Breath (9781439132227) (5 page)

“We've always had stars.”

Pater Frederick grows serious. “We fought the Crusades for souls—and that's why we really won, regardless of whether we converted Arabs from Islam to Catholicism. You see, the Arabs know more in science and philosophy than we ever guessed. They've become the teachers everywhere. The arithmetic I do with you comes from them. And the physics. And alchemy. And astronomy—the stars.” His hands hold mine. “The more we know of God's creations, the closer our souls move toward His almighty presence.”

“All that from the dirty Arabs,” I say wonderingly.

“Dirty? The rich of Germany copy the Arab genteel ways. You see their spirit in the arabesques on churches. Ah, if only you could travel, I'd take you to Köln. They've built a fine cathedral there to house the bones of the three wise men of the East, which were transferred from Milan, in Italy. And I'd take you to bazaars in that fine city. You'd be amazed. There's an Arab word for you—
bazaar
. Given what they know about medicine, there may even be an Arab cure for you.”

A cure for me? “How could I find out?”

“I doubt you can. No one around here knows Arab medicine. Maybe there's someone in Hannover. That's the closest, I'm sure. But you're not strong enough for a trip to Hannover. And there's no luring a city surgeon to a small burg like Hameln.”

His words are not cruel, simply matter-of-fact. This is the way the world is—my world, at least. I don't ask how on earth, if I'm not strong enough to go to Hannover, I will ever be strong enough to go to Magdeburg to study after my birthday. I don't indulge in pointless questions.

Through the rest of our lessons Pater's words speak in the back of my head.
A cure
. When I was little, I hoped each new brew Großmutter made for me would be a cure. I paid close attention as she minced and boiled and strained the foul-smelling concoctions. I drank obediently, willing myself not to vomit even the most repellent of them. Gradually I learned to hope only to find a way to live reasonably long with my malady. But now Pater has spoken of a cure.

Those words speak as I pass through town and stop at the woman's house to pick up whatever she has for our coven. It turns out to be a thrashing burlap sack.

“What's inside?” I ask.

She pushes me toward the door.

I look in the sack. Cats. I've never liked cats. “But they're not even black,” I say.

“They're good ratters.”

That I can appreciate. It's generous of her to help us when it's clear HÖxter has a rat problem equal to Hameln town's. I haul the heavy sack over my shoulder and hurry to the dock.

The small boat waits for me. I don't know the man's name. I don't know what he does in Hameln town. Großmutter arranged that he would take me home after my lesson every month. I don't know what she gives him for it. But his face is always drawn with hunger and his clothes need mending. I sit in the bottom of the boat and unroll my pant leg. The man eats the pork and bread Pater Frederick gave me, like always. He licks his fingers and wipes off his mustache, then loosens the rope. The boat floats out to the center of the current and we're going home.

Pater's words are still speaking in the back of my head. They jumble with thoughts that were already waiting there, mixing and matching in new ways. Arab medicine. A cure. In Hannover. Where that piper went. Our coven. Hope.

The cows walk behind me, but they're not following, not really. They've gone this route so often they can easily do it on their own. I know that for a fact because for years whenever I've been too sick to go with them, Melis has merely opened the barn doors in the morning and shooed them out. Now and then they've wandered into the grain fields, and Father has smacked Melis in the back of the head for his laziness. But usually Melis gets away with it.

Now they're rushing ahead, in their ambly, bump-around way. They're eager for fresh food. The heavy rains of the past two months kept me indoors often, especially after the cold I came home with from my last trip to HÖxter. And when Melis shooed the cows out, instead of going to the meadow like they knew they were supposed to, they simply waited till he'd gone off with Father and the boys, and then went right back into the barn. Cows seem to hate rain as much as Großmutter does. Our cows, at least. And they could afford to stay indoors because they had plenty to eat in the barn. We still have dry grains left from last autumn's harvest. Many other people's cattle had to go out into the meadows regardless of the downpour because their grain supply had given out.

Today the sun is shining, as it has been for a week now, and our cows can't go fast enough. They let off little moos of anticipated pleasure. I imagine them smiling.

The grazing meadow is beyond our rye field and barley field and hops field, at the foot of the single small hill that belongs to us. The grain stalks are already tall. They got a good start in all that rain, and now they're enjoying the sunshine. The air is still cool, though. Mid-July, yet still cool.

We grow enough rye and barley for our own needs—cattle fodder and to grind for bread flour—but plenty extra, also, to trade with other farmers for oats and wheat. And we grow the hops to add to the barley for beer.

Father says everyone used to brew their own beer
from just barley, with all kinds of things to flavor it—blackthorn and sweet gale and bay leaves and yarrow and anything else they could think of. Some of the stuff was poisonous, too, and people got sick, especially children and old folks. The towns passed laws so that you had to pay for a license to use flavorings, and then only the permitted flavorings.

But then the monasteries started using hops for flavor, and the beer was so much better that the monasteries took over. Großvater learned the monks' formula, though, and he made his own tasty beer with hops. That's why our family has always made its own beer.

Großvater was Father's father. Großmutter is Mother's mother. So Großvater was not Großmutter's husband. I know this, but I think of them together, as a couple, because Father talks a lot about Großvater, and Großmutter lives with us, of course.

I never knew Großvater. Father's parents died long ago. Großvater must have been very smart, because Father learned so much from him.

I'm walking slower and slower. At first I picked my way carefully because of Kuh who rides on my shoulder. When she opened the gift sack of cats, Großmutter quickly dispersed them to members of our coven who live in town. Everyone clamored for
them, the rats have become so prevalent, but Großmutter gave them only to townsfolk because the rats are worst there. A rat even chewed two fingers off a baby in the night before the mother finally came running to see what the matter was. Großmutter had to stop the bleeding with a strong poultice. She curses the rats and has been collecting things for me to bring to HÖxter next time I go so that I can pick up more cats in exchange.

There were seven cats in the sack. Seven skinny cats in exchange for four fat hens. These numbers matter to me, these very numbers, seven and four. We used to be seven siblings: four boys, three girls. Now we're four. Seven for four.

The supreme head of our coven says number games tell things, if only you're smart enough to figure them out. I don't understand this one yet, but it comforts me to realize the exchange was exactly as it should have been. The principle of order that Pater Frederick talks about governs even things he would never admit, even things like hens and cats.

At the bottom of the sack—too small to count—were three newborn kittens, all in a sticky mess from being born in the sack. One was dead. One died the next day. But one survived, licking cow's milk off my
finger like mothers milk. That's why I named him Kuh—cow. He's black, but for a small white splotch at his throat. And he mews till I hold him. He wants me to hold him all the time. Ludolf called him
Kuhdumme
. But he's not dumb at all. He does what he must in order to live. I could see immediately that this kitten was my familiar.

How silly I had been to think a toad was my appointed animal. I'd always caught toads, long before I joined our coven, so I looked at them as naturally mine. When I joined our coven, I didn't need the supreme head to appoint my familiar, I simply took toads as my own. I understand toads. Cats, on the other hand, I'd always avoided. The only explanation, then, for this kitten's and my immediate attraction for each other was that he was my true familiar. The powers that be would simply have to overlook the white splotch. And I named him Kuh, though he's a thousand times smaller than the smallest calf.

Großmutter's annoyed. Even small like he is, she doesn't like him in the house. That's all right, though, because I never put him down on her floor. Kuh loves riding on my shoulder. But I can't go fast, because he digs in his claws if he fears he's about to fall. Tiny claws can hurt bad.

He's riding on my shoulder this morning. So I started out slow. But now I'm going much slower, with every step I go slower and slower. The pain in my belly woke me before dawn. I went outdoors to relieve myself, and even though I couldn't move my bowels, just letting out the waters made me feel all right again. For breakfast I ate a mash of turnips and lentils spiced with boiled celery—the same thing we had for dinner last night—and I went out to the cow barn satisfied, and milked them all in my usual amount of time. But with each step the pains have increased. Now they're sharp. And I'm burping, too.

The cows are nosing through the wild grasses and flowers, ripping them with swings of their heads. I'm on the ground, doubled over around my aching belly. Kuh is swatting at my hair as I jerk my head. He's so tiny, but he plays already.

From down here I can look closely at the flowers, at the droplets of nectar, at the bees that ignore me because I smell bad compared with the pink and purple and yellow blooms. The cows take mouthfuls of flowers, with no heed to the bees. Some of them escape as the cows open their mouths for the next big swallow, but others disappear down their throats. If they sting, the cows don't show it. I
wonder if they can sting later, when the cows chew their cud.

This hurts so bad I'm on my back now, holding my knees tight against my belly, trying to let out gas, but nothing comes. Sweat pools on my chest, the pain has come on so fast. I have to think about the flowers and the bees and the cows and how Kuh has discovered those bees and is jumping on his back feet after them, looking so funny with his bulging milk belly. I have to think about Koppen Hill in the distance, so covered with flowers that it looks like a big purple mole on the cheek of the earth. I have to think about anything, anything other than this damnable pain.

Now Kuh's battling a spike of tall grass that has a pink-and-purple growth on it. It's not a flower—it's grass—so the colors confuse me. I put all my energy into staring at that grass. From here the tips of the grasses all around seem like a baby's blanket, so many of them are pink and purple. That's why I didn't notice them before—they're almost invisible among the flowers. A kind of fungus, it must be, from all the rain. And maybe I recognize it—maybe it's the one Großmutter uses to staunch hemorrhage after a birth. Yes, I'm almost sure that's it. I should pick some of those grasses. Maybe we could
soak them and weave pentagrams to replace the straw ones over the door. They'd be more colorful.

Stabs in my belly.

I breathe out. At the very end of the exhalation there's a moment of nothingness—a moment between time. I hide there, deaf and mute and untouchable. Pain can't get me there. I'm safe, briefly. But the air comes rushing back in.

I scream.

Watch the grass. Think about the grass, the pink-and-purple grass, only the grass. The grass full of fungus. Would that the pink-and-purple fungus could work its magic on me and stop this excruciating pain.

I reach for a stalk. Grass and fungus. Grass. Think of grass.

A cow swings her heavy head and knocks my arm. She rips away the pink and purple that Kuh was swatting. The kitten flips over backward. And my brain flips as well, in pink-and-purple waves of pain.

It's so hard to breathe. The grasses can't hold my thoughts. I am a knot of everything foul. Nothing can save me. Coughs rack my chest. Each convulsion feels like the ax Bertram uses to cut beeches for firewood. Chop on my belly. Chop on my gut. My
brother, eyes red from crying, yellow from rage, chopping me to bits. No more breath. Sparks before my eyes. Then black.

I recognize the smell. But, no, it couldn't be pepper. I'm imagining the smell because I've been thinking about it lately, that's it. Next week I go back to Höxter for the sugared cinnamon bun and to smell pepper again—and for my lesson, of course. I move to get up, but the pain comes like hate. I scream.

Kuh mews piteously. I didn't realize he was curled on my chest.

Großmutter clumps to my side. I'm on the floor in the common room, and Kuh is now beside my head mewing and mewing. Großmutter kneels and holds a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. She feeds me.

I get up on one elbow and close my mouth around the gray muck. I fight a gag. “This tastes awful.”

“Eat.” She forces another spoonful between my teeth.

I try to swallow fast without tasting. “What's in it?”

“The head and feet of a green lizard, three smashed snails in their shells, fifteen peppercorns, all ground into porridge.”

My belly contracts, but I won't scream again. “I feel better,” I say.

“Don't lie, boy.”

I drop to my back again, careful not to squash Kuh, who rubs against me, purring now. “Why can't I just wear eagle feet in an amulet?”

She doesn't answer. We both know the eagle didn't work for me before. Großmutter doesn't waste her time on remedies already proved ineffective.