‘Don’t be a coward,’ Jon said.
‘I’m only thinking of our future,’ Vuna said.
‘This is the trouble with women,’ Jon replied, his heart curdling against hers. ‘They would rather lie and pretend all is well and let the men tell the truth and pay the price for it.’
‘That’s not true!’ Vuna cried.
‘It’s true,’ Jon said.
Of course, Jon himself had no intention of telling anyone of the strangeness of their Christmas visit to the manor. He would never put himself in a position to be ridiculed. He was too proud. It was easier to lean on Vuna’s fear than to admit his own.
‘Fine,’ he said after a long silence. ‘We’ll tell them it was a nice time.’
‘Don’t be angry at me,’ Vuna said.
Jon was quiet.
* * *
*
When Grigor, Jon, and Vuna got back to the village, they found all the houses empty. The whole village was meeting in the square in the disappearing light. Apparently, the young couple who had visited the manor the day before had told the story of the fire in the manger, and all the villagers had taken great interest in the drama. They wanted to know what burned, how the fire started, how big the flames were, how far it spread, and how the fire got put out.
‘There was a big lake up there full of water,’ Emil said.
A more discerning group of people might have questioned this. But nobody questioned anything. There was no mob, no uprising. ‘Poor Villiam. He must have felt so sad to watch his crèche burn,’ was all they said. ‘Did you see the nun?’
The young couple shook their heads.
‘Did you see the fire?’ the villagers asked Jon and Vuna when they reached the center of the crowd.
‘We didn’t,’ Jon said.
‘Did you see the nun?’
‘We saw the lord and his son,’ Vuna said.
‘And the priest,’ Jon said.
‘Tell us what you ate,’ the villagers wanted to know.
So after a description of the fine food, how the servants changed the tablecloths between courses, the regal cloak the lord wore, the warm fire, and the strong ale, the villagers sang a few Christmas carols, then went home and thanked God that they had survived another holiday. They prayed for the lord and his wife and the unborn baby.
* * *
*
Perhaps it is most miraculous when God exacts justice even when no human lifts a finger. Or perhaps it is simply fate. Everything seems reasonable in hindsight. Right or wrong, you will think what you need to think so that you can get by. So find some reason here:
By midnight, Villiam had drunk half the bottle of wine, Ivan’s gift of poison, and was now dead on the floor of his bedroom next to Lispeth, who had died from only a drop on her tongue, so fragile was she, and so willing to leave this stupid life behind.
The priest had wandered into Villiam’s chambers, hoping to find some comfort in the lord’s arrogance, only to discover him dead, his mouth blackened with wine, his hands stretched out toward Lispeth, who lay silently on the floor like a doll. I must be imagining things, he thought. Barnabas went back to his room and locked the door, determined to go to bed and wake up to a bright new day, the horror of his hallucination wiped clean by sleep. But there was banging on his door. Mad with fear, he believed it was the Devil himself pounding his fist, his vicious dogs panting right outside. So Barnabas hanged himself with his bedsheet thrown over the rafter. Better to take his own life than have it taken, he reasoned.
It was not the Devil, of course, but a draft from the hall that shook the door. Marek had told Petra to leave a window open while he slept. A warm wind was coming in from the south, and it carried with it the strange, wistful scent of violets.
Spring
From the hallway, Marek could hear it crying. Like a crow cawing, arrogant and spoiled. A regular, gnawing complaint of need echoed through the door. Silence perturbed Marek, too, as he imagined the baby’s cries had been quieted by Agata’s breast in its mouth. And then there was the horror of Ina’s cooing, the singing, the laughter at the wee one in her arms, he presumed. Marek remembered the last time he’d nursed, a year ago now, in Ina’s small cabin in the woods, her nipple hardening in the back of his throat. That felt like a lifetime ago. Now he could demand that anyone nurse him. He could go down to Lapvona and point at any woman with an ample bosom and assign her to be his wet nurse for life, if he wanted. Maybe one day he would, he thought, if he grew desperate enough. If only his own mother would be willing, they might actually have a happy little family now at the manor. But the baby would be a distraction, always. Especially one that had been proclaimed the Christ. But who was there to verify that? The priest was long gone by now.