Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Read online

  Matěj looked around the church as he approached the altar, hoping that Božena would be here for the service. After all, it was for the repose of her grandfather that Matěj would plead this morning, and it was only fitting that she be present for the commemoration of Aleksandr’s death. But she seemed to be nowhere. Maybe she was in one of the shadow-filled corners of the nave. Maybe she was just a few moments late. But maybe she had no intention of coming. Many people who gave alms or donations for votive Masses never intended to attend the celebrations themselves. “It is an unfortunate but widespread custom,” sighed Matěj as he genuflected in front of the altar before daring to kiss the cold, consecrated stone tabletop.

  Matěj arranged the silver vessels he had carried from the sacristy on the altar and opened the missal the server had placed at his right hand. He heard a small band of the faithful gathering behind him from throughout the church. Was Božena among them? He would be able to see in a few moments, when he turned to greet the small congregation in the name of the Lord: “Dominus vobiscum.” Ah, there she was. Standing near the door, her eyes riveted on Matěj as he stood adorned in the requiem vestments. As the familiar prayers and scriptural texts began, Matěj felt as much at home here as when he stood before the altar of his much more humble parish.

  Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem: exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet.

  To thee, O God, a hymn is sung in Sion and a vow shall be performed in Jerusalem: hear my prayer, for unto thee shall all flesh come.

  Deus, indulgentiarum Domine: da animae famuli tui Aleksandr, cujus anniversarium depositionis diem commememoramus, refrigerii sedem, quietis beatitudinem, et luminis claritatem…

  O God, merciful Lord: grant the soul of thy servant Aleksandr, whose anniversary of death we commemorate, a place of refreshment, repose, and brightness…

  Even though no mention of the living was permitted in the offering of the Requiem Mass, Matěj often liked to mention in his own prayers the living person who had requested the Mass. He was about to mention Božena’s name when he caught himself. She had been very insistent that he not mention her name at the altar or in any way connected with the Mass he was offering. He cleared his throat and continued.

  Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine… requiem aeternum dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.

  Light eternal shine upon them, O Lord… Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon them.

  Matěj was always glad to serve his flock, whether living or departed; it was his joy to plead the cause of Aleksandr with the Almighty. As the Mass concluded, he dismissed the congregation with the declaration, “Ite, missa est,” to which the altar boy replied, “Deo gratias.” The two of them genuflected and made their way back to the sacristy through the faithful, who parted to let them pass. Matěj glanced about the nave but had lost track of Božena during the service and could not locate her now. “Did she simply abandon her spot by the door or has she left the building altogether?” he wondered.

  Božena had stayed for about half the service before darting out into the day and back into the increasingly busy market square. She paused, surveying the crowd, and then moved diagonally across the cobblestones towards the opposite corner of the market, near where Lucrezia had lived.

  “Alms for the poor?” Božena reached out her hand towards one apprentice who was busily engaged in unpacking the trunk of goods with which to stock his master’s stall. “Alms for an old beggar woman?” She half-cracked a toothless grin at the boy.

  He shook his head and went on with his work. Božena continued her way towards the alleyway entrance that led around the Tyn church.

  “Alms for the old?” Božena reached out her upturned palm, interrupting the bargaining between a merchant and his first customer of the day. “Help me, a poor, old ženská, sir?”

  “Go away, Božena,” the customer spat out one corner of his mouth. The merchant did not acknowledge her existence but, pausing for the customer to speak to her, went on with his bargaining.

  “Dobrá matrona, alms for the chudý?” Božena approached the wife of one of the better-off members of the Old Town council.

  The woman looked over the dainty basket hanging on her arm. “Is that you, Božena?” She sniffed. “I haven’t seen you in some time. Please, Božena. Everyone knows who you are and that you are the least deserving of all the poor that crowd our streets and squares. Be off—and don’t ask me for alms again!”

  The elderly woman scuttled away, glaring over her shoulder at the matron who strolled between the stalls looking for the best bargains to fill her basket. A maid hovered behind the matron, carrying a bigger, more practical basket, and glared at Božena as if in defense of her mistress.

  Božena found her usual place in the southeast corner of the square. This was one of the principal entryways into the market and, as the day wore on, Božena was sure to meet nearly all the folk who entered or left the market along this route. She would ask each of them for alms, as she had for decades. True, she had been away for the summer—begging from the estates and manors of the countryside and enjoying the chance to walk along the country roads in the beautiful Bohemian summer—but she was back home. She deserved the alms of her fellow townsfolk.

  Deserving as she thought she was, she received little from the people coming and going, stepping to avoid her outstretched hand as she darted among them. By noon, her throat dry from begging and her stomach rumbling, she clutched hardly enough to pay for a mug of ale and a bowl of stew at one of the pubs or inns that lined the side streets of Prague. Then she saw the man she so despised.

  “Hateful bohatý!” She spat out the words even more forcefully than those she was so often rebuffed with.

  A well-dressed gentleman, with a golden beard handsomely streaked with silver, was strolling through the crowd, stopping to exchange greetings with many of the townspeople and several of the merchants, all of whom he seemed to know well. His girth, though not excessive, was testimony to his having enough to eat and drink; he could well afford to be generous, in Božena’s estimation. He smiled and laughed, as did everyone he greeted, and he clapped many on the back as he made his way along the stalls. He never looked in Božena’s direction, nor could he have seen her if he did: given her hunchbacked stoop, she was invisible to most people until she appeared at their elbow begging for a coin or two.

  She spat on the ground beside her again. “Sobecký! That’s what he is! Sobecký and egoistický! I hate him, I do! Thinks he can insult me, does he, because he is richer than I? Because he is younger and healthier than I am? Thinks he is so much better than me, in every way, does he? Bah!”

  People circled around her, wondering who she was so angry at and not wanting to be spat upon as she ranted against whoever it was that had gotten her attention.

  “Called me a filthy beggar, did he? Called me a dirty old woman, did he? I’ll show him! Tossed that coin at me as he walked away, he did, laughing at me. Laughing! At me! And then he tossed coins to those other shiftless men, the lazy ones who didn’t even have the courage to approach and ask him the way I did! He’ll learn soon enough not to scoff and scorn at us, the poor of this earth.”

  She watched the gentleman who had so offended her disappear into the crowd.

  “Thinks I know not where he lives, he does,” she muttered, smearing the back of her hand across her lips. “But I do. I know where he lives, I do, and I’ll be waiting outside his doors to hear the news, I will. Won’t he be surprised to learn that the same coin he threw at me—I used to buy his downfall!” She chuckled spitefully and then turned to another passerby, her hand outstretched.

  “Alms?” she demanded.

  Late that night, Božena sat opposite the gentleman’s home on a side street of the Old Town. It was dark and overcast, and the cold grew more bitter with each passing night. It would soon be the dead of winter and too cold to sleep outdoors any longer; her meager collection of coins wou
ld soon have to pay for a place to sleep each night, as well as for food and drink.

  It was also dangerous to sleep in the streets all night. The pitch-black shadows could conceal thieves and killers who would not have a second thought if they had the opportunity to take what little savings Božena had accumulated in the bag tied under her skirts. But she also had a knife concealed there and would not hesitate to use it should the need arise.

  A noise startled her, distracting her from her observation of her nemesis’ home. Someone was walking slowly through the shadows, down the street, towards her camping spot as she leaned back against a wall, trying to hide in the shadows herself. Her greatest protection lay in not being discovered.

  She could hear muttering and gasping now, and then a form, a blacker mass barely distinguishable from the shadows from which it emerged, was hobbling past her a few feet away.

  “Zdenka! It’s me, Božena!”

  The dark shape in the street paused and turned toward Božena.

  “Božena! I haven’t seen you in weeks. Where have you been?” Zdenka hobbled over to her friend.

  Zdenka was another of the elderly poor women who begged on the streets of Prague. Though short, she was not hunchbacked as Božena was, and her voice had less of a razor’s edge. They often sat together on the streets at night, staying awake in turns to protect each other from the villains who might accost them. Zdenka leaned against a stick, which she used for support in addition to helping find her way: she had gone blind in one eye and moved slowly to avoid walking into objects and people.

  “I’ve been on the other side of the bridge, mostly in the Little Town,” Božena croaked.

  “What brings you back to the Old Town tonight?” Zdenka asked, not waiting for an invitation to collapse on the ground next to her friend.

  “I’m here to keep an eye on that house.” Božena pointed. “Aleksandr’s house. I’m waiting for news of Aleksandr.”

  “What news of Aleksandr? Why should there be news of Aleksandr?” Zdenka was eager to hear the gossip. “Besides, why should you care?”

  “I care about Aleksandr because he mocked me, mocked me in the square the other day, he did. As if I was… a… a nobody!” She spat onto the cobblestones to her side. “And that’s why there will be news, news of Aleksandr that I am waiting for.”

  “There will be news of Aleksandr because he mocked you?”

  “Yes, Zdenka. Remember how I went to Fen’ka and asked her to teach me how to cast the evil eye, how to cast the evil eye against all those rich and selfish ones who refuse to share alms as they should with the poor like you and me? Remember how she wanted so much money to teach me the evil eye, so much money that she laughed in my face and said I would never be able to pay what she asked? Selfish old čarodějnice, she was! Got what she deserved, she did!”

  Božena spat again onto the stones. “Old Fen’ka was no different from the rest. They all get what they deserve, in the end. They all think themselves so much better than me—so much better than you and me together, Zdenka—and they get what they deserve. It’s only us poor that don’t get justice, don’t get the justice that we deserve in this world. Whether it’s old Svetovit—the devil old Fen’ka called on—or the God that the priests preach about in Svaty Vit…” Božena chuckled at the play on words and the similarity between the name of the old god worshipped on the hilltop and the saint to whom the new cathedral was to be dedicated. After a moment, she continued. “Whether it’s the power of Svetovit or Svaty Vit who rules the world, the rich and selfish always get what they deserve.”

  Zdenka nodded in agreement but then looked at her friend again. “But what has that got to do with Aleksandr?”

  “Everything!” Božena chortled. “It has everything to do with that selfish pig, Aleksandr. He threw a coin, so small that it’s practically worthless, threw a worthless coin at me and laughed. So I thought about it and I remembered. I took that coin to the new priest who says Mass at St. Nicholas in the Old Town Square. Have you heard of him, Zdenka? He lives at the Tyn house, where that killer-priest Conrad—and he got what he deserved, didn’t he, Zdenka?—where that killer-priest Conrad used to live, and he says Mass across the square at St. Nicholas.

  “I remembered what I heard a long time ago from my mother, my old dam who rocked me on her knee. She told me not to trust another living soul ’cause they would always betray you in the end, they would. She was right, Zdenka, she was right. Everyone betrays me in the end. That’s why I never asked no one for help, none at all, none except the alms they owe me.

  “They owe us those alms, Zdenka,” Božena continued on her tangent. “I heard a priest preach once, up in the pulpit of St. Nicholas’ church across the river in the Little Town, it was. He preached that a saint named Gregory—was it the Gregory Nanzianzus, Zdenka? I think that was the name—he preached that this saint called Gregory Nanzianzus told his flock in great Constantinople it was, Zdenka, that every coin or coat they owned but didn’t need was stolen from the poor. Never a truer word spoken, was there, Zdenka? Never a truer word! Spoken by a priest, no less! Everything the rich possess but do not need is stolen from the likes of you and me, Zdenka!

  “So I never asked no one for help, except that once I asked Fen’ka to teach me the evil eye. Of course, I did the little charms my old dam taught me. I buried amulets under the windows of the selfish to bring on stomachache, I did, and burned a candle stub to bring on nightmares. That I did. But never any charm too great for me to do myself.”

  Zdenka nodded. She had done a few charms in her time also, small magic to irritate those who were too miserly in giving.

  Božena shook her tangled, matted hair. “I heard my mother tell that if one of the priests ever said a Requiem Mass on behalf of someone who was still alive, that living person was sure to die. Die a horrible death. Die and be damned. Tried it herself, she had.” Božena paused at the memory of her mother on her deathbed, telling Božena the tale in the midst of the hacking coughs that racked her during those last few days on earth.

  Finally Božena returned to the thread of her original tale. “Say a Mass for the dead in the name of the living and the living will die. All these rich folk, Aleksandr and the rest of them, deserve what they have coming to them, Zdenka. So I broke my own rule and asked that new priest at St. Nicholas’ church to say the Requiem Mass. So I gave the worthless coin to that new priest, the new priest who doesn’t know nobody here yet and wouldn’t know Aleksandr’s name from yours or mine, Zdenka. Told the priest that my grandfather’s death anniversary was today, Zdenka, and that my grandfather was named Aleksandr.” They both laughed at the cleverness of her ruse. “So he said a Requiem Mass this morning for Aleksandr. I was there to see it, I was, at least in part. All robed up in those fancy black robes priests wear when they say a Requiem Mass, so that’s how I know he did it like I paid him to do.”

  “Said a Requiem Mass for this Aleksandr, alive and well, who lives here?” Zdenka pointed to the doors across from where they sat, and shivered.

  “That he did.” Božena pulled her jackets about her more tightly and the two women leaned into each other. Had it really gotten so much more chill in the dark street in the last few moments? Or was it only the talk of cursing the living by a priest’s recitation of the Mass for the dead that had caused the chill enveloping them?

  After a few moments, Božena spoke again. “You take the first shift, Zdenka? You watch the first while and then wake me to watch the second?”

  Zdenka nodded, fighting to keep her teeth from chattering. Božena closed her eyes. Why was it Zdenka always seemed unhappy that she had to always watch the first shift? Zdenka was always the confused one, needing Božena to guide her like a child. Zdenka, needing Božena’s guidance, always seemed to resent it. “Just as a growing daughter resents her mother’s guidance,” thought Božena.

  The dark night passed and there was no news coming out Aleksandr’s elaborate, carved door.

  Božena hardly stirred from A
leksandr’s door throughout the next day, the next night, and the day following that. Neither the servants in their comings and goings, nor Aleksandr in his, paid the least attention to the old beggar woman in the lane. Zdenka would pass by and ask if there was any news, and Božena would answer “not yet” or shake her head sullenly.

  It was the middle of the third night of Božena’s vigil outside Aleksandr’s door that she was awakened by commotion. The door to the street flew open, and the banging as it hit the wall jolted her awake. Lights flared in the windows and she could see servants rushing about inside. She heard anxious mutterings and eased herself closer to the door so she could make out what the servants were talking about. Even so, she could only make out the words “physicians” and “sudden illness” and even “death,” which especially caused her to smile inwardly. Pairs of servants ran out into the night and returned later, each bringing another physician or medical authority.

  Božena eased herself into the light that spilled from the open doorway onto the street and found a serving man there, peering anxiously out into the street.

  “Alms?” Božena asked, stretching out an open palm in the most demure manner she could muster.

  The serving man glanced at her and shook his head, continuing to peer into the night.

  “Excuse me, then, good sir.” Božena retracted her hand and balled it into a fist beneath her coats. “What causes the honorable house of the noble Aleksandr to waken so in the middle of the night?”

  The serving man glanced at her again and paused, recognizing her from her persistent lurking about the house recently. “The master has been taken ill,” he finally replied. “Very ill. Very suddenly.”

  “Very ill?” Božena echoed, struggling to maintain the tone of innocent surprise and keep any trace of victory from her words. “Very suddenly? Just tonight?’

  “Yes, just tonight,” the servant snapped back at her. “The master retired after supper and slept peacefully. It was the mistress who wakened us all, after the time of midnight waking, with her cries and shrieks. It was all we could do to make out what the matter was, the way she carried on so. The master and she spoke quietly in bed and were returning to their rest when he was seized by the most terrible pains. He clutched his bowels and roared, she told us. When we reached him, he was burning with fever and muttering gibberish. No one could understand him, his mind was burning so and causing him to imagine all manner of terrible spirits attacking him. The visions he described were terrible indeed! The most loathsome devils of hell were gathering around the bed, he cried, to collect his soul.” He paused and looked up and down the street again. Other houses, disturbed by all the noise, had lights appearing in their windows as well. “Such a good, honest man he is too, the master,” the servant added. “Though it was half-easy to believe at least a part of what he claimed to have seen, since great bloody scratchings appeared on his body where he said they raked his flesh with their hooves and talons.”