“Bastardi!” Lorenzo gritted his teeth. “Who could have such vile thoughts? Who? What hypocrites in the village are spreading such filth?” He grabbed Nicolina by the shoulders. “Tell me!”
“I don’t have names for you, Lorenzo. I see faces, but they are cloudy.”
Lorenzo gave a barely stifled growl and began to pace the room. Gabriella saw Nicolina taking something out of her pocket—a tiny flask—and emptying some of the powder within it into a small goblet that she proceeded to fill with a walnut liqueur that was kept on the table in the rectory. It was the nocino that Don Simone always brought back from his monastic retreat with Don Filippo. Gabriella watched as Nicolina brought it to her father, who gulped down the alcoholic offering promptly with the midwife’s assurance that the drink would stop his tortured thoughts and ease him into a restful sleep.
After Nicolina left for home, unaware that Gabriella was lurking in the shadows, Gabriella emerged from her corner and poured herself a finger of the nocino into the goblet as well, hoping that the sediments of powder at the bottom of the goblet would be strong enough to erase the horror of the night’s events from her mind, and help her to sleep without the despairing thought of life from that moment on without her dear mother.
Gabriella blinks at the sight of a cloak tossed over a mound of blankets. She knows where she is now. Not at the rectory, nor at the Monastery of the Capuchins. Luciano isn’t here of course. She lets out a breath of relief. He is safe with the Sisters at the Convent of St. Anna in Gerace. She shivers, despite the warmth inside the hut. Don Simone was right to send Luciano in the hands of the Sisters. Had he not, Luciano would be here, in this…this nest of vipers. She starts to cross herself, then groans at the ingrained habit. No. She is not going to depend on the Almighty to protect her. What has He protected her from so far?
The amber light filtering in through the branches of the hut walls makes her wonder how much time has gone by since the brigand chief made her drink the elderberry concoction. Perhaps he, like Nicolina, added some other potent ingredient to keep her subdued. She knows next to nothing about the practices of a brigand chief, but it makes sense to her that an outlaw would want to keep his captives quiet to maintain the secrecy of his hiding place.
The August sun is entering the cracks in the hut in bright shards, and Gabriella knows that before long, it will be sweltering. Being up in the mountains provides more relief than in the coastal lowlands and valleys, but even at this level, the heat is inescapable.
A murmur in the distance interrupts her thoughts. Conscious of a dull ache in her injured leg, she rises cautiously and lifts a flap of the blanket suspended in the hut opening. Her heartbeat quickens as the murmur becomes louder. Voices and footsteps approach. Gabriella casts a quick glance around, wondering at the possibility of escape. She takes a few tentative steps, wincing at the pinch in her leg. She retreats into the hut. It is futile to leave. How far could she possibly get with her injury? And for all she knows, the chief may have his men ensconced at different points, ready to spring out at her.
Given the choice, she’d rather be under the surveillance of the brigand chief than in the company of his men, especially the brothers. Her gaze falls on the basket again. Her stomach clenches suddenly, but not from hunger….
“WHO IS IT?” HE HEARS HIS VOICE CRACK as his eyes open. The face looking down on him is a blur. He blinks several times and the filminess begins to dissipate, revealing eyes that are hazel. And lovely.
“My name is Sister Caterina.”
“Sister?” He gazes at the white wimple framing the pale face of the girl. She can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Her face is delicate, a creamy olive, with fine cheekbones and a straight nose. He watches in wonder as her cheeks assume a pink hue, and he realizes he has embarrassed her with his direct stare.
He is about to apologize, but she turns away to the ledge by the open window to retrieve a terracotta jug. Next to this gozzarella, a glazed brown planter is crammed with a flowering plant with white buds. She pours some water into an earthenware cup before returning to his bedside. He tries to sit up, feels his head spin, and falls back on the bed. Overcome by the chaos behind his eyelids, he does not attempt to reopen his eyes.
“Try to drink a little water.” Sister Caterina’s voice reaches him through the maze of lines, spirals, and colours battling between his ears. He feels her surprisingly strong arm tilt his head and shoulders up while pressing the cup against his lips. He drinks thirstily. Opening his eyes, he finishes the water. Sister Caterina refills the cup and he drinks half of the contents by himself before placing it on the nightstand. She nods and walks away briskly, her black habit billowing behind her like a dark cloud.
“Sister Caterina, please, where am I? What am I doing here?”
The nun looks frantic for a moment, and then slowly returns to the foot of his bed. He feels himself breaking into a sweat, despite the breeze that is wafting in from the open shutters of the window, and he wipes his forehead before the sweat has a chance to run down his face. He starts as he feels a stiffness around his hairline, and as he extends his fingers further, he realizes that he, too, has some sort of a covering that wraps around his entire head and one ear. Bandages. His hands descend to his face. Parts of it are bandaged also; he catches the faint smell of spirits on the cloths. The skin beyond is ridged with scratches. His hands drop limply by his sides. “What has happened? Why am I here?”
Sister Caterina’s eyes shift to the doorway then back to him. “I…I don’t know if I should be saying anything to you. Perhaps the Abbess Emanuela can answer your questions. I will go and find her.”
“No, please. Stay.” He raises his arm, and he and Sister Caterina both stare for a moment at his trembling hand. She gives a barely perceptible nod before returning to the foot of his bed. She is wringing her hands, and she, too, has a sheen on her forehead. She extricates a delicately embroidered handkerchief from a pocket within the folds of her habit and pats her face gently.
His eyes linger on the handkerchief. He cannot make out the design on its edges, and he has a sudden inexplicable urge to ask her for it. It reminds him of something—of someone, perhaps—but he can’t remember why. When she places it back in her pocket, he is overcome by a sudden anxiety.
“Sister Caterina, you must help me. Please tell me where I am.”
“You are at the Convent of St. Anna, in Gerace.”
“Gerace?” His voice cracks.
She nods. “You were brought here on a mule cart by a goatherd. You were wounded….”
“How? Where?”
The novice’s eyes widen. “You don’t remember anything, do you?” Her hand grasps the iron bedpost. “Do you even know who you are?”
He blinks. Of course, he knows who he is. He is…His forehead wrinkles. He is…His hands grip the sheets. Both are now trembling. Underneath the bandages, an itch is spreading like a tenacious grass fire under the starchy fibres. He shakes his head slowly. “No.” He hears the tremor in his voice. “Tell me who I am.”
The novice’s dismay is obvious. She wears it in her knitted brows, her face a cloak of pity.
“You were wounded in battle at Aspromonte. You were brought here to recover.” She leans forward to peer at him. “Now do you remember?”
He closes his eyes and slumps back, shaking his head. “No, I don’t remember.” He places his hands over his bandaged head. “I don’t remember.” Can this be happening? He pounds the sides of the bed. “Who am I? Goddammit, who am I?”
When he opens his eyes, the novice is gone. He feels his tears spilling over the lacerations in his face, wetting the bandages. His vision blurred, he cannot make out who is now standing in the doorway. Is it a child? He blinks to clear his eyes, but the figure has gone.
He wants to call out but can’t. He closes his eyes, his breath shallow, his face stinging where his tears have penetra
ted the bandages. His hands are no longer trembling; in fact, he can’t even feel them. His stomach twists with the realization that he can’t feel his legs either. Dear God, has he lost his legs in the battle? His eyes fly open in terror, but before he can check to see if he has legs or stumps, an older nun sweeps into the room holding a raised needle in her hand. Behind her is Sister Caterina, her face pale.
Before he can even attempt to protest, the old nun has advanced, her beady eyes sweeping over him with hawkish precision before jabbing a needle into his thigh.
AT LEAST HER FEVER IS GONE. Her head is clear, her thoughts coherent. Her stomach is unsettled, though, a low grumbling reminding her of its emptiness. Gabriella thinks of the bread and cheese in the basket, but she can’t bring herself to go anywhere near the knife. She wrings her hands, wondering what they have done with Don Simone. The gold crucifix hanging from the thick, gold chain around the brigand chief’s neck does little to reassure her that he respects a man of the cloth. She has no idea whether he wears it in devotion or for vanity, a display of a successful pillage, perhaps. If he is devoted to Jesus, then surely, he will treat Don Simone with respect and reverence.
The voices are more audible now, but Gabriella can no longer discern any movement. They must be in the clearing. One of the voices is higher-pitched; could they have abducted a woman? She rises to move aside the blanket in the doorway and sees a figure break through the trees toward her. “Don Simone!” she gasps, limping out to meet him.
“Figlia mia,” he murmurs, embracing her. “Are you…all right?” He pulls away to scan her from head to toe. Gabriella nods, her eyes misting. Don Simone clicks his tongue sympathetically. “You have had shock after shock, dear girl. It tests your faith, I know. But we are safe for now, Gabriella. Thanks be to God.”
He leads her inside the hut so she can rest her leg. He sits on the brigand’s mound of blankets and shakes his head. “Falling into the hands of a brigand chief is not exactly what I was praying for, but as in all matters, we must surrender to the will of God.” He sighs deeply. “What brigands do is between them and God. Who am I to judge? Perhaps some of the disgraziati had little or no choice about going into hiding. Look at Cosimino Rosario from Monasterace. Stealing a few figs from his boss’s property. Signor Quinto Malvaso caught him red-handed. Never mind that the poor boy was desperate, trying to keep his family from starving while his no-good father drank himself into a stupor from the time the sun came up to nightfall. No, the law favoured Signor Malvaso, of course, and decided the boy needed to be imprisoned. Over a few figs. Why, more of Malvaso’s figs fall on the ground than are picked. But does the man allow any of his day labourers to gather any? No, he is content to see them go to waste. Boys and men of lesser offences have been pursued by the law. I don’t blame them for trying to get away. If I was in charge of the law….” He shakes his head again. “It’s amazing how money and position can make the law blind and deaf to what’s right.” His eyes harden. “Don’t worry, my dear, God’s law will eventually prevail. The real villains will all have their day of judgment before Him.”
Gabriella frowns. What comfort can she possibly get from knowing that justice might not happen until Judgment Day? She bites the edge of her lip, her stomach roiling at the thought of Alfonso Fantin. At the memory of his hands touching her so…so intimately. She wishes she were alone so she could scrub his scent and vile touch off her. She wishes she could scream her shame out, the shame of being exposed, of being used. She was pure for Tonino, pure and innocent. And now her body has been soiled by a monster. A beast who caused her father’s death. She feels her cheeks burning. Oh Papà, Papà. If only you hadn’t shown up right at that moment. I would have endured everything and you would still be alive. She attempts to stifle a sob and at the sudden intake of breath, begins to cough raggedly.
Don Simone rushes to pat her on the back. She takes a deep breath and forces herself to think about the present. How long can she possibly run from the law for having stabbed Fantin? She knows the law will pursue her, a lowly peasant, for a crime committed against a man of Fantin’s status. The fact that he put his filthy hands on her will be of no consequence. She will not be able to defend herself. She has no money. She has no standing. And from what she has heard, it is money and standing that will always win in the courts of law.
Someone clears his voice outside the hut. Don Simone helps her up. A few seconds later, the brigand chief is standing in the opening, the blanket moved aside. He has one hand concealed within a pocket of his dark cloak, and he raises the other one to tip his hat at her, then at Don Simone. A gentleman. Gabriella tries not to show her surprise. From where she stands, the difference in his eye colour is not obvious. She glances away from his unblinking stare, pretending to smooth out the folds of her skirt.
“We are in the process of negotiating the terms of a…a contract, so to speak, with a visitor. My men have…discovered two lost travellers. Foreigners. From England. One speaks a little of our language. We are working out some details of their…safe return to their destination. Once this is done, I will see to your needs.”
Gabriella looks up and meets his cold gaze. His eyes remind her of an eagle, ever vigilant, blinking only when absolutely necessary, reluctant to miss any movement its prey might make. When Don Simone nods, the brigand chief turns abruptly and leaves. Gabriella’s teeth clench. Who is really the prey and the predator? For all that the brigand chief looks and acts like the latter, the fact remains that he is the wanted prey of the forces of law. He can rule over his band, over the Aspromonte territory in his own lawless way, but surely one day, the law’s talons will close over him. And his scruffy eaglets.
Gabriella and everyone else in the region know quite well what lies in wait for captured outlaws. It is either life in prison, or a place outside the hamlet entrance, where their ghastly heads are propped up on pikes after their bodies are reputedly tossed into a ravine. They are the cause of a child’s nightmares and turn the stomach of many an adult who leave the village in the morning for their jobs as day labourers and return at night to the sight of shadows malevolently dancing through the empty eye sockets and gaping mouths.
Savages, Gabriella has often thought, not of the brigands themselves, but of those who would defile their bodies in such a way. Is this the work of civilized men? she remembers crying to Don Simone, the first time after witnessing the grizzly display.
“Oh, my dear,” Don Simone had wrung his hands. “If only you knew what has been done in the name of the law and civility.”
“It’s not right!” she had exploded in tears, afraid she would never erase the sight of the dark cloak of birds alighting on those heads, pecking and tearing, shredding and feasting. She wanted Don Simone to say something to make her feel better. She saw him open his mouth and then close it helplessly, his brow furrowing.
“No, it’s not right,” he said wearily, pulling his rosary beads from his cassock. “Whatever those outlaws have done, they didn’t deserve to leave this world like that.” He looked hard at Gabriella. “Il mondo è cattivo,” he said. People are evil. There will always be good and evil in this earthly world, Gabriella. May you never fall in the hands of evil.” And as was his custom since her mother died, he had murmured the familiar nightly prayer to her. “May God bless you, Gabriella, and keep you in love. Heavenly Father, grant Gabriella a good rest tonight, and send your angels to protect her. Keep her healthy, keep her strong, help her know what is right and wrong. Help her sleep the whole night through, with wonderful thoughts and dreams of you.”
Gabriella went to bed, clutching her own rosary all night. In the morning, its imprint was on the left side of her cheek. Don Simone saw it at breakfast and smiled. “If God be with you, who can be against you?” he beamed, sitting down to enjoy his steaming goat’s milk mixed with a splash of walnut liqueur.
Gabriella recalls, now, Don Simone’s words about evil. She looks at him clasping his rosary.
Even though the brigand chief has saved her, she can’t shake the feeling that they have fallen into the hands of evil.
ALFONSO’S THROAT IS PARCHED from the seemingly endless trek along a path snaking through the foothills beyond Camini. The chalky white sand, reflecting the sun, has been hard on his eyes, and the occasional hot gusts of wind that churn it about, swirling the fine sand particles into his eyes, throat, nostrils, and ears, have been increasing. “It’s the scirocco,” Valerio tells him. “The desert wind from Africa.”
He pulls out his flask to splash some water in his eyes and over his face. He presses his fingers to the spot above his right temple where a faint pulsating has begun. He closes his eyes momentarily, craving respite from the light and already oppressive heat of the morning. And quiet. The boy Valerio has been nattering on incessantly since their journey began, any time the path widened to accommodate two riders. Upon passing a citrus orchard, he hastened to explain the entire cultivation process of the prized bergamotto. Assailed with the putrid scent of plants soaking in a stream, Valerio began a discourse on the production of hemp.
Coming across the ruins of a hilltop church, he went on and on about the series of earthquakes in 1783, how they had rumbled through the countryside over a period of nearly two months, destroying villages and towns, swallowing up houses, churches, people, and animals from Gioia Tauro to Catanzaro. “My great-grandmother told my mother that the houses were knocking into each other like clay pots, and the sea was churning like a sick monster, vomiting white foam over the entire beach, hissing and rising until it reached the houses, spewing them with more foam, rocks, and trees that had split like kindling.” Valerio paused to wipe the spittle that had gathered at the corners of his mouth from the spirited retelling of events, and Alfonso seized the opportunity to jump down from his mule and disappear behind an arbutus shrub to urinate.
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