Chapter Three
Sybil
Bury St. Edmunds, England
The candles whisked out. All three at once.
Sybil Brantham froze, quill poised above the parchment.
There had been no wind in her bedchamber at Brackenmere Manor. No movement. No breeze to cause even a flicker.
A chill crept up her spine like something living, icy tendrils ticking each vertebra.
An omen.
Light limned the heavy curtains, indicating there was no longer a need for the candles. In Sybil’s former life, she would
not have been so wasteful. She could not have afforded to be. And certainly, she would not have had beeswax candles, but ones
made of tallow, the odor oily and rancid.
Smoke curled from the blackened wicks, cast in a shard of light where the curtains had not been fully closed. Sybil’s gut
knotted with anxiety.
A gentle knock sounded at her door.
She set aside her quill, clinked the cap onto the pewter inkwell, and closed the ledger. There would be time for noting the monthly stores and expenses later.
“You may enter, Bess,” she called out.
The maid bustled in and set to yanking back the curtains. Daylight streamed in and motes that had clung to the heavy velvet
frolicked in a wild frenzy that left the air feeling charged.
“Anne can tend to the garden,” Bess said disapprovingly as she withdrew the brown worsted dress from the carved oak coffer.
“Goodness knows the lass needs more to do.”
If Bess let the other servant share her tasks, the girl would have more to do. On an ordinary day, Sybil might have reminded Bess of that fact. But those candles snuffing out…
Sybil could not clear them from her mind.
A warning to be sure.
But of what?
There was much to fear in this world where political turmoil tore the country in half, rife with religious persecution, where
women were so oft the brunt of the world’s injustices with so many of their menfolk at war.
Only a sennight before, four women in Manningtree swung by their necks after an accusation of witchcraft. Sybil scarcely bothered
with newsbooks, finding the content more scandal and drivel than actual news. But this one she’d purchased for a sixpence,
waiting until she was home to read the horrors.
They had all been women. Women without men to speak for them, to rein them into the boundaries of society, especially prone
to such danger. Women, after all, had no voice on their own.
Bess frowned. “Is something amiss, mum?”
Sybil blinked. “No, I… I’m not myself this morning.” She offered a pleasant smile in the costly Venetian looking glass on
the dressing table. “Working in the herb garden will set me to rights.”
Bess helped Sybil into the plain garment, brushing at the coarse fabric as she would the finest silk. A faint scent of lanolin clung to the woolen gown, reminiscent of Sybil’s childhood when no finer fabric could be had.
“Anne seems amiss lately, too.” Bess swept Sybil’s hair back to plait into a long braid. “I do wish you’d allow me to create
more elaborate updos.”
The light gleamed against Sybil’s rich, black hair. Though she was no great beauty, her features were handsome enough—hazel
eyes that were often called clever, and a jaw that was a mite too hard. Her one true glory was her hair, thick and luxurious,
dark as velvety night, falling well past her waist.
While Bess would delight at a more stylish fashion, the heavy Puritan population of Bury St. Edmunds frowned upon such extravagance
and Sybil had learned well from her mother to maintain a muted existence.
Fully dressed, Sybil left Bess to tend to the bedchamber, but paused outside Jacinda’s door. The image of the extinguished
candles intruded Sybil’s mind like a warning bell.
Was Jacinda the one at risk?
Fear prickled over Sybil’s skin.
Quiet as a thief, she pushed into Jacinda’s room and let her eyes adjust to the dark. The girl—for she would always be a girl
to Sybil—lay sleeping, red-gold hair splayed over her pillow, mouth slack with sleep and slightly agape.
In the corner of the room, away from the window, Jacinda’s beloved kestrel sat, tufted into its black speckled feathers. Absent
jesses or bells or even a hood, the obedient pet kept watch over the sleeping girl, gleaming black eyes fixed on Sybil.
At Jacinda’s wrist was the band of decorative iron, a gift from Sybil earlier that year to mark her sixteenth year.
When, ignorant to the power of her bourgeoning abilities, Jacinda had nearly caught the manor on fire.
The curtain nearest the hearth still bore a singe from the last time Jacinda had been impassioned with rage.
Some of the tension ebbed from Sybil’s shoulders at the sight of that bracelet pressed against Jacinda’s skin, quieting her
gifts. The girl would come into her knowledge of the earth soon enough. But now was not the time. Not when a threat tainted
the air with the odor of ash and death.
Again, Sybil thought of Manningtree, of those women perceived to be so dangerous.
The kestrel shifted on his perch, restless, anxious. As if he too sensed the threat.
She had thought Jacinda protected after Henry and Sybil wed. And there had been safety for years. Until his death and the slander suggesting Sybil’s elevated widowed status was temptation enough for
her to kill her husband.
That the gossip was false made no difference. A rumor once spoken could not be recalled.
And only one single spark was needed to light a pyre.
No, now was not the time for Jacinda to step into her legacy.
Sybil turned away and let the door close silently behind her. If she was going to harvest herbs, she must do so soon, before
other demands required her time.
How pleased Mother would be to see Sybil taking to the various tinctures and salves she had spent her stubborn youth turning
her nose up at. Just as she would be pleased to see Sybil accepting the earth’s power and seeing to Jacinda’s care.
Sybil had spent a lifetime promising her mother she would never attract attention, that she would keep them safe.
Whatever portent of ill tidings had whisked out those candles told her such vows—despite her arduous efforts—might well be
broken.