The Burning Time (24 page)

Alyce shook her head.

“No, Pet. We are pausing here to rest a few hours until dawn. The captain sent word to me before we left home that t’is best for the first boat to sail with the morning tide, and he wishes us to board just before weighing anchor—so as not to arouse suspicion, I imagine. But we are here too early. I warned you that you were driving Tissy and Makeshift too severely when you had the reins.”

“Oh but we
canna
stop, we
must
press on, we—”

“
No
. We must
not
,” Alyce replied, her weariness taking on an edge of anger. “We have come a long way, and more swiftly than I had planned. The other thing I did not plan is
that
,” she said, pointing to the north. “It looks to be a storm lowering an hour or so away. I do not relish the babes being in the open during a storm—but we dare not put up at the inn in town. And I know of no trustworthy Wiccan house hereabout to shelter us.
Wexford has become such a Christian stronghold.” She leapt down from the cart. “Well, never mind. We will build a shelter of pine boughs and blankets, and hope the storm blows to the west or holds off till morning. The children are desperate for a bit of stretch. And you and I could each use a few moments of sleep. One can rest while the other stands guard.”

Petronilla clambered hastily out of the cart, gesticulating wildly.

“
No
! Oh no, no,
no
, we dinna dare—”

“
Petronilla
! Stop it! What has
happened
to you? For months you were growing more confident, and night before last, at the meeting in the cellar, you were so—eloquent. But now you are again a timid, panicked
waif
. We need to be even-tempered, not—
convulsive
. So stop acting like one of the children! I have seven of them to deal with as it is.” Alyce paused for breath. “Now. We will remain here for a few hours to rest and wait for dawn. No more hand-wringing. I
know
what I am
about
.”

The younger woman glared at her, eyes wide, nostrils flaring like those of a cornered animal, lips curled in scorn. It was a sullen, vindictive face Alyce had never seen Petronilla wear.

“Oh aye, ye always be knowing everything, do ye not? Naught ever scares
herself
or worries
herself
!”

“That’s not
true
, Pet, I—”

“I be
not
your pet! Even though ye be the great Lady Alyce. Aye, t’is the
perfect
Lady Alyce, the
generous
and
saintly
Lady
Alyce, the
wise
Lady Alyce who knows all what’s to know! Pity the poor rest of us! We be mere mortals! We canna
ever
please Her Ladyship because we canna ever be wise and perfect as
she
is!” She spat the last word out as a hiss.

Alyce stood still, contemplating her maidservant. Slowly, she walked over and embraced her, feeling the young woman’s body stiffen. But Petronilla pushed her off and backed away, her face contorted with rage and fear, her eyes wild as if seeing some vision only she could perceive, her voice pitched high and thin with fright.

“Ye dinna understand, ye
never …
t’is all for
naught
. Ye canna see what I see. T’is the waking dream. I
see
it. I see the Circle. But t’is a circle of skulls. Flesh cold as stone washed in moonlight. Dew aglitter on bones
—wee
bones, ach God, the bones of
babes
! Little, little bones. They be sticking out from all the corpses’ bloody tangled curls—pretty and pearly baby bones like combs in Her Grace’s long red hair. Oh God I see it! Death and life and the space between you tell about! But the space between
not
be empty! It be
full
! It be
crowded
, oh God—with burning souls! The skulls be cracked, broke open, the nightmare spilling out! I see horror! Oh God I
see—
”

Alyce slapped Petronilla, hard, across the face.

The two glared at one another.

Then Petronilla’s chest began to heave as her sobs rose. Quickly, Alyce put her arms around the younger woman and
held her, rocking her, humming softly in her ear as she would to one of the children. They stood swaying that way until gradually the storm inside the little maid subsided. But Alyce, staring over Petronilla’s shoulder at the sky, saw that the other storm was blowing in their direction.

“You see?” she said to Petronilla, holding her at arm’s length, “Is this not proof that we both need some rest? You are out of temper, and
me
—look what a harridan I am becoming, to have scolded you so. Come. I will unhitch the horses to have a graze and a drink—I think I heard a brook over that way, a little into the woods. If so, they can be tethered to one of the saplings there—but loosely, so they can reach the water. Meanwhile, you bring the children out of the wagon so they can toddle around a bit before we put them down. Is that not a good plan?”

Spent by her weeping, Petronilla wiped her eyes, nodding. Then both she and Alyce set to work. In a short while, as the older tots were groggily shuffling through the pine needles, the women had brought sheepskins from the wagon and made an outdoor bed for them to lie on. Then, while Alyce was lashing a quilt between two tree branches as a canopy above the improvised bed, Petronilla wandered off, staring out over the valley and seaport town below them.

“Look,” she called to her mistress in a strained voice, “That church there? T’is my old parish chapel, where I’d be
going for shelter—first from Cook, then from my husband. T’is there I’d be sitting—oh, not often, and sure not long—when I dinna have to be up and doing, fetching, dodging … t’was lovely. So
quiet
. A body be hearing the heartbeat inside herself. I be lighting a candle, praying for mercy. Hearing the plainsong and chants, breathing the incense—sweet, so sweet. And the bells! I be
loving
the bells, the Angelus most. I be loving all of it, really. And Mass! T’was so beautiful, so comforting.… Aye, but that was before I left my husband and the evil Father Donnan said … he be still there, you know! He might—”

“Oh, I should not worry about him, Pet
—ronilla
,” Alyce replied, busy creating the rain canopy. “De Ledrede would be sending his own men-at-arms after us—and they cannot even know we have fled yet. Or if they do know, then by now they have probably been distracted by looting my castle and pilfering our harvest,” she muttered bitterly. “But even the Bishop is not able to alert every parish priest in Ireland to the threat of our banshee presence. Though just the same, for caution’s sake, we probably should not build a fire, pleasant as that would be.”

Petronilla didn’t answer. She stood gazing at the little stone church, twisting her pale braids. At last, Alyce, struggling against exasperation, called her to please come help tuck in the children.

Dana had long since dozed off in her swaddling, cushioned by pine needles. The women hustled Sara and the other toddlers to the blanket bed where, despite their elation at being let out of the cart and their glee at this adventure of sleeping outdoors in a forest, they dropped off immediately, too exhausted even to protest being put down.

Embarrassed by her outburst, Petronilla offered to take the first watch. But she still seemed agitated, so Alyce decided to sit with her for a few minutes. She uncorked a flask of wine and took a swallow, then passed it to Petronilla, urging it on her for warmth and hoping it might relax her a little.

The two women sat together on a large rock in the pine forest, saying nothing, each alone with her thoughts.

“May the most wrathful God of Abraham punish such stupidity!” the Bishop shouted at his manservants, who had just helped him dismount into a puddle.

“May Christ Himself have mercy and rescue me from such incompetents!
Why
am I never told anything until it is too late? Is all Ireland one conspiracy, serfs through nobles?
Is this sabotage or idiocy
? Does it matter?
No
, the result is the
same
!”

In full roar, Richard de Ledrede stormed through the hall and back into his study, slamming his door in the faces of the
apologetic gaggle of priests trailing after him. He did not care to hear any more excuses from people so thick-headed that they assigned look-outs to one place only, the Covenstead, ignoring the Castle itself.

He flung off his cloak and sank into a chair. Now that he finally had won permission to hold his heresy trials, he had lost his chief heretic.

He reached for a beaker of brandywine and poured himself a cup, draining it in two gulps. Then he sat back and closed his eyes, shuddering to recall how he had ridden triumphantly across the drawbridge to Kyteler Castle, there to sit astride his horse, circling the empty, echoing courtyard lit only by his men’s torches, forced to acknowledge the truth—Alyce Kyteler was gone. She had abandoned her beloved ancestral lands. So The Craft meant that much to her. He had underestimated her again. He could not afford one more miscalculation.

What was to have been the best night of his life was rapidly becoming the worst—certainly the most humiliating since that dinner last Christmas honouring Bernard Gui, Inquisitor of Toulouse, when Cardinal de Blanc had so cruelly jested that he …

What an absurd position the Church had placed him in, really. He was a linguist, an administrator, a diplomat—what right had they to thrust him into the position of military tactician? Yet even at that, God knows, he had done his best.
He had sent pursuit after Kyteler and her retinue, splitting his men-at-arms up in all four directions to follow every road out of Kilkenny. Delegating nothing this time, he had personally instructed their commanders to break down doors and do whatever convincing was necessary to solicit information about any passing travelers. He had sent yet another complement of yeomen to seek out those serfs known to be special pets of Dame Alyce, on the chance that she was hiding out with one of them. He had covered all escape routes. Unless the cursed witches really could fly.

He groaned and rubbed his eyes. Then he filled another cup with brandywine, trying to savor how its topaz colour glinted in the candlelight as he poured. But it gave him no pleasure. All capacity for enjoyment felt suspended until he had that vile bawd of Satan safe in his dungeons. Even the wine tasted of fear, fear that she was gone for good, fear …

Christ! If he failed, what remained for him?
In order to elicit the Pope’s personal missive to the Lord Justice, he had needed to convince Avignon that the arrest, trial, and condemnation of Kyteler were central to gaining Church hegemony in Ireland. He had succeeded in this by writing numerous letters of appeal to the Papal Court over the past months, even exaggerating Kyteler’s importance to convince them. If she eluded him now, how could he explain his failure? And if he failed, the Church in France would not have him back.
He knew that. Without the Pope’s support he could not carry on in Ireland, either. Furthermore, he still faced those revived fraud charges in Kilkenny. England had long been sealed against him. Where could he go? Not only would a cardinal’s hat be forever out of reach, but he would
fall
instead of rising. He would end up as a parish priest in some dusty Italian village, begging his superiors for pence to fix the roof and baptizing litters of squalling peasant brats.

He began to pace the room like a celled prisoner. He
needed
this triumph, needed the spectacle of Alyce Kyteler repentant in chains or aflame at the stake. He needed this more than he had ever needed anything in his life.

He glanced at the hourglass. Each grain of falling sand meant increasing likelihood of her escape. Charging to the door, he opened it and peered out. But other than the sentry dozing at the end of the hall, no one was there. No breathless messenger running toward him with news of her apprehension, no word. He yelled once to startle the sentry, then banged the door shut again. He had not felt so totally helpless since his boyhood.

Pouring another cup, he drank it down, feeling its anodyne begin to blunt the edge of his fear with a growing sense of pity at the injustice being done him. This Irish assignment was equivalent to Sisyphus’s boulder. They
expected
him to fail. Back in Avignon they were laughing, laying wagers only as to
when
. Here he was, fighting for the Church,
his
vision of the Church—the centuries of individual sacrifices, the millions of
prayers, the last thoughts of myriad suffering martyrs; the countless lives fed, housed, educated,
saved
by the Church—
that
was what he was defending. Not that Avignon would notice.… But
God
certainly should notice. He stared accusingly at the gilded crucifix across the room. Tears rose in his throat. He deserved better treatment than this. Stumbling to the prie-dieu, he fell heavily to his knees and crossed himself, bowing his head above interlaced fingers, his lips grazing the bishop’s ring as he prayed.