Wolves Among Us (10 page)

Bjorn chewed, nodding. “No matter. I heard him myself last night. Father Stefan hired him, did you know that? I told Stefan not to. But I could be wrong. There might be truth in his words.”

Mia wished she had served herself stew. Her feet hurt too much to get up again now that she had sat down, never mind her back. Too many nights without sleep lately, too many errands and chores; her body could not recuperate from one day to the next. The aroma tortured her
. Just as well that I hurt,
she thought. She could not eat in front of Bjorn. He might think she took too much from him, wasted his money, forgot that he alone saved her and held them all together. Hunger shamed her.

“I am glad you are not angry with Stefan,” Mia said. Stefan might blame her for that, too.

“I only went to make sure he kept order. I didn’t plan to listen to this man Bastion. I had hoped to arrest him, in fact. If the people became agitated.”

“I’ll do a better job of listening for you. When I go to market.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He grinned at her, and this second shock, this sudden burst of pleasure, shot through her like a new pain. “Perhaps nothing that happened is as we thought. But you should hear Bastion. He said women are prone to the Devil’s temptation, that the Devil woos a woman like a man might.”

Mia laughed; she couldn’t help it. If the Devil wooed women, then he, too, had avoided Mia entirely. A woman like Mia waited her whole life for someone to notice her. If the Devil had courted her, she would not have missed it.

Bjorn watched her, then pushed back from the table and let his head fall back as he laughed. Perhaps he would not scowl if she ate just a small bowl of stew. She edged toward the bowl.

“You, of course, have never been tempted by the Devil because you are a good woman.” He leaned across the table, catching her by the hand. “You
are
a good woman. I am harsh sometimes, when you test me, and I say harsh things. I do not mean for you to remember. You don’t remember them, do you?”

“No,” she lied. She wanted it to be true. But his words were as unpredictable as his moods, and she could not forget how he had wounded her without reason on so many nights. He always apologized, and she always lied, saying no harm had been done. One day she hoped to understand what called up those dark rages in his soul.

“There is no such thing as an unanswered prayer of the believer. Deliverance always comes if we do not give up hope. Do you believe that to be true?”

She pushed his hand away. What did he know of unanswered prayer? “Where did you hear that?”

“I do not say Stefan is a bad priest …” he said, standing to refill his bowl before sitting back down.

She nodded, acknowledging his kindness in serving himself.

“… only that he has not taught us many things, important things. He has not taught us of the Devil, of his ways among men.”

“I would not care to dwell on that even if he had.”

“That is why your prayers are not answered. You do not know the truth. How can you pray if you do not know the truth? Come with me tonight, to hear the Inquisitor.”

She flinched, turning away so he wouldn’t see tears spring to her eyes. He was wrong. She did know truth, she wanted to scream, and she knew what truth did to people. Truth did not always bring peace and healing; sometimes it set the world on fire and took loved ones away to the place where the living could not follow.

But what if Bjorn was right about her prayers? “Put Alma to bed and see to it that Mother is well covered with a blanket,” Bjorn said. “This man, Bastion—you must hear him. What he teaches is powerful truth.”

“And if it is not?”

He dropped his spoon and stared at her like she had taken God’s own name in vain. “If it is not,” he said, choosing his words slowly, “then we will leave this village and never return. The dangers are too great.”

Chapter Ten

The witch crawled to the bars, pressing her face against them so that red lines looked as though they had been burned onto her cheeks. The clean whites of her eyes sparkled, but every other visible inch of her body was thatched with filth. She reeked of waste, the straw in her cage used both as toilet and a bed.

Mia turned away in horror, pushing her face into Bjorn’s leather vest. His arm went around her, holding her there. She held her breath, willing his arm to stay there. He rarely touched her.

Why did he want her to hear Bastion or look upon this witch? What could any woman do to deserve this living death? While everyone around her pressed closer, hungry for details of this woman’s crimes, Mia turned her thoughts to her home. She wanted to run home, not stand here. She did not want to hear such details.

Mia’s stomach growled. She had not eaten. After everyone slept tonight, perhaps, she would eat. Stefan had sat with her and Rose once, long ago when Mia had been round with child. Stefan told them of the fasting women of God.
Anorexia mirabilis,
the miracle of no hunger. These blessed women ate nothing, not even a crust, as a sign of their favor from God. Holy women were not hungry women. Pilgrims made long journeys to see them, touch them, to listen to their intimacies. Miraculous healings were said to occur through the touch and prayers of such holy women, these miraculous maids, as Stefan called them.

Mia had no favor from God. She was often hungry. Stefan had patted her shoulder that day, telling her she should eat plenty while pregnant. Then she would deliver a strong child, a sign of his blessing. Mia had failed to secure that blessing too.

Now, as she stood in front of the cage, she ached from the day’s work done in patched, worn shoes. She tried rolling her weight from side to side, trying to ease up on the painful, swollen pads. The pain made her frown and purse her mouth, and Dame Alice stole a glance at her sour face. No wonder all the women shied away from Mia and gossiped about her. Her face probably shouted that she had a shrew’s heart. Dame Alice nodded as if she understood. But Mia knew; Dame Alice understood nothing. The old widow would regret it if Mia stopped to eat one day. Mia imagined she would sit and eat, and eat, and never leave her table. She would eat until food fell out her ears and she would die, full of food and relief, right there in Dame Alice’s kitchen. That would give the village something to talk about.

Mia heard a voice parting the crowd, causing the whispers to stop. She could hear the bodies shifting, faces turning to hear him more clearly. She had seen him enter the church just two days ago. He had held their attention, even then, just by being new. Now he held them rapt and hungry. Mia marveled that a person could charm a village in two days. But he fascinated her, too, his face hard and clever, his eyes moving rapidly across the crowd. He seemed to be making secret judgments. Mia straightened her back, turning her face away from Bjorn’s chest. She forced up a pleasant expression.

“Friends of my Savior, welcome in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

She lifted her head for a better view of Bastion, tilting it to keep the witch out of her field of vision. Mia took little comfort in the cage. She did not know what powers a witch had. The witch might look into her and know everything from Mia’s past. She would know that good Christians were burning all over Europe, and Mia herself had helped light the fire long ago. A witch would know why other women here avoided Mia suddenly, why whispers started as soon as she was three paces gone. Mia did not know for certain, but she had a guess. She guessed she was filthy in her heart, just like the witch. Nothing lovely grew there, just shame that she never knew how to clean herself like the others did. She never knew how to present herself or do anything other than fail and watch as the ones she loved died. A witch might know that God was allowing Alma to die, to punish Mia.

The witch might look at her and know everything. The witch raised a bent finger caked with dirt, pointing right at Mia, and screamed. Mia’s eyes went wide in fear.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” Bastion began, his eyes settling on Mia. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.”

Mia mouthed the first words of the rosary along with the others.

Bastion held his hands out to the people, and they waited. Tears formed in his eyes, and he forced them out with a slow blink. He held his arms out above them until they began to shake. Erick ran to catch hold of them and lift them up, causing Bastion to weep without shame.

“Bless the strong youths here tonight. Bless those who use their strength for service to others. Bless those who uphold the cause of righteousness and seek to banish the oppressor.”

A tiny drop hit the back of her hair. Looking up at Bjorn, she saw a tear run away down his face. He caught her looking up at him and did not look away. She reached up to touch his face, but he caught her hand with a gentle touch, pushing it back down. Whatever Bastion had taught last night, Bjorn’s heart had opened. It would never matter to her if it was truth.

What mattered was his touch. She had lived for years without comforting touch, ever since she saw her father murdered and walked to a new city, where she lived unknown and unloved, a child of the streets. A seasoned grifter named Thomas had found her, treating her as a valuable find among the refuse of the street. But he did not touch her. He did not hold her or hear her sorrow. He spoke to her when he needed money, and sometimes not then; he rattled his wood cup at her and threw it in the street.

He spent his days drinking beer in the town square, watching with narrowed eyes as customers purchased rags from his table in the market. They cheated him, he once yelled at the sky. Nothing but cheats and liars, he yelled, and he’d be a fool to stand on his feet all day while they cheated him. He’d rather sit with a beer, so the day wouldn’t be wasted.

She had been lucky to have him.

After the deadly raid, her father’s death, the screams, and pecking birds, finding Thomas had been a stroke of rare good fortune. Mia had been just shy of eleven, afraid to enter church again alone. A priest might ask questions. He would ask what Mia had done, what her father had done. She couldn’t lie. She didn’t want to sin and make God angry again. She did not want to tell anyone her name or why she fended for food alone. Let them all think she had been abandoned through some fault of her own. It might even be true.

God had spared her life, but He hadn’t saved her. That was her work to do in this life. Her penance.

So for three years she stayed by Thomas’s side, scavenging for firewood and rags and begging for alms on his behalf. She could usually get a goodly number of alms after Mass. She watched for the church doors to open. Those doors meant salvation—until she began changing, her body filling out in new ways, her monthly courses beginning. After that, when she begged after a Mass, women scowled at her and pushed their husbands along. They must have seen she was broken, the kind of broken that begins inside, marking the heart and the face.

She worked harder then, scavenging, learning to eat less and ignore the pains in her stomach. It had been a fall day, winter fast approaching, when her life ended for a second time.

Thomas would not rise one morning though she shook him—which she never dared to do—and told him that she had enough to buy dinner, plus enough firewood to last through at least two days. He looked beyond her, unblinking.

When she touched his cheek, she wondered if it had always been so cold. She pressed her hand to her own warm cheek. She put her hand to his again. Dead. The priest came to close his eyes, and a man with a foul, stained wooden cart came and picked up his body, throwing it in with others.

As she thought on this, Bjorn exhaled heavily as he continued following along with Bastion’s prayers. Bjorn had found her shortly after Thomas died. He spied her stealing bread, and when he grabbed her to arrest her, she pushed herself into his arms, not caring if he put her in the jail. He would have to hang her if he wanted to be free of her.

Bjorn threatened to at first. But soon he realized how many things she could do and that she never complained at his treatment, and never complained when he stayed out late, and never demanded newer clothes or a fancier house with mirrors to catch the fleeting sun in winter.

He could continue his life just as before, she promised, only now he would have someone to keep him fed and warm.

“The wise man is the one who builds his home upon the rock,” Bastion proclaimed, bringing her back to the moment. “When the storms came, his house stood. My friends, a storm has come to this town. Can you feel the wind rising? Yes. A storm has come, and the wise man’s house will stand.”

When he smiled, something sweet crinkled around the edges of his eyes, something that made her want to encourage him further. He might be overcome with this kindness.

But the hard blue stones that were his eyes flashed and cut through the crowd, refusing to acknowledge her again. He spoke, using his hands as teachers do, waving them through the air to emphasize some emotions, using a single finger to jab a word straight at one person. Mia thought he looked like a sculptor, his hands working with some invisible material, shaping it before their unseeing eyes, creating and building, stacking words upon words, so that when he finished, there would be something unseen but finished between them.