4
MORGAINE
“You’re quiet.” Sal’s gravelly voice broke through the storm in my mind as we pushed the cart along the forest road.
Until two bitterly cold winters ago, the coven’s horse, a skinny piebald named Baldwin, would have pulled the cart for us. With too many hungry mouths and not enough food to go around, Baldwin had sadly been sacrificed for our survival.
Sal still kept one of his iron shoes above the mantel in the cottage, brushing her fingers over it when she thought no one was looking.
She had returned from the haberdasher’s stall, where she’d purchased some new threads Lavender had requested, just moments after the curly-haired castle guard had left.
I’d been silently seething ever since. The man I had seen racing his horse through the woods like a reckless idiot had all but accused me of being a witch!
Never mind the fact I really was a witch. But I knew I hid it well: how else had I managed to go undiscovered for five centuries when so many of my kind had been less fortunate? I had always found hiding in plain sight to be the best method of going unnoticed.
The guard’s pathetic attempt at intimidation had been wasted on me. It was irritating, though. I would have to warn the others and avoid showing my face in the village for a while, in the hopes he would forget all about our brief exchange.
In fact, the time had probably come for me to move on from this coven. I had taught Lavender, Sal and little Rosemary everything I could about the craft, they didn’t need me any longer. And it had been a few years now; the risk of a neighbour or customer at the market noticing how little I aged grew higher with every passing day. Better to get out of Sherwood and start again somewhere new, where my knowledge and experience would have the most benefit.
But how could I abandon them when the threat against witches had only grown in the last few years? The king’s war on witchcraft meant the number of hangings, stonings and burnings at the stake had risen beyond imagining. Far beyond the number of actual, real witches living in England, let alone the Royal Forests. Which meant the king’s men were killing innocent folk—innocentwomen—as a result of fearmongering and misplaced blame for unexpected occurrences. Any woman living alone, or without the protection of a male relative was susceptible to the rumour mill. Widows, spinsters and beggarwomen made perfect scapegoats for the crown. It boiled my blood how disposable we were, and had always been, to powerful and greedy men.
I sighed. “I just have a lot on my mind.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with the new High Sheriff, by any chance?”
Could she hear my thoughts? I’d been worrying about exactly that, or at least something like it. The King’s High Sheriff of the Royal Forests was his head witch hunter. The previous one had contracted the flu this past winter and passed away, along with a number of the villagers. I hadn’t heard there would be a newreplacement, but thinking back to the convoy Rosemary and I had seen the day before, it made sense now. I needed to reassure the others that the risk of detection remained low as long as we continued to keep our heads down and do good work.
“I’m sure the new sheriff will be a short-sighted, grey-haired, old fool like the last one. No cause for concern.” The cart bumped over a tree root, jostling the remaining items inside, and I reached out to still them with my hand. We’d barely sold a thing all day, but that was nothing new. Sales of Lavender's handmade wares had been declining for years; that was why I’d started to make the rabbits’ feet in the first place. Folk needed something to believe in when times were hard, and while many of the villagers had turned to their faith, many others had taken to carrying lucky charms and talismans wherever they went.
“I actually thought he was quite handsome.” Sal waggled her eyebrows at me, but I was none the wiser until she added, “The gentleman I saw you speaking with at our stall today. Geraldine says he’s the new High Sheriff; her Margery is a serving girl at the castle and pointed him out to her. He’s definitely no grey-haired, old fool; at least not from where I was standing.”
That had been the new High Sheriff? I felt my cheeks heat at the thought. My mind ran over our conversation quicker than his horse had galloped down the forest road. Had I said too much? Given away what and who I was? I didn’t think so, but the way he’d looked at me with those dark-brown eyes, like he was staring into my soul—it had unsettled me. And he’d brought up witchcraft.
“Is that a blush I see?” Sal teased.
Embarrassed, I thundered, “Don’t be so preposterous, Sal. I’m not some adolescent girl, swooning at the sight of a dimpled cheek or a bulging bicep.” Sal chuckled, and I narrowed my eyes at her. This was no laughing matter. “He’s the head witch hunter. He’s dangerous, Sally.”
She was no longer laughing, a shadow had fallen over her eyes. “I’ve told you never to call me that.”
I felt a smug satisfaction in my chest at having riled her, despite knowing I’d pay for it later. With her short stature, stocky build and shock of silver hair, Sal was no more a Sally than I was.
She’d been orphaned at a young age and taken in by a farming family, where she’d been put to work tending the crops and caring for the animals. It hadn’t taken long for her adoptive mother to realise Sal’s uncanny ability with plants and creatures was exactly that: uncanny. They’d been afraid of Sal, but not wanting to lose the natural skill she’d demonstrated, and the extra money it had brought into the farm, they’d kept her chained in the pigpen when she wasn’t working. Forced her to live like one of the animals; forbidding her to bathe or use the outhouse, and only feeding her scraps from their table. She’d managed to escape eventually, but her magic had faltered after that, never quite returning to its full force. Painful memories could do that to a witch.
The name Sally reminded her of that time, and I knew only too well how she felt, having discarded my own childhood name centuries ago. But that didn’t stop me from using the fact to irritate her every now and then.
“The point I am trying to make,Sal, is that the man is a witch hunter and we are witches. Even if I did find him attractive,” I quickly held up a finger at her smirk, “which I did not, he would burn us both at the stake at the first available opportunity.”
I had known men like him in the past, and I’d learned that the more handsome they were, the more dangerous. Beauty was a weapon, I knew that better than most. It could be hidden in order to pass through life unnoticed, as I did now, or it could be wielded to disguise and distract, allowing someone to get close. Close enough to slip the knife in when it was least expected.
I saw something in this new guard, something I knew lay buried deep within myself. A calculated coldness. He would do anything in his power to achieve his aim, and so would I.
There would be no leaving now. I couldn’t risk leaving the coven unprotected; I would stay until this new threat had passed, or at least until we understood it enough to avoid falling into its trap.
That evening,after a bowl of rabbit stew with freshly baked bread and home-churned, salted butter, followed by a few bites of forest fruits crumble, I sat in front of the fire gazing into the flames. My mind refused to quieten, replaying my exchange with the sheriff over and over.
Lavender sat beside me on the threadbare bench, darning socks and sewing patches onto Rosemary’s worn-out clothes. Sal was reading a spellbook in a chair, looking for some way to protect her vegetables from the insects that nibbled tiny holes through her cabbages. And Rose sat cross-legged on the rug, playing with a pair of dollies Lav had made for her out of an old apron last winter solstice.
The cottage may have been small, but Lavender kept it clean and tidy, with jars full of fresh flowers from Sal’s garden on every surface. Beeswax candles lit the space, and the large open fireplace crackled with flame, despite the small amount of fuel we could afford to sacrifice each night.
