Keturah and Lord Death

I traveled a hundred miles in that single step. In a stride, my village was so far away I could scarcely remember it. It would be a journey of a thousand days to return.

There was no breath in him, no flush of blood, no taint of sweat or tears. Next to him, I felt the grossness of my own body, how more I was like the earth than I was like him. He was air and wind and cloud and bird; I was dust and worm.

I was suddenly aware that he might not want what I could give him, but I had nothing else so precious.

Another step.

“Keturah,” he said. I felt him lift his hand as if to touch my hair, and something in his eyes was warm, though he exuded cold.

And as his lips parted to speak again, I pressed my lips gently against his.

Had I truly thought I would not die when I kissed him? But I did. For a moment the breath and life went out of me, and there was no time and no tomorrow, but only my lips against his. I stepped away quickly, back into my life, panting for breath.

His lordly demeanor had vanished, and his countenance held nothing but astonishment and—and something else I could not name.

“I have kissed you,” I said, breathless.

The shadows around his face lightened.

“Now—now you are at my command,” I said triumphantly, trembling. “You must obey my every wish,” I said, in a voice a little more subdued.

He shook his head slightly.

“But—but I have kissed you,” I said, blushing and uncertain. “Please, it is not for me that I ask.”

“Do not dare,” he said sadly.

“So you must help me, Lord Death. Is one kiss not enough? Then here …”

I kissed him again.

“And here…”

This time I felt his arms reach round me, and he enfolded me to himself and kissed me in return. In the first moment, I could not believe he was death—he was a man, and no more. In the next, I was afraid and I pushed at him. It was futile—his strength was more than that of a hundred men. And so he kissed me until my blood ran so cold it burned.

He stopped suddenly, and stepped away so violently I almost fell. My lips were numb with cold, and my throat ached with cold, and my stomach was icy and empty.

“Here is danger!” he said sternly.

I raised my face to him. “Sir, I know you can do anything …” His eyes were not the clouded, vacant eyes of one dead. Instead they were clear—I thought I could see the endless night sky in his eyes, and the stars too. Unspeakable sorrow was there, and matchless beauty.

“And why can I not deny you, Keturah?” His voice was insistent. I could not answer but with the truth.

“Because you love me!”

The silence into which we spoke vanished, and the wind roared in my ears again.

“It is true,” he said, his voice both quiet and piercing.

A deafening crack of lightning, a roll of thunder so loud I felt it in my throat, and rain began to pour out of the sky.

“Your beloved village is safe,” Lord Death said, and I heard his voice clearly over the storm. “You have until the end of the fair, and then I will send the hart for you.”

I wondered if he had spoken not aloud but into the airless places of my secret mind.

The rain woke Tobias. He stared at me with eyes too wide open and did not move and did not look about.

Lord Death mounted his horse and in the next moment was gone, and I knelt beside Tobias.

“Is he …?” Tobias asked.

“He is gone.” I stroked his hair. “The plague is taken from us.”

He lay crying for a little time, and I could not tell the rain from the tears on his face. Then, slowly, he sat up. The rain had already begun to spend itself, and the sun began to glint through the clouds.

He stood, testing each limb as if sensing the life within. He swayed on his feet a moment and then smiled. “I will live,” he whispered. “I feel it, I feel it sure. You did it, Keturah!” he said. “I owe you my life.”

I put my hand over his mouth.

“Not I, Tobias. Not I. Lord Death gave it to you, as he does every day. Never forget this.”

“But …”

“Never forget.”

Tobias smiled. “All I know is, I am alive, and I feel well, Keturah. There is no sickness in me at all.”

“Come,” I said, “let us go see to the others.” 

XII

Many startling confessions,

and I am saved from a terrible fate.

When Tobias and I emerged from the forest, we were not where I thought we would be. We were south of the village, at the place where the cart path turned into our newly cobbled road.

Tobias and I took our way silently into the village. It was strangely quiet and still, and my heart smote me a moment, fearful that Lord Death had lied to me.

But there walked Tobias beside me, strong and whole and ruddy, and even if he had not been with me, as evidence, I knew I need not doubt Lord Death’s word. My village was saved.

And yet those words did not echo in my heart as I had once thought they would. I had made friends with death, and it would no longer hold fears for me.

Thomas Red was walking alone with his mule. He saw me and Tobias, and bowed as if I were a titled lady.