A group of young boys played a game with sticks and a rock on the dirt-packed village square. Near the well, apron-covered women gossiped over a large community trough as they scrubbed wads of soiled clothing. Others teamed up to twist out the excess water and drop the damp cloth into buckets for hanging. An old woman, in the same colorless dun of the rest, plucked a beheaded fowl on a leveled stump. She chuckled to herself as she watched three little girls skitter about, trying to catch the blowing feathers.
As the girl and her grandfather skidded to a halt, a bloody feather floated down to land on the back of her clenched fist.
“Madeleine!” her grandfather cried, breathless. “Madeleine the Healer?”
At their approach, the boys stopped their game to gape at them. One, a thin, black-haired lad only slightly older than the girl, took a few steps in their direction, shading his eyes as they fixed on her face.
Aided by a tall staff, an elder with a crooked back had begun hobbling toward them. He called up to her grandfather. “Good day to you, Doctor. Our healer is not here just the now. Called away to tend an injured man in the next village, she was. I know not when she will return. Are you ill?”
Before answering, the girl’s grandfather muttered a quiet prayer of thanks. “We are not,” he said. “What of Madeleine’s daughter, Margery?”
The elder squinted at them for a moment, then angled his long stick at the black-haired boy. “Lad, go and fetch your mother. Quick-like.”
The boy tore his eyes from the girl and disappeared among the cluster of cottages. The girl’s grandfather surveyed the villagers who had begun to gather around them. Women. Babes. Small children, none older than five or six years. The elderly and infirm.
“Where are your men? Your older lads?”
“Out cutting wood, same as every day,” one of the washerwomen said.
As her affable grandfather slid from the horse’s back, the girl was appalled to hear him snarl a word used only by the rough drivers who delivered wagonloads of her father’s cloth.
He took in a deep breath, then raised his voice as he addressed the murmuring group. “Heed my words, all of you. You know me. I’ve visited your healer and her family for many years. Just now my granddaughter and I witnessed a group of men ransacking Madeleine’s home. When they do not find what they are looking for, they will come here next. You must hide. Now. Take the children and flee into the forest.”
Gasps and confusion erupted from the gathered villagers. “What mean you by this, Doctor?” called the elder. “Why harm us? As you see, we have little enough to steal.”
Before her grandfather could answer, the black-haired boy flew around the corner of a nearby cottage with a pretty woman on his heels. Their breath steamed up into the chilly air. The woman’s long dark braid bounced against her back as she lifted the hem of her brown homespun and raced toward them.
“Doctor,” she gasped, breathless. “What is amiss?”
Her grandfather explained what they’d witnessed back at the fairy cottage. When he leaned in, whispering urgently, the woman drew back in dismay.
In a voice gone hoarse with horror, she replied, “But my mother is not here. And in any case, she has not seen nor touched that cursed jewel since the day she fled the sisterhood. She—”
“Margery,” her grandfather interrupted gently. “This I know. But it matters not, for they believe she knows its location. When they do not find it or her, they will come for her here. These men will not give credence when you say you know nothing of the jewel. The only option is to run. Now.”
The boy moved to his mother’s side and took her hand as she tugged on a leather thong strung about her neck. Weak sunlight glinted off the round silver medallion as Margery worried it against her lips.
“How many men?” the elder asked.
The girl’s grandfather shrugged. “I saw eight men at the cottage.”
“Nine,” the girl reminded him. “There were nine men, Poppy.”
Margery and the elder exchanged a long look.
“No, Doctor,” she said, finally. “We shall not hide. This village is our home and we have defended it before when our menfolk were away. We are many and they are few, and though we may be but women and the old, helpless we are not.”
The girl’s grandfather tried to protest, but Margery stood her ground. With rapid-fire efficiency, she ordered the able-bodied to arm themselves as they had done in the past. The older children were commanded to take the small ones and hide in the forest root cellar.
“Your granddaughter may go down into the cellar with the others. My son will see her safely there,” said Margery, turning her face up to the girl’s grandfather. “But what of you, John Dee? Will you stay with us? Will you fight?”
Chapter 16
IN A SPACE OF TIME BOTH INSTANTANEOUS AND INFINITE, the memory pierced my heart in a dozen bloody places, threading barbed hooks through every vein and artery. Then, like dust whipped through a screen door, even that memory scattered as each individual molecule that had ripped apart was shoved through the barrier that separated past and present.
I’d somehow allowed myself to forget the part that came just before: the gray lassitude that whispered, “Give up. Give in. Let go and rest a while.”
And wasn’t it easy to float, serene and quiet, in that great shroud of oblivion? Wouldn’t I give anything to avoid what came next: bone and nerve and flesh knit together by a force greater than any that had ever existed?
Oh God, the pain. Hurts. Please. Help. Pain. No-o-o . . .
Stomach roiling, eyes shut, I felt the scratch of grit beneath my cheek as it pressed against the cold earth.
Nearby, someone heaved up their guts. Someone else groaned and muttered, “What—”
“Get up!” Mac’s urgent shout penetrated my fuzzy hearing. “All of you, get up! We have to run! Run!”
I was hauled upright, and I began to stumble along on numb feet. As my lungs recalled how to inflate, I sucked in a great draft of musky, fetid air. Then I felt it, the earth shuddering beneath me.
“Hope!” A shout near my ear. “Open your eyes, for God’s sake! The cattle are stampeding! We have to run!”
Shoved from behind, I tripped as I forced open sticky lids. Just ahead, Phoebe and Doug bolted side by side down a long tunnel that was lined at intervals by swaying oil lanterns. Dirt rained down on them from the wooden support beams that kept the shaft’s low, earthen ceiling from collapse.
Collum’s hold on my sleeve propelled me onward as the rumbling grew intense. “Cattle in the tunnel behind us,” he panted over the racket of moos. “Heard it just as we arrived. Something spooked them.”
“Us, most like,” Mac shouted from just behind. “Don’t stop. They’re out of control. Go!”
The tunnel. Cattle.
“Here!” Doug thrust Phoebe hard into the wall. She cried out, but as we darted past, I saw it was but one of several man-size declivities built into the sides of the tunnel.
“There’s more ahead! Hurry!” Doug waved us on frantically as we hurtled toward the other indentations we’d spotted.