Page 94 of My Hero
“Please,” Elspeth begged, bunching his cassock in desperate fingers. “You mustn’t. You’re her only nope now. But you’ve got to find another way.”
He took her by the shoulders and looked back and forth between her two brown, tear-bright eyes, his mind running quickly over ideas like a pen scribbling on parchment.
“The Abbot can’t sacrifice an innocent babe,” he said. “The church forbids it. The mark of the devil must be proved. The child must be born.” He ran a hand across his mouth. “So we have…”
“Six months, maybe seven.”
He gazed pensively over her head, past the jars and bottles, past the cheese, past the peeling plaster of the buttery walls, to a place in his mind’s eye that had grown dusty with disuse.
It was time to wipe away the cobwebs now, time to don the faded surcoat and rusty mail of the youth who once knew how to wield a sword, time to rub oil into the squeaky hinges of the war machine.
“Bring me parchment, ink, and quill,” he said, surprised by the authority of his own voice. “And a trusty servant who can ride like the wind. Nay, three servants.”
Elspeth nodded and hurried to do his bidding, wringing her hands and casting one hopeful glance backward before she left him in the buttery alone.
He ran a hand over his cheek, wincing as he found the tender place where the knight had doled him the blow. For four years, he’d turned the other cheek. It was time now to fight.
His brother Holden would be amazed to hear from him. But he’d come. Garth knew he would. And, with God’s grace, in time. If there was one thing in this world he could depend on, it was his brother’s love of a good battle.
Chapter 21
Cynthia scratched a mark into the stone wall with a fragment of beef bone. She’d salvaged the tool from her first supper in the dungeon—two months ago, according to her tally.
So it was October, then, the time for sowing peas and beans, for transplanting leeks and spreading cinders under the cabbages. There was so much she missed…the changing of the seasons, birdsong, her garden.
Most of all, she missed Garth.
At first, she’d tried not to think about him. Instead, she focused on the babe growing inside her. Her belly was as round as a plumped goose now. It amazed her that the child continued to thrive, heedless of the lack of fresh air and sunlight. She supposed babes were as stubborn and hardy as weeds, able to grow in the most infertile soil. But she longed to give this babe the healthy start it deserved. Her aching back and idle muscles and pale skin yearned to feel the restoring touch of nature. She was weary of this dank, dark place, where moss sprouted from every crack in the stones and it was cold all the time.
What kept hope alive were Elspeth’s visits. Although she was under the close supervision of the Abbot’s guard, Elspeth was allowed to see her for a short time every few days. El supplied her with news—news about the castle folk, news about the Abbot, and, most recently, news from the village.
When, during one of her visits, El whispered to her that she had a message from a young man in the village, a good man who took care of the old and the sick and who’d promised to remember Lady Cynthia in his prayers, she’d known at once who it was.
From then on, there was frequent news from that “good man.” She learned that though he’d cast off his cassock, he’d never ceased doing the Lord’s work, that he now toiled alongside the villagers, right under the oblivious nose of the Abbot, and that the wheels of her rescue had been set in motion.
As for the Abbot, according to Elspeth, he’d begun gathering men about him—mostly overgrown dullards and religious fanatics—recruiting them into his personal army. Each day, more scarlet knights trickled in to usurp the chambers of Wendeville’s nobility. No doubt he planned to commandeer both Charing and Wendeville. She realized now that had likely been his intent all along.
She also learned from Elspeth that the Abbot was reluctant to execute her until her babe was born. He may believe she carried the devil’s spawn, but until irrefutable proof was obtained, church doctrine prevented him from laying a hand on an innocent child.
Cynthia stroked her swelling abdomen as it twitched now with subtle movements. About three more months. It would pass in the blink of an eye, she knew. Then, if Garth’s rescue somehow failed, since none could gainsay the edict of the almighty Abbot, he’d have his way. Cynthia would burn at the stake as a witch.
The thought brought despair down upon her like an abrupt June squall, and unwelcome tears flooded her eyes. Her chest hitched, and a sob fell from her lips before she could stop it. She clapped a fist against her mouth and struggled to cease her weeping, cursing the emotions which, of late, seemed to overwhelm her without warning.
Surely Garth would save her. And even if he couldn’t, the babe would survive, she told herself, dabbing at her eyes with a corner of her surcoat. Elspeth and Roger would see to that. As for her, if all else failed, if she was to be executed, she intended to go to her death painlessly. When they came for her, she’d ask El to fetch her opium wine. With any luck, she’d be half-dead long before the flames licked her flesh.
Then she chided herself for her doubt. Garth would save her. He’d promised her as much. There was nothing to cry over.
Footfalls sounded outside the door.
“My lady!” El called.
It would distress El to see her thus, so she wiped away the last vestiges of her tears, then stood by the small barred window. “El, what is it?”
El’s face was bright with excitement, which she cautiously tempered for the sake of the guard. “The garden is doing very well today, my lady,” she said, adding pointedly, “You wouldn’t believe howgreenit is.”
“Green?”
“Aye.Green.As far as the eye can see.”
