Chapter 7: The Black Ash

I read it until the lamp guttered.

Draycott lives.

Then I folded it into my bodice, against my skin, and walked back out into the night.

I didn't tell Isobel.

I lay awake in the cart beside her and Ned, listening to her breathe, and I didn't tell her.

If I was wrong, it would kill her twice.

If I was right, every guard on this road was a reason to keep my mouth shut.

Three days later we came to the Black Ash.

It was usually a ford. Knee-deep, the old steward said. Carts crossed it every week.

It had rained for two days and sleeted for one.

The Black Ash was brown and fast and loud, and it came up past the marker post to a man's chest.

"We wait," the old steward said.

"We cross," said the sergeant. "We're two days behind already. Carts across with the drivers. Everyone else walks the rope."

His men strung a rope across from tree to tree, bank to bank.

The women looked at the water.

"The children can ride in the carts," I said.

"The carts will be heavy enough. Children walk."

I wanted to put him in the river.

Instead I took Ned's hand.

"Stay in front of me," I said. "Both hands on the rope. If you slip, you hang on and I'll get you."

"I can swim," Ned said.

"Not in that you can't."

The cold hit.

By the third step it was at my waist. By the tenth, my ribs.

My sister's gown dragged at my legs.

Ned was a step ahead of me, his arms locked over the rope, his face set and white.

"Good," I kept saying. "Good. Keep going."

Halfway across, a log came down the river.

I saw it too late.

It hit the rope a yard ahead of Ned. The rope jerked. Ned's hands came off it.

He went under.

I lunged.

My fingers caught his collar for a moment, and then the river tore him out of my hand.

I screamed his name.

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