Chapter Twenty-seven A Man’s Work
Chapter Twenty-seven
A Man’s Work
In the stable block were three distinct scents: the comfort of fresh hay, the tang of horse manure and blood – horse blood – which seemed stronger, heavier, than a man’s.
Kensa could do little for the injured mare.
There was no time to properly examine it and its feverish kicks would surely injure her too.
From what she could tell, its wound was superficial.
‘There are other serviceable horses in the stable aside from mine,’ said Pious authoritatively. ‘We’ll ride to the village and, if we’re swift, intercept that devil on the way.’
A pregnant silence followed and Kensa shared a look with her fellow Portscatho dwellers. The curate moved with such ease around the animal, checking buckles and reins and equine equipment that only he had knowledge of.
When no one else took a mount, Elowen said, ‘We don’t know how to ride.’
Pious laughed good naturedly, then paused, realised this was no joke and skimmed a piercing glance down his companions.
‘Right, then I can take one other with me.’
Kensa knew it must be she.
The moon was in its gibbous form and offered half-light to their small party.
Even in its wan glow, she was exposed. And on Jack’s face was an expression she rarely encountered – quiet hostility – yet it was centred on Pious, not on her, intensifying whenever the curate addressed her or seemed overly familiar.
It was strange talking to a man such as Pious, who had advantages she did not.
There was lazy power in his speech, in his genteel air.
It was not unlike the Bucka’s and Kensa found her insides squirm at the thought, confusion butting against odd emotions she could not quite place.
If he was nephew to Sir George, then weren’t they related – he and the Bucka?
Uncomfortable, yet determined, she slid her steps into Pious’s own, halting only when Jack’s hand – it would always be his, for no other had one as calloused – caught her wrist.
Kensa’s skin tightened across her cheekbones.
‘You’re going to kill her,’ said Jack, speaking on his aunt. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good, because I can’t do it.’
‘She’s already gone,’ said Kensa, gentle as she could.
‘I know, it’s only, I can’t.’ Jack stumbled over the vowels and consonants as hazards on a rocky path. ‘I can’t be the one to do it.’
This was it, Kensa thought. What Isolde had tried to teach her, without ever seeming to. To be a woman, whether wise or foolish, was to carry what others could not. Exactly as a child shucks its coat into its mother’s arms on a warm day, this was her weight to hold.
‘You won’t have to,’ promised Kensa. She interlaced her fingers with his. Breathless, suddenly, dizzy with an emotion she’d yet to place. It was a second’s contact in the manor’s shade, hounded and soon halted by another man’s footsteps and the loud crunch of hoof-beat upon the ground.
Pious interrupted, his horse – saddled and ready – a large mass among them. The mare whinnied, impatient as its rider.
‘Here,’ said the curate, reaching out to take Kensa away.
The curate slotted his hands together beneath the saddle for her to step upon. Jack did not let her go, not instantly. He skimmed a thumb over her mouth and pulled back, the contact hot as kiln-set clay inside her.
‘Jack?’ His name was a question on her lips. Yet, still, he did not tell her what she wished to hear. Even now, he could not meet her.
‘Miss Rowe,’ said Pious impatiently.
She nodded, numbly, falling to where the curate stood and allowing herself to be manoeuvred onto the horse.
Kensa sat enshrined in the clergyman’s arms, skirts hitched and her legs over the saddle’s sides.
Her eyes could not leave Jack’s. She wanted to tell him everything.
Selfish thoughts she had entertained about him and, at the same time, she never wanted to speak them.
Because what did it matter? He’d had his chance and didn’t take it, didn’t take her.
Pious kicked his heels into the mare’s sides.
It surged ahead, sending Kensa and Pious with it, onward and into the night.
The healer almost slipped off, until the curate righted her, his thighs bracketing her own.
Elowen’s bright hair was all Kensa could see behind her as the distance grew between them.
Jack had already turned away. Were this any other occasion, she would have been excited, for she had never ridden a horse before.
Instead, she knew grief. At what she had lost and would lose in the hours to come.
Pious was strong, and not in the way Jack was strong.
He had a wiry strength and his arms were solid as they closed around her to grip the reins.
Kensa was jostled between them, newly anxious as the ground raced beneath her, faster than she had ever known it.
Being on horseback was to be as fast as the tide, and she could feel its dangers here.
The pair made good speed. Around them, the trees thinned the further they galloped from Trewense Manor.
Her sit-bones were already bruised and her legs sore from clenching.
She could have sworn she heard the curate laugh and she thought he seemed very unlike any holy man should be.
There was no sign that the hag was ahead or behind or even if she had come this way.
To her left: a teal flash. It came from the hedgerows, the ones that bordered the dirt track between the farmers’ fields.
In the night were storm-black shapes, with large wings that blotted out the silvered clouds.
At first, she thought them gulls. They were not.
When they first dived at their heads, Kensa could not mistake their form.
‘Cormorants,’ she said, leaning into Pious’s chest.
‘What?’ He swore, loudly, as a hard beak flew at them. Only his arm, a fleshy shield, kept her safe.
‘Birds,’ shouted Kensa, who knew this to be the Bucka’s doing.
It was hard to discern their number. One swooped at her, though it did not catch her face.
It went to snatch her belt and almost succeeded, tearing at the leather band which held the bone-handled knife.
She gripped it, hard. Among their gulp was a bird whose eyes were brighter than the others, glowing a malevolent blue.
Yes, she knew their hue. This was her knife.
Isolde had given it to her. No beak or feather or hand, however cold and full of salt, would take it from her now.
‘Miss Rowe,’ said Pious, with the tone of a man forced to repeat himself.
‘Hold the damned reins.’ He pushed them into Kensa’s hands and fumbled in his coat.
His free arm came round Kensa’s waist and secured her, tightly.
In a steady arc, he pulled Sir George’s pistol free, aimed and fired.
A cry split the cormorants as one tumbled down to the road to lie there, unmoving.
Its feathered form was soon swallowed by the dark.
The other birds quickly dispersed and veered away, the moon chalking their wingtips as though drawn by an artist’s hand.
One cormorant remained, its teal eye level with Kensa’s for only a moment, until it too vanished with the others.
The Bucka. In his jewelled gaze there had been an unspoken promise.
Was he right? Were they alike? Was she as monstrous as he?
Pious snatched the reins from Kensa’s grasp and spurred them faster.
Beneath them, the mud track was scarcely visible and the horse slipped on occasion.
There was no sign of Isolde, no ragged streak or howling scream.
Dim lights began to emerge ahead as Portscatho drew nearer, slanting down the hillside and into the sea.
Exhausted, the horse slowed its pace, lungs straining.
Its beating heart pulsed beneath Kensa’s thighs and sweat sheened its flanks, dampening her skirts.
‘I will head to the church and ring the bell at St Gerrans,’ said Pious, as its spire came into view. He was unsteady, they both were. ‘It will be easier to protect the village if everyone is in one place.’
‘Not everyone will go,’ said Kensa, shrinking back slightly, Pious’s breaths loud against her temple. ‘There’s the Methodists who’d never set foot across the threshold and those who cannot climb the hill, who are old or bed-bound or sick.’
‘Then if we have to choose—’
‘No.’ Kensa cut off his words.
A community was not a community if it left the weakest behind.
As an apprentice to the wise woman, she had learned quickly what it was to see her people and their many differences.
Not that she remembered them half the time and not that it changed her behaviour much.
After all, she was still stubborn and incredibly argumentative, though she argued with everyone equally.
And she had betrayed them equally, too, every single one.
‘I can’t do this,’ said Kensa suddenly, as Pious brought their mount to a stop.
He had bypassed St Gerrans and brought them to the Jennings’ inn.
Cheerful sounds filtered through its small, dirty windows and she could hear Old Sal’s familiar rants, relaying her relation to ancient Turkish royalty which the village had heard a hundred times before.
Pious was first to swing a leg off and over, landing on the sloping road with practised precision. Only his fast reflexes prevented Kensa’s ungraceful foot from clipping his forehead. ‘Are you afraid the hag will come for you? If it does, I’ll be here.’
‘No.’
‘Then what?’
‘Everything,’ she said limply. ‘Failing.’
Kensa was carefully eased off the horse.
Her legs buckled for a moment and the curate steadied her.
He was ready to take command. She wanted to let him, to have him do it and spare her own skin.
Besides, he had the same function in Portscatho as she did, though his healing was spiritual, not physical.
‘If you don’t try, you’ve failed anyway,’ he said reasonably.
‘I’m sorry.’