To Kill a Kettle Witch (Novel of the Mist-Torn Witches) (16 page)

“It is,” she answered. “I cannot marry you.”

His eyes flashed in hatred and disbelief as he looked at her. I could see his mind working, how he saw her now. He had made himself free—ridding himself of a wife—and he’d probably been envisioning Jo in his bed for months.

The way he saw it, she was a cold, heartless girl who’d spurned him and spurned his family.

With one last snarl, he whirled and strode away.

Turning, I held Jo in my arms. “It’s all right,” I said. “You were brave, and I think the worst is over.”

She leaned into me, and I was angry now myself. A sweet creature like Jo should not have to face down the likes of Jago Taragoš.

For the next few days, I kept a close eye on Jo, never letting her out of my sight. Then the sky clouded over and a spring rain began. We all thought it would pass soon, but it grew heavier throughout the day until finding dry firewood for cooking became difficult.

In the late afternoon, Gersham formed a small party from our family to go out in the wooded areas and gather branches so we could dry them. Jo went along to help, but I didn’t worry. She was safe with Gersham.

I set about cleaning and cutting some trout that Gerard had caught earlier that day, in preparation for a pot of fish stew. This took me a while, and I’d just started in on the potatoes when Gersham came jogging up to the wagon, looking all around.

“Is Jo not here? She’s not come back?” He sounded alarmed.

A knot began growing in the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean? She was with you.”

Gerard came striding over. “What’s happened?”

Gersham’s alarm turned to agitation. “We were gathering firewood, searching under the brush to find anything still dry. Jo wasn’t far from me, but I was digging beneath a shrub, and when I came up, she was gone. I looked around there, and then I came back.”

Without warning, the nag at the back of my head hit harder than anything I’d ever felt before.

I didn’t bother to go inside and light a candle.

“Where?” I shouted. “Show me where.”

He turned and began to run. Gerard ran beside us. Even at the age of sixty-four, I could still run when I needed to, and we broke through the trees. I was sick with fear, and my body moved on panic alone.

Gersham reached the place where he’d lost Jo, and the three of us fanned out.

“Jo!” I called. “My girl! Where are you?”

I headed toward the stream, looking down and to each side as I hurried. Somewhere inside me, I
knew
 . . . I already knew, but I couldn’t accept it.

When I saw her lying near the stream, I stopped, and a cry of anguish burst from my mouth. Gerald came sprinting from my left, and then he, too, stopped. Slowly, I walked forward and looked down.

My beautiful Jo lay with slashes across her face and her throat torn open. With another cry of anguish, I sank down beside her. I had no words.

Gersham came running up.

“He did this,” Gerard whispered. “That shifter.” His voice rose. “He’ll pay. I’ll brand his face myself.”

I couldn’t think of revenge or punishment or anything besides the sight of Jo on the cold ground. I was numb.

“Oh, Helga,” Gersham whispered.

Gerard wore a coat. He stripped it off and wrapped it around Jo, lifting her body and holding it to his chest.

“Tonight!” he spat. “I’ll brand his face and see him banished tonight!”

That time, his words got through to me. Our people had no death penalty. In the case of a terrible crime, like this, the criminal’s face was branded with a circle, and then he or she was banished for life. Any Móndyalítko who saw the brand would know the mark of a murderer. No help or shelter would be given for any reason.

Looking at Jo’s body in Gerard’s arms right then, I couldn’t bring myself to care about Jago’s punishment. Our brightest light had been snuffed out in an instant all because she’d said no to a violent man. Nothing that happened to Jago would bring her back.

But I would care soon. I would care very much.

Gerard strode back into camp with tears running down his face.

Alondra saw us coming . . . saw what he carried and fell to her knees. “No!”

“Father!” Gerard shouted.

Griffin came out of their wagon, and when he saw what Gerard held, his face went ashen.

“It was Jago,” Gerard went on. “You call a meeting of the leaders now! There will be justice tonight.”

Griffin stared at him. “Give her to me.”

I almost stepped in. I didn’t want Griffin carrying my Jo to a meeting of the elders, but of course he had to. He had to show them what had been done.

Gerard passed her body over. Her throat was still bleeding, and I looked away. I did not think I could take so much pain.

“Everyone stay here,” Griffin ordered.

For a moment, I thought Gerard would argue, but he held back. Griffin walked off, carrying Jo, and a meeting of the leaders was called. This was how we worked.
The leaders would be informed and then discuss and then vote on the outcome. Sometimes others would be called to testify. This system had served us well, and I knew there could be no doubt of Jago’s branding and banishment. Griffin had seen what had happened when Jo refused Jago.

Also, though no one had dared accuse Jago openly, some people believed he had killed his own wife.

Tonight, after this, Jago would be gone. It troubled me to loose him upon the world, branded or not. But as I said, this was the worst punishment our people would deal out to one of our own.

I went to Alondra and drew her to sit with me by the dead campfire.

Gerard and Gersham sat beside us, and we waited. There was nothing else we could do until Griffin returned to tell us that the sentence had been passed. As more time ticked away, I became troubled. This should have been a quick vote. There was no doubt of Jago’s guilt.

“What is taking so long?” Gerard asked, speaking my own thoughts.

Finally, Griffin came walking back to us down through the line of wagons. He steps were slow.

“Where is she?” I asked. “Where is our girl?”

“Sinead is preparing her. . . . We did not think you or Alondra should be faced with such a task tonight.”

Gerard stood up. “I want to brand Jago myself.”

Griffin glanced away. “There won’t be a branding.”

I felt the blood draining from my face. I didn’t think I’d heard correctly.

“There is no proof,” Griffin went on quietly. “Rupert demanded some sort of proof. A witness to the crime. Something of Jago’s left behind at the scene. Anything. Jago is the Taragošes’ shifter. He is their hunter. As leaders, we cannot deprive them of him without proof.”

“But he did it,” Gerard said in disbelief. “Let me go and testify to the leaders.”

“Nothing you can say will provide proof.”

“You know he did this. Father, you voted to banish him?”

“There is no proof,” Griffin repeated. “And banishing someone like Jago is not an easy task.” Then his gaze turned hard as he studied his son. “And there will be no blood revenge, either, or you’ll be the one wearing the brand. Do you hear me?”

As these words sank in, I realized what had happened. Rupert did not wish to lose his son or to lose the Taragošes’ only shape-shifter, their hunter. He must have not only demanded hard proof that Jago had murdered Jo, but probably hinted that any attempt to brand and banish Jago would result in more violence that no one wanted.

The cowards.

Alondra wept softly, and Gerard wouldn’t look at his father.

I was dead inside, shattered. I had outlived my daughter and now my granddaughter. The justice of my people—that I had so long believed in—didn’t exist. I had no place here anymore. I couldn’t wake up tomorrow and see the leaders of the families going about their
morning business as if they’d not let a murderer go free to live his life while my sweet Jo would be buried in the ground.

In the night, as Alondra slept, I donned a cloak, packed a satchel with clothes, food, and a little money, and I walked out of the meadow. I kept walking. I know I should have told Alondra. I should have said good-bye at least, but I was beyond speaking at that point, and I cared for nothing besides leaving my old life behind.

I walked, heading west.

Within a few months, my money ran out, and I could have used my gift to earn more, but I wouldn’t. I turned my back on all things Móndyalítko. Summer turned to autumn, and I continued west. I slept outside much of the time unless I could find an abandoned barn. There were days when I didn’t eat.

I knew my family would be in Kéonsk soon, but nothing could tempt me to rejoin my people. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw Jo’s bright, loving face staring back at me.

Sometimes traveling farmers or merchants would offer to give a ride, and I accepted, even taking charity in the form of food by their fires. But my hair and clothes grew dirtier, and I began to resemble the aged madwoman I felt to be on the inside.

One night in midautumn, I found myself on the streets of a town, and I was so hungry that I stood on a corner and begged for pennies. A few people were kind, and I was able to buy a bit of cheese for dinner. Once the thought would have shamed me, but not anymore. I was beyond caring.

A few days later, I was walking down a road when two farmers offered to take me to the village of Sèone, where they were heading to sell their crops.

I’d never heard of Sèone, but I had nowhere else to go, and I was grateful for the offer of a ride.

We rolled along through the day, and then the driver pulled up the wagon. “There it is,” he said. “Castle Sèone.”

I turned to look and blinked at the sight. A moat the size of a river surrounded an enormous hill, almost a small mountain. Not far from our wagon, I could see a gatehouse with an open portcullis at the end of a retractable bridge across the moat. A wall—with numerous barbicans—stretched from both sides of the gate all the way around the area at the bottom of the hill.

On the other side of the gatehouse was a road leading about halfway up the hill to yet another gatehouse set against another stone wall that encircled the hill at that point. At the top of the hill stood a castle.

This place would be difficult to breach.

“We’re going in there?” I asked in alarm. Once inside, would I be allowed out again?

But no one answered me and before I knew it, we started forward again, across the bridge. As we entered the gatehouse, a few guards waved us through.

We kept going and passed through the second gatehouse to the inside of the high stone wall . . .

And there, I looked around in surprise.

We entered what appeared to be a thriving town built all around the castle above. People and animals and dwellings of all sorts stretched out as far as I could see. A smithy and a tannery stood just ahead. Cobblers,
weavers, candle makers, bakers, and butchers hawked their wares. But more that than, I saw a vast number of what looked like homes to my left, and all the people looked well fed.

“They all live here inside the castle wall?” I asked the driver.

He frowned at me in puzzlement. “Of course. It’s safest here inside the wall. Prince Anton protects his own.”

That was the first time I heard Anton’s name.

When the farmers reached the market, I climbed from the back of the wagon and looked about. Walking past a few stalls, I hungrily eyed fresh bread and fruit, but I had no money.

A woman with two small children looked at me, and I knew how shabby and filthy I must be. She came to me, carrying a canvas bag. “Here, my dear,” she said, pulling out a loaf of bread. “Take this and go sit yourself over there.” She pointed to a line of shops with awnings. “No one will mind.”

Wordlessly, I took the bread and she drew out two apples as well, passing them over. Then she shooed her children down the street. Grateful, I took the bread and apples and found a place beneath an awning to rest.

This was my introduction to Sèone. The villagers here thrived, and so they were given to kindness to the old madwoman with wild hair who appeared one day and took her place near the market. I never went hungry.

Several people stopped by me each day with gifts of
food or coins or a new blanket. There were several public wells for water, and I never went thirsty, either. As it was midautumn and already growing cold, I had no idea what I’d do when winter arrived, but I lived day to day.

The problem with that was . . . now that I was no longer starving or walking endlessly, I had too much time to think.

Was this how I would spend the remainder of my life? As a beggar woman on the street? Me? Who’d once been a great seer of the line of Ayres? One night when I closed my eyes, I didn’t see Jo’s bright face looking back.

I saw Renata. She shook her head at me.

The next day, I was so ashamed of what I’d become that I moved locations and found a place near the walkway up to the castle. I leaned back against a stone pillar and wondered what it might be that Renata would have me do.

Footsteps sounded, and I looked over to see a tall man walking toward me. He was proud. I could see that in his bearing. There was a sheathed long sword on his hip. He wore chain armor over a wool shirt, with a tan tabard over the armor. His hair was pulled back at the nape of his neck. The goatee around his mouth suited him.

He struck me as someone who thought well of himself.

At the sight of me, he asked, “What are you doing out here, old woman? You should move on.”

His tone was arrogant.

Another arrogant man who thought the world owed him everything.

Suddenly, all the anger from the past months that I’d never expressed welled up inside me, and I found my voice, my own again after so long.

“Don’t you ‘old woman’ me! You think you can go bossing people around because some prince gives you armor and a little power? Underneath that tabard you’re just like everyone else, probably half as smart, and that swagger doesn’t give you leave to ask me my business or tell me where to go!”

He stopped walking. Then he came over and crouched down. “Do you know who I am?”

“I couldn’t care a rat’s tail who you are. Only thing I see is some cocky soldier who likes to throw his weight around and needs to be taken down a peg or two.”