Enchanted Forests (51 page)

man huddled in a blanket, coughing so that Jontano's lungs hurt

to hear him.

"No sense you staying with me, boy," said Martin when

Jontano offered to bide with him. "You'll come over every day

and weed the garden and bring me bread, but until this cursed

weather lets up, we won't have a chance to rebuild here."

Rebuild! Jontano couldn't reply. How could Martin even think

of rebuilding the shattered house? What was the point? If the

Marrazzanos had better guns and better positions, it would just

be destroyed again. And yet, Martin had been born here, as had

he himself.

THE MEMORY OF PEACE         333

"Go to Rado Korsic's shop," Martin added. "That's the first

thing to do today, once you get Roman to a safe place. You must

give him the musket and the pistol to repair."

Aunt Martina and Mama each gave Martin a kiss on the

cheek, then slung bags over their shoulders and set off down the

street, Roman trudging between them, his thin shoulders shaking

under the blanket. Jontano picked up a blanket wrapped around

the cooking gear and the bag containing plate wrapped in a cush-

ion of clothing, said good-bye to his uncle, and with a heavy

heart picked his way through the ruined house.

A flash of white, the suggestion of green life, the respiration

of trees, the dense scent of unbroken loam ... He bent down and

pulled the six painted cards from underneath a fallen plank.

"What is it, Jono?" asked Uncle Martin sharply. "Are you

well?"

"I'm fine," said Jono, straightening up and steadying the bag

of plate. He set both bag and blanket down, stuck the cards in-

side his shirt and cinched his belt more tightly so that the cards

lay snugly against his skin. "Just thought I saw something." He

hoisted up his burdens again and left the house behind, following

his mother and aunt down the street.

Mama and Aunt Martina were arguing in low voices. Go here?

Go there? No, I won't ask Widow Vanyech, not after what she

said about Stepha. They'll know in the marketplace. It isn't safe.

Nowhere is safe, not after yesterday.

So they walked down into the bowl of the valley, down toward

the central marketplace, down toward Murderer's Row. Heavy

clouds scudded in, blanketing the sky, and it began to rain again.

Roman coughed and snuffled, and began to cry.

"Here, I'll carry you." Jontano lifted the boy up and was

aghast to realize how light he was, how slight a burden even

with the other things Jontano was carrying. Roman lay his head

on Jontano's shoulder and promptly fell asleep.

Even in the rain the marketplace was thronged with other ref-

ugees, fleeing their ruined homes. Still holding Roman, Jontano

stood guard over the bags and blankets under cover of an empty

stall while Mama and Aunt Martina forayed out into the crowd

to see if they could find someone they knew who would offer

them shelter.

As if they knew and understood—and why not? Why shouldn't

they know?—and chose now to launch a new attack because it

might demoralize and kill more and even more of their hated en-

emies, the Marrazzanos opened fire.

334 Kate Elliott

The marketplace erupted into cacophony. People screamed,

ran, bled, died. Paralyzed, Jontano huddled with Roman in the

empty stall. Was it better to stay here, where Mama and Aunt

Martina knew he was, and risk being crushed by bricks, if the

stall fell in? Was it better to run outside, where rounds filled with

shot might explode, scattering like thrown knives into every per-

son within a stone's throw of their landing? He didn't know what

to do. He couldn't think. Roman was too terrified and sick to do

more than sob quietly against his chest. They were all alone, and

outside the panicked crowd surged this way, that, trying to win

free of the open market square but for what safety? There was no

safety in Trient, not any longer.

The stall rocked, and a few bricks tumbled down. Roman's

sobs cut off, and he lifted his head and stared with a glazed ex-

pression at the wall.

"Mama!" he said suddenly.

There! In the crowd, Jontano saw Aunt Martina fighting her

way through the mob toward them, but then the press of the

crowd shoved her back, to one side, farther and farther away, and

she was lost.

"They'll meet us at home," said Jontano with more force than

confidence. Another hit nearby sent a second avalanche of bricks

tumbling from the stall next door. Jontano eyed the bags, sorting

through their contents in his mind: which to take? which to

leave? He grabbed the firearms and a blanket stuffed with

clothes, kettle, the butcher knife, and the last two jars of pickled

figs. With Roman clinging to his chest, he heaved the blanket

over his back and strode out.

By now the crowd had begun to disperse, fleeing down side

streets. Jontano hesitated. The clouds opened up, and it began to

pour down rain. He darted into the nearest boulevard, looking for

shelter for Roman. If he could only find a place, he could put the

boy there and come back for the other things, come back to find

Mama and Aunt Martina. He was halfway down the first block

of shattered buildings before he realized he was on Murderer's

Row.

Roman, drenched, began to cough heavily. More explosions

sounded from the marketplace.

"Mama," whimpered Roman between coughs.

"We'll find a dry place to hide," said Jontano. "Then I'll go

back and look for her. Don't worry."

Ahead he saw a doorway. He ducked inside. One wall had

fallen in, but the rest of the shop looked reasonably sturdy. It

THE MEMORY OF PEACE

335

smeUed dry, oddly enough, musty, as if perfumed with old herbs.

A wooden counter ran along one side of the shop, and he set Ro-

man down in its lee and wrapped him in overlarge clothes and in

the two blankets. The boy was shivering with fever, half asleep.

Straightening up, Jontano stared into a forest. If he stepped

past the counter, he would step into the woodlands....

Shaking himself, he realized that he was staring at a huge pic-

ture, a painting, a painting of a forest. A moment later, he knew

he was in old Aide's shop. Without meaning to, he reached in-

side his shirt and drew out the painted cards. He held up the card

depicting the forest, and in the gray light of the overcast day, he

saw that the card and the painting were the same- Except the

painting, as tall as he was, was somehow more lifelike. It seemed

to pulse with life, as if he could step inside it. It called to him.

It would be safe there. If only the trees grew again in Trient, it

would be safe. There would be no more fighting,

"Mama." whimpered Roman. Jontano jerked, startled to still

be standing in the dim shop. He knelt. The boy was hot, too hot.

He needed a doctor. He needed his mother.

Oh, Lord, thought Jontano. What if Mama was killed? I

couldn't bear it. I just couldn't bear it.

"Listen, Roman, I must go out and look for Mama and your

mother. You must stay here and not move. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Don't leave me."

"Just for a little while. I'll come back."

"Just for a little while," echoed the boy weakly.

Reluctantly, Jontano left Roman and the forest behind. Inter-

mittent shelling still peppered the central city, but the worst of it

had moved toward the north. There was more musket fire than

anything, as if a skirmish had broken out along the eastern line.

Only a few shapes, more ghosts than people, haunted the

marketplace. Jontano hurried, giving them a wide berth, and

found the stall where he and Roman had sheltered. It had col-

lapsed, burying their possessions. He scrabbled at the bricks

while the musket fire got louder.

"Jono! Oh, Lord, Jono."

He leaped up. It was his Mama.

She crushed him against her. "No time," she said. "No time.

They're coming."

"Who is coming?"

"Martina went back to warn Martin. I don't know what they

can do. The Marrazzanos have broken past Genera! Vestmo's

336 Kate Elliott

troops. That's what everyone's saying in the streets. I came back,

hoping to find you. Ah. Lord, what's to become of us?"

"We must get Roman," said Jontano. "He's down—he's down

in old Aldo's shop."

Mama looked at him. A brief spark of something—fear? antic-

ipation? anger?—lit her eyes, and then it fled, leaving her look-

ing tired and resigned. "We'll go get him and try to get back

home if we can. We might as well die there, even if it is in ruins,

as anywhere else."

She said nothing more as they ran down Murderer's Row, hug-

ging half fallen walls, undl she knelt beside Roman, who had by

now lapsed into a feverish sleep.

"Poor child," she said. "He deserved a better death than this."

"He doesn't have to die!" cried Jontano. Mama looked up at

him, and with a horrid shock, like a claw at his throat, he knew

that she had given up, that it had all, the years of fighting to sur-

vive, become too much for her to bear.

"I'm so dred," she said. "We'll just rest here a few moments."

She lay down beside Roman and between one instant and the

next, she was asleep.

She had given up. Jontano shivered. He wanted to cry, for her,

for himself, for everything, but he had no tears.

The forest breathed, exhaling its scent around him. His hand

clutched the card, the leaves unfurled to their full glory, the

spring flowers passing into the blooms of summer—for it was al-

most summer. Tomorrow would be summer. He remembered that

with mild surprise. He smelled, not rain, but the scent of the for-

est shedding moisture after rain, warmed by the new sun of sum-

mer. He heard the mstling of leaves, the scrambling of mice in

the undergrowth, not the musketfire, louder now but strangely

dull, too, as if from behind the mist, behind an impenetrable

hedge.

Once there had been no war in the valley of Trient, though

there had always been wolves.

Mama slept, curled around Roman. Perhaps she would sleep

forever, never have to wake to the death of all that she had held

dear, never have to remember everything she had lost.

Jonlano circled the counter and came right up to the painting.

It seemed to have grown since he last saw it. It filled the entire

wall, as if it was straining, trying to fill the shop. He lifted his

arm and pressed the card against it. If only he could find a way

through, for himself, for Mama, for Roman and Aunt Martina

THE MEMORY OF PEACE         337

and Uncle Martin. For the graves, so that the dead could lie in

respectful silence, as they deserved.

If only the trees could grow again in Trient, as they once had,

filling the parks and the boulevards, filling the once-handsome

city with their summer fullness and the stark lines of their winter

beauty.

He felt the paper thin bark of a birch tree under his hand, peel-

ing away where his fingers scraped at it. He fell the flowers

blooming under his feet, vines twining up his legs. A glade of

sweet grass filled old Aldo's shop, and a lilac bush grew, lush

and thick, to shelter Mama and Roman.

Oaks burst up in the marketplace, an ancient grove, watchful

and airy. Murderer's Row erupted into an orchard of pears and

apples and cherry trees, all mingled together, and the musketfire

faded as the Vestino Line, the ruins of Saint Harmonious Bridge,

the far hills were swamped by ash and beech. Aspen sunk their

roots into the low places of the valley, blanketed with ponds and

pools of brackish water left over from the rains. In the northern

hills, tulips and elms lifted toward the sky, and in the meadows

where blocks of houses had once stood, around springs made by

wells, great patches of flowering shrubs spread out into a sea of

color. Jasmine, bougainvillaea, and twining wisteria wrapped

themselves around the shell of the house where Uncle Martin sat

watch and Aunt Martina cooked over an open fire, her eyes red

from weeping, and filled the ruined walls with their fragrance.

There were no more than a few startled comments, which

Jontano heard on the wind as if from another life, so quickly did

the forest take root in lands it had once had all to its own self.

The cannon, the barricades, the buildings whole and shattered,

the boulevards, all were subsumed. Trees sprang up where peo-

ple stood, Marrazzano and Trassahar alike, beech and oak, birch

and aspen.

Night fell and passed and with the new sun, summer came to

Trient, which was no longer a city but a vast woodland, popu-

lated by trees and the many small, quiet inhabitants of the forest

The valley lay at peace in the calm of a summer morning.

Everything Has a Place

by Barbara A. Den2

Barbara Dem. lives and writes near Poulsbo, Washington,

in a house surrounded by tall cedars. She has had careers

in libraries, radio broadcasting, arts administration, and

desktop publishing. She shares her life with husband,