“You are a man like myself,” Damiano said. “You labour in service of another. We go into battle carrying another’s flag, and must hope our patron rewards us with our heart’s desire. What a life we have been given, my friend.”
Armando cleared his throat. “This is too close, sir. I will not discuss my arrangements.”
“Well, judging from your clothes, you already receive an honourable share of my host’s money. Perhaps, then, you do not fight for money. Tell me, why do you fight? The ways of men’s war are always of such interest to me.”
“War is not my occupation.”
Dario’s face was flushing, Panthea saw. Either her father was about to lapse into another fit or he was embarrassed at her provocation.
“Armando fights for my father’s name,” Panthea answered. “He hopes to claim all this one day as his own, since my father has no male heir. There is a bedroom above us blanketed in blue silk and drenched in Arabian perfumes; he thinks we will soon reside there as man and wife. You must congratulate him.”
Armando looked away.
“Ahh,” Damiano said. “You fight for love.”
Panthea waited. Armando could choose here to embarrass himself or to embarrass her. She wondered which would get a more spectacular reaction from Damiano.
“I do what I am asked,” Armando replied. “Please be so good as to excuse me now.”
“Well,” Damiano said, reaching for a mug, staring at Panthea, “I had not thought to stay, but if war is made for a woman, perhaps I have not given enough consideration to the fairer sex. But then, well, who would want a man such as myself? I have no real home.”
“Ah, but your master is very rich, is he not?” Dario asked. “It is a good life, is it not?”
“There is no man richer. His kingdom is as far reaching as the winds.”
“A kingdom,” Panthea repeated, looking at Armando so her arrow wouldn’t miss.
“A kingdom of wind,” Armando countered. “I should like to meet your knights, to see how they secure its borders.”
“You speak lightly for a knight,” Damiano said. “It would not do to bring misfortune on your master. But for myself, I have orders only to conduct my business and leave at once, to another town.”
“Must you go so quickly?” Panthea asked. “There are sights in Sicily that would please you.”
Her dress slipped off one shoulder and she was slow to take the fabric and slide it back up. She had oiled her chest so well that the dress had no chance of remaining in place, and the shadows worked to her favour. It was important to her that the men of the village understood that while she was unmarried, it was not because she lacked some essential quality.
Damiano lunged up from the table, knocking over his beer and sending crockery tumbling to the floor. Everyone stopped and stared at the guest. Panthea, the colour rising in her cheeks, cast her eyes down, pulling her dress back up over her shoulder.
“Excuse me, sir,” Damiano said, bowing to Dario. “I am unsteady after so long a voyage. I meant only to rise and offer a toast. Now I’ve made for you a mess. Surely you must want me gone.”
“Don’t jest, my friend! We insist you stay,” Dario said. He was beginning to slur his words.
“Please excuse me for a moment,” Damiano replied. “I surely need a moment of air, with privacy, mind you, and then I must be a more pleasant companion.”
Panthea could not abide it.
Damiano, a prominent guest, was leaving her presence without good reason. Could she pretend to chew and swallow all this food if a guest, and a man at that, esteemed her so poorly? The other guests would have a more intense interest in her, watching her for her reaction. Until she corrected this humiliation, they would have nothing else on their minds. Perhaps if she returned to the feast arm in arm with Damiano, this would satisfy the guests that no insult had been intended.
She rose, smiling, her dimples feeling as stiff as twigs. She held her skirt with one hand and slid backward from the table, bowing her head to them all.
The cool air snapped her out of the worries, blowing through her skirt and bodice. The feast was getting too warm, with the nearby kitchen at fever pitch to feed all those guests. She should conjure an excuse more often to sneak out here during feasts.
Panthea spied Damiano, and ducked into a shadow by the arched doorway into her garden.
“On the first dawn He revealed her to me,” Damiano said. Panthea saw no one with him. “I was in awe of her. She was to be my charge, and I would be her guardian. When her time was upon us, I would carry her, watch her in the night, speak His words of love over her. Then you said I could have more. You said I could speak my own words instead of His. I believed, and fell.”
A black mist, like a swarm of gnats, spun tighter around him.
“I was not told when she would enter the story,” Damiano spat. “I did not know this was her time. I would never have agreed.”
The mist snapped and disappeared.
Damiano put his face in his hands. Spinning around, he cursed the night air. “If a guardian stands with her, reveal yourself! If she has given herself to God, what can I do but leave her in peace?”
Panthea held her breath, pressing herself against the wall. She heard no reply.
“If you walk with her, know this: your time with her on earth is over. You will watch her suffer. Tomorrow I begin.”
A strong hand clamped her mouth closed, and someone dragged her backward into the castle, her feet leaving lines in the dirt under the arch.
“Let go of me!” Panthea hissed, jerking her face away from his hand.
“You do not know what you are doing,” Armando replied. He removed his hand from her face, only to use it to grab her other arm. He was not letting her go. “We don’t know who this man is or the prince he serves. Yet you follow him like a puppy.”
Armando softened his grip. He had dragged her through the hall into this room as if she were an escaping Turk.
“You’re jealous,” Panthea said, turning in his arms to see his face. “He fancies me; everyone could feel it. You worry you are no match for him.”
Armando stepped back, dropping his grip on her to cross his arms over his chest. “Do you know why you won’t admit you love me?” he asked. “Because I know you, Panthea. I knew you when you were a girl and I was just entering your father’s service, barely more than a child myself. I knew you then. I know you still. I know you as no other man ever could, and you hate me for it.”
“That’s rot,” Panthea said.
“You hate me because you hate who you are. You want a man to make you forget yourself.”
“Lies!” Panthea said.
“You always want more, Panthea, more than any man can give, but you are not greedy—you are frightened, frightened that, alone, you are not enough.”
He took liberties she would allow no other man. Shaking her head in disgust, she promised herself to be crueler. She raised a hand to slap him.
Reaching out, he caught her hand, lowering it back to her side. He raised his other hand to her face, running it through her hair, smoothing it down, letting his fingers rest too long against her cheek. She pulled at her restrained hand, so he would know she was not submitting.
She wanted to turn her face into his hand and rest her cheek on his palm. She could smell the sweet herbs he had fed Fidato back at the stables tonight. He was generous with her horse.
“You are enough, Panthea. You are enough for this man.”
Looking into his eyes, feeling her stomach flutter, she knew her decision would not be understood, not by Armando. Not by her heart.
She would not let being a woman stop her. She would not fail her mother. She drew a step back. “It is you who are frightened, Armando. You pursue me only because I will not have you. A real man would find
another woman.”
“Panthea, do you not know who I am and why I have laboured these long years for your father?” He stepped in closer, closing the distance she had created, wrapping his arms around her waist.
She tried to step back again, but his grip tightened.
“I am your Jacob,” he whispered in her ear.
Chapter Seven
Dario clattered out into the hall, his unsteady but swift shuffle across the stone floors making it impossible for anyone to ignore him.
“Where has everyone gone?” he called, too loudly. “There is business to attend to, and food, and dancing! Yes!” He spied Damiano. “My friend, do not spend your evening in an empty garden! Come inside and enjoy all I set before you!”
Dario craned his neck to see in the shadows. “Children, come back to the feast!” he called. “Where are you hiding?”
Armando and Panthea stepped into the corridor.
Dario grinned at Armando. “I have made no announcement, Armando. Don’t claim your prize just yet!”
Dario braced against the wall, laughing at his own joke. Panthea hated his jokes when he was this far drunk.
Dario shuffled back in, still talking to them all. Never waiting for a reply, he did not notice that none followed.
Resting his back on the stone railing that separated the garden from the Sicilian firs that leaned too far in, Damiano watched Panthea. She was nauseated, having tasted an intimacy with him that she should not have shared. She could say nothing.
Focusing on her, his eyes had the intensity of a dying saint, pinned in pigment forever to the wall of a church. They depressed her, those paintings. Every church she visited had these scenes, or Bible stories, covering every wall, even the ceiling. Even she had no good grasp of the Latin Masses, but the paintings instructed in another tongue. The story spoke of the mighty judgments of God and a Holy Mother who loved her meek Son. Around these three gathered martyrs, saints, and pilgrims. Panthea had yet to see a woman like herself in them. She could not find herself in the Latin or in the ghosts in the pigments. She could not find herself in the Church.
But Damiano had found her. The longer she looked into his eyes, the less she wanted to return to the feast. She did not care what the guests thought.
Panthea stood still, waiting for one of these men to take hold of her.
Armando stepped in front of Panthea, shielding her from Damiano’s stare.
“I should like to talk with you further about this transaction you are to conduct,” Armando said to him.
“I have a great gift to bestow upon the people of Sicily. Trouble yourself no more with my business,” Damiano replied, stepping aside. His eyes found her.
“I remember a tale of a gift made to the Trojans,” Armando said, shifting to block her from Damiano. “I will not grant you safe passage through Sicily until you explain your presence.”
“Do not test me,” Damiano said.
Armando drew his sword.
Panthea, biting her lip, pushed herself against the wall. This was no longer about her.
“You are a man of war, of course,” Damiano said, smiling toward Panthea as if she understood some joke. “I talk of gifts and love, and you think only to flash your sword. Would you engage me in a feud?”
“I would engage you to tell the truth,” Armando replied. He was holding his ground. Not even his voice changed, Panthea noted. He had probably faced many enemies during his years. Panthea wondered why he had never told her tales of his exploits. He must not relish those stories.
“Yes, a feud between us,” Damiano said. “That would please me. Would it please you?”
“No,” Armando said.
“Excellent. Let us declare our prize then. A woman.”
“No,” Armando said.
His voice was changing; Panthea heard it. Armando was losing.
“Panthea is our prize,” Damiano said. “If I win, I claim her. If you win, I will tell you the nature of my business.”
“No,” Armando said.
“But you see, Armando, that’s the glorious thing about war. One man cannot stop it, but one man can begin it. I will see you inside. We should enjoy all that Dario has set before us.”
Damiano walked over to Panthea, taking her hand for a kiss, pressing it to his mouth. He was hungry too. She did not think she could walk in a straight line after feeling his lips on her flesh. Armando’s arm slipped around her waist, and he pulled her back into the feast.
A servant offered Panthea the bowl first, and when she dipped her fingers in, the water remained clean and pure.
“Oh, that a woman could be so graceful in all her ways!” her servant declared, loudly.
The other women in the room looked at their own hands and hid them, and the men stared blankly at her. Panthea wondered that this trick had been lost on them all. The servant removed the bowl from her and began to pass it down to the other guests.
Only Armando’s face changed. He was narrowing his eyes as he looked at her, and a shadow of a smile glimmered. It made her angry. He would never appreciate the amount of work that went into making a memorable impression on the people. He ate as if he were hungry, spoke plain words that he had not weighed for effect, had no sense of his rank or future.
Dario rose. Or rather, he was lifted under the arms by his servants.
“I bid my guests good night and farewell, safe travels on the road home, and may your dinner sit well with you in the morning. I have hosted you all with a joyful heart and must now leave you to conduct business of my home. Peace and merriment be yours in ample contentment, and remember that Dario feeds the poor in the hour of need. Farewell, friends!”
A few of the oldest guests were grateful for the chance to leave now that they were full and the hour was late. They shuffled toward the door. But the others stayed and waited for the dancing to begin.
Representatives from the guilds, heading each table, rose with Dario, preparing to attend him. His lawyer rose, too. Her stomach tightened. She needed more time. Was she wrong to try this tactic? There was nothing else she could do, except this. He should not rush this decision. After all, he had already let her live through her sixteenth birthday without a marriage.
A woman pulled a lyre across her lap, and the musicians gathered round her to begin the tune. Everyone was clapping and flirting as her father and his advisers moved toward the staircase to the upper chamber.
The stolen feast from her bedroom was souring in her stomach. If she didn’t work with haste, Armando would have her before morning.
Licking her lips, trying to breathe little bursts of cool air, she turned her face toward the open windows above. She couldn’t throw up the great mass of food she had stuffed; it would reveal her deceit. No one had seen her eat. Her pristine hands soiled nothing she touched, while the guests left greasy, gritty stains on their trousers and in the rinsing bowl. She didn’t want them to know she was so much like them, so hungry and filthy.
Armando was rising. He would be required to attend her father.
Panthea jumped to her feet. “Come, Damiano, let us walk in the garden. It would aid my digestion.”
“Am I mistaken? You did not eat,” Armando said. “Not in our presence.”
She glared at him.
Damiano was on his feet, walking to Panthea, who was offering her arm to him.
“Come, Armando! I will settle the matter tonight!” Dario called as he was being led upstairs. “By morning you will have your reward!”
Looking between Panthea and Damiano and back again to her father Dario, Armando hesitated. Panthea was pleased to give him this impossible puzzle. Armando had to leave her with Damiano if he planned to claim her in marriage tonight. If he stayed to protect her from Damiano’s advances, he might lose her. Panthea wished that Damiano had inclu
ded her in their little war; he should have, she thought. So far, she was winning and no one had even offered her a prize.
“One would think he does not want his bride! Come, Armando!” Dario laughed, sweeping his arms over the crowd, inviting them into his joke.
Armando still did not move.
“Come, Armando!” Dario commanded, every inch the baron and baker, pushing another man to accept his terms. “If you want the marriage, come now!”
She had never seen this—Armando hesitating where she was concerned. It thrilled her and made her do the second wicked thing of the evening.
She leaned to Armando. “You have not my heart, not yet,” she whispered to him. “Go with my father and claim my hand, but my heart is still mine to give away. I do not know what I will do next. I am so new at war.”
“Behold, salvation!”
Gio swung back the thin wooden door, stirring up dust that danced in the air around the fire. The room smelled of seed oil and leather, of smoke and charring meats. Sometimes when the winds outside stilled, Gio could smell all her herbs, too, and name them by their scent. On those nights, she wished she could keep some of them safely elsewhere. Valerian stank like the stockings of a dead man.
Her fire was burning low in the center of the room, her plate licked clean and set at its edge. Wrapping a piece of leather around her hand, she stuck it into the fire, pulling free a blackened bone. Holding it up to the light, she inspected the femur and sighed.
“One more day for you,” she said, pushing it back into the fire, making a place for it beneath the hottest embers. The wood snapped and sparked.
A large blanket hung from the ceiling in one corner, hiding something from view. Gio went straight to it, lifting the blanket for the best view, pursing her lips, nodding. It was untouched.
She turned to the mute woman. “What can we call you? Do you have a name?”
The woman made a horrid sound and Gio grimaced.
“Do not do that again! I will call you The Old Woman. We have one called The Old Man. I could marry you off to him, and he’d be thankful for a woman in his bed. He’s never had one, I’d guess, and you’d have a companion. He would feed you, though he steals it from me. Would you like that?”
In the Arms of Immortals Page 6