Eventually, Villiam grew tired of Marek’s shuffling gait, and decided to ride with the priest on horseback to the manor while the rest of the procession walked. He was glad the wedding was over. His new shoes had gotten scuffed on the church steps when he’d tripped a bit.
‘Did anybody see me trip on the steps of the church?’ he asked Father Barnabas.
‘Nobody noticed. They were all too stunned by your lordliness.’
Villiam had made a spectacle of his vows, reciting them by heart, his voice so loud that Agata bristled and turned her head away from the words. ‘To have and to hold, in bed and at the table, whether she be fair or ugly, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live.’
Agata made no vows, as was customary for the bride.
‘I think we both performed well,’ Villiam said to the priest.
‘Everyone was very impressed with us,’ Barnabas replied.
Villiam spent the rest of the ride with his arms wrapped around Father Barnabas’s middle. He imagined Dibra would be jealous now, knowing what good fortune awaited him. She had never been grateful or tender with him, only distracted and annoyed. And her affair with Luka was embarrassing. What kind of woman wants a man who cares for horses? Villiam watched the land pass—each jolt of the horse hurt his bones, and he gripped the priest a little tighter. Dibra had been so protective of Jacob, as though she didn’t want Villiam to even know the boy. But now he had a second chance at fatherhood. Maybe he would enjoy it this time. He would teach the baby to be funny. And he would make sure the boy would take his side in any argument. It would be easy to mold the babe to his liking, Agata was so mute and passive. Was she even a real girl? he wondered. He’d barely given her any thought. She’d stood so still during the service. Her hand emitted absolutely nothing when he placed the ring on its finger. Her lips were dry, almost imperceptible when he’d kissed them. She was nothing, she did nothing. But Villiam trusted the priest that the child would be a blessing. He rested his head against the priest’s shoulder, cool with sweat. He breathed in deeply. It never occurred to him that the priest was crumbling under the pressure. Barnabas had never had any faith in the Second Coming, but now faced with the possibility, he worried that a messiah would outsmart him as soon as it was old enough to speak.
Villiam lifted his head up and spoke softly into the priest’s ear.
‘I love you, Father,’ he said. It wasn’t quite love that Villiam felt, but an enduring trust and need for constant affirmation that was as good as love.
‘And I love you,’ the priest said back.
* * *
*
Grigor had missed the wedding procession. He had stayed the whole previous day and night with Ina. They had eaten eggs and wheatmeal for their supper, and then eggs again for breakfast. Ina had snored like a chirping bird as she slept. Grigor had woken up a few times in the darkness to listen, amazed. In the morning, he preferred to do her the favor of clearing the brush outside the cabin, sweeping inside, and fixing a few loose boards on the door while she went off to the church. Any anger and suspicion he’d once had for Ina had now transferred to the priest and Villiam. He didn’t want to show his face and let his fury be seen in the village. Anyway, it had been too late for him to dye his clothes. The villagers would have shunned him. ‘Old man can’t be bothered.’ Alone at Ina’s, he felt light and empty, detached from the great weight of confusion he had carried there the day before.
After mending the door, Grigor beat Ina’s mattress and the small worn rug, brought water from the well, chopped wood and stacked the pieces outside, dug up a dozen wild potatoes and put them on the fire now to roast. He was eager to hear what Ina had seen at the wedding, what of the nun, any gossip. But he was more eager just to be with Ina again, to feel the space that she created with her mind. The world felt bigger in her presence. Perhaps it had something to do with her eyes. Grigor wanted to see them again. Maybe he had been wrong to think they were grotesque. He loved her irrespective of her beauty anyway. Ina had taken him in and touched his mind with hers. She did not address him like a man, but a neutral soul, and Grigor liked that, finally relieved of what he had felt had been useless for decades—the need to prove his manhood, to be something other than himself. He could change now, like he wanted to change. He felt there was more to learn from Ina, and he was afraid to return to his son’s home, where he wasn’t really wanted anyway. Vuna and Jon were not free. Their idea of life was to work the land and worship, and to have another child who could work the land and worship when they were gone. Their only anxiety was in what the land would produce for them. Didn’t they know that the land was God itself, the sun and moon and rain, that it was all God? The life in their seeds of wheat, the manure from the cow, that was God. The priest had nothing to do with it. Grigor could see that now. Ina had cleared his vision. He poked at the potatoes in the fire, threw a fistful of rosemary at the singeing skins. They filled the cabin with a delicious aroma.