Page 3 of Heart of Snow
I nodded, crouching beside the boy to unwind the bandage from his head. There had been some bleeding, but nothing troubling. Head wounds always bled more than other injuries.
Belinda knelt in the grass next to me, holding him steady as she quietly asked, “Margaretha, what if your brother was captured? Would that not be reason enough for you to go to Brussels?”
“Belinda.” I sighed.
“You could be the means of saving him. With your exquisite beauty, I’d wager you could win the love of any man in Brussels. Just be sure he’s a man sympathetic to our cause, and with power too. If he has the queen’s and kaiser’s respect, once you marry, your brother is as good as free.”
“Marry?” I gave her a piercing look, then twisted the bandage around the boy’s head. “The man could be an ogre. I won’t marry for mere advantage.”
“But if it meant saving Samuel’s life? Is there any sacrifice too great?”
My bandage winding slowed. If there was a chance my brother was still alive, I’d do anything to keep him safe.
“My people!” Father’s booming voice made me jump, and I turned to find him standing atop a bench, gripping a flaming torch in his right hand.
The witch burning.
I had to escape. Hurriedly tucking the bandage into itself and handing the boy to his mother, I squeezed my way through and around the people listening to Father’s speech.
“Tonight is Walpurgisnacht, when the veil thins between the living and dead and the devil’s followers are in full power. As it’s a night for witches to meet their master, Satan, on the high mount Brocken and cavort in all manner of evil, should we not speed their journey to the inferno and burn them all to hell?”
The crowd roared their approval. I ducked beneath a few raised arms, noticing a thinning in the throng. We were nearly free.
“It has been tradition for my son, Count Samuel”—Father coughed, as if trying to conceal emotion—“to set the witchablaze. In his absence, I give the honor to another. Lady Margaretha.”
I stopped cold, the blood draining from my face. My feet were stone, rooting me to the spot.
There was no escaping now.
Belinda nudged me from behind. “You must go to him.”
Casting a final, longing look at the road to home, I slowly pivoted to face my father. He inclined the torch, offering it to me, and I stumbled forward, my motions awkward and wooden.
“My lord.” I bowed when I reached the bench, then lifted my face to whisper, “I don’t wish this. Give the honor to another.”
“Send the witch to the devil!” an old man called out, and the people cheered.
Father’s glistening eyes were soft, oblivious to the pain he caused as he pushed the torch closer. “For Samuel,” he whispered.
I drew in a steadying breath and took it from him, squeezing the stave in my trembling hands while I turned to face the witch. Her stained white rags stood stark against the backdrop of an inky sky. Though I’d kept my eyes from her all night, finally seeing her now, I couldn’t look away. I felt drawn to her. Moving one foot forward, then another, my steps came easier as I walked in a trance through the parting throng. At my left, a woman whispered to her child, “Watch for the black smoke. That’s when the witch flees the fire and flies to hell.” A sudden gust threw the torch’s smoke back in my eyes, and I blinked against the burn and tears, focusing ahead on the blurred figure before me.
Reaching the crisscrossed logs of the pyre, another gust snatched up the witch’s tattered gown, slapping it against the wooden cross onto which she’d been tied. Unbidden, the image of a mud-stained chemise thrashed by churning smoke flashed through my mind, then was gone. My breath came quick at the memory.
“Light her!” a woman called out. Others joined her, echoing the cry.
I swallowed and pushed the torch through the chinks, holding the fire against the kindling until it smoked and smoldered and burst alive. Yellow flames licked the logs, biding their time, teasing their wooden prey before they slowly, unrelentingly consumed it. I remembered flames equally hungry and merciless crawling over a different pyre to taste the naked feet of the woman tied above.
Because of me.
The bonfire grew to an unbearable heat, forcing me to retreat, but my gaze stayed riveted on the straw witch. As the flames curled around her face, her eyes remained blank. Expressionless. Devoid of pain or agony or reproach. Completely unlike the real woman who’d burned. The plumes of blazing air had churned around her—the town healer—lifting her ebony hair and blurring her features until the only thing visible was her anguish.
Guilt scorched as much as the swelling fire before me, and I stepped farther back, pushing myself to the outskirts of the crowd to shield my face from the intensity of the heat. Yet it was nothing close to what the healer had endured, not even a start to comprehending the pain she’d suffered. How could I ever understand?
At the edge of my vision, my torch flickered. I pulled it closer, watching the fire writhe, mesmerized by the shifting shades of yellow and orange. I lifted my hand and stroked it over the flame as though smoothing the hair of a child. Heat singed across my palm, the sensation quick and painless, the warmth transfixing me further. I found myself raising my hand to try again.
Strong fingers wrapped around my wrist, waking me from my trance as a man behind me spoke.
“You’ll find noble flesh burns the same as common.”
