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Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold – Part Two

by S. B. Divya

Walter and his small gang visited as promised. Taking my mother’s advice, I told them I had failed. They delivered a beating, which I accepted while curled into a ball on the ground beside my mother, my hands tucked into my armpits to protect the cloth wrapping. Some of them stood apart and watched. I gathered from their words that they had come mostly for sport, including Konrad stewards-son. Walter had debts to the elder Konrad. He’d allowed too many of his pigs to sicken, and he hadn’t given the vassal his due share of ham.

“Do better by next week,” Walter said as they left.

They came back again and again, and I gave the same excuse and earned us the same beating, but over time their numbers dwindled.

“We should leave this place,” I told my mother as we tended each other’s wounds. “I’m nearly a man now. We can travel again, buy a wagon and a horse once we get far enough from here.”

“You might be close to a man’s age, but you don’t yet have a man’s body. Your father faced worse men than Walter during our travels, and with your hands . . . you can’t fight them off.”

“I could turn Walter into gold and sink him to the bottom of the Salzach,” I grumbled.

“Don’t you dare!” My mother grabbed me by the chin and forced me to meet her gaze. “Never use your blessing to commit murder . . . or any other crime. You are better than that.”

I nodded, but there are days when I regret resisting that impulse.

The next afternoon, two days early, as the setting sun cast long shadows over the field, Walter stumbled into our hut alone and very drunk.

“I’ve had enough of you both,” he roared. He pointed a trembling finger at my mother. “This is all your doing, witch! You cursed my swine, I know it, and now you’ll pay.”

He wrapped one hand in her hair and yanked her off her feet. Without thinking, I launched myself at him.

“No,” my mother cried. “Ram, run away!”

But I didn’t heed her. Walter swatted away my pathetic attempts to strike him, then thrust a fist into my gut. I fell to the ground. As I gasped like a fish out of water, he stomped his booted foot once on my right arm, once on the left, and, over my mother’s screams, once on each leg.

“Be still,” he roared and flung her next to me.

He grabbed a piece of firewood and struck my mother’s head as I watched, helpless, unable to move or cry out. She slumped, unconscious, and began to bleed. Taking a flint, Walter dumped our entire supply of cooking tinder next to the straw hut’s walls and set it on fire. He waited until the flames caught well and smoke started to fill the small space.

As he ducked outside, he muttered, “Those who do the devil’s work must burn.”

I remember getting my wind back along with a lungful of smoke. I crawled to my mother and tried to grab her, to pull her out of our hut, which was now our pyre. I couldn’t work any of my limbs in a useful fashion. The sharp pain from my broken bones overwhelmed the sensation of searing heat, but the fear is what I can never forget. A terror not only of dying but of living with hands bare, that someone might find us only for me to turn them into gold. I rolled onto my stomach and tucked my useless hands under my body.

At some point, the smoke must have caused me to lose consciousness, because the next thing I recall is waking up and seeing stone walls and Ilse’s face looming over me. The terror returned full force, along with the sense over my entire body that the fire still blazed.

“Shhh,” Ilse whispered. “Don’t worry, I bandaged your hands again.”

Had she seen the gold undercloth? If there was anyone I could trust to keep it a secret, it was Ilsebill. With that reassuring thought, I fell into a restless sleep for many days, tormented by heat and pain. Flames danced behind my eyelids.

---

My mother perished in the fire. I didn’t know it for a long time, my mind too consumed by my injuries. Not only did I have multiple broken bones, but the skin over much of my body had burned. It took weeks to heal. My legs and feet, which had been closer to the hut walls, developed blisters. My mother had told me of the hospitals in our home kingdom, places where the ill or infirm could stay and be cared for. Bavaria had no such thing. I was left in the back of the church for God to look after me.

Ilsebill came to see me almost daily. I don’t know how much her ministrations helped, but her presence certainly saved me from dying of a broken heart. She told me how she and other villagers had noticed the smoke from the direction of our hut. The column was large enough that they assumed the field had caught fire and rushed over. When they discovered the truth, they doused the flames and dug us from the ruins. Somehow, I lived, and since I had rolled over my hands, they remained bandaged.

My skin repaired itself faster than my bones, but those eventually knit themselves, too. The priest and Ilse had splinted my limbs as best they could. All four ended up somewhat misaligned. I could use my arms and legs, but they pained me. Ilsebill stopped visiting once I could walk.

“My father won’t allow it,” she said at her last visit. “If you need me, hide in the trees near our home and whistle like a snow finch. I’ll meet you at our climbing spot.”

I didn’t know what qualified as need, and I lacked both the strength and the courage to test her offer.

At first I could only cross my room, but eventually I made it to the field where they buried unbaptized children. There I found my mother’s remains. Even in death, Bavaria had disrespected her, and I, once again, had been powerless to stop it.

I spent many a warm summer night curled up on the dirt with my mother rather than in my cot. The priest’s eyes were always kind when I returned at dawn. And one day, as the wind blew chill from the mountaintops, I found that I had cried all of my tears, and my pains, both inside and out, had dulled to the constant companionship of aches.

The next day, I walked to the edge of the village. I rested for a time, then continued further until I reached the heap of ash and char that marked our former hut. I waded through it and searched for something, any small remembrance of the two people in the world who had loved me most. My foot bumped against a solid object. I knelt and swept aside the debris, my motions gaining speed as I realized it was the bronze chest. My hands trembled from excitement and fatigue as I opened it. The wood carvings in the main chamber had charred but were intact. I felt below them for the mechanism that released the hidden section. There I discovered our silks, cloth of gold, and the carved fox, my father’s tooth mark imprinting its tail.

With the last of my strength, I heaved the box from the wreckage and dragged it into the woods. Luck had saved it from discovery by the villagers, but I didn’t dare rely on that. I hid the trunk in some undergrowth near our climbing trees. No one had disturbed us there, and I trusted Ilsebill not to say anything if she happened to spot it.

I spent that night in the woods, cradled in the elbow of my beech tree. When I returned to the church, the priest didn’t comment on my absence or the filthy state of my clothing. He had allowed me to use some rags to wrap my hands. When I mentioned their diseased state, he murmured the word leprosia, and I filed that away in my lexicon for future use.

Every night, by my mother’s grave, I repeated the words of my curse, the names and habits of my family members, and the cities that would lead me back to my true home. I conversed softly in Tamil with her about my day so that I wouldn’t forget my first language. I said prayers to my gods. I vowed that once I was well enough, I would leave Talgove and find my way to Kanyakumari, to the point where three oceans met.

The priest asked me to help around the church as remuneration for my extended stay. Dependent as I was on his charity, I did as he asked. For a few hours, I would do various chores and errands. When the pain overwhelmed me, I would lie on my cot. After several months, another villager displaced me, one whose infirmity needed the comfort more. The cold stone floors didn’t help my aching body, but I had nowhere else to go.

That year’s winter came after a poor harvest, and the storehouses for the church grew bare as the needs of the village increased. As soon as the roads became passable, the priest put me on a wagon to Salzburg. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Ilsebill.

---

The wagon left me at the abbey, where the monks took pity on me. I stayed with them as long as I could tolerate it, but they wanted me to pray to their God, to accept the Bible as my holy book, and I could not betray my parents that way. When I declared my intention to go, the monks gave me a sack of food and let me keep my bedroll. With these on my back, I left the city for the woods. I planned to “discover” gold that I could trade for passage on a ship, but I had to think of a safe way to do it.

Nearly a year had passed while I was at the abbey. I hadn’t seen Ilsebill once the entire time. In spite of my deformities, I could walk at a good pace and distance — the power of a youthful body to adapt — and I found myself going further east each day, toward Talgove. I needed to retrieve the bronze trunk I’d hidden away. I couldn’t leave Bavaria without it, and once I’d approached the familiar terrain around the village, the urge to see Ilsebill burned within me like the flames that had destroyed my life.

The time away had made me shy. I had spent days sleeping in the woods, failing to wash or launder along the way. I stood in the trees across the creek from the mill and watched the waterwheel spin until I spied her form outside. Ilse had grown more womanly during my time away, though her figure wasn’t curvaceous like her sister’s. Should I approach her? Could I consider her a friend anymore, with so much time having passed and both of us having grown? I teetered on the cusp of adolescence, past the poorly-formed notions of a child, and glimpsed the responsibility that weighs on a man’s shoulders. In that moment, I wished I could turn back time and freeze ourselves in youth, at the age when we had no troubles but to reach the next branch.

Perhaps I gasped or made some other involuntary noise because she turned and looked directly at me. I froze when our eyes met. The urge to flee warred with the need for acknowledgement. When Ilse’s face broke into a smile, I could draw breath again. She waved. My heart sang. I whistled like a snow finch and pointed in the direction of our secret spot before retreating. I trusted that she would find me when she could.

I waited in the crook of my beech tree for the better part of two days. Ilse arrived just after a rain shower. Drops spilled from the canopy above us, and mud caked her boots. She wore a plain leather cloak, the oiled hood pulled up to cover her head. I jumped down and stood in the awkward silence of a fourteen-year-old boy.

“Padmanabhan Rampalalakshmicharan,” Ilse said with a grin. “It’s wonderful to see you.”

She stepped forward and flung her arms about me. I was so startled, I stumbled back, but the tree trunk held me up. I dared to embrace her. I trembled at holding her warm, sturdy body against mine. She pulled away and led me by the hand to the boulders where we usually sat when we weren’t climbing.

“How have you been? Tell me everything,” she demanded.

I delighted her with stories about the different monks in the abbey, about learning to read and write on the sly, about the boats that came and went along the Salzach, about my plan to buy my way back to my home country.

Concern wrinkled her brow. “You don’t have to leave,” she said. “You could stay here in Talgove and swear fealty to Konrad. You could teach me to read and write.”

I held up my hands, the bandages filthy with mud and splinters. “I can’t stay here. I can’t stay anywhere for too long, or I’ll be in danger again.”

“You won’t. Walter died last winter. You’ll be safe.”

The way Ilse looked at me then, I couldn’t lie, not anymore. No one alive knew my secret, and I wanted someone to have the truth in case I died. Who better than my only friend? Ilse had saved my life, as Herlinde had done, and the least I could do was trust her with this knowledge.

“My hands . . . they’re not diseased.”

“What do you mean?”

“Watch.”

I began to unwrap my left hand. Her aspect overflowed with questions. She raised her brows at the cloth of gold but stayed silent as I exposed my skin. With my right hand, I grabbed the smallest, thinnest twig I could spy and touched it with my left thumb and forefinger. Ilse’s sharp gasp made my heart skip a beat. Would this change things between us? Had I ruined our friendship?

“Is that . . . gold?” she whispered.

“Yes.” I wound both bandages over my hand and told her the story as my mother had told it to me. When I came to the rishi’s curse, I recited the exact words: “If Rampalalakshmicharan turns an object into gold for another person, they must give him whatever he demands in return. If they don’t, the golden object will turn to ash and he will lose his ability forever.”

Ilse’s brown eyes went round as saucers. “But this is wonderful! Why keep it a secret?”

“Because someone might threaten me or my family and force me to make gold for them, like Walter did. When I was small, my parents let me use my gift for some of their wares, but we never stayed in one place for long because they feared for my safety. After my father died, my mother was too afraid to continue our traveling ways. That’s why we stayed here in Talgove. It was a mistake.” I forced out the words I knew to be true: “Had we moved on, she would be alive today.”

“Oh, Ram, no! What happened was not your fault. It’s all that evil Walter’s doing. I’m sure he’s burning for his sins.”

My bitterness was still too fresh for me to accept her statement. “That’s why I can’t stay here — or anywhere. It’s too dangerous.”

“Will it be safe for you to travel alone? You’re small enough that people will think you’re a child. Wait a few years, until you grow into a man. I’ll help you in the meantime. I’ll leave you a small sack of food here every fortnight. I keep track of our stores now. Father won’t know if something is missing.”

She gazed at me with such earnestness that it confused my thoughts. There was sense in Ilse’s arguments, and staying was an easier choice than leaving, so I acquiesced.

Ilse beamed. “Listen, between here and Salzburg there are caves with veins of gold, right? We’ve all heard the rumors. Maybe you can make a vein and pretend to find it. Lead someone there who can mine it. You can avoid the Walter problem that way.”

“It’s a good idea,” I said. “But you must promise me: you’ll meet me here every fortnight with some food even if I can make this cave scheme work.”

“I will, if you swear to stay for at least two more years.”

We shook on the bargain. I watched her go with reluctance, then stowed the twig in my trunk and went to find a dry place for the night.

---

Over the next months, I familiarized myself with the local terrain. The triangular region formed by Salzburg, Hallein, and Talgove contained plenty of small cave systems. I ranged as far south as Hoven, where people mined for salt and copper. The climbing, scrambling, and swimming strengthened my limbs. My small stature allowed me to wiggle through tight spaces the Bavarians couldn’t reach. It made my deception easier.

I discovered that if I touched a layer of rock that was different from those around it, only it would turn into gold. Then, with my bandaged hands, I’d chip away at a small amount, take it back to Salzburg or Hallein, whichever was closer, and lead an expedition to the location of the vein that I’d “discovered.” When I found a cave at the mouth of a stream, I would go the gravel route, taking some of my made nuggets with me and leaving the rest for others to gather, as Walter had wanted. Sometimes I came upon salt or copper deposits, which were equally valuable to the local trade, and I wouldn’t have to use my magic at all.

To stay safe near the different towns, I established a set of caves where I kept stashes of firewood and blankets. I would share my space with the wildlife if they were peaceable, or chase them away if they became aggressive. I developed relationships with the local bishops and lords who owned the lands in the region. Merchants and villagers came to know me, as well, because I would stop for food, shelter, or directions to known cave systems nearby. They nicknamed me the golden spider for my ability to get into difficult spots and find this precious metal — and also because they could never remember my full name.

One year, I learned about a place high in the mountains above a tiny village about twenty miles south of Hallein. The locals said it was a gateway to Hell, which piqued my curiosity. The climb to the cave mouth was steep and treacherous, and the initial blast of air that greeted me was frigid. No heat or sulfur greeted me. Instead, I discovered a world of ice. I didn’t dare to explore very far, between the slippery surfaces and the wintery temperature, but the small amount I glimpsed was glorious and like nothing else I’d seen.

There, I set up a shrine to the gods of my people; to my patron, Goddess Lakshmi; and her consort Vishnu. I fashioned crude carvings from wood, hoping they would forgive my clumsiness, and turned them gold to preserve them from the elements. I went there to pray as often as I could, in thanks for saving my life, for giving me the gift of my hands, and for safe passage home one day. The cave allowed me to speak more privately to my mother and father than the grave in Talgove. Since no local would venture inside, it became my favorite sanctuary.

Once every fortnight, without fail, I returned to the climbing trees near Talgove. At first I needed the food, but as months and then years passed, I needed to see Ilse. People might enjoy the fruits of the golden spider’s labor, but none of them wanted my company. They might wonder at my absence if I died in a caving accident. Only she would miss me.

---

I didn’t realize that I was in love with Ilse until the day she told me her father had promised her in marriage to Konrad stewards-son. It happened on the day of the autumn festival, one that was unusually warm for the season. Ilse wore a new gown dyed buttery yellow with an embroidered veil over her hair. She’d come to see me as soon as the feasting had ended and the men began to drink. The setting sun filled the woods with a gentle glow that limned her form like a figure from an illuminated manuscript.

“I’m sixteen years old, and Father thinks it’s time,” she said. Her lips trembled as she drew a breath. “Ram — Padmanabhan Rampalalakshmicharan — marry me! Make lots of gold and offer it as a dowry. No one will question you this time. Please — I don’t want to be Konrad’s wife.”

I had given my heart to Ilse when we were still children. I just hadn’t realized it until she said the words: marry me. Now she was betrothed to a young man who’d once helped beat my mother and me.

In my mind’s eye, flames ate at a straw hut. I couldn’t see a future for us that didn’t end in disaster, pain, or both.

I grasped at excuses to cover my cowardice. “Your father would never agree to it, no matter how much gold I might offer. Look at me! I barely come up to your shoulder. My limbs may be strong, but they are still crooked. I spend my days crawling through caves. Besides, no priest would marry us.”

“Then convert! Embrace the church. You’ve lived here for most of your life. You don’t need your old gods anymore. If not for yourself, then do it for me.”

But it was my people’s goddess who had blessed me. My people’s gods who had brought me through blood and fire and kept me alive. They were my last connection to my family. I could no sooner let them go than I could cut my hands off, not even for Ilse.

I shook my head. “My life is one of ashes and stone. As long as I’m blessed with Goddess Lakshmi’s gift, I won’t be safe here, and neither will you. You’ll have a better life with Konrad in the big house — a far more comfortable living than you would roaming around with me.”

“Then let it go,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Your gift. You know how to break free of it. Make me a gold item and ask for something impossible in return. Live the rest of your life by my side as an ordinary man.”

Fear gripped me, so tight I couldn’t breathe. Who was I without my golden touch? Worse than the worthless creature I already was! “You would take away the only good thing in my life?”

“Am I not a good thing? Would it be so terrible to have hands like the rest of us, like me?”

Yes it would, I thought, though I couldn’t say the words aloud. My touch had been part of my existence for as long as I could remember, my only worthwhile skill, my unique talent. I couldn’t fathom a life without it. How could Ilsebill not see that?

I turned my back to her. “Go marry Konrad and be well.”

“You’re being a coward.”

I closed my eyes.

“If I marry him, I won’t come back here to meet you, not ever again.”

I know.

I heard the rustle of her footsteps as she walked away. My heart ached worse than four shattered bones. I vowed never to return to Talgove.

---

That winter was the coldest I’d ever experienced. After a brutally hot and brief fall, the season shifted with a vengeance. I had barely enough opportunity to get my caves stocked with wood and fill my pack with dried foods, much less to consider my escape from Bavaria. The upper inches of the Salzach river froze. The roads became impassable with mud and ice. I spent many days huddled under my cloak and blankets, convinced that I had made the right decision about Ilsebill’s union with Konrad. She would be safe and warm in her stone house.

Winters were always a lean time for me. Mining operations slowed. People didn’t want to risk the treacherous terrain to see what I’d found, so I stopped trying. I didn’t have enough wealth to stay in Salzburg, and I had too much fear to trust any village in the area. I considered begging for a place at the abbey, but the monks had warned me before that I would have to convert if I came back. I did not think they’d go back on their word.

With the spring thaw, I decided to break my earlier promise to myself: I’d visit Talgove one more time, to ensure that Ilsebill was happy, and then I’d leave as soon as the roads were passable. I’d head east and south and never look back.

I crept into the village like a thief in the night. I couldn’t face my friend — if I could call her that any longer — so I climbed a tree near her house and waited for daylight and a glimpse of her fortunes.

She came outside to hang the wash. Her hair hung free and wet down her back like a dark cape. Her face looked drawn — thinner perhaps — and shadows had formed below her eyes. Had she been sick? A cold winter would do that. Good that she had the food and shelter to live through it. If she’d taken ill in the caves with me, she probably would have died.

As her arms lifted, her sleeves fell back. In the morning sun, the bruises stood out clearly against her pale skin: the marks of hard fingers. I looked more closely at her face then and realized that some of the shadows were not tricks of the light.

A man has a right to beat his wife in Bavaria, and plenty of them did. My father never raised a hand to my mother — not that I could remember — and I, of course, had been taught to protect my hands, not use them as weapons.

It took every ounce of willpower not to jump out of my tree and go to her. I didn’t need to ask if she was happy to know the answer. At least she lived. Was she well enough that I could leave? Some men beat their wives to death. What could I do to defend her? Could I blunt Konrad’s violence with gold?

Over the next weeks, I tried to glean some answers from the villagers. Was the vassal in debt to the duke of Bavaria? Was the younger Konrad ambitious and therefore unhappy with his status? Did he want something he didn’t have?

A child. That’s what he desired that Ilse couldn’t give him. They’d been married for half a year, and she hadn’t gotten pregnant even once. It shamed him that he wouldn’t have an heir — or worst case, a daughter — by their first anniversary.

No amount of gold could help me solve this problem, could it? Was it possible to obtain a newborn infant and leave it at their doorstep? Would Konrad take it in? Ilsebill would, of that I was certain, given her good heart. But where and how would I get such an infant? I couldn’t stomach the thought of buying one.

Neither could I tear myself away from Ilsebill’s unhappiness. Had I caused it by refusing to marry her? Should I murder Konrad in his sleep? I was fairly sure I could sneak into his chamber at night, but far less sure that I could actually do the deed. My mother’s words came back to me: Never use your blessing to commit murder. You are better than that.

 

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Host Commentary

This is part 2 of 3 of this story, and this week is also week 2 of the 2nd END OF YEAR FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN, which is themed, appropriately, around the number two. Not that kind of number two, you filthy minded reprobates, but the act of doubling, for a bunch of very excellent and upstanding folk have come together to create a matching fund that currently stands at SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. This means that for every donation we get between now and the end of the year, this matching fund will double your donation, making it go twice as far as it would have done otherwise. And! Forget ye not! As Escape Artists is now officially a 501(c)(3) tax exempt non-profit in the US, donations from that nation may well be tax deductible for you, so you can do more for less! And if your employer has a charitable matching fund of their own, well, you may very well be able to triple your donation, which, just, please do that if you can, my goodness. If you want to make a one-off donation, doing that through PayPal’s Giving Fund means they’ll cover all the transaction fees and we get every last crumb of your donation in our hungry maws.

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Now, as mentioned, this is the second and middle part of our tale, so if you haven’t yet listened to episode 868, go back and listen to that first. Just barging into the middle is rude, honestly. Last warning, as I’m about to start a recap, so spoilers begin in the next few seconds…

…we began with Ram’s recollections of his mother wrapping his hands in gold cloth then muslin, and his parents teaching him to lie about the need for such bandaging as burns. We heard the story of how Rampalalakshmicharan turned a wooden fox to gold at a year old, a gift brought back from Bavaria by his father, and how Ram’s parents begged the wise woman to intervene with the gods and take this gift away; but she advised against refusing the gift of the gods, giving them only the words of this curse: If Rampalalakshmicharan turns an object into gold for another person, they must give him whatever he demands in return. If they don’t, the golden object will turn to ash and he will lose his ability forever. With only this to protect him from the greed of the world, Ram and his family set off on their travels, only at first intending to keep moving, but eventually realising they were headed for Bavaria.

Alas, as they entered the lands of the Holy Roman Empire, all three fell ill with a fever, and Ram’s father did not rise again. Ram and his mother found themselves stranded in the small village of Talgove, run by Konrad, vassal of the local noble. Most shunned them, wary of outsiders, except for the miller’s wife Herlinde, who would visit with her daughters Ilsebill and Trudy. Trudy was shy, but Ilse was bold, and she and Ram would run off into the woods together to climb trees. After Herlinde’s death the following spring, Ilse continued to visit as an act of charity, bringing bread and cheese; and though she dressed now in a woman’s gown, she still ran off into the woods with Ram to play.

Some months later Ram and his mother make the journey to Salzburg, in the hope of finding spices and grains from home–though she would have to trade Ram’s father silk clothes to afford them. Ram, seeing his mother’s distress, suggested instead that he turn some pebbles into gold nuggets, claiming they had come from a nearby riverbed, to which she reluctantly agreed–and then, bearing in mind the words of the curse, Ram traded them to his mother for his father’s clothes.

Unfortunately, word of their sudden riches made it back to Talgove, and some men came to visit one night, in their cups, to threaten Ram and his mother and take the gold they believed them to have. Ram puts them off for a while by saying he had found the gold by the river, and they give him three days; and that night, he asks his mother to again tell him of his family, and teach him all their names, and who they were. We left Ram in his reminiscences, of the times he and his mother and his father had travelled together, as the happiest times of his life.

And now pay attention, for our tale is about to continue, and you must have your lies practiced for when Walter returns…