Page 49 of My Hero
Tim nodded gravely, wincing as his stomach cramped. “Not allowed…at Lent. God is…punishing me.”
She swallowed back tears. “God wouldn’t punish you like this, Tim. You’re one of his favorite children.”
He shook his head. “The Abbot says I’m a sinner.”
“The Abbot?” She clenched her jaw against a reply she might later regret, and then laid her hands gently upon the boy’s forehead. “Never mind the Abbot, Tim. God knows you’re a good lad.”
Her palms tingled with his youthful energy, weak but still flickering. When she closed her eyes, a clear image of mint came to her. After a moment, she withdrew her hands and reached into her satchel for a packet of the leaves.
“Make a weak brew for him with these,” she told Nan, “and sweeten it with honey if you have it. I’ll come back at day’s end to see how he fares.” Then she brushed the lad’s hair back from his eyes. “God understands, Tim. He wants you to get better. He’ll forgive you for the eggs.”
Tim only stared at her, and for a brief, eerie moment, her own conviction was shaken.Wouldshe be forgiven? It was true, she’d counseled many to break the strictures of Lent. But surely that counsel was divinely inspired. After all, her power came from God, didn’t it? Surely it was holy inspiration that moved her to give the villagers the egg broth.
But then, perhaps more than the egg broth ate away at her faith and made her fear the wrath of God. There was also the matter of Father Garth.
Despite her blind certainty that she simply steered Garth toward a more harmonious path, one that suited his own passionate nature, in a small corner of her heart, she wondered if she contrived to steal him from the church for her own selfish satisfaction. That, she was sure, God would never sanction.
The Abbot steepled his long fingers together and smiled grimly from the solar as he watched the peasant boy depart through the sagging gates of Charing.
A murrain in the village. Lady Cynthia dispensing her devil’s cures. And people dying. This was good news indeed. That and the list of herbs Mary had brought him were enough to condemn the lady on the spot.
But, he considered, scraping his nail over the worn stone of the window embrasure, patience had its merits. Better not to appear too eager. There was plenty of time to settle the noose about Lady Cynthia’s pale and trembling neck. Besides, sickness was such an ugly business. He’d had more than his share of it with that wretched woman’s late husband. Nay, he’d wait in the dubious comfort of his crumbling keep until the time ripened.
He turned from the window and went to his desk, picking up a sharpened quill. He dipped it in ink as thick as blood, and meticulously scrawled a damningXupon the parchment Mary had brought him, next to the wordbelladonna. Such a pretty word for such a deadly plant, a devil’s herb. There would be others, many others, that would bear the fatalXnext to their names. But the Abbot preferred to do his work slowly and methodically, savoring each blow of the executioner’s ax.
By the time Garth visited the fifth house to perform last rites, the inevitable cup of yellowish broth by the bedside had begun to look very suspicious. Finally, he asked about it.
The dead man’s wife turned pale and wrung her hands.
“Please forgive him!” she cried. “I know it’s Lent, but she said it might help! And it did…for a time!”
“What? What might help?”
“The eggs!” The lady clapped a hand to her mouth, realizing she’d revealed more than she’d wanted to.
“Eggs?”
“Please forgive him,” she repeated. “He was a good man. And she said he’d be forgiven.”
Garth was confused. He took the woman by the shoulders. “Who said he’d be forgiven?”
The woman’s face crumbled. “You mean he won’t? Oh, please, Father. Father, please…” She began to wail.
“He will be forgiven all his sins,” Garth told her, waiting for her to calm. “Now, who told you to feed him eggs?”
“Lady Cynthia, of course. She’s taken care of him all along. She’s a great healer and a good lady, but it’s a grave sickness, and she could do nothing to save my…”
The woman fell to sobbing again, and Garth absently patted her hand.
Bloody hell—was Lady Cynthia instructing the villagers to disobey the dictates of Lent? Could she have unwittingly brought God’s wrath down upon the villagers?
He extricated himself from the weeping woman’s clutches. He had to absolve the dead man’s soul now before she dissolved into hysterics. Setting her aside, he hastily recited the last rites.
Then, his cassock flapping with authority, he set out to determine just what was at the heart of Lady Cynthia’s blasphemy.
He found her in a nearby hovel. The west-facing shutters had been thrown wide, but the sinking sun could only afford so much light. Still, when he charged in, he could make out the figure of Cynthia crouching at the foot of a straw bed, her sleeves stained and her discarded wimple crumpled in the corner.
“What healing do you practice, lady,” he demanded without preface, “that you take the church’s commandments into your own hands?”
