‘And what about Jude, Petra?’ Marek asked, still picking his cuticles. ‘Do you think he is proud of me?’
Petra knew better than to answer.
‘Would you like a little song and dance?’ she asked.
‘Sure.’
Her dance was simply a curtsy and sway and another curtsy and sway back. She sang nicely, Marek thought. When he’d had enough, he patted the bed beside him and said, ‘Stop and sit for a moment.’
Petra complied.
‘What is it, my lord?’
‘Do you think I’m ugly?’
‘Oh no,’ Petra said. ‘You have nice red hair, and your knees have such a nice shape to them.’ She traced his knee with her finger to demonstrate. Marek pushed her hand away. ‘My lord, what have you done with your fingers?’ She grabbed his hand and held his fingers close to her face to inspect the bloodied cuticles.
‘It’s nothing. I do it to myself. It distracts me from time.’
‘I should put something on these wounds,’ she said and went to fetch her salve.
* * *
*
Grigor moved into Ina’s old cabin and did the best he could to figure out what grew wild in the woods. He brought morels and wild asparagus to market. Dandelion buds and ramps, groundnuts and pokeweed that he found by the stream. Juneberries, hickory nuts, barberries, burdock root. Chickweed, pigweed, and acorns he found in a grove of trees further out past where he’d ever gone. He loved to forage. He felt wisdom in his eyes, directing him to scan the ground and follow the birds in the air to where food grew like manna from the trees and bushes. He traded the wild things for favors to help Jon and Vuna prepare for the baby. It was still months away, but he already loved the wee thing inside Vuna’s belly. He had big dreams for the child, to teach it the truth. He wanted to ask Ina if she would be the child’s godmother.
So one day, Grigor came to the manor to bring Ina a wreath of canniba along with the herbs he picked. Petra went down to greet him and to pay him with a bit of wool from the lambs. Marek watched from the window as the two talked in the yard outside the kitchen.
‘Vuna could knit some socks for her baby with this wool,’ Petra said.
‘Thank you,’ Grigor said smiling, and then he asked what he asked upon every visit. ‘Could I see Ina today?’
‘She will say no like she always does,’ Petra answered.
‘But today I’ve brought her some canniba. Maybe we could smoke some together, Ina and me.’
From the window, Marek watched Petra disappear back through the kitchen door. He heard her steps through the manor, up the stairs toward Agata’s room. She knocked. Marek went into the hall to listen.
‘Ina, Grigor is here. Do you want to see him?’
‘No,’ Ina said through the door. ‘I’m just putting the baby down for a nap.’
‘He has canniba today, and he has asked every time if he could see you,’ Petra said. ‘Should I tell him to go away?’
After a few moments, Ina went out into the hallway, much to Petra’s surprise. Nobody had seen Ina in a long time. The old woman looked younger than she used to. The comfort of the manor had done her good. Her hair was now thick and brown, hidden under a white veil and swept cleanly away from her forehead, which was pale and smooth. Her wrinkles seemed to have filled with joy, restoring her to a vibrancy that, in her previous decrepit state, no one could have imagined. Her bulging eyes seemed to have shrunk into their sockets, or perhaps her face had widened and rounded out so that they didn’t appear too large anymore. And her body had broadened, tightened against the clothes she’d taken from Dibra’s closet. From down the hall, Marek stared in awe at her changed appearance and at her smooth stride—had she grown taller?—as she hurried down the stairs. Petra followed her.
Marek saw his chance to sneak into the room for a private conversation with his mother. He had prepared what he would say. ‘I’m lord of Lapvona now, and I demand that you be a mother to me.’ His lower lip already trembled as he lifted his hand to knock on the door. To his amazement, the door swung open, revealing the sunlit room, the cradle by the open window, and Agata lying behind a gauzy curtain that hung down from the canopy bed.
‘Mother?’ he called.
She seemed to be asleep.
Marek crept slowly across the stone floor, careful to step on his toes so that his fancy heels didn’t strike the ground and make a noise and wake the babe. The light from the window streamed powerfully into the bassinet. He wanted to see if the child was the son of God indeed. Did it resemble Marek at all? As he approached, he felt a heaviness in his limbs, as though the life were draining out of his body. The baby was doing it to him, he thought. When he finally got close enough to look at it, the babe was curled up in a ball, its face hidden by a little bonnet. He reached toward it and gripped its tiny, soft shoulder to flip it on its back. He had never touched a baby before and wasn’t sure if he should be afraid of it, if it might wake suddenly and bite his hand like a sleeping dog. But it didn’t bite him. It merely opened its eyes, which were large and brown, and looked up at him and smiled a toothless, baby smile. Marek felt his heart drop. Having never known love before, he couldn’t recognize the feeling. Something was terribly wrong, he felt.