Folded cloak in hand, I walked over to the table and placed it beside the provisions I’d stacked there. “I’ll head farther north at first, where fewer people pray to Helfa, which means fewer priests. That way, I can come down this passage here.” I grabbed the map I’d traded for salted fish with a traveling merchant, held it out to Pa, and tapped the crooked line that read Willow Road. “It’ll take a day longer, but I can avoid Hemdale. There’s a small tavern along this road, should I need it.”
Pa offered me a weak smile where he rested in bed, his features as pale as his hair. “Best avoid it… right along with people.”
Because I had no friends out here.
Only small groups of priests who supposedly rode from village to village, spreading word of the woman who might carry the devil’s spawn in her belly. On instinct, my hand went back to my stomach, drawing another protective circle around my baby.
My baby.
No matter how dire my circumstance, another smile stole over my lips. I couldn’t help it. When the morning sickness had refused to abate and my breasts started to ache, making a choice had become simple. It was one thing if I remained with Pa and ended up burned at the stake, but quite another if they wanted to burn me with my child growing beneath my heart.
Another circle.
I’ll keep you safe.
“I’ll bring everything to Thorsten and tell him to ready the mule and lead it here.” Cloak, pouches with dried fish, filled waterskins; I arranged it all in a wicker basket. “All I’ll have to do is climb onto its back and ride off. Even if he boasts about the stone down at the stables right after, I’ll be on my way.” A shadow came over my mood and I quickly kneeled beside Pa’s bed. “I’m so sorry. I should never have come back. You’ll be in danger.”
“Oh yes, they’ll come and cut me down from my youthful prime,” he mumbled, letting his jittery fingers stroke over my cheek. “But perhaps I won’t have to wander after, should you succeed.”
“I don’t know if I will.” Almost a month without a sign from Enosh didn’t exactly inspire confidence. “All I know is that I have eternity to get him to calm down. Per my estimation, it’ll take two hundred years for each month they hold him captive.”
Maybe more.
“Still too good, carrying the weight of other people’s problems, of the entire world, on her shoulders.” His throat bobbed with a stifled cough before he swallowed the blood right back down, as though it would burden me any less with doubts of leaving him behind. “Go now. And don’t let that god husband of yours ruin your damn tenacity.”
I reached my hand beneath his head to fluff the straw in his pillow, then gently lowered it back down, tugging the spit rag to rest right beneath his mouth. “We’re not saying goodbye yet. I want to find this bowl empty when I return from the stable.” I pointed at the fish stew on the stool beside him, tried myself at a stern look, then rose. “I’ll be back soon.”
Knitted scarf draped around my shoulders, I left our crooked hut behind. I headed down the trample path toward the heart of the village. The handle of the wicker basket dangled from my arm, holding everything I needed to make my way back to the Pale Court. Except for my knife, which rested in its leather sheath on my belt, along with a small purse of coins.
Lonely snowflakes drifted on the biting breeze that cut inland from the sea. Not enough to accumulate on the frozen ground, yet their scent climbed into my nostrils. It reminded me of Enosh, crisp and clean, with a cold undercurrent that rose the fine hairs at the nape of my neck. What would he say once he returned and noted my condition? Perhaps he would come when the child was already born? Would he be happy? Even angrier for being kept from it?
At my next footfall, a strange sensation ran through me, as though I’d stepped onto the heave of a boat with one step, and back down at the next. My legs slowed as I lowered my gaze to the ground. And there, right between the toes of my boots, did veins of white crack through the frosty layer atop the hard mud as though the earth wanted to gape open.
Had the ground just trembled?
My gaze shot to a nearby maple, its crown bare, and all the thin branches and spindly twigs did was bend to the wind. Nerves. Nothing but nerves, and it wouldn’t get better if I wasted more time.
The moment I turned toward the stables, my nose scrunched at a sour whiff. What had started as an unpleasant but faint smell three weeks ago now wafted around the few houses and stores, so gagging it put the stench of fish and manure to shame.
Rose stood at the corner of an empty merchant stand, watching how a man wheeled a corpse on a handcart toward the cellar. Another man squatted over the open hutch, yelling something at whoever was down there with the corpses.
Against the quiver in my stomach, I walked up to her. “What’s happened?”
“By Helfa, so many times I told Sigward to shovel the shit from his pig’s sty.” Fanning her face, she jutted toward the cellar. “Now they found a corpse somewhere in a ditch. The moment they opened that hutch to toss him in there… Oh, that stench! I’ve never smelled anything like this before. What is it?”
All blood drained from my face as I inched toward the cellar, my muscles so stiff that my lungs struggled to expand. Good thing they did, because the stench turned more nauseating the closer I came, yet the foreboding twitch of a smile tugged the corners of my lips. No, this couldn’t be…
A man emerged from the cellar, a rag wrapped around his mouth and nose. He shook his head and hiked his shoulders in nothing short of shocked disbelief. Across his arms lay a small body, its spindly arms speckled in dark patches of… of…
I froze.
Had he truly…?
“It’s the boy!” the man shouted, muffled through the fabric covering his mouth as he lowered the child to the ground, stepped back, and shook his head yet again. “Devil be damned, that stench. I’ve never seen anything like it. The bloated belly, the black fingertips, the… the green and gray on his skin. By Helfa, what is this?”
A whisper escaped me. “It’s rot.”
Tears swelled behind my eyes as I breathed through the heart-splintering sobs that built inside my chest. I’d seen enough rot that I could tell that this child had decomposed in there for a while—likely from the moment Enosh and I had left the Pale Court.
I heaved through an onslaught of warmth in my chest. Hating Enosh seemed impossible right then. Perhaps I even loved him in that moment, where my worth took on the shape of a rotting child. He’d stood by his word. All this time, children had been at rest across the realm, all over a vow of ‘til death do us part to my husband undying.
Rose hesitantly walked up beside me. “What is this?”
“I have no idea,” I said and turned back toward the stable, while more villagers poked their heads out of their homes, watching the commotion. “I have to speak to Thorsten.”
Had to return to the Pale Court and stand by my promise as Enosh had. No more delays. No more doubts. Pa hadn’t raised a daughter who broke vows, yet standing by it ever so faithful had never seemed as right as it did now.
Somewhere, a bell rang.
I found Thorsten just as he emerged from the stable and leaned a pitchfork against the filthy wall beside the muck heap. “What’s all this about?”
“Just the corpse of a child. A sickness, maybe. Who can say?” I unhooked the basket from my arm and reached it out to him. “I’ll take the mule saddled, with all these things stored in properly stitched saddle bags if you have them. If not, a harness will do. Just make sure it’s secure.”
He folded his arms in front of his chest and cocked his head. “You have the coin?”
“Something worth more than the coin you want.” When he took the basket, I glanced over my shoulder to ensure nobody was looking, then fingered the stone from my pouch. “Bring the mule to our hut, watered, fed, saddled, and ready. Do this, and you’ll get this stone.” A glint came over his eyes, but the moment he reached for it, I dropped it into my pouch. “If anybody sees me with this, I’ll have my throat slit around the next corner. You’ll do well keeping it to yourself until you take it to Airensty and sell it there for more coin than any militia would ever hand over for a mule.”
