The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [93]
“Yes?” she said to the door.
“Can I … can I come in?” Manuel asked on the other side.
“Oh! Yes, yes, come in!” No one had ever asked her permission before entering a room, and the experience gave her a quiet little thrill.
“Ah,” said Manuel, again asking himself how in heaven the strapping, dark-skinned woman reminded him of his little slip of a niece. The thin tunic and brown, ratty leggings she had retrieved from her bag by the river were no more flattering than the nun’s habit or the clothes she had stolen from Bernardo, but they did suit her more than the soft dress she now wore. She seemed too big and too sharp for it, as though the cloth would be shredded to ribbons as soon as she took a step. “You look nice.”
“Am I a woman of Bern yet?” Awa plucked up the veil and held it over her face.
“Good as, or better,” said Manuel. “I’m glad Lydie was here, she’s better than Katharina or I at tailoring.”
“I’ll be happy when I can knit my own clothes again,” said Awa, dropping the veil. “I feel like this thing will rip as soon as I take a step.”
“We do have a loom here, so—”
“Your wife doesn’t like me, Manuel,” said Awa. “You should have asked her instead of inviting me in without her knowing—”
“Katharina is, can be, ah, cautious, is all,” said Manuel. “It’s not that she doesn’t like you, she just … doesn’t like you being here.”
“Oh,” said Awa, angry with herself for letting such a valid sentiment hurt her. “We’re leaving now, so she won’t have to worry.”
“About that …” Manuel suddenly wrung his hands. “Might you consider staying? Not in the house, but somewhere nearby where —”
“I don’t need you to protect me, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern.” Awa smiled.
“No, I suppose you don’t,” said Manuel, recalling all too well his poorly conceived and even poorer-executed escape plan back in the hazel wood with Werner and the rest. “But I do need your help, if you’d be willing to lend it.”
“Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern, I’ll kill the Pope and every priest if it would please you,” Awa said, her face doing its too-serious, vaguely sinister expression that always gave Manuel pause.
“Nothing, ah, so strong as all that,” said Manuel. “Mo’s talk has been rubbing off on you, I see.”
“Not all she’s been rubbing off on me,” said Awa, and Manuel’s eyes widened, the artist gaping at her. She stared back at him and shrugged. “Well, I thought it was funny.”
And then he did laugh, far too loudly and weirdly for it to be genuine, but Awa appreciated the gesture nonetheless. “Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern, I—”
“How in hell did we get back to the of Bern, eh? Manuel, it’s Manuel, or Niklaus or—”
“Niklaus is what your wife calls you,” said Awa, vigorously shaking her head. “Manuel. What is it I can do for you, Manuel?”
“Wellllllll,” said Manuel. “You could stay the night, maybe in the brothel Mo’s whores are at? And once the sun starts to go down you could—”
Dancing After Midnight
This is how it goes, thought Manuel as he crept down the street along the wall just after midnight, this is the first step down. Don’t be coy, he thought next, you’re already seven flights down and dropping, by Alighieri’s reckoning. Shall we do a recent head count of your mortal sins? Thirteen dead men before, plus the seven planks you’ve added to the compendium of saints from this last tour, plus Werner … did the other three count, Bernardo and the Kristobels? They would still be alive if she had not been loosed, and he had loosed her, so—
A stone thumped his scalp, a lump quickly rising on his unadorned, and thus uninsulated, head. Looking up, he saw a shadow crouched on the top of the wall, and then she had his wrist and up he went. This is how it goes, he thought again as the moonlit churchyard came into sight beneath them, break bread with a witch and before you know it you’re digging up bodies and—Don’t put this on her, thought another part of