Chapter 14: The Weir Lodge

We reached the weir lodge at dusk, on a borrowed horse, with eight wardens riding behind us who had no right to.

"We are on leave," their sergeant said when Doran looked back. "Every one of us. It was decided on the road."

Doran said nothing, but his shoulders came down a little.

The lodge was a long stone house on a bend in the river, and its roof had fallen into the rooms.

Smoke still rose from the beams.

Three grooms stood in the yard with buckets.

"Where is the cook?" Doran called.

"The old maid?" one of them said. "A man came at noon and said the Duke wanted her. We never saw her leave."

I slid down from the horse and my knees folded.

Doran caught me, and this time I let him hold me up.

"She's still here," I said. "Look in the cellar."

The cellar door was behind the scullery, under a pile of fallen slate.

Six wardens dug it clear with their hands.

Under the door the stone steps went down into black air and a stink of smoke.

Somebody was knocking from below, weakly, three taps and then three.

"Get her out," Doran said.

They carried her up between them, a stout woman of fifty with her gray hair singed and her apron black.

She coughed until she was sick on the grass.

Her lips were blue.

I knelt beside her and put both hands on her chest.

The smoke had scorched her lungs, and I could feel the damage, raw and swollen.

I pulled on the gift and it came slowly, because I had not eaten since morning.

When she drew a long clean breath, a groom whispered, "That's the Hands."

"It isn't the Saint's," I said. "It's mine."

The maid opened her eyes and saw my face.

She screamed.

"Don't," she gasped. "Please, I never meant it. She said it was a trick, a little trick on a proud girl. She said you'd be sent away."

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