Damiano by R. A. MacAvoy

fall, for two weeks.”
    â€œOh.” Damiano’s eyebrows lifted and his tangled black hair fell over his eyes. “That is necessary. It is not something I want to do, but you are a... female dog, and such have their times when they must be alone.”
    â€œBut I don’t want to be alone. Ever,” she said simply. “Nothing is different then, except that I feel... friendly, and then I hate most to be in a pen.”
    Damiano stared stolidly up the road. The wind blew over his uncovered ears, which had gone very red. “It is the things you say,” he admitted. “During those times you are not yourself.”
    Beside him Macchiata gave a whuffle and a bound to keep up. “What do I say? I don’t remember a thing about it.”
    â€œI know. God be praised for that!” He marched on in a businesslike manner and would discuss the subject no further.
    Forest grew up around them. By midday they were in a dark hush of pines. Here the air was still and smelled somehow ecclesiastical. They had seen no one and passed no one.
    This was not surprising, since even in times of peace, travel between Aosta and the south slowed to a trickle after snowfall. There was another road ahead, which creased the base of the high hills from west to east, and which would intersect the North Road some ten miles ahead. Less than a mile along the right-hand path of that road stood a village of a dozen huts. It was called Sous Pont Saint Martin, which was a French name and longer than the village itself. Damiano assumed that it was as deserted as Partestrada. But it would shelter him at least as well as a cave, and there might be food. If the sky was clear, however, he would walk through the night.
    Contemplating an all-night journey made the young man’s muscles ache with weariness. It was now as near midday as no matter. And weary legs on numb feet made the army of General Pardo seem a more serious problem than it had after breakfast. Certainly he couldn’t trot off to Nuremberg or Avignon while Pardo ravaged the hills. Damiano gave a large, round sigh.
    He had outdistanced all his solitary childhood rambles an hour ago and stood in a brilliant, wild landscape unknown to him. Damiano noticed a rock standing ten feet from the road, sparkling in the sunshine with mica or ice. He squatted against it, wondering how many travelers it had sheltered since the six days of creation. Its cracked face was the color of honey, and Damiano leaned his cheek against it, half-expecting it to be warm. The snow swam before his eyes, as though moles or tunneling rabbits were disturbing its surface. He rummaged for the wine bottle.
    â€œI hope you de-tuned your lute,” said Raphael. Damiano realized that what he had taken for snow were the outstretched wings of the angel, who was sitting motionless on a rock not four feet away. Raphael’s robe was whiter than the white ground and without ornament. His hair shone as colorless as sunlight.
    Damiano’s grin spread slowly, because the skin at the corners of his mouth was cracked. “Seraph! O spirit of fire! How do you like the snow?”
    Macchiata ploughed over from whatever private business she had been on. “Raphael! You found us!”
    â€œYes! Yes, I found you!” replied Raphael, in tones of enthusiasm that he reserved for the dog alone. He rubbed the sides of her head till her ears snapped like leather whips. Damiano felt a slight pang of jealousy.
    Raphael turned back to him. “I like the snow very much, and the mountains. I think they have a beautiful voice.”
    Damiano gazed at Raphael until his eyes smarted. He was so glad to see him he could think of nothing to say, and his mind filled with inconsequentials.
    Had Raphael skin beneath that lustrous garment, or was he no more than face and wings—an illusion worn so that Damiano could understand him? And why, since angels were immaterial and sexless, did Raphael seem to