‘We’re halfway there,’ Marek answered.
‘I don’t care about riches,’ Jacob said. ‘I’d rather run away.’
‘Where would you go, and who would take care of you?’
‘I’d go to some strange land where the people don’t know me. Everyone knows me as Villiam’s son here. It’s boring. If I ran away, I would change my name.’
‘What new name would you choose?’ Marek asked.
‘I’d choose your name. Marek.’
Marek blushed. It was the most flattering thing Jacob had ever said to him.
‘Because they’d think I was a nobody,’ Jacob explained. ‘Your name has no dignity. So people would treat me like a normal person. You’re the lucky one, Marek. Nobody expects anything of you. I’m going to be married next year to my cousin in Kaprov, and I’ll have to sit around with her father so that he can do more business with mine. It’s all so stupid. I don’t care about any of it. If I had my way, I’d live like you, like a beggar.’
Marek didn’t defend himself, but he knew he was not a beggar. Everything he ate came from the land, and what Jude bought in trade for his lamb milk. The money he made selling his flocks to the northerners paid for the taxes he owed to Villiam and the monthly dues at the church, though they never attended, and the rest went for things like shoes and clothing, tools, rope, although there was rarely much left. Neither Marek nor Jude had ever begged anyone for anything, except God for His mercy and blessings. There were no beggars in Lapvona. Everyone had a skill and a purpose.
‘My father hates beggars, but I think they are free,’ Jacob went on.
Marek bristled at what he thought was Jacob’s naive hubris. He told God in his mind, ‘Forgive him his insolence,’ but only so that God heard him. Marek didn’t really care about God forgiving Jacob.
‘How much did your new boots cost?’ Marek asked.
‘How should I know? How much would you pay for them?’
‘Ten zillins?’
Jacob laughed. ‘This is why I envy you, Marek. You don’t know the meaning of money.’
They walked silently for a bit across the dark side of the mountain, and Marek’s sweaty shirt cooled as it clung to his chest. He watched Jacob walk ahead of him, the soles of his new shoes slippery on the dirt, his shiny trousers gleaming with the dust stirred at each step. Marek’s pants were worn thin at the knees and rolled up around the ankles. The material was stiff with dirt and stained and scratchy. Marek had only one pair of pants. Every time he saw Jacob, which was once a month or so, Jacob wore a new outfit, his garments perfectly fitted to his body, which was, month by month, taller and stronger and more beautiful, Marek thought. On any other day, he would have been happy to climb the mountain with Jacob, but he felt weary from last night’s beating and his time with Ina. He believed that Ina was like a mother to him, and that, had Agata not perished, he would have received the same closeness from her instead. He presumed that every child—he wasn’t sure when a person stopped being a child—sucked its mother’s tit to soothe its nerves, even with no milk to be had. He assumed Jacob did this as well. Jacob was so certain, so calm. And so Marek assumed that Jacob’s mother’s breasts must be much finer than Ina’s, and instead of envy toward Jacob for his good fortune, he felt anger, as though Jacob’s fortune were an insult to his own. Maybe it was the dark light and the smoothness of Jacob’s stride that pierced Marek’s heart with a disdain that he could not shake. ‘God, please relieve me of this temper,’ he prayed as he walked, but he was burning inside even as he was cool on the outside. Just then, they turned into the sun again and they were steps away from the cliff where Marek said the bird nests were supposed to be.
‘Can’t you walk any faster?’
In the sudden eye-blind of sun from shade, Marek hadn’t noticed that Jacob had gone on far ahead of him. Marek tried to run, but he tripped over a rock and hit himself in the chin on the ground. He accepted the pain gladly, as he understood that God was exacting punishment for the hatred Marek had felt in his heart just then. He got up, his ears ringing. His head rushed with blood. When he regained his balance, Jacob was yelling in the wind. ‘Show me where those birds are!’
Marek picked up the rock he had tripped over. It was heart shaped and heavy; he could carry it in one hand. He ran up the rest of the path to where Jacob stood, now overlooking the cliff. Just as Jacob turned and said, ‘I don’t see any nests up here. Why have you brought me—’ Marek flung the rock at him. Jacob, quick on his feet, stepped backward to avoid getting hit and swiveled his body toward Marek. So smooth were his movements, so quick was he, that these maneuvers happened simultaneously. He sprang from the cliff’s edge, pitched toward Marek, his face happy with fight, but his foot slipped—his new shoes were too slick—and he skidded backward and tried to catch his balance with one foot tensed on the broken root of a tree sticking out over the cliff, but he couldn’t. He fell. He fell and said one word as he flew down through the air: ‘No!’ and Marek heard him land on the plateau below.