3. Now Pyre
NOW: PYRE
Ilsit had groused about leaving me alone and Fox had started waving her hands, but Jade had pushed Ilsit towards the wheelbarrow, one last stockpile of goods inside it.
Jade had then grabbed Daisy and shoved her in Fox’s arms, ordering the girl to follow her.
Jade was so rarely anything but soft-spoken that the directive stunned them into obedience.
The priest had done just as Ilsit had guessed.
He had visited the keep and brought reinforcements with him.
Mounted on horses, what seemed to be a dozen men made for my farm on the dust road that led from my property to town.
At the forefront were Lord Torm Sheridan, ruler of this settlement, Bertram, his firstborn son, and Gerard, the captain of not only the lord’s keep guard but of the soldiers always stationed here, a gift from Perpatane, the country that had brought their religion here.
Father Starling also rode with the lords and the captain, the retinue of guards behind them.
I stood in my front yard as they neared, hands on hips, a look of resignation on my face, as if I admitted defeat. I had kept the gate in the fence open as if to welcome them.
Please let there be not a smudge of moss paste anywhere in that house, I prayed to Mother Earth. She was my favorite of the Tintarian gods. The people of Tintar called them the Farthest Four, but I just thought of them as my gods.
“Roberta Finch,” Lord Torm called when his horse neared the fence line.
“You have been caught with contraband in the street. I know what it is midwives often dispense, what it is your teacher taught you. You will allow us entry onto your property and into your home. To save your mortal soul, we must purge this evil from it.”
I nodded. “I understand, my lord. Please feel free to tie your horses to the fence. I would offer my stables if they were larger.”
The lord and I exchanged a weighted glare.
He had once protected me for the sake of others he loved even though he had no love for me.
The look he gave me now said that he was ready to be done with those indulgences.
Like Starling, he was closer to sixty than fifty, perhaps even older.
And like the priest, he still cut a formidable figure.
Starling squinted down at me from his horse. He was unusually quiet.
“My brother is off traveling,” said Bertram, drawing his horse up next to his father’s and the priest’s. “Thane’s not here to intervene this time. It’s time you paid for all your crimes, woman.”
Torm murmured something to his son, but kept his gaze on me.
Gerard, the captain, nodded at the eight guards he had with him and they all dismounted, secured their horses, and marched inside my house.
Bile rose in my throat. My house, my farm—the place I had dwelt with my mentor Magda, the property she had left to me, the place I had built a life with my husband and then with Fox, the place Jade had called home since Avery died, the refuge Ilsit had run to—was being trampled by thugs.
But I remained outside, standing, looking up at the lord, his oldest son, the priest, and the captain.
“Any medicinals? Anything to kill a babe?” Bertram yelled. “I know she has it. I have seen her with blood on her hands.”
A gray-clad soldier came to the door. He did not look familiar, and I guessed at him being not a man originally hired by the lord but yet another Perpatanian installed by their king in the castle keep.
“No, my lord. Lots of herbals drying from the rafters. Lots of things to make oils or tonics, but nothing from the list of offenses.”
“No mother’s moss?” called out Torm.
The man shook his head.
Gerard dismounted and walked into the yard, calling out, “There is sure to be some moss in there. Keep looking!”
“Oh well,” said the priest. “Perhaps I am mistaken.”
Lord Sheridan turned to the priest. “Father, I doubt that.” He looked over at the captain. “We search that house top to bottom. This has been a long time coming. Hasn’t it, Madam Finch? You’ve received lenience from the church for the entirety of your life.”
I nodded woodenly, but his words were not what made me stiffen with terror.
An iciness slithered down my spine. Starling seemed so content at their rummaging having yet to yield anything.
His patience and pleasant face unnerved me.
I thought of the two illegal tools I had hidden in a trunk and wondered, if they found them, would they even know what they were for?
“Too much,” added Bertram. “All because my brother has carried a torch for you since before he had hair on his chest. I am sick with it, watching a woman such as you poison the world around her.”
“Keep looking,” commanded Gerard, beginning to pace a little in the yard. His eyes went to me, a frown on his stern mouth. It was as if he wanted me to know that he knew I housed his former wife, that when he had cast her out, he knew she had run to me.
“Well, there’s all these in there,” said another soldier, coming to the door with a small stack of books.
“Oh my, yes,” crooned Starling. “I did not see the midwife with her herbalisms. I saw her with books.”
“No,” I tried to shout, but my voice was hoarse.
“Those are surely all on the list of offenses,” Gerard said. “Gather them all from inside. Don’t leave a one behind.” The captain looked at me with a satisfaction, as if he finally saw something that pleased him. He looked back towards the gate. “My lord, what would you have us do?”
Torm turned to Starling. “I supposed you would advise the only way to cleanse out such iniquity is by way of our saint’s sacrifice.”
The priest murmured, “You are so devout, my lord. So wise. You know the heart of our saint perhaps better than I.”
“Bring them all out into the yard,” Torm ordered. “Stack them for a fire.”
“No!” I shrieked and made for the house.
I was grabbed from behind by a swift Bertram, who must have dismounted and run for me as soon as I turned.
He, like Thane, was tall and well-built, and he pulled my squirming body back into his.
As I flailed, he tightened the arm he had about my waist and brought his other arm up around my neck.
“I know you’re the reason my wife hasn’t had another babe,” he hissed into my ear.
“I don’t know what kind of witchery it is you do on her, but I know you’re the reason why. ”
I tried to swing my arms back to hit him, but my blows were weakened by the limited air I was able to take in. I weakly cried out again. “Not my books!”
“Surely evil volumes,” I heard the priest muse. “All about Tintar, now our enemy. Did you know that, Madam Finch? We are at war with Tintar, and here you are with their idols and their blasphemies in your very house.”
“Say it,” Bertram was spitting in my ear. “Say you’re the reason she hasn’t quickened with a child again. I can’t get her to admit it, but godsdamn it, I’ll have you say it to me today, hag.”
“You have three sons already, my lord,” I gasped. “And your lady wife, like me, nears her fortieth winter. Perhaps her body is just done with children. Perhaps no witchery is needed.”
There was a shout inside the house, and the first soldier came outside holding up a thin volume bound in old, green leather.
When I recognized it, I screamed.
“This is a book of Tintar’s gods,” the guard said. “It says so right on the first page. It’s written by a witch of Tintar.”
From my limited view over Bertram’s forearm, I saw Starling dismount and enter through the gate, his hand extended towards the guard.
The young man met him halfway and held out the book.
Starling took it and opened it, his gaze running down the first page.
He looked up and, barely glancing at me, said to Lord Torm, “This is called The Life of Una. It is one of the most sacrilegious books ever set to a press. It explains their gods’ history.
It says the answers to life’s questions are to be found inside the heart and mind, a heresy no scripture-fearing woman would ever read.
Only our saint holds the keys to life’s locks.
And those keys are certainly not for a woman to ponder. ”
“Burn that one first, then,” Gerard said to the soldier, then looked to me and Bertram. “And, as you are restraining her, my friend, might I ask that you make her wicked eyes watch?”
“As I intended to, Captain,” Bertram laughed in my ear.
I doubled my efforts to escape his grip, kicking him hard in the shin.
Bertram swore and threw me to the dirt, his intention to hold me now thwarted.
He kicked me but not with venom, only disinterest—an effort to roll me out of his way—and then marched up to the growing stacks of books in the front yard.
He pulled a flask out from under his leather breast plate and poured it on the stack, extending his other hand towards the priest.
Starling gave the younger lord a thin smile and handed the book over.
Bertram flipped open The Life of Una and emptied the rest of his flask onto the spread pages. “A candle! Bring me a candle!” he called.
“A candle!” Gerard repeated.
I whined something incoherent.
A candle—one rolled by my own sister-in-law’s hand, smelling of rose oil pressed by Ilsit and Fox, lit from the low fire in my own hearth, something stoked by Jade for my dinner—was brought out.
Bertram brought its wick to the book and then let the burning thing fall from his hands to ignite the rest.
I screamed again and crawled towards the flames but was hoisted up and away by Bertram.
I thrashed and wept in his arms, throwing my elbows back trying to jab and hit.
I called him foul names under my breath.
But even I, in my grief, knew what line to draw, knew that I was detained by the son of a lord.
When they left me, I was kneeling next to the smoking heap they had let burn and then doused with my well water and, in the case of two of the soldiers and Bertram, their own piss.
My tears were silent now, and I did not move.
I sat there for some time. I felt I had to hold a sort of vigil over the funeral pyre of a lifetime’s worth of stories and studies.