Chapter 4
Chapter four
Bridges & Scars
After a full night spent dreaming of Will and of ships gliding across smooth seas, I woke up feeling like I was covered in sparks.
Everything glowed a little brighter as I pulled on a clean dress and combed a small amount of oil through my hair, then placed the comb and oil into my satchel.
When I picked up the dress I’d been wearing yesterday in order to pack that too, I remembered the Devil’s coin.
I never took it to prayer services with me, since it felt wrong to take a magyk object into a holy space, but I usually checked it as soon as I was finished.
Last night, I had been so spun up in my plans, I’d forgotten.
Apprehension shot through me as I took it out, but I was relieved to see designs on both faces still.
I let out a small laugh at the sight of a fire-breathing dragon on one side and a rather stupid-looking ass with crossed eyes on the other.
Admittedly, I had no idea what might happen to my bargain with the Devil if I left Nottingham, and I turned the coin over in my fingers for a few minutes as I considered the possibilities.
Perhaps, if I was far enough away from the Arden, or if I left the coin behind, he would not be able to find me.
Or perhaps he was tied to the Arden and could not go very far from it.
Or perhaps, if he did come for me and I was already in the wind, my healing gift would simply…
vanish. I certainly would not complain about being free from it.
I pocketed the coin, imagining it could be worth something if our circumstances became dire enough.
Down in the dining hall, I could hardly eat, even though Sister Teodora had made one of my favorites: griddle cakes smothered in sweet pumpkin cream and amber honey, then dusted with clove powder.
The optimism I’d been feeling had made way for nerves the moment I’d seen the faces of my Sisters.
I had never left Nottingham, and only left Locksley’s grounds when it was necessary.
Even though Tuck and the boatmen brought news and stories of the outside world, I had never seen it with my own eyes, never experienced it.
Will too had only left Nottingham twice in his life, and had never wanted for anything.
I hadn’t either, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was making a mistake, asking him to run with me, leaving behind his family and the Abbey and everything we’d ever known.
But the strength of my conviction pushed me forward.
We would have each other, and that would be enough. I was sure of it.
“Goodness, May,” said Tuck when I met him at the front gate. “You look like you’ve seen a spirit. Did you sleep at all?”
“Oh, yes, a little,” I said with a strained smile.
He did not push the issue as we walked in silence along the towpath to Boatman’s Bridge.
This crossing point was primarily used by those who lodged at the Abbey, mostly boatmen, and today the line for the tollbooth stretched from one side of the Channel to the other.
The boatmen were boisterous, in good spirits, clearly looking forward to a day of festivities and drink, rather than their usual drudgery of running barges from one side of Athenium to the other.
While I was normally grateful for their presence, since their coins kept the Abbey afloat, today I was wound much too tight for the sweet words they threw my way.
I set my jaw as Tuck and I bypassed the toll line, exempt from payment by our affiliation with the Church.
“Miss May!” one young man called out. “Surely, you’d rather watch the tournament with us than with this old codger?
” His friends shouted their lewd agreement and I glanced over my shoulder to see who it was.
Nick Fagan, naturally. A regular at the Abbey’s inn, and the only man Will had ever come close to blows with for my sake.
Before Tuck could offer a reprimand, I whirled around.
“Is that you, Fagan?” I called back, narrowing my eyes to an exaggerated squint. “I couldn’t tell. Every day you become more and more indistinguishable from the ass who pulls your barge.” A chorus of roaring laughter broke from the boatmen along the bridge, and Fagan’s cheeks reddened.
When I turned back to Tuck, he was battling a smile. “Sissi taught you well.”
“Would you deny your own hand in raising a girl who knows how to bite back?” I said sweetly. When we came to the small tollbooth at the other side of the bridge, Tuck simply nodded and stepped past, but the city watchman standing beside the booth flung his arm out to stop me.
“Let me pass!” I snapped, shoving him away. “The Sisters are exempt from bridge tolls.”
The loathsome toad of a tollman, Barnabas Weft, flashed a golden-toothed sneer. “You ain’t no Sister.”
“New orders from Sheriff Scarlett,” the watchman said stoically. “Only those who’ve taken the vows of a Holy Order are exempt.”
I nearly crumbled from shame and humiliation and began to reach for the purse hidden in my satchel, but Tuck stepped in quickly and dropped a copper penny into the toll box. “Not a problem, Barnie,” he said gently.
Weft just frowned, then scribbled down both our names. The watchman dropped his arm, but I glared at both of them, a sputtering flame of rage burning in my chest as Tuck and I made our way toward the city gates.
“He must be trying to keep me and Will apart,” I fumed.
“Who?”
“Sheriff Scarlett!”
“Why would he only do that now?” Tuck asked. “You and Will have been close for years.”
I tried to keep my voice low as we passed more city watchmen. “Because, they’re trying to marry him off to Lady Helena.”
“Oh, by the Father,” Tuck muttered. “May, I’m truly sorry. What will you do?”
“I…I just need to find Will. Can I meet you at the tournament?”
“Of course. I have friends I must see too. But May, please remember that other—”
“‘Other people’s choices are not a reflection of my worth’,” I said with a wry smile. “Yes, I know. Thank you, Tuck.” I kissed him on the cheek, then slipped away into the crowd, praying I could find Will before the tournament began.
Inside Nottingham’s walls, the atmosphere was festive.
Nearly every vertical surface had been adorned with Johar’s green and gold banners, each bearing the Angevin family crest: a mighty eagle perched on the shoulder of a lion rampant.
Balconies were festooned in garlands of dried flowers or autumn leaves, while the iron canal fences bore official garlands of green and gold ribbon.
The city’s canals, which all branched off from the Channel, served Nottingham in place of the wide, cobblestone streets Tuck said other cities had been built around.
Punting boats drifted along the dark waterways, carrying cargo or festival-goers to their destinations, each one decorated for the occasion—right down to the boatmen’s colorful shirts and painted pikes.
Despite the early hour, many folk were already drunk, especially those who could afford to travel on the canals rather than on foot.
Masked and dressed in harvest-themed regalia, they called out slurred greetings to those on the walkways as they drifted by.
I tried to ignore the voices echoing between the buildings, but each shout or peel of laughter set me on edge.
Even though I had told no one of my plan, I imagined the Iron Fist hunting me through the streets, sent by Sheriff Scarlett to prevent me from finding Will.
Ruefully, I even forced myself to bypass several of my favorite food stalls.
On Bishop’s Canal, however, the scent of saffron-butter chicken and buckwheat dumplings stopped me in my tracks.
No time for this, I admonished my traitorous mouth, which dared to water.
As if sensing the desperate hunger ripping apart my stomach, a voice that I almost believed to be the embodiment of my favorite meal called out, “Miss May!”
I turned to see a large, mustachioed man waving to me through the street-level window of the food stall. He ducked back inside for a moment, then reappeared through a door to the side of the window.
“Quince!” I greeted him as warmly as I could while he wiped his hands on a stained apron. “Surely, you have paying customers to attend?”
“Ah, the boys’ve got them,” he said, jerking a thumb backward.
“Wondered if you had time for…a favor.” He whispered the final word, his eyes darting across the canal.
A glance over my shoulder caught three men of the Iron Fist, their blood-red doublets standing in stark contrast to the white-washed, dark-wood-beam buildings around them.
“Quince,” I murmured. “You know I shouldn’t do it outside the Abbey. Can you…” I stopped myself short of asking if he could come to Locksley tomorrow, knowing I might be long gone. “How bad?”
His blue eyes flashed and his mouth turned down. “Will was here looking for you…not an hour ago.”
“Did he say where he would be?” I asked breathlessly, but Quince was silent, his gaze hard.
“Mercy, Quince. Alright, where is she?” He turned and I followed him through the doorway, peeking back at the Iron Fist soldiers lingering across the canal.
Thankfully, their attention was on each other and they did not seem to notice me.
“It’s been worse with the turn in the weather,” Quince told me as we walked along a dark corridor no wider than his shoulders, then up a twisted, creaky staircase.
“I don’t have my kit,” I said gently.
“Just…do what you can,” he replied, opening a door at the top of the stairs.
Behind it was a low-ceilinged room stuffed with ramshackle beds, wardrobes, and chests of drawers.
A table and its collection of mismatched chairs was shoved up against a single, grimy window, and at the table sat a girl no older than thirteen, with pallid hair and a sallow face.
She offered me a weak smile and an even weaker blessing, her hand going to the iron medallion around her neck, which matched my own, even if her faith was much stronger.
“Daughter keep you, Lidy,” I murmured. “What’s the trouble today?”
Lidy removed the thin shawl from her shoulders and pulled back her sleeve, displaying a bloodied bandage around her delicate wrist. Gingerly, I unwrapped it and tried not to react to the sight of the thin cuts running across her arm.
“I couldn’t stop last night,” she whispered, pale blue eyes wide and tearful. “Da took the knife, and I feel better now, but…”
“Her fits are getting worse,” Quince said, hovering behind me, “and the bloody Iron Fist’s been asking questions since the neighbors heard her last time.”
“Oh, Lidy,” I sighed, then turned to look at her father. “You know, I can only heal the cuts. I can’t fix…” I tapped the side of my head and Quince nodded.
“Do what you can,” he repeated, his eyes full of unspoken pleas—a widowed father raising too many children, begging me to hide evidence of the illness in his daughter’s mind that even my gift couldn’t cure.
If infection or blood loss didn’t take her first, the Iron Fist surely would.
This kind of sickness was almost always attributed to faerie magyk, for what other malevolent force would cause a child to turn on their own body that way?
I sat beside Lidy, trying to smile as I examined the cuts.
They were shallow and appeared to have been done with a small filet knife or other such instrument.
No matter how well Quince locked up his cooking tools, she always seemed to find them in her fugue state.
Years of old scars ran the length of her arm, from elbow to palm.
At the Abbey infirmary, I had tried everything I knew to stop the fits, which had visited her since she was only eight.
To no avail, Quince had asked me to simply treat the marks, cuts, and bruises that she inflicted on herself when she could find no other relief from the pain strangling her thoughts.
“Do you have any honey?” I asked Quince. “It can help ward off infection.” He opened a few of the cabinets lining the walls and eventually pulled out a jar of Locksley Abbey’s golden honey, which he passed to me, along with a clean rag.
“Which prayer would you like to say?” I asked Lidy as I gently spread the honey over her cuts with my thumb. She bit her lip and thought hard—sweet, pious girl.
“The Daughter’s Oath,” she said at last. My heart stuttered and Quince cleared his throat, but I knew half the work of healing was making the patient comfortable so their body didn’t resist. I needed no prayer for it to work, but Lidy did.
“You start, then, and keep your eyes closed,” I told the girl as I laid the rag over her cuts and put my hand on top. Her voice shook when she spoke, so I bolstered it with my own.
“If I cannot prevent, I’ll cure. If I cannot cure, I’ll mend. If I cannot mend, I’ll stay with you, until the bitter end.”
“Once more,” I instructed, and Lidy repeated the prayer.
The heat of the magyk—a thread being pulled from under my skin too quickly—burned its way down my arm and into hers.
When she finished speaking, I lifted my hand, then the rag.
The scars were angry and red, hardly subtle, but they were scars, at least. She would suffer no infection this time.
I stood and leaned against the table for a moment, rushing in my ears and heat prickling my scalp.
The price of my gift, which the Devil had warned me about.
The gift that was not a gift at all, but a tether.
A manacle I would soon remove from around my ankle.
“Thank you,” Quince muttered. “I know how dangerous it is…for you. I can never—”
“You must bring her to the Abbey next time, Quince,” I said sharply. “Any whispers floating down the canals might put all of you at risk. You understand?”
“Of course.”
“I need to find Will now. Please.”
“He said that, if I saw you, I was to tell you to meet him at ‘the old tree’.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
“I’m sorry, May,” Quince called after me as I made for the door.
“We all do what we must,” I assured him, then slipped as quickly as I could down the stairs without twisting my ankles. Back out on the footpath beside Bishop’s Canal, I forced myself to leave behind the smell of the saffron-butter chicken, and the memory of Lidy’s pale eyes.