Chapter Nine
She could smell the fresh grass, damp with morning dew, growing free and wild toward the sun.
There was smoke on the north-western horizon.
Not long after leaving the barn, Idris had to steer Bramble away from the main roads because of troop columns moving north.
The farm roads they were forced to take slowed them down, the cart bumping over uneven tracks and Bramble struggling over ice.
They were approaching the front line. At this point, Seraphina would’ve left the cart and crossed on foot, but she knew it wasn’t an option – and neither advisable – to leave Idris without his medicine chest.
They were silent as they trudged forward for hours.
Seraphina was in the back, fighting sleep.
Idris had tried to start a conversation a few times, but she’d answered him monosyllabically.
Not because she didn’t want to talk to him.
One of their endless debates would’ve been a great distraction right now.
But she didn’t trust herself to speak. The night before, she’d barely slept.
Nightmares of people under the spell of the thrall relic had mingled with whispers of Matteo’s secret that now belonged to her.
A few times, she’d jolted awake, breathing fast, terrified she’d been talking in her sleep.
She stayed awake for as long as she could, listening to Idris’s even breathing a few feet away from her.
Until she understood more about how the second toll she’d managed to acquire worked, it was better for her to keep her mouth shut, lest she said things she didn’t mean to.
Especially when her mind entered a restful state, barely hanging on to wakefulness, she had the urge to fill the silence with half-formed thoughts.
She’d never had an issue keeping secrets and had never been the type to gossip.
Now she felt like one of those giggly fools at the academy – girls more interested in boys than in bones – who had to spill a juicy secret as soon as it was whispered in their ears.
Seraphina had dozed off again when musket reports snapped her back to consciousness. She sat up, moving closer to Idris. The sound carried across the fields. Her friend pulled at the reins to stop the cart and consider their options.
“East,” he said.
“It seems to be the only way.”
It sounded like a real fight, and quite close to where they were. They had to find a way around it.
But a detour east soon proved impossible.
It meant crossing a frozen stream with banks too steep for the cart.
So, they pressed on along the stream, were forced west again by the impracticable terrain, and when the track crested a low rise, they found the village they’d been trying to avoid right in front of them, about two hundred yards down the slope.
Smoke rose from two of the rooftops, they heard shouting and the crack of muskets, and people running to put down the flames.
Idris reacted quickly. He jumped out of the cart, took Bramble’s reins, and directed the horse into a stand of bare birches, away from any line of sight.
Seraphina got off too, her eyes narrowing to look in the distance.
Her vision was improving, but details were fuzzy, and sometimes her brain needed to process longer to understand what she was seeing.
“Stay hidden.” Idris took her by the arm. “We’ll wait it out.”
She nodded, but just as she was turning to follow him, she saw two figures running out from between two houses.
One was a woman, the other was a child. The woman slipped and fell, and for a few seconds, the child didn’t realize what was happening and kept running.
A man appeared, raised his musket, but when he saw the woman was down in the snow, changed his mind and started walking toward her purposefully.
The woman screamed, the child turned, cried out, and ran back to help her up.
The man was faster, grabbing the woman by the ankles and pulling her to him, throwing himself on top of her.
Seraphina didn’t think. She launched herself down the slope, half running and half sliding, her hands going to the daggers at her lower back.
The child saw her – a girl, Seraphina noticed – and took a step back, eyes wide.
Seraphina descended upon the soldier in the dark gray and black uniform of the Harvester’s troops and plunged the daggers into his sides.
He thrashed like a beast, and she didn’t let go until he was dead, bleeding out in the snow.
The girl helped the woman up, but she could barely stand, let alone walk, having twisted her ankle.
Idris stopped a few feet from Seraphina, who was just getting up and using snow to clean her blades.
“You killed one of our own,” he whispered so low that the woman and child didn’t hear.
Seraphina looked at him hard, challenging him to say more.
“You saw what he was going to do to her.”
Idris’s jaw tightened.
“Thank you,” the woman said, her green eyes moving between Seraphina and Idris. “More are coming. My house is right there.” She attempted to walk while leaning on the girl, and a cry tore out of her throat. “No, I can’t.”
Idris moved to help her. She leaned on him, and he lifted her with some effort. He didn’t complain, just motioned for the girl to show him the way. Seraphina followed, daggers out, eyes moving from left to right to cover as much ground as she could. God, it was good to see again!
The cottage had a low ceiling, a single main room with a hearth banked low on one wall, and a sleeping curtain drawn across one corner.
The moment they were inside, the woman barred the door and hopped to where the girl was waiting with her arms wrapped around her middle and her gaze trained on the scuffed toes of her boots.
“What were you thinking?” She slapped the child hard.
Both Idris and Seraphina took a step forward, but the woman hugged the girl to her chest, crying.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I wanted to find Axel and Papa.”
“You’re too old to be this stupid.” She held her daughter at arm’s length but turned to address her unexpected guests.
“My husband and my son are out there, fighting. And this one… I don’t know what devil got into her and made her run out like that.
I went to bring her back, and you saw what happened.
Thank you.” She straightened her back and studied them more closely, especially Idris.
“Wherever you came from, and whoever you are, thank you.”
“I’m a surgeon,” he said. “Let me look at your foot.”
She hesitated and threw a glance at Seraphina, and only when Seraphina nodded, she sat down and allowed Idris to approach.
He knelt before her, removed her boot, and applied gentle pressure to various points around her ankle.
“It’s not broken, only sprained. It will heal on its own, but you shouldn’t put weight on it if you can help it.”
He knew he was asking too much of her already. He rummaged through his satchel and pulled out linen strips that he proceeded to wrap and tighten around the injured ankle.
“Snow packed around it, or ice,” he said. “It will prevent swelling and help with the pain.”
The woman nodded, but looked at the barred door, and both Idris and Seraphina knew no one was going out for a while. The sounds coming from outside were warning enough.
“The whole village has joined the resistance soldiers,” she said. “All able-bodied. It’s been going on since dawn. We’re not letting them run us out of our homes, take our lands.”
Seraphina noticed a crucifix on a mantle. Beside it, a painted image of the Virgin.
“Our church doesn’t have any relics,” the woman continued. “No one here has a single bone, but they don’t care. They just take and take.”
The girl, now thoroughly scolded, busied herself by bringing them water. They didn’t talk much after. She and her mother huddled near the hearth, while Seraphina and Idris remained close to the door. The windows were shuttered, and the only light came from the dying embers and a candle.
The cottage was at the edge of the village, but that didn’t mean they were safe here.
Seraphina thought about Bramble and the cart, precariously hidden and unprotected.
She exchanged a glance with Idris and was taken aback by how upset he looked.
She swallowed heavily. Right. She’d killed someone she shouldn’t have, and now her lie about having defected to the High Harvester didn’t stand anymore.
She was glad he wasn’t confronting her with witnesses, but she knew she’d have to address it later.
There was a knock on the door. They all jumped out of their skin. It was soft at first, then when no answer came, it turned into banging.
“Mama!”
The woman shot to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ankle as she hobbled to the door and removed the wooden bar. Her son, who didn’t look older than sixteen, collapsed into her arms, blood pouring out of a wound in his shoulder.
Idris moved to close the door, and Seraphina helped the mother lay her son on one of the two beds behind the curtain. His sister hovered, crying and hugging him, asking about their father.
The boy – Axel – shook his head, tears running down his dirty cheeks.
“He’s gone. I saw him fall with my own eyes.
I crawled to him, tried to pull him to safety so they wouldn’t trample him, but a musket ball hit me, and I don’t know…
I don’t know… I ran. I didn’t want to die there, alone.
I’m so sorry, Mama. I’m a coward. I should’ve stayed and fought, avenged his death.
I just didn’t… I didn’t want to die alone. ”
“My boy…”
Seraphina pried the girl away from her brother, even as she fought her. She placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“Let the surgeon work.”
Idris was already unfolding his kit, but if he was to save the boy’s life, he needed space.
“You won’t die,” he said.