Daughter Of The Forest (64 page)

The sky was changing color; the first purple tint of dusk began to wash across its late afternoon blue. We had reached the pile of ash wood, and the platform with its neat steps. And Richard was there, resplendent in a fresh velvet tunic, with silver glittering at his throat. He wore a ring shaped like the head of a kestrel, with gleaming ruby eyes. The drum stopped. The crowd hushed. I saw few familiar faces. There was no Lady Anne, no Ben. I could not see Margery. But Megan was there, her round face white in the torchlight, her freckles standing out against the pallor. She had dark rings under her eyes.

They led me up to the platform where Richard stood. A small torch burned in a bracket at the base of the pyre. I was in no doubt as to its purpose. My heart thumped its own fast rhythm; there was no need of a drumbeat. The sky darkened to lavender gray; out in the west, the setting sun touched the clouds to the color of a rosy apple.

“You are gathered to witness due and lawful punishment,” announced Richard grandly. The crowd shuffled. “The case against this girl, known as Jenny, was heard in full yesterday. Witnesses were called, and evidence produced that was damning and irrefutable. You already know the verdict. The girl stands before you guilty of receiving an outlaw, of spying, and of practicing the arts of the devil, in addition to her adulterous conduct. The penalty for her offenses is death. In this, Father Dominic and I were in complete accord. The girl’s refusal to defend herself was a clear admission of guilt. Good people, with this burning we remove the evil canker that has eaten away at the very heart of Harrowfield. With her death, peace and prosperity can return to this household and to the valley. I call on you to witness.” There was a scattering of applause, and somebody yelled, “Get on with it, then!”

But the crowd seemed uneasy. There was mumbling and muttering, as if, now that they had finally got what everyone had been saying all along should happen, they were not so sure about it. And a familiar voice called out, “Shame! Shame! Jenny saved my life, and my child’s! You cannot do this!” Margery was there, somewhere, and she at least was not afraid to speak up for me. Then someone else shouted, “What about Lord Hugh, then? What does he think about this?” Richard made a small movement with his hand and all of a sudden there was a line of his men, right around the front of the crowd, holding back the press of bodies. The dissenting voices were drowned out by shouts of “Burn the sorceress!” “Death to the filthy spy!” “Let’s see her burn!”

The noise built as I was dragged across the platform and onto the narrow ledge around the central pole. The pyre had been deftly stacked about this point, its top tier lying just below the ledge. Here and there I could see the little logs that Richard had placed with his own hands so carefully. There was an oily sheen to their surface. The guard took out a stout rope and bound me tightly to the pole. Once, twice, three times around the waist, and fastened at the back where I could not reach. But he left my hands free.

Down below, the excitement was growing. Some whistled, and some called foul names, and one threw a soft fruit, which fell short, thudding down between the logs. People were arguing. The guards were struggling to hold the crowd back. I could see Margery now, just behind Megan, her face running with tears. She was shouting, but I could not hear the words. The drum began again, and I thought stupidly, now a whistle, and a fiddle, and dancing. The guards who held my things were standing at the foot of the pyre. One of them threw the spindle, and the distaff, and the small loom onto the pile. I heard the cracking as they landed and splintered. The guard with the basket hesitated, looking at me. It was the same man who had brought me blackberries in my tiny cell, when I had thought myself without a friend in the world.

“Make haste, man,” said Richard testily.

His hands, I thought, are itching to pick up that torch. In the west, the clouds had the faintest rim of pink. A little wind rose, sending leaves scurrying across the courtyard. People started putting on their cloaks.

Please. Please put them in my hands. Oh, please
. The guard could not hear me; I tried to speak with my eyes, with my heart. He lifted up the basket.
Just a little closer, I cannot reach. Please, oh please
.

“No need for that,” said Richard sharply. “Just toss them on the fire with the rest. All must burn.”

But the man stepped up onto the ash logs, and higher, and lifted the basket onto the ledge beside my feet, and I gripped it with both hands like a lifeline.

“What are you doing, man?” Richard snapped. “Step down, unless you, too, wish to burn.” The man glanced at him, and at me, and his honest eyes showed both compassion and distaste.

“Last time you catch me doing this job,” he muttered. “Only a youngster, she is.”

He took his time to climb back down, while Richard’s fingers twitched with impatience. The last sliver of sun slipped below the horizon. The wind came in little gusts, making the torches flare and fade, flare and fade. Leaves blew in circles on the ground. Whipped by that wind, the fire would burn hot.

Come now. Come now. Where are you?

I could hear nothing, nothing but the howl of the rising wind, which blew strangely, this way and that. It tugged at the basket in my hands. Richard was making his way down the steps. The wind whipped at his tunic and ruffled his neatly combed hair. The torches blazed.

A sudden hush fell over the crowd. I closed my eyes.
Now. It must be now. Hurry
. The people were waiting, waiting as Richard walked steadily to the foot of the pyre, where the small torch burned in its holder. They were silent. Then, bright, clear and innocent through the dusk, a child’s voice rang out. “Look, Mother! Look up there!”

Like ghosts, like great, soaring spirits they moved across the sky, spread out in file behind their leader, long-necked, broad-winged, white as the crest of a wave, their wings beating in solemn rhythm. They circled the courtyard where we stood, and the eyes of the crowd followed their flight. One, two, three, four, five. Finbar had always been the last to come.

Come down. Come down to me
. They circled again, and I saw Richard reaching for the torch. Then down they glided to land on the platform close by me. They huddled together, eyes wild with confusion, webbed feet padding up and down on the rough boards.

Now, Sorcha. Do it now
.

No time to ask questions. No time to gaze up into the darkening sky for another. I reached into the basket, grasped a shirt, flung it over the arching neck of the first great bird. The crowd muttered and whispered.

Quickly, Sorcha
. Where was he, where was Finbar? Out over the water still? Left behind, too weak to fly so far? Where was he? I drew out the next shirt, and the next.

“What evil sorcery is this?” Richard’s voice was a snarl, and I heard the torch rasp from its socket as he gripped it in his hand. “What familiars does she call to her aid? All must burn! All!” And he touched the fire to the bottommost layer, where twigs of birch and willow twisted between the ash logs. There was a little crackling, and a flare of light. The crowd gasped as one.

The fourth shirt. The fifth. And I held the last shirt in my hands, the very last, which had but one sleeve, and was stained with dirt and blood and tears.
Quickly, Finbar. Quickly
.

The swans shuffled in an awkward group, stretching their long vulnerable necks to the sky. The shirts of starwort hung loosely about their great white bodies.
Now, Finbar!
My eyes went here and there, scanning the sky, scanning the crowd. I would not look down, down beneath my feet where the fire glowed, and spread, running up the length of one twig and another, fanned by the capricious breeze. I felt the heat on my feet and legs, the draft from the fire stirring my skirts. It was not quite pain; not yet. The swans edged away, the flames reflected ever stronger in their frightened eyes. The sky was dark; I could see no birds there. At the back of the crowd, people were jostling and exclaiming. I looked that way. Looked straight into a pair of eyes the color of shadows on ice; into a face I had seen in my dreams these many nights since. He was haggard with exhaustion, his face wild with terror and fury. He had a long, fresh scar on his left cheek, and bruises around his eye. He was elbowing his way fiercely through the crowd, heedless of whom he thrust aside. Behind him, two other men, one with flaxen hair, and the emblem of Harrowfield on his tunic. The second, young, tall, and well built. A man with hair like a field of barley in the summer sun, and eyes of periwinkle blue.

“Lord Hugh,” folk were exclaiming. “Lord Hugh is returned.” And they were saying, “Simon. Look, it’s Master Simon!” Somewhere, a small dog was yapping hysterically, a sound not of fright or pain, but a canine fanfare of ecstatic welcome. The flames began to lick at the second tier of logs. I tried to lift one foot, then the other, out of their path. Now it was really hurting. Above me, the wind twisted and turned, a strange, meddlesome wind such as I had never seen before. And on its eddies, another swan came flying, slowly, so slowly, as if it barely had the strength to move its great wings. People pointed upward.

“Let me through!” shouted Red. “Let me by!” But he was trapped by the surge of bodies, all craning to watch the swan, or to see the fire, and his voice was lost in the hubbub as they chattered and cried out in their excitement. The heat rose from the ash logs; the lone bird drifted downward, down to where I stood, clutching the last of my shirts of starwort. Beneath my bare feet, the wood was smoking.
Quickly, Finbar, quickly
. Now he was circling as if unsure where to land.
Hurry
. People began to move, to let Red through, perhaps because of the way he was shouting, perhaps because of the small sharp knife that had appeared in his hand. At the foot of the pyre, Richard stood motionless, watching me, blind to all but his moment of victory. The flames grew higher, steadily advancing. They had almost reached the first of the special faggots. Hot fire, that burns and glows and leaves nothing but bones behind.

“Jenny!” shouted Red, pushing aside two of Richard’s men. “Jenny!” His face was ashen white. And I saw something glinting, something reflecting the firelight, high above the heads of the crowd. In a window of the house, overlooking the courtyard, an archer stood poised, bow drawn, finger ready on the string. He was not aiming at me, or at the sixth swan which now circled low over the heads of the crowd again. He was not aiming at Ben, or at the golden-haired man who followed his brother through the crowd of gaping, round-eyed folk. He was aiming at Hugh of Harrowfield, he who stood head and shoulders above the people around him, he whose bright hair, like some flag of war, made him a clear and easy target. Richard had told me, as he taunted me in my cell, that he wanted me out of the way before Red’s return. He had said he might create a delay. A diversion, Richard had called it. This was something more than a diversion.

Nobody had seen. Nobody but me. I sensed rather than saw the slight movement of hand on bowstring, the tilt, the steady aim. My eyes went back to Red, as he struggled against the sea of bodies packed tight. My feet were in agony, and the hem of my gown was smouldering. And then a gust of wind came up, out of nowhere, and snatched the sixth shirt of starwort out of my hands and up, up into the air, far from reach. Red was trapped behind two guards, their solid forms blocking him from any movement. The archer went very still.

I screamed. “Red, look out! Behind you!” My voice came out rasping, and broken, and weak from years of silence. But he heard me, and turned, and the arrow took him in the shoulder with a sickening thud.

The enormity of what I had done was like a blow straight to the heart. After all this time, after everything, I had spoken. I had not been able to stop myself. I had broken the silence. There were flames everywhere; the platform by the pyre was starting to turn black. There were little fizzing, popping sounds from the uppermost layer of wood. I watched blankly as Red reached up behind him and snapped the shaft of the arrow in two, as if breaking a twig; and wrenched the other part out, teeth bared in a grimace of pain. Still he was shoving his way forward. And now, the crowd parted quickly to let him through, and he reached the foot of the pyre. Richard thrust out an arm to stop him, his features suffused with rage, and received in return a blow to the face that sent him reeling back into the crowd. Then Red jumped, jumped through the flames and the heat to the second tier of logs, booted feet agile on the smouldering wood, stepped to the top, slashed once, twice with the little knife at the ropes that bound me there. His face was white as death. The flames were licking at the highest logs. He grabbed me around the waist, slung me over his shoulder like a sack of vegetables, and leaped again, awkwardly this time, so that the two of us landed in a heap on the middle of the smouldering wooden platform which stood beside the pyre. An instant later there was a flaring, and a whooshing, and the fire began to take on an eerie green hue, its strange light illuminating the whole courtyard, playing on open mouths and startled eyes, shining on the figure of an archer carefully backing away from an open window, lighting up the staring features of Richard of Northwoods, on which rage now warred with fear.

I felt Red’s arm close around me like a shield against the rest of the world. His mouth was against my hair, and his heart thumped violently under my cheek. I shut my eyes, and held onto his shirt with both hands, and wept. Now I had lost them, I had lost them all. How could I? How could I do it? How could I speak, after so long, after all this time, how could I let the words out, before the spell was broken? And yet I knew in my heart that I would not have stayed silent, for in that moment, the only thing that had mattered was for Red to be alive. I had saved him; but I had lost my brothers.

The fire burned green and gold, and small explosions popped and crackled. There was a smell of scorched feathers. The crowd gave a great gasp, and another, and broke into a babble of sound. Under my cheek, Red’s shirt was wet with blood and tears. “It’s all right,” he said over and over. “It’s all right, Jenny, it’s all right.” Neither of us seemed able to move. Then, suddenly, I felt his arm tighten around my shoulders.