The Miracle Thief by Iris Anthony

Author:Iris Anthony
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Startled from my work, I turned and then followed the direction of her outflung finger. Over by the hearth in the middle of the room, one of the boys was on his hands and knees, sifting through the ashes.

“Take it away from him, I tell you!”

As I walked over to the lad, he fished a charred twig from the hearth.

Poor lad. He could not have been more than six or seven years old, and in a place like this, he must have been in want of amusement. I could not find it in my heart to blame him for that. I put a hand to his shoulder. He flinched at my touch, threw an arm up over his face, and backed away from me. And then, as I watched, he put the twig to his mouth and took a bite.

“Stop! You cannot—!” I reached for his hand.

Sister Sybilla joined me, face purpled with rage. “Do we not feed him? Do we not lodge him? And this is how we are thanked?” She grabbed him by the arm. “Out with it!” She put a cupped hand to his mouth.

He closed his fist around the twig and shoved it behind his back as he screwed his mouth shut.

“Out with it!” She grabbed hold of his ear and gave it a twist.

His mouth dropped open as his eyes filled with tears.

Applying the heel of her hand to his back, she gave a mighty whack, and the bit of twig flew out of his mouth. “Now give me the rest!”

He gave his head a solemn shake.

“Give it to me! Or I shall—I shall—” She wrenched his arm from his back and pried his fingers apart. Scraping the twig from his hand, she threw it into the fire. And then, taking up a broom, she pushed all the rest of the ashes and charred wood back toward the flames.

Clamping his palms to his ears, he began to scream.

I put a hand to his arm.

He kicked at me and then sprang away toward the door.

“Stop him!” Sister Sybilla shook her broom at his back.

The young lord looked up from a book he had been reading and scrambled to his feet, but by then the lad was long gone.

“Sweet Mary, Mother of God!” She clapped a hand to her mouth, looking as shocked as I was those words had come from her lips. “I give him bread. I give him gruel. And he insists on eating—!” Her words were choked by her frustration. Her face sagging with exhaustion.

“I am sure he does not mean it as ingratitude.”

“What else could it be? For what other reason would he insist upon doing it? And before my very face?”

“Are there not things to which all of us cling? Even when, by their very baseness, they cannot be good for us?”

She looked at me for a moment, mouth slack with incomprehension. And then she lifted her chin in umbrage. “The next time he comes to me with a splinter stuck through his tongue, I’ll send him to you to remove it.

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