The Enterprise of Death

by Jesse Bullington

  “In the fuckin shitstorm’s where the blood gets hottest,” she concluded, “which is ’ow me and Manuel got so fuckin close— boy kin stick’em like a born butcher.”

  “You’re amazing!” said Awa at last. “You overcame your cruel master and lived to tell the tale!”

  “He weren’t such the motherfucker,” said Monique. “I felt a bit bad, for a time, seein’s he was nigh sixty when I laid’em out, an’ lay’em out I fuckin did. Some men ’alf ’is age don’t recover from a beatin like that, teeth everywhere, an’ he did teach me what I know, or knew. Don’t wager I could cast a turd out my ass after these years without a smithy.”

  “I’m sure you could!”

  “Well, maybe I could cast that,” admitted Monique. “But what’s your yarn, little sister? How’d a nun come ta drink with the damned, eh?”

  “That’s a story for a colder night,” Awa said nervously. “I just, I don’t—”

  “No worries, no hurries,” said Monique. “I’ll hear it when ya tell it, an’ not a day fore then.”

  “Thank you,” said Awa, her severity giving Monique pause.

  “Well, we waited down the stars, so ta bed then?”

  The next morning Awa found herself more than a little infatuated with Monique, but the woman was far cooler than she had previously been with Awa, and positively glacial compared to the previous night. Still, the hurt of Monique’s standoffishness was slight compared to the pain Omorose had caused her, and Awa attributed her friend’s demeanor to not wanting Manuel to pick up on the shift in their relationship. Awa focused instead on the sharp green pines and sharper gray stones girding the road, the pale blue sky and paler wisps of cloud wreathing the peaks as they rode into the Alps—being once again enclosed by mountains was a comfort to the necromancer.

  The second time they fucked all three had been drinking by the fire, and they snuck off when Manuel became viciously sick, throwing up and moaning like a gluttonous hound that had eaten too much of a stolen roast. This encounter was just as disappointing as the first time had been fulfilling, with Monique bringing along one of her pistols and insisting Awa rub the barrel against herself while the mercenary watched, masturbating, and only when the heavy, cold bronze became too abrasive and Awa stopped did Monique consent to giving her partner the laziest of attentions with her tongue. Awa’s orgasm was little more pleasurable than those she gave herself, which were also less embarrassing than rubbing a weapon over her most delicate parts as her paramour drunkenly gave her instructions and pleasured herself rather than having Awa assist.

  The next morning Manuel noticed the change in Awa and Monique’s interactions even through his pounding headache, although it was another day, and a miserable day it was, before he guessed at what had happened. When he did, he remained as silent as the two women had become, neither giving him much opportunity to talk to one or the other alone, and so they came down from the wildflower-speckled meadows of the high country where marmots whistled among the overgrown boulder fields and snowmelt waterfalls crashed down through cataracts, the trio drawing closer and closer to Bern. At least his hand was fully healed.

  They encountered no excitement along the valley roads, and so Manuel had no opportunities to earn a bonus for being an active as opposed to merely present bodyguard. Passing the little red millwheel outside Bern gave Manuel the same heady rush of relief it always did—he was coming home, and the wheel turned the same as it always did, like life, like war, like everything he could think of. His delight was only tempered by the realization that he would be arriving without nearly as much of a fortune as he had hoped for, and with two very strange women. His wife knew and tolerated Monique, but how she would react to a Moor dressed as a nun, and what their servants might think—now that his journey with her was almost concluded, the alien witchiness of Awa reasserted itself in his mind, and even as he looked over the bramble thicket of her short hair he wondered just how the hell he had ever thought of her and their friendship as anything remotely normal. Then he glanced at his scarred but intact left hand holding the reins, and sighed. Befriending a necromancer had proven somewhat advantageous, he had to admit.

  Manuel felt his face break into a stupid, uncontrollable grin as they turned onto Gerechtigkeitsgasse, but then Monique slowed her horse and said, “I’m ta look up some mink was here last pass, those pig-assed Swiss ’ores you introduced me ta last time I was up.”

  “Oh,” said Manuel. “Well, come by when you’re done. Katharina will be disappointed if you don’t at least dine with us, and of course you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. We’ve got pallets I can put down in the studio.”

  “You wanna come meet some pig-assed ’ores, Awa?” Monique said, trying to catch her friend’s eyes. Awa found the ears of the horse she shared with Manuel rather intriguing. “Get rid of some of that tension if—”

  “No thank you,” said Awa, finally meeting Monique’s gaze. The larger woman seemed taken aback by the ferocity of Awa’s expression. “I would much rather see Manuel’s ladies than your pig whores.”

  “Suit’cherself,” said Monique, wheeling her horse around. “Though his ladies don’t eat ass on no account, and certainly for no handful of pennies. I’ll be by for dinner after I’ve sealed the deal.”

  “Take care, Mo,” said Manuel, turning his horse back down the street. Awa was rigid as a halberd on the horse before him, and Manuel tugged his hair, wondering how to balance this new wrinkle with his imminent reunion with his family. Then Awa let out a long sigh and relaxed, and Manuel chanced it. “So,” he said, “you and Mo, then, did you, ah …”

  Awa turned her neck almost all the way around like an owl, staring at Manuel. Shit.

  “Look, she, well.” Manuel shrugged. “She’s never stuck with anyone for longer than a night or two so long as I’ve known her, though she’s had plenty of girls who’d have stopped charging her from what I’ve seen.”

  “From what you’ve seen?” Awa narrowed her eyes at Manuel. “And you introduced her to whores here in Bern? Pig-assed whores? What are you doing in brothels, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern?”

  “Not fucking,” sighed Manuel.

  “Just looking, and painting.” “Just looking and painting? Nothing more?”

  “Look,” Manuel said, eager to conclude the matter before reaching his house. “Katharina knows about anything I do— we’ve got arrangements, my wife and I, but for your own puerile curiosity, no, I don’t fuck them. Satisfied?”

  Of course this only increased Awa’s curiosity, but in the moment she was still bitter over Monique’s attitude. “Satisfied. Your friend Monique has a shitty way of dealing with people—people who care about her. And this is coming from me!”

  “Well,” said Manuel, “I’d guess she’s had a hard life—”

  “She’s had a hard life?! Growing up in a warm workshop, not getting beat or tortured, to hear her tell it? Hard?”

  “Workshop? She’s never told me anything about where she came from or what she did before she joined up with von Swine, so that must mean something, right?”

  “Means she tricked me into thinking she was more than just a dumb bitch,” said Awa, though she knew guile and Monique no more went together than Paracelsus and brevity.

  “Look,” said Manuel, spying an open white shutter at the end of the block, the green trim on it bright as the last time he had touched it up. “Did she make any kind of promises or claims? I’ve never known her to go back on her word, she’s honest to a fault. Now, if she made some kind of pledge or whatever you do then I’d say to hell with her, sure, but I’m wagering she—”

  “She didn’t say anything like that,” said Awa, chiding herself for not taking her friend at her word. Awa wondered why it always stung worse when people told her the truth. She had hoped to leave that cruel honesty behind with the undead. “I’m just … I really thought she liked me! But I … I know what I am. I’m not pig-assed, though I am a beast.”

  “Hey, now, you’re
a fit woman, and you’d be a perfect model, as I’ve oft told you,” Manuel said, slowing the horse even more, hating her for staying silent for a week only to blurt it all out now, and quickly hating himself for being so selfish. “You’re hardly a beast, just … unique. And your body is, well, I’ve no idea what Mo means by pig-assed, but you’ve got more muscle than most men I’ve met, and the little padding you’ve got is …”

  “Niklaus!” At this Awa straightened up and Manuel quickly dismounted, and as Awa wiped her eyes on her browning bandages she saw two women in the doorway of the house before them. One was barely old enough to be called such, and the other clearly Katharina; despite being older and fuller of middle, Awa recognized Manuel’s wife from the nude portrait he kept of her, and blushed.

  “What is this thing on my doorstep?” said Katharina, throwing her arms around her husband. Awa smiled down at them, for some strange reason suddenly missing the mother she did not remember. Katharina then hopped back from her husband, looked him up and down with a sly smile, and turned to Awa. “Excuse me, sister, but my husband has been away sometime. My name is Katharina, and I would be honored if you would enter our home for something to refresh you.”

  “I’m sorry, love,” said Manuel, “I seem to have left my manners in Milan. This is Awww, Sister Gl—”

  “Awa,” she interrupted him. “Please, just Awa.”

  “Awa?” Katharina laughed. “What an interesting name! But please come in, sister, please! And you! Come and meet your daughter, Niklaus!”

  XX

  Manuel’s Ladies

  Manuel was a father. Katharina was certain when he had left for war but he had not let himself believe—he never would have gone if he was sure that she was pregnant. He wanted to go to the crib he had built several years before, when he had briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a woodworker, but his wife shooed him off to pour them drinks for a toast in the kitchen. When she returned, a swaddled shape held in her arms, he put his unsampled glass on the table. The witch standing to his left was forgotten, as was his dear niece on his right, and as Katharina brought his daughter to him Manuel teared up, extending his arms to take his child.

  Katharina cradled the babe in one arm, and with the other she gave it a vigorous rub. It seemed terribly rough to the artist but he did not know the first thing about babies; maybe that was something that needed doing. He would leave it to his wife if so, he could never be that firm with his daughter.

  The kitchen was silent as a lull in mass as he took his daughter, and then the happiest day of his life became a nightmare. As soon as he took the bundle of soft linen the babe thrashed and twisted out of his hands, as if his bloodstained fingers burned the innocent child, and he barely caught her before she fell. Then the cloth covering her face fell away and Manuel shrieked, his child a monster. Her orange eyes matched the fur coating her flat face, her needle teeth and too-pink mouth shining as she bit at him, only the blanket she was wrapped in protecting him from her kicking legs and arms.

  Lydie, Manuel’s niece, began shrieking as well, as did Katharina, and Awa backed away from the table in horror. The realization that the two women were howling with laughter instead of fear only amplified Awa’s concern. Then Manuel was laughing as well, the cat leaping from the blankets and dashing out of the kitchen.

  “Evil baby,” he managed through his laughter, leaning against his laughing wife. “Evil fucking baby. I fucking forgot. Evil baby. His face. Is. Too terrible.”

  “I’m sorry.” Katharina remembered Awa, looking up at the anxious nun and panting another apology. “So sorry, Sister Awa. It’s a game we’d play with the kitten, wrapping him up like that.”

  “Evil baby.” Manuel shook his head, still trembling all over. He looked to his niece, who had slid down to the floor and was the only one still giggling. “I suppose you had a hand in this cruel plot?”

  The teenager nodded, glancing up at Awa and bursting into another fit of raucous laughter. Katharina tugged on her husband’s arm, sobering a bit at his serious expression. “Come on then, Niklaus, let’s introduce you to little Margaretha.”

  “You mean—” Manuel looked at his wife, then his niece, and finally at Awa, who had finally relaxed. “Just what I need, another woman.”

  “Come on, then.” Katharina slapped him lightly on the chest, then led him to the bedroom where his infant daughter slept.

  Awa could not remember having been so nervous as the day wore on in the Manuel house, her friend cooing over the baby that cried more often than not at being held by her still road fragrant father. Lydie poorly concealed her fascination with the bandaged nun, and, exchanging clumsy conversation with Manuel’s pretty young niece, Awa reflected that the girl was probably the same age as she had been when she had first brought Omorose back from the dead. Awa doubted Lydie had even seen a corpse, let alone—well. The girl was as soft and pink as the marrow in a freshly cracked bone, and did not appear to have the slightest idea of what happened out there, beyond the sphere of her adoptive aunt and uncle. Awa hoped the girl never knew a fraction of what she did about the world. The idea of a rival tribe bursting into this magnificent house, hacking the adults with axes and abducting the children, seemed ridiculous, but then she remembered what the armies Manuel had served with had apparently done—according to her friend, the only difference was that the children inside the besieged cities might be cut down, burned alive, or raped instead of merely taken as slaves.

  Awa’s dark thoughts were interrupted by Manuel, who ushered her out of the kitchen where they had sat holding the baby and listening to his stories about the front line, with brave pikemen and gunners fighting the good fight against the hordes of the enemy. His studio was much smaller than she had imagined—smaller than he deserved, she thought—but even more spectacular for all the masterpieces crammed into that little room. Her breath caught and caught again with each new painting and print that Manuel hoisted, so that she had to cover her eyes from time to time not to swoon from lack of air.

  Awa had dyed wool, of course, but had no idea so many colors could be replicated on the canvas. Having only seen his sketches, nothing could prepare her for the holly greens, rose reds, and daisy yellows the artist used—during her adolescence atop the sparse mountain, she had hardly remembered such colors existed at all. The ladies were her favorite, the willowy and the plump, the dark-haired and the fair. That she would be allowed to sleep in the room where all these ladies dwelled pleased her immensely, and dispelled some of her nervousness. Then Awa noticed a painting unlike the rest.

  “It’s you!” Awa marveled at how much more handsome Manuel appeared in the painting. In the image the artist was painting in an uncluttered, lavishly adorned room, an apprentice working in the background, cherubs overhead, a large window displaying the countryside behind him. “Where are you, in the painting?”

  “Er”—Manuel scratched his head—“well, it’s less any specific studio as it is the ideal studio, right, one where I’d have more room to work, and a lad to mix the color and everything.”

  “But it’s so real!” Awa peered closer. “What is that gold circle floating behind your head?”

  “I think it’s about time to eat,” said Manuel, reluctant to own up to artistically rendering himself in a similar fashion to what he did for the men he had struck down on the Lombardy battlefields, even if he had nominally done the painting as one of Saint Luke—it would take too long to explain, anyway.

  That night, after a dinner that might have been awkward even without the revelation that the nun in filthy bandages was actually a Moor, and the arrival of a rather drunk Monique midway through, and the eventual disclosure that Manuel had not actually earned very much money at all, the artist and his wife finally escaped their guests and household, closing the door to their bedchamber with the finality of masons sealing a crypt. Then they fucked with far more passion than they had been able to raise over the last hour of entertaining, Katharina only giving her husband enough time to r
inse his business before kneeling before him, kissing his stomach as she worked his member with a practiced hand. Manuel sighed, more content than he had been in ages, and then she took him in her mouth and he tousled her hair, groaning happily.

  “Did you miss me?” Katharina asked, dropping him from her mouth and scooting backwards just as he reached the edge of the slope upon which there is no purchase. He teetered, clenching the muscles he did not know the names of, and the pressure relaxed. He scowled happily at his wife, who had gotten to her feet and was quickly undressing.

  “Like a leper misses his limbs,” said Manuel with a bow, pulling his trousers the rest of the way down. He had washed and changed upon gaining his house that morning and almost wanted to keep them on, so much had he missed the feel of genuinely clean clothing upon his flesh, but for some reason Katharina always insisted they be completely nude after dark. During the day she delighted in finding ways to accommodate him through her sometimes cumbersome dresses, in sliding his codpiece aside just enough to flick his foreskin with her tongue, to have him squeeze her breasts almost to the point of pain through her bodice, but once the sun had set she would not tolerate so much as a stocking upon him or her.

  “Not more?” she pouted, the light of the full moon making her body glow like alabaster, and making Manuel once again contemplate taking up sculpture to better honor her.

  “More than words can say,” he said through a mouthful of shirt as he got the last garment over his head. “More than art can show, more than—ah.”

  Her foot had intercepted his chest as he reached the edge of the bed, intending to crawl on top of her.

  “Ah,” he said again, gently lifting the foot to his lips. She kicked him lightly on the chin.