Dark and Deepest Red(30)

Lala has become, to them, some wicked star.

She tucks the ribbons into her pocket. Alongside the waldglas bottle they seem nearly weightless.

A silent prayer to Sara la Kali mixes with the taste of hyssop still on her tongue, the green, bitter tone of protection and penitence.

With a glance over her shoulder, she nears the stone steps that lead down.

She takes a last full breath, as though plunging into water.

But just as she means to throw herself in, a candle and a cassocked form emerges from the shadows.

Her heart and throat tighten as one.

“Lavinia?” the priest asks.

At the familiar voice, Lala catches her breath.

It is a voice she is more used to hearing at l’église Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux. He is one of the few kind priests left in Strasbourg, one who does not press money from his poorest parishioners so he can dress in furs. One who polishes altar rails himself, telling the acolytes to go home to their families before dark.

And one, it seems, that the canon priests, the ones who wear jeweled rings and sire children by their mistresses, have pressed into guarding the cathedral crypt.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“I…” She means to lie, but in the presence of this man, with his thinning, silvering hair and soft eyes, only half a lie comes. “I came to bless the dead.”

He pauses. “It’s good of you,” he says, hesitating. “But I fear I cannot allow it.”

“Please,” she says, desperation so deep in her voice it wavers. “I cannot sleep until I have done it.”

For just a moment, the light he carries seems to take flight.

The priest places the candle in Lala’s hand.

“Recall the Gospel of Matthew,” the priest says. “The story of The Demons and the Pigs.”

Lala grasps the candle, trying not to let her bristling show. The Demons and the Pigs? Which one is he about to declare her?

“Remember that it was not only demons who were cast out into pigs,” the priest says. “It was our very Lord who was then cast out from the whole region.”

She tries to grasp the words, but they slip from her hands. He cannot be likening her to Christ more than the demons.

The priest lowers his gaze. “Powerful men may count you as lowly as an animal, Lavinia,” he says, “but remember that the Lord counts men hating you as a sign of that which is holy within you.”

It is a small gift, only a few words. But the weight of them is enough that Lala can barely hold them. For just a moment, they lift the stain of the rotted fruit, and the bailiff’s words, and the oath that still lingers bitter on her tongue.

The priest glances over his shoulder into the dark. “If I were to see you approaching the crypt”—he looks back to her—“I would be obliged to stop you.”

She understands only when he turns his back, repeats, “If I were to see you,” and saunters toward the shadows beneath the Three Kings Clock.

Lala breathes out, and takes this small light with her into the dark.

The stone steps seemed chilled with death. She can feel it through her stockings and shoes. By the time she reaches the last, her toes feel like frozen buds on a hazel branch.

The candle’s light shows vaulted stone in smaller proportion than in the sanctuary above. With each step farther in, she expects the smell of rot and death, and it is there, the seeping stench of decay. But every other smell is a surprise. The earth and spice of oakum, myrrh, incense. The bite of white wine and balsam rubbed onto the bodies. The herbs stuffed into their throats.

She does not look at their shrouds, thin enough to show their features. She does not lift the candle enough to light them. Not just because she does not want to see if their eyes have swollen back open. But because she does not want to be one of the many gawking at them in death. These bodies lie on stone for the priests to pray over, for the physicians to speculate over, for any powerful man to gaze upon as though they were strange insects.

She looks only at their feet, and only long enough to take the bloodied shreds of their shoes, the best she can think of to bring to the shrine at Saverne.

Saverne. She must succeed where even priests failed.

Lala only wishes it did not mean facing the bodies of the dead.

Their souls have left them, leaving their corpses as hollow as rinds.

She holds her breath as she pours out a portion of honey wine before the bodies, an offering she hopes will be enough to guard her, to make sure she does not bring the bibaxt of these dead home with her. There is little Tante and Alifair need less than another measure of bad luck.

Lala pauses at the miller’s younger daughter. Even before Lala reaches for what remains of her shoes, she glimpses the bruising on the girl’s ankles, purpling the pale skin. There is not enough left of her hose to conceal it.

She does it so lightly, her breath tight in her chest, hoping that if she does not stir the air, perhaps she will not disturb the dead.

A pair of large hands takes hold of Lala.

The candle falls. The moment before it darkens, it lights the face of the miller’s son.

The torn shoes tumble from Lala’s hands.

The miller’s son shoves her against the stone wall. “So you’ve come to torment her further.”

“I never did anything to her.” Lala gasps the words.

The miller’s son holds a wide hand to her throat. “Then why is she dead?”