Lapvona(54)

‘I don’t think there’s any water in the falls there anymore,’ Grigor answered gently. He wasn’t angry at Ina anymore. His mind was in her waterfall. He saw her young and naked standing behind a curtain of warped glass, dark hair flowing long to her waist.

‘It’s too far for me to walk, to be honest,’ Ina said. ‘But there’s water there.’

‘Not with the drought. There was no water coming down these mountains.’

‘There was,’ Ina said.

Grigor tensed a bit in the chair.

‘There wasn’t,’ he said.

‘Now, now,’ Ina said, and put up her wrinkled palm. ‘Pass me the pipe please, Grigor,’ she said.

Grigor sat up and passed it. As Ina clutched it, he felt the strong, long nails of her fingers against the butt of his thumb. It was barely a feeling, as his hands were so calloused from a lifetime of work, but it was something. His wife had died years ago. He pulled his hand away.

‘If there was water on the mountains, why did we have none?’ he asked.

Ina smoked. She realized exactly what Grigor had come for. He wanted his mind changed.

‘Villiam kept the water for himself,’ she told him.

‘Father Barnabas said it was the work of the Devil.’

‘Ah, yes, it is.’ Ina said.

‘But I heard Villiam’s wife died from the drought. Like so many others.’

‘She did not.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I cannot say.’

Grigor reached for the pipe and puffed it, his mind turning. ‘If there was water up there, and Villiam had it, and the priest knew, then why were we down here starving by the lake?’

‘I’m sure Father Barnabas explained it all.’ Ina was being coy. She got coy sometimes when she smoked canniba.

‘Father Barnabas said that there was a breach of security down in hell, and that the Devil flew up to Earth, and it made the world hot and dried it all out. And now God has closed heaven’s gates to keep him out. If the Devil gets into heaven, I don’t know what we’ll do.’ Grigor stiffened, hearing the preposterousness of the story for the first time.

They were quiet for a while.

‘Can I be honest?’ Grigor asked. Ina grunted in reply. ‘The priest told me to come see you, because I told him you were a witch.’

‘Why’d you say that?’

‘I don’t know. I felt it was my duty.’

‘Did he send you here to kill me, Grigor?’

‘No, he sent me here to give you a gift, to relieve my anger.’

‘Carnage or contribution. That’s what priests always say.’ She smoked some more and passed the pipe again.

‘Do you still feel angry, Grigor?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The priest was wrong.’

‘Good,’ Ina said. ‘Now come let me nurse you. For old time’s sake. Do you remember how?’



* * *




*

The wedding procession began at noon. The minstrels began, playing their flutes and drums and lyres. The singer from Krisk had come after all, arriving just that morning. The stableboys had collected him and the best lute player in Tivak along the way, and two drummers from Bordijn. The songs were very good. Then Villiam and the nun stepped out in their wedding clothes. They walked side by side across the drawbridge. As was custom, Agata walked to the left of Villiam; God fashioned Eve out of Adam’s left rib. Or was it the right rib? The left, yes, or so the priest thought. He wasn’t quite sure. He was tired. Father Barnabas had spent the night with Villiam, playing games and drinking to distract the lord from his anxieties. Villiam had been worried he wouldn’t look lordly enough in his costume. ‘The people must fear me and love me. I’m like a father to them all. It’s a difficult image to project. You wouldn’t understand,’ Villiam said to Father Barnabas.

‘If you want my advice, do nothing. The less you do, the more they will revere you.’

Now Father Barnabas followed the couple on horseback, riding a broken-in tarpan that he had never ridden before. Villiam had chosen the priest as his best man, which meant that he had to carry a sword with the family crest, and it was heavy on his hip as he rode. He was struggling. And he was nervous. He had read the banns the last three Sundays at Mass, each time stressing the magnitude of the approaching nuptials, as if God Himself were taking a wife. ‘If anyone knows cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, then declare it.’ Nobody declared anything, of course. First, to declare anything that would inconvenience Villiam was not only frowned upon, it might be punishable by death. It wasn’t right to question the lord. It put everybody in jeopardy, and nobody could afford to lose favor. Secondly, nobody knew what had actually happened to Dibra. She was presumed dead once the banns were read. The fact that the priest had not announced her death gave them reason to suspect that Dibra had died as many of the villagers had died—of starvation. The poor woman. Nobility are not immune to famine, they all thought, and they felt sorry for Villiam. He must be heartbroken. There had been whispers of Jacob’s disappearance throughout the village last spring, and Marek’s. Some of them assumed that, like his father, Marek was a cave dweller now, or had died, or had been eaten.