Chapter 28
In the sitting room, Tieve’s playing with the baby – who’s already lost that typical wizened and shocked look they carry for a few weeks after birth.
She – still nameless – is stretching her limbs, exploring the edges of her basket; she’ll need a new one of those soon.
Tieve, bless her, has never questioned the little one’s slight green hue, nor the flowers in her hair; just says how sweet she smells.
I reassured Rhea the growth spurt was normal for a child such as hers, even though I don’t truly know; none of mine lived and I’ve no experience to base my promises on, only the memory of hybrid children in old tales, growing quickly, needing to be able to defend themselves against humans as soon as possible.
Rhea’s in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables and a chicken for soup.
I offered to do it but she said she’s happy to be moving around unencumbered again.
I suspect she’s thinking I look exhausted and old, and though the idea offends me, I can’t say she’s wrong on at least one count.
Her eyes on my face as I told her about the barrow, the children…
It’s a relief to sit on the sofa after riding Rosie for long hours.
Tieve’s devoured two slices of plum cake and keeps sneaking glances at the activity in the kitchen; I’m still not hungry although I’m on my third dandelion tea, my third red clover tonic against the hot flushes.
Tieve’s remarkably serene now she’s safe, despite her bad news – the initial bit and what follows.
‘How did Ari get into your house?’
‘One of my brothers let her in – he was going out, and she pushed her way in. He kept going and she… I’d…
I’d been playing with the charm dolly. I know I should have kept her hidden, but I like her so much.
Ari said I shouldn’t be talking to you, and then she saw the dolly, and swore and threw it in the fire like I told you.
’ Tieve barely takes a breath. ‘But she squeaked because it burned her hands, and then she screamed because of the…’ she trails off because I’m nodding, although I don’t tell her what I did in that barrow. ‘And so I ran here.’
‘That was wise, Tieve. You can’t trust Ari now.’ Or what-ever’s masquerading as her. ‘I think it’s best you stay here for a little while.’
She doesn’t argue.
‘I’ll get word to your mother.’
The girl shrugs. ‘I doubt she’ll notice.’
I choose my words carefully. ‘Your mother cares for you, Tieve, or she’d never have forbidden Ari from seeing you, and I know a frightened woman when I meet one.
Your mother was afraid for you, she’s just not very good at expressing it so it sounds like anger.
She’s not angry at you, but you’re the person in front of her at the time and, sadly, most people look for a target without thinking.
Perhaps one day you can talk to her about it. ’
She gives me a doubtful look, and I don’t push it because some people are simply awful whether they’re worried or not and I don’t have the energy to ponder Tieve’s mother any longer.
‘But tell me what happened to Anselm?’
‘They found him this morning – out on the green. He looked like he’d been dragged back and forth across the earth, and trampled, too.’ Her voice drops low. ‘But no one heard anything last night.’
‘Had he left the bakery?’
She nods. ‘He was drinking at the inn. I think he’s been there a lot lately.’
Small wonder with a changeling child in a home where sleep’s become something that drains energy and feeds nightmares.
I think about a befuddled Anselm staggering home in the darkness, taking the shortcut across the broad expanse of the green.
I think about the huntsman, frustrated at his lack of success at my cottage.
I think of all those tales of folk taken by the wild hunt, pursued like game.
I think of Anselm, not a terrible man, not the best, but not the worst, and his past months in a house with a daughter that’s not his and a wife who’s lost herself in guilt.
‘He was nice to me, like I remember my father being.’
‘Poor man,’ I say.
‘Poor man,’ the other two echo.
‘And then as I was leaving,’ says Tieve, ‘I saw Mr Peppergill return with the priests, dragging that poor woman with them by a rope.’
Rhea and I exchanged a glance. ‘What woman, Tieve? What god-hounds?’
‘Your friend. The woman with the white streak in her hair.’ She mimes the white stripe that starts at Fenna’s widow’s peak and runs to the ends of her fading red mane.
‘How do you know she’s my friend?’
She colours. ‘I was in the woods and saw her and her,’ she nods at Rhea, ‘one day, bypassing the village. I know she’s brought girls to you before.’
‘This is very important, Tieve: did you hear them say anything?’
‘Only when his wife ran out to meet him. He said he had the answer to all their problems. But Mrs Peppergill looked pretty shocked to see the priests.’ As well she might; as should any woman in Berhta’s Forge who knows that life is better lived without church oversight.
‘Where did they take the woman?’
‘To the bridewell. I think her leg was hurt, she limped very badly.’
The bridewell is a small building with cells built beneath, supervised by Mawgan Carlyon, who calls himself a bailiff but is really just a petty tithing-man, who collects village taxes to pay for communal repairs and work that benefits everyone.
There’s little enough crime in the village for him to attend to except for breaking up drunken fights, and he spends most of his time as a supervisor at the sawmill.
Several of the men who work as sawyers there are frequently conscripted to shifts in the bridewell.
None of them complain as it’s far easier and there’s a free meal from the inn.
That and investigating the occasional theft of chickens and the “borrowing” of horses (not from Faolan, never from Faolan), which are generally returned after use.
Mawgan’s no better or worse than most folk.
‘Did you hear anything they said? The god-hounds?’
The child shakes her head, curls her knees up to her chin and wraps her arms around them as if by making herself smaller she’ll be safe. But no one’s safe anymore.
‘Were they riding horses? Or did they have a carriage or cart?’
‘Walking, all of them.’
‘Did they look clean or as if they cared for their appearance? Had bathed recently?’
She shakes her head. ‘Dirty and scruffy.’
‘Mehrab, what are we going to—’
I hold up a finger to Rhea, begging for quiet while I think.
With every bit of energy left in me, I ponder these god-hounds, dragging Fenna behind them, a rope around her neck like an old donkey or a dog.
Scruffy, walking shit-priests, not even a cart between them, not even a broken-down nag for the first among them to ride.
So: low-end god-brothers. A better sort would have made time and effort to clean themselves up each day because they know the value of appearing better than they are – what is a church without its Show? Its grand performance?
And Thaddeus Peppergill, headman-mayor-what-have-you of this little speck of a place in the middle of a deep dark forest, a place that doesn’t have its own clergy, never has had, and Thad thinking these men who drag a witch behind them are the answer to his problems?
Thinking their presence will save him the cost of a circle of salt around the place he’s meant to protect?
Will get him back his sleep? Keep the children of Berhta’s Forge safe?
What might Fenna have told them? If she’d given me up, they’d already be here, trying to find the cottage.
The veil is a short-term protection – they’ll not be able to get through, but they might set a fire to burn as much of the forest as they think will incinerate me, yet set astray by the wards how much, how far might they destroy?
Fenna might yet break. She’s still alive and suffering for it.
They’ll have tortured her, that’s the only way she’d have brought them back here.
I think about her fondness for her apprentices, those Visiting Sisters who’ve given their lives in order to keep their silence. I won’t judge Fenna for not dying.
And I won’t leave her behind.
We’re going to have to leave. Through a forest that’s become home to something very strange and unwelcome.
Something that’s intent on pursuing me. With winter coming and a woman with a baby, and a ten-year-old child and a fifty-year-old woman whose bones ache, who burns up and freezes without reason or warning.
And a woman in her sixties who I’m betting has been beaten so badly she can barely walk.
‘Mistress Mehrab?’ Tieve interrupts my thoughts and I frown as I look at her. She’s holding up a key, large, a little on the rusty side.
‘My brother? The one who let Ari in? He works sometimes for Mawgan Carlyon, cleaning out the bridewell cells. He keeps spare keys coz he loses them sometimes. I thought you might need this?’
We’re going to need more horses.
* * *
I try to time it carefully. My desire to not risk being caught by the wild hunt and its master, who move by night, warring with another desire not to sneak around Berhta’s Forge in broad daylight where god-hounds wait.
It’s still dark when I venture forth, but I’m hopeful that I’ve chosen an hour when huntsman and wish-hounds are coursing back across the forest to the shelter of the barrow, and the residents of the village are still in their warm beds.
I have to risk the pre-dawn dark if I’m going to find some shadows to hide in while I do what I need to.
The forest paths are quiet and deserted, terribly cold.
Soon there’ll be snow to either cover our tracks or give away our direction.
Rosie picks our way through the trees, until we can cross the short distance between the woods and the smithy.
There’s no light of the forge glowing in the last morning darkness but it’s very early and no one would appreciate the sound of hammer on metal ringing out to wake them.
It’s all I can do not to creep into the house, into Faolan’s bed, tell him I’m going…
but if I do that he’ll argue, robbing me of precious minutes.
If someone tells the god-hounds that he’s connected to me there’s no telling what will happen; though I cannot imagine him betraying me, who can say what one will divulge under torture?
And this village – what if these god-hounds get a foothold?
If they petition the Archbishop of Lodellan to build a church here, to let iron bells ring through this ancient place. What will it become?
He was absent from my life for so long… I can live with that again. It will not kill me. I’ll send him a letter later from who-knows-where. Perhaps. I remind myself of the years alone, no matter that he’s apologised. So, no. I won’t risk others for the sake of him.
I lead Rosie into the stables to wait in the warmth for my return.
None of the mares are pregnant now, but their colts are by their sides.
Sorrel, Birch and Blister. They whicker gently at the sight of us.
There are three geldings and two other mares, older and calmer.
Swiftly, I saddle two of the geldings, both dark mahogany – one for Rhea, one for Fenna.
Eadig will be the main packhorse and Fyren will bear the lightest of loads; I won’t leave him behind.
Still haven’t decided what to do about the livestock, but one catastrophe at a time.
A cart will be too slow and unwieldy when we go off the paths as we’ll no doubt need to, so we’ll be travelling as light as possible.
Tieve will be passed around between us or perhaps she’s light enough for Fyren; if she wishes to come with us, of course.
I can’t just assume she’ll happily leave her family.
Faolan will curse me for another theft, so I hang a purse of gold on one of the hooks where the spare bridles wait.
I kiss Rosie on the forehead, bid her wait for me, then sneak out into the grey morning.
Both cloak and boots have been enspelled for quiet movement, but these are little spells meant to help make you less obvious, not perfectly undetectable – that requires bigger spells, bigger magic, a larger blood tithe and ingredients that aren’t ones a decent witch will easily or willingly use.
I duck between houses and places of business, sticking to the shadows where and when I can; though still dark it’s the paling darkness that presages dawn.
I don’t have long. The bridewell sits low and squat not far from the Peppergill mansion.
There’s a front door and out back an entrance with a ladder down to the cellar, and thanks to a ten-year-old’s light fingers and foresight, I have a key.
I should be paying more attention to my surroundings but I’m thinking how to get a wounded Fenna out of that cellar.
Will she be able to walk, make it up a ladder?
I don’t want to risk the front door. She’ll be slow and will need help.
Once I get her back to the smithy and the stables, it’ll be easier with the horses, then slipping back into the forest and riding hard for the cottage where the others wait.
And I’m thinking about the two children lying deep in a barrow, trying to figure how to get them out and what to do with them when and if I do…
Yes, I should be paying more attention but I’m not, which is why someone is able to get their hands around my throat before I even know he’s there. Then someone’s shouting, ‘Tie her hands, tie her hands! Don’t let her touch you!’
Kian Arnold, Lutetia’s idiot son, he of the broken leg.
I recognise his voice; he no doubt remembers the pain of being healed by said hands.
Someone else obliges, wrapping rough hemp rope around my wrists so tight it doesn’t take long for them to feel numb.
Kian and his new best friends, four shifty-looking god-hounds in stained habits, frogmarch me towards the front door of the Peppergill mansion.