“A list?” Tessa asked.
Thane wrinkled his mouth and hesitated. Then he said, “Ah, both of you will hate this part.”
Tessa and I looked at each other, confused.
“You have to sign a penitents’ list,” he explained. “They want you to repent, confess to your sins, admit you need the teachings of the saint, and then you will be offered coin for your property and the wagon.”
“Oh it is always this kind of nonsense with them,” Tessa groaned.
I began to laugh, but it was bitter. “Do you think Starling will believe I truly seek atonement via a pilgrimage to a country I absolutely loathe?”
Thane shrugged. “You have to try.”
“I’m not going to Perpatane,” I said. “They’ll burn me alive.”
7
NOW: TAVERN
Thane left us at Tessa’s with solemn nods and a repeated apology for the burned books.
Tessa and I sat at her table and debated what to do for hours, Fox watching us and sometimes waving for us to look at her so she could sign a question.
“You had best get your whiskey and go home,” Tessa sighed. “It gets dark, and we can’t make a decision tonight.”
“I am afraid to,” I admitted. “I have the allowance from the church, still, like Magda did, to buy whiskey for medicine. But after this past week, I am afraid to do anything. We have to distribute the moss in a couple nights, when the moon is smaller. I feel I should lie low.”
Tessa waved a hand at me. “Best to act as if nothing serious has happened. Let the rumors die down. You always get whiskey from The Pale Horse on the night of the tenth day of the week. If you do not go tonight, someone may notice.”
“I am barely there but a quarter of an hour to collect a jug. Even less.”
“You are a comely woman walking into a man’s domain. It is noticed.”
“Well, that is very kind,” I said.
“Don’t be glib,” Tessa replied. “Do as you always do. Collect your weekly jug, talk with Gertie, smile—whatever it takes to seem as if nothing is amiss.”
“Well then I surely should not smile.”
“Again, your glibness.” But my sister-in-law was grinning.
“Alright. I will leave Fox here as always.”
“Act naturally. If you seem unconcerned, folk may even think they only burned one book, that it was no serious upset. The sooner this blows over, the better. Just don’t snip, and be nice. You can be nice when you want to be nice.”
“Every time I am nice to a man, he thinks I want to be swived.”
“Robbie, for gods’ sake, be serious. I beg you.” But she was chuckling, and Fox was making her sweet little wheezes that she made when she laughed.
I glared at Fox. “Don’t laugh at my dirty jokes. You’re too young.”
Then don’t tell them in front of me. I don’t speak, but I do hear.
Tessa let out a true bellow of a laugh. “My girl, you are why we all keep on, I swear it. Otherwise, I would rot away in my despair. Let’s eat something good while Robbie is gone so we only have to split it two ways and not three.”
“I heard that,” I said, leaving her house. But as soon as I was in the street, unrest descended on me, confusion at Thane’s news and a remaining sorrow over the books. Tessa’s house was on the town’s main street that led up to the lord’s keep and his lands, past the town square and the Rodwin church where everyone in Sheridan worshipped. I walked to the tavern, empty jug in hand, my dress hot and tight on me. The square neckline was caked in sweat, both from nerves and from the summer. I wished I had on something less conspicuous for the completion of my usual tenth-day chore. All of my dresses were practical, fitted at the waist over a shift, alldeep umbers or greens. But this one, a warm color the shade of rust on iron, made my brown eyes seem more hazel, and my figure was more on display. I had been behind in my washing, having so much cleanup to do after the priest and the lord had come to my house. I had not wanted to wear any of my other dirty summer dresses, sleeveless or short in the sleeves. My clean dresses were too warm, and I refused to wear my breeches in town anymore.
I was already an outcast and a supposed outlaw. I did not need the attention. And wearing breeches made me think of my Avery, his grin at how they clung to my rear, how he would wax on that it was those breeches that had done him in, made him try his luck with me. I would roll my eyes and claim that I found them easier to forage in. His ribald reply would be some clumsy response, clouded in arousal, about how while I hunted for ferns, he would hunt for me. He did not have to be clever. He was my man.
