The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [88]
“Evil baby,” he managed through his laughter, leaning against his laughing wife. “Evil fucking baby. I fucking forgot. Evil baby. His face. Is. Too terrible.”
“I’m sorry.” Katharina remembered Awa, looking up at the anxious nun and panting another apology. “So sorry, Sister Awa. It’s a game we’d play with the kitten, wrapping him up like that.”
“Evil baby.” Manuel shook his head, still trembling all over. He looked to his niece, who had slid down to the floor and was the only one still giggling. “I suppose you had a hand in this cruel plot?”
The teenager nodded, glancing up at Awa and bursting into another fit of raucous laughter. Katharina tugged on her husband’s arm, sobering a bit at his serious expression. “Come on then, Niklaus, let’s introduce you to little Margaretha.”
“You mean—” Manuel looked at his wife, then his niece, and finally at Awa, who had finally relaxed. “Just what I need, another woman.”
“Come on, then.” Katharina slapped him lightly on the chest, then led him to the bedroom where his infant daughter slept.
Awa could not remember having been so nervous as the day wore on in the Manuel house, her friend cooing over the baby that cried more often than not at being held by her still road fragrant father. Lydie poorly concealed her fascination with the bandaged nun, and, exchanging clumsy conversation with Manuel’s pretty young niece, Awa reflected that the girl was probably the same age as she had been when she had first brought Omorose back from the dead. Awa doubted Lydie had even seen a corpse, let alone—well. The girl was as soft and pink as the marrow in a freshly cracked bone, and did not appear to have the slightest idea of what happened out there, beyond the sphere of her adoptive aunt and uncle. Awa hoped the girl never knew a fraction of what she did about the world. The idea of a rival tribe bursting into this magnificent house, hacking the adults with axes and abducting the children, seemed ridiculous, but then she remembered what the armies Manuel had served with had apparently done—according to her friend, the only difference was that the children inside the besieged cities might be cut down, burned alive, or raped instead of merely taken as slaves.
Awa’s dark thoughts were interrupted by Manuel, who ushered her out of the kitchen where they had sat holding the baby and listening to his stories about the front line, with brave pikemen and gunners fighting the good fight against the hordes of the enemy. His studio was much smaller than she had imagined—smaller than he deserved, she thought—but even more spectacular for all the masterpieces crammed into that little room. Her breath caught and caught again with each new painting and print that Manuel hoisted, so that she had to cover her eyes from time to time not to swoon from lack of air.
Awa had dyed wool, of course, but had no idea so many colors could be replicated on the canvas. Having only seen his sketches, nothing could prepare her for the holly greens, rose reds, and daisy yellows the artist used—during her adolescence atop the sparse mountain, she had hardly remembered such colors existed at all. The ladies were her favorite, the willowy and the plump, the dark-haired and the fair. That she would be allowed to sleep in the room where all these ladies dwelled pleased her immensely, and dispelled some of her nervousness. Then Awa noticed a painting unlike the rest.
“It’s you!” Awa marveled at how much more handsome Manuel appeared in the painting. In the image the artist was painting in an uncluttered, lavishly adorned room, an apprentice working in the background, cherubs overhead, a large window displaying the countryside behind him. “Where are you, in the painting?”
“Er”—Manuel scratched his head—“well, it’s less any specific studio as it is the ideal studio,