Damiano by R. A. MacAvoy Page A

the hills.”
    The young witch’s head snapped up in startlement, but Denezzi continued “I have seen you do it, when we were both boys, calling rabbits from the fields and dogs from their master’s kennels. And my horse: I remember how he threw me and ran to you, pushing his black nose into your hand. Oh, yes, I won’t forget that.”
    â€œI didn’t ask him to throw you, Paolo. That was his own idea.” Damiano had his own memories of the episode, foremost of which was the bloody lip Denezzi had given him in consequence of the fall. This had occurred when Damiano had been nine and Denezzi thirteen.
    The young witch furrowed his brow, trying to explain a thing that was not easily put in words. “You see, Paolo, I can... tempt the beasts to come to me, for bread or a pat on the nose. But I can’t force them. And if I call them saying, ‘Come to me and be slaughtered,’ well I think I’ll be calling a long time.”
    â€œJust say come,” suggested Denezzi. “I know how little you like the sight of blood, Owl-Eyes, so you just pat the goat or whatever on the head, and we’ll do the rest.”
    Damiano dropped his head again. “That’s betrayal.” He heard a man snicker on the other side of the fire.
    The witch ground his teeth together. “It’s very hard to he, Paolo, without using words.”
    Denezzi rustled beneath his black pelts. “It’s very hard to go hungry. It’s either a wild beast or a horse, Owl-Eyes. You can at least try.”
    He could have pleaded weariness as an excuse; in truth he was swimming with fatigue. But he felt eyes on him, and he had offered to help. What was more, Damiano knew most every horse in Partestrada by its simple, unspoken name. He rose from the fire.
    He passed through a gap in the brush pile, and a chill hit him. “I’ll need my mantle back,” he mumbled sullenly. There was no response until he turned his black eyes into the crowd. Then the fur-lined wrap was handed out.
    â€œIf I bring in a goat,” he said to Denezzi, “you must give me time to get out of it.” The big man turned his face away.
    Damiano trudged through crackling slush to the middle of the pasture. Shadows were growing, striping the field with blue. Tucking his mantle under him, he sat down on a hummocky stone. The shoe of his staff was braced between his boots; he leaned his face against the staff’s lowest silver band.
    For half a minute his mind floated free. Then he spoke a silent “Come,” and unbidden to his mind sprang the image of a sword. He heard it snick free of the scabbard. By willpower he burst the image, only to see it reform in the shape of a pitchfork, tines protruding through the snow.
    He was very tired. He tried again, and his call carried the odor of an abattoir, of a hut filled with dying. Mother of God! He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to sleep, here in the sun, if no better place offered.
    In the emptiness of his mind he saw how lovely it would be to rest. He remembered the honey-colored rock where he had eaten and talked with Raphael—only yesterday. He felt the heat of the hearth, where a chair was burning. How wasteful, but how warm.
    His mind was flooded with the memory of this very pasture in the green of summer, when his father would treat the sheep with tar poultices and incantation. Grass up to his half-grown knees, except where the flocks had cropped it. It had been cool then, in the mountains, but pleasant. Sheep’s milk. Napping at midday, surrounded by curious, odorous, half-grown lambs.
    All the while Damiano dreamed, his call continued, rising into the air, growing, following the wind like smoke.
    He remembered waking up with nothing to do all day, a condition he had experienced as recently as a week ago. He remembered the warm flood of sound Raphael pulled out of the lute. He remembered Carla, sewing as he read to her from the