Kris (4 page)

Then the door opened, and he entered the cottage, leaving the boys to their work.

Jonas, perhaps thirteen and the smallest of the group, seemed somewhat shy and timid in his manners. He nearly fell as he awkwardly dismounted the wagon and hit the ground. Regaining his balance, Jonas gathered several large pieces of wood that he wrestled over to the wagon wheels where he wedged them to hold the wagon in place. As he stood, a mound of snow hit him on the back of the head with a THWACK. He yelped.

Markus, a fresh-faced and powerfully athletic boy, along with Noel, a thin and sneering lad, both about fourteen, jeered at Jonas and continued their snowy assault from the protection of the wagon bed. Jonas couldn't find cover. Every time he blocked one assault, another would find the opening it left. Sputtering and jerking, he moved in first one direction and then the other, until finally he dove with desperate courage at his attackers, crawling beneath the wagon in an effort to avoid being pelted.

Markus turned his attention to one of the tarps covering the chairs in the wagon bed. He grabbed it firmly by one side and yanked on it, flipping it off the chairs and onto Noel, who screamed in entangled self-defense, “Hey! Get this off.”

Markus laughed as Noel stood in the wagon, squirming beneath the tarp. In his struggle to escape, Noel tripped over the side and landed with a great thud in the snow beside the wagon. Markus, a laugh now half-caught in his throat, flopped onto his belly and looked down at Noel with concern.

“Noel, you hurt?” Markus asked in a worried voice.

Noel frantically popped his head out. “I did that just to make you laugh,” he said with false bravado as he struggled to catch his breath.

Markus threw another tarp over him.

While Noel continued to thrash about once again, Markus grabbed two chairs from among several in the wagon and placed them on the ground. Jumping down from the wagon, Markus stacked the two chairs in the snow. As he turned to lift out another chair, a snowball exploded against the side of his face. Markus looked about in newly fueled anger.

For a moment, Noel stood champion atop the wagon, sneering; then his smile froze. Markus vaulted onto the sleigh. Desperately, Noel staggered through the wagon and tumbled over the side, running. Markus
chased him relentlessly, a predator on the tail of his prey, and when Noel finally stumbled, Markus leapt upon him. They tumbled end over end, head over foot, to the ground fighting.

Jonas crawled out to watch Markus pummeling Noel and rubbing his face in the snow. I followed, initially caught up in the fiasco. Beside me in the back of their wagon sat a chunk of salt-cured meat. I devoured it before I even remember picking it up.

Josef's voice boomed through the open door of the cottage, “Markus! Noel! If you are playing the fools, you will feel the lash! Hear?”

I turned to dash back to the trees in the hope I would not be discovered and ran directly into Markus. I spun and tried to move in another direction, but Noel blocked my escape and pushed me back toward Markus once again. As I struggled to get my balance and escape in yet another direction, Markus grabbed me and tossed me into the chairs that were sitting in the snow. They snapped and splintered as I hit them, sending pieces of wood in all directions.

Josef yelled again, “If we're caught by the storm, I'll be looking for new apprentices, and your parents will have to find something else to do with you.”

As I lay on the ground, Noel grabbed one of the satchels from the wagon and threw it at me. I caught it as it hit me on the chest. “Thief! We captured a thief!” Noel began to scream loudly in an effort to muster Josef's attention.

I tried to stand.

Markus ruthlessly pushed me to the ground and yelled, “Josef!”

“You've got it coming now,” Noel taunted.

This was what I wanted. I wanted this more than anything in the world. A reason to injure. A justification to hurt. A deserving enemy to destroy. A fight.

I lurched up at Markus, who was looking toward the cottage. He never had a chance. My body, launched from the earth, drove my momentum. My arm swung back for maximum damage. And I screamed at him from the depths of my pain as I swung my fist forward.

A powerfully strong hand grabbed me by the back of the collar and spun me around, suddenly ending my attack.

Josef looked down on me with drilling, intense eyes.

“He broke the chairs,” Markus yelled angrily in accusation.

“He was pinching our food,” Noel added in an echoing chorus.

Josef looked at each of the boys, as if to warn them not to lie.

“Jonas?” Josef asked after a moment in his deep, commanding voice. “What have you to say? Is this what happened?”

Jonas stood nearly frozen with worry and did not dare to speak.

Josef closely scrutinized him, waiting for an answer, and Jonas nodded his head timidly.

Josef then grabbed the satchel, which was resting in the snow, and pointed to the broken chairs. “Your people will pay for those,” he said to me gruffly.

I wiped my dripping nose with the sleeve of my threadbare coat and looked away from Josef in embarrassment. “I have no people,” was all that I could say.

“Then you'll work it off,” Josef barked at me. “All of you! There will be no more fighting. Now, get these chairs up to the house. Grab the tarp and tie everything down. Quickly now.”

I moved to help the others with the chairs.

“Not you!” Josef said to me forcefully.

The apprentices went about their duties unloading the wagon and carrying the chairs up the slope.

Josef approached me and set his hand roughly upon my cheek, lowering my bottom eyelid as he searched. I knew what he was looking for. But the signs of the plague are not always left on the body. He saw nothing but the story of my misery in the tears that never spilled from my eyes.

“I have a horse.”

“Then you'll work his keep off too.”

We didn't beat the blizzard. Gerda didn't have a sprint left in her. Slowing his pace to ours, I would have thought Josef was endangering everyone on his wagon if he didn't give off the impression of unquestionable control. The last few stretches of land were the most difficult as the road all but disappeared. Despite the last span of days, Gerda seemed to know that a true rest was just ahead and, though not fast, she kept a modest pace.

The world was nearly an impenetrable blur of white by the time we deposited each of the apprentices at their homes. Jonas's family was so relieved when they greeted him at the door. Hugs and kisses.

“Please come in! It's safer to stay!” they hollered over the deafening wind. Josef waved them off with a polite refusal. Marcus's father met him at the door with a pat on the shoulder and a simple nod at Josef. No one welcomed Noel home.

The carpentry shop and Josef's home were connected, though I couldn't tell how large they were from the outside. I couldn't even tell how he located the building until it was right in front of me. We put the horses up before we went to the main house.

The barn had been mucked out and was just roomy enough for all three horses. We lit the corner stove, though it didn't quite warm the whole space. I cried when we liberated Gerda from her harness. As we removed each piece, the terrible toll on her body was revealed as was the horrible injustice done by me. There were minor cuts and abrasions from the sheer toil of our hard journey. But the worst, almost too difficult to look at, were the gashes created by the tackle and straps. The breaching, the girth, and the tug had all cut deep wounds through her skin and into the muscle beneath. When we removed the breast collar, without the pressure, blood flowed freely down the front of her legs.

“How long has she sat in harness?” Josef demanded. “More than seven days?”

Tears welled in my eyes. I couldn't bring myself to answer.

“Grab that sack and the bucket of water.”

I quickly complied and started to let her drink.

“That water is cold. She'll drink better if you make it warm. The cold water will help to stop the bleeding. Grab another bucket and go outside. There is plenty of snow for you to heat over the fire.”

When I returned and had set the water on the stove, he called me to his side. He took two huge handfuls of what looked to be finely ground salt from the sack and poured them into the cold bucket of water, mixing it with his hands. Suddenly he grabbed my hands and immersed them in the freezing brine, holding them under.

“Grab the salt. Grab it in your hands,” he commanded.

I did as I was told. Slowly he pulled my hands from the bucket and placed them on her wounded body. A salted wound can be a terrible pain, so immediately I drew back.

“Her suffering cannot be ignored. You will find that the salted water pains her less than water alone and will begin her healing.”

Josef ran our hands all over her body, guiding them into her deepest injuries.

“Rid the wound of any dirt and debris. Flush it out. Don't leave anything, even a piece of her own flesh.”

Again I recoiled, pulling back. But he firmly held my hands as I cried, pushing them through the cuts and over the abrasions. The flick of her ears and tail, and the deep laboring of her breath were the only signs of her discomfort. And as I worked along her side, I could feel her lean into me, just lightly.

Though I was not conscious of it, cleansing the atrocities done to her body was a form of purging for me, a kind of absolution for what I had done to her. I had not dealt with the loss of my family and would not for some time. Somehow a form of healing had begun at the rough hands of this old carpenter. As I cleaned her injuries my tears slowed and eventually subsided.

“She is lucky. Though some wounds are deep, the worst are on her hips and upper thighs, not her abdomen or chest.”

First with just my hands, then later with a soaked cloth, I cleaned every wound.

Josef cleared the snow from the door of the carpentry shop, which he simply called the carpentry, and ushered me inside. Candles were lit and the fire stoked. It was definitely warmer than the barn. Josef called to his wife as he removed his coat and hung it near the furnace to dry.

“Gabriella, we have a new apprentice who will work with us to repay a debt and earn his room and board.”

I believed he said it for me, reminding me I was welcome, a worker earning his keep, not a burden.

“Josef? Josef?!” a woman's worried voice called.

Josef took me through a dark hallway at the back of the carpentry that opened up into the most glorious little kitchen. I say little because it was smaller than the carpentry, about the size of a bedroom. But it was the first kitchen I had ever seen that was made for cooking, or baking, or something to do with food. I didn't know. But it smelled fantastic.

Then the most adorable fleshy young grandmother entered the room from the opposite doorway. I didn't know if she had grandchildren. It didn't matter. I didn't even know if she had children. It didn't matter. She had the spirit of a grandmother. It was in her eyes. I learned later Gabriella was never blessed with a child of her own but she radiated unconditional love. This of course, did not keep her from berating Josef.

“Goodness, where have you been, Josef? You knew there was a blizzard coming. You had us scared half to death. If I wasn't so happy to see you, I would smack you in the head!”

From behind Gabriella stepped a girl. Her hair was strawberry blonde. Her eyes, sparkling in the flickering firelight, saw me. The world held its breath. Or maybe that was me. She was lovely, and I knew in that moment I would love no other.

Josef talked as if Gabriella hadn't said a word, as if he had just walked in from a refreshing spring day of work.

“Sold most of the chairs. Not all, but most.”

Gabriella saw me.

“My God!”

It was the closest I would ever hear her come to swearing. And truth be told, she may have been praying.

Gabriella pulled me to a seat by an open oven fire that bathed the room in oranges and reds. She removed my jacket and vigorously began to rub my arms and hands. But all the while I couldn't take my eyes off the girl. Ensnared, I stared at her. Openly and serenely she looked back. I began to think she was an angel or something from my imagination since no one had acknowledged her existence.