In the Arms of Immortals

by Ginger Garrett

  Armando fastened the necklace. “Tonight I am your lord,” he whispered in her ear.

  She did not respond.

  “Let me hold you,” he said. “You have never been in my arms. I am your lord, and I have not yet kissed you.”

  He had his arms around her waist, turning her. She was trying not to move her face up toward him as he leaned down, his hand moving to her cheek.

  Panthea held her breath, feeling the hot, smooth touch of his skin and the cold weight around her neck. Perhaps Armando could do it. Perhaps if she forced herself into his arms, forced herself to move her mouth to his, perhaps if she tasted this real man instead dreaming of imagined suitors, he would be enough to save her. She would never tell him of this second life she lived. She would summon the will to try.

  As she turned to begin her new life, her eyes widened and she screamed.

  Damiano was standing over the troubadour, his sword run through the man.

  Armando pushed her down and leaped over the balcony, running at Damiano, drawing his own sword.

  Damiano was fast, too fast to be a simple messenger as he claimed. Armando was caught off guard by his speed, and Damiano’s blade ripped through his sleeve. Armando did not flinch. Panthea saw blood running along the blade’s edge. Damiano lowered the blade and laughed.

  Armando seized him by the hair and ran his sword through Damiano’s stomach.

  Damiano fell, blood on his mouth, serene.

  Panthea tried to breathe but could not. She retched, covering her stomach with her hands, expelling nothing. She was paralyzed with horror.

  Armando was at her side, putting his arms around her, steadying her, leading her to sit. His touch awakened her and she clawed at him.

  “Why did you that?” she screamed. “He lowered his blade!”

  Armando tried to pin her arms to her side, but as she spoke, he pushed her back to look at her.

  “He killed your troubadour,” Armando said. “He might have killed you, too.”

  “I know why you did it,” she said. “Do not feed me imaginations.”

  “What did you promise him, Panthea?”

  “You accuse me? As if this was my fault? I was wrong to have ever softened under your touch.”

  “You softened under my touch? I didn’t notice. All I ever felt were the barbs from your tongue.”

  “You stood them because you wanted me. And when you thought you might lose me to another, you killed him.”

  Armando spat in disgust. He sheathed his sword and bowed to her. “I take my leave of you now. Good night, Panthea.”

  “Good night?” she asked. She did not want to be left alone with a corpse, and certainly not two of them. She had never seen a dead man. She peeked again at them, expecting their bodies to animate or twitch.

  “You would prefer good-bye?” Armando said.

  Panthea refused to answer.

  He started to speak the dreaded word—she saw it on his lips.

  “I will not.” He shook his head. “You are right to break faith with me. I am a fool.”

  He looked at the bodies, but not her, and left.

  Gio moved closer to the fire, still unable to feel its warmth. Lazarro had left hours ago; the doves had grown silent, and the light disappeared from under her door.

  Lazarro knew what she did and why. She had no more secrets from him. Except the one. That secret was so much a part of her now—it had spurred so many decisions and words—that even to confess it would be useless. She might as well seek forgiveness for her very self. She was the lie.

  She sat with all her riches before her, the tubs of finely ground pigments from every imaginable source. She was the reason the cathedrals were painted with such drama and force. Her colours were the voice of God to the Lost River.

  “If a man has anything against you, as you stand praying …” She remembered Lazarro approaching her on that hot, humid night. He had read this Scripture at Matins, and it pierced his heart. He had been gone at his studies for only a year, back in the village to see Dario. Everything was still fresh in his heart.

  She remembered how his hands shook, how he restrained himself from weeping, as he sought her forgiveness. There was nothing to forgive, really. She knew that. That is what made her so violent, so angry. She was so ashamed of his meekness. He had always been stronger than she.

  She had chosen to scourge him as she should be scourged. Every punishment she deserved was poured out on him. She renounced God just to spite him, so that every prayer he offered would be a reminder of her absence.

  The shame of what she had done, what she had done to them all, still burned, years later. It gave her hope tonight, hope that what still hurt was still able to be healed. Dead flesh felt nothing. She knew that from her work with the poor. Pain was a sign that life still flowed into the wound. Tonight, being at last abandoned by Lazarro, pushed to the edge of the darkness in her past, broken in the fall, tonight she would open the wound. Tonight she would tell the story. All of it. He would see and understand.

  She pulled the black pigment up into her lap, using her brush to scoop a bit of fat into a mortar. Flicking her wrist in tiny, twitching arcs, she mixed the pigment dust into the fat, making a loose pool of black, an irretrievably dark, shimmering mirror. The black pigment was the only one with an odor that caught your attention. Made from bones burned black until they could be crumbled and ground, it had a musty animal smell.

  Gio knew she shouldn’t start with black, but this was the first colour that came to mind. It would be hard to clean her brush after using this. This pigment was hard to wash clean. The dead were tenacious.

  Black snaked its way down the clean parchment, dividing, cutting. Black was the lie. She had not known, when she was a little girl, how her life could be divided like this. This black line was fixed now, and no other pigment could cut through it or diminish its effect.

  She painted on, the paper listening as she told the tale, the sorrows and secrets swirling, dancing together. This was her love letter to him, everything they could have been. Next came red, Venetian red, the poison and passion of life. She held them both in her heart.

  She sat back and saw it as another might: There had been the brilliant green days of her youth, when she had loved a boy named Lazarro. Her parents, poor peasants working for Dario, were happy. Dario’s wife was a kind woman, making sure they had enough grain and meat for the winter, sending clothes to them when her mother was unable to sew enough for the family’s needs.

  Every festival season, the family came across this mountain to Dario’s town.

  There was the blinding yellow of the first meeting with Lazarro, the golden flush of joy that had swept over her at their first kiss. She loved Lazarro, the house servant in Dario’s manor, the servant who distinguished himself with wit and loyalty. He was sure that Dario would consent to a marriage.

  They fell asleep together in the stable after sharing a kiss and a bowl of wine at the festival. The day had been too warm, and the labours from harvest had worn them down. When Dario caught them the next morning, he was angry.

  Dario demanded payment for her ruin; it was his right as master of the manor for which her father worked. Her father had no such sum and she had no way to prove her honour except by her word. A woman’s word was meaningless. Her father had to pay the fine at once or face punishment. Dario could pinch his wages, leaving the family to starve in the winter months, or throw him in prison until the debt was paid, which would ensure the death of her family. Either way, Gio’s parents would have to sell off her siblings to other masters to raise money for Dario. In one careless night, Gio had destroyed them all. Her parents could not look her in the eye.

  Catching her alone in the fields days later, Dario was quick to make a bargain with her. She could cancel her father’s debt if she became Dario’s m
istress. Or chambermaid, whatever her family preferred to call it. Though she was ashamed, Gio ran home and confessed the offer to her father. She hoped he would rise up in anger and fight for her name. He knew she was a good child. He would not endure this insult.

  Her father agreed to the offer at once. She was sent to Dario’s home, sick with dread and humiliation. She had never been with a man. Now she would be a mistress and never a wife.

  She had not even seen Lazarro since they had been discovered. She was sure he had heard the news, but no word had come from him. No help had come from him, no secret messages by moonlight, no promises of escape. Now she would see him daily, and he would know that she spent her nights in Dario’s bed. Lazarro must have been content to watch her father pay that fine. He had had a bit of fun with her. A stolen kiss would be nothing to a man. His honour was not in question, and his purse was not touched. Indeed, his reputation might increase, affording him more picks for a wife to bear him children. After all, men who took women for sport made some women delirious with desire.

  Her head hurt, the awful thoughts making the blood pound in her temples. She tried to keep her feet steady on the path to Dario’s home. They would think her drunk if she stumbled. They might beat her.

  No one remembered she was a good child. No one fought for her. The thought struck her with such force she fell to her knees, hitting the loose stones of the path, falling to her knees like Saul on the blinding path.

  That was her salvation! She could never prove her good name and be believed, but were not men eager to believe stories of shame? Men were always so quick to doubt a woman. Words could spoil herself for Dario, and Dario would be forced to cast her away.

  When she was freed, she would tell the truth to Lazarro. Perhaps they could still escape. He had meant that kiss, she was sure. He might have been told her father would pay the fine at once. He might be wondering why she had not come to him. Yes, tonight she would earn her escape, find Lazarro, and they would flee together.

  A servant like him could find work in another’s house, far away. She would have to be careful to take wine and dried meat for the long walk.

  She was still making her list for the flight when she arrived at Dario’s keep. It was early in the afternoon and the sun was strong. The doors were made of wood carved with images she had never imagined; lions and winged creatures, bulls and serpents with eyes made of emeralds. Iron handles as thick as a ship’s rope hung on the door and did not move as a servant swung the door open to her. The heat, the images, and her fear made her sick. She wanted to hide in the bushes that grew along the walls.

  Gio held the paintbrush in the air, remembering the night.

  She was led to an upper chamber, her heart going so fast that she made little noises as she climbed the stairs, the same little noises rabbits made before her mother wrung their necks.

  Gio tried to think of Esther in all her grace and how God had blessed her courage. What one woman could do, another woman could.

  When the servants pushed her in and closed the door behind her, Dario licked his lips. He was reclining on the feather bed, picking at his nails.

  Gio did not wait to speak. “You don’t want me, sir. You have a fine wife.”

  Dario was high from his wine even at this obscene hour. “I will let you go if you can answer my riddle,” he said.

  She nodded her agreement. She did not believe him.

  “Why am I rich?” he asked.

  “Because you are wise,” she answered, straining to sound sincere. Dirty, ragged bits of nail fell on the floor around him. Except for the bits he ate.

  “You lose,” he replied, sounding bored. “I am rich because I am greedy. I never have enough. So your reminding me that I have a fine wife just reminds me I have no fine mistress.”

  He gave her a long appraising look.

  “These will be your chambers for tonight. You can lay your clothes on the washstand, but pick them clean of any lice first. We’ll keep you elsewhere after today. Probably in the crypt. I’ll have a straw mat sent down to the cellar for you. When I don’t want you, try to busy yourself with cleaning. My wife would like that.”

  “You don’t want me, sir,” Gio repeated. Her knees were weak. “I’m three months along. I would add to the burden of your purse and offer nothing to your bed. You cannot take me as a mistress tonight unless you have a good lie for your wife to explain me, to explain where you were three months ago. She would send me away at once, wouldn’t she? All that trouble for you, sir, and not a bit of fun.”

  Dario rose from the bed and grabbed her, ripping her bodice open from the bottom. He shoved his hands under her bodice, digging his fat fingers into her flat stomach. She tried to breathe in and hold the breath to give her stomach some shape.

  He slapped her. “You could have told me this earlier. You enjoy making fools of men, yes?”

  Gio didn’t answer.

  “Is it Lazarro’s?” he asked.

  Gio panicked. I am a fool, she thought. She had not thought of this question. If she said yes, she would bring terrible grief to Lazarro. He would be rounded up at once and forced to face Dario. Lazarro would be beaten and heavily fined, the fine doubled just for spite, and forced to break himself for the money to repay Dario. His life would be ruined. They could never marry.

  “No, it is not his.”

  As soon as the words were out, she saw her second mistake. This world of men was too fast for her; she could not think of lies as quickly as they thought of accusations. Who would she say the father was? What would Lazarro say? Oh, God, she pleaded in her heart, let me find him first and explain this, too.

  Dario licked his lips and laughed. He slapped her again, his hand drawing slowly away from her face, his fingertips dragging over her skin, making her feel dirty.

  “Your father still owes me the money, you know. It doesn’t matter who ruined you.”

  He was losing interest in her, his body slumping, more interested in his wine than her now.

  “I will pay it myself,” she said.

  “Ah, you have surprised me, Gio.” He took a long dreg from his bowl. “Everyone thought you were such an innocent, didn’t they? Such a devoted daughter of the Church? And you are really nothing but a tart. Poor Lazarro will be heartbroken. The fool actually fancied you. I have done him a favour. I will be merciful to him today and tell him the full story.”

  It was four years before she saw Lazarro again. When she saw him next, he was a priest, university educated. Dario had paid for a church to be built in the piazza. His wife had grown ill, some long, wasting disease. Priests could do two things well: beseech God and heal. The health of the body and spirit were one, and none but a priest could properly attend to either. Lazarro would attend to the sick with cures approved by the Church and prayers on their behalf to God. What a priest did not heal, God would. God listened to priests and none else; therefore, no doctors were needed. Any help from a medical man was stunted by his inability to talk to God.

  Lazarro came to Dario’s wife daily; she did not have to travel for prayer or medicine. Dario hoped he had bought a big enough church for God that God would be pleased to cure her. Best of all, he owned the priest. Dario had paid for his education. There was no need to pay for prayers to be said for his wife night and day.

  Gio’s own parents had died. They had not wanted her at their bedside. She earned her bread now foraging for herbs and minerals. The men working on Dario’s church needed pigments and paid great sums for them. Gio first found pigment dealers on the roads home from the piazza; she traded her family’s knowledge of simple cures for their knowledge of elaborate pigments.

  Lazarro refused to speak with her alone ever again, or offer her Communion until she confessed her sin. One night she drank two extra bowls of wine and went to the steps of the church.

  Dario was there with
his nobles, collecting debts from the villagers. When the people saw Gio, a ripple of excitement went through the crowd.

  “Lazarro!” Gio cried.

  The crowd pushed in around her. Dario began to sweat, but he was smiling at his companions.

  Lazarro emerged from the church, his eyes adjusting to the dimming light. “You are a stranger to me. Go home.”

  “Fine words from Judas!” she said. The wine made her dizzy. She could not hold her course, her planned words of pleading and tears. It all came out as fury.

  “Whom have I betrayed?” he yelled back. “It is you who kissed me, then gave me over to death.”

  “Death? What do you know of death? I will tell you of death: of watching your mother and father die, slowly, not having enough to eat, too shamed to tell their lord of their great need. It is trying in vain to heal them of the sores that came upon them, when they lay too long in their beds from exhaustion, of trying to spoon a little fat into their mouths for strength, having them spit it at me and turn away.”

  “We are all sorry for your parents,” Dario called out. “Whoever had you first should have been generous to your family. If that was your first.”

  The crowd snickered. Women pushed men aside for a better look. Women who broke the rules were always so fascinating.

  Gio was too drunk to kill him, but she wanted to. She just spat at him. She hit someone else instead. She could tell by the sudden cursing and movement on his right.

  Lazarro spoke. “Sins can be forgiven, Dario, if they are but confessed. Is that why you have come, Gio? Will you confess and be cleansed?”

  “It’s lies you have fed upon!” Gio yelled. She swayed, trying to focus on what she must say, but he was healthy, and fed. He knew things now. He had been given a better life because of her suffering. “I cannot take it away,” she muttered, turning toward her home.