The Vintners Luck by Knox Elizabeth

Author:Knox, Elizabeth [Elizabeth Knox]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780864736772
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2010-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

Broken lights. Trees with the sun lancing through them. The carriage jolted and Aurora raised a hand to beat the hinged clapper against the ceiling, above which her coachman sat. The carriage slowed and the coachman opened the trapdoor and looked at her, his eyes fat bags full of poached sleep. She had told him to sleep when she had left him the night before, and had only just waked him. Now his drowsy face incensed her – how dare the man still live in a reasonable world, where it was possible to doze off in the open air, when her world was suddenly as full of holes as the casing on a spiders’ nest after a shower of hailstones. Aurora called the coach to a stop and told the stonemason to get out, forgot to thank him for his company. Antoine was still ‘Dear Baroness’ing – concerned, and burning with curiosity about what it was she had seen that had her in such a fit.

Antoine went. Aurora signalled the coachman to drive on. She rested her head against the upholstered back wall of the carriage and closed her eyes.

Something had exploded on the road. Through the vines she saw what she took for a bloodstain and broken lights. Antoine kept his gaze turned that way, puzzling it out. He said later that he’d thought someone had discharged a gun, possibly at them. He’d put an arm across her, pressed her into the ground. Aurora obeyed, and as she did turned back to face the ridge in time to see the result of the gunshot. Or so she thought. She saw a falling swan. Then her eyes did their duty and made faithful nonsense of the size of the wings, and of the body that fell. A second ‘crack’ sounded as the wings opened, great and as pale as two facing mirrors in the morning. An angel dropped onto the ground out of Aurora’s line of sight. Sobran moved to stand near where it had fallen. Then he lay down; disappeared from view. Aurora’s bladder gave a sharp spasm and let go, soaking her bloomers, petticoats, skirt – but stopping at the lining of her cloak. She felt the stonemason say something against her ear, grunted and pushed him away. She watched as Sobran got up again and went to stand by the pepper tree, surveying the road. He stepped up to the table, raised the lantern and waved it back and forth, signalling; after that sat, unknotted his neckcloth and dabbed the side of his face. Aurora thought she saw him speak. She was sure of it. Later he leaned forwards to listen – but turned his eyes to the eastern horizon, well over her concealed head. Aurora noticed that his coat was torn at the back; she saw a white hernia of exposed shirt. For a long time he was still. Then he turned his face from the east, and down – a glance – stood and walked

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