“Emmot,” Tristan said with the weary tone of someone who’d had this conversation many a time before. “Leave off, lad.”
But Emmot had already darted forward with the speed and agility of someone who’d clearly perfected the art of petty theft. His grubby fingers closed around her phone before she could react.
“No!” she shrieked, lunging for it. “Don’t touch that! It’s?—”
Her warning came too late. Emmot, startled by her volume, dropped the phone. It hit the stone floor with a sound that made Rachel’s soul cry, and before she could reach it, Hugo’s massive boot came down with a crunch that was definitely final.
“Ah, the old shoulder’s acting up again,” Hugo muttered, rolling that left shoulder as he bent to examine the damage. “Sorry, lass. Didn’t see the wee thing.”
“My phone!” Rachel dropped to her knees beside the iPhone, which had cost her a month’s worth of blog revenue and now looked like it had been run over by a semi-truck. “You killed it! You killed my phone!”
The hall fell silent except for the crackling of torches and her quiet whimpering as she touched the shattered screen.
“Sorcery,” Father Clement whispered, making the sign of the cross. His tutting had escalated to full muttering. “Tut, tut, she weeps for her demon’s talisman. Dark magic, mark my words.”
“Into the fire with it,” Mistress Caldwell commanded sharply, her fingers closing around that tooth pendant. “Foreign things bring naught but heartache. I learned this truth at great cost.”
“No, wait—” Rachel scrambled to grab the phone, but Hugo was already moving with surprising speed for such a large man.
“’Tis for the best, lass,” he said, almost gently, as he scooped up the phone and broken case. “Cursed objects bring naught but misfortune. Like that bloody French sword that gave me this.” He rolled his shoulder again meaningfully.
“Don’t you dare—” But her protest died as Hugo tossed the pieces into the great hearth. The flames hissed and sparked as metal and glass met fire, sending up acrid smoke that made her eyes water. Or maybe that was just grief for her only connection to home, literally going up in smoke.
“Witch,” someone muttered from the shadows.
“Definitely a witch,” agreed another voice.
“I’m not a witch!” Rachel shot to her feet, anger replacing despair. “I’m a food critic!”
More silence. Then Mistress Caldwell’s voice, sharp with suspicion. “She criticizes the Lord’s bounty. Just as the foreign merchants criticized our ways before they brought the fever to my village.”
“No, not like that! I review restaurants! I write about meals and service and whether the soup is worth the price!”
Rachel looked around at their blank faces and tried again. “I tell people if the food is good or bad?”
Father Clement made that dying goose sound again, his tutting reaching new heights of agitation. “Tut, tut, tut! She judges God’s gifts. She finds the Lord’s provision wanting. Pride, pure sinful pride!”
“That’s not—I don’t—” Rachel stopped. There was no way to explain reviews to people who probably thought literacy was suspicious.
“Look, I’m not criticizing God. I’m just... I write about food. For other people to read. So they know where to eat.”
“She spreads her wicked opinions through dark magic,” Mistress Caldwell pronounced with satisfaction, her fingers tightening on that pendant. “Corrupting others with her ungodly judgments. Foreign influence always begins thus.”
“I use a computer! And the internet! Technology, not magic!” Rachel’s voice was getting higher with each word. “Science! Science you don’t understand yet because it hasn’t been invented!”
The muttering started again, louder this time. Someone definitely said “demon.” Someone else mentioned something about burning, which she really hoped was a reference to cooking and not medieval justice.
She looked around the hall with fresh eyes, her grief and anger sharpening her tongue. Time to do what she did best—brutally honest reviews.
“You know what? Maybe I am judging things. Like, why is half your castle falling down? There’s literally a hole in the roof big enough to park a car through—not that you’d know what a car is. And what is that smell? When was the last time anyone here bathed? Ever?”
The hall went dead silent. Even the torches seemed to stop flickering.
“She insults our home,” Father Clement breathed, his face purpling, the tutting sounds now coming so fast they sounded like an angry woodpecker. “Blasphemes against our way of life.”
“Your way of life includes living in a ruin that smells like a medieval frat house,” Rachel shot back. “I’ve seen Renaissance fairs with better hygiene standards.”
Tristan’s jaw had gone tight as a bowstring. “You know naught of the trials we face, wench. Hold your tongue ere you speak of matters beyond your understanding.”
