The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [62]
Somehow, preposterous though it may sound, Awa and Manuel did not fall in love on their journey together, in spite of the wife at home who adored Manuel, in spite of Awa’s lack of sexual interest in men, in spite of their mismatched personalities, and in spite of their growing and mutual fondness for one another. The best they could muster was a lessening of fear on Manuel’s part and the honest—if painfully disinterested—observation on Awa’s that Manuel was not so bad-looking, and that was only observed as the result of some self-deprecating jibe the artist had made about his own downward-angling nose. Pathetic.
The more time Manuel spent with Awa, though, the more he wanted to draw her—to sketch and then paint her likeness, and not upon wooden boards but canvases and abbey walls. Her full lips contrasted her hard cheeks in a splendid fashion, and the bulging muscles in her arms and legs endowed her with a body reminiscent of Minerva, tempting to an artist who had spent so long paying tribute to Venus-like figures. She was, in fact, just as strong as he, yet lacking the androgynous looks that characterized the few other women he had met who carried a sword instead of a spindle, and in her unorthodox and scarred fashion she represented the ideal model.
She would have none of it, at first, but eventually he wore her down with the same disarming charm he hoped would convince von Stein not to have him killed once he returned to the front and reported his mission a failure. He had stood over Awa for a long time the night before they set out on their journey together, the weight of the iron burdening hand and heart alike as he debated with himself whether or not to bind the witch. Part of what it had come down to was, unflattering a light though it may shine on Manuel’s soul, her obvious fondness for his work—had she been a critic that would have made things much easier.
There were other factors, of course. The way she clung to the little piece of smut Bernardo had commissioned as she slept, for one, so much like the way Manuel’s niece had held on to the doll he had made her when she was young, the doll she insisted he take with him for luck, the doll he had seen the witch remove from his bag, hold as reverently as a relic, and then carefully return to his bag as he lay dead on the floor of the cave, watching.
Manuel had wondered if she would struggle as he put the chains on her, if she would resist the bag and the blindfold, both of which would be necessary. He couldn’t very well look at her after that, nor have her look at him. He didn’t think she would fight him.
Fuck that, and fuck him for even thinking it.
Manuel the martyr, he had thought as he envisioned himself beheaded like John the Baptist or pierced with arrows like Sebastian or dunked in tar like … like … Manuel’s memory for the gory ends of God’s servants failed him there due to the stress of the moment, but his imagination helpfully supplied a picture of all three grisly ends happening to him at once, von Stein cackling, his family shrieking, but then he remembered Awa’s expression when she had asked him if he was living as God would want, or however she had put it, and that was that. Manuel the martyr and the nameless witch, fast friends and road partners. Ludicrous.
Awa could not believe she had a living friend, and sometimes found herself victim to giggling fits to match the one Manuel had suffered in the cave. He was conceited, incredibly conceited, and thought he knew everything, and he came off as condescending even when he was obviously trying not to, but still.