HE WAS out in the forest, higher up than usual, and the plains of Umbria stretched below in their pulsing washes of green and gold, brown and blue, beyond. He looked to the west, to see if he could find the roofs of Montefiore glinting in the noon sun, but the trees, on the slopes where he guessed his house should be, had come into the full leaf of late spring.
He came upon the casket first. Its top was clear as water. He looked down at it, and wiped away a scattering of spring pollen. The smeared powder gave the glass a greenish tinge, and for a minute he felt he was looking into a box of ice, or the clearest river water, for the figure inside seemed to float in a current. Then he realized this was merely a trick of the glass, the way that glass plays with and distorts light.
He wasn’t surprised to see that the figure resembled his daughter, Bianca, for in the months and years since his escape from Agion Oros, most of the people of the world reminded him of her one way or another, either by startling contrast or by painful similarity. He had never seen a corpse in a glass-topped coffin, and that was surprise enough for the day. That the corpse should imitate his daughter seemed only fitting; what other more crucial business had a corpse to attend to, when you come right down to it?
He hauled part of a fallen tree trunk to a convenient place and settled himself upon it. He had nothing better to do; he had been able to decide no other course for his life to take. He hadn’t been able to return for any length of time to a Montefiore without Bianca, and the rest of the world lacked savor. So he came and went, an itinerant on a quest without shape. He didn’t mind resting for a while, keeping an eye on the figure in a coffin.
He rested, and couldn’t decide to move on. In the hours or days that followed, he began, slowly, to realize that he wasn’t alone. Seven small men and a rather large dog began to be seen about the coffin. He couldn’t always tell when they came or went, but he had a sense that even when he couldn’t see them, one of them was always present. They didn’t talk to him, but from time to time they bowed and shuffled in his direction.
The dog came up and put its head in Vicente’s lap. He scratched it behind the ears, courteously enough, but in time he shooed the mongrel away. He had never liked dogs much.