Stefan tried to cry out as the hand forced against his mouth to silence him pressed harder. Another hand went around his ribs, dragging him out of the cell. His feet left troughs in the filth of the floor, and the jailer watched with amused interest. Outside the jail, Stefan saw the stars winking down on them all. He was flung to the ground and turned over on his back. Bjorn stood over him.
“What are you doing, Bjorn?”
“Let’s go.”
“Why? Where?”
“Where all good priests go.”
Bjorn’s boot came down on his ribs, then pinned him at the neck. “Get up.”
“Your boot seems to be in the way.”
Bjorn scraped his boot off Stefan’s neck. Stefan stood, in small increments, waiting for the boot again. Bjorn stepped back, motioning for Stefan to lead the way into the church.
“Why? Why now?”
“I did as you said. I found Mia. At the home of a witch. She had not run away at all. And you thought I should save her. Do you understand what you almost did to me?”
By the faint light falling in the familiar path across the altar’s edge, Stefan knew it to be about 3:00 a.m. No one else was there.
“What do you want me to do now, Bjorn?”
Bjorn sat on the first row bench. “Pray. Pray as if your life depended on it. Decide to join Bastion and me. Because we’re right. I do not want any more mistakes made.” Bjorn lifted his bag away from his belt, and Stefan saw the blade beneath it.
Stefan cleared his throat and knelt at the altar, his back to Bjorn. Years ago, the church fathers had moved the altar away from the people and turned it so the priest would work with his back to the people. If they’d had a parishioner like Bjorn, they would have been more cautious.
Stefan took a breath to begin a prayer, waiting for inspiration. He had no idea what to pray with a knife in the church and innocent women in the jail. Bjorn groaned behind him. Feeling a strong light piercing the darkness above, Stefan looked up and fell to his knees. A bright image of a man in blinding white robes—a vision from his imagination, surely—towered above them both.
Bjorn crouched down, shaking. The image grew brighter, and Stefan covered his face with his hands.
Wind blew past them, knocking over the candlesticks on the altar, and then the room fell into darkness.
The moonlight on the altar moved over the course of the night. Stefan watched it, dumbfounded by the hours, unable to use human language to describe what he had seen. Bjorn remained facedown for a long time too, and when he rose, he would not look at Stefan.
Stefan noticed the shadows had moved down the altar steps as dawn approached. “Bastion intends to try the women today,” he said.
Bjorn nodded.
“Let them go, Bjorn. God is not happy with this work. Resign as sheriff and confess to the people. Send Bastion away.”
“It’s too much to believe in all at once. That all of this is my fault, not God’s.”
Stefan reached for Bjorn’s shoulder, resting a hand on it. “That is a step toward true faith.”
Bjorn stared at him, a lost, blank stare. Whatever hope those women had, it was not in Bjorn. Stefan had to end what he should never have begun.
“How could you not see Bjorn for who he was?”
The women were talking to Mia now. Why had she ever wished for that? Their words were painful.
“How could you not see me?” she could only reply. “I was lost. If you had befriended me, it could have changed everything. I did not know what had happened. I was caring for a sick child.”
“If we had spoken to you, even hinted at what we knew, Bjorn would have hurt you. Or us, for telling you.”
“Shut up,” the jailer bawled at them. “You’re a bunch of clucking hens. A man can’t get any relief.”
“Oh, I don’t know. For a drink and a bite of bread, maybe he could.” Mia recognized Dame Alice’s voice.
One woman stifled a giggle, but the hysteria caught. All the women began giggling. The jailer cursed the day of his birth, which made the women laugh harder. A sigh swept through them before silence returned.
“Mia?” Dame Alice asked in the darkness.
“Yes?”
“Why would you never come in and eat with me? Why did you hate me so?”
“I never hated you!”
“You ran. You refused to hear my voice. You knew I called your name.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
Mia could not answer. The answer floated in the darkness above her, too big to put into words.
“I was afraid. But I am not afraid anymore. I am sorry.”
“How many hours now?” someone asked. Mia could not tell who was in each cell around her; she could only judge the distance between them as near or far. She wondered if horses in a stable felt this disoriented.
She looked out her window into the hall, trying to judge by the light. “It’s not quite noon, I’d guess. They’ll be coming for us in a few hours.”