Dark of the Sun (57 page)
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Horror, #Vampires, #Transylvania (Romania), #Krakatoa (Indonesia), #Volcanic Eruptions
She gave a little shriek and jumped to her feet, almost stumbling over her pails as she did. “Go away!
Go away!”
Go away!”
Ragoczy Franciscus did not approach her; he remained near the house, doing his utmost to reassure her. “I mean you no harm. You need not be worried.”
“Go away,” she repeated, but less emphatically than before.
Ignoring her dismissal, he said mildly, “I would not like to leave you here in so much despondency.”
“I’m not despondent,” she said in the accent of Troas, her stance a little too defiant to be persuasive; she wiped the tears from her face with a quick swipe of her hand. “You have startled me.”
“I might say the same,” he responded, remaining where he stood. “Whether or not you are despondent, something is troubling you.”
“How can it be,” she asked, acerbity coloring her question, “when it is my duties as an apprentice nun that aggrieve me?” Having said such an outrageous thing, she put her hands to her face in shock. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Your vocation is a burden?” he suggested, trying to discern the reason for her dissatisfaction.
“Vocation!” Tears filled her eyes but she did not sob. “My vocation.” She came back to the well, wanting to talk to this kindly stranger. “If being given a choice of a brothel or a convent is a vocation, then that is mine.”
“When did this happen?” He took a step closer to her.
“Almost a year ago, after my mother died.” She shook her head and began to speak rapidly and softly, as if repeating something she had said many times before. “The crops failed twice, and there were only three pigs left. My father had to consider the farm and my brother, and so that left nothing for me. It wasn’t his fault the crops failed—everyone’s crops failed. And Mother died because she got the Bending Sickness; no one could do anything about that, either.” Her hands tightened in her lap. “I must not decry my destiny,” she said as if reciting a lesson. She dropped her head. “Who would offer for a dowerless girl in such a time as this?” Standing abruptly, she stared at him. “Why should I tell you this? You are a stranger.”
“But you need to tell someone, and—”
“Only my Confessor and the nuns should hear these things,” she said in mounting dismay.
“Do they hear them? Or do you keep them to yourself?” He saw he had guessed correctly. “Such unhappiness can fester if you do not speak of it, just as a boil must be lanced in order to heal.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “Lancing boils. That is part of my work. Scrubbing floors where there is urine and vomit. Removing the bedding when someone has died. It is for humility and Christian example that I should do this, and do it gratefully.” This last came quickly as if to cover over her disgust. “Apprentice nuns are given such tasks, and similar ones, in the hospital we keep for the sick and injured. It’s so hard, with so much death.”
“It offends you, doing those things?”
His question struck her and she thought about her answer. “I have worked on the farm since I was able to carry a hoe. I have tended birthings of calves and lambs and piglets. I have killed and dressed ducks and chickens and geese. I have milked cows and swabbed the floor afterward. I have dug for turnips in the mud and climbed trees to pick the fruit. I have pressed grapes with my feet for wine and turned barrels of mash for beer. I have sheared lambs and combed goats. I have treated cuts and fevers and cankers. But it was only a part of what I did. Here, it is expected that I will do the lowliest work every day and then pray to God to thank Him for permitting me to be the meanest of His servants. Some of the postulants do feel gratified, but I …” Her voice dropped. “Better this than a brothel, I am told. At least I am not spat at in the streets.”
“Is there no one who would be glad of your help on a farm? An uncle or a cousin, perhaps?” His dark eyes lingered on her face, at fine skin that had never known fine oils or unguents, at soft brown eyes, at well-arched brows, at a straight nose, at pretty lips marred only by a thin scar that ran to her cheek.
“I have only one uncle alive and he has four living children,” she said slowly. “No farmer where I lived could afford to take on another person—worker or slave—until a good crop is brought in again.” She blinked slowly, as if trying to understand why she had volunteered so much. “I should not speak with you. Why am I talking to you?”
“You want to talk to someone, and I have the advantage of being a stranger,” he said, for he had had such experiences many times before. “I do not matter.”
“But I have said such things to you—” She put her hands to her face.
“I am honored to listen,” he said, still keeping his distance; his esurience was awakening but he felt only ill-defined interest coming from her.
“I am Ilea, but here at the convent I am called Joaquim to show my renunciation of the world and the acceptance of the life of the convent. I didn’t want to give up my name.”
“It is a good name, Ilea,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, and told her his. “Franciscus is my gens name, and Ragoczy is my patronymic.”
She considered this. “You have lands, then?”
“To the west of here,” he answered incompletely. “In the mountains.”
“Our farm is to the south, across the straits and in the hills.” The nostalgia in her words was poignant. “At the end of a valley, hills rising behind it. We have two fields and a vegetable plot. There are trees on the hills, and only some of them have fallen. If I have to die, I want to die there, at home. Not here.” She looked up at him. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Ilea. I understand.”
“My father said that if there is a good harvest this year, he may send for me. I know he won’t.” Her hands shook as she folded them together. “I have tried to resign myself. But I dream about making cheese and carding wool.”
“Surely those skills would be useful in the convent. The nuns must keep a cow for milk and need someone to look after the chickens and the garden.”
“There are three goats and a sheep,” Ilea said, sniffing. “Sometimes I go and watch them when I should be at prayers. Sometimes I go there to sleep. I like the smell of the animals, and the way they go on together, not at all like the nuns, or those who come here for help or nursing. I’m told it is a sign of pride, staying with them instead of keeping to my prayers and my assigned work, and I must give up such things.”
He moved nearer, aware of her sense of isolation. “Faith is supposed to end loneliness, not cause it.”
She drooped where she sat. “If that were so, I would feel better about how I must live.” Then she got up quickly. “I must get this water to the convent. They’ll whip me if I take too long.”
He picked up the yoke and helped her set it in place on her shoulders. “I am glad to have met you, Ilea.”
Her smile was quick and genuine. “And I to meet you, Ragoczy Franciscus. You see, I remembered it: your name.” She prepared to leave. “I’ll pray for you.”
“If you like.” Ragoczy Franciscus stood beside the well for a short while, his mind on Ilea and how she had lost so much through mischance and circumstance. He looked toward the convent wall, trying to discern where the barn was.
Three men came stumbling along the street, a wineskin sloshing among them; one of them—a laborer by the look of him—gave Ragoczy Franciscus a truculent stare, but was dragged on by his companions. The street fell silent and empty for a little time, then a pair of jugglers trudged past Ragoczy Franciscus, both worn-out from performing and celebrating; they carried short oars painted bright colors, the tools of their trade. When they had gone, a small monk in a drab habit went by carrying a covered box. The street remained empty for a time, and at last a pair of guards came along, one of them holding an oil-lamp, the other carrying a pike; they scrutinized Ragoczy Franciscus in silence, and then went on about their rounds. The town was growing quiet, and the shine of lamp-light in the windows diminished. In the two churches hymns were being sung, the chanting creating an unexpected harmony in the deepening night. Then that, too, ceased, and the street sank into a hush broken only by the wind. At midnight the convent bell rang, and there were a few lamps lit in the chapel, and a few other parts of the compound; Ragoczy Franciscus waited until the place was still, then he made for the side gate and the barn, where goats could sustain him. As he went, he wondered if Ilea would be there, asleep, and if she would welcome a dream.
Text of a letter from Hormuzd Bashri, merchant from Ecbatana presently at Edessa, to Phemios the Byzantine at Palmyra, written in Persian, carried by merchant courier and delivered three months after it was dispatched.
To my dear colleague Phemios the Byzantine, Hormuzd Bashri sends greetings on this the longest day of the year and asks him to consider what he has to impart as well-intended advice and an alert to what likely lies ahead.
This autumn I will send to you two casks of seeds, which I urge you to arrange to be planted in the fields around Palmyra; these are grains from cooler regions, and with the cooler sun, they should flourish where you are, making it possible for all of us to have a bountiful crop at the next harvest. I no longer believe that the sun will be as warm as it was in a year or so: I am convinced that these cooler conditions will prevail for some time to come, and only by shifting our planting can we provide enough grain to prevent more hunger than we have already seen. I, myself, have contacted Goxach from the banks of the Vistula, to ask him to provide grain from his region that I might sell it from here at Edessa to the wide valleys north of the Caucasus Mountains. I will provide it for nothing if the peasants will agree to set aside twenty percent of their harvest for me as payment. You may find a similar agreement would be advantageous to you, as well.
In order to do this, I have taken on some riders as my representatives. I have doubts about them, but they have sworn a blood-oath to me and have declared they will do all that I ask so long as they are not abandoned to starve and wander. They are led by a young man who is known as the Kaigan of their clan. He is called Neitis Ksoka and his people are named the Desert Cats. There are about forty of them, thirteen able-bodied men, the rest women and children and two ancients, and they have come a very long way to escape the cold years and what they have described as yellow snow. I have provided the women and children and old men a plot of land to farm and graze, with the stipulation that they also care for my horses. These Desert Cats have ponies and they ride as if they were born in the saddle. Even the women are fine riders. They have flocks of goats as well as their pony herds, and these they have agreed to cull and then to provide me and my family with meat from their flock, and with cheese. From what they have said, I would expect more bands like theirs to move in from the East as time goes by, for if their accounts are accurate, many clans have been displaced by the cold and will be seeking lands more to their liking.
We have been having thunderstorms quite frequently, and I fear we may have a summer of them. Many of the merchants have complained that the roads are as muddy now as they are in spring, and that has slowed our already slow trade some more, making it likely that this will be another year of poor business. I have been told that three forest fires have been caused by the lightning, and that the devastation the fires have wrought will make foresters as unhappy as farmers by the time the year winds down. I, myself, have seen huge expanses of burned trees and blackened scrub, and I know that the rains will wash away much of the damaged land before spring comes. I can understand why the Christians are claiming that the world is nearing its end, and that soon all of earth will be gone, but I do not agree with their views. It seems to me that if the world were going to end, it would have done so two years ago, at the start of the cold sun, not now, when we see the first signs of improvement. In all my years as a merchant, I have not encountered such neatness, and in such times as we have now, I see less neatness, not more. But although they may be right, I will plan for the future and do what I can to ensure it will be less harrowing than these past years have been.
Extend my greetings to your brother and father, and tell any you think would want to participate in it of my proposal in regard to the grains and planting. The more who will join our venture, the greater our chance of success.
Hormuzd Bashri
(his mark)
(his mark)
By the hand of Josepheus the scribe from Ecbatana
With a gesture to protect herself from evil forces, the old peasant woman stepped back from the two men standing in the narrow door of her one-room house. “The crest? You should not go near the crest. No one should go there!” she exclaimed. Night had just fallen and the forest felt as if it were coming across the meadows and fields to besiege her.
“But why not?” asked the dark-haired man, who spoke her language well, but in an old-fashioned way. “The innkeeper down the mountain said that you would explain it to us if we asked you, that you know the story.”
“Old Noccu! Well, did he, now?” The old woman grinned, revealing few teeth; she was thin, wiry, and spry; the language she spoke was not descended from the one Ragoczy Franciscus had learned as a child, but was that of much later settlers in the region. “Did he send you here?”
“He told us that you knew the secrets of the crest and the stories of its past,” said the second man. His command of the language was less elegant than his companion’s, but it was enough to impress the old woman, who was becoming nervous in such august company.
“It is haunted,” she said with such total seriousness that neither Ragoczy Franciscus nor Rojeh could laugh at her. “Everyone knows it.”
“Why do you say so?” Ragoczy Franciscus asked her. “We have come a long way, and we intended to journey to the crest of this part of the mountains.” They had begun the long climb two nights before and had made steady progress up the neglected roads that led to the high passes and the Transylvanian plateau beyond.
“Because it is true,” she declared.
“How can you know?” Rojeh lowered his head to show he meant no disrespect.
“It is an old story,” the woman said, and waited to be coaxed. “Noccu was right about that. He does not care about such things.”
“Will you tell us? For the safety of our journey?” Rojeh reverenced her as if she were a great lady in the court of the Emperor at Constantinople.
“You must not think me foolish,” she said, holding up her gnarled hand as if to demand an oath from them. “I will not be laughed at or thought a fool, jesting for your amusement.”
“No, we will not think that,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.
“I do not tell stories to be held in contempt,” she persisted.
“We offer none,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “We seek only to know what you can tell us.”
She gave this her consideration, then ducked her head. “If you want to come in, you may. It is warmer by my fire.” She stepped back, as if suddenly aware of the grandeur of her two visitors. “I have just the one chair.”
“And it is yours by right,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “We can sit on the floor.”
“It is just packed earth with rushes on it,” she said apologetically.
“Never mind,” Ragoczy Franciscus said, sinking down and sitting cross-legged at an angle to the hearth and her chair.
She started to laugh, but stopped as quickly. “I meant nothing against you.”
“Nor did I think otherwise,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.
Rojeh also sat on the floor, his abolla gathered closely around him. “This is a cozy house,” he said, thinking that the smell of smoke, old cooking, and old woman made it so close that he felt the air itself was a presence in the single room. Yet it had a completeness that made it a pleasant place.
“I had the story from my grandmother, who lived to be forty-eight summers old; I love to tell it in her honor.” The old woman nodded three times to confirm this figure. “I, myself, have seen forty-seven summers,” she added with pride.
“A considerable age,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, knowing that among the living, it was.
“I have passed this to my granddaughters, and they, one day, will tell it to their grandchildren.” She managed a deeply wrinkled smile. “It is to our credit that our family is long-lived.”
“That it is,” said Rojeh.
As if satisfied that she had given her credentials, she sat down in her chair and gazed into the flames of the fire, a distant expression in her small, dark eyes. “It is a story that goes back to the ancient times, when the world was a different place than it is now. There is a great citadel up there at the crest, from long, long ago. It was built before the walls of Byzantium were put in place, even before the great heroes of the Athenians and the Spartans were roaming the world. The lord of the citadel was a powerful warrior who had allies among the angels and devils and old gods of the land, and they all stood against those who would attack the lord and all he held as his.” She looked from Rojeh to Ragoczy Franciscus. “This lord was one of a great line, and he had sons to follow him, twenty fine sons and twenty lovely daughters, each more worthy than the last.” Pausing, she took a sip from her wooden cup. “This is plum wine, if you would like any?”
“No, but thank you,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “I do not drink wine.”
“Nor do I,” said Rojeh.
“I will drink more, then,” she said, satisfied, and reached for a stoneware bottle to refill the cup; she managed a tense little chuckle as she poured for herself. “As I was saying, there was this great lord, from a great line, with fine sons to follow him, and a band of loyal warriors to fight with him. All the land held in the long curve of the mountains was his to command, and all the plains behind the mountains bowed to him as well. He built his citadel on the highest crag over a river gorge so that no enemy would dare approach it—remote as any eagle’s nest—and guarded by a splendid line of fifty fortresses leading from far below us to the crest. These fortresses were as grand as any palace in Constantine’s City, and they were so large that they held a thousand warriors and two thousand horses.”
“Was it difficult to build, the citadel?” Rojeh asked. “In such a remote place, it must have been.”
“It took many years and the efforts of powerful old gods to build it, and the toil of ten thousand men, all of whom labored for the glory of it,” she said with relish. “The citadel was as large as a great camp of famous generals, and it boasted buildings three stories high.”
“A formidable place,” said Ragoczy Franciscus with an ironic half-smile.
“A very great place. Warriors flocked there in their thousands, and the thunder of their horses’ hooves made the mountains echo.” She slapped one hand on her knee. “The enemy might have thought there were storms on the peaks, or congregations of demons.”
“Wise, to guard himself so well,” said Ragoczy Franciscus with a fleeting recollection of his father’s face. “He must have been a very provident man.”
“So you would think,” said the old woman.
“Then the lord had protected his citadel as well as any man might,” said Rojeh.
“You could hope it, but it turned out not to be as wise a plan as one would think, for an enormous army from the East heard of this citadel and came at the behest of the lords and the King of the lands in the southeast and across the water to claim it, and all it contained, for themselves. They came in waves, these warriors, and they drove the lord of the citadel back from his fortresses.” She had another drink, this time a large gulp. “One by one the fortresses fell until all the warriors and their lord retreated to the citadel, where it is said all of his soldiers, and their wives and children, pledged to fight to their last breath and asked their gods and devils and angels to stand with them. The old gods rode with his horsemen and his sons against the marauders from the southeast.” She took another sip, a longer one this time. “It is said that the old gods of the lord and the land were killed—but how can anyone kill a god?—and the oldest son of the lord, who had led the fight, was captured by the enemy to be given to the King of the southeast, who had commanded the war, as tribute.” More plum wine went down her throat and she smiled muzzily. “It is a very sad story.”
“Why is it sad, if the warriors and their lord heroically defended the citadel?” Rojeh asked.
“Because all their efforts failed,” she said.
“By might or by treachery?” Ragoczy Franciscus asked.
“It is said that the lord was betrayed by his adviser, who told the opposing leaders many things about the fortress and the citadel, and the enemy was able to attack the citadel,” she said.
“Treachery,” Ragoczy Franciscus mused.
The old woman nodded. “Then the gods and angels and devils deserted the lord and the citadel was besieged and finally it fell. The lord and most of his sons were executed, but some were made slaves of the conquerors, and the oldest was sent far away, to show that the lord of the citadel was wholly vanquished, and to demonstrate to all the world that the citadel on the mountain peaks had fallen. Among the defenders, those who were not captured and enslaved were burned when the citadel was put to the torch. Anyone venturing near the crest may hear their cries today, and they may be led astray by the spirits of the dead, for the ghosts yearn for vengeance. If you go there, you may find yourself surrounded by specters and driven mad by their screams.” She drank down the rest of the plum wine. “I don’t have much left. There were almost no plums these last years. This year there have been only a few.”
“You deserve a cask of plum wine, good woman,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “That was a most instructive story.”
“Then you will not go to the crag,” she said apprehensively. “You must tell me you will not go to the crag.” In her agitation she almost overturned her jar of wine; she caught it in the nick of time and set it upright. “Tell me you will not go.”
“We will keep to safe roads,” said Ragoczy Franciscus.
“We will be careful if we have to cross the crest,” said Rojeh, trying to soothe her.
“Good, good,” she said. “Yes. Good.”
Rojeh reached for her jar of wine and refilled her cup. “Drink to our safe journey, good woman, and I am sure we will have nothing to fear.”
She gave him a startled stare. “Is that what you want?” Ducking her head, the old woman wrapped her hands around the cup and held it up as if to receive the divine chrism, saying, “Go safely, come safely, and never have cause to fear.” Then she drank down half the contents of the cup quickly and totally, to insure the magic was not wasted.
“A most gracious wish,” said Ragoczy Franciscus as he rose from the floor. “You have told us much of worth, and I am grateful to you.” He knew that leaving her money would insult her, so he took a small jade ornament he had removed from their clothes case and laid it on the ground next to her chair. “To remember us by.”
Her eyes glittered. “Noccu did right in sending you to me,” she said, slurring the last of her words. “I do not often have visitors but my grandchildren, so I am honored to have such fine guests, if only for a short while. You may be sure I will remember you until I am long in my grave.”
“Thank you.” Ragoczy Franciscus reverenced her once more, this time with a flourish.
Rojeh also stood up. “You have been good to receive us.”
She was trying to rise from her chair, without much success. “I have never had two such grand gentlemen as you come into my house before.”
Ragoczy Franciscus extended his hand to her. “Let me help you.”
She took his hand and struggled to her feet. “Too much plum wine,” she muttered.
“Drunk in a good cause,” said Rojeh, helping to steady her.
“The summer is ending,” she said, and put a hand to her eyes. “Soon the winter will return, and the cold will be everywhere again. Terrible cold.”
“Winter comes every year,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “As does summer.”
“But not as winter has come the last two years,” she said in a tone that would countenance no dispute. “The last two years have been different. Longer. Harsher.” She rubbed her forehead as if trying to stimulate thought. “Wolves have come down from the high mountains and taken hens from their roosts and lambs from the fold. Fields have lain barren from ice. The dead lie unburied.”
“Certainly the years have been colder,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, starting to make his way to the door.
“And the sun darker,” she persisted.
“Yes, that as well,” said Ragoczy Franciscus as he and Rojeh reached the door. “We will speak well of you to others.” He started toward his horse, relieved to hear Rojeh behind him.
They mounted up as the old woman watched them from the door of her house; Rojeh had the mule’s lead and he fell in behind Ragoczy Franciscus as he resumed their long journey up the mountain trails to the rocky crest. The small house was soon lost in the dark and the trees behind them, and they made their way by starlight at first, and moonlight later. When they stopped at the base of a waterfall to permit the horses and mule to drink, Rojeh finally asked, “That story of hers: how much of it was yours?”
“Too much: the people here have not forgotten. But it is not accurate, either. There were no twenty sons and twenty daughters, nor thousands of warriors; our best fortress was never grand, and there were no more than three fortresses below the citadel, not a line of fifty of them. The battles would have turned out differently if there had been even a third of that number of men, or fortresses. My father’s lands were extensive, but he did not rule all of the Carpathians and the Dacian plain,” he answered. “My father did build the citadel—that much was true—and it was burned with most of the defenders in it. I had already been taken in battle and was the prisoner of the troops sent to attack us. It is most unlucky that so much of the story remains intact.” He stared off into the night. “My father was betrayed, but not as she said: one of his brothers-in-law was promised the leadership of the Erastna—”
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