Neil Gaiman - Stories - All-New Tales

Lithodora

found me after

it was dark and she

stood over me, her dark

hair framing her cool, white

beautiful, disgusted, loving face.

She said she had the silver I was owed.

She had told her friend Ahmed that he had

insulted an honest man, that my family traded

in hard labor, not lies and he was lucky I had not-

“-did

you call

him friend?”

I said. “A monkey

of the desert who knows

nothing of Christ the lord?”

The way that

she looked at me

then made me ashamed.

The way she put the money in

front of me made me more ashamed.

“I see you have more use for this than

you have for me,” she said before she went.

I almost

got up to go

after her. Almost.

One of my friends asked,

“Have you heard the Saracen

gave your cousin a slave bracelet,

a loop of silver bells, to wear around

her ankle? I suppose in the Arab lands, such

gifts are made to every new whore in the harem.”

I came

to my feet

so quickly my

chair fell over.

I grabbed his throat

in both hands and said,

“You lie. Her father would

never allow her to accept such

a gift from a godless blackamoor.”

But

another

friend said

the Arab trader

was godless no more.

Lithodora had taught Ahmed

to read Latin, using the Bible

as his grammar, and he claimed now

to have entered into the light of Christ,

and he gave the bracelet to her with the full

knowledge of her parents, as a way to show thanks

for introducing him to the grace of our Father who art.

When

my first

friend had

recovered his

breath, he told

me Lithodora climbed

the stairs every night

to meet with him secretly

in empty shepherds’ huts or in

the caves, or among the ruins of

the paper mills, by the roar of the

waterfall, as it leapt like liquid silver

in the moonlight, and in such places she was

his pupil and he a firm and most demanding tutor.

He

always

went ahead

and then she

would ascend the

stairs in the dark

wearing the bracelet.

When he heard the bells he

would light a candle to show her

where he waited to begin the lesson.

I

was

so drunk.

I set

out for

Lithodora’s

house, with no

idea what I meant

to do when I got there.

I came up behind the cottage

where she lived with her parents

thinking I would throw a few stones

to wake her and bring her to her window.

But as I stole toward the back of the house

I heard a silvery tinkling somewhere above me.

She was

already on

the stairs and

climbing into the

stars with her white

dress swinging from her

hips and the bracelet around

her ankle so bright in the gloom.

My

heart

thudded,

a cask flung

down a staircase:

doom doom doom doom.

I knew the hills better

than anyone and I ran another

way, making a steep climb up crude

steps of mud to get ahead of her, then

rejoining the main path up to Sulle Scale.

I still had the silver coin the Saracen prince

had given her, when she went to him and dishonored

me by begging him to pay me the wage I was properly owed.

I put

his silver

in a tin cup

I had and slowed

to a walk and went

along shaking his Judas

coin in my old battered mug.

Such a pretty ringing it made in

the echoing canyons, on the stairs,

in the night, high above Positano and the

crash and sigh of the sea, as the tide consummated

the desire of water to pound the earth into submission.

At

last,

pausing

to catch my

breath, I saw

a candleflame leap

up off in the darkness.

It was in a handsome ruin,

a place of high granite walls

matted with wildflowers and ivy.

A vast entryway looked into a room

with a grass floor and a roof of stars,

as if the place had been built, not to give

shelter from the natural world, but to protect a

virgin corner of wildness from the violation of man.

Then

again it

seemed a pagan

place, the natural

setting for an orgy hosted

by fauns with their goaty hooves,

their flutes and their furred cocks.

So the archway into that private courtyard

of weeds and summer green seemed the entrance

to a hall awaiting revelers for a private bacchanal.

He

waited

on spread

blanket, with

a bottle of the

Don’s wine and some

books and he smiled at

the tinkling sound of my

approach but stopped when I

came into the light, a block of

rough stone already in my free hand.

I

killed

him there.

I did

not kill

him out of

family honor

or jealousy, did

not hit him with the

stone because he had laid

claim to Lithodora’s cool white

body, which she would never offer me.

I

hit

him with

the block of

stone because I

hated his black face.

After

I stopped

hitting him,

I sat with him.

I think I took his

wrist to see if he had

a pulse, but after I knew

he was dead, I went on holding

his hand listening to the hum of the

crickets in the grass, as if he were a

small child, my child, who had only drifted

off after fighting sleep for a very long time.

What

brought

me out of

my stupor was

the sweet music

of bells coming up

the stairs toward us.

I leapt

up and ran

but Dora was

already there,

coming through the

doorway, and I nearly

struck her on my way by.

She reached out for me with

one of her delicate white hands

and said my name but I did not stop.

I took the stairs three at a time, running

without thought, but I was not fast enough and

I heard her when she shouted his name, once and again.

I

don’t

know where

I was running.

Sulle Scale, maybe,

though I knew they would

look for me there first once

Lithodora went down the steps and

told them what I had done to the Arab.

I did not slow down until I was gulping for

air and my chest was filled with fire and then

I leaned against a gate at the side of the path-

you know

what gate-

and it

swung open

at first touch.

I went through the

gate and started down

the steep staircase beyond.

I thought no one will look for

me here and I can hide a while and-

No.

I

thought,

these stairs

will lead to the

road and I will head

north to Napoli and buy

a ticket for a ship to the U.S.

and take a new name, start a new-

No.

Enough.

The truth:

I

believed

the stairs

led down into

hell and hell was

where I wanted to go.

The

steps

at first

were of old

white stone, but

as I continued along

they grew sooty and dark.

Other staircases merged with

them here and there, descending

from other points on the mountain.

I couldn’t see how that was possible.

I thought I had walked all the flights of

stairs in the hills, except for the steps I

was on and I couldn’t think for the life of me

where those other staircases might be coming from.

The

forest

around me

had been purged

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