Page 5

A shutter somewhere beyond the first row of cottages catches in the wind. It slams against the stone with a crack, sending a flock of birds wheeling from the rooftops in a panicked flurry of wings.

“Oh, do not⁠—”

The mule lets out an ear-splitting bray. She tears the reins clean through my stinging fingers and swings around, one of the heavy saddlebags cracking hard against my shoulder. Then she bolts, galloping back down the very road we’ve just spent four miserable hours conquering, my provisions bouncing merrily against her flanks.

“You foul beast! Come back here!”

I gather my skirts and hurry after her as best I can, though the first few uneven steps send pain lancing through my leg, turning anything resembling a run into an ungainly hobble. The mule veers through a gap in the hedgerow and disappears into the frost-whitened field beyond, and I’m still swearing after her when my boot catches on a ridge of frozen earth.

The road drops out from beneath me, the sky tilts sideways, and I go arse over tit straight through the brittle ice of a frozen puddle.

By the time I manage to push myself upright, gritty water is dripping from my chin, and a thick smear of icy sludge has plastered itself from my ribs to the hem of my cloak. The mule is nowhere to be seen beyond the hedge. Only the distant thud of hooves carries back across the fields towards Beswick, growing fainter with every second.

I stand there, shivering and catching my breath with one stocking slipping steadily down my ankle, and mud working its way into places mud has no earthly business reaching.

Well, what in the bollocks am I supposed to do now?

I look back towards Merewick with a sigh. It was one of their damned shutters that frightened the mule in the first place, so the least somebody can do is help me retrieve her before she reaches Scotland, or point me towards another mount.

I drag my stocking back into place, tie the mask around my mouth, and limp past the sign.

“Hello?” I call. “Some assistance would be greatly appreciated.”

Nothing answers except the loose shutter still knocking.

I start down the lane, moving between stone cottages with their doors shut tight and frost silvering the thatch. A few chickens scratch contentedly beside the well, and an overturned cart lies half-sunk in the mud nearby. But there’s no smoke curling from the chimneys, no faces appearing at windows to wonder why a filthy stranger is wandering through Merewick shouting at shutters.

The lane widens around a patch of common ground, bordered on one side by the chapel and on the other by a low stone wall. Beyond it, the field has been opened into a pit so broad it might have held the foundations of a house, its floor crowded with pale, uneven shapes beneath the scattered lime.

For half a heartbeat, I think they’re sacks.

Then I see a hand.

A face.

Another face.

Oh…

Men, women, and children lie within it, tangled together. Some are wrapped in shrouds, and others afforded nothing more than the clothes they died in. Frost clings to their lashes, stiffens loose strands of hair and gathers over the bare hands protruding between bodies, turning every finger white beneath the winter sky.

I scramble back from the wall, one hand pressed against my mouth, and look again at the cottages surrounding me.

“Hello? Is anyone still here?”

My voice travels through the village and returns unanswered.

I make towards the narrow lane, knocking on doors as I pass. The first gives me nothing but silence, while the second swings inward beneath my hand, revealing a dark room with two bowls abandoned on the table and a chair overturned beside a dead hearth. My hand is almost on the third latch when a movement farther along the street catches my eye.

A tall figure in a black cloak is making his way down the lane towards the trees.

“Wait! You there—stop!”

I hurry after him as quickly as my ruined leg allows, ducking beneath a sagging washing line. He’s only a few paces ahead, walking with infuriating leisure, yet I can barely keep up, and when my boot catches the rim of a broken pail, I pitch forward with nothing to break my fall.

“I said stop!” I gasp.

I throw out my hand, reaching desperately for the retreating figure, and my fingers close around a handful of thick, waxed fabric. The cloak jerks taut in my fist, catching my weight before I can strike the ground.