Valley of the Dead (7 page)

Chapter
12

The infernal hurricane that never rests

Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;

Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

Dante,
Inferno
, 5.31-33

The four of them left the monastery early, before the sun was even up. The monks gave them back their two horses, along with two of their own – a black one for Bogdana and a white one for Adam – so Bogdana no longer rode behind Dante. As unfamiliar and disconcerting as her sitting behind him had been at first, he stole glances at her now, and felt less sure of himself without her being so near.

They rode over the drawbridge and back on to the road leading up the valley. As the sun came up behind them, the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped suddenly, from that of a cool spring morning to the first blast of winter in late November. Dante looked ahead and saw a flock of starlings shoot up in front of them, wheeling first to the right then to the left, increasing their speed to flee from the rising windstorm. The wind started picking things up off the forest floor, even tearing branches off trees. Their faces stung as the flying leaves and sticks pelted and cut them. Their progress slowed to a near halt, as the horses bucked and snorted, terrified by the sudden, violent change. Dante looked back to see the sun pressed between the jagged line of the horizon and a black, roiling ceiling of clouds that seemed intent on pressing it back down.

“What’s happening?” Dante asked.

“Storms come up quickly in the spring,” Radovan shouted.

“Yes, but not usually like this,” Adam said. “This seems quite out of the ordinary. It’s so dark, and the wind so powerful, overwhelming us and our animals. We should find some shelter, quickly.”

Dante looked about, trying to see anything between the swaying trees and swirling debris. One tree snapped and fell over right by them. “There!” he said, pointing off to the right. “I think I see a light!”

“Yes,” Radovan said. “Let’s go.”

With difficulty, they worked to get their horses through the woods. After a few steps, they could see there was a small cottage among the trees. The constant raging and howling of the storm was now punctuated by an irregular, slamming sound, as the door of the cottage swung open all the way, smashing into the wall of the building, then swung back when the wind shifted in its frenzied assault. The door didn’t slam shut, but stopped three-quarters of the way closed, as though it were hitting against something keeping it from closing all the way, then a second later it would swing back and slam back into the wall.

They dismounted and dragged the animals closer. Near the cottage there was a simple lean-to built between a large boulder and a tree. It was open on one side, and whatever animals it was meant to house were not there. Just some typical farm implements – shovels, spades, wooden buckets -- within. The structure was not quite big enough for their four horses, but they would have to try to tie the animals in there and hope they didn’t escape. Dante’s horse was on the end, with its side pressed up against the boulder. Sticks continued to hit the wall and roof of the structure, and the wind’s howling was fierce and unnaturally high-pitched, but Dante thought the animal might stay, now that it was at least partly protected from the storm’s fury. He’d had it some time, and like many such animals it was more trustworthy than most people. Dante patted its head before backing out between it and the large, white horse Adam had been riding. “Easy, friend,” he said. “I need you to stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

Leaving the makeshift stable, the four of them approached the cottage. Dante noticed Bogdana had picked up a short-handled shovel from the stable. Through the flying debris, he could see the light coming from the cottage’s window and partly open door. As they got closer, Radovan suddenly raised his left hand to stop them. He drew his sword.

Dante drew his weapon as well. He looked closer, squinting and raising his left hand to try and protect his eyes. The door couldn’t close all the way because two motionless, human legs were sticking out through the doorway. He heard the familiar moaning. It rose in volume and pitch, cutting above the sound of the storm, as it grew into a howl of hunger and rage – and this time, Dante thought, of infinite, sleepless sadness.

Chapter
13

I understood that unto such a torment

The carnal malefactors were condemned,

Who reason subjugate to appetite.

Dante,
Inferno
, 5.37-39

They hung there for a moment, as another tree was uprooted and crashed down nearby. Then, though it hardly seemed possible, the wind increased to the point that they were swaying, and had to lean into it in order to remain standing. Tears streamed down Dante’s face as the wind stung him, worse than anything he’d ever felt before. Even his tears seemed to scald unnaturally, mixing with the windblown debris into rivulets that burned and tore more than they cleansed. He squinted, and thought that even fighting the dead was preferable to this relentless, remorseless assault, against which their bodies seemed insubstantial and wholly inadequate.

Radovan looked to Adam, who nodded. They moved closer to the cottage with faltering steps, planting each foot then pausing before moving the other one. Dante was behind them, with Bogdana slightly ahead of him. He could still see only the bottom half of the body, though now he could see there was a good deal of blood splattered on it, and on the doorframe as well. He saw Radovan survey whatever was inside the cottage, then turn back to them and motion to follow him.

Dante entered the cottage last, stepping over the dead man. The handle of a knife stuck out of his left eye. His right eye was eternally open; it still seemed filled with hate for whoever had done this to him. His mouth and beard were covered with gore. He had been a broad man, dressed in the furs of a hunter or trapper.

Inside the cottage, Dante found himself in a fairly large room, by the standards of such a building, though the ceiling was low. He wondered how the man had been able to live there and move about comfortably. There was a fireplace to the left and a rough table made of dark wood in the middle of the room. To the right was another door, presumably to a second room. It had a chest, a chair, and another table pushed up against it. A fire was dying in the hearth, while a candle burned with more vigor on the table.

The candle cast its light up into the face of a young woman seated at the table. She was wrapped in a coarse, brown blanket, which had several darker splotches on it. From the way she held it wrapped tightly about herself, and the glimpses of her legs and shoulders when she moved, it looked as though she were naked underneath it. Her face had no color, not even her lips, though her eyes were red with blood around the dark, brown irises, and even darker pupils. Her black hair was matted to her face and streaked with more dried blood. Dante saw her hand was bloody, too, when she reached up to brush her hair out of her face, before she pulled it back under the cover of the blanket. She was not as taut and compact as Bogdana, but her features looked finer, more elegant, if somewhat fuller. She had probably been quite beautiful before all this.

She watched them, then blinked slowly and wetly. Her breathing was a labored wheezing that could be heard over the moaning, which came from the other room.

“You’re hurt,” Dante said. “Can we help you?”

As soon as he spoke, the door to the other room shook violently, as a storm of blows pounded it from the other side. The moaning increased to a roar of hate Dante imagined almost sounded like jealousy.

The woman at the table drew herself up slightly, though the movement seemed to cause her pain. “Pavel!” she said in a hoarse shout. “Stop! Be still!” Given what he had seen so far of the dead, and their general incomprehension, Dante thought it quite remarkable the pounding did stop at this command, and the roar diminished to a steady and slightly wounded-sounding moan.

The woman turned her attention back to him. “I’ve been bitten badly,” she said. “I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do for me.”

“Is that your husband in the other room?” Radovan asked.

“Oh, no,” she said, tilting her head down to indicate the body in the doorway. “That’s my husband.”

“Then who’s in the other room?” Dante asked.

“My sister’s husband,” she said, watching them steadily and wheezing between her short answers.

“And where’s your sister?” Dante continued.

She frowned. “How should I know? They live… lived way on the other side of the valley, by the river. He had a mill there. Only one nearby. Very successful. Quite wealthy.”

Dante looked at his companions, then back at the woman. He tried to understand the situation. “You had to kill your husband and brother-in-law when they got the plague and attacked you?”

She shook her head. “No, no. It was a bit more complicated than that. My sister’s husband was still alive when he visited yesterday.”

“He came to warn you of the plague?”

Her bloodless lips curled. “Please, stranger, I don’t think I have much longer. Don’t make me waste what breath I have explaining the obvious. He was here because my husband was not.” Her sickly smile turned into a wet, bubbling sort of chuckle. “Though I suppose he did have my well-being in mind, so long as it meant making him feel good as well.”

The chuckle changed into full-on laughter, then hideously transformed into deep, barking coughs and retching. The heaving bent her over the table. She repeatedly banged her head on it as the spasms wracked her whole body. She lurched forward, then drew up slightly, as her body tried to expel its diseased fluids one moment, then the next it tried desperately to get breath and life back into her drained, broken frame. When the convulsions finally stopped, she remained facedown on the table. Dante thought she might be dead already. He was bothered by the fact he didn’t know whether that would make him feel sad or relieved. When she finally lifted herself up, there was a puddle of bloody spit and bile left on the table, and for a second, a long, pink thread stretched from the table to her glistening mouth, before she licked her lips, spat, and then wiped her face on the blanket.

Her eyes shined darkly, like holes filled with ink. They were so wet and red Dante could barely look at them, for fear they would ooze out all over her cheeks, draining what was left of her into a pool of mortality and sadness. At the same time, he knew he couldn’t take his gaze from them.

“I didn’t know I’d think that was all so funny, now, at the end,” she continued. “But I suppose it is. My husband walked in on us. And he most definitely was not alive when he did. It’s funny. The dead usually make so much noise, you can hear them coming. Well, it’s probably my fault. I was making a good bit of noise, too.” She started to laugh again, but managed to hold it in check this time, lest the convulsions finished her completely.

She pulled herself up and shrugged. “Well, even if he had been alive and snuck up on us, Pavel and I would still both be dead now, I suppose. My husband was a big man--a hunter. Very strong, very angry, very violent. Pavel was on top, so he got him first. Got him from behind. Tore his neck open with his teeth. Blood all over me.” She ran her fingers through her long hair, pausing and tugging when they caught on the knots of dried blood. “I’m sure most of this is his. It gave me a chance to get away. I got a knife, but he was on me before I could stab him. Bit me twice. Horrible, burning pain, into my heart, down to my stomach. My big, disgusting, dead husband tearing my breast off with his teeth, making me as dead and loathsome as he was.”

Her eyes had dried a little, and she sighed. “I finally stuck the knife in his eye. I barricaded poor Pavel in the bedroom. I sat down here to die. And then you showed up. I suppose you should go now.”

Bogdana moved slightly away from the men. “Did you have children?” she asked quietly, looking up and around, as though trying to figure out if there were an attic or loft, or possibly some of the orphans Brother Adam had described.

“What? Oh, no, I didn’t. He blamed me for it, of course.” She shrugged. “He was probably right. I never got pregnant, even when my Pavel started visiting me, so I suppose it was me. But it’s not like it was my fault. I would’ve borne children, if that was what was meant to be. But it wasn’t. If God wanted me to be a different way, He could’ve made me a different way, couldn’t He?”

“But some things were your fault, weren’t they?” Adam said.

Dante thought he had an odd tone, accusing and soothing in equal measure, but it seemed to have no calming effect on the woman, nor to make her aware of any guilt. She spat on the table. Dante thought it looked more black than red this time.

“I very much doubt it,” she said. “I was alone all the time. It made me feel good not to be alone. It made me feel good to be desired, wanted, needed more than food or wine or honor. It made me feel good to be told how beautiful I was, how much more beautiful than my sister, after she’d been so high and mighty about marrying the wealthy miller. The wealthy miller who’d rather be with me than with her, who’d sneak from her bed to mine and tell me how much better I was. All that made me feel good, so what was I to do? Feel bad all the time? No. I feel bad now, but that’s just the fault of this hellish plague. It’ll probably get you too, and I doubt you’ll feel guilty when it does.”

Dante noticed the wind was no longer howling. He turned to look toward the window and door, and saw a sick, yellowish daylight seeping in.

“The storm has passed,” Radovan said. “We should finish her and be on our way.”

The woman turned to him. “Is that what you want?” She leaned back, looking up at the ceiling and baring her neck to them. “Go ahead. It hardly matters to me.” She closed her eyes. “There – will that make it easier? Though I’ve known few men who needed my eyes closed before they hit me, perhaps you’re better than they were.”

Adam raised his hand. “No, I don’t think so.” He turned to Dante. “What do you think?”

Dante looked at the woman’s neck, still so beautiful. He listened to her pitiable wheezing, and needed no time to consider further. “She is unrepentant. Killing her would be no mercy, but a terrible crime against someone who’s done us no harm. So long as she draws breath, we can pray she will use it to utter just one word of remorse and be saved. There is always hope, and we would be the worse sinners if we took that away.”

Adam nodded slowly. “You know much of the blessed death, brother, for one from such a sinful land.”

“I wish there were another way to learn of it,” Dante said.

“So do we all, but the method of learning is not our choice – only that we learn.”

“Well, we can’t wait here for her to have a change of heart,” Radovan said, sheathing his sword. “Let’s go.”

Adam turned toward the door. “Yes, that is true, too, unfortunately. We shall go.”

The woman opened her eyes and tilted her head to look at Dante. She gave him a slight nod, then leaned forward, placing her left arm on the table and resting her forehead on it.

As Radovan and Adam walked out the door to retrieve the horses, Dante sheathed his sword and watched Bogdana. The mysterious woman put down the shovel, leaning it next to the fireplace, and inexplicably walked up to the nearly-dead woman sitting at the table. Dante opened his mouth to say something of a warning to Bogdana, fearing how contagious the dead and dying were. But as he drew in a breath, he noiselessly closed his mouth, feeling somehow it would be impertinent, perhaps nearly blasphemous, to give voice to the deadly, numbing cancer of fear and mistrust during this woman’s final moments with another, live human being.

He watched Bogdana put her hand on the other woman’s shoulder and bend down close to her. She cast a sideways glance at Dante, then turned all her attention to the woman, bending even closer, till her mouth was right by her ear. Dante saw her lips move, but he couldn’t quite hear the words. Her full, brown hair was hanging down, making it hard to see. He didn’t hear her whisper, and it seemed to him as though she ever so slightly pursed her lips and lightly kissed the woman’s ear. Then Bogdana partly straightened up and took a step back, her hands out in front of herself as she backed away, the way one would retreat from a wounded animal – or, Dante had the oddest fancy, from a statue or altar.

She finally turned toward him. She walked past him, then stepped over the dead body in the doorway. Dante followed her out, his gaze lingering just a moment on the swaying of her skirt, before the bright, unforgiving sunlight drew his focus upward and dazzled him.