Knock.

  Alice flinched, her gaze snapping up from her seat around the dead hearth. She had spent the last days manic, talking about every happenstance and scrap of news that floated past her ears. Martha, however, remained unmoving, lost in the sight of her parents' funeral shrouds.

  Knock.

  Again, a little louder this time.

  The heavy vigil broken, Alice rose and went to the door. She hesitated, hand hovering over the leather latchstring as if it might burn her. Gathering herself, she opened it a crack. Eleanor stood there, a small basket clutched in her hand. Behind her, Thomas Baker and his brother stood with lips pressed into thin, expressionless lines. Neither looked Alice in the eyes.

  “Dear,” Eleanor murmured. “It’s just us. We’ve come to help.”

  Alice opened the door wider, stepping back. As she did, Eleanor slipped past, followed by the two men. They made quick work of loading the wooden biers, now heavy with the lifeless forms beneath their cloth covers.

  Alice gave a small, choked nod. Martha rose from the floor, looking somewhere far beyond the present company. No words were needed. The small group turned and left the cottage, a macabre parade of familiar grief. The procession to the churchyard was shorter, and somehow even more somber than Robin’s had been. Only a handful of villagers trailed behind, ready to witness the last of the sisters’ family commended to God. Horndon, it seemed, had only so much sorrow left to give.

  Martha couldn't hear Father Michael's words, nor the whispers of comfort, nor her sister's gentle sobs. Her ears throbbed with a pounding pulse, a white-hot rage, tucked behind a veneer of distant grief. The small gathering dispersed quickly after the bodies were laid, villagers scattering back to their own burdened homes. Martha and Alice stood alone once more at the lychgate, the raw earth of three new graves unmistakable on the blanched green lawn.

  “Alice,” Martha said, her voice rougher than she intended, too loud in the hushed space. “I won’t stay here.”

  Alice’s face twisted into shapes she rarely made. “What else is there to do? Of course you’re going to stay, don’t talk nonsense.” Martha turned, looking towards the village beyond the gate. She stood like a marble statue, still and calm, seeing forward through land and time.

  “Brentwood,” she said. “I’m going to Brentwood.”

  Alice began to shake; Martha was a rolling gale, and Alice a fragile bird caught in its updraft. “Brentwood… Why?”

  “Before he left with those men from Rayleigh, Peter Cook told me of a man there. He said he can put me to use, if I’d be willing.”

  “Use?” Alice repeated, her voice rising. “What kind of use, Martha?” She stepped back, as if her sister's strange ideas could catch like a malady. “Martha, please tell me you’re not thinking of… of the kind of use women are put to… when there is nothing left…” She couldn't push the ugly word past her lips.

  Martha’s stare was now ice. “No, not harlotry. Lord save us, are you truly such a child?” she demanded. “Did you hear nothing? See nothing? I’m talking of war, Alice. And fire.” She bored into Alice with her eyes, daring her to remain so willfully blind.

  Alice recoiled, winded. “War…”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  Martha clamped onto Alice’s arm, a grip like a mastiff. “Yes, sister. War. A holy war, a great reckoning.” She pulled Alice in so close they could feel each other’s breath. “They took everything from us, and I will make their wine taste like blood.”

  “That isn’t our place, and you know that.” Alice pleaded, her voice thin as thread. “Maybe there will be justice but it’s not ours to make. We have naught. We are naught. I mean, be reasonable Martha, I can scarce hold up my own head.”

  Martha straightened, taking on a churchman’s posture, and released her grip on her sister’s arm. “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

  "Since when do you quote scripture?"

  Martha met her eyes. "Many things have changed in my heart, sister."

  “I don’t want to fight a war, Martha,” Alice whimpered, and lowered her shaking knees to the ground, and from a distance, it might look as if Martha was her sister’s executioner, hearing desperate pleas for mercy.

  “I’m tired,” Alice said. “I’m so tired. I want to fall asleep in the garden and let the rains come and cover me in soft mud. I want to crawl into the mill and be ground into bread. I want to wrap myself in a shroud and sleep.”

  Martha knelt, lowering herself until their faces were level. "If you want to die, Alice, then die. But do it free of fear. Use it, so that someday in some warm, fat summer a little boy can eat soft bread and good meat. Do it for hope or for revenge, but do it, damnit.”

  Alice shook her head. "I don't understand. I don't believe it. I…" She choked on a sob. "But I won't leave you. Not now. Not ever. So if you go to Brentwood, I will go with you."

  Martha reached out and gently cupped Alice's face in both hands, her thumbs wiping away the tears that tracked down her sister's pale cheeks.

  Martha stood like an young girl helping an elder rise from from a low chair, keeping her arm steady for her sister. Then, hand in hand, they turned and walked back towards the only home they’d ever known. And that night from Horndon, even eyes gifted with second sight might have strained to follow two figures, moving swiftly down the hill under the cover of darkness. These thin wraiths, more spirit than flesh, melted down the High Road, embraced by shadows that clung to them like a second skin.

  Knock.

  The sound froze the scene at the trestle table. Walter stilled, his cheerful flush momentarily cooling. “Now who could that be, knocking like the bailiffs themselves?” He glanced at Beatrice.

  Knock.

  Walter pushed back his chair and approached the door. “Alright, alright, keep your hair on!”

  Beatrice followed, wiping already-clean hands on her apron. Reaching the entrance, Walter squared his shoulders and took a deep breath, trying to replace his permanently genial expression with something approaching stern.

  He yanked the door open.

  Framed in the doorway stood a young man, face flushed and slick with sweat, chest heaving. He took in Walter and Beatrice with a flicker of surprise, before his gaze sharpened and swept past them, assessing the men at the table. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly as they fell on Peter.

  "Get that whelp's arse inside, will you?" Peter said to noone in particular. "And remind him of the bloody knock we taught him!" The young man flinched, his cheeks burning. Peter, rising, shot a glare at the speaker before beckoning the messenger forward.

  "Come in, lad," Peter said, gentler. "Catch your breath. You look like you've run all the way from Chelmsford."

  The messenger stumbled in, offering a sheepish glance around the table.

  "Sorry about the knock, Master Peter," he mumbled, still gasping. "I… I forgot how it goes." There was something about their recent fear of catastrophe with the young man’s apologetic eyes that whipped a storm of laughter around the room. Walter laughed the loudest of course, while Beatrice simply closed her eyes and shook her head, a grin on her lips.

  "Well," Peter said, after a moment of composure, "never mind that now. What news?" The messenger straightened, drawing himself up. He took a deep breath, the room fading from laughter into expectant silence.

  "Robert Belknap is raising an inquiry in Brentwood," he announced, his voice gaining strength. "And it is our intent to bury it."