The Passion of Dolssa (25 page)

After breakfast I ventured to Na Pieret’s vineyards in search of Garcia to haggle for more
viṇ
. It was a perfect autumn day, with sea breezes off the lagoon cooling the warm sunshine of late September. All nature, I felt, celebrated my joy with me. Blue, blue, blue were the sky and the sea, golden the hazy sunlight. Leafy vineyards chattered in the wind, but not as much as the army of Na Pieret’s harvesters did as they sliced fat clusters off the vines.

I found Jacme and Andrio lounging in the shade under an old stone wall and gave them the tongue-lashing I knew Na Pieret would wish them to have. They paid my scolding not a chestnut’s worth of attention. Perhaps I was too glad to truly harangue them.

“Find me a wife, Botille,” said the great bushy-bearded Jacme. “One who cooks fit for a queen, with an
aze
fit for a king!”

“Take your foolish talk away from me, Jacme,” I retorted. “I’ll find you a wife when you have more than two shillings in your pockets to feed her with. What’s your cooking wife to bake her dainty dishes with, fish bones and lizards’ heads?”

“Can you cook?” said that reprobate. “After half a pitcher of
viṇ
, even you’d be pretty.”

A shadow fell over my shoulder. I looked up to see Symo standing there listening to their insults.

Lovely.

He carried a long knife for slicing the woody grape stems, but now it looked like a weapon in his hands. But that may have just been his usual dragonlike expression. He said nothing, but leveled a look at the two wastrels—his own servants now. They rose to their feet and slunk back to work, muttering to each other when they thought he could no longer hear.

Symo’s glare in my direction was no more friendly than that he’d given to his hired hands. No salutation, no kindness to a
femna
. No courtesy whatsoever.

At least one of us bowed. “
Bonjọrn
to you, too, Symo,” I said.

If those glowering eyebrows were any thicker, they’d sprout leaves. When he was an old man, I’d wager, it would require a blade like his grape trimmer to mow them into submission. If he reached old age, that is—if someone didn’t murder him for general orneriness first. I preferred to avoid the brows, and their owner, so I resumed my walking along the path that wound through farm plots and vineyards, up to the high lookout over the lagoon.

“What do you want?” He jogged to catch up.

“Nothing from you,” I said. “I’m on my way to see Garcia. The tavern’s out of wine.”

“You can’t see Garcia,” said my sour-tempered companion. “He’s sick abed.”

“Sick?” I said. “Garcia? He’s never sick.”

“I suppose your word makes me a liar,” said Symo. “He hasn’t come to work today.”

“Poor man.” I looked about. “Which of Na Pieret’s servants can sell me wine?”

He paused in his tracks and stuck out his chest, the peacock. “You don’t need to ask a servant,” he said. “You can ask me.”

“Oh, can I deal directly with the heir to the estate? How fortunate I am today!”

It was fascinating, the way his features bunched up when he was angry. And he was so often angry that I never lacked for opportunity to behold this marvel.

“Get off with you, then,” he snapped, “and find your
viṇ
somewhere else.”

I’d prodded him too far. This wouldn’t do. There was no one else whose wine Plazensa wanted. A thorny burr was this new son of Na Pieret’s. And worse, now I must placate him.

“Pay no heed to my teasing,” I said in a sweeter voice, though it choked me. “It’s just our way here in Bajas.”

He marched onward, but since we were heading in the direction of Na Pieret’s cellars, I took this as a good sign.

“I’d be grateful,” I said, “if you would sell me your wine. It’s what Plazensa prefers, and there’s no crossing Plazensa.”

He favored me with an answering growl. “Hurry up, then. I can’t be all day about it.”

I quickened my footsteps to keep pace with him, and when a few minutes had passed with no further sarcasm, I risked combining two errands into one.

“All the young maidens are aflutter at your arrival in Bajas,” I said. “Now that you’re so well settled, with such good fortune in your prospects, and by all report, such an able vintner, it’s certain you’ll be thinking about marrying.”

Sarcasm returned in full measure. “Oh, so you read the future?”

“Not I,” I said. “That’s Sazia.”

“Then you read minds?”

“Still Sazia.” I smiled. “Though Plazensa also does a fair job of knowing what I’m up to.”

We reached the cellars, which were really a cave that had been excavated deeper and framed by a small hut. Symo pulled open the door and disappeared into the darkness. I followed unbidden and watched as his head vanished into a hole in the ground.

His voice echoed up through the cave. “Your sister this, and your sister that,” his ghost voice said. “Don’t you ever think on your own? Don’t you do anything besides meddle?”

“Meddling is my special skill,” I bellowed down the hole. His head poked up before I’d finished, which left me bawling into his left ear.

“Sorry,” I said.

Symo hauled two large jugs of wine onto the floor of the hut, then hoisted himself up to my level and counted my shillings.

“The money’s all there,” I said. “I’m no cheat. But tell me, what do you think of Astruga? Remember, I introduced her to you yesterday, at Felipa’s burial?”

He only gave me a look, then loaded the jugs onto a small one-wheeled barrow. “Can you push this yourself, or shall I send a lad to help you?”

“You can’t deny she’s pretty,” I said. “What a figure! Longest, thickest hair in all Bajas.” Excluding Plazensa, but we needn’t quibble.

Symo pushed the barrow, and with it, me, out the door. “You can take her hair, and her figure, elsewhere. Be off with you. Andrio!” He beckoned to that young
ome
to come help me.

“I don’t need Andrio,” I said. “Leave be. But you should think more on Astruga. She’s—”

Symo set down the barrow. “If I had to listen to that”—no word seemed sufficient to contain his contempt—“that
female
, prattling and simpering every day of my life, I’d jump into the lagoon and float wherever the tide took me.”

“Well!” I said. “Look well to yourself. With your temper, Lord knows how difficult it will be ever to find you a wife in Bajas who suits you.”

His face reddened. “The day I need
you
,” he said, “to find me a wife, is the day I—”

“Is the day you realize just how far your savage manners will take you here!” I cried. “You’ve got no cause to come here, Senhor Nobody from Nowhere, and think that just because your rich
tanta
has become your
maire
, and given you her all, suddenly you’re too good for everyone and everything.”

His face was inches from my own. His eyebrows were poison-tipped darts.

“You pestilent wench!” he hissed. “Don’t meddle in my affairs.”

“I won’t,” I snapped, “and you can die a lonely bachelor.” I seized the barrow and lurched down the hill with it.

“Better to die alone,” he shouted after me, “than to live with a prating female!”

“Better a prating female,” I retorted, “than a man who’s a devil!”

I rattled all the way back into town feeling particularly pleased with myself. For planting a first nuptial suggestion, I thought, it had gone well. Symo’s type always resisted loudly at first, but I’d bet the coins still jangling in my pocket, he’d pay closer heed from now on whenever Astruga walked by.

BOTILLE

returned to find the tavern fragrant with freshly baked
fogasa
, and Plazensa haggling with Focho de Capa over the price of four plump pheasants.

“Botille!” cried that fat and jolly man. “Na Pieret bids me tell you and your sisters to come as honored guests at Saturday evening’s feast to celebrate her nephews’ arrival.”

Focho de Capa did a little of everything, and a whole lot of nothing, but whenever there was a party, there he was, lord of the revels, master of drink, player of
fidel
tunes, and caller of dance steps. There was no feast in Bajas without Focho. If there were, we’d sit and stare at one another without knowing what to do. Today, though, poacher was his trade.

“Never mind that,” Plazensa said, chopping carrots with fury. “It’s robbery what you think to charge me for these fowl. So be it. I don’t need roast pheasant. I’ve got plenty of beans, and Botille’s onions, and I can always go to Amielh Vidal for a pair of nice fatty ducks.”

I kissed Focho’s whiskery cheek and left them to their argument, and took two flat loaves of
fogasa
without Plazensa’s notice, not that she would have minded.

One was for Lisette and Martin next door. I hadn’t heard the baby fuss all morning, and I was worried. I entered the house, and my heart sank. No fire burned on the hearth. Nothing moved at all. There on the bed lay the still forms of Martin, Lisette, and the baby. At midday, in sunshine such as this? I hurried over.

They were all so still. I was sure something terrible had happened. I opened my mouth to call their names.

Then the baby made a soft murmuring sound and twisted its head slightly. Lisette, without waking, moved a protective hand toward the child and patted its belly. Martin snored.

I realized then that I was not alone. Their young daughter stood beside me, watching me through dark, serious eyes.

“Are you all right, Ava?”

No response.

“Are you hungry? Are you frightened?”

She didn’t even blink. I sighed and reached out my hand. “Come with me, then,” I said. “We have things to do.” I broke off a chunk of their
fogasa
and handed it to her, then left the rest on the table. She gnawed on it as we climbed up the hill toward the town. Crumbs and dribble spread in a slow patch down her dress front.

Next we went to the humble de Prato
maisoṇ
, and knocked.

Astruga opened the low door and ducked out, looking ready to bite the ear off anyone there, until she saw it was me. Then she looked ready to bite both my ears. From behind her came the sounds of children squalling. Peering past her, I saw Joan de Prato sprawled upon his bed, snoring drunk.

“So it’s you,” she said.

“
Bonjọrn
, Astruga,” I said. “Ava, say ‘
bonjọrn
’ to Astruga.”

Ava said nothing.

“A fine
sọpa
you’ve stewed me in, Botille,” Astruga said through clenched teeth. “Easy enough for you to say, ‘Go help those children.’ I don’t see you here, bruising your ears on their noise, pinching your nose at their filth.”

I handed her the
fogasa
. “Some bread for the children,” I said. “God reward you.”

“That little
tozẹt
wets himself,” she hissed. “At three! And you knew it before you sent me here, didn’t you?”

I clutched Ava’s hand tighter and backed away. “I swear I didn’t, Astruga.”

“I’ll never forget how you tricked me into doing this,” she said. “I’ll finish the day, because someone’s got to get to the bottom of this reeking mess, and then I am
through
. Done. Going home. Do you hear? Find someone else to come look after the little beasts.”

“Astruga,” I whispered. “Hush your voice. They’ve lost their mother.”

“If I stay here another hour,” she cried, “I’ll lose my head!” She ducked back through the low door and slammed it shut.

Ava’s bread-crumbed face regarded mine, as though she expected a comment.

“Come on,” I told her. “Let’s go home.”

Those poor children. Were they more unfortunate than they’d been before Astruga appeared to inflict her care upon them? Perhaps my instincts had steered me wrong this time.

I brought Ava back to the tavern and sat her in a chair at the bar with an apple. Plazensa made a welcoming fuss over her while I slipped away and headed for Garcia’s
maisoṇ
. If illness was in the air, I had no right to bring a child there.

I found Na Pieret standing outside the door to Garcia’s home.

I bowed. “
Bonjọrn
, Na Pieret. Should you be here? You mustn’t get sick.”

Na Pieret took my hand. “At my age, Botille,” she said, “I can get sick if I want to.”

I wrapped my arm around her waist to support her. “Bajas would be lost without you.”

“
Non
. I have my sons. I can go in peace when the
bon Dieu
calls me.” She squeezed my hand. “That is why I can afford to wait here for news of my faithful Garcia.”

I didn’t like the way Na Pieret spoke, as though she were already choosing her burial clothes. Inside, Garcia’s wife moved between two beds.
I should go in,
I thought, but I was not eager to catch an illness.

“Have you felt ill at all?” Na Pieret asked me.

I was surprised. “Me? Not a bit.”

“I have wondered,” she said, “if this illness is something Garcia and his son caught in their travels.” She turned my face toward the light, and I blinked against the sun. “But of course you and your sister are well, and so are the
tozẹts
.”