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“And this is your sister?” The lord took his hand from Matthias’ head and smiled at Anna.
“My sister, Anna. It’s short for Johanna, my lord, the blessed Daisan’s discipla.”
“So it is. How came you to remain here when we have heard from the mistress of this place that most of the refugees—the children—were sent south?”
“Our grandfather was too feeble to make the journey, so we stayed on here after the others left.”
“Then I pray Our Lord and Lady watch over you.”
Only after he moved on, did Anna begin to cry, her tears as silent as the slip of rain down a wall.
“Anna!” Matthias set a hand on her shoulder. “Anna! What is it? Did they scare you? The hounds were big, weren’t they, fierce-looking, but they’re nothing like the Eika dogs. You don’t need to cry.”
Struck dumb.
She opened her mouth to speak but could not form words or make them whole in the air. There was something she ought to have asked but had not asked, something she ought to have done but did not do, something she was meant to accomplish but had turned her gaze away from as the well-fed merchant turns her gaze away from a starving beggar, not wanting to see him.
“Anna!” Matthias clutched her shoulders, his weight sagging onto her as, frightened, he shook her. “Anna! What is it? Ai, Lady, it was the hounds, wasn’t it?” He pulled her tight against him in an embrace. The noble lords moved out of sight, heading back to the hall.
It wasn’t the hounds. But she could not speak words to tell him so.
Terrified now, he grabbed his stick and hobbled back to their hut with her in tow, but Helvidius and Helen were gone. “Anna! Say something to me!”
Unlike the Eagle last night, faced with a heartfelt plea, she had not spoken. She had not acted. Like a fish tossed from water to dirt, she could only thrash helplessly. She was bitterly ashamed, and scared—so scared.
“Lord protect us!” whispered Matthias. “I must take you to the herbwife. A devil has gotten into your throat and stolen your voice.”
She grabbed his hand and gripped it until he winced. She shook her head fiercely, so that he would understand. She had been struck dumb by God’s hand, not that of the Enemy or such of its minions as skittered through the world hoping to make mischief.
But Matthias had always been stubborn.
In the morning, Count Lavastine and his army marched out, the count and his son at their head—and Lord Wichman and his unruly retinue with them. Gisela’s niece stood in the shadows and counted through a pouch filled with silver sceattas.
After the army vanished down the forest road, Matthias took Anna to see the herbwife. The old woman listened to their troubles and took a knife in exchange for her treatment: a noxious-smelling salve which she applied to Anna’s throat and a more palatable tea brewed of waybroad and spear-root which Matthias insisted on trying first. Anna gulped the remainder down dutifully, but the day passed with no change in her condition.
That evening, Matthias led Anna to Lord Wichman’s deacon, who had remained behind rather than ride into battle. A woman of noble birth, she eyed them with misgiving, as well she might considering their filthy condition and obvious look of common-born children seeking a boon.
“She can’t speak, good deacon,” said Matthias as he thrust Anna forward.
“Many’s the child too weak or slow-witted to speak,” said the deacon patiently. “Or has caught a sickness, although that’s more common in wintertime. Or she may have taken a blow to the head in one of the skirmishes.”
“Nay, good deacon.” Matthias was nothing if not persistent. Otherwise, they would never have survived Gent. “She spoke as good as me until yesterday.”
“Go see the herbwife, then.”
“We’ve done so already.”
“Then it’s in God’s hands.” A mute child among so many who were injured in countless ways was of little concern to the deacon, good woman though she was. She prayed over Anna, touched her on the head, and indicated she should move on.
“Do not go yet, child,” she said to Matthias, who had moved away with Anna. “I remember you. You were sore wounded by the Eika, were you not? I came to pray last rites over you some months ago, but you survived by God’s mercy, and indeed I thought you must live out the rest of your days as a cripple. I see that God have healed you in the meantime. It is a blessing we must all be thankful for, that some have escaped this terrible time with whole bodies and strong minds.”
Anna had been so terrified at losing her voice that she had scarcely had time to notice Matthias. He had been so busy fussing over her that he had taken no notice of himself. But like the sun rising, the light dawned on her now: Matthias wasn’t limping.
Hastily he unwrapped the much worn and stained leggings from his calf, and there they stood, both of them gaping while the deacon looked on mildly, unaware of how remarkable—indeed, how impossible—the sight of his leg was now to their eyes.
No festering wound discolored the skin; no horrible, unnatural bend skewed his calf where the bone had broken and healed all wrong. The leg was straight, smooth, and strong.
He was a cripple no longer.
