The old woman held on even though her body failed more every day and the pain in her bones grew steadily worse. Her wasting disease showed no remorse, daily marching her closer to death. Mia did not understood why Margarite held on. She, too, once had a will to live, even through times when nothing existed to live for. But then she had been young, and there had been hope. For Margarite, what hope was there but death? Death would relieve Margarite’s suffering, so why did she resist it?

  Mia sighed, walking to the pottage, waving a hand at Margarite to signal that the meal was on the way. She stirred the pottage, careful to scrape along the bottom where most of the meat had sunk. Margarite should put some more weight on her frail frame. She might feel better if she had more cushion, more softness around her bones.

  Mia hoped Margarite’s sense of smell was still intact. The sage, already good for picking this early in the season, blended well with the rosemary. Sage lent a lovely green undertone in their tiny home that always smelled of sharp, sweet rosemary. Rosemary stayed green and lush through the final frost of spring and needed no care from Mia. She loved it for being so dependable. She loved it for not needing her.

  Ladling the pottage into a wooden bowl, Mia pushed a chair close to Margarite’s and took the spoon from her. Margarite stared at her with a closed mouth, nodding in the direction of Alma, who played with a kitten. The kitten’s mother had depended on Mia for scraps in the winter, and Mia regarded the kitten as a welcome visitor. She would have to shoo it outside before Bjorn got home. But it was not the kitten that agitated Margarite.

  Little Alma had those dark red circles under her eyes again, looking as if she had been beaten overnight.

  Mia looked back at Margarite, her own stomach churning. Margarite nodded. Though deaf and not always lucid, this one thing she understood: Alma remained very sick, and Mia remained helpless. A rare moment of understanding passed between the women, a generous miracle. Another woman saw her struggle and did not judge. Mia would spoon a thousand mouthfuls of pottage for that one blessing.

  Since her first true friend, Rose, had abruptly deserted her two years ago without reason, refusing to have anything to do with her, Mia had not known the comfort of another woman’s reassurance. Mia’s heart pinched at the thought of Rose’s strange, silent betrayal. Mia had poured herself, for the first time, into friendship with another woman, nursing Rose along after her husband died, when she had nearly died herself from grief. Mia reminded herself she could not think on it any longer. It only caused confusion, and Mia had plenty of confusion already. Even if she scraped the bottom of that old pot, what would she find but more trouble? She didn’t have to know the truth. Truth wouldn’t make it hurt less. She remembered what truth did to those who were not ready for it. What Mia needed was answered prayer for Alma. If God ever heard her prayers and healed Alma, Mia would not ask for anything else again. She swore this to Him, but it had not prompted Him to act.

  Bjorn slammed the wooden door wide open, making the wood crack along the bottom. Mia jumped, stifling a groan of complaint. The cold night breezes must be kept out, away from Alma.

  She forced a smile and cleared her throat.

  Bjorn heard her stifled groan; she could tell by the way he sat at the table staring at her with an angry face. He looked tired and likely to start a quarrel. Mia kept spooning the pottage into the mouth of Margarite, who stared in the distance.

  “What happened with Stefan yesterday morning?” she asked. Bjorn had left with Stefan early and then had come home drunk last night, angry and unsteady. Mia had lain in bed, stiff with dread, trying not to move until his breathing became deep and steady.

  “Is there a reason you let Alma bring an animal in the house?” he asked.

  “It keeps her happy while I feed Margarite,” Mia said, keeping her voice even.

  “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “I know, husband, and I meant to put it out before you came home. You returned early today.”

  “Is that all that happens while I am away, Mia? Or are there other betrayals?”

  She glanced at him, a darting look to judge his expression. “What did you say?”

  He folded his arms. “I’m hungry.”

  Mia wiped Margarite’s mouth and settled the blanket up higher on her lap. She pointed to the window, where the sun made its marvelous exit from the afternoon. Margarite liked watching the sunsets.

  Alma had walked, in halting, heavy steps, to the door, her breath bubbling, the squawking kitten tucked under her arm. Mia nodded for them to go, knowing Alma would stay near the door until Mia had the warm evening milk ready for the kitten.

  She ladled pottage into another bowl and set it before Bjorn, trying not to meet his eye. She had done nothing wrong. She did not want to be flayed for someone else’s sins. Not today. She had spent her dawn hours holding Alma, who had to force each breath through a tightened chest, sweating from the exertion of just surviving the night.

  Mia had prayed in the name of every saint she could think of, but no help came. She stood condemned in their eyes of some unnamed sin. Any hope she had of a miracle for Alma became more distant with every passing season. Alma should have been much taller and stronger. If she did not gain in strength this spring, Mia knew the next winter would be waiting for her. Winter was never satisfied here, taking new children every week. It had waited three times for Alma. It would not wait again next year, Mia knew. She knew the saints heard her pleas for her child, but the battle would be determined by who fought for Alma with greater force: the bitter winter or the vanished saints.

  Bjorn looked at the pottage but did not eat.

  “May I get you something, husband?” Mia asked, sweeping the filthy straw on the floor into a corner so he would not smell it tonight as he slept.

  “Bread?”

  “Oh. I did not make bread today. I’m sorry. I stayed up with Alma and fell asleep this afternoon.”

  “You are either a good wife or you are not.” He slammed his fist down on the table, making the pottage slosh out of the bowl. “What do you do while I work? Why can I not trust you?”

  “Bjorn.” Mia scolded. She didn’t mean to.

  “You raise your voice to me in my own home?” He dumped his pottage on the floor. “That will give you something to do,” he said, walking to the bedroom. “Keep you at home.”

  Mia felt the rage shooting up through her veins, taking control of every last ounce of common sense and decency. She had no control, her exhaustion eating through the last of her self-control.

  “I am kept at home! I am busy! I have a sick child! And I feed and wash your mother who cannot even thank me. Other wives would roll her down the hill and straight into the river. Then they’d be free to make your bread. Is that what you want?”

  He was on her before she blinked, his hand around her throat.

  “You were nothing but a filthy cow when I married you.”

  “Is that why you don’t love me anymore? Am I too dirty for you?”

  “You know what you are.” His grip grew tighter. “Say it.”

  “What am I today? Shrew? Cow? Nag? What does that make you?”

  “A fool.”

  He dropped his hold on her, grabbing his cloak as he walked out. “You will regret talking to me like this. When you cannot stop Alma from coughing and you are on your knees saying your rosary, begging God to hear you, you’ll remember what you said to me in my own home. You’ll know why God won’t answer your prayers.”

  Chapter Seven

  Stefan polished the altar until his arms burned, not knowing when his secret rebellion would be made known. He saw that Erick had already spread fresh straw and polished the wood doors and had done a fine job. After Stefan checked that his robes were clean and his hair combed, he sat on the first bench, staring at the altar with the picture of Christ hung above it. The air in the church rested still and cold, faint scents of straw and incense tempting him to close his eyes, just for a moment, and savor a brief, secret rest.

  Instead he stood, walking back up to the altar, turning to look down at the pews. Everything must look perfect before the Inquisitor’s arrival. He mentally noted where he would like to see certain people seated for the next Mass. He wanted his esteemed guest to have a stunning first impression. He rubbed his chin, considering what else must be done.

  He remembered an errand he had to run in the square, so he walked down the church steps. He turned around to look at his church and took it in with a grin. It had never looked better. Everyone would be impressed, even those who usually slept through Mass. But that would not happen again. Never again, once his guest arrived.

  Opening the church doors, little Marie squealed to see him, rushing to grab his hand. She had been on her way in.

  “Come and see, Father Stefan! The sheriff caught the wolf last night! He was enormous!”

  A wolf’s limp body hung from a stake in front of the church, visible to all in the market. Shepherds who killed predators would hang the carcass near their flock as warning to other animals. Stefan wondered why Bjorn chose this spot; his flock was behind the church, farther out where the pleasant grazing was.

  Stefan had never seen a dead wolf, and he approached it with cautious steps. It held a strange beauty. Stefan stood under it, fascinated as he reached up to touch its paw with a deep sigh. He had not realized that he had been holding his breath, and the sudden gasping exhalation left him light-headed. The wolf was so beautiful. Had he been wrong to have it killed? How could an animal of such majesty and beauty be evil?

  Stefan ran his hand over the ridges of his paws, through the soft sable perfection of his fur. He ran his hand next over the velvet muzzle and saw a flash of red wipe across his palm. Lifting one side of its thick black lip up, he saw the flesh of one of his own lambs shredded between the sharp teeth of the wolf. Stefan dropped his hand and stumbled backward. Appearances deceive, he reminded himself. Nothing is as it seems in a fallen world.

  “What will you do with him?” Marie chirped. He looked down, realizing she was at his side. She was unafraid of the dead wolf. She seemed more fascinated by Stefan. He wondered how he must appear to her, how the young saw the old. He probably seemed like a living relic.

  “I will have Bjorn take it down and carry it into the woods to dispose of it. He has made his point to the village.”

  Marie nodded and saw something of interest in the market. She motioned for him to lean down, as if to whisper a secret, then pecked him on the cheek before dashing away. He shook his head. Mysteries abounded in the world.

  Turning for the market as well, he concentrated on steady breathing, clasping his hands behind his back to maintain his dignity. He saw little work being done and very few sales being made. Yet he saw many people, mostly villagers, standing close to each other, mincing tender details among themselves, lurid speculations about poor Catarina and who her lover might have been.

  “What are you doing?” Stefan said, tapping the villager Paulus on the shoulder. The man was standing in a circle of gossipers. “If we feed on the details of sin, we’ll stir up our own appetites. I suggest you direct your energies toward finer pursuits. Make ready your stalls; put out your finest merchandise.”

  Paulus, red in the face now to be caught at a woman’s game of gossip, nodded and attended to his stall at once.

  Stefan had preached on the destructive nature of gossip not long ago. Little good it had done. Bjorn would have appreciated the irony. Parishioners agonized over whether God heard their prayers, but priests agonized over whether the parishioners heard a word God said.

  “We must present our best, our bravest faces today,” Stefan said to the remaining villagers in the circle. “What do we want to be known for? A terrible crime? Or that we ran evil out of this village—that we are the bravest, most devout people in all the land?”

  They all probably thought him mad. He hoped they trusted him anyway.

  He had made excellent arrangements for the Inquisitor. He cocked one ear to the wind, listening for the sound of hoofbeats, the sound of approaching deliverance.

  Stefan noted with satisfaction that every pew was filled, except the very first ones. Only Mia sat on one of those. Soon, when neighboring villages heard, even the first pews would be coveted. Mia sat alone, seemingly unaware of anyone else, with her red face and puffy eyes, saying her rosary under her breath, her fingers flying over each of the beads. She probably does not even consider the words, Stefan thought. She doesn’t linger over them long enough to let them do their work in her.

  She probably had disappointed Bjorn again and was feeling guilty. Stefan could tell. She would expect him to sit through a long confession, and in the end, she would not be a better wife to Bjorn. She only wanted Alma healed. She did not want to work harder. Stefan frowned. He could offer God’s forgiveness, but could he change God’s mind? Alma was as she was created. Mia was as she was created. Stefan could do nothing, really, except exhort Mia, once again, to rise above her own nature and learn to trust God. Much work needed to be done with Mia. Others surely knew that too, as they avoided sitting with her, filling in the pews just behind her.

  Rose, the widow from the village whose husband had died early in her marriage, sat behind Mia. Though the women claimed the same age and Stefan had seen them once growing as close as sisters, it was clear that they were not friends anymore. Rose stared at the back of Mia’s head.

  Women’s jealousy proved a strong sin to contend against. That’s what Stefan figured was Rose’s conflict with Mia. After all, Mia had a husband and a child, albeit a sickly one. Rose had nothing. Her husband, who had long been ailing, had died two weeks after their marriage. He had died working with the townsmen digging a new well, clutching his chest and falling over dead before anyone could call for help. Stefan had always said it was a blessing that the couple had not conceived, but now he doubted himself. A child would have made Rose happy in these years. Stefan did not know why Rose had turned nervous and withdrawn, more so recently, except that grief had caught up to her and overwhelmed her completely.

  Stefan turned his attention away from the women. He had never seen this many souls in his church at once. Everyone stared at him as he prepared to begin. He concentrated on his posture, biting his cheeks for a solemn look. More money might come in today than all of last month. All the secret sin that Catarina hid, the final tragedy, and then the lingering gossip—that was what had filled his church. But his plans, yet to be revealed, would fill the church past standing room. Good would come from evil. That was the work of God.

  Stefan licked his lips, beginning the Mass. All fell silent as his voice hovered above them. The empty, strident echo that had mocked him all these years evaporated today with almost every bench filled. “Lord,” he said under his breath as their upturned faces waited for his words, “whatever You must do through me, do. I am Your servant. I am their servant.”

  A startling thought jarred his composure, one that did not seem like his own. Why had God called him to the priesthood? Stefan did not know. He’d never asked. Perhaps later, he thought, shaking his head. He smoothed his robe and took a breath, lifting his arms wide open so the gestures would not be missed.

  “Blessed be God in heaven,” Stefan said. “May we be reminded of our sins as we sit in silence, that we may confess and be forgiven. I will begin our service.”

  Heads pointed down now, everyone staring straight into their laps. Stefan continued with the Mass for several minutes, intoning the Latin perfectly.

  He became distracted as he thought of Bjorn and the wolf.

  Bjorn did not understand the burdens of a priest. A priest had to give answers, had to explain it all—unanswered prayers and death and misfortune. Of course no one ever questioned Stefan about good health and fine houses. He never had to worry about finding answers for those any more than Bjorn had to worry about being invaded by peaceful citizens and obedient women.

  Bjorn had the easier job. He could arrest and punish. He could go home and sleep with his wife and watch his child play. Stefan would have liked to arrest and punish, would like to return to a warm home and not a cold room with no one to prepare his meals. Still, he did not regret the priesthood. He simply regretted that so many made outrageous demands of him.

  He began the benediction, surprised to be ending the Mass already. He spoke faster, probably because he was so excited, he guessed.

  In the silence of prayer he could hear feet scuffing the floor, people shifting their positions on the stern wood benches, the soft breathing of the elderly ones who had fallen asleep, and a sound he loved: the quiet gentle pause after a prayer is finished. People always hesitated in that moment to look at each other, or at him. He sensed God most in that moment.

  Outside, wood wheels dug into the path, sending pebbles shooting out from under the heavy turning. The horse clopped along slowly and steadily, the steps of an animal with only one long journey, never a home. His footfalls did not quicken as he neared the town.

  The people rushed to finish their own prayers, their hands flying across their chests as they made the sign of the cross. The quiet grace Stefan loved lifted away, back into the rafters; every face turned to the doors. Outside, the horse’s steps stopped.

  Both doors swung open together, and strong sunlight swept in, causing the people to wince and squint. All could see only the darkest outline of a man standing in the doorway, his cape swirling around his calves. The man carried an enormous bag. When he dropped it on the floor, the noise exploded across the church. Everyone lurched in fear as a cloud of dust and dirt swirled around the man, obscuring him further. Stefan knew with certainty the man’s identity. His stomach churned.