Free Damiano by R. A. MacAvoy

that the firewood that the three “students” had been burning was composed of a splintered chair and a heavy oak footstool, as well as half a shutter. He sighed: their behavior was all of a piece. But why had he not noticed this last night? Macchiata clambered onto his lap.
    â€œMaster no more, dear one,” he sighed. “Say rather I’m little Dami, your foolish pet. Imagine what my father would have said, if he had seen me put my staff aside in a room full of strangers.” The grown witch had tried to make his son careful. In Damiano’s mind came the vision of his father snatching the black wood from the dozing boy’s hands and simultaneously giving him a cuff on the ear, while he laughed, laughed, laughed... The memory gave him the added warmth of shame, but it made his head ache more.
    Macchiata snorted, piglike. “Of course you are my Master. Only you are too trusting for your own good.”
    Damiano’s brows drew together, which brought lancing pain along his scalp. The fire, however, was helping him.
    â€œIt was Pierre Paris’s fear that caused him to strike me. Had he not known I was a witch, it would not have happened.”
    â€œYou are wrong, Master,” said Macchiata, quickly but diffidently, for she was not used to contradicting Damiano. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. The one with the pale hair tried to stop that one. He said he’d be sorry for it. Then the one with no hair on his head asked what was the difference: a knife in the back at night or a wine bottle at dinner?”
    â€œThey were robbers? They meant to kill me in my sleep?” asked Damiano, incredulous. “What else did they say?”
    Macchiata’s skinny tail slapped his leg: once, twice, then rapidly. “They didn’t have time to say much. I was asleep, but the sound woke me up.”
    â€œThe sound,” repeated Damiano. “The echo of the blow resounding in my braincase. That’s what woke you up.”
    She licked his hand. “But I cursed them for it, and I bit them. I bit the black one on the thick part of the leg, but on the blond my hold slipped, so I made a big rip in his shirt, and bloodied where he would sit.”
    â€œSo the one you missed altogether was the one who hit me with the wine bottle,” remarked Damiano, not meaning to denigrate her victory.
    â€œYes, because he tried to beat me off with your staff. It bit him.”
    Damiano felt the blackwood beneath his fingers. “Signor Paris may never have use of that hand again,” he said.
    â€œBoth hands. But it was my curses that chased them out the door without their packs. I got the words from your father.” Macchiata wrapped her tongue around her muzzle, then smiled till her bristly muzzle resembled a cat’s face.
    Leaning on his staff, Damiano rose to his feet. “Packs?” he murmured, and shuffled off to see. “And curses? I only hope, Macchiata, that you didn’t compromise your soul with evil wishes. They are very deadly.”
    â€œHave I a soul, Master?” She asked in a tone of casual interest. “I never heard that before.”
    There were two bundles under the table, besides his own sheepskin bag. A third huddled against the hearthstones. “Of course you have a soul, Macchiata,” he answered, and although he knew himself to be on shaky theological ground, still he believed that anyone who liked Raphael as much as the dog did, and who was so liked in return, had to have a soul. “And a great spirit, besides....
    â€œNow let’s see what the three scholars have left us.”
    Within the packs was an assortment of trash, along with a few objects of peculiar meaning and value. The first sack dumped on the table offered a lady’s hairpin in gold and pearls, along with three silver florins in a needlepoint pouch. The second bag held a double handful of walnuts, together with a bundle of faded letters written in a