Part 10 (1/2)

Pretty Michal was trembling in all her limbs when the housekeeper undressed and put her to bed.

Barbara Pirka went out of her way to be agreeable and obliging. She wanted to make Michal a hot salt and bran poultice and prepare her a posset of centaury, but these and sundry other good offices Michal absolutely declined, declaring that she had no fear of catching cold.

After putting the young woman to bed, she sat down beside her, and rubbed Michal's tiny white feet between her hands. She said it was good remedy against sleeplessness and anxiety.

”My hand has power,” explained Pirka; ”I am a seventh child and a witch to boot.”

An ill-bred person would have burst out laughing; but Michal looked at Pirka with an astonishment which had more of reverence in it than of fear. She had never seen a witch before.

It pleased Pirka to see how Michal folded her hands together as if in prayer.

”Yes. Now I'm a witch and can make and mar as I please. But even those whom I benefit must suffer for it. I was once the wife of a headsman myself. The business pleased me. The only thing that surprises me is how a judge can leave to another the torturing and execution of those he has condemned to death instead of doing it himself. If I were the Emperor I would make a decree that every judge should be his own executioner. I was always at my husband's side when he was at work. I would not have stayed away at any price.

When the felon was a woman I used to clip off her hair with a pair of shears. What a lot of lovely hair I've cut off in my time! After my husband's death (a mad dog bit him and he died from the effects of it), I continued the business with an a.s.sistant. My a.s.sistant was a lanky, awkward fellow. Once he put me to shame on the scaffold by breaking down altogether at his task, so I s.n.a.t.c.hed the sword out of his hand and finished the job myself. Then they took the business away from me and kicked me out: they said that it was not meet that a woman should wield the headsman's sword. So I came hither and entered the service of this vihodar. He could get no other servant, and no other master would look at me. But you are s.h.i.+vering, my dovey! Shall I tell you some pretty tale, my pet?”

At the word ”dovey” Michal suddenly recollected her favorite fantail pigeon, which she had put into her pocket, and she begged Barbara to take out the poor creature and give it meat and drink. She had brought some grain with her.

”All right, my darling! But the dove cannot remain in this house.

There are so many owls and hawks here that the timid creature would die of fright at the very sight of these savage birds of prey; and besides, don't you know that if your little hen pigeon were to live here and lay eggs without pairing, and hatch them, the brood would be goblins instead of chickens?”

Superst.i.tion is contagious. Michal already began to believe that her dove would hatch a brood of gnomes.

She began to be tormented with a desire to know exactly how she stood, and what was going on about her. Pirka was a queer creature, certainly; but she was the only woman in the house, and women always hold together, especially in such a house as this. She was not afraid of speaking out before Pirka.

Pirka fed the dove and gave it water, and then stuck it into Michal's pocket again.

”There now!” she said. ”She feels all the better for that, I know.”

Then she covered up the pretty lady with a warm counterpane and a bearskin, and while doing so caught sight of the small silk sachet which was fastened round her neck. Pirka's eyes began to sparkle savagely. She thought it was an amulet against witchcraft; but Michal told her that it was only a talisman against the plague, nothing more. Then Pirka laughed.

”You don't need that here. The plague never penetrates into this house. At the time of the great Egyptian sickness the headsmen were the gravediggers. Not one of them died.”

”How was that?”

”Why, don't you know? They've made a compact with Death.”

Of course no one need take this literally, but it is certain that men with such blunted nerves as headsmen are not so liable to contagion as other people.

”It is a memento of my poor mother,” said Michal, pressing the silken sachet to her lips.

”Don't do that,” said Pirka, in a warning voice. ”As often as one kisses such mementos the dead person turns round in his grave.”

At this Michal could not restrain her tears.

”Come, come, my pretty darling, don't weep! Shall I tell you a pretty tale? What shall it be about?”

Michal ceased to sob. She begged Pirka to tell her the story of the lady whose dress she had worn that day.

”Alas, alas, my darling! that is a very sad story; you'll not be able to sleep if you hear that.”