Page 3 of A Waltz with Lord Death
“Ah, Radolf and Margery. What brings you in today?”
Margery burst into tears, slumping into a chair at the table as if unable to support her own weight. “I have an awful feeling that my child will die upon childbirth. I’ve been having horrible dreams about a complicated delivery. If my child doesn’t die, then I surely will.”
Meira exercised caution as she joined the couple at the table. To confirm the woman’s suspicions would be to lose their business, and perhaps others’ business as well. But to deliver false hope only to be wrong would cast shadows upon her reputation.
There was a fine line between being called a witch and being called a fortune-teller.
Is it her gut telling her this? Or deceitful, lucid dreams?
“And you would like to know whether your child will live?”
Both her customers nodded.
Taking the woman’s hand, Meira traced the heart line, noting how shallow it looked. Not only that, but she noticed the woman’s pale skin, her rapid breathing, and her occasional wince. She was already in labor.
“You must hurry home,” she said in a low, captivating voice. “Rest, for your child will come soon. If not today, then tomorrow. Do you have an experienced midwife?”
Radolf answered, “My sister-in-law plans on delivering the baby.”
Ah, the sister. Ayleth. Barely nineteen years old. Hardly an experienced midwife bone in her body. At the very best, she’d been present during a few births, but not enough to deliver a baby herself.
Meira shook her head and clicked her tongue as she shuffled the tarot cards and pulled three out one by one, unveiling them from left to right. The High Priestess. The Empress. The Wheel of Fortune. “A bad omen hangs over the heads of family today. You must find another midwife, and family must not be in the room until after the delivery.”
“Pardon?” Margery gasped. “But my sister has taken such good care of me so far.”
“You came to me asking for guidance. If you want your baby to survive, this is what is required of you.”
While the woman wept, her husband helped her to her feet and mouthedthank youbefore placing a couple of coins on the table. They took their leave, all while Margery cried, “How will I ever tell her? She will be most upset.”
The moment they disappeared, Meira clipped a few sprigs of black tea leaves with the intention of preserving them, when a commotion outside startled her. She dropped her clippers as the din of shouts grew closer. Not able to fend off curiosity for long, she burst out of the small dwelling, only to find several men straining to carry a deathly pale farmer toward the healer’s cottage. His arms hung limp, swaying with each laboring step the men took. His lungs rattled with each breath.
“What happened?” Meira gasped as she approached a group of fretting ladies watching the display.
It was Biby who answered, her eyebrows drawn in worry. “An entire wheat field succumbed to disease. I assume Farmer Ansgot contracted whatever is ailing the crops.”
Worry creased her own brows as she watched the group of men disappear down the dirt road and into the healer’s cottage. Without grain… How were they to survive the winter?
Judging by the anxiety crackling through the air, everyone else wondered the same thing. She glanced to the gray skies, the thunder rolling more distantly across the landscape, further away from the town of Baywick.
A bad omen, indeed.
Chapter 3
Time.
She was a valuable thing, both in the mortal world and the otherworld. Nothing could stop her. Nothing could defy her. No matter the year, no matter the place, no matter the circumstance, the clock kept ticking.
And today, she was as irritating as a donkey’s braying.
“Where are you going, Death?” Betha smiled, trailing behind him. Her neat blonde hair bounced with each step, her green eyes alive with curiosity. Few people did not fear his shadow hounds. She was one of them. Barret had been another.
His feet crunched against rocks, his eyes scanning the road ahead of him. Villagers crossed his path many times as they drove wagons, rode horses, or gossiped in a circle of friends. He side-stepped a rolling wagon full of grain harvested too early, still green, and not yet ripened. It was either harvest it or lose it to disease.
He cast a glare at the unruly hounds slithering and bouncing like ethereal black fog near his feet. “Famine will come upon these people.”
If she cared that he didn’t answer her question, she didn’t show it. Rather, she ambled beside him, kicking one of his shadows when it nipped at her heels. The hound yelped and moved to the opposite side of him.
“Since when have you cared about preserving lives?” she asked, latching onto his arm. At least she couldn’t die from his touch like everything and everyone else did.
