Damiano by R. A. MacAvoy Page B

gilt-edged volume of Aquinas. (Her little brass needle caught the sun. She made only the gentlest fun of Damiano’s squint as he read the fine script.) He remembered how quickly and quietly the days had passed before this war.
    A shadow fell across the sunlight, and his drowsy eyes opened. A face stared down at him: Sfengia, the cheesemaker. The man’s eyes were wet with longing. He was not alone, for Damiano sat at the center of a circle of silent figures that was even now increasing. They came for the sunshine, for the summer, for the memories of August and the dusty roads that caked a boy’s bare feet and legs. They came at Damiano’s call.
    He felt their minds around him, open to his. There was Sfengia, afraid for his three daughters, and Belloc, heavy and mild. Behind them all, drawn but unwilling, Damiano sensed the brittle presence of Denezzi.
    The witch smiled wistfully. He had never compelled such rapt attention. It was very pleasant to sway men’s minds. Let Paolo equal this.
    Suddenly Damiano knew how to fulfill his task. It was all very easy. He imagined himself an animal, a hoofed beast: a sheep or a cow or maybe a goat. He allowed his dreams to shift in consonance with his animal being, though the call continued.
    Green grass. That was good. Tall dry grass, with grain spilling out of the head. Free water running. Sun.
    No halter. No wire twitch against the tender Up. Damiano touched the mind he had been seeking, the warm, wordless brute mind. It was tame to him and unafraid. It answered from very near. Unsuspicious, it opened to him and let him in. His meadow visions it made its own, improving them in the process. Salt. A warm back to rest one’s head upon. Sage in the wind.
    The old stable, out of the wind, and the smell of mash in the pail.
    Once more the sun stroked Damiano’s face; this pastoral rhapsody was losing him his human audience. But he scarcely noticed, for he was sharing the eyes of the cow that passed down into the dell along the lee of a cliff face, seeking summer just ahead. It was no wild beast, but lonely, lost. Its udder was shrunken, and its dappled sides gaunt. It stopped and looked around. Damiano saw the meadow and himself in the middle of it, motionless on the rock like a dark tree stump.
    Summer was calling. His mind shouted it. Grass, crackling hay. The cow trotted forward.
    She smelled man and stopped—curious, innocently wary.
    When the first watcher beheld the spotted cow ambling down the hill toward them, he hissed a warning. All the townsmen froze. Those who had swords put their hands to the hilt. Belloc hefted his blunt hammer.
    The cow stopped, her conviction failing as Damiano’s did. Her ears revolved, and she peered over her shoulder at strange movement. One dainty foot was raised.
    â€œTake her,” shouted someone, and a half-dozen swords caught the light. Belloc raised his hammer.
    Damiano saw the blow descending. “No!” he cried, or tried to. “No! Let me...”
    The cow fell to its knees, and Paolo Denezzi opened its brown and white spotted throat. It died in the snow without a sound and was butchered where it lay, steaming in the air like a kettle of soup.
    Carlo Belloc plunged his bloody hands into the snow and turned away from the carcass. He was most surprised to see young Damiano face down in the snow; a splash of gold and scarlet. Denezzi was looking down at him.
    The blacksmith hurried over. “What did you do to him?” he snapped at Denezzi.
    â€œDo to him?” Denezzi shook his head. “I did nothing. I’d pick him up, but that bitch of his...”
    Macchiata’s bent legs straddled her limp master. Her mouth was a rictus of hate, dripping slaver. Belloc regarded her earnestly, from under beetling brows.
    â€œYou can talk, can’t you dog? Tell us what’s wrong with your master?”
    She licked her lips, and her fury was extinguished. “I don’t know. He fell down