Chapter 10. “Fled the village?” William cried frantically, staring over Giles Roberts’s shoulder to the straw piles where his wife and daughter were twisting in

“Fled the village?” William cried frantically, staring over Giles Roberts’s shoulder to the straw piles where his wife and daughter were twisting in terror against the wooden stakes that held them.

“Before dawn,” Giles repeated solemnly.

“But I paid Matthew—!” William cried. “I paid him to—”

“The Fiers robbed us,” Giles told him. “They emptied the storehouse. They left us no food for winter. They took everything. Everything.”

“I—I don’t understand!” William cried, feeling the ground tilt and whirl beneath him. He shut his eyes, tried to steady himself.

“They loaded all their belongings onto wagons,” Giles told him. “And they disappeared with all of our supplies.”

“But didn’t they speak to you before they left?” William demanded, desperately clutching at Giles. “Didn’t Benjamin tell you? Didn’t Matthew tell you?”

“They didn’t speak to me, William,” Giles replied softly. And then he added firmly, “Please let go of me.”

“But the sentence against my wife and daughter was to be reversed! They are to be freed, Giles! Benjamin should have told you. He should have—”

“He told me nothing,” Giles said. The deputy magistrate’s features grew hard. “The sentence must be carried out.”

There was no use struggling, Susannah realized.

Her hands were tightly bound. She could not free herself from the stake. It poked uncomfortably into her back. Her wrists throbbed against the tight cords. Her shoulders ached.

She raised her eyes to the sky. The sun had lowered itself behind the trees, the trees she had loved to walk among. The piney sweet-smelling trees that had brought her so much joy. The trees where she and Edward had hidden during their brief secret meetings, during her brief happiness.

Lowering her eyes, she thought she saw Edward.

He stood at the edge of the crowd, staring back at her.

At first Susannah saw hurt in his eyes. Pain.

But as she gazed at him, his face appeared to harden before her eyes, until it became a mask of cold hatred.

She cried out—and realized it wasn’t him.

It wasn’t Edward.

The boy didn’t look at all like Edward.

Two circles of yellow light approached from out of the grayness.

Two torches.

“Mother—” Susannah cried. “Mother, will it hurt?”

Tears streamed down Martha Goode’s swollen cheeks. She turned her face from her daughter, struggling to stifle her sobs.

“Will it hurt, Mother? Tell me, Mother—will it hurt?”

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20