Damiano's Lute Read online

  So what if Gaspare was nothing but trash, and daily becoming worse. Who had ever said otherwise—Gaspare himself?

  No. Especially not Gaspare.

  And there was the truth that disarmed Damiano’s argument, Gaspare expected nothing but failure from himself—failure, acrimony, wounded pride. He knew he was difficult to get along with, and he accepted that Damiano was not. Therefore he considered it Damiano’s responsibility to get along with him, as it is the responsibility of a hale man to support a lame companion, or a sighted man to see for a blind.

  And this last tirade, in which the boy had accused Damiano of exactly nothing, had been built on a bizarre foundation of humility. For by letting the lutenist know how disappointed in him Gaspare was, he also let him know how much he had expected of him.

  Damiano’s head drooped. Grass-broken road swept by below the cracked footboard. His fine anger dissolved with the shreds of clouds, leaving a puddle of shame.

  The truth was he didn’t really like Gaspare. Not wholeheartedly, except when the music gave them a half-hour’s unity, or during the rare moments when they were both rested and fed. Gaspare was simply not very likable.

  But the problem was Damiano didn’t like anyone else wholeheartedly either, except of course one glorious angel of God. And that took no effort.

  Gaspare had been right, Damiano admitted to himself. He had failed the boy. He had given him very little, on a human level, since the beginning of winter. Aside from his music, Damiano had felt he had nothing to give.

  And wasn’t the lute enough? Damiano rubbed his face with both hands. God knew it was work to study and play as hard as he had done for the past year. It required concentration, which was the hardest of works, as well as the best.

  But no. Damiano might be a madman about his instrument, but he was not so deluded as all that. One could not pass off a bourrée as an act of friendship, any more than one could disguise as human warmth what was mere good manners and a dislike of conflict.

  And what had he taken from Gaspare in exchange for that counterfeit friendship? Rough loyalty, praise, energy, enthusiasm….

  Once Damiano had had his own enthusiasm. Enthusiasm and a dog. The dog died, and then the enthusiasm, and he had had only Gaspare.

  Eyes gone blind to the spirit, ears gone deaf to the natural world: it seemed to Damiano he had given as much as a man ought to be asked to give, for the sake of right. He ought to be allowed some peace now, for as long as he had left.

  But how could he say that to Gaspare, who had never possessed what Damiano had now lost?

  Suddenly it occurred to him to wonder which way the boy had gone. Surely he would continue to Avignon, to Evienne. Damiano raised his eyes.

  A minute later and Gaspare would have been out of sight, or at least out of the lutenist’s poor sight. But he was visible in the far distance ahead, a bobbing splotch of motley, jogging along faster than the horse’s amble. Frowning, Damiano tossed his hair from his face. Gaspare’s physical endurance inspired awe. Doubtless he would make it to the city alone, and probably he would go quicker and plumper than he would have in the lutenist’s company.

  Then truth stung Damiano’s black eyes. Beloved or no, Gaspare was necessary to him. In a manner totally removed from the question of like or dislike, Damiano Delstrego needed Gaspare because the boy believed in him—as a lutenist, as a composer.

  As a man of possibilities.

  Damiano did not believe he was the best lutenist in the Italies, any more than he had believed himself to have been the most powerful witch in the Italies—when he had been a witch. After all, he had only been playing (obsessively) for a handful of years. But Gaspare did believe that, and more. Gaspare was the first and only person in Damiano’s life who was convinced of Damiano’s greatness.

  It had been at first embarrassing, and then intoxicating, to have someone so convinced.

  It had become necessary.

  The world was filled with strangers. Gaspare, with all his prickliness and his ignorance (ignorant as a dog. Unreliable as a dog in heat), had become necessary to the musician.

  Damiano asked the horse for more speed, snapping the whip against the singletree. Festilligambe bounded forward, honking more like a goose than a horse. Harness snapped. The wagon boomed alarmingly.

  This was no good. Two miles of this speed and the mismatched wheels would come off.

  Damiano cursed the wagon. He’d rather be riding. But if he was to travel with Gaspare again, he’d need the ramshackle vehicle. Perhaps he ought to catch Gaspare on horseback, and then return to the wagon.

  But what had become of the boy? Damiano rose up in the seat, bracing one large-boned hand against the backboard and one ragged boot against the footrest. He jounced, clothes flapping on his starved torso like sheets on a line. His black screws of hair bounced in time with the wheels’ squeal, except for one patch in the back which sleeping on branches had left matted with pinesap. He squinted in great concentration.

  The road opened straight before him, swooping south and west, losing elevation as it went. Grass gave way to ill-tended fruit trees and bare stands of alder, and the wet ground was hummocked with briar and swamp maple, which twined like ivy. Less inviting countryside, was this, certainly. The clouds had returned and were multiplying, or at least swelling. In the distance appeared what might have been a village. (Or it might have been rock scree. Damiano was always tentative about things seen in the distance.)

  But nowhere could he spy a lean shape of yellow and red and green, neither floating over the grass nor angrily trampling the briars. No Gaspare on the road or among the swamp maple. Not even a suspiciously bright bird shape amid the alder groves.

  Damiano’s curse began quite healthily, but trailed off into a sort of ineffectual misery. For seeking people missing or lost he was even less equipped than the average man. He had always before known where people were, known it literally with his eyes closed—been able to feel a distant presence like a breath against his face. But he didn’t know how to look for a boy, using patience and reason, going up one country wagon rut and down the next. He felt that at twenty-three he was too old to learn.

  As a matter of fact he felt too old for many activities, and the best life had to offer was most certainly sleep. As his mind spun in gripless circles around the problem of Gaspare, his lower lids crawled upward and his upper lids sank downward until his rebellious eyes closed themselves. His hands, too, had snuck up one another’s sleeve and hidden in the warmth.

  So little was pleasant in this life, and most of what there was turned out to be a mistake. Magic was self-delusion and war just a patch of bloody snow. Even one’s daily meat was the product of violent death, while love…

  The gray stone walls, burying a nun. A gray stone grave on a hillside. A small grave in a garden without a stone.

  Only music was uncorruptible, for it meant everything and nothing. In the past year Damiano had done little but play on the lute.

  His present lute was his second, successor to the little instrument smashed in Lombardy and buried beside the bones of an ugly bitch dog. This lute boasted five courses and its sound carried much farther than that of his first pretty little toy. But it was shoddily made and did not ring true high on the neck, no matter how Damiano adjusted the gut fretting. In only fifteen months’ play he had worn smooth valleys along the soft-wood fretboard.

  But now he didn’t want to play. There was no one to hear but the horse, who was tone deaf and appreciated no rhythms save his own. Besides—Damiano’s hands would not come out of their hiding.

  The sun winked in and out of clouds; he felt it against his face, like a memory of his missing witch-sense. His head filled with the mumbling voice which was always present if he allowed himself to listen.

  Sometimes it broke into his dreams, waking him. More often, like now, it droned him to sleep. Either way, he never understood it.

  And there came odd images, and thoughts. Naked women (a radiant, young naked woman
: Damiano knew her name) he could understand, but why should his head be filled with concern for goats?

  He let such concerns fade with the sunlight.

  The horse did not know his driver was asleep. He needed neither whip nor rein to urge him to do what he liked most to do, which was to keep going. He lifted his feet, not with the exaggeration of fashion, but with racing efficiency. He nodded right and left to his invisible audience. His high, Arabic tail swept the air.

  He thought about oats, and never wondered why he should do so.

  Suddenly Festilligambe recognized something much better than oats. Philosophical amazement caused him to stumble, and his trot became a shuffle. A halt. He craned his long neck and regarded the crude seat of the wagon, his whinny pealing like bells.

  Damiano woke up smiling, in the presence of light. His hands leaped free of his shirt and he hid his poor, inadequate eyes behind them. “Raphael,” he cried. “I’m so glad to see you—or almost to see you.”

  Between the mortal’s shut fingers leaked an uncomfortable radiance. Damiano turned his head away, but as if in effort to counteract this seeming rejection, he scooted closer to the angel on the seat. Meanwhile, the horse was doing his level best to turn around in his traces.

  “I’m sorry, Dami,” said the Archangel Raphael, settling in all his immateriality next to Damiano. “I don’t know what to do about that.”

  Damiano gave a sweeping wave of his hand, accompanied by one scornful eyebrow. “Don’t think about it, Seraph. It is my little problem. At least I can hear you perfectly, and that is more than most people can. Besides, I remember well what you look like.” He opened his eyes, staring straight ahead.

  And he sighed with relief. It was pleasant to talk to the angel again. Very pleasant, especially now when he was feeling so completely friendless. But conversation was one thing, and study another. Today Damiano was not in the mood for a lesson.

  Yet Raphael was his teacher, and so Damiano felt some effort was incumbent upon him. “I’ve been saving a question for you, Raphael. About that joli bransle we were toying with last week.”

  “The bransle?” A hint of surprise rested in the angelic voice. “You want to talk about the bransle right now?”

  “I was wondering if I ought to play those three fourth intervals in a row. Or not, you know? It’s not like they were fifths, which would be too old-fashioned and dull, but still, I feel the measure would go more if I descended in the bass.”

  There was a moment’s silence, along with a rustle like that of a featherbed. Then the corona of radiance said, “Dami, what are you going to do about Gaspare?”

  Involuntarily, Damiano glanced over. Silver filled his eyes, cool as starlight, chillingly cool, set off by seas of deep blue. Damiano was falling, fearlessly falling, out into depths of time.

  There was a curtain of silence. He tore it.

  And the brilliance then was white-hot and immense. It was not infinite, but full within limits set perfect for it, shining round and glad, and it would have been meaningless to suggest this brilliance might want to be larger or smaller than it was, for it was glowingly content. And it was a brilliance of sound as much as of light: wild sound, like trumpets in harmony, yet subtle as the open chords of a harp. It drowned Damiano. His problems dissolved.

  “Dami,” came the soft, cool, ordinary voice. “Dami. Damiano! Close your eyes or I’ll have to knock you off the wagon.”

  Eventually the young man obeyed, dropping his head, clutching the seatback as though fighting a formidable wind. “I… I… ooof! Forgive me, Raphael. It leaves me a little sick.”

  The angel emitted a very melodic sort of whine. “That’s terrible, Dami. What is the matter with me that I affect you so badly?”

  Through his undeniable nausea, Damiano had to laugh. “The matter with you, old friend? Don’t worry about it. It’s what I get for being neither witch nor truly simple. And the sickness I feel happens only as I come back to myself.”

  He sat upright once more, and reached out at random to slap an immaterial shoulder. “It’s good for my music, Seraph. You have no idea how much I learn each time I get sick looking at you.”

  Raphael’s sigh was quite human. He plucked at Damiano’s head. “You have sap in your hair,” he observed.

  Damiano wiggled his fingers into the snarl. “I know. Gaspare wanted to cut it out. That seemed a very radical solution to the problem, so I…”

  “Gaspare,” echoed the angel. “What are you going to do about Gaspare?”

  Damiano bristled his brow. “How can I tell you? He just ran off not an hour ago. Maybe he’ll come back. And how did you know about that anyway, Raphael? You were listening?”

  Wings ruffled again. “Yes, I was.” After a few seconds’ silence on the human’s part, Raphael added, “Shouldn’t I listen?”

  Damiano shrugged. “It makes me feel I have to be always on my best behavior, that’s all.”

  This time it was the angel’s turn to pause. “Best behavior? Is that like your best clothes? I’m flattered that you would want to wear it for me, Dami, but you needn’t. And if you wish, I will stop listening.

  “In fact”—and the angel’s voice grew even softer, (softer, slower and indefinably droll)—”I ought to send you a note beforehand, each time I visit, so that you can be wearing your best behavior. And your best clothes.”

  Damiano snorted, smiling wryly. “I am wearing my best clothes. They have become indistinguishable from my worst. Like my behavior.” There was something harsh in the laugh with which he followed this.

  “I’m going to follow Gaspare down the road, Raphael. All the way to Avignon, if need be.” His smile grew tighter as he added, “And I’ll even apologize to the little weasel, when I find him.

  “That is what I’m going to do about Gaspare. Does it make you happy, my teacher?”

  Before Raphael could reply that that did make him happy, the conversation was interrupted by a huge crack and snap of wood, followed by a pained whinny, as the frustrated horse finally succeeded in turning around in place. The sting of the trace breaking at his right sent Festilligambe into a series of stiff-legged jumps which destroyed the last of the makeshift harness. Then, as Damiano bit his fingers in consternation, the gelding laid its long head on the footrest of the wagon and gazed up at the angel, moaning like a forge.

  “There goes the wagon,” cried Damiano. “So much firewood!”

  “I’m sorry,” said the angel (for the second time that day).

  Damiano’s gesture was magnanimous and very Italian. “Forget it! He’s my horse. Besides—how can you be sorry about anything when you’re a perfect spirit?” He swung down from the seat and marched forth to release the horse from its tangles.

  “I’m not perfect,” replied the angel, almost hurt in tone. “That’s very bad theology. Only the Father is perfect. I am only sinless. And it is because of me this lovely fellow has broken all his straps. Let me fix it.”

  Damiano stopped with two handfuls of rope. The horse’s gently swishing tail was flogging his kneecap. “Fix… the harness? But you are not to become involved in human affairs, remember?”

  Raphael glided over the horse’s head and hung in the air for a moment before alighting. Damiano looked down.

  “True,” came the angel’s voice from above, “but that is a complex matter, my friend. If I caused the accident, then am I not becoming more deeply involved if I neglect to repair the damage?” The angel’s voice now issued from beside Damiano, who flinched his face away.

  After a moment he asked, “Is it done yet, Raphael?”

  Wings clapped together in what might have been consternation. “Done, Dami? I have scarcely begun. There are a lot of knots here, you know.”

  The young man dared a peek at one of the broken lines, to find that the whole thing had been retied: the flax joined to the hemp rope with a neat series of square knots, while the leather (which had to slide) had been linked in with a bowline.

  Damiano had to lau
gh. “I thought you were going to use magic.”

  There was a pause before Raphael answered. “I’m not a witch, Damiano. I don’t really possess much magic, but my… my fingers are clever enough.”

  Damiano took this statement for what he thought it was worth and, grinning, he raised his hand to scratch his head.

  “Ouch. Are they clever enough to get this mat out of my hair, Seraph?”

  Smooth fingers felt around the elf-lock. “Well, I can certainly make some improvement, Dami. Have you got a knife?”

  The last remnants of a former vanity caused Damiano to cringe. “You mean you’ll have to cut after all?”

  The angel chuckled. “Yes. The harness was one thing, but this kind of neglect is another. But I think I can do it without leaving too much of a hole.”

  Damiano sat perched on the wagon seat, being bartered with his shaving razor. He kept his eyes closed. Raphael did not stop when he had removed the matted patch in the back, but took this opportunity to shape the whole head according to his personal taste.

  “Phew,” spat the mortal. “Hair in my mouth. Gaspare won’t know me, when I do find him. I haven’t had my hair cut since last autumn.”

  “Why not?” asked the angel, as black hairs floated through his stainless radiance.

  “No money,” replied Damiano, but even as he spoke he knew it wasn’t the truth. Gaspare badgered him weekly to let him cut his hair in the style in which he arranged his own orange locks. Damiano, who could not imagine himself looking like Gaspare, had steered clear.

  “Or rather, Raphael, I am beyond caring what I look like.”

  “Why so?” The angel’s voice seemed preoccupied.

  Damiano hesitated before answering. It was not a subject that made easy conversation. “Because, Seraph, I have been told not… to expect…” His head was gently pressed forward while attention was paid to the nape of his neck. “… to expect to live much longer.”

  With absolutely no change of tone Raphael murmured, “One is told a great number of things by a great number of people. I’d be careful whom I believed.”