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“Gid—”
“What if they’re right?” he whispers. “What if there is something here I cannot protect them from? I keep telling everyone to have faith, to stay, to trust that God has not abandoned us, and now even men like that are running.”
I sigh and reach for Gideon’s arm, rubbing my hand over the damp wool where it trembles beneath my palm. “Oh, Gid. They were frightened, that’s all. Frightened men say all manner of stupid things, especially when they’ve spent so long starving in the snow.”
His mouth tightens.
“But yes,” I add, gentler now, “it is a shame they’ve gone. Truly. I know what having them here meant to you. Though I confess I shall mourn the midnight screaming rather less.”
He does not smile. His fingers tighten around the front of his cassock, his shoulders straighten, and there is Brother Gideon again, his face twisting.
Oh, here we go.
“This is your fault,” he snaps.
My hand drops from his sleeve. “I beg your pardon?”
“You did not repent.” His eyes dart towards the lychgate, wide and fever-bright, before snapping back to mine. “I brought you to your knees, Ophelia. I warned you what would happen if you did not beg forgiveness for what you offered the Mercer woman. You knelt, but you harboured sin in your heart. You mocked the sacrament, and now the holy men have been driven from our doors by the very evil you invited in.”
A thousand bitter words pile up in my mouth, but I bite them down. “I can assure you, Gideon, whatever drove those men from the cobbles, it was not my fault.”
Iscairn’s hand settles briefly at my waist, giving the smallest squeeze. I gasp at the unexpected touch, but before I can turn towards him, his hand is gone.
Gideon backs away from me, both hands buried in his hair as whatever little composure I managed to coax out of him disappears all over again.
“The Lord has turned His face from Beswick!” he cries. “We are marked, Ophi. Damnation is upon us. The Enemy has taken root in our very—”
A bell clangs somewhere beyond the churchyard and Gideon falters. Heads turn all along the wall as the noise comes nearer, followed by the slow grind of wheels and a ripple of voices moving through the crowd.
A cart appears through the fog, drawn by two shaggy draught horses with their heads bowed against the snow. The driver’s bundled almost beyond recognition in sheepskin, one hand wrapped around the reins while the other swings a brass bell over the side.
“Blankets!” he shouts as the cart rolls over the ditch and into the yard. “Clean wool and cloaks for the sick parish! Salvaged from the lord’s estate down-valley!” The bell clangs again. “The master is dead! His servants send what warmth remains for the winter!”
“Mercy,” Gideon breathes.
Oh, hell.
He crosses the churchyard before I can stop him, cassock dragging through the slush as he throws both arms towards the approaching cart. “Brother Matthias! Brother Leon! Quickly. Help him unload.”
The driver pulls on the reins. “Now, hold there, Brother. You cannot take the lot. I’ve Oakhaven after this, then Barrowbrook and Bruntmarsh before nightfall. Every parish along the road is freezing.”
Gideon looks from the man to the heaps of wool piled behind him, plainly offended by the existence of other villages. “You came here first.”
“Aye. Because Beswick was first on the road.”
Gideon pays him no mind. “You hear that?” he calls to the gathering villagers. “Beswick first. Come, then. Help the Brothers.”
“I did not say you could have all of it—”
Too late. People are already moving.
“Is it truly from the lord’s house?”
“Look at the thickness of it!”
“Mind the horses, Thomas, get back here—”
The driver throws bundles down from the cart, and I catch one before it lands in the slush, dragging it towards a patch of dry stone before working my fingers beneath the twine.
