Lapvona(45)

‘Are you alive or dead?’ he asked her.

Agata shrugged. Who could answer such a question? She let him grope her legs, his face in awe at the feel of her flesh and bone. Her knee, her thigh. He ducked under her robe, as though he wanted to return into her body somehow. Agata gave no resistance. He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked. A shade of pride prickled her face, but she let him. Surely she enjoyed her mastery over the boy in some way. Yes, there was pleasure in self-degradation, but it was easily spent. She pushed him away and gathered her habit tight around herself. Marek, undeterred, simply cuddled against her turned back. Finally they slept. Marek woke up now and then when she stirred in the bed next to him. Each time, he was astonished at his great fortune. God had taken his father but had delivered his mother back to him, an angel. More than a fair trade, he thought.



* * *




*

    By morning, Dibra’s horse had returned to the manor bareback, without her. Both its eyes had been gouged out. The guards inspected it for messages but found none. The carafe of water was nearly full and still strapped to the horse’s tether, but the guards removed it. They had seen Dibra ride out the night before and hadn’t stopped her. They didn’t want Villiam to blame them for a lapse in security. So they instructed the servants to report that there had been an attack in the night: someone, a bandit most likely, had come and mutilated the horse. The stablehands had slept through it, or perhaps one of them had turned and let the bandit into the stable, the guards suggested. But the servants refused to carry that lie.

Jenevere said nothing. She hid in Dibra’s room with her breakfast, which she ate herself. She lay in Dibra’s bed. She was also afraid, like the guards, that her knowledge of Dibra’s departure would anger the lord. It would be grounds for dismissal from the manor. She would have to find her way back north, to her parents who had sold her to Villiam to pay off their debts to Ivan. She didn’t want to go back, she couldn’t. Rather than lie to Villiam, she kept her mouth shut. The rest of the servants huddled in the kitchen and decided that for their collective safety, they ought not say anything. And so, midmorning, Clod knocked on Villiam’s door, set his tray of breakfast onto the table, and announced simply that a horse had its eyes gouged out. Villiam grunted and ate and wondered at the news briefly before returning to bed for several hours, drifting in and out of sleep. Finally, when he had fully awakened, it dawned on him that the horse might be sending a message. It was a warning. What did a blind horse signify? He had no idea. He stayed in bed, lazily imagining what it could mean. Horses were about power, he thought. So a blind horse was about blind power. Was this a message from Ivan that Villiam’s lordship was superficial? Was he angry that Villiam had not paid enough in tariffs? Villiam was too tired for a morning metaphor. He let himself drift off again.

It wasn’t until midday that Villiam got dressed, bored of snoozing. He ate some more and perused Clod’s drawings from the night before. Now they seemed trite to him. Clod had failed to capture the drama of the scene—Villiam choking on the meat had been much more powerful than Clod had drawn it. But maybe if he painted the entire scene, the table laden with food, the priest and Dibra lurching up from their chairs to try to save their beloved lord, that could be worthy of a frame. Yes, Villiam thought dreamily, an action scene. And the nun punching him in the gut. He described his vision to Clod as they walked through the hall along the red carpet, down the stairs, and out into the daylight. Villiam squinted and yawned at the sun as they sauntered down the slope toward the stables, stopping to pluck a sprig of tansy and rub it between his hands and sniff. The sky seemed to darken just for him as they approached the stable where the mutilated horse was being watered and brushed.

Villiam rarely passed by the stable. He avoided Luka and anything to do with him. As he approached and saw Dibra’s eyeless horse stepping back and forth on the well-trodden hay, he remembered that Luka was gone forever.

‘Does Dibra know?’ Villiam asked the air. The stablehands muttered unintelligibly. ‘Where is Dibra?’

‘She hasn’t come back yet,’ one stablehand said. He was a stupid boy and hadn’t understood everyone’s pledge to keep quiet about Dibra. The other stablehands stepped back to distance themselves from his stupidity.

‘Come back from where?’ Villiam asked.

‘She left on this horse late last night, but it came back without her.’

‘Huh.’ He didn’t care.

Villiam wondered at the bleeding eye sockets. The horse blinked its long lashes, neighed, then seemed to stare deeply at Villiam, who kissed it on its dry black nose. The feeling of the chapped skin against his lips elicited a thought—a revelation. ‘This horse is a revelation!’ he exclaimed. Then he snapped his fingers and demanded the stableboys do a little dance for him. He clapped along to the rhythm of their feet.

Villiam felt very happy. Of all those at the manor, he was the only one to appreciate that the horse had found its way home without sight. That was loyalty. Forget Dibra. She, like Luka, would get what she deserved. Villiam would not lament his wife’s disappearance. No, he would celebrate. Something good was coming. Villiam believed this in his heart as much as he believed himself to be at the heart of all things.

‘Hallelujah!’

And just like that, thunder clapped, and the sky filled with black clouds.