Finally, in the early morning hours, she slept, but I still stared. I remembered my ride past the graveyard with Pauline this morning. I had known. Fear had seized me. Something was wrong. Something was hopelessly and irretrievably wrong. My flesh had crawled. Warning breezes. A candle. A prayer. A hope.

An icy whisper.

A cold clawed hand on my neck.

I hadn’t understood what it had meant, but I had known.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The next several days went by in a flurry of emotion and chores. Endless chores, which I was happy to take on. The morning after the news, Pauline woke up, washed her face, fished three coins from her meager savings of tips, and left for the Sacrista. She was there all day, and when she returned, she was wearing a white silk scarf draped over her head, the mourning symbol reserved for widows.

While she was gone, I told Berdi and Gwyneth that Mikael was dead. Gwyneth hadn’t even known he existed, and neither had heard Pauline’s heartfelt stories about him, so they couldn’t quite grasp how she had been affected—until she returned from the Sacrista. Her skin matched the color of the white silk that cascaded down around her face, a pale ghost except for her puffy, red-rimmed eyes. She looked more like a gaunt ghoul returned from the graveyard than the sweet young maid she had been only the day before.

What worried us more than her appearance was her refusal to talk. She accepted Berdi’s and Gwyneth’s concerns and comforts stoically enough, but shook away more than that, spending most of the days on her knees, offering one holy remembrance after another for Mikael, lighting one candle after another, feverish in lighting his way into the next world.

Berdi noted that at least she was eating—not much—but enough for basic sustenance. I knew why. That was for Mikael too, and what they still shared. If I had told Pauline the truth about him, would she have cared enough to even touch her food?

We all agreed we would help her through this, each of us taking on a portion of Pauline’s workload, and we gave her the space she asked for and the time to observe the mourning due a widow. We knew she wasn’t a true widow, but who else was to know? We wouldn’t tell. I was hurt at being shut out, but I had never lost the love of my life, and that was what Mikael had been to her.

With the festival little more than two weeks away, there was more work to be done than usual, and without Pauline to help, we worked from dawn until the last meal was served in the evening. I thought of the days back at the citadelle when I’d lie awake, unable to sleep, musing about one thing or another, usually an injustice perpetrated by someone with more power than I—and that included just about everyone. I didn’t have that problem now. I slept deep and hard, and if the cottage had caught fire, I would have burned right along with it.

In spite of the increased workload, I still saw Rafe and Kaden often. In fact, at every turn, one of them seemed to be there, offering assistance with a wash basket or helping me unload supplies from Otto. Gwyneth teased on the sly about their convenient attentions, but it never went farther than being helpful. Mostly. One day I heard Kaden roaring with a vengeance. When I ran from cleaning the rooms to see what was wrong, he was emerging from the barn, holding his shoulder and sending up a string of hot curses at Rafe’s horse. It had nipped him on the front of his shoulder and blood was seeping through his shirt.

I led him to the steps of the tavern and pushed on his good shoulder to make him sit, trying to calm him. I undid the first button of his shirt and pulled it aside to look at the wound. The horse had barely broken the skin, but an ugly palm-sized bruise was already swelling and turning blue. I ran to the icehouse and returned with several chips wrapped in cloth and held it to the wound.

“I’ll get some bandages and salve,” I said.

He insisted it wasn’t necessary, but I insisted louder and he relented. I knew where Berdi kept the supplies, and when I returned, he watched every move I made. He said nothing as I applied the ointment with my fingers, but I felt his muscles tense at my touch as I gently pressed the bandage in place with my hand. I placed the pack of ice chips back on top, and he reached up, holding my palm against his shoulder with his own, as if he was holding on to something more than just my hand.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he asked.

I laughed. “Apply a bandage? A simple kindness needn’t be learned, and I grew up with older brothers, so there were always bandages being applied to one of us or another.”

His fingers squeezed around mine, and he stared at me, I thought searching for some sort of thank-you, but then I knew it was more than that. Something deep and tender and private lurked in his dusky eyes. He finally released my hand and looked away, a tinge of pink at his temples. With his gaze still averted, he whispered a simple “thank you.”

His reaction was puzzling, but the color faded as quickly as it had come, and he pulled his shirt back over his shoulder as if it hadn’t happened.

“You’re a kind soul, Kaden,” I said. “I’m sure it will heal quickly.”

When I was halfway through the door to return the unused supplies, I turned and asked, “What language was that? The curses? I didn’t recognize it.”

His mouth hung half open, and his expression was blank. “Only nonsense words my grandmother taught me,” he said. “Meant to spare a coin of penance.”

It hadn’t sounded like nonsense to. It had sounded like angry real words said in the heat of the moment. “I need to learn some of those words. You must teach me one day so I can spare my coins too.”