“Something that don’t involve choking on noxious fumes,” the man answered. “Push it to the bottom o’ the sea, and we’ll see how the fishies take to his cures.” More cheering burst from the crowd.
Merciful saints! I looked to Ailish, my thoughts filled with conflicting images of flames and water. “We have to get out of here!”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“But they’re going to kill us!”
“We’ve to wait.”
The girl was completely daft. “Wait for what?” I hissed.
Ailish nodded toward the velvet curtain over the window panel. “For Calhoun to convince someone to reach through there. If’n that happens, our troubles be done today.”
Chapter Nine
Saint Brigid’s Miracle
I stared transfixed at the dim square of light around the panel. “What do you mean?” I whispered.
“Nothing too difficult once Calhoun puts that silken tongue o’ his to work. Just do what I say and don’t panic no matter what you hear out there.”
I nodded as an ominous fog spread through me. How long did Ailish expect us to wait? Until flames lapped at the sides of the caravan? Or water rushed up through the floorboards? Having narrowly escaped both kinds of death in Pennsylvania, I had no intention of stretching my luck again so soon.
The caravan swayed under a tremendous push. Biting back a cry, I steadied myself through the motion.
“Ho, Calhoun, which do you prefer?” a man yelled. “The torch or the sea?”
Movement came from the driver’s box, a shifting of weight that creaked the floorboards. “Friends,” Calhoun cried out over the crowd. “Let it be fire or water, I’ve returned to offer meself up to your judgments.”
A cheer exploded.
“You heard him,” a man cried. “The fire it be, me lads.”
“Not so fast,” another replied. “Water be better unless you fancy breathing smoke all day.”
Aghast, I looked to Ailish and attempted to compress the full measure of my thoughts into a single expression. Silver tongue or not, those people are going to kill us if we don’t get out of here soon.
She just shook her head, conveying a very different message.
I glanced at the door, gauged the distance to escape.
Ailish eyed me. “I’ll chill your skin through if’n you try to leave yet.”
Her tone inferred absolute sincerity. So be it. I would just have to be faster, while screaming to high heaven for help. Surely the villagers would see my distress and refrain from attacking me.
“Which will it be, Calhoun?” a woman asked. “We be civil folk here in Dunmore and offer a choice, though you treated us poorly with those vile potions.”
A chorus of approval came from around the caravan.
“Decide for yourselves what’s best.” Calhoun sounded oddly resigned to his fate, whether it be imminent death or the destruction of his private effects and livelihood as a traveling charlatan.
The villagers’ voices fell to a low murmur, and I strained my ears for any stray words.
“But first,” Calhoun said, and the murmur softened a bit, “you’ll want to know what occurred at the sacred shrine o’ Kildare when I knelt to beg forgiveness for what I’d done. A most unusual experience, I tell you. Some here may even call it a miracle, sent from heaven above to make up for me past mistakes.” He paused dramatically. “Do I dare say it aloud...” He paused again, and I could just see him shaking his head in mock indecision.
Tell them something, I silently screamed, and be quick about it!
“We won’t be hearing any more quackery lies, Calhoun.”
“I feared as much,” he said. “You hate me so, it don’t matter what happened. Not even if I was visited by Saint Brigid herself, and told where to find a finger bone from one of her blessed hands.”
The crowd fell silent, no doubt as surprised as I was by the outlandish claim.
Very clever, Calhoun. A thin line separated the goddess Brigid from the beloved saint, so thin in fact that my mother considered them to be the same being. And it didn’t take a stretch to see me as Brigid’s hands in the mortal world. By this standard, Calhoun had practically told the truth, except that I was full flesh and blood and had been kidnapped from a ship rather than discovered in a hidden location.
“The same blessed hands,” Calhoun boomed, his voice growing stronger, “that she used to weave straw crosses while attending the sick and weary o’ heart.”
A moist thud squished against the side of the caravan, sounding suspiciously like a rotten cabbage. Or possibly horse manure. “Don’t be listening to his gob o’ lies,” a man shouted. “Mrs. Murphy near died, and a lot more took sick last time this charlatan passed through. Now we’ve a Christian duty to see he don’t harm any more folk.”
“True words, me friend,” Calhoun said. “I made a terrible mistake that day, relying solely on the knowledge o’ men to make those cures. But tell me this, does your Christian duty include denying godly miracles?”