Against a Darkening Sky by Lauren B. Davis

Author:Lauren B. Davis [Davis, Lauren B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443432115
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2015-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

When at last Roswitha falls asleep and there is no more Egan can do before the burial tomorrow, he creeps out of the hut and stumbles into the deeply shadowed snickets. He needs urgently to get away from people, and the hideous frailty of human life. He wants a high place, and he wants to be alone. His mind is scattered. He’d been praying for mother and child when something picked him up by the scruff of the neck and propelled him into the birthing room. It was against all reason, his invading the place of women’s mysteries, and yet he had been compelled. Why? There had been power in that room. He felt it like a heat blast when he entered. There would be talk in the village, questions about why the child had been born malformed. Someone would be held accountable. His heart told him the seithkonas were not to blame. And yet that power. It was thick, dark, disturbing. Only his most earnest invocation had brought the light of Christ into the room. If the Adversary found purchase there, he had to consider the women were involved, but surely as victims, not as witches. Surely. His pace quickens and soon he is running through the village, past the vegetable plots, the thatched workshops, past the pigsties, the silent halls, the byres, and then he forces his legs to slow so he doesn’t startle the guard at the village gate.

“Bit late for a stroll,” says the grizzled, barrel-chested man, eyeing him.

“A hard night …” Egan stammers, unsure of how to say it. “Forgive me, I …” He can’t recall the man’s name.

The man nods. “Dunstan’s wife, is it?”

Althred, yes, that’s it. “Indeed, bless her.”

“Aye,” says Althred. “Margawn told me on his way back from escorting the seithkona woman. Might not have been wise, ah, to leave that sort alone with the mother.”

“Sort?” Egan looks up to the sacred hill. He’ll go there, as soon as this man lets him pass. He’ll go up there and let the night winds cleanse his soul. The snow shines, glints, beneath the thick crescent moon.

“Well, I hardly need to tell you. People are none too pleased. Way things ended up. Considerable power those women got. Might shoulder a grudge or two, you catch my meaning.”

Egan’s head snaps round to face Althred. “No, no. They did all they could … everything. No one could have done more.”

Althred lays a finger beside his nose. “You say so. You say so. But some of us think it best they move on. Lord Caelin seems to think so. One way or t’other.”

For a moment Brother Egan isn’t quite sure what the man means, and then he does. “I have no intention of … chastisement. They’ve done nothing to be punished for, Brother Althred. We must be clear on that. We must not gossip.” He believes this; he is sure he does. And yet, there’s a small wedge of doubt, a niggle of fear.

“Gossip, is it? That’s an old woman’s game.

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