moment, except a cow mooing. Everyone was fighting the urge to kick Dario, except that everyone owed him money and relied on his grace.
“From your lips to God’s ears,” the stranger replied.
Dario waited, his eyebrows raised and hands extended in welcome.
“Was there a question somewhere in everything you said?” the stranger asked.
Dario laughed loudly, like one who had once been amused and remembered again how to make the noise.
“What do you want here?” Del Grasso asked the stranger. “Where is your crew?”
The children stared at Del Grasso in amazement. The younger ones had never heard him speak.
Dario made wild eyes at Del Grasso before turning with a smile to the stranger.
The stranger held his hands up to stop Dario from saying anything. “My name is Damiano, and I come in service of a distant prince. He has sent me to this town to see if the reports of your prosperity and peace are true. It is said, ‘In Sicily, the angels never sleep.’ If this is true, if your land is so graced, my prince has a transaction he wishes to conduct. As for the crew, all is well. It is a story for another time.”
Gio wondered if she should bunch up the edge of her skirt and wipe Dario’s mouth; he was sure to be drooling at the thought of Damiano’s purse.
“Yes, well, this is truly a little piece of heaven,” Dario responded. “But we should not stand in the street conducting business, my friend. There is a feast at my house tonight, why, yes, this very hour! You must be my guest.”
“Is the feast meant for these people?” Damiano asked.
Gio liked seeing Dario in pain, w
hich he was in now. The pain of sharing was the only pain his family ever seemed to suffer.
“Well, but, of course, no,” Dario replied, wiping his forehead. “The peasants have worked so hard this summer, and the festival is their one chance to rest. They would not want to trade it for a meal at my humble home.”
“Yes, we would!” a boy called from the crowd.
Gio laughed into her hand. The boy was skinny for his age, and bold. She didn’t know which had come first.
“Very well,” Damiano replied. “I will adjourn to your home, without these good companions.” He bowed to the people around him. Gio could tell they liked him. He was a clever man, winning them over by offering someone else’s goods.
Dario swallowed, the stone in his throat bobbing hard. Just over his shoulder, Gio saw a woman standing in the door of the little church in the square, almost hidden by the shadows of the old stone arch. She was opening her mouth, pointing at Damiano, and the result was a grotesque howl. Gio wondered if the woman had a severed tongue.
Damiano turned, his eyes kindling when he saw her. “I did not know your town gave shelter to her kind,” he said to Dario.
Dario stepped in between Damiano and the awful woman. “A pauper, sir, not going to stay long, not one of us. We’ve never seen her before today, of course.”
“I do not believe in charity toward her kind,” Damiano said. He spoke now to the crowd. “You would do well to send her away with blows and curses.”
Dario turned to find the butcher and motioned toward the woman. “Del Grasso! Make yourself useful!” Turning and gesturing for Damiano to follow, Dario walked away from the square, in the direction of the manor.
Del Grasso moved toward the old woman, who waved her hands in the air as if in terror, pointing at Damiano’s back, spittle flying from her mouth when she tried to speak. Having pity, Gio decided to save her.
In the Arms of Immortals Page 4