B00CGOH3US EBOK (16 page)

She peered through the crack in the door, scanning the muddy street outside to see if he'd followed her into the village. Would he dare? Or would he lurk outside the town, waiting for her to emerge rather than risk the people seeing him and discovering what he was?

Long moments stretched by as she watched the villagers go about their daily routines. Farmers sold produce out of carts while children chased a pig through the rutted street. Two women gossiped across a rickety wooden fence separating their cottages as a boy drove a small flock of sheep through the center of the town.

Transfixed by this tiny slice of medieval life, Jill jumped when first one, and then another dog began to howl, until a chorus of baying hounds filled the entire village. Moments later, Baelin's large, cloaked form stepped into her view, his purposeful strides sloshing through the muck and refuse in what passed for a street.

She held her breath.
Don't look this way
.

A lone mutt ran out, growling and snarling, nipping at his heels while chickens and geese scurried out of his way. She remembered what he told her about why he didn't have a horse, because animals could sense the dragon in him. Is that why the dogs howled at him now? Did they know what he was?

Baelin stopped in the middle of the street and glared down at the dog. The poor animal skidded to a halt, whined and scurried away. He watched the dog's hasty retreat and then suddenly his entire body tensed, instantly alert.

Jill's did, too.
Please, please, don't look this way.

His gaze shot to the church, those glowing yellow eyes of his burning two holes out of the shadow created by the hood covering his head, searing her where she stood.

She sucked in a sharp breath. She hadn't made a sound, hadn't moved an inch, didn't think he could really see her through the tiny crack in the church door, and yet somehow, he knew exactly where she was.

She struggled to lift the thick wooden beam to bar the doors but it was too heavy. Cursing the wisdom of coming in here in the first place, she ran to the back of the church, praying there was another way out.

Jill darted through an archway and rounded a simple altar draped with a white cloth. A lone iron cross stood at its center while two unlit candles flanked either side. The smell of burned tallow hovered heavy in the alcove, indicating they'd only recently been blown out.

She spied a door off to the side. Grasping the iron handle, she pushed and pulled, but it wouldn't open. Locked. There were be no escape that way.

Desperate for a place to hide, she glanced around the small chamber. Could she hide under the altar? She lifted the cloth. No such luck. The table was made of solid stone.

A door slammed, startling her and she ducked behind the altar. Oh God, it must be Baelin. He was coming after her. Was there any chance he wouldn't think to look for her up here? Jill didn't think she would be that fortunate.

She scurried to the side, trying to conceal herself in the shadows of the alcove, not that it would do her any good if he came to this end of the church. She bumped into something and caught a small statue just in time as it toppled from its pedestal. She held her breath, thankful it didn't go crashing to the ground and give her hiding spot away.

Footfalls echoed on the stone floor as he approached the altar. She clutched the statue to her chest like a child with a doll, praying by some miracle Baelin would not see her. If her prayers were ever going to be answered, this was the place it would happen.

Relief washed over her as a man dressed in cleric's robes stepped into the alcove. He grasped at the cross dangling around his waist, as startled to see her as she was to see him. But his surprise turned to suspicion as his gaze fixed on the statue she held in her hands.

"What do you here?"

"I…I…" What could she say?
I'm hiding from a dragon.
Somehow, she didn't think that would go over too well. Then a single word popped into her head. "Sanctuary?"

The priest either didn't hear her or it didn't mean what she hoped it would.

"What are you doing with the statue of Saint Kentigern?" His eyes narrowed. "What evil deeds are you about, girl?"

"Nothing. I bumped into it and it fell. I was getting ready to put it back."

"'Tis forbidden for a woman to enter the chancel," he sneered. "You have committed sacrilege by your very presence here."

It was quite obvious the good Father didn't have a very high opinion of women. Ignoring the insult, she figured playing the ignorant woman he thought her to be would be a good role to assume at the moment. "Oh. I didn't know that."

"Everyone knows 'tis forbidden. Now I ask you again, what are you doing here?"

"It's a church. Isn't it open to everybody?"

"Not to those who think to steal from the house of God."

Jill felt any hope of aid from the priest fade. How could a man of God turn her away in her hour of need? Wasn't that part of his job description?

"I wasn't trying to steal it. I bumped into the statue and it fell."

"Lies! What business have you here, if not to take something of value?"

The priest snatched the statue from her and grabbed her by the arm with his other hand, dragging her through the church toward the door.

"No! No! No!" Jill panicked and tried to break loose as her feet skidded across the smooth stone floor. "I can't go out there. You don't understand."

"I understand that which I plainly see—you where you do not belong, with Saint Kentgern's statue in your hands."

"But I wasn't trying to steal it. You have to believe me!"

"That is for the court to decide."

The priest hauled her outside into the glaring light of day. She glanced around, relieved when a certain flying T-Rex didn't dive from the sky and burn her to a crisp on the spot.

But Baelin was nowhere to be seen. She could've sworn he'd spotted her in the church doorway. Where was he now?

"Hark!" the priest shouted. "Let it be known that I, Father Gerald, have witnessed with my own eyes this woman attempting to steal from the house of God."

Jill cringed as he shouted at the top of his lungs to anyone within earshot. The villagers stopped what they were doing and looked their way as she stood on the church steps, the priest's pudgy hand a shackle around her wrist.

"What kind of priest are you? You're supposed to help people."

"I help those who are in need. Those who steal from the Lord are the lowest of thieves and deserve to go straight to hell."

It wasn't long before a mob of curious onlookers surrounded them, each one eyeing her with contempt. This was not looking good. The not-so-distant experience of the first village she landed in and the resulting circumstances taunted her memory. That time she ended up trussed up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey and sacrificed to a fire-breathing dragon. She didn't want to imagine the possibilities of what they would do to her this time.

"What's this all about?" someone in the growing crowd asked.

"I caught this woman trying to steal from the church. I found her only moments ago with the statue of Saint Kentigern in her hands." For added emphasis, the priest held the figurine above his head as if it might speak and condemn her, too.

A collective gasp arose from the people surrounding her.

"No. No." Jill glanced around at the faces in the crowd, willing them to believe her. "Like I told him, I bumped into the statue. I caught it when it fell and I was going to put it back. I swear!"

"She is not to be believed," the priest interjected. "Look at her. She entered the house of God with no covering on her head. Only a woman full of sin would dare to do such."

She thought back to the trunk in Baelin's cave filled with beautiful veils. Veils he urged her to take but she'd refused. Now she was regretting that fashion decision.

"And further," the priest continued, "she was in the chancel, where all here know women are forbidden to enter. Her actions show her clear contempt for God and the sanctity of the Church."

"I didn't know I wasn't allowed to be there."

Jill's hopes plummeted. She was so out of her element here. It was as if she was playing a game and everyone knew the rules but her. How could she keep from making mistakes if she didn't know what they were?

"Enough!" A man with a dark, bushy beard stepped forward and held up his hands, effectively quieting the crowd that had gathered. Then he turned his attention to her. "Are we to believe the word of a stranger against a man of God? I think not." Jill opened her mouth to defend herself, but he stopped her with a raised palm. "Say no more. Yer guilt or innocence will be put before Lord Hugh's court."

"Am I being arrested?"

"Aye, that ye are." Bush-beard pointed his finger at her. "'Tis off to
gaol
for ye until the gathering of the
hallmote
."

The sheriff of Nottingham or whoever he was grabbed her by the arm and tugged her down the steps. The priest stepped back, patting the statue on its marble head and looking smug in his righteousness.

Jill glanced around desperately, knowing there might be only one familiar face in the crowd, only one person who might to come to her aid. But he wasn't there.

Despair swelled in her throat, threatening to choke her. Why would he help her after she ran from him, taking his hope with her?

The people's accusing stares blurred before her tear-filled eyes. Strangers, every one. She would get no help from any of them. She was alone and at their mercy.

Somehow, as the man led her away, guilt at what she'd done to Baelin made her feel that this time, she just might deserve whatever she had coming.

The slide of the bolt in the door jarred Jill and her heart skipped a beat.

Dire scenarios of what might happen to her at the hands of the village court had kept her overactive imagination in hyper-drive for two days straight. With no one but herself for company in the dark confines of her prison, those scenarios had taken on a life of their own, leaving her a nervous wreck.

It didn't help that Baelin was nowhere to be found. She hadn't seen him since he'd stood in the street, staring at the church doors she'd hidden behind, fury and betrayal radiating in every fiber of his being.

Had he managed to get the tapestry back and left her to rot in this dank, dark cell? She wouldn't blame him if he did.

The door creaked open and a man stepped into the room. "On yer feet." With a nod of his head, he beckoned her to follow him. Outside the door, bush-beard waited for her.

"Yer fortunate," he said as they escorted her outside. "Lord Hugh's steward arrived this morn and is holding the
hallmote
today. Did ye know there've been people what have rotted a year in
gaol
, waiting for the manor court to come 'round?"

Lucky me
, she thought. Next, he'll be saying she should be grateful they were only going to hang her because beheading was too much of a mess.

A large ash tree grew in the center of the village commons and a table was set up beneath it, its scarred wooden surface speckled with light and shadow from the leaves above. Several men stood on one side of the table talking to an official-looking man dressed in fine clothing seated on the other side. She assumed he was the steward bush-beard told her about, the man who would be acting as her judge.

There was another man sitting next to him, busy writing on a long scroll of parchment, his quill flicking back and forth from ink pot to paper with jerky movements. She figured he must be the equivalent of a medieval court stenographer. Not a speedy writer with pen and paper herself, she wondered if he could scribble fast enough with that bird's feather of his to get all the details of the proceedings written down.

Bush-beard led her to a holding area of sorts. "Wait here 'til yer called for."

He left her to stand with others who had court business today. Glancing about at her fellow defendants, there appeared to be more people who'd broken the law than spectators milling about, watching the proceedings. Morning crept into mid-afternoon as she waited through disputes that sounded downright absurd. One woman argued someone's dog had killed her prize chicken. Another claimed his neighbor's goat had jumped the fence between their properties and eaten half his wife's vegetable garden. Several men stepped forward to complain that the alewife was watering down her brew.

And people thought America was a litigious society.

The steward listened patiently to the arguments brought before him, but Jill soon realized it was the group of twelve men sitting off to the side—the equivalent of a modern jury—who decided the judgments and fines of each case.

Jill's tension began to ease. So far, nothing seemed to be too harsh. Most of the people found guilty of their ridiculously silly crimes received what amounted to a slap on the wrist and had to pay a fine of six pence.

Of course, she didn't know how much six pence was. If the jury demanded a fine from her, she wasn't sure where she would get the money. She hadn't found any to take with her when she'd made her pre-dawn escape from Baelin.