Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) (13 page)

‘It
is just not possible. She has been indisposed for travel.’

‘Is
my sister unwell?’

‘Not
quite as serious as you think,’ said Zola, exchanging a look with Jean. ‘But a
condition that must keep her housebound for a period...’
We
were interrupted by a servant girl
. ‘Ah… time for dinner.’

We
entered the dining room but
Marek
pulled Zola close
to him to continue their conversation, while Jean asked me whether I preferred
garnets or emeralds and proceeded to boast about the
jewellery
on his fingers that was worth more than Zola’s house. He seemed uninterested in
the conversation behind him, yet I had one ear listening intently and taking
check of my exits from this madhouse.

‘Your
sister will grow impatient if we do not leave tomorrow.’

‘I
simply cannot leave here yet,’
Marek
said to Zola. ‘I
promised Celeste that I would look after her until I could find a better place.
And if that means delaying seeing my sister then it is a choice I have made and
one she must accept. Celeste cannot come with us. She would not feel
comfortable, and the other alternative is just as bad. I cannot abandon her
here alone. She can neither speak nor write. What would she do? I must find her
suitable accommodation before we leave.’

Zola
bowed a moment in thoughtful pose. ‘Yes, I see your point.’

Marek
looked across at me with a frown of concern and my heart performed a somersault
in my chest, this time without the fear.

We
sat down at the table,
Marek
and me on one side as a
couple, facing the extravagantly coiffed and pampered beauty and her special
guest. The conversation between the three was relaxed, and Zola continued with
perfection as host. Jean was effusive in his descriptions of the city while we tasted
short pastries from silver trays. I nibbled at mine, fearing that it may have
been tainted with magic or poisoned.

Jean
talked about living in another city and how he spent his time between the
circle, his family and Zola’s place. The very use of the word circle took my
attention, first conjuring up images of animal sacrifices. But yet as I sat
there it was like being in a dream, and feelings of wellbeing overtook any
concerns. Jean’s courteous manner seemed to put me somewhat at ease and I found
myself imagining what it would be like to travel in style also. I was curious
to know why Jean had told me I would one day be wealthy. It was surely demon’s
words used to lure me into thinking my future was
firm and
safe, yet the ease with which I felt in this stranger’s company temporarily
transcended any thoughts of danger. I was
mesmerised
by their stories and listened to the pair describe how they had danced together
in exotic cities and how they shopped for cloth and trinkets in merchant stalls
across the lands. My head lightened and my spirits lifted while I began to
imagine myself with
Marek
in the places they had
visited.

‘Now
where is this boy you speak of?’ asked Jean keenly.

‘In bed, dear Jean.
It has been too eventful. He is sleeping now.’

‘What
a shame! I’m so looking forward to meeting our new protégé.’

‘Oh,
Jean, you say the strangest things,’ said Zola, tapping his arm affectionately.
‘Behave yourself.’

Marek
asked Jean how well he had known Oleander.

‘She
is like my own sister,’ said Jean. ‘We are part of her circle and I hear she is
preparing a wonderful celebration when we arrive as she commences a new chapter
in her very long life.’

‘It
all sounds extraordinary,’ said
Marek
. ‘Everyone
seems to know more about my sister than I do.’ I could detect from a break in
Marek’s
voice that he was feeling less confident with every
passing minute, so overwhelming was the other man. Zola began laughing louder
than normal, and Jean was most talkative and animated.

 
‘Oleander is the most wonderful creature that
ever set foot on this earth and grows more beautiful by the day.’

‘Then
I cannot wait to meet her,’ said
Marek
.

Zola
had hired plenty of workers this evening. Serving women entered the dining room
carrying dinner plates; steam and the busy sounds of cooks wafted in from the
galley behind them. The aromas of parsley and fennel, and other delicious and
unusual
flavours
, filled the air. On the platters
placed before us were decorated portions of meat as thick as my wrist and
saliva pooled under my tongue. Never had I seen such fine cuisine.

Jean
took his serviette, shook it out, and laid it on his lap. He did it so
naturally like he had done it a thousand times before, all the while keeping
the conversation going with his stories. I was given rich, sweet, red wine,
something I had never tasted before, and I drank it greedily.

I
watched how Zola ate with her spoon and an unusual two-pronged utensil. I
copied though it was without finesse, and I was suddenly ashamed being so
ignorant of table manners. The feeling of awkwardness passed when I sensed the
room floating around me.

The
room began to spin and objects seemed to disappear from my vision replaced by
patches of blackness. Faces were turned to me as though waiting for a response,
yet I had not heard any question. Jean crushed handfuls of food and thrust
these uncouthly into his mouth. Where had his perfect manners gone? Or had I
imagined that?

Marek
took several sips of his wine, closed his eyes, and then grasped the side of
the table. Faces then became blurred. My eyes felt suddenly heavy as I began to
slip from the chair. It was the last I remember of the dinner, and our night of
pretence
was over.

Chapter 6

Marek

The sky was so white it was
blinding, making it difficult to open my eyes. It felt as if I had slept for
days, so dulled was my mind.

I
lay in a soft bed beside a low window that allowed me to see the street below.
Servant girls carried empty baskets on their way to the market, which suggested
it was still early. Well-dressed men walked past with intent. Servants had put
firewood in my hearth and I was coddled in warmth. I wanted to sink back into
the folds and fall into another heavy slumber but images danced on the surface
of my mind, marring these momentary feelings of comfort.

Celeste!
I stood up and my legs felt heavy as if I had
run a hundred miles or more through the night. I was wearing only my
undergarments and saw my clothes discarded on the floor. The bottoms of the trousers
were wet, and my shirt from the previous evening was stained with splashes of
red. My fingernails were filled with dirt and there was a strange metallic
taste in my mouth. Then slowly I remembered the events from the night before.

Fragments
appeared in my head in flashes. We had been enjoying dinner. The conversation
was light and I had been
marvelling
at the taste of
the wine, then the floor seemed to wobble beneath my feet. Nausea overcame me.
When I went to excuse myself, Celeste fell to the floor from her chair. I did
not have time to catch her. Jean said that everything was all right, that our
bodies weren’t used to such rich foods.

Jean
carried Celeste to her room after dinner and said she needed to rest. When I
tried to enter her room to check on her he had patted me on the back and told
me that it was best to let her sleep. I too then headed towards my room but
Zola and Jean both pulled at my arms, telling me the night was young. My frail
protests were met with even more force and they dragged me playfully down the
stairs and out the front door. I remember feeling alive again when the icy
night air hit my face, and thinking it odd seeing steam rising from my own
mouth, but not from theirs. Jean and Zola were on either side of me as we walked
through the town, bound together by our secret. We passed people who nodded
their greetings and Jean made insulting comments to everyone who walked by. I
can still see the shocked faces of some. He thought it was humorous.

We
came to the river where several men sat in a moored boat, drinking from skin
casks. Zola asked if we could sit with them but Jean did not wait for their
reply and boarded the craft anyway. The two of us followed. Jean stood in the
middle of the boat and started rocking it and I felt I would be sick with the
swaying motion turning over the contents of my stomach. I was annoyed that he
was behaving like a child yet I found it difficult to gather my thoughts, and
my speech was barely coherent.

The
bearded fishermen grew angry and shouted for us to get off their boat. One of
them grabbed a handful of Jean’s jacket. Jean looked at his creased jacket and
at the hand twisting his lapel, his cruel joviality coming to an abrupt end.
His white jacket was marked with fish gut and dirt. He turned and looked at the
fisherman who had threatened to gut us like fish. It is difficult to know how
long these moments took and whether some of my description is interpretation.
The smaller man’s lips were drawn back in anger but his expression was slowly
turning into terror. The next memories are inconceivable, and I have had to
wade through the events inch by inch, which are as murky and horrible as thick
grey mud, to determine what I saw, or what I thought I saw.

Whatever
was in the wine clouded my memory; parts of which was shapeless
colour
swimming in mist, and other in vivid horrid detail.

Jean
leant over the man and I remember twisting my neck to see exactly what it was
he was doing. Jean put his hands on the fisherman’s shoulders and placed his
mouth on his neck. The man struggled to release himself from Jean’s embrace
before collapsing like a large puppet whose strings are tangled. There was a
loud splash as Jean pushed what seemed to be a lifeless body off the boat.

I
sat stunned, attempting unsuccessfully to blink away the image. I used to
listen to the stories that men, young and old, would tell at the
osteria
. They were drinking stories told proudly and
worn like badges of great achievement. The men did reckless things, each
helping the other piece together events from the nights before, recalling their
drunken stupors. But the one I could tell now, though I never would, was not
about drunken friends trespassing and breaking clay casks of beer, nor was it
about brawls over women.

The
two other fishermen tried to flee the boat by launching themselves off the
side, but one never made it. Zola called for me to catch him before he got
away. I cannot say why I grabbed the man by his coat and pulled him up again,
knowing that he had just seen his friend die in an inexplicable manner. The
spell I was under – which I am convinced more than ever was from the
beverage at dinner – made it impossible to carry out my own commands, or
exercise independent thoughts effectively. Did I know I was pulling him back
towards his death or did I think that in some way I might be saving his life?

Jean
patted me on the back as reward for such quick action, saving ‘bravo’ like I
had done something noteworthy, won a fight or come into some money, saving him
from having to dive into the water. It was nothing like that, I can assure you.

The
fate of this man was the same but this time it was Zola who put him into a
trance, with fangs like a spider into his neck. I have a clearer picture of
this man. With every breath I took, the man’s skin grew greyer until he
appeared shrunken and bloodless. Zola’s full lips were around the man’s mouth,
her eyes closed, as in a lover’s embrace. As she drained whatever life she
could from him I suddenly
realised
what I was party
to. It was repulsive. These people were savages. I pulled the man free, his
weightless body hanging over me, my arms around him protectively. I had not
realised
that he was already dead. Zola’s eyes opened
immediately, a flash of anger across her face, her mouth bloodied, and she
struck me hard before clutching at her own chest as if she had lost something
valuable. She screamed at me to never do that again, and then her eyes widened
over my shoulder and she was screaming at Jean. And that’s where my bizarre
night suddenly ended. However, there is one further memory that makes the least
sense, though I believe this may have been imagined.

Jean
was in my room, his eyes blazing. I felt teeth on my neck and someone holding
my shoulder. When someone else entered he stopped abruptly. There was a flash
of green, a scuffle,
the
door to my room slamming, and
shouting on the stairs.

The
next moment I was awake in my opulent bed and the previous night and its events
seemed like a bad dream.

I
searched for my leathers and the shirt made by Silvia, but they were missing
from my room, perhaps to be laundered. I put on a fresh pair of trousers from
the wardrobe and a new shirt then felt behind my head. There was a lump the
size of a baby’s fist yet I could not explain its origin.

I
knocked on Celeste’s door but there was no answer. Downstairs, I intended to
confront both Zola and Jean but found only Zola in a large day room sipping
herbal water from a Chinese cup.

When
I asked her what she did the night before she looked perplexed before laughing
musically like a bird. I enquired of Jean’s whereabouts so I could confront him
about his lewd and murderous deeds. She said that he’d also had a bad reaction
from the wine and apologized, fearing that the beverage was very old and
probably had certain ingredients that had aged over time causing one to conjure
apparitions. She recalled that near the end of the night I fell down and cut my
head, and she and Jean had to help me to bed.

I
told her what I remembered and she looked bemused as if I had some unusual
handicap that she would not expect from me.

‘You
do have an imagination,
Marek
,’ she said softly,
calmly. ‘But to call us murderers of innocent fishermen is quite preposterous.
We did pass by some fishermen but I assure you that none of them were innocent.
We had to get away quickly before they exposed their own sinister intentions.’

‘No!’
I exclaimed a little too loudly. ‘The trousers I wore last evening are wet, my
shirt has blood…I know what I saw.’ Zola tried to explain that I fell into the
river and that the blood was from the cut on my head. But the explanations were
neither convincing nor sincere.

‘Perhaps
Celeste was right to fear you,’ I said. And then Zola’s expression turned
serious.

‘Believe
what you like, but remember without me you will not find your sister.’ She
returned to sipping her drink while the volume of liquid appeared to stay the
same.

I
returned upstairs to find that Celeste was not in her room. Her bed looked as
though it had not been slept in. The green dress that she had worn the night
before was missing.

Back
downstairs I demanded to know where she had gone.

‘What?’
said Zola, frowning with faked
concern.
‘She has run
away again?’ There was slight mockery in the way she touched her cheek in
thought. I felt a mixture of frustration and rage about the absurdity of this
situation and yet again the absence of concern for my friend. I rushed at her,
grabbing her arms hard and a sharp breath of shock escaped her. Never had I
been so forceful with a woman, but this was no ordinary woman.

‘Where
is she?’

‘Somewhere
else I presume.’

I
started to shake the answers from her but quite suddenly a sharp pain erupted
in my ears. I released her and sank to the floor.

‘Do
not touch me like that again,’ spat Zola, and through narrow slits I caught a
glimpse of glowing eyes, and her fingers stretched like claws.

The
pain worsened and I covered my ears, which gave me no relief. I curled into a
ball on the floor thinking that only my life ending would free me from so much
agony. ‘Please stop,’ I whispered, unsure if I had even uttered a sound.

Gradually
the pain eased until there was just a numbing feeling in my ears. I stayed on
the floor, afraid that if I moved, the pain would return.

‘Now,’
said Zola, brushing down her skirts. ‘Once you are calm then we can talk. We
are leaving today. Your sister wants you quickly now and I must obey her. We
must not talk anymore about last night. You had a bad dream and Celeste has
left. Do you understand? You cannot tame the wild beast within her,
Marek
. She is a free spirit. She does not want to belong to
you.’

I
nodded in resignation to prevent a repeat episode, my head still pounding a
little, although disbelief was perhaps evident in my face. Yesterday, I could
see that Celeste’s trust in me was returning.

‘Be
patient. And before you judge me too harshly, come with me and learn much from
your sister and the circle. I have a carriage to take us the rest of the way
for you are too weak to journey on foot, and there is Zeke to consider. The
effects of this wine may continue for days and you will hold us up. It appears
you are still just an untried youth after all,
Marek
.’

Her
words hurt more than the physical malady she had inflicted. I experienced
sudden guilt that I could not protect Celeste and guilt that I had assisted
with something unspeakable the night before; something I could not explain even
to myself. And despite all the trauma and self-doubt, I still cared what Zola
thought of me. I had an overwhelming urge to tell her that I was frightened,
that perhaps she was right: I was just a boy. She put her small hand on my
shoulder before I could say anything.

‘
Marek
,’ she said softly, her eyes a paler shade of
blue-green in the morning light. ‘I know that you are fond of Celeste and want
what’s best for her but my job here is to protect you. I’m sorry if I hurt you.
There is no permanent damage I assure you but sometimes, as a woman in this
world, I have to use such measures.’ She lowered her eyelids coyly. ‘It is
because I care deeply for you that I had to disable you.’

A
warning bell sounded inside me, telling me to run. If I believed all that I
thought I had witnessed, this woman was a monster. But I could not run. She was
not only a link to my sister, her charms brought out new feelings in me, and
such attraction I had not experienced before.

‘
Marek
,’ she continued. ‘I cannot read you anymore because
we are almost of the same blood now. We cannot read the thoughts of our own
kind unless we deliberately send them. Yet I feel I understand you. Perhaps I
have been waiting to meet someone like you my whole life.’

‘You
had better let Jean know…’ I said cynically.

‘Jean
is just a friend,’ she interrupted.

Zola
leaned into me and put her head on my chest. My breathing was still heavy and
my cheeks were wet with tears. Everything in my head seemed jumbled, my sense
of purpose clouded. I had no choice but to trust the girl who might have saved
my life, and not just once. I put my arms around her instinctively. In that
moment, she seemed so small and vulnerable, and I wondered if it ever came to
it whether I could protect her too.