“After dinner I took my siesta. When I awoke, I called to Petronela to help me with the dishes, and there was no answer, nor yet when I knocked on her door. When I went into your room, there were signs of her having suddenly packed, and on the bureau I found this.”
She handed her son a piece of paper, on which Petronela had written, in bad Vizantian:
My dear Marko:
Forgive my leaving you, but I cannot abide such a long wait. I am not well suited to life in Skudra anyway, and you will be happier in the long run with a woman of your own kind.
Farewell, Petronela
Marko read the note through twice, crumpled it, and threw it into a corner of the anteroom with such violence that it bounced halfway back. He said:
“Chet had left too?”
“Yes. I remembered that Komnenu’s stage-wagons leave around siesta time. I hurried down Zlatkovi Street to Komnenu’s stable and found him just hitching up the paxor to leave for Chef.
“There was no sign of Petronela and Mongamri, so I asked Komnenu if he had seen them. He said yes, they had just gone out on the wagon for Thine, an hour earlier. They seemed very cheerful, laughing and holding hands. Komnenu said he supposed they were going down to Thine to hire some lawyer more skillful than Rigas Lazarevi.”
Marko picked up the crumpled sheet of note paper, smoothed it out, and read it again, as if by reading it often enough he could persuade it to change its wording. The note remained the same, and so did the searing spiritual pain that flooded his mind. Finally he said:
“What should I do, Mother?”
“Wait till tonight.” She lowered her voice, glancing towards the open door into the jailer’s office. “Then eat that cake, and do what seems best to you.”
“Thanks. Come again soon.”
“I shall see you again sooner than you think. Goodbye, and keep your character up. Your father was a man of much less intelligence than you, but he had character.”
Olga Prokopiu gathered her raincoat about her and clumped out, looking too small for the voluminous garment and the heavy peasant boots, but spry for her years.
Marko returned to his cell with the note and the mangled cake. He set the cake down in a corner and himself in the opposite corner. He stared at the cake, biting his lips. He beat his fist against his palm, jumped up to pace the cell, then sat down again. He dug his knuckles into his scalp and pounded his knees with his fists. His lips writhed; his huge hairy hands clenched and unclenched.
At last, unable to control himself any longer, he jumped up with a hoarse animal yell, between a scream and a bellow. He glared at the cake, half tempted to kick or trample itanything to work off the volcanic energies rising within him. But he retained sense enough to know he might want it later, and anyway it was his mother’s gift. Instead, he caught up the stool and slammed it against the cage bars with such force that he broke off the leg by which he held it.
“Here! Here!” cried Ristoli Vasu, coming at a run. “What are you doing, Marko? Stop at once!”
Marko picked up the remains of the stool and continued to batter at the bars until the article was reduced to splinters. Then he leaped up and down on the splinters, stamping them with his boots.
“You shall have no supper!” yelled the jailer.
Marko only screamed at Vasu, rattled the cage door, kicked the walls, and pounded his own head and body with his fists.
“This is undignified!” cried Ristoli Vasu. “Marko, you’re acting like a child in a tantrum!”
As these words penetrated Marko’s red-hazed mind, the fit left him and he threw himself down on his pallet weeping. That, too, was un-Vizantian, but he did not care.
This, too, passed. Marko sat on the floor, having no more stool. He stared blankly, his mind filled with fantasies of horrible things he would do to Chet Mongamri and to Petronela too; only the things he would do to Petronela were not quite so horrible. He still loved her in a way.
He could not understand how such a thing had happened. Being Marko, he had simply not seen the signs of Petronela’s increasing dissatisfaction with her life in Skudra, or the mutual interest that flared up between her and Mongamri as soon as the traveler moved in. It would have been hard enough for an alien girl like Petronela to get herself accepted by the Skudrans if she had married the most popular man in town. Having married one of the least popular, she found it quite impossible. To her, social acceptance and activity were of great importance.
Deprived of his supper as punishment for destroying the stool, Marko ate the cake. Nobody, he thought, could make cheese cakes as his mother could. About the third bite, as he half expected, he encountered a file. He looked at the file and then at the window bars, beyond which the rain still fell. A slow smile formed on his broad face.
After midnight, Marko Prokopiu knocked on the window of his mother’s bedroom. The old lady got up at once and let him in.
“Good,” she said. “I knew my son wouldn’t falter when his honor had to be avenged. How will you get to Thine?”
Marko grinned. “I stole Judge Kopitar’s horse and then broke into the schoolhouse and stole the school funds. I had a key to the strongbox hidden away.”
“Why, Marko! What a desperate character my mild-as-milktoast son has become!’^
“Huh! What have laws and “morals done for me? Here, take these. You will need something to live on. But don’t spend it lavishly, or people will suspect it’s not yours.”
He pressed some of the stolen money upon her and stepped into the living room, plainly but decently furnished in the rustic style of the Skudran Hills. Olga Prokopiu’s little tame tersor sat asleep on its perch, wrapped in its membranous wings. Marko stepped over to the big ornate chest, which Milan Prokopiu had brought all the way from Chef, to take out his father’s war ax. He slid the ax head out of its leather case to see that all was well, then put it back in.
Milan Prokopiu had made this piece at the height of his powers. It had a two-foot steel shaft protruding from the wooden handle. From the other or butt end hung a leather thong to be looped over the wrist, so that if the handle slipped out of the user’s grip, the weapon should not be lost.
Marko loosened the belt of his sheepskin jacket, thrust the pointed end through the loop on the back side of the case, and buckled the belt back on. The case was large enough to keep the steel spike on the end of the shaft, or the other, curved spike opposite the blade, from poking the wearer. All the steel of the ax was blued and heavily greased. So was all ironware on Kforri, where the damp, oxygen-rich atmosphere would otherwise soon rust it away to nothing.
He also took down from the wall a round steel buckler with a single handle behind its boss, a hook on the boss to hang a lantern from, and a strap to hand the shield over his back. Although no swashbuckler, he knew that the world was a rough place.
“How about some food?” he said.
“I’ll get it for you,” said his mother. Actually, one could make the journey from Skudra to Thine without taking any food along, because the ubiquitous fungi provided nourishment. But it was known that a diet of fungi, unmixed with cultivated food, would in the long run cause bodily weakness and disease.
While Olga Prokopiu bustled about, Marko asked: “Was there anything to show where they were going after Thine?”
“No. I suppose they mean to return to Anglonia.”
Marko mused: “If they had gone to Chef, they would have taken ship across the Medranian Sea. As they have set out for Thine, they would cross the Saar by caravan.”
“You should know, son; you have traveled.”
“I shall catch them,” he said.
“See that you do.” She gazed fondly at her son. “Put them to a terrible death; something I can be proud of.”