The Runaway's Gold by Emilie Burack

Author:Emilie Burack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2015-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

The Visitor

eeper Mann snatched Charles Canfield’s clothes from the floor and stuffed them in his bag. Then he picked up Charles’s boots.

“I’ve been needin’ some a’ these.”

“They don’t belong to you,” I muttered as he grabbed fast to me arm and shoved me into the dimly lit hall.

“You want another smack to the mouth?” he sneered. “Now move along!”

“Who’s come to see me?”

“Quit your talking.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“The airin’ room, of course! Where the law says you good-for-nothin’s have to go each day to stretch your limbs and get your exercise grinding grain.”

The main door to the barracks was open as we passed, the entryway now lined with the people we had seen waiting outside when we first arrived.

“Court’s in session today,” Mann muttered. “These bothersome lowlifes will be hangin’ round all day waitin’ for their turn.”

“Ooooo!” A toothless woman cackled, peering at me from under her hap. “Looks like a new one’s been caught!”

“One a’ the lads the sheriff dragged in this morn,” a stooped man in a woolen cap taunted. “All skin and bones, he is!”

“Hey, lad!” another yelled. “You’ll be an old, old man when they let you out of here.”

“Is it me Daa who’s here?” I pleaded with Keeper Mann. Perhaps I could reason with him—explain what had really happened.

“Your Daa?” Mann chuckled, stopping before a well-worn door just opposite the stairs to the second floor. “Not hardly!” And when he flung the door open, the watery, yellowing eyes of Reverend Sill met me like a wall of stone.

The room was bare except for several chairs next to a few tables fitted with small hand mills for grinding bere and oats. I winced at the sudden shock of light from the three tall windows looking out on the back side of the building.

The reverend’s bent frame rested over his weathered stauf. He looked me up and down, slowly shook his head, then turned to the keeper.

“Leave us.”

“With this sheep-murderin’ thief? Oh, no, Reverend! I’ll not be puttin’ a fine man such as yourself in danger.”

“Young Robertson is a sheep of my flock,” Reverend Sill said, eyes narrowing. “And it is the Lord’s wish that he cleanse his soul before me, not the keeper of this filthy establishment. Tell me, does no one in this place have the sense to clean the stench of waste from within these walls? I assure you, even a lowly crofter’s byre never smells as foul as this.”

“It’s the scent of smugglers and thieves your nose is takin’ in, Reverend,” Mann snapped, spit flying from his mouth. “They bring with them a stench no cow, swine, or sheep could ever make were they stalled up together for all the months of winter.”

He leered at me, licking his cracked purple lips.

“Evil, they are—every one. This one, especially, he has the look, he does. I seen it before. I’m not lettin’ him from me sight.”

Reverend Sill pounded his stauf into the damp stone floor. “Are you telling me that the Lord Almighty will

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