The Very Best of Kate Elliott (28 page)

At last, when the light began to fade and the bombardment had, seemingly, moved on toward a new neighborhood, they ventured out. Jontano tried to go out first, but Aunt Martina shoved him back.

“I’ll go,” she said curtly. “I’ve had a life, a good one, before this war came. You deserve a chance at a decent life, so we won’t go taking chances with you yet, my boy.” She lifted Roman from her lap, and he wailed and clung to Uncle Martin, sobbing as his mother pushed open the root cellar door and crawled out into the gloomy, wet afternoon.

After a while, when they heard her footsteps overhead but nothing else, she came back. Her face was drawn and white. Her hair lay in wet strings over her dress. She was soaked to the skin, and it still rained.

They crawled out, all except Martin. The house was destroyed. One wall still stood its full height, but the others were shattered. The roof had caved in. The stairs veered crookedly up to a nonexistent floor above.

They stood in silence for a long time, sheltering under a blessedly dry corner, and watched the rain pour down over what remained of their home. Dimly, Jontano heard Uncle Martin calling to them from the root cellar.

Finally, Mama shook herself. “There’s no point in waiting here. If we wait until the rain stops, looters may come. Roman, you go down and wait with Uncle Martin. There’s nothing he can do until we’ve salvaged what’s left.”

“I’ll walk down the street,” said Aunt Martina. “Perhaps our neighbors need help.”

So Jontano and Mama picked through the wreckage. Of their armament—two muskets and a pistol—one musket was dry and still usable and the others were not too badly damaged. The powder and shot had remained dry because they kept it in metal tins, and those in a cupboard which had come through the bombardment mostly intact. Mama set Jontano in the dry corner and put him on watch while she filled bags and blankets with what remained of their possessions: clothing, a few jars of pickled figs that had gotten wedged into the corner of the cupboard, the kettle and three unbroken plates, two pots, silverware, Roman’s toy horse and wagon not too dented from its fall from the upper story, a bucket, a shovel, the last of the bread from the morning, a length of silver ribbon, and the butcher knife. She piled the bags and the single intact headboard next to Jontano.

After a while he realized that the street and alley were empty and likely to remain that way. The bombardment had quieted and moved back south again, and the rain had slackened to a steady drizzle. He ventured out of the ruined house to the well. The little roof had fallen in, and a few of the stones had tumbled out, crushing turnips, but as he tugged the boards out, he saw that the well itself remained intact. And though the garden was half covered with debris, as he picked up boards and tossed bricks aside he found that a fair portion of the vegetables were only crushed but not severed. He leaned the musket against the stones of the wall and began to clean up the garden, his heart racing with excitement each time he uncovered an unhurt plant.

Later, as it grew to dusk, Aunt Martina came back. “Widow Angelit is dead. I helped Bobo Milovech pull his daughter from the ruins, but I doubt she’ll live. She lost one of her legs below the knee. We bound it up as well as we could, but she’s too frail to sustain the loss of blood. Bobita went to see about a doctor, but what’s to do when everyone needs a doctor? At least none of us were hurt.”

Mama looked at her strangely for a long moment. “Ai,” she said at last. “I’m so tired, Martina.” She was weeping, but quietly, and Martina hugged her. They stood that way a long time while Jontano watched over them, watched over the well and the garden. Then, leaving Jontano on watch, the two women crouched beside the root cellar stairs to discuss their predicament with Uncle Martin.

Jontano stood in an eerie silence and listened to Roman sneeze and cough, listened to the hopeless sobbing of a woman farther up the street—Bobita Milovech, perhaps—to a single shot followed by a second, then a third, echoing through the empty streets.

“Water,” said a child’s voice, weak in the twilight. “Do you have water?”

Jontano started around, raising the musket. A small girl stood at the gate, a waif in tattered clothing. She held a battered tin cup in one hand.

He peered down the musket at her, his hands shaking, waiting for the adults who were with her to show themselves.

But there was no movement in the shadows, no threats, whispers, or coughs. The girl had preternaturally pale hair—Marrazzano hair, people called it—and gorgeous brown eyes and a sweet face only partially obscured by dirt. She couldn’t be more than seven or eight years old. She was alone.

Jono glanced back toward the shell of the house, but one of the walls hid the entrance to the root cellar from view. Hastily, he dragged away the boards that protected the opening of the well and lowered the bucket, having to winch it hard to get it around, now that a stray hit had bent the axle. The bucket came up half full of clear water, and he dipped her cup in and gave it back to her.

“Now go,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not allowed to give any away. Don’t come back.”

Mutely, she drank the cup dry. He filled it again. This time she padded off, barefoot, down the street, cradling the precious cupful of water against her thin chest. Where were her parents? Lost? Dead? But he heard Mama’s voice, calling to him, and as he turned round, he faced the dead house and knew that even if, before today, they might have managed to feed just one more, they had too little left to do so now.

“Martin is going to stay here,” said Mama, picking her way around the house. “We’ll set him up in the corner, rig a blanket to protect him from wind and rain, and he’ll guard the well and the fountain. The rest of us will have to find shelter another place. Roman is getting sicker, the grippe. It’s going down into his lungs, I fear. We must find someplace dry and warm for him tomorrow.”

“I’ll watch tonight,” said Jontano. “It’s clearing, and I’d rather be up here than down in the cellar.”

He caught her answering smile, a ghost in the twilight, and then she went away. So he stood watch, but after the terrible bombardment of the daytime, after the loud, pounding rains, it was now oddly silent. It made him nervous, because unlike the silence in the forest, it was an unnatural quiet.

In the morning, Jontano helped Aunt Martina haul Uncle Martin out of the root cellar. While Martin took the parts of several broken chairs and repaired them into a semblance of one good chair, Mama and Aunt Martina divided up their possessions. Roman 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.

“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 cushion 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 inside 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 refugees, 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 enemies, the Marrazzanos opened fire.

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 person 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 expression 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 smelled dry, oddly enough, musty, as if perfumed with old herbs. A wooden counter ran along one side of the shop, and he set Roman 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 picture, a painting, a painting of a forest. A moment later, he knew he was in old Aldo’s shop. Without meaning to, he reached inside 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. Intermittent 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 collapsed, 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 General Vestino’s 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?”