7
WHEN HE OPENED his eyes, the brief shadow cast by the wall had grown wider and longer, stretching out before them towards the empty horizon. The old man was lying awake by his side, hands folded on his chest and eyes fixed on the sky as if he wanted his gaze to linger for ever among the machicolations and corbels above. The boy sat up and gazed off into the distance. The old man spoke:
‘How many goats are there left?’
‘Three.’
‘The billy goat doesn’t count.’
‘He’s not here.’
The old man closed his eyes and sighed.
‘Did they kill him too?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve only seen dead nanny goats so far.’
‘Take another look.’
The boy got to his feet and surveyed the area before them. He counted the bodies one by one, pointing with his finger.
‘Yes, six dead and all of them nanny goats. The dog and the billy goat have both disappeared.’
The old man thought that, sooner or later, the dog would return from wherever it had gone. As for the billy goat, he assumed the men had taken it for its horns. Perhaps the bailiff would sacrifice the goat and add its head to his other trophies.
‘You must go and find water as soon as possible.’
‘If you’re thirsty, I can milk one of the goats. I know how to do it now.’
‘They’re the ones who need the water.’
The boy took the milking pail and set off to fetch the water. A few yards from the well, he saw several crows perched on the edge. When he got there, he shooed the birds away with his hand and peered in. He heard the sound of buzzing and feared the worst. The scarce light entering the well was just enough for the boy to make out the decapitated corpse of the billy goat floating in the water, its stomach ripped open. All the flies in the area had gathered for the feast. They came and went like guests at a party. The arch over the well was thick with black dots.
It was almost dark by the time he got back. He told the old man what he’d found, and the old man gave a deep sigh at the thought of what awaited them. For the first time, the boy saw despair on the goatherd’s face.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the boy, ‘we’re bound to find some water nearby.’
‘No, there isn’t any.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’
‘We’ll go somewhere else then.’
‘I can’t go anywhere.’
The boy fell silent. If the goatherd couldn’t move, then he would have to go in search of water on his own. He remembered the previous days, the sunstroke, the thirst, the night-time walks, and felt afraid. He had only survived then because the goatherd had been there.
‘You’ll have to go for water on your own.’
‘I don’t know where to go.’
‘I’ll tell you.’
‘I’m afraid.’
‘Nonsense, you’re a brave lad.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You’ve come this far.’
‘Only because you were there.’
‘No, because you had determination.’
The boy didn’t know what to say.
‘Have you seen the halo surrounding the head of the Christ up above?’
‘Yes, it has three rays of light coming out of it.’
‘That’s right, well, one represents memory, another understanding and the third determination.’
The boy looked up. He could see the figure silhouetted black against the evening light and could make out the tunic, the hands and the rays. The boy was touched by what the old man had told him and, for a moment, forgot his worries.
‘Christ suffered too.’
‘But I don’t want to suffer any more.’
‘Then we’ll just have to stay here and die of thirst. That’ll soon put an end to your suffering.’
The old man told him that, to the north, there was a village with a well. He wasn’t sure exactly how far away it was, but it would take the boy a few hours to get there. He would have to set off soon, along with the donkey, but before the boy left, he still had work for him to do at the castle.
The first task was to bring him the corpse of the brown nanny goat. Then he ordered him to take the collars and bells off the other dead goats and drag their bodies as far as possible from the castle.
It took him until dark to drag the bodies over the stony ground. Every now and then, he would pause and touch his cheekbone with the back of his hand, then wipe away the sweat from his brow. After more than a day in the sun, the intestines of the dead goats were beginning to swell, lethal gases accumulating in the stewpots of their entrails. The crowds of vultures and crows that would soon arrive would be visible for many miles around. Black feathers circling endlessly above the dusty earth. For a moment, the boy considered burning the bodies and thus avoiding any possibility of attracting scavengers and disease, but realised at once that, in the middle of the night, the glow would be seen from far and wide. With luck, the bailiff would assume he had not survived his trial by fire in the tower. However, given the state in which they had left the goatherd, a pyre of burning goats would inevitably lead them to believe that he, the boy, was still alive.
When he had finished piling up the corpses, he went back to the castle and sat down by the old man. For a while, neither of them spoke, the old man too absorbed in his pain, the boy exhausted by his efforts. He was just about to fall asleep, when he felt the goatherd’s hand on his elbow.
Following the goatherd’s precise instructions, he sharpened the old steel knife, a tool with a blunt point, a notch at one end, and a hilt wound round with string. He used a stone to grind the blade until it had a silvery edge to it. Then he placed the brown goat on its back and, gripping its head between his knees, plunged the knife through its slit throat and sliced down its chest as far as its udder. He had watched his mother gutting rabbits and hares. He himself had killed quail by breaking their necks, but this was entirely different; this was a much larger animal from whose belly oozed bluish innards that slithered out of his hands. He plunged in the knife again to open the goat’s swollen abdomen. However primitive the blade, it cut through the stomach lining like a knife through butter. The stench that burst forth rushed through him like a damned soul in flight, making a deep impression in the fresh clay of his memory. He looked away and met the gaze of the goatherd, who was watching in silence from where he lay. He felt the goatherd’s eyes urging him on. The boy’s clumsy hands were his hands.
That first blast of putrefaction soon dissipated. Before him lay a kind of tub overflowing with iridescent blues and creamy whites, with globular shapes that twisted and turned in every possible direction. The old man was expecting him to gut the goat, then cut it up just as he himself had done with the rabbit and the rat. So overwhelmed was the boy by the complexity of the goat’s entrails that he didn’t know what to do. Sleeves rolled up, knife in one hand, he looked at the goatherd and shrugged.
‘Stick your hand underneath its guts, feel for the point where they begin and make a cut right there.’
An hour later, the guts were lying next to the pile of corpses like some goatishly ironic joke or a Dantesque vision of the future or a warning from a hit man. On the way, he had to stop several times to pick up bits of intestine that slipped from his embrace.
During the hours that followed, the old man continued issuing orders to the boy, who silently carried them out like a tool being wielded by the mind of another.