The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [45]
“Saved you,” Manuel panted, strings of bile dangling from his chin like an old man’s last few beard hairs. “I fucking saved you! Please!”
Awa reached toward him again, and he drew back with a whine. She stopped, her fingers still stretching out toward him, and then closed her hand into a fist. They could talk whether he was alive or dead, and it occurred to her that if she killed him again she could raise his corpse and interrogate it as to Manuel’s character, especially in regard to his opinion of witches. But she did not know if by doing so she would actually kill him instead of giving him the little death—could those whose spirits were not fully removed from their bodies be raised as mindless ones? The question certainly bore looking into.
The witch was considering him, her fist between them. She did not look so young anymore, nor so slight. She was thick and made of nothing but hard angles, her dark skin making her appear more statue than woman to the artist.
“You can kill me anytime,” Manuel said before her hand could unclench. “Please, let’s, let’s talk for a while. Please?”
“Talk?” This broke the witch’s reverie, and she stared at him as though toads were hopping out of his mouth instead of words. “What would we talk about?”
“You,” Manuel said, and as her face sharpened into a scowl he added, “And me? I’m an artist. You saw those sketches? Mine. And the nude I sold to Bernardo, the one you saw first, that’s mine, too.”
“That’s mine now,” Awa said. “I like your … pictures. Tiny little shards of their spirits live in them.”
“Ah,” said Manuel, his sudden flush of pride instantly cooled by the creepiness of her appraisal. Perhaps his old master Tiziano had been right—he should have stuck to still life. “I can sketch one of you, if—”
“No!” Awa backed away from him. “If you try it you go back to death, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern, and I won’t wake you. Understand?”
“Of course.” Manuel nodded. “Absolutely. Whatever you—”
“Think I’ll fall for your tricks?” Awa demanded, although she wondered if the hazy remnants she felt in the planks would be strong enough to have any influence at all over a complete spirit like hers. “I know others can do as I do, or like I do. Are you a witch, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern?”
“No,” Manuel said, relieved that she had given him a little room. “I’m an artist, and I’m a soldier, and very often I’m a fool, if my wife or captain are to be believed, but I’m no witch. I’m a man of God.”
“Man of God?” Awa said. “The same god that walked as a man and then returned from the dead, that god?”
“God.” Manuel nodded, not sure what she was driving at. “The only God.”
“Where I was born men thought the spirits were gods,” said Awa, remembering her early conversations with her tutor more than the actual faith of her mother and father. “And here men believe in a man who was a god. How do you know he was not a trickster, a necromancer? How do you know he was not my tutor, or his tutor, or some other like them? How do you know you don’t worship a monster that has deceived you, a man capable of stealing bodies, raising the dead, and living forever through sorcery?”
“Ah,” said Manuel, not having anticipated anything so complicated as a theological debate with a witch when he had set out to earn some paint as a mercenary. At least she was sounding more like the witches he had heard about, being completely fucking heretical and all. “Well, faith, you know? Faith.”
“Faith.” Awa crinkled her brows. “You mean belief?”
“Well, yes,” said Manuel. “I believe God is who He is, and that He will redeem me, if I please Him.”
“How do you please him?” Awa eyed him. “Killing his enemies? Killing the worshippers of his enemies?”
“No,” said Manuel, deciding that he had no more to lose than his life were his honest answers to displease her, and he had already lost that once tonight without any continued ill effect. “Some think