Written to Die for the Angel, So I Exposed Her First novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Sailor's Wife

The sailor opened his eyes.

Aurelie's hand was on his forehead, and her white flower had fallen on his chest.

"Be well," she said softly.

The man's grey lips parted.

He sat up on the door, slowly, one hand pressed to his side, and looked about him.

"I'm cured," he said hoarsely. "Praise the Tides. I'm cured."

The woman beside him fell on her knees.

The crowd roared.

It was a sound that came up out of two thousand throats at once.

Men wept, women cried out, and caps flew into the air.

Then they began to kneel.

Row by row, from the front, they went down on the wet stones with their faces lifted toward the small white figure on the pier.

The Prior's arms were spread wide.

The captains bowed their heads.

Perrine did not kneel.

She walked forward through the kneeling people with her heart going hard and her face quite calm.

The nearer she got the more of them turned to stare.

Garance hissed after her, "My lady!"

She reached the front.

She stopped three paces from the door.

"Sailor," she said.

The roar fell off.

He looked up at her. She was not what he wanted to see.

"What ship?"

"The, the Gull, my lady," the sailor said.

"The barque Gull."

"Yes."

"Out of where?" Perrine asked.

"From the south coast, my lady."

"And what day did she clear the roads?"

"I don't know that I..." the sailor said.

"Eleven days ago," said a deep voice from the crowd. "I wrote the clearance myself."

The Lord Warden came forward out of the people in his black coat, and the Prior's hands lowered.

"The Gull put out of Saltmere roads eleven days ago bound for the southern ports," Lucan said. "I have the entry. She isn't due for ten days more. A man who's lain three weeks in a Saltmere fever cannot have been aboard her when she sailed."

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