After four ciders, I paid my bill and returned to the inn. It was late, and I didn’t think I’d run into anyone. I made a last trip to the privy after unsaddling my horse and was headed for the loft when she appeared, coming down the path hell-bent, her cap clutched in her fist like a weapon, and her hair flying behind her. I stepped into a shadowed corner by the stalls, waiting for her to pass, but she didn’t. She stopped only feet from me, climbing onto the rail where the jackass was stabled.
It was obvious she was distraught. More than distraught. Fearful. I had come to think she wasn’t afraid of anything. I watched, her lips half parted, her breathing uneven, as she whispered to the donkey, caressing his ears, raking her fingers through his mane, whispering words so strained and low I couldn’t hear them, even though with just a few steps, I could have reached out and touched her.
I looked at her face, gently illuminated by the distant light of the tavern. Even with her brows pulled low and an anguished crease between them, she was beautiful. It was a strange thing to think at the moment. I had deliberately avoided the thought each time I had looked at her before. I couldn’t afford such thoughts, but now the word came, unbidden, unrelenting.
I saw more than I was sure she wanted anyone to see. She cried. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and she angrily wiped them away, but then whatever grieved her made the tears inconsequential, and they flowed freely.
I wanted to step out of the darkness, ask her what was wrong, but quickly suppressed that impulse and questioned my own sanity—or maybe sobriety. She was not to be trusted, flirting with me one moment, meeting a lover the next. I had to remind myself that I didn’t care what her troubles were. I needed to leave. I tried to slide away unnoticed, but the ciders at the pub were strong, and I wasn’t feeling surest of foot. My boot knocked an unseen pail.
“Who’s there?” she called out. I thought the deception was over and was about to make myself known when the other girl approached, covering my presence.
“It’s me,” she said. “We need to talk.”
I was frozen in their world, their worries, their words. I was trapped, and all I could do was listen.
CHAPTER TWENTY
He came out of nowhere. One moment not there, the next there, scooping Pauline into his arms. “I’ll take her to the cottage,” he said, almost as a question. I nodded, and he left with me trailing just behind him. Pauline was limp in his arms, moaning, inconsolable.
Just before we reached the cottage, I raced ahead, flinging open the door, turning up the light of the lantern, and he carried her inside.
I pointed to the bed, and he gently laid her on the mattress. She curled into a tight ball facing the wall. I brushed the tangled mop of hair from her face and touched her cheek.
“Pauline, what can I do?” What had I already done?
She moaned between sobs, and the only words that were understandable were go away, please go away.
I stared at her, unable to move. I couldn’t leave her. I watched her trembling and reached for a blanket, gingerly tucking it around her, stroking her forehead, wishing to take her pain away. I leaned close and whispered, “I’ll stay with you, Pauline. Through everything. I promise.”
Again, her only discernible words were go away, leave me alone, each one a stab in my chest. I heard the scuff of Rafe’s boots on the floor and realized he was still in the room. He inclined his head toward the door, suggesting that we step outside. I turned the lantern down and followed him, numb, quietly easing the door shut behind us. I leaned back against it, needing its support. What had I said? How had I said it? Did I just blurt the words out cruelly? Still, what else could I have done? I had to tell her something sooner or later. I tried to retrace every word.
“Lia,” Rafe whispered, lifting my chin to look at him, reminding me of his presence, “are you all right?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t want to tell her—” I looked at him, uncertain of what he had heard. “Were you there? Did you hear?”
He nodded. “You had no choice but to tell her the truth.”
The truth.
I had told her Mikael was dead. But wasn’t that the lesser of two evils? He wasn’t coming for her. He was never coming. If I had told her the truth, all the dreams she held dear would be gone. They would all be illusions, false at their very roots. She’d know she had been played for a fool. She’d have nothing left to hold on to, only bitterness to harden her heart. This way, couldn’t she at least have tender memories of him to warm her? Which truth was more cruel? His deception and betrayal, or his death?
“I should go,” Rafe whispered. I glanced back at him. He was so close I could smell the cider on his breath, could feel his pulse, the gallop of his thoughts, every nerve in me raw, the night itself closing in on me.
I grabbed his arm. “No,” I said. “Please. Don’t go yet.”
He looked at where my hand grasped his arm, and then back at me. His lips parted, his eyes warmed, but then slowly, something else filled them, something cold and rigid, and he pulled away. “It’s late.”
“Of course,” I said, dropping my hand to my side, holding it there awkwardly like it didn’t belong to me. “I only wanted to thank you before you left. If you hadn’t happened along, I don’t know what I would have done.”
His only response was a nod and then he disappeared down the trail.
I spent the night sitting in the corner chair staring at Pauline. I tried not to disturb her. For an hour, she stared at the wall, then guttural sobs racked her chest, then mewing cries like those of an injured kitten escaped from her lips, and finally soft gentle moans of Mikael, Mikael, Mikael filled the room, as if he were there and she was talking to him. If I tried to comfort her, she pushed me away, so I sat offering water when I could, offering prayers, offering and offering, but nothing I did took away her pain.
Just this morning I’d been afraid that I might never meet the young man who loved her so. Now I feared if I ever did meet him, I would cut out his heart with a dull knife and feed it to the gulls.
Finally, in the early morning hours, she slept, but I still stared. I remembered my ride past the graveyard with Pauline this morning. I had known. Fear had seized me. Something was wrong. Something was hopelessly and irretrievably wrong. My flesh had crawled. Warning breezes. A candle. A prayer. A hope.
An icy whisper.
A cold clawed hand on my neck.
I hadn’t understood what it had meant, but I had known.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next several days went by in a flurry of emotion and chores. Endless chores, which I was happy to take on. The morning after the news, Pauline woke up, washed her face, fished three coins from her meager savings of tips, and left for the Sacrista. She was there all day, and when she returned, she was wearing a white silk scarf draped over her head, the mourning symbol reserved for widows.
While she was gone, I told Berdi and Gwyneth that Mikael was dead. Gwyneth hadn’t even known he existed, and neither had heard Pauline’s heartfelt stories about him, so they couldn’t quite grasp how she had been affected—until she returned from the Sacrista. Her skin matched the color of the white silk that cascaded down around her face, a pale ghost except for her puffy, red-rimmed eyes. She looked more like a gaunt ghoul returned from the graveyard than the sweet young maid she had been only the day before.