I thrashed and held on to the spear, my hands alongside the grip of the first guard’s. He tried to shake me loose and hissed curses at me.
I could see Magda’s face blanch as the first of the flames licked the board she stood on.
“Grab her, for gods’ sake,” the guard said.
The other two reached for me. Before they could touch me, my palms slick with sweat, I tried one last effort to push past them, but my hands slid along the wood, and the one closest to the spearhead grazed over it so speedily, I did not feel the pain right away. But I did see a spray of my blood arc from my hand and sail over the guard’s shoulder to the piled, lit kindling.
The pyre exploded.
A surge of white and pale orange blossomed out from the base of the stacked, chopped wood and gathered branches. It billowed like smoke, unfurling out and upward, eclipsing the entirety of the pyre, the stake, and the woman tied to it. Nothing of her could be seen through the opaque blaze that roared so loud, my ears ached from the noise.
The guards and I fell back and separated, scrabbling on the ground for purchase, crawling away from the conflagration. In my doubling over, the tools in my stays jabbed into my belly and ribs.
Dully, I could hear people clamoring around me. Starling was crying out for an explanation, saying it was some kind of witchcraft.Torm Sheridan was hollering for his guards to restore order to the crowd. Children were screaming in fear.
I crawled on my hands and knees on the ground, as far and fast as I could, the intensity of this new, unnatural thing terrifying me.
I felt hands under my armpits, felt myself pulled to standing and then dragged away from the center of the square. I stumbled along with my rescuer’s steps and then looked up to see my father.
“What did you do?” he asked, but not in anger. He was afraid.
Another set of hands clasped my arm, and I was pulled into my mother’s arms. I was taller but I sank into her, letting her hold me up. I felt her wet cheek against my neck. Then I felt Rowena press into me.
“You have to get away from here,” my father was saying to me. “Whatever you did, it’s grounds for charging you with some kind of spell craft. You have to remove yourself before people remember what they saw. The saint bless you, girl. What pagan thing have you just done?”
“Magda,” I said and pulled away from them, turning to the stake.
“She’s gone,” my father said. “That—I’ve never seen a fire like that. She would have burned to death before she would have even known what was happening. I can’t imagine she felt any?—”
“Good,” my mother shot at him. “Thank the gods for that.Hergods.”
53
THEN: WEDDING
Idid as my father instructed and slipped into the dark, running down the streets until I reached the mill. I took the horse, saddled it, and raced for the farm. My body took over as my mind was gone. I was wooden, my guiding of the horse based on memory and familiarity without conscious decision. All I could see were Magda’s eyes, the lower eyelids lifted in a squint, her piercing stare watching me struggle with the keep guards and then that dense wall of flame.
I barred the door of the farmhouse with one of her smaller worktables and tried to bandage my hand. I sat all night in her rocking chair with my hunting knife in my lap. I was certain the keep guard would come for me, but they never did. Another day and night passed in which I did not eat or sleep. I only rocked and wept, listening to a blustery wind bat against the house.
My sister, on another of my father’s horses, visited me on the second day to tell me that in the terror, the origin of the fire had been forgotten. Starling was happily claiming it had been sent by the spirit of Rodwin to purify Sheridan from pagan filth. Shesaid Torm Sheridan had visited the mill and said he would keep the arrangement of a supplement to her wages to pay for my foraging services.
“He was trying to tell me a message without telling me. I think he does not mean to hunt you down,” she finished. “I think people just remember the shock of that fire. No one seems to remember you at the edge of it. They pumped all the wells all night to douse it. It did not spread, but it did not die down until morning. Robbie, what happened?”
I numbly shook my head. I did not know, nor did I care. My Magda was gone. Perhaps the only person who loved me wholly and without condition.
“Don’t you grieve?” I asked my sister. “Where are your tears?”
She startled and then glared at me. “Of course I grieve.”
“You do not seem to be in deep mourning the way I am.”
Rowena cocked her head at me. “Not every soul shows sorrow.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” she shot back, mouth turned down, “I keep everything hidden inside me.Everything. Things you could never understand.”
I held up my hands. “But how can you not weep for the woman who cared for us, taught us, equipped us with more faith and guidance than our bloody church ever did?—”
