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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.
‘Can a savior bring the dead back to life?’ someone had asked the priest after Mass last week.
‘A savior can do anything. Anything you wish, He will grant. Jesus turned wine into roses, did he not?’
‘You said he turned fish into bread.’
‘Anything you want. Give Him a gold coin and He’ll turn it into a key that opens heaven’s gate.’
‘Is the Devil still free?’
‘Yes,’ the priest said gravely. ‘We must all be very careful. The gates of heaven are still shut, and the Devil may come back here if he gets restless roaming. We’ve got to get him back to hell. That’s what the savior is for.’
‘Get the Devil back to hell, yes,’ they all said, nodding, grateful that the savior was on the way. And they loved the nun for this, a holy mother, the deliverer of mercy. Thank God.
For the wedding, the guards had taken posts along the edges of the fields and were directed to execute any person attempting to enter the village. At any wedding, there was a threat that some nefarious party might intervene. But the priest had given specific warnings to Villiam that there were those nearby who would want to sabotage his union, evildoers who knew damn well that the baby in the nun’s belly was a savior, and they didn’t want anyone to be saved. Villiam played along, directing Klarek to increase security. He felt wise to do so. There was word on the wind that the bandits had heard of the nun’s pregnancy, that it was rumored among them that she was of bandit descent. If this were ever confirmed, surely they would storm the manor and take the Christ as their own.
Marek followed the priest’s horse on foot, taking the customary place of the groom’s parents. The villagers gasped and pointed as he passed. Not only was the boy alive, but his health was much improved. He wore red garments and walked sullenly, coolly, his mind ablur with rage. To him, the marriage was an act of theft. His mother had been returned to him, and now Villiam was stealing her away. He blamed Agata, however. To blame Villiam would have been to break his guilty promise of devotion. Was the death of a son equivalent to a stolen mother? Only God could judge.
It wasn’t until they reached the village, with all the Lapvonians in their ghastly red costumes, that the idea came to Marek. He picked a rock up off the ground as the crowds thickened, hid it in his hand, waited for the right moment, then threw it at Agata. The rock hit her in the back, and she tripped and fell, holding her belly, and landed facedown in the dirt. Villiam wasn’t paying attention. He simply kept walking and waving and nodding to the crowds. The priest pulled up on his horse, who neighed, astonishing Villiam, who laughed at what he thought was the priest’s incompetence on horseback. And before he could turn to look, a villager had helped Agata up off the ground, an old lady with huge, bulging eyes.