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The King of Flesh and Bone.
I handed William the child, no matter his reluctance. “Cut the cord, wait for the afterbirth, keep him warm until the morning… and pray. I have to weigh John’s grave down.”
Letting my head retreat into the hood of my cloak, I stepped outside, raindrops pelting the felt in hurriedthud-a-thud-thuds. The occasional grunt resonating from the groanpit mixed into it, filling my veins with a restless tingle. That thing had gotten overly full this month. Had corpses truly burned in the past?
Probably just another story…
I turned the corner of the courthouse and passed the brick archway into the cemetery. Rivulets of water trailed between the graves, glistening with the soft sheen of a full moon glowing behind clouds. Sacks of grain lined the wrought-iron pickets, though villagers had movedsome onto the graves.
“All that grain would have fed me for a year,” I mumbled, heading toward the oak door which leaned against the fence.
I gripped the edge, dug my heels into the soggy earth, and… Devil be damned, this thing was heavy. The door dragged slowly, corners ripping bushels of sod from the ground. Sweat formed at the nape of my neck and muscles soon ached. Just a little more…
The door hit the ground with aslosh, burying my planted violets underneath the incessant drum of rain on wood. A sound loud enough it quenched what had now turned into a chorus of groans from the pit, but by Helfa, it did nothing to muffle Pa’s protest.
“Drenched to the bone, but she has to weigh the damn grave down.” He wrapped gout-gnarled fingers around a sack of grains, his graying hair pasted to his skull, cursing the weather as he dragged it onto the door. “You can’t hold him forever, Ada.”
“Twenty-three months and counting,” I said, my cheeks tingly from the cold dampness. “Twenty-four if you help me put the mule before the cart. Ground’s too soaked to keep him from digging out, so I best put the cart on the door.”
“If the wheels get stuck, we won’t get the cart back to the stable ’til spring.”
“If John gets out, I’ll have to chase him, bind him, and still get the cart to drag him back to his grave,” I said, my eyes going to Pa’s crooked digits as they fumbled with his red-smudged handkerchief. Had he coughed blood again? “The wheels will get stuck no matter what. Preferably atop my husband.”
He quickly pushed his handkerchief into his leather vest pocket when he caught my eyes on the stained fabric. “Your eyes are red, the tip of your nose shiny. You’ve been crying.”
Just almost. “Sarah had a son.”
“Dead or alive?” When I shrugged, he slowly shook his head. “William paid a coin for your help?”
“No, but I bet he would have paid a coin for me to leave. Too bad I was in a rush.”
“Wretched man,” he grumbled. “You’re too good, and that’s not a compliment. Always taking on the problems of others. Always weighing down the grave of a man long cold.”
“A person’s only worth as much as his promise,” I recited Pa’s words like the prayer they’d been all my childhood. “I disappointed John in life, but I won’t fail him in death.”
Five winters ago, I’d sworn an oath inside the Tarwood Chapel, promising John the obedience of a woman, the fruitfulness of a mother, and the dutifulness of a wife.
Three promises given.
Two promises broken.
The third, I’d keep.
Pa tilted his head and frowned at me before he let his stepssplish-splashover the flooding ground. “As stubborn as your mother.”
We rounded the western corner where the bathhouse stood whitewashed and proud. Beside the building, two of the Fletcher boys squatted at the edge of the groanpit—nothing but a deep hole in the ground, reinforced by palisades lining the dirt edges.
Boar spear in hand, Gregory, the oldest, reached out and poked a corpse’s head.
The dead man groaned.
The deep vibration, the desperation, the agony in its undertone—like a whooping cough rattling through a throat lined with weeping pox—put a sour tang in my gums. The corpse dragged fingers worn down to the knuckles over the sleek wood, which kept him from climbing.
Gregory thrust the spear into the man’s belly. The wings carved a large enough hole that purple guts poured out, ripping a violent hiss from the dead man. Corpses usually didn’t bother us unless provoked… but then they might maul you to pieces.
A nearby priest cut the boy a glare. “Do not disturb the dead.”
“Nothing but a stranger,” Gregory said with a shrug. “Never seen the man’s face around here. I’m not poking anything that keeps him from wandering once you open the pit. If anything, the dead disturbus.”
