The tough skin of the roots scraped Nick’s hands, reluctant to let go of their neighbors.
Gritting his teeth against the minor pains and burns, Nick yanked and tore at the roots with the same fierceness he tackled words in strange languages and obscure meanings. He never slid over a problem by making a tiny notation in the margin that the word was Greek and therefore untranslatable. He always figured it out and Brother Theo appreciated that he didn’t interrupt the flow of work in the scriptorium to stop and ask one of the few scholars who knew the ancient language.
He tugged repeatedly at a particularly tangled clump of ground vines. They did not budge, not even a tiny wiggle of movement. He investigated the intertwining roots and twisted greenery with his fingers. Mote by mote, grains of dirt hit his face. Then . . . then he encountered something more solid. The frame of the trapdoor!
“If I can’t break the frame, I’ll have to move around it.” He moved his hands to the right and found looseness again in the mat.
“Just do it. You’re getting heavy,” Henry protested.
Nick attacked the dirt with more vigor. Before long, he had made a hole as wide as his shoulders. Then it was a not-so-simple maneuver to get his feet onto Henry’s shoulders to haul himself onto solid ground. His palms were raw from grabbing at slight handholds until he stood upright, head, shoulders, and chest well above the roof of the cave. He braced himself on the more solid framework, then wiggled and twisted, pulling himself forward until he could get one knee up, then the other.
He paused to breathe deeply.
“Are you free?” Henry called.
“Yes,” Nick panted.
“Then get me out before the pig comes back!”
“Coming.” Nick sat on solid ground, well back from the crumbling edge of the hole that had trapped them before. He tied one end of the rope around his waist and a goodly-sized knot on the other end and dropped it through the hole.
In moments, Henry scrambled upward as quickly as he climbed the ivy on the outside wall of the dormitory. Nick had never trusted the plants not to betray his breaking of the rules by sneaking in and out that way.
“What about me?” the faery yelled.
Nick and Henry looked at each other.
“Rescuing him is how we got into trouble,” Nick said, as he dropped the knotted end of the rope back in the hole. “Help me pull.”
Henry grabbed the rope and started pulling as soon as they felt the weight of the last prisoner.
Bringing him up was harder than their own escape. Sweating and panting, they finally spotted the man’s green hair emerging through the opening. Then his pale face and grimy clothes. At last half his body lay sprawled on the chancy root mat.
Nick began looping the rope together.
“I’m not free yet,” the faery whined. His wings appeared to be the same faded green as his clothing, the color of old bracken ferns.
“Then crawl. You can’t expect us to do everything for you.”
He looked honestly bewildered, his long nose nearly meeting his sharp chin, and his pointed ears twitching among strands of brittle hair that looked like dried moss. “Queen Mab says that’s what humans are for, to bend their knees to us and hasten to satisfy our every whim.”
“Queen Mab isn’t here, Bracken.” Nick chose the name on a whim, because the faery’s coloring and clothing reminded Nick of one of the specimen plants in Brother Luke’s garden. The faery didn’t even notice, too eager to be free.
Henry yanked the rope free of the faery’s hands and untied their sandals.
“She’s been wrong before, not that I’d ever say that to her face.”
“Is that the excuse she gives to claim the right to trap people and take them back to the Faery Mound as your slaves?”
“Yes.”
“We aren’t slaves, nor are we serfs!” Henry shouted angrily. “We joined the abbey and our vows to God set us free!”
“Huh?”
Nick wound his belt around his waist so that it held his robe high enough he didn’t trip on the hem. Henry did the same, needing to pull up the lengths of heavy wool higher than Nick.
Then they pelted off down the track in the direction they’d intended to go some hours before.
Twenty-Two
Hilde leaned against the door to the storeroom, pounding feebly on the stout wooden panels. “Help me. Somebody, please help me,” she wailed, though it came out as little more than a whisper through her tired and raw throat.
Her hands were raw from pounding on the door; her fingernails ripped to the quick from trying to pick away the mortar between stone blocks. Anything to escape.
She rested her forehead against the door, eyes closed and palms flat against the wood. A tiny sound caressed her ears. She opened her eyes wide, as if vision might augment her hearing. The sound did not repeat, but she realized that her eyes must have adjusted to the feeble light.
Hours had passed. How long had she been trapped inside this tiny space? She was surprised she could still breathe. Now she could pick out shapes. Lumpy sacks had been piled into neat stacks.
Her stomach growled with hunger and the pressure below built steadily without a chamber pot or privy available.
Was the humiliation of using a corner to relieve herself any worse than being trapped in here by a vindictive nun?
Not for the first time, she wished the Mother Abbess would return. Sister Marie Josef seemed calmer and less likely to take out her anger against the outside world on the girls when the Mother Abbess maintained her authority over all the sisters and the orphans and girls pledged to the Church by their parents.
But the Mother Abbess was gone, and by the king’s decree, no one could take her place to keep a balance of discipline and mercy.
Her bladder would wait no longer. Maybe if she cleared a space behind the sacks of grain against the outside wall, then covered the spot again, no one would know. If anyone ever released her.
Crossing her legs, she gingerly bent to slide the first sack of grain aside. The weight of it nearly undid her resolve to hold it all in. But she persevered and soon had three sacks, almost as heavy as herself, cleared away from the wall.
And there lay her salvation. A small arched opening where the floor joined the wall, designed for drainage in wet weather, and the only source of light. The roof must not be tight on this wing to need a drain. But the arched opening also provided an entry for mice and rats.
She shuddered at the thought of sharing this room for so long with vermin. At least they’d been polite and not made their presence known.
Another poor choice was to use this room for storage of grain and tuber vegetables. They’d invited rodents to come in. It should have been used as a garderobe.
Whoever had built the convent had been more concerned with solid walls that could not be breached than proper drainage and seam-free roofs.
She bent to examine the size of the opening, forgetting about other pressing matters for the nonce. One look showed her that the ground was only a few feet below and led to the herb garden. She didn’t see anyone working the long rows of greenery; plants she’d made tidy with her own hard work.
Maybe the builders thought that short distance between the ground and the opening would deter vermin. Not likely.
They’d also made the hole big enough that if she twisted and stretched just so, she might fit. Good thing that Sister Marie Josef preferred to starve the girls rather than let them grow plump enough to attract a husband.
First things first. Her escape route would be a tight squeeze and put undue pressure on her bladder. She scrambled to the far corner, hiked up her robe, and squatted.
Relief let her drop her hunched shoulders to a more natural level. When her thighs began to shake, she stood and righted herself. Time to manage her escape.
Spreading her fingers on both hands,
Hilde measured the height and breadth of the opening. Should she go head first? If she did that, then once her shoulders cleared the opening, she could easily slide the rest of her through, but end up face-first in the dirt below. Arms, head, shoulders . . .
A scraping sound at the door brought her upright with a jolt.
Someone outside lifted the bar that locked her in.
She was done pleading for help and appearing weak. She remembered Dom fighting off older and stronger boys who tormented their younger brother because he was weak of mind and dragged one leg. She’d not appear weak again. Sister Marie Josef might not direct all of her venom toward Hilde if Hilde fought back.
“Still waiting for rescue by some man, I see,” Sister Marie Josef said as she threw back the door so hard it banged and bounced against the outside wall. She held the crossbar as if preparing for battle with a quarter staff. “Have you learned the error of your ways yet?” Sister Marie Josef asked.
Hilde met her question with stony silence.
Then the sister wrinkled her nose. “Uncivilized wanton! You should stay in here with your own stink a while longer.”
“No,” Hilde replied, rushing forward. She grabbed the crossbar and pushed the older woman hard until she stumbled against the stacked grain bags. She plunged forward, onto the covered walkway before she turned and spoke again. “I’ll go live in the wild before I succumb to your twisted view of discipline. I’d rather live as a beldame for the rest of my life than subject myself to your punishments for imagined sins.”
“You deserve to be humiliated and die at the hands of a man, no better than a wild beast. Both you and your defiler!” Sister Marie Josef shouted. Her face turned bright red and spittle dribbled from her mouth in anger.
Hilde didn’t care if she fell into a fit. She turned abruptly and marched three steps back toward the dormitory only to bump into Sister Mary Margaret. They both recoiled, flailing for balance again.
“What troubles you, child?” the senior sister asked, hands reaching to soothe and straighten Hilde’s hair where it escaped her no-longer-tight braids.
“She troubles me.” Hilde pointed back to the storeroom as Sister Marie Josef staggered through the door, still clutching the crossbar.
“Oh.” Sister Mary Margaret’s face fell into folds of disappointment. Age wrinkles deepened around her eyes and down from her mouth. “I thought we agreed that you may no longer use that place to discipline the girls.”
“They need . . .”
“You think we need torture?” Hilde screamed. “You are so afraid of yourself you have to make us cower at your power. No more. I’m leaving. Right now.”
“Then you go with no more than your shift!” Sister Marie Josef’s hand reached to tear the heavy woolen robe from Hilde. Her fingers arched and clutched like the talons of a lord’s hunting hawk.
“No.” Sister Mary Margaret stepped between them. “Mother Abbess thought this place would bring you peace, Sister Marie Josef. I know you were ill-used by your father and it destroyed the balance of joy and despair in your mind. But you can no longer use that as an excuse to make the girls hurt as much as you do. You need time to yourself, on your knees in prayer.”
“You have no authority . . .” Sister Marie Josef protested.
Sister Mary Margaret stopped her words with an upheld hand. “Mother Abbess left me in charge until she returns from exile when this war between our king and the Holy Father ends. I know we are supposed to make these decisions together, with all the sisters in Chapter Meeting. But you have gone too far. You will go to the Lady Chapel now and pray for forgiveness.” She pointed toward the little church at the corner of the square cloister. “And you will not speak to or touch any of the girls again, until a priest comes to hear your confession and sees you repentant and worthy of forgiveness.”
Clenching her hands into fists, Sister Marie Josef turned and marched to the church, cutting across the normally peaceful flower garden at the center rather than folding her hands into her sleeves and walking along the stone-paved shelter of the walkway.
“I apologize to you, Hilde, because she never will. I am certain the punishment meted out to you was undeserving of your misbehavior.”
“’Twas not misbehavior. ’Twas her anger that needed satisfaction in punishing anyone for not being a victim.”
“Please, find it in your heart to forgive her. To forgive us. She sought safety here. But she never found peace. Her mother blamed her for her father’s misdeeds. Sister Marie Josef believed her mother’s accusations and continues to try to shift the guilt from her own shoulders to you girls.”
Hilde shook her head. “I do not trust this place. I’m leaving.”
“You have no place to go, child.”
“I’d rather live with the Woodwose than endure one more night here.”
“No!” Sister Mary Margaret gasped, clutching her throat and her chest. “They trespass on the king’s preserve. Runaway serfs. Outlaws! They and their village are so far outside the law that they will hang one and all if they are captured.”
Hilde shrugged her shoulders. “I’ll take my chances. Life in the forest seems safer than in here.”
* * *
Little John sighed with a tear in his eye as the other Forest Folk lined up to touch each of the three large stones in turn. After receiving blessing from the triad, they separated to touch a much smaller stone at the far side of the fire pit at the center of the sacred space. A brief prayer, a deep breath, and they drifted away in ones or twos or small family groups. Only Tuck and Little John’s sons remained to share these last few moments of mourning. Lyndon had passed, his left hand flat against the base of the tallest standing stone.
“I need my tree,” Little John said. He nodded to Derwyn, the eldest, the one most likely to succeed him. “Please stay and take care of what needs to be done.”
His son nodded acknowledgment. He was not yet comfortable with human speech. But he’d learn.
“One more chore, then you may sleep until Midsummer when it will be time to free Jane,” Tuck said, touching Little John’s arm in a truly human gesture of comfort.
“Do we bury him, or do you?” Little John asked. He surveyed the outer circle, seeking a gap. He found a small one between two well-worn stones marking the burials of two of the folk so long passed no one remembered whose bones lay beneath the boulders. Yet Little John, the Green Man and Lord of the Forest, remembered. The knowledge had been passed to him by his father, along with many other things. Both of those graves belonged to humans, one a runaway serf, the other a thief missing a hand for his crimes. Both had been welcomed when the Romans ruled sections of this land. “The Romans never truly ruled the people of our land. We nodded compliance then did as we chose, as those two did,” he said.
“Brother Luke shed his attachment to the Church and returned here to die. His soul has merged with the stones, as have so many others. He may rest here in the circle, as he chose, remembered as Lyndon.” Tuck bowed his head and made the sign of the cross, then he, too, made the rounds, touching the triad of standing stones, then the marker where the Huntsmen were entombed, one atop the other, all in the same place, no one individual remembered as anything more or less than The Huntsman of his generation.
Little John nodded. The duty of digging a grave fell to him. Derwyn could help, but Little John needed to plant his old friend.
A thrashing through the undergrowth diverted his attention away from his sad chore. He centered his awareness on the noise. Three sets of feet trod the ground, in a hurry. More like two and a half.
Nick was easy to identify. He’d already made enough of an impression on the forest for the land and plants to remember him. The second felt akin to him. Another abbey boy. But the third?
He sniffed the air and found nothing familiar surrounding the third person. Defensively, he stepped outside the circle, unwilling t
o defile the sacred space with violence if it came to that.
“Who comes?” he bellowed.
Nick burst into sight, running hard, constantly looking over his shoulder. Behind him, a slighter, fairer boy followed, falling a little bit behind with each step.
“Sanctuary!” Nick gasped, panting heavily and looking pale beneath his normally robust complexion. His willow-green eyes had lost the brilliant shine of curiosity in favor of panic.
“I grant you safety within my realm,” Little John replied with the ritual words.
“Thank you,” Nick and the other boy said at the same time as they skidded to a halt just before the boundary of the circle. They both bent over, hands on their knees while they gasped for breath.
Little John barely looked at them, all his attention on the third set of halting steps.
And then he saw wavery movement within the undergrowth. His back stiffened and the hair at his nape stood on end.
“Why do you trespass, faery?” he bellowed again, widening his stance and balling his hands into fists.
“Please, Lord of the Greenwood, I, too, beg sanctuary.” The faery with drooping wings fluttered and stuttered to a halt just behind the two boys. He stood taller than Nick by a head, yet appeared slighter as if he had no flesh on his bones. Everything about him made him look more akin to the ferns than humans, from the shape of his wings to the texture of his hair.
“Why should I grant shelter and safety to my sworn enemy?”
“What?”
“You can’t tell me that you don’t know that you and your kind trapped my Jane, my one true lady love, and took her back underground as your slave!”
“Jane?”
Little John stared at the faery, speechless. “What one of you knows, all of you know,” he finally spat out. “I will trade you for Jane.”
“Would your Jane be human rather than dryad? I only ask because, you being the Green Man, Lord of the Forest, one would expect you to mate with your own kind,” the faery said. He looked around rapidly, startling at every sound.
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