Strands of Starlight (2 page)

Thomas returned to his pork. “Some things have changed here in the last two years, George. That's why I asked you to come. Bishop Cranby, everyone suspects, wants to be a cardinal eventually. There is also the possibility that he has his eye on the papacy.”

George snorted. “Aloysius Cranby? He has no qualifications for such things.”

“Remember his mentor. Jacques Fournier became Benedict the Twelfth on the strength of his work against the Cathar heresy thirty years ago. Cranby wants to use the same stepping-stone: the Inquisition.”

“What does that have to do with the Free Towns?”

Thomas popped a piece of pork into his mouth, chewed for a minute, and washed it down with wine before replying. “Had much dealing with the Elves recently, George?”

George stared. “How—“

“Rumor spreads quickly. Now, I don't see any strange light in your eyes, so that part of the story must be false. But there's always a shred of truth in these tales, and Cranby's heard them. And to top it all off, one of Cranby's associates disappeared down in Saint Brigid about two years ago. Arba . . . Alda . . . what was his name?”

“Alban. Jacques Alban. Nasty individual. Was not liked at all. There's a local lad, though, has the cure in Saint Brigid now.”

“But don't you see, George? Human dealing with Elves, and a priest disappears. What does it sound like to Cranby? Or rather, what can Cranby make it sound like?”

George put down his knife. “All right, Thomas. What's happening that I should know about?”

Thomas rose and went to the window. Outside, the gong had died away, but the horn continued to sound. “My position gives me access to information that . . . well . . . numerous people wish I did not have. Sometimes I wish I did not have it myself. If Aloysius Cranby stamped out heresy in an entire region of this country, his eventual claim to the papacy would be strengthened. Clement the Sixth has to die sometime.” He shrugged, his chain of office glinting in the candlelight. “Avignon is a nice place to live, I hear.”

“There's no heresy in the Free Towns.”

“Not in your opinion. But in your opinion there's no heresy in a little bedraggled healer girl either.” Thomas crossed to George's side, put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “There's talk of a crusade against the Free Towns.” His voice was old and dry. “Nothing definite yet, but . . .”

“But what?” George demanded. “Cranby wants the papacy? Well, let him work for it. Benedict the Twelfth investigated a real heresy. He didn't fabricate it. It takes more to make a heresy than the greed of one churchman.”

“True. It takes the greed of one churchman combined with the greed of many barons.”

“You don't mean to tell me that your fellow barons are supporting this idiocy!”

“Not supporting,” said Thomas. “Not quite. But times have been uncertain. The Plague took its toll in the rest of the continent the last three years, and the war between England and France looks to be a long one. The barons of Adria are interested in a . . . financial cushion. The Free Towns are well run, wealthy, comfortable, productive—“

“And independent,” snapped George. “We threw the last overlord out a century ago and want no more of them. The barons will have their hands full if they try to annex us.”

“But if the barons and the Church work together? With the full force of God's spiritual representative on earth condemning the heretical Free Towns?”

George found himself calculating strengths. Yes, the Free Towns could fall. A condemnation by the Church could bring just enough of an uncertainty into the hearts of the people that they might give in. Damn that Cranby. “You're chamberlain of Hypprux, Thomas,” he said. “You lead the baronial council. Can you stop them?”

“There's nothing to stop quite yet. Any action on my part would be premature at this time. There are only whispered words among some of the barons—and I don't even know which ones. Only one name has come up for certain: Roger of Aurverelle. He holds the lands just to the north of the Towns. If I made a fuss about this now, I might be branded a daft old man.” Thomas rubbed his beard. “And that might be true.”

“Hardly.”

Thomas looked sad as he returned to his chair and picked up his knife. “The old ways are dying, George. We seem to be entering into a period of . . . what? Hopelessness? The Church has become secular, the nobility has forsaken its duty of protecting the lower classes, the Elves have been persecuted into near extinction—and I could be burned for saying that. Now France and England have been at war for over a decade.” He sighed. “It looks like dark days ahead. And what place does an old traditionalist like myself have in them? Soon I'll be joining my Judith, and I hope the Lord will judge me mercifully for my stubbornness.”

The horn was still sounding outside. George looked at the window.

“I hope she got away,” he said softly.

***

Miriam was facedown in the street when she came to herself, lying inches from a deep puddle of dirty water. The rain had pattered on, and she was soaked, chilled, and certain that a fever would find her soon. In the distance, a horn was blowing, and a monotonous clanging told her that the Chateau had been roused, that guards were on their way, that she would soon be a prisoner once more.

No. Never.

Healing the fat man had sapped her strength. She should not have stopped for him, but she did not wield her power: it wielded her. It had thwarted her life, brought her to the point of death, threatened to destroy her small chance of escape. Ironically, it could do nothing about her own wounds.

Voices in the distance. Fear drove her to her feet and through the rain. The gate was ahead, but how to pass the guards? And what to do once she was out, anyway?

The sound of horn and gong grew louder, mixed with the cries of many men. Doors were being pounded upon, householders questioned, women and men driven into the street while their belonging were searched. Miriam heard a scream in the distance, followed by a cry of pain.

“Pain?” she mumbled. “It is pain you have? Bitch, you don't know what pain is.”

The alarm had reached the guards at the gate, and as Miriam fell into the shadows of a rubbish heap, the soldiers came running out of the gatehouse to meet their comrades. She lay in the dark, unnoticed, as they passed her by.

She stared fuzzily at the gatehouse. Had they all left? Was the gate, for the moment, unattended? In what kind of jest did a mocking God dangle this hope before her?

She tottered down the street clutching the fat man's cloak about her. Her purse was heavy, the wet cloak heavier still. The glare of torches blinded her failing sight, and she had to feel her way up to the portcullis bars that prevented entry . . . or exit. The iron was rusty and scraped her fingers as she sought in vain for a latch. Then she remembered: it took two men to turn the large wheel that raised the grating.

Voices. Horns. Gongs. Screams.

Expecting at any moment to feel hands upon her, she groped at the portcullis, searching for a way out. She had little time. The men were returning. She could hear them, booted feet on cobblestones, harsh voices.

She stuck her head through one of the openings, wishing that she could simply squeeze through like the child that everyone always called her—when they did not call her witch. It was not until her shoulder slid through the iron lattice that she realized she
could
. She was a small, thin woman, and starvation and ill use had made her thinner yet. The portcullis had been designed to bar full-sized adults and armed men: it would not hold her. Working quickly and desperately, she untied her purse and pushed it through another opening, pulled off the cloak, and dragged herself through the bars. She thought for a moment to leave the cloak, but then turned and drew it after her. The heavy fabric came reluctantly at first, then loosed itself and tumbled her to the ground in a small heap of cloth and blood.

She lay stunned, but she could not afford to remain where she was. Crawling, dragging herself, she made her way out of the range of the gatehouse torches, down into the ditch that bordered the road.

You'll never take me alive again.
The thought hammered at her.
Never.
She continued crawling, half-unconscious, half-blind, cold and wet, but free.

Miriam's hands were sore. She did not recall that they torturer had touched her hands, but they were sore, and sticky with her blood. Maybe the gate . . . Gate? Of the keep? Of the city? She could not quite remember. Lying half in, half out of the slimy water of a ditch, she came to consciousness slowly, realized that it was morning, that the rain had stopped.

The sky was a cold blue, and the chill wind blowing from the west made the gray weeds at the edge of the ditch tremble. Miriam pulled herself up to the level of the road, grimacing as the effort opened the wounds in her legs and rubbed mud into her inexplicably raw hands.

She parted the weeds and peered up and down the road. Where was Hypprux? For that matter, where was anything? The road stretched, empty and bare, in both directions, and there was not a sign of a dwelling, much less of a city. The land was open and rolling, patched with small stands of trees that lifted bare branches into the warmthless sunlight, but covered mainly by the dry, matted grass of winter pastureland.

Surprise numbed her pain for a moment. She looked at her hands. “How far did I come?” she wondered aloud. “Did I crawl all night?”

High above, a crow called as it balanced on a tenuous updraft.

Miriam looked up, shading her eyes. “Go away,” she said. “I'm not dead. Bad luck for you.” She had been propped on her elbows, but now her strength failed again and she collapsed. She guessed that she must be hungry, though that sensation was buried by the pain in her legs. That was probably for the best: she had no food, and little hope of getting any. She wondered if she was thirsty also. No way of telling. She might have prayed, but enough had been done to her in the name of religion that she had no intention of looking to God for anything save a chance to spit in His face.

A flapping of wings. The crow alighted a few feet from her face, stalked over, and peered into her eyes.

“Go away, dammit,” she snarled. “You'll have to wait.”

The bird clucked at her and shook its head, then quietly began nosing about among the stones and mud. Miriam heard the creak of wagon wheels.

She had to move again, but her limbs, tortured and torn, fatigued beyond their tolerance, would not respond. She struggled, but she could do no more than rock back and forth in the mud. Flies buzzed about her ears, attracted by her blood. She could not even turn her head to the wagon's approach.

The wheels came closer. The crow flew up, crying harshly. The wagon stopped.

“Dear God.” It was a woman's voice. In a moment, gentle hands were on her and a matronly face came into view. “Oh, dear God. You poor child . . .”

“I'm not a child,” she managed. “I'm eighteen. I'm not a child.”

The woman held a flask to Miriam's lips. “Drink. You'll be all right now. You're safe.”

Miriam looked at her incredulously. But she drank.

“My name is Mika,” said the woman. “I'll take care of you. I'm traveling toward my home, south of Furze, and I'll take you with me. You'll be safe there.”

“Don't be stupid.”

Mika seemed unperturbed, as though she were used to the blunt responses of the injured. “I can guess who you are, child. Hypprux is buzzing with the story of your escape. But the soldiers think you're still in the city, and they're not searching the roads yet. It's a miracle you made it this far. You must have crawled all night. We're three leagues from the city, and you're almost dead.”

“Why don't I just get it over with, then?”

“Hush, child.” Mika lifted Miriam easily and put her in the small cart. A shaggy red pony eyed her curiously. “Come, Esau,” Mika called as she took the reins. “Let's take this little one somewhere where I can tend her wounds. Find us dry ground and sweet water.”

Miriam lay amid sacks and cushions. The sunlight felt warm now that she was out of the wind, and the fat man's dark green cloak began to dry with an odor of wet wool. Fatigue reduced the pain in her legs to a dull ache.

She was asleep by the time Mika stopped, and did not awaken until the sun had slipped behind the Aleser Mountains and the first stars had appeared. Miriam found that she had been washed, bandaged, and dressed in dry clothes that were much too large for her. Mika had kindled a small fire. The sound of a rushing stream was in the air.

Mika heard her stir, brought her food, and helped her to sit up. Miriam looked at the gruel in the wooden bowl she had been handed. “What is this?”

Mika smiled. “Horrible stuff. Tastes awful. Eat it.”

Her hands clumsy with pain and bandages, Miriam wielded the spoon with difficulty, but she managed. She would have been offended if Mika had offered to help, but the older woman did not. The gruel was not at all bad, Miriam decided. Halfway through the bowl, she asked, “Where are we?”

“About a day's journey from Hypprux,” said Mika. “Ypris is about a league farther down the road, but I didn't want to risk an inn. Someone with your wounds might attract attention.”

“I attract attention, anyway.”

“Be easy, child.”

Miriam dropped the spoon. “I'm not a child. I'm tired of being called one.” She indicated her legs. “Would the Church do this to a child?” she demanded.

Mika looked at her for some time before replying, “That . . . and worse.”

“Who are you, anyway? What are you doing out on the road? Are you some kind of witch?”

Mika shook her head wearily. “I'm a midwife. I do some healing, too. I've a knack with herbs and poultices, but some plants never make it as far down as Furze or even Belroi. None of my ladies are near term this month, so I went shopping.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“You're hurt.”

“That's no reason.” Miriam found that she was suddenly hungry. She picked up the spoon again and began shoveling the gruel down her throat. “I was hurt in the dungeon in Hypprux and no one helped me,” she said between mouthfuls.