Chapter Forty-three

 

 

Hammer of God

 

 

“You’re pregnant,” Duxia told Mala two days later as she lay in the wagon.

Stunned, Mala issued a moan so mournful, so distraught, that it made Duxia’s blood run cold.

“N-no,” she then mumbled, fighting desperately to restrain herself from weeping. “I can’t be!”

“Yes. Your tryst with the Saint-Germain boy in Marseilles, it was in June when he stayed at the camp. Tell me though, have you slept with any other man since then?”

“N-no. Of course not!” snapped Mala, drowning in a sea of unfamiliar apprehensions. “A child!” she wailed. “I know nothing of children, especially raising one! My God, what do I do, Duxia?”

“You’ll have the child, Dear. You’ll bear the child, then raise it. Tis a blessed thing, motherhood. And just as you dreamed, this will be more reason to open your shop and settle here in Lyons. The road is no way to raise a child, you know that from your own upbringing, eh?” As Duxia said this, she masked her private dread of bringing the spawn of Tristan de Saint-Germain into the world. “And don’t fear, Mala, I will help you with the baby.”

“Its Tristan’s child,” Mala said with a sudden dread of her own. “You shan’t try to drown it, will you?” she asked with urgency. “Swear to me, Duxia!”

“No, no, of course not,” Duxia said, caressing Mala’s forehead. “I won’t even consider it his child, Dear, but only yours.”

“But my dancing, Duxia, I don’t yet have quite enough money to set up a shop!”

“You can dance a little while longer before your belly swells; perhaps long enough for you to earn your shop.”

Fernando, of course, had fallen into a fury when Duxia had first shared the news with him about the pregnancy. He knew immediately that Tristan was the father. Still, he took it upon himself to continue catering to Mala’s needs, which placed him in an entirely new light to Mala. For the first time in their relationship she began to actually notice and appreciate his many efforts on her behalf.

That next day she felt better and resumed her dancing, though she tamed it considerably.

This in turn gradually drew smaller crowds of men, and by October when Mala’s pregnancy was well along, the crowds had dwindled to a handful of onlookers who, at the sight of Mala’s belly, quickly lost interest. Envisioning their golden goose dried up, the other Romani began to grumble and complain, and soon the camp thinned to only two wagons, Mala, Duxia, and the ever faithful Fernando.

Mala had begun bartering for a small storefront in the market district with an elderly vendor who could no longer manage his fabric business, and felt certain that the three of them could settle into commerce with the other town burghers of Lyons. “Come with me, Duxia,” she said one day, “and let’s finalize terms on our shop today.” Then, instructing Fernando to guard the wagons, she gave him an affectionate embrace, something she had never done before. “I owe you much, Fernando,” she whispered.

For Fernando, this was the grandest moment of his life. He had by now settled himself with Mala having Tristan’s child, but hoped that Mala might actually consent to marrying him, if nothing else, for the sake of the child. So while watching her leave camp with Duxia that morning, his heart was filled with a newfound fervor as he began envisioning a future in which he and Mala were raising their child, with Duxia serving as grandmother.

Lost in this reverie, he did not hear the approach of two hooligans from Lyons slipping into the campsite. The two had been watching the Romani perform in the market district since their arrival and had remarked that the entertainment troupe was hauling in quite a harvest. Then, learning that the camp had thinned to two wagons, one of which belonged to the dancing girl who generated most of the money, they determined the camp should be an easy and profitable target.

Right when they headed for Fernando, he by coincidence happened to turn about, but before he could react the two hoodlums had attacked him. And though he was larger and stronger than either of them, together they managed to overpower him. One of the intruders struck him across the skull while the other took him to the ground. Then, taking a dagger from his belt, the man who clubbed Fernando slipped his dagger into Fernando’s belly. Raising up like an enraged bull, Fernando pulled the dagger from his gut with one hand, and with his other fist struck his assailant across the jaw, breaking it with a single blow.

Staggering back in blind confusion, holding his cracked jaw with both hands, the man screamed to his partner on the ground, “Kill ’im, goddammit!”

The second man quickly extracted a dagger from his sleeve, jumped to his feet, and attacked Fernando from behind, stabbing him three times in quick succession in the back. Bellowing with rage, bleeding profusely from front and the back, Fernando staggered about helplessly for a moment, then felt his knees collapse under him. The crush of the ground against his forehead was the last thing he felt.

“Is he dead?” the first man said, still struggling with his jaw.

“Yes. Dammit, I didn’t want to kill the poor bastard!”

“To hell with ’im. Quick now, go through the wagon and let’s get the hell out of here!”

The uninjured man ran to the wagon and quickly began rummaging through clothing, cooking utensils, and an assortment of vessels and containers. After several minutes of frustration he found a wooden box hidden in the front corner of the wagon beneath a pile of blankets. Grabbing it, he jumped from the wagon and waved to the first man. “Got it!” he said. “Let’s go!”

It was not until hours later that Mala and Duxia returned. Finding Fernando lying motionless upon the ground, his shirt caked reddish-black with dried blood, Mala cried out in dismay and fell to the ground beside him, desperately seeking signs of life.

“Oh, my God!” she then wailed, looking up at Duxia. “H-he’s dead!”

Duxia, well attuned to the wickedness of men, immediately looked about the camp, fearing that whoever did this might still be about. Then she saw the back door to Mala’s wagon standing wide open and surmised immediately what had befallen them. “We’ve been robbed!” she cried. “Mala, your money!”

Mala was bent over Fernando, stroking his head and body with convulsive movements, already lost in the despondency of the bereaved and swelling with regret over the fact that she had paid Fernando so little mind.

“He was so g-o-o-d to us, Duxia!” she wept.

“Indeed, he was a good fellow,” said Duxia, her hands falling to her side with resignation as visions of the little shop they had left in Lyons began to dissolve. Then she dropped to a knee beside Fernando and gently patted Mala on the back. “We’re lost, Dear,” she said, shaking her head back and forth woefully. “They’ve taken the money, they’ve taken Fernando, it’s winter and we have a child on the way. The hammer of God has struck yet again.”

At that moment, as Mala’s palm was still upon Fernando’s chest, she felt a slight tremor. Looking down with startled eyes, she then saw his eyelids flutter, then open.

“M-Mala?” whispered Fernando, struggling to breathe.

“My God, he lives!” Mala cried. “Quickly, Duxia, water and rags! Oh, hurry, please!”

Moving about with urgency, they tended to Fernando as best they could there on the ground, cleansing his wounds and closing them. And though his weight and girth made it nearly impossible to move him, they first worked his belly then turned him over to nurse his back where most of the stab wounds had been inflicted. Mala then hurried toward town to seek assistance, and happening upon two men passing by, acquired their cooperation in hoisting Fernando into his wagon.

By day’s end the two women sat next to each other by a meager fire as Fernando lay within his wagon in a state of semi-consciousness, alternately moaning and calling for Mala, then slipping into deep sleep. “Will he live, Duxia?” said Mala.

“Hard to tell, Dear. The wounds are severe, but Fernando is stout as a horse. He lost much blood, though.”

Mala gazed into the fire then, and issued a deep sigh, her face taking on that defeated look brought on by the crushing of dreams. “The old shop owner in town,” she said, making mention of the financial situation for the first time since discovering Fernando earlier that afternoon, “I best stop by in the morning and let him know that things have fallen apart. He’ll be wondering where we are.”

“Yes, he was expecting us back today in merely a few hours with the money. Ah, how quick God drops the hammer upon us all.”

“That’s the second time you mentioned such a thing today,” Mala said, looking at Duxia with curiosity. “What do you mean by it?”

Duxia spat into the fire, its flames casting her in a strange and ghostly light. “When I was pagan,” she began, “we always knew what to expect from our Norse gods. They were either good or evil, you could count on that. Since being baptized, I’ve learned that the Christian God, unlike the Norse gods, is utterly unpredictable and merciless for no reason. It’s as though things are going well and you’re minding your own affairs, then for simple spite, God drops His hammer, crushing you like a gnat.” As she said this, the deep creases of her weathered face tightened and her eyes grew cold. “He has followed me about like a shadow, God, hovering over me, hammer at the ready. Everything single time that I find a moment’s peace or think I’ve found a future, he drops it on me.”

Mala digested this a while. “Do you really believe such a thing, Duxia?” she said.

“Ay, and so should you, Dear. He’s done exactly the same to you. You were fine, Fernando told me, until the Saint-Germain boy showed up from nowhere in the Loire Valley. Ha! From nowhere? Nay, nay, God sent him. Then again things were wonderful in Marseilles. Money coming in, the other Romani were happy, a beautiful city on the coast… then bang! God dropped the Saint-Germain boy into this peaceful existence and scattered us like flies. And not content with that flood of misery, he then filled your belly with Saint-Germain’s semen and you are now with child, and then God sends thieves into our camp to crush our final dream!”

“Oh, Duxia, you can’t blame God for all that has stricken us!”

“Oh, listen to you, Girl, you who distrusts the Church nearly as much as I. Yet no matter where we travel or where we are, you refuse to miss Sunday mass! I find it a strange covenant you’ve struck between your brain and your heart. Yes, I blame God for it all. If the priests and monks are to be believed, everything in life is caused by God. He’s the root of all things, good and evil. He’s all powerful. Yet there is an anger, a vengeance about Him that is undeniable and cruel.” She turned, then, and gave Mala a grave look. “Though you hide it well, Mala, I see that lost, hollow expression across your brow. It’s the look of deep grieving. Ah, despite it all, you still love that goddamn monk, Saint-Germain, don’t you?”

Mala sat still as a stone, saying nothing.

“Yes,” Duxia said, “your silence spills it all.” Duxia then gazed deeper yet into the fire and spat again. “Oh, Mala, my sweet” she rasped, shuddering the tiniest bit beneath her shawl, “if you still love that boy, then God’s not yet done with us, Dear. Oh no, he has even more yet in store for us both.”