The Kindling (33 page)

The gesture was returned and, as Abel turned forward again, he heard the words his brother had repeated over and again each time they had traded blows in the dark of the wood.

Think life, Brother. Feel life, breathe life, embrace life.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

She had not been sleeping—could not—and yet when they came for her, their voices were so loud she knew she should have heard them well in advance of their entry into the stables.

From where she knelt upon the pitifully thin pallet, bound wrists straining against the rope as she clasped her hands to her lips, she looked up and met the gaze of the one who had been given guard over her this day—Irwyn, Petronilla’s tall, solemn husband. She had been surprised that, despite his obvious dislike of her, he participated in her persecution, for he was a solitary man. However, when she had inquired after Petronilla for whom she had feared and prayed, Irwyn had angrily stated that he had aligned himself with those who wished to see her put to trial in order to redeem his family who were under suspicion for having aided Helene’s son.

Thus, though he had given her an abundance of opportunities to gain her dagger, unlike her previous jailer, she had not done so lest an escape attempt further endangered his family.

Irwyn jutted his chin at her. “’Twould seem the Lord of Firth has returned a day early. Else it has been decided not to await his justice.”

Since being delivered to the stables, Helene had struggled not to fall victim to what came after fear—terror, a thing so dark and utterly devoid of warmth that she was certain she could lose pieces of herself to it as one might lose fingers, toes, and feet to the freezing cold. And here it was now, raking its nails across her, searching out cracks that would allow it to slide inside. It was so hard to keep it out that, more than once, she had considered letting it in and justified doing so by telling herself that terror now might better prepare her for the terror of a cold water trial. However, she knew it was weakness that gave rise to such thoughts.

As the voices grew in strength and feet tramped the earthen floor toward her, she lowered her lids and poured prayer over the writhing places within that tempted her time and again to bury her face in her hands and weep.

Lord, as long as John is safe, I can accept my fate. Pray, let Durand have delivered him to Broehne. And if I am to be lost to my boy, let Christian Lavonne do for him as an uncle should—

She caught her breath. Why had she not instructed Durand to reveal John’s kinship to her half brother? If she could not escape death, Durand would tell him, would he not? And, surely, with all of Christian’s suspicion, he would believe.

The gate protested loudly with its opening, but Helene kept her head bowed.

Lord, let Christian and Lady Gaenor be good to John—

She toppled forward, and only when her elbows struck dirt did she realize the rope had been cut from the ring. As she was yanked upright, her skirts settled around her ankles, and she spared a thought for the Wulfrith dagger.

“Come peaceful like,” growled one of those who belonged to the eight legs she counted before raising her chin and looking from Irwyn to the three who had come for her.

“Where?” she asked in a rusty voice that evidenced her thirst, a result of having been provided but a single cup of ale in the day and a half she had been here.

The man directly in front of her sneered, baring a set of strong white teeth that seemed out of place in a face so transformed by disgust. “Wherever we decide to take ye,” he said, then nodded at his companions and strode from the stall.

As Helene was hurried forward, arms gripped on either side, wrists yet bound, she glanced left and right at the other stall occupants that stared at her with unfathomable—perhaps even pitying—eyes.

Not until the cool of another gray day struck her across the face did she appreciate just how comfortable the stall had been—and longed to drag her mantle closed to preserve what she only now recognized as warmth.

The sky was darker and more ominous than it had been two days past. Doubtless, a storm was coming and, as evidenced by the number of villagers who were about their homes rather than in the fields tending their crops, she was not the only one who believed the village of Parsings would soon hunker down amid thunder, lightning, and an abundance of rain.

Ignoring the stares of those who paused to look close upon a woman said to conspire with the devil, Helene allowed herself to be pulled down the road toward what she feared was the path to the stream-fed pond—the water of which, even in spring, would be frigid.

Dear Lord, if You will not send me a savior, send me strength.

However, before reaching the oft-traveled path, she was wrenched opposite, and so heightened were her emotions and so painful the beat of her heart, that she did not immediately recognize the cottage before her, nor the man who emerged.

It was Jacob, his jaw yet bandaged. Why was she here? Did he wish to be the one to lead her to the pond?

When she was dragged to a halt before
 
him, she determinedly kept her head up and eyes steady upon the man who had betrayed her, all because she had refused him.

He glanced at her escort, then back at her. “Margery says she will allow only you to tend her,” he said in a voice that was harsh and yet held a note of what might be desperation.

“I do not understand,” Helene croaked.

He jerked his chin over his shoulder to indicate the cottage. “My girl is taken with an ailment of the belly and tells she wants only you to come inside.”

Helene blinked. “You wish to enlist a healer who, by your own account and that of your daughter, is said to be a witch?”

“I do not, but Amos is dead, and though I have assured Margery there are others who know something of herbs and sickness, she will have none of them.”

Though tempted to refuse, Helene could not. She glanced at the men whose hands upon her would surely leave evidence of their trespass. “Tell them to release me, and I shall see to your daughter.”

“You sure you wish to do this, Jacob?” asked the one with good teeth. “She could do your girl more harm.”

“As I fear Margery may be lost to me if I do not, I must needs accept the risk.” Jacob unsheathed his dagger, sliced the rope binding Helene’s wrists, then stuck a finger in her face. “Do you think to do anything untoward, know that I will not wait on the lord of Firth Castle to give justice.”

Helene longed to renounce him, to struggle against those who yet held her, to kick and bite, but she clung to what Sister Clare and God would have her do and be.

Dragging her tongue from the roof of her dry mouth, she said, “The longer you delay in taking me to her, the less likely I will be able to turn back whatever ails her.”

Jacob grabbed her wrist and pulled.

Though the others’ hands fell from her, the men followed. However, when Jacob reached the door, he turned on them. “Stay outside!”

“But the witch—”

“Do I look to need protection?” He thrust his broad chest forward.

Though two of the men looked sheepish and Irwyn appeared uncomfortable, the one with good teeth narrowed his eyes. If Jacob noticed the lone dissenter, it was not obvious, for he thrust the door inward, yanked Helene into the cottage, and slammed the door closed. A moment later, he gave her a push toward the right side of the room.

Nearly overwhelmed by fatigue and thirst, she slowly advanced, blinking to adjust her vision to the interior of the cottage that was easily twice the size of her own and smelled strongly of the animals sheltered inside during the worst of the winter months and—in Jacob’s case—an impending storm.

Fortunately, he did not lack the comforts of waiting out foul weather in relative ease. The large, well-ventilated fire made it seem summer within these walls and, despite the shuttered windows, provided enough light for her to quickly familiarize herself with her surroundings.

To the left, at the back of the cottage, was a three-quarter wall that kept a horse and cow—and, from the snuffling and clucking, pigs and chickens—separate from the living area. Still, as she ventured farther into the room, noting the large table, chairs, chests, and pallets, she saw no evidence that she and Jacob were not the only human occupants.

She halted. Was Margery a ruse? A means to do to Helene what she had refused Jacob nights past? The dagger—

“Why have you brought her here?” demanded a strained voice Helene recognized as Margery’s. It came from the far left corner, one of the few places where firelight reluctantly ventured, though now that Helene knew where to look, she picked out the figure crouched there. But why did the young woman question Helene’s presence? After all, Jacob had said it was she who had asked for her.

“The healer will tend to whatever ails you,” Jacob said, “and do not naysay me, girl.”

“But she is a witch!”

Jacob snorted, a sound nearly indistinguishable from that of the pigs, and Helene sank her nails into her palms. It was far easier to forgive someone a trespass when they did not know they trespassed. But Jacob certainly knew he had, though it seemed his daughter did not—had, perhaps, convinced herself her accusations were founded.

As Helene stepped around a pallet, she said over her shoulder, “I am dry and weak from thirst. If you truly wish my aid, you will bring me something to drink.”

Jacob grunted, which she hoped meant he would soon deliver a cup of blessed wet.

She sank to her haunches before the girl who immediately pressed herself more deeply into the dark corner, only to moan and wrap her arms around her middle.

“It is your belly that aches?” Helene asked, relieved the concern in her voice was not forced—that she was yet more the healer than a woman wronged.

“Leave me be. I do not”—Margery gasped—“need you. Be gone!”

Helene looked around. “Tell me what you know, Jacob.”

From where he stood at the table, tipping a pitcher to a cup, he shrugged. “She was standin’ at the fire making porridge when, sudden like, she cried out and bent over. And her pains kept coming—frightened my young ones so much I sent ‘em to stay with Joann the weaver.” He jutted his chin at the pallet alongside Helene. “I helped Margery lie down, but when a bigger pain came upon her, she crawled into the corner and began sobbin’ and clutching at herself. That’s all I know.”

Was it? Or—? “Did you hit her, Jacob?”

“He did not!” Margery struck Helene’s shoulder with such force it would have toppled Helene sideways if she had not slapped her hands to the floor to steady herself. Finding the packed dirt beneath her palms wet as it should not be, she returned to her haunches and raised her hands before her face. Despite the shadows, she could see it was not dirt-flecked blood that coated her flesh. But that did not mean all was well.

She returned her attention to Margery. “Are you…?” She set the question adrift, uncertain what to say in Jacob’s presence.

“I am,” Margery decided for her, then looked to her father and said more forcefully, “I am with child.”

He so quickly loosed a groan that Helene guessed it was what he had feared. Unfortunately, it presented a better explanation for why he had sent for her rather than one not accused of sorcery.

Dear Lord, if he hopes to keep his daughter’s pregnancy secret, who better to give aid than one destined for death—and perhaps all the sooner now?

“You!” Margery’s saliva flecked Helene. “Had you wed my father, I could now be bound to the one who put this babe in my belly.”

“I knew it!” Jacob growled. “I knew you was doin’ things you ought not, you little—”

“Enough!” Helene swept her chin around. “Stop, Jacob, else I shall leave you to deal with this on your own.”

Where he stood alongside the table, fists at his sides, he narrowed his lids. However, as they stared at each other, his shoulders lifted with a deep breath and he loosely seamed his lips.

As much as Helene longed to ask for the drink he had poured, she turned back to Margery. “Your water has broken. It means your babe is coming.”

“Nay. She cannot come. Not yet.”

“Aye, this day. Now we must needs get you to your pallet.”

Margery’s hand shot forward and closed around Helene’s wrist. “You must make her stay inside.”

“That is not possible. It is your babe’s time—”

“’Tis not! It is too soon.”

Of course, for otherwise her pregnancy would not have been as easily overlooked. Undoubtedly, others had surmised as Helene had that Margery’s increasingly plump state despite what she had been told was a cruel winter in Parsings, was merely a blessed side effect of being the daughter of a prosperous man.

“How soon, Margery?” Helene asked.

“We only done it the one time, so…” She whimpered. “…methinks two months too soon, mayhap a bit more.”

Feeling the press of nails in the soft flesh of her inner wrist, Helene shifted around to search out Jacob who had begun to pace. “Jacob, I have brought forth many babes, but if there is a chance of your grandchild surviving”—and she did not believe there was one outside of a miracle—“it would be better for you to summon a more experienced midwife.” Too, it would be better for Helene whose fate, if not already sealed, would surely be so when sorcery was blamed for the babe’s death.

Jacob halted before the fire pit. “What? And have all know my daughter’s sin? Nay, as the babe has wee chance of surviving, you shall bring it forth, and I will take it to the wood.”

Helene and Margery responded in kind such that Helene could not tell where her own startle began and ended. It was one thing that this man, whose departed wife had birthed three surviving children, should make the effort of childbirth sound simple. It was quite another that he should be so thoughtless and crude to speak of disposing of that frail life—a life through which his own blood ran.

Above the din of animals on the other side of the wall that increased when Margery’s misery moved from moaning to sobbing, Helene demanded, “What if her babe survives? What will you do then?”

Something like distress tugged at his brow and mouth and creased his chin, and Helene hoped it meant he would do what was right and godly regardless of how the birth of a misbegotten child might reflect upon him.