“I will have a full basket of onions to give the bishop,” Roger was saying.
“That’s not going to appease him,” one of the other men said.
“Do you think he wants roots?” Simon demanded with contempt. “He wants the children.”
Mercy had just sat and added, “We should stand against him.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Of course, she would say that!” Simon said pointing to her. “The bishop is taking her boy at the next full moon!”
Mercy ground her teeth. “I said that last month and the month before.”
“How can we stand against the church?” Roger asked from his spot at a table near the doorway.
“He has armed men that do his bidding,” someone added. “I don’t want to end up in the dungeon.”
“I have a family to think about,” another said.
“We’re just villagers, not fighters.”
This was the same meeting they had every time a child turned five. The men made excuses and were as useless as ever. Rage boiled inside of Mercy. She slapped her hands on the table as desperation swelled over her. “He is taking our children! Not our crops, not our land. Our boys!”
Quiet murmuring followed her statement.
“How can you let him do this?”
“How can we stop him?” Roger asked.
Mercy hesitated. She saw the conflict in the men’s eyes. She saw the reluctance. Not only were they incapable of standing up to the bishop, but they didn’t have the means. They could not fight the bishop’s wealth nor the power of his armed men. How could she ask them to? She glanced at Abbey. Tearful fear welled in Abbey’s dark eyes. How could she not ask the men to fight for their children? “We have to do something.”
“We can try to appease him with offerings,” Thomas suggested.
“The children are our offering. We don’t know what he does with them. We don’t know where they go,” Roger said with agony in his voice. “He doesn’t want anything else.”
He had lost a boy six months ago. Given up his baby. He had three other daughters and a wife he had to look after. He justified it as his son’s duty.
“There is something that might appease him,” Walter mumbled.
Mercy looked at him, but he would not meet her eye. He stared down at the wooden table before them, his finger tracing the path of the grain.
“The knight,” Walter announced.
Shock raced through Mercy followed by fear. Why wouldn’t he have asked her first?
“Yes!” Simon agreed.
Mercy swallowed hard. Walter looked at her. She implored him with her eyes, shaking her head just a little.
Everyone looked at Mercy. They all knew she had him.
Agony twisted her heart. No. She needed him. He was her only hope to save Kit. He just needed time to heal. “How do we know the bishop won’t still take Luke? And Kit? How do we know that giving up the knight will be the end of it?”
“We don’t. But we have no other option,” Simon grumbled.
“We can stand up to him! Tell him no. As a village. Together. He can’t have our children!”
“It’s easy for you to say! Your boy is almost five summers!”
