The Burning Time (21 page)

“Because, Annota, this Bishop will hold trials with false evidence, trials that could bring about your death. Simply for being a member of The Craft, whether we celebrate a Sabbat or no. Your
death
. Do you not understand?”

“Aye, I understand well enough, not being simple in the head, M’am. But will he not seek
your
death, too, m’Lady?”

“My death is not your concern. But yours is mine.”

“Ach, I have died before,” Annota said with a wave of her hand, “when my man Seamus went from the ague. And again when my fair girl Grainne perished in childbirth. M’am, t’is not my place to question your plan. But—” she turned to the assembly,” ye all know me for an old woman who says what she thinks.” There were fleeting grins of acknowledgment, and the widow proceeded.

“I must be saying the truth, Your Ladyship. T’is not a good plan. The peasants at the le Poer estates will not welcome us willing-like, to share their wee bits of land. Also, we be marked—known as your people. The Bishop will pursue us wherever we be in Eire. And if t’is not safe here for the Coven, then t’is not safe here for our Priestess. T’is a brave plan, oh aye. But not a wise one. Forgive me, m’Lady. But I must say my truth.”

“And so you have, Annota,” her mistress replied, a bit brusquely, “Your care for my safety touches me. Yet my plan must be followed.”

“But
why
, Your Ladyship? Canna ye give us some better reason?”

“Because.… It is my plan. That is all you need to know.”

“
No
.” All heads turned. It was John Galrussyn, struggling to stand, with the aid of his son Sysok. “Your Ladyship, I fear we need know more.” The oldest of the elders present, his raised voice commanded respectful attention. He spoke with deference to his mistress, but in words that rang with his own authority. “Ye been teaching us to ask questions for many summers, M’am—so why not now? Ye be needing our understanding this one time … Your Grace.”

Alyce sighed. “John,” she said, “It is simple. Someone must stand up to this … invasion. I have decided that someone is me. The Bishop thinks to terrify Ireland into the narrowest of Christian paths. He knows that if he can best me, many will follow. But in me he chose the wrong victim. I have the power to fight back. I must honor that power. And so I shall. Yet any who might be more vulnerable to his trials and his tortures must be sent clear out of the way of this battle, safe—so as to preserve The Craft. Craft knowledge must not be lost. Preservation of The Old Ways is the most important task—more than any material concern—and I place this charge in the hands of all of you, my Coven. Though perhaps you are right
about the le Poers. Perhaps I should send you to Wales, after all. There you will find support for The Craft, and you—”

“And our Priestess? She should not be sent clear and safe away?”

“From my own ancestral lands? I refuse to be driven off my own lands by a foreign, upstart, tradesman monk! Centuries of Kyteler bones are interred here. Be hounded from my home?
Never
!”

Old John was not cowed by his Lady’s ferocity.

“Be it about the survival of The Craft, then? Or—pardon me, Your Ladyship—be it pride and stubbornness about your lands? Which is at stake? For all here know that there be more knowledge of The Craft—ritual and herbery, lore and legend, cure and spell and Mystery—in your head than in every one of ours all together, and in most of the books ye might teach us to read.”

Alyce was growing impatient.

“What is it you are saying, John? Out with it.”

The old man looked around the room. He knew what beat unsaid in the hearts of his neighbors—and knew it fell to him to do the voicing of it.

“My Lady. Ye be a peaceable woman. Your men-at-arms are few. So I ask ye, with all respect, where will ye get an army? I mean, where will outside aid come from?”

“I shall … I have assurances that the Lord Justice stands ready to help.” She faltered for only a breath before regaining her firmness. “Again, you need not seek out such worries.”

“Aye M’am, but the worries seek us out. Before, ye had the powers of Eire on our side—the Lord Justice and Archbishop and Seneschal and such fine folk. But now people be getting afeared. And this time we be dealing with foreigners, mayhap. The Bishop might call for English troops. Even
French
.” An indignant murmur hummed round the room. “T’would do no good to set needfires to signal for help, if that happened. We be thinking that Kyteler Castle canna be defended for long. And sure not without a grand army. Even then, not all of great Finn’s legions could protect this castle if the Pope sends his men against ye. I think—pardon, m’Lady, but … I think we
all
must flee. You too, Your Ladyship. With us under your protection. You especially. I do. I think it.” He leaned against Sysok, panting slightly, weary from his outburst.

There was a sudden clamor of agreement. It stunned Alyce. She had expected the anxious, exchanged glances that followed her announcement. But she had never anticipated this response. The heath-folk were rebelling. Furthermore, they were immediate, unanimous, and firm in their rebellion. They did not want to remain in Ireland while the Bishop held sway. Nor would they permit their High Priestess to fight the Bishop while they fled.

Old lessons of blood privilege rose up in Alyce, and she addressed the assembly in words sharpened by her lineage.

“You forget to whom you speak!” she declared. “I know what is best, for all of us. You will do as I command! That is the end of it.”

The ensuing silence lay heavy with hurt. Poised for the first time openly as opponents, Alyce and her people glared at each other.

It was Will Payn, the harpist, who broke the impasse, speaking gently from his half-kneeling position near her feet.

“Your Ladyship,” he said, his eyes sadder than his smile, “This be a testing time for all of us. Even—oh forgive me for saying, m’Lady—even for yourself. You sought to create a change here, a different way. Not the distant Lady ruling her serfs, but something new. Something that taught us and healed us and … you changed us, M’am. We, all of us,
together
—we now be
feeling
that change,
living
it. Nor has it been swift, nor easy, this change, nor—begging your pardon—nor ever so solid we might rest on it for a given. Yet t’is this we have
done
. Changed we now
are
. What troubles we be forced to face in days to come, this night—here,
now
—mayhap t’is the hardest test of all. Will ye not hear us out? Please, M’am?”

Alyce stood rigid, staring over their heads.

“Speak, then,” she said curtly.
Let them finish
, she thought,
Let them spew it all out. It matters not. I decide
.

Eva de Brounstoun spoke up then, her husky voice cracking with emotion.

“Oh Madam. T’is only in such a dire time I dare ask it. But ask it I must. Was it all a dream of faerie lore then? A sweet tale only, fit for children to believe? And us—your serfs—being those children? Fancying ourselves Her Ladyship’s special people, fancying we be sharing our lives outside the ranks of great noble and base peasant? Because we all kept The Craft together? See, we
believed
. T’was it daft we were, then?”

Next, Alyce Faber the smith rose heavily to her feet and stood level with Alyce Kyteler, adding, “Or is it we stand on the same sweet soil—Smithy Alyce Faber to Dame Alyce Kyteler? Can we here—” she looked around the cellar “—have a voice in our own fate? Be we our own people, sistren and brethren in The Craft, deciding our lives, right or wrong? Or be we in the end forced to obey your will, brooking no dissent? Like—like serfs anywhere, m’Lady?”

Finally, Petronilla de Meath stood, speaking so quietly the others had to strain to hear her. At first she stammered with the effort. Yet as she spoke, she began to radiate a strange composure no one had seen in her before.

“T’is because she knows now all her fears proved right, I wager,” Helena whispered to Sysok.

“T’would m-mayhap be said, Your Gr—t’would mayhap be said, Your
Ladyship
,” Petronilla began, “that being what I am—what we are—serfs and peasants I mean … t’would mayhap be said that though all of us know nothing much … still,
some of us know better … what and who we be fighting here than do you, M’am. Please, I mean no disrespect, m’Lady. But mayhap ye canna see. We—I—we dinna know
how
to be grand and make stands and fight and … be brave heroes and all. Still, when t’is knowing
who to fear
, or
when to flee
, some of us know better what that is, mayhap, than do you, M’am. We had our lives to learn it, to learn how to
 … gauge
that fear, gauge the measure of that fear. T’is
our
measure what’s been gauged in that knowledge—if you take my meaning? While
your
measure be lifelong as … but leave that be. Yet, if you could learn
this
, m’Lady? What
we
be knowing? Care what
we
be thinking? Aye. Join in it? If you could—if you could
trust …
”

Her voice died away. No one spoke.

Still disconcerted at having been challenged, Alyce nevertheless could not deny being moved by Petronilla’s passion.
If I take her meaning
, she wondered to herself. Looking round the cellar, she studied the massed faces.
They speak with such certainty. How did they learn that?
Familiar faces.
They are skilled in some wisdom I know not. Fear? Aye, they are skilled in fear! It has kept them alive
. Sharp-eyed sunburnt faces, weather-creased, labor-coarsened.
What did she say? If I could learn it, join in it?
Something else shadowed the expressions on these faces, something expectant, inviting, demanding.
My own measure is being taken. If I take her meaning
. Suddenly the Bishop’s words floated through her mind: “the ideal
mistress—until you get bored or until the peasants you have indulged begin to take themselves seriously.” She would prove him wrong. She would learn whatever it was they knew that she did not.
They are the adepts here, I am the neophyte
, she thought again. And with the word “neophyte” other words crystallized in her mind—clear as the peals of a bell at evening:
Perfect love and perfect trust
.

Her eyes stung—but whether with tears of embarrassment or gratitude, shame or pride, she could not tell. Barely able to speak, she whispered.

“Speak what is in your hearts, then. I shall listen. If it is wise, I shall—perhaps agree.”

No one thanked her.

But from that moment, the meeting drew together in mutual planning—a council. And Alyce Kyteler read the character of her people as if for the first time. Watching them think through each contingency, hearing them briskly debate different strategic approaches, she was giddy with a confusion of emotions. Initially, she felt a profound relief, as at the setting down of a heavy burden. Then she found herself off balance, missing the burden, as though carrying its weight had defined her. Finally, she felt stabbed by regret—for all the hours she had focused on teaching these people, certain they had nothing to teach her; hours when she might also have been learning from them.…

But this was no time for regret. Fixing her concentration on the matter at hand, she stayed intent on keeping up with the rapidity and shrewdness with which her peasants were making plans. To her surprise, the various plans suggested were quite sophisticated. Finally, almost tentatively, she joined in the discussion. Gradually, the decision took shape.

Whatever they did, they would do together. Again to her astonishment, despite the depth of their lifelong roots in this land, and despite the fact that they had never in their lives ventured further than Kilkenny Town or possibly Wexford, the people chose exile and uncertainty. Yet even after hours of argument, Alyce still resisted flight for herself.

Finally, Old John, noticing his mistress’s increasing adamancy as she cast about for reasons to stay when there were none, made a suggestion. Noting that he had seen many things come and go in his time, he pointed out that the Irish would surely outlast the Bishop, and that Lady Alyce would after all be leaving her lands merely as a temporary tactic, with imminent return fairly certain. That he did not believe for a moment this was true mattered less to him than that she might. And so she did. She changed her plans. If she could return, why then she would depart at the same time as her people, who would join her to live under her protection in England until they could all come safely home to Kyteler Castle.

Two days were left before Samhain. Together the group resolved
not
to leave the next night—when a group of traveling mummers was to perform in Kilkenny Town and the absence of everyone from the Kyteler estates would look suspicious—but the night after that: Samhain Eve itself. No one was eager to be out journeying on the Great Night of the Dead, but there was no help for it; the immediate, practical peril outweighed any dangers from Otherworlds. The fugitives would avoid suspicion by making their escapes at staggered times and in small groups, departing under cover of darkness, beginning at dusk and continuing until midnight. Taking separate routes, they would not ride the northern roads to the coast via Dublin; that would be a safer point of departure, but was too far. They would aim instead for the nearest harbor, at Wexford, thence to sail across St. George’s Channel and Cardigan Bay. They would make landfall at Cardigan or, if weather there rose against them, at Fishguard, further south down the Welsh coast.

It was agreed that Lady Alyce should at once send a rider to the Wexford shipyards, to engage three small masted cutters to sail at different tides beginning with Samhain Eve on through the following day, as different bands of fugitives arrived at Wexford. It was further agreed that they would all meet up, once safely in Wales. If for some reason they should miss one another, they would seek each other out in England,
now the destination for everyone, not only William—a change of plan that had the young man beaming with relief.