Valley of the Dead (11 page)

Dante looked at the man. “We have seen what you wanted to show us. We will go now.”

“Of course.”

“You won’t come with us?”

“No, why would we? We have everything we need right here.” He gestured around the courtyard. “We will find more of the monsters to satisfy our wrath. And if there get to be too many of them, we can climb up to the second floor.” He pointed to the ladder. “We have a couple chained up there, too, in case.”

Dante nodded, then he and Radovan walked back to where Adam and Bogdana were waiting for them.

“We heard screaming,” Adam said. “We were about to come in and see if you needed help. Are you all right?”

“We’re fine,” Dante said. “Physically, we are fine.”

“Are there people in there? Did you warn them?”

“Yes,” Radovan answered, as he and Dante got back on their horses.

“Are they coming out?” Adam continued.

“No,” Radovan said.

“Why not?”

“They say they already have everything they want,” Dante said.

“That’s funny,” Bogdana said.

As usual, she had caught and interpreted his tone much more fully than Adam, as wise as he was. Dante lowered and turned his head away from her. He couldn’t stand for her to see his eyes filling with tears – both because of the shame it caused him at his own weakness, and out of fear it might cause her to lose courage. “In a way, I suppose it is,” he said very softly, so only she could hear it.

She leaned closer to him, till her shoulder touched his. “But you are not laughing.” Then even more softly she said, “I know when you are hurt, Dante. When what you’ve seen is almost too much for you.” It was the first time she’d said his name, and he felt quite certain she knew the power that would have over him. All women did. “And I know you are stronger than you think. I need you. I trust you.”

He wiped his eyes on his upper sleeve as briefly and discreetly as he could, so that he could turn back to her. Her face was serene – not happy or sad, not even concerned exactly, but placid, as he needed it to be at that moment. He dared to touch her cheek with the back of his hand, and she let him, briefly, before she withdrew just a little. She gave him the barest hint of a smile before she lightly kicked her horse’s flanks and moved on ahead of him.

Chapter
19

“Fixed in the mire they say, ‘We sullen were

In the sweet air, which by the sun is gladdened,

Bearing within ourselves the sluggish reek…’”

Dante,
Inferno
, 7.121-123

Crossing an open area where various items were strewn, they arrived at the smaller gate. The wall itself was masonry, about fifteen feet high, the gate in it about nine. The doors across it were metal grates, hinged at the two sides and meeting in the middle. A chain with a padlock was looped around the metal bars. They dismounted to investigate it. It was locked.

“Damn,” Radovan muttered.

“I’m supposed to keep the gate closed,” a voice came down to them from above.

They looked up to see a man poking his head over the parapet at the top of the wall. He wore a helmet, but they couldn’t see any more of him. After the statement, he withdrew and they didn’t even see that anymore.

“We need to get out,” Adam explained. “The dead are already in the town. Most of the living seem to be gone already. Could you please open the gate? Do you have the key?”

“Of course I have the key,” the voice came from behind the parapet. “But I’m not supposed to. I could get in trouble.”

“I ought to climb up there and give you trouble,” Radovan said, clenching his fists.

“You’re welcome to try. The ladder’s in pieces down there. I made sure it was before I dropped it on the ground.”

They saw two long poles on the ground nearby. About half the rungs that connected them were broken, like someone had chopped through a few at one end, then yanked the two uprights apart to split it in two.

“Why can’t you just throw down the key?” Adam said. “You should get out too. It’s best.”

“Why? I don’t know you. I don’t owe you anything. I have orders. What good would come of it? If I came down and ran, I’d just die out in the woods tonight or tomorrow. I’m perfectly safe up here for now, and you have no more problems because of me than you’d have if I weren’t up here, so I’m not doing you any harm. Go away and leave me alone.”

Adam turned away from the futile conversation and back to the lock. “What strange people,” he said. “Can you break the lock?”

“The lock?” Radovan said. “No. The links of the chain are thinner. Find a metal bar or pole and we might be able to pry one open.”

They heard moaning and shuffling from nearby, and looked over to see two dead people approaching them. “You two – work on the chain,” Adam said, gesturing to Dante and Radovan. “We need to distract them.” He reached into his saddle bag and pulled a flat, black stone from it.

Bogdana had her hatchet out. She followed Adam to a wooden handcart full of hay that lay in the open area, between them and the two dead people. Dante looked around and saw two more dead people had also picked up the alarm, shuffling out of another door and heading toward them. Adam overturned the cart and knelt in the hay spilled on the ground. He struck a knife against the piece of flint he had gotten from his saddle bag, sending sparks on to the tinder, which he kept blowing on till it smoked and a small flame started to take hold of the dried grass.

“Get more wood to throw on,” he said to Bogdana as he took out his staff. “They’re afraid of fire, but only if it’s burning very intensely.”

Dante and Radovan, meanwhile, rummaged around among the things scattered on the ground, trying to find a piece of metal big enough to pry at the chain.

“Here,” Radovan came up with a chisel. “This probably isn’t long enough, but it’s thick enough.”

A second before, Dante had seen a wooden maul, its head covered with dried blood, but he’d ignored it since it wasn’t what they were looking for. Now he snatched it up and showed it to Radovan.

“Can you use it with this? To smash the link open?”

Radovan took the hammer and handed Dante the chisel. “All right, but you’ll have to hold the chisel in place. Unless you want to swing the hammer?”

Dante shook his head. He had felt how heavy the maul was and knew he couldn’t swing it effectively, even if the prospect of holding the chisel while the other man swung the bloody tool right at him didn’t sound appealing. Dante placed the tip of the chisel on a link of the chain, wedging the link between the chisel and the metal bars of the gate. He turned his head away.

His whole body shook as the hammer hit the chisel. He looked at where the chisel’s tip had dug into the metal of the link, and he placed the tip back on that exact spot. As he waited for the next blow, he looked to Bogdana, who was smashing the ladder into bits. She had already smashed an empty barrel into pieces and thrown it on the fire. She and Adam had a fairly large blaze burning in the middle of the open area, with a lot of smoke and bright flames. The four dead people stayed at some distance from the fire, cowering and moaning. Just before the second blow struck, Dante noticed their moans had attracted two more of the dead, who were further back, but shambling in their direction. Dante knew they’d be overwhelmed soon enough, even if the fire kept the dead away for a while.

The second blow slammed into the chisel. This time it cut almost all the way through the link. Radovan threw the maul on the ground and took the chisel from Dante. He forced it into the broken link.

“Hold the chain taut,” he said as he twisted the chisel back and forth, trying to widen the gap they’d broken in the link. Both were sweating and looking nervously at the growing crowd of the dead.

“I wish we had one of those giant, angry men to do this,” Dante panted as they struggled with the metal.

Radovan grunted. “I fear they’d be more interested in smashing in the heads of the dead, but they’d be helpful for that at least, unlike that lout up there.”

“Lout, shmout,” came the reply from above. “I’m safe. You’re not. That’s all I know.”

“All right, I’ve almost got it,” Radovan said. “Hold it in place one more second.” He strained with both hands, trying to torque the chisel around and wrench the gap open wider. “There!” He dropped the chisel as Dante let the chain go slack. Radovan slipped the adjacent link out of the broken one.

The two of them quickly unlaced the chains from the gate, as they looked over their shoulders at Adam, Bogdana, and the still-advancing dead. The chain clattered to the ground and the two men shoved the gate open.

“Now, come on!” Radovan shouted as he and Dante got back on their horses.

Adam and Bogdana retreated from the pyre and remounted. All four of them urged their horses forward and went through the gate, one at a time. Once outside, Radovan moved his horse in front of Bogdana’s, with Dante and Adam in the rear, next to each other. Dante looked back through the gate, to where he could now see the dark silhouettes of the dead, slowly working their way closer to the fire, even as they held their hands up to their bloody, disfigured faces, moaning louder, terrified of the flames.

“Their desire is stronger than their fear or pain,” he said softly.

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Stronger than their fear, surely. But their pain?”

Dante considered this. “Their desire
is
their pain.”

Adam nodded. “Yes. Now you have it right.”

“And it will last forever?”

“Yes. That is how horrible the cursed life is, and why we must pursue the blessed death.”

The sky remained the same grey. There was still no breeze. To Dante, it seemed to have gotten slightly warmer – the kind of heat that came not from the sun, or even from fire, but from diseased blood flowing too swiftly in channels too narrow for its overwhelming, animal vitality.

Chapter
20

Soon as I was within, cast round my eye,

And see on every hand an ample plain,

Full of distress and torment terrible.

Dante,
Inferno
, 9.109-111

Dante turned away from the dying town and examined the fields through which they now passed. In better times they would’ve been surrounded by crops, but now everything around them was dry and barren. It seemed unusually warm for this time of year, especially considering it was overcast. He scanned the open area around them and relaxed a bit. As strange as their surroundings were, it felt good finally to be outside the town, in a place that seemed deserted, without any immediate threats from either the living or the dead.

“What was your life like when you lived in Italy? Why did you journey so far, to come to our insignificant land?” Adam asked him as they rode along slowly.

“He wanted to be a monk.” Bogdana looked over her shoulder as she said this. Dante could not help but notice her dark eyes sparkle just a tiny bit, and the hint of a smile on the one side of her mouth. Radovan snorted a laugh at her playful remark, and she turned back forward. “You did too,” she chided him.

“Yes, I did once want to be a monk,” Dante said. “Instead I joined the apothecaries’ guild. I wanted to change the politics of my city, and guild membership was required to hold public office. But I didn’t change much. Instead I was exiled by those in power, who had help from the leader of my church. I wanted to stay in my city, but I will never see it again. And I wanted to write poems, to create something beautiful, but I never have. I wanted many things that did not happen.”

“You desired much, friend, but you just saw how strong and dangerous desire is,” Adam said. “Perhaps that was your problem.”

Dante looked over at the older, smaller man; everything seemed compact about him. His body, his desires, even his mind – all were compact, focused, efficient, never wasteful or dissipated. And though it was all very admirable, it could never be beautiful, Dante thought. He remembered Beatrice’s refined, fragile beauty, and even glanced at Bogdana, with her rough sensuality and awesome simplicity. Such beauties and complexities were never commensurate with the sharp, compact analysis of Adam. It would be like trying to get life-giving water to one’s mouth using a knife.

Dante had spent plenty of time alone in the past few years – more than most people spent in a lifetime, more than he would’ve liked, more than he would’ve wished upon anyone, even an enemy. He had spent much of that time dissecting his own beliefs, so he knew his perspective was closer to Adam’s than it was to the kind of feminine luxuriousness and ambiguity he had seen in Beatrice, and which now so confused and fascinated him in Bogdana.

“No,” he replied. “In our lives, everything is desire. We must learn to desire good things. Not all of my desires were directed toward bad things. I believe most were not, in all truth.”

“Toward what then? Did you desire wealth?”

“No, not in the least. I have never understood men’s fascination with money or possessions.”

“That is good. I suspected that when I met you. What about honor? Respect? Did you crave these from other men?”

Dante frowned. “When I was active in politics, I know it was mostly because I wanted people’s lives improved. I didn’t want them to live in a cesspool of corruption and violence. But I’ll admit that, sometimes, I did want honor, at least a little, and that made me proud and boastful. So those desires were mixed, I’ll grant you.”

Adam nodded. “All right. What about women?”

Dante turned his gaze from Adam and let it rest on Bogdana’s back. “Yes. I loved a woman, but she died. And I was never worthy of her anyway.”

“Then why was this desire good, my friend, if it only made you feel disappointed, frustrated, and sad?”

“Because she made me want to be worthy of her. She made me long for it more than anything. And not just so I could have her and possess her. Why then would the longing continue after she died, when I could not possibly have her? I wanted to be a better man, just for her.” Dante shook his head and gripped the reins tighter. He hated how he couldn’t put his thoughts and feelings into words. “No, not for her, really. For her goodness. I wanted to be better, so I could be worthy of the goodness I saw in her.” His stare fixed on the nape of Bogdana’s neck, where her long hair had parted slightly to reveal a triangle of skin above the collar of the jacket he’d loaned her. He was glad she could not see him blush at this point. “And I have seen such goodness in a few other women since she died, and it has had the same effect on me.”

Adam followed Dante’s gaze and smiled. “I see. Did you ever marry one of these women who had this wondrous effect on you?”

Dante shot a glance at Adam, then looked down at the ground. “I married a woman. We had been betrothed when we were still quite young. She has been an excellent mother to our children. I am very grateful to her for that.”

Dante had chosen his words with great precision. Adam nodded, apparently at the careful choice of words, and at what had been left unsaid. “Then I am not sure I quite understand your desire for women, my friend, or how it is a desire for something good, if its fulfillment has been postponed for your entire life.”

“Our love of God is never completely fulfilled in this life. We live on in hope, always striving to be worthy of Him. The love of another person’s beauty and goodness is like that. It is like practicing with a weapon or a musical instrument, so one can improve at it for the real performance.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Yes, the love you describe is like the love of God in this respect. I am not sure of the practicing part, however. It seems a bit farfetched, and too optimistic about the things of this world.”

“You said when we first met you thought perhaps I was destined for some special, noble purpose?”

“Yes, I did, and I still think that is so.”

“If you are right, and if I prove worthy and capable of achieving such a goal, it will be because of such love, one that draws me beyond myself and beyond the person who sparks such a love in me. It is a love not for the person, but for the Source of all love.”

“I hope you are right. I cannot judge you, if you tell me this kind of love has such a benefit to you, and you have such a goal in mind when you experience it.”

Dante looked back at Bogdana, then at the desolate lands around them “I think perhaps I know now why I have come to your country: to see all the strange, terrible things created by love and hate, desire and attraction, so I may better understand them, and tell others of them.”

“That would be a great accomplishment indeed, my friend. Many do not know the risks and rewards of their lives. And deaths.”

Ahead of them, on the right side of the road, the rectangular monuments of a graveyard came into view.