Harro paused and gave Bartan a hard look. “This is between us, you understand.”
“Of course,” Bartan said. He had noticed before that, while being fond of using vulgar sexual references in everyday speech, the farming people tended to be reticent about their own personal relationships.
Harro nodded. “Well, at the height of it all she… bit me.”
“But…” Bartan hesitated, wondering how much difference there could be between the urban and the rural experience of passion. “It’s not uncommon for lovers to…”
“Like this?” Harro said, removing the cloth from his cheek.
Bartan flinched as he saw the wound on the other man’s face. There were two curving incisions in the shape of an open mouth, their ends so close that it was obvious that a substantial piece of flesh had almost been torn out of Harro’s cheek. The edges of the incisions had been drawn together with a cross-stitching of black thread, but blood was still oozing in places despite a generous dusting of powdered pepperbloom, a traditional Kolcorronian coagulant. The skin surrounding the wound was darkly bruised, and it was evident that Harro would be scarred for life.
“I’m sorry,” Bartan mumbled. “I had no idea.”
Harro covered his cheek again. “Next thing Ennda was attacking me, beating me about the head with her fists, screaming at me to get out of the room. I was so confounded that I was out of the room before I knew what was happening. Ennda locked the door. For a while she kept screaming something… it sounded like, ‘Not a dream, not a dream’… then she fell silent and has been that way for hours. Except when anyone tries the lock, that is—then she starts it again. I’m worried about her, Bartan. I must reach her in case she does some mischief to herself. She sounded so… so…”
“Wait here!” Bartan went to the front entrance and, ignoring the questioning glances of the group by the long table, walked quickly to his wagon. He opened its toolbox and was withdrawing the roll of jeweller’s instruments when Crain Phoratere arrived at his side.
“Can you do it?” Crain said. “Can you manage the door?”
“I believe so.”
“Good man, Bartan! When the screaming started we ran here from the sidehouses and found him naked and covered with blood. We put some clothes on him and stitched the wound, then he cleared the house. He refuses to speak to anyone—ashamed, perhaps—and we don’t know whether to let the revel continue or not. Perhaps it would be unseemly.”
“We’ll see how she is when we get into the bedroom,” Bartan said, hurrying back to the house. “Stay close by and I’ll call you if we need assistance.”
“Good man, Bartan!” Crain said fervently.
In the house Bartan found Harro still waiting by the bedroom door. Bartan knelt beside him and examined the keyhole closely, satisfying himself that the lock could be successfully manipulated. He selected the instrument best suited for his purpose and looked up at Harro.
“I have to do this quickly in case she guesses what is happening,” he said. “Please be ready to go in immediately.”
Harro nodded. Bartan turned the key with a single twist and moved aside as Harro brushed by him and into the room beyond. In the half-light from the doorway and the shuttered window he saw Ennda Phoratere standing in the far corner, back pressed to the wall. Her black hair was in wild disarray around a face that was dehumanised by the white-corona’d eyes and the blood caked on her chin. Brownish stains dappled the upper part of her nightdress.
“Who are you?” she shrilled at Harro. “Stay away! Don’t come near me!”
“Ennda!” Harro darted forward and seized his wife despite the flailings of her arms as she tried to fight him off. “Don’t you know me? I only want to help you. Please, Ennda.”
“You can’t be Harro! You…” She broke off, staring into his face, and pressed a hand to her mouth. “Harro? Harro?”
“You had a nightmare, but it’s over. It’s all over, dear one.” Harro drew his wife towards the bed and made her sit down, at the same time nodding meaningfully towards the window for Bartan to take heed. Bartan went forward and opened the shutters, expanding a central sliver of brilliance into a wash of sunlight. Ennda looked all around the room, mistrustfully, before turning to her husband.
“But your face! Look what I did to your poor face!” She gave the most anguished sob Bartan had ever heard, lowered her head and—on seeing the bloodstains on her nightdress—began to tear at the thin cotton material.
“I’ll fetch some water,” Bartan said hastily, leaving the room. He saw Crain Phoratere standing just beyond the front entrance and made a pushing gesture against the air to warn him to remain outside for the time being. His glance around the kitchen located a green glass ewer and basin on a sideboard. He poured some water into the basin, gathered up a washcloth, soap and towel, taking as much time as possible over the operation, and returned to the bedroom door. Ennda’s nightdress was lying on the floor and she was swaddled in a sheet taken from the bed.
“It’s all right, lad,” Harro said. “Come in.”
Bartan entered the room and held the basin while Harro cleaned and dried blood from his wife’s face. With the disappearance of the scaly disfigurement Harro showed an uplift in his spirits, reminding Bartan that some nursing procedures were as much for the benefit of the caring as the cared for. He too began to feel a sense of relief, though with a twinge of conscience over his own selfishness—his special day had been threatened, but the threat was lifting. Ennda Phoratere had had a very bad dream, with unfortunate consequences, but life was now settling back into its pleasant routine and soon he would be dancing with Sondeweere, belly to belly, thigh to thigh…
“That’s better,” Harro said, dabbing his wife’s face with the towel. “It was only a nightmare, and now we can forget all about it and…”
“It wasn’t a nightmare!” Her voice had a thin, wailing quality which somehow checked Bartan’s rising tide of optimism. “It was real!”
“It can’t have been real,” Harro said reasonably.
“What about your face?” Ennda began to rock gently backwards and forwards. “It wasn’t like a dream. It seemed real, and it seemed to go on for ever… for ever and ever…”
Harro tried being jocular. “It can’t have been worse than some of the dreams I have had, especially after a supper of your suet cakes.”
“I was eating your face.” Ennda gave her husband a calm, dreadful smile. “I didn’t just bite your cheek, Harro—I ate up all of your face, and it took hours. I bit off your lips and chewed them up. I pulled your nostrils off with my teeth and chewed them up. I gnawed the front off your eyeballs and sucked the fluid out of them. When I had finished with you, you had no face left… nothing at all… not even ears…
“There was just a red skull with some hair on top. That’s what I was doing to you during the night, Harro, my beloved—so do not try to tell me about your nightmares.”
“It’s all over now,” Harro said uneasily.
“Is that what you think?” Ennda began to rock more vigorously, as though driven by an invisible engine. “There was more, you know. I haven’t told you about the dark tunnel… crawling under the ground in the dark tunnel… with all the flat, scaly bodies pressing on me…”
“I think it would be better if I left,” Bartan said, turning towards the door with the basin.
“No, don’t go, lad.” Harro raised a hand to detain Bartan. “She’s better with company.”