VII
Maria left the walls of Gród Narew before sundown, but the sky hid behind a dense cloak of purple-black clouds too thick to hint where the sun might be. The light was gone quickly, and she soon found herself walking through woods blacker than the sky. The trees embraced her as if they were the personification of darkness itself.
She had always had excellent night vision, and usually she didn’t need the lantern she carried with her. Tonight, caught underneath a moonless sky, she had to use it just to see where the path might be.
The apprehension she felt was unusual. She had lived around these woods all her life, and the short distance between the fortress and her family’s farm was well traveled, the land itself well populated. The presence of men here had long ago chased the more dangerous animals to the fringes of Gród Narew’s demesne.
But the Germans had been savaged by some sort of animal.
Maria held her cross. Papa had told her, many times, that it was there to keep the Devil at bay. And this night, the Devil felt very close.
I should have stayed at the fortress, she thought to herself. She either had to stay at Gród Narew, where her work was, or stop prolonging her work there. Familiar or not, the woods at night were too dangerous for her to brave just to avoid the unspoken accusations that weighed upon her at home.
She walked slowly down the dark path, the trees drawing their shadows around themselves. She made her way home accompanied by the sounds of chirping insects and frogs. The sounds were as comforting as the darkness was ominous.
She sighed. However justified, fear was useless. She was on the path, and there was no leaving it now. She tried to force herself to think of something other than the shadows and what might be dwelling within them. So she found herself thinking of Josef, and what it must have been like for him to lose his family in the plague. She wondered about the woman he had lost. Some lady of the court. Tall and shapely, with long blond tresses, and dressed in fine fabrics. A woman who had no need to labor.
Everything Maria was not.
Was it jealousy, she thought suddenly, or did she envy this poor dead woman for once holding a heart she had no hope to touch? Either emotion was sinful, and a further indication of her own unworthiness.
“Why do I …” she began to ask herself, leaving the question to hang unfinished in the still night air.
The insects and the chirping frogs had fallen mute. The woods had gone as completely silent as they were dark. She stopped and wrinkled her nose at a sudden foul odor.
Ale?
Something grabbed her from behind and threw her against a tree. Phantom lights danced in front of her eyes as the side of her head slammed against the craggy bark. Her lantern fell to the road and guttered out.
“Hey now, don’t you miss me?”
She knew that voice too well. “Lukasz?”
“Why, that warms my heart, it does.” He was little more than a shadow next to her.
He pawed at her, and she shoved his hands away, shrinking back from the smell of piss, ale, cheese, and manure. “Don’t touch me,” she said.
“Oh, you missed me as well. I hear it in your voice.” He was close, pressing her against the tree. “Since the Germans came, we’ve not had a single pleasant chat.” His breath was warm, moist, and stank of alcohol and onions.
“Get away from me, you foul beast!”
“Scream what you wish, my love. We are far enough from anyone’s ears.”
Above, the clouds broke to release the moon from their embrace. The path around them lit up with cold silver light, and she could see Lukasz’s face, leering at her with those cold, dead eyes.
He smiled and said, “Also far enough from anyone’s eyes. We are free to do as we wish.” His hand slipped under her cloak, and she felt his rough, sweaty fingers grope for her breast.
It was too much. She reached back and struck him in the face, as hard as she could. Her closed fist slammed his left cheek with the sound of a two-stone bag of grain dropping onto the kitchen floor. He fell back, taking his vile hand away.
She knew she should run, but she was too shocked at what she had done. Her blow had taken this man almost to his knees. Before she could summon the presence of mind to move, Lukasz backhanded her. She felt the blow across her own cheek as Lukasz screamed, “Bitch!”
As the warmth of blood spread across her own face, she wondered why his blow hadn’t landed with nearly the force of hers. Then he slammed her back against the tree with his whole weight. She started to struggle, but the presence of the glittering edge of a knife against the side of her face froze her in place.
“Ungrateful whore,” Lukasz spat at her. “You had to be spiteful.”
Even in the moonlight, she could see the swelling where she had hit him. It twisted his face, pushing his left eye shut. Did I break his cheekbone?
He pulled the knife around in front of her face as the clouds tried to reclaim the moon, plunging the woods into semi-darkness. “Maybe,” he whispered into her ear, “if you apologize, I’ll only cut you up a little.”
She sucked in a breath as she felt his free hand worming its way underneath her chemise. His body was heavy, pressing her into the tree. The bark tugged at her hair, the skin of her face stung where he had struck her, and over everything was the fetid miasma that was Lukasz himself. The vile stench brought her bile up even in the midst of her terror.
Then something rustled in the woods. Something large.
She thought of the fate of the Germans, and her fear redoubled. Lukasz was too occupied with pulling aside her skirts to notice. It wasn’t until a shadow darker than the woods rustled on the path behind him that he looked up and said, “Huh?”
Then suddenly, miraculously, the groping hand, the threatening knife, the weight, and the oppressive stench were all gone. Lukasz screamed something unintelligible as his silhouette merged with the shadow that had come out of the woods. Maria heard only a brief sound of struggle; then one shadow tossed the other across the path and into the woods on the opposite side. It landed with a thud amid the sound of breaking branches.
Maria’s terror ebbed somewhat when she saw that the shadow that had emerged from the woods had the outline of a man. The stranger moved into the woods after Lukasz. She heard Lukasz curse, and the brief sound of a struggle, followed by a solid thud.
The woods around her slipped into silence again. The only sound was the distant groan and rattle of wind through the trees. Above her, the moon broke free of the clouds, and the path unrolled before her in a curtain of silver light. She reached up and clutched her cross.
“Who is there?” she called out into the darkness.
The woods absorbed her words without comment. She heard nothing—not from Lukasz, and not from the shadowy figure who had torn him off her. An impossible hope crossed her mind that this was Josef come to save her, like the knight had saved the maiden in the ballad.
But she knew Josef was too wounded to walk abroad in Gród Narew, much less follow her into the woods. And the fear started edging its way back into her soul. She called out again, “Who is there?”
She took in a deep breath, and something in the air, some half-familiar scent, fired something in her brain that screamed inside her, Run!
But before she could convince her legs to obey, the stranger walked from the woods, onto the path. She looked at him and froze.
He was a man she had never seen before, dressed in a loose linen shirt, the bottom hanging over his mud-stained breeches. His shirt rippled slightly in the breeze, giving glimpses of his chest and abdomen. His face was clean-shaven, and framed by unbound shoulder-length blond hair.
But most arresting were his eyes, which shone blue in moonlight that tried to suck away every other color from the world. They reflected the only imperfection in his face—the fact that his left eye shone a slightly paler blue than the right, matched by a small scar that bisected the eyebrow above, pulling it into an expression of bemusement.
The two tiny flaws only served to make his appearance that much more striking.
He stepped before her, shaking his head and running both hands through his hair. When he did, the end of his shirt raised up and she saw the handle of Lukasz’s dagger sticking out of his belt.
“You saved me,” she whispered, again feeling the unaccountable fear welling up. Her mind was still fixated on the rude ballad sung by the knights of the szlachta, where the prize for saving the maid were the favors that had been about to be stolen. Now, however, Josef’s role had been usurped by this man, which gave the song a much darker tone.
He paused with his hands in his hair and laughed. Then he lowered his hands, shaking his head, and looked at her with the good humor of someone sharing a joke that held meaning only between two old friends. Unlike Lukasz, his humor fully engaged his eyes—all except the scar above his left eye, which tried to darken the expression toward sarcasm or cruelty.
“Saved you? From that oaf? Please, I did not intend to insult you.”
Maria opened her mouth, but no words came out.
He stepped back and looked at her with those strikingly asymmetrical eyes. “I know you could have dealt with him yourself. Blame my impatience.”
“T-thank you?” she whispered, unsure of who this man was, what he meant, and why the very air was trying to terrify her with each breath.
He stepped forward and held out his hand. “I’ve been rude, but I wished to meet you. It has been very long.”
Against her better instincts, Maria reached out and placed her hand in his. Looking into his face, listening to him, she could hardly do otherwise. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
The touch of his lips on her skin sent a jolt through her whole body. Everything seemed to freeze at once—her breath, her heart; even the air hung still around her, as if the wind itself had been transfixed by the apparition in front of her. She was thankful for the clouds when they took the moon away again, allowing the shadows to hide the flush upon her cheeks.
Again just a silhouette in the darkness, he lowered her hand.
“Who are you?” she asked, not prepared for the way her voice caught in her throat. Is this what the maid in the ballad felt? Did she willingly give herself, or was she struck so insensible by her rescuer that she couldn’t do otherwise?
“My name is Darien,” he said. “And what is your name?”
“Maria.”
“Maria.” His voice caressed the word in a way that made her shudder inside.
I cannot stay here. His very presence is seducing me.
She sucked in a breath and forced herself to emerge from her thrall. “Lukasz.” She spat the word, and it was an effective antidote to Darien’s mesmerizing presence.
“Lukasz?” His voice took on a different tone; Maria didn’t know if she was glad or not that his expression was cloaked in shadow now.
“The man who attacked me, he is in service to the szlachta, and he will bring charges against you before the Wojewoda Bolesław.”
“Should I care about this?”
“Do not make light of it. Bolesław is the deputy of the Duke himself, and wields that power in his stead. His word could have you face the lash, or worse. He could bond you as a slave to—”
Darien laughed. Like he had laughed before, but something in this laugh felt harder in the moonless dark. Then the moon finally returned through the clouds and she felt as if she might have imagined it—especially as the laugh trailed off, almost as if he was puzzled why she didn’t find humor in the possibility of him being condemned.
Her epiphany came in a flash: Of course. He’s outlaw. What other type of man would lurk in these woods at night but a bandit already on the run from the law of the Duke and his deputy? Of course he was amused. He was probably wanted for crimes far beyond any Lukasz could claim against him.
“Forgive me for presuming to advise you on your affairs,” she said.
“After so long,” he answered, “I can forgive many sins. And do not worry about your oaf Lukasz. When he wakes, I am certain I can teach him the value of discretion.”
“I must go home,” she said.
“You must?”
“Yes.” She managed to say the word with none of the hesitation she felt. Even so, as she gathered her cold lantern she had the involuntary impulse to speak the lines from the ballad: “Is there anything I can offer to repay your kindness?”
She listened, stunned at the words leaving her own mouth, and her breath caught as she waited for his response. What do I do if he asks for the same favors given the knight in that ballad? The thought was terrifying. Why had she said those words?
He reached over and touched her cheek opposite where Lukasz had struck her. He caressed her face as if he knew her invitation for what it was, and the touch was gentle, as if he knew it wasn’t her intent.
“All I ask now is your discretion. Say nothing of what happened here. Nothing of me, nothing of your vile oaf Lukasz. If you must go home, go now.”
He took his hand away and stepped back. Something in her wanted to reach for him, even as she edged away from the darkness she felt inside him. Again, she spoke against her own will: “How will I find you again?”
“I will find you,” he said. “Now go!”
He spoke with such an aura of command that she was out of sight of Darien before she realized she was running.