Chapter 6 – Burial.

Alec and I worked through the heat of the day to dig the grave. While he dug I washed the baby and wrapped him in the rabbit skin wrap Mother had made. The two of us carried Mother's body down to the river and while I dug Alec washed the blood away from her skin, leaving her pale and waxen with her eyes forever closed. Both of us worked together in silence, sweat stinging our eyes as the sun beat down mercilessly, the heat even reaching into the usually cool and shadowed places of the forest.

It was evening by the time Alec threw the shovel up from the bottom of the hole and then hauled himself up after it. "That's got to be enough," he panted. "I can't do any more."

I offered him the jug of water and he gulped it down, letting some wash down over his chin and fall onto his tunic. "Thank you."

"I think it looks deep enough," I said, peering into the hole. The bottom of it was wet with mud.

"Like I said, it has to be enough," Alec muttered. He swiped a hand across his face, leaving a broad smear of mud. "We should probably do this."

"Yes," I said quietly. "We should do this."

Mother's body lay in the shade of a tree, the baby at her side. He was wrapped in the rabbit skins and, tucked against Mother's side, he looked as though he was simply sleeping if I ignored the odd colour of his lips. Mother, with all the animation gone from her face looked…more dead than he did. Frightening.

Alec knelt by her side. "I can't believe she's dead," he said softly.

"She should never have let whoever it was put that baby in her belly," I said sharply.

"Janey." Alec spoke quietly. "It's too late for that."

Suddenly tears were stinging my eyes, worse than the sweat from earlier in the day. I dashed them away impatiently, and grabbed Mother's foot, forcing myself to grip tightly even as the feel of her dead flesh revolted me. Alec must have seen my tears, but he said nothing then, taking Mother's upper half and leading the way as the two of us struggled to carry our burden the few feet to the grave. Alec took the baby and laid him gently in Mother's arms.

"So at least they're together," he whispered to me, as his strong hand found mine and curled around it. "They'll be together in the afterlife, and we'll be together here."

I rested my head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry I was mean and said those things about Mother."

"It doesn't matter now." Alec kissed my forehead, and then we set to work filing in the grave with the dirt we'd dug out so laboriously as we gave our Mother into the ground.

"There's going to be a storm," Alec said a little uneasily as he patted the last shovelful of earth onto the grave. "Can't you feel it?"

I'd been too busy digging and shifting dirt to pay attention to the weather, and I had a sarcastic retort on the tip of my tongue to give my brother before I raised my head and bit it back. Because Alec was right. The oppressive heat lay like a blanket across the world and the evening sky showed no clouds, but the sense of an impending break in the weather was so strong it made the hairs on my arms stand up.

"You're right. We should get back and make sure our things are secure under cover. Let's just wash this mud off."

I left my shift and tunic on the bank and dove immediately into the deeper water, which was deliciously cool and refreshing after the labours of the day. I dove deep, the water washing the stinging salt of tears from my eyes and swallowing the sound of my sobs. Only when my chest was burning with lack of air did I come up, breaking the surface with a gasp.

Alec was beside me, floating on his back and staring up at the sky. I noticed afresh that his body was changing, beginning to form the lines and shapes that would mark him as a man just as my body was changing towards that of a woman. We had always been so alike and so much a part of each other, not needing anyone else, that the idea of growing up and growing apart was almost unthinkable. Unsettled, I gave Alec a shove and sent him spluttering under the water.

"We might be in trouble," I said as he surfaced, forestalling his thoughts of revenge. "You know one of the lord's men saw me with the baby, and…well, I saw his face. I think he thought I was doing some mischief."

Alec frowned, and then shrugged. "What can we do? The baby was born dead, and that's a common enough story. Better to wash it off and bury it than leave if for the wolves! Come on Janey, let's go home."

The forest was almost unnaturally still and silent as we stepped quietly through it. The same sense that warned us of the impending storm was even stronger in the birds and small animals, and they had taken to their hiding places. In our clearing Bran was crouched under the lean-to where we kept the firewood, and he whined piteously as he crawled on his belly over to me.

"You big baby," I scolded him gently, stroking him gently on his read and then scratching his belly as rolled over. "As if a bit of rain could hurt you! Never mind, when the storm hits you'll be safe inside with me and Alec."

But the storm that hit us next wasn't the kind with rain, and there was no safety for any of us there when it broke over our heads.

We heard the sound of footsteps tramping through the forest, and Alec I met each other's eyes with quizzical faces. Certainly we heard people in the forest quite often, out hunting or gathering food or wood, and there were many people who would walk the distance to our hut to consult with Mother and her herbs. But the footsteps we could hear were not those of a single person, or even two…

There were ten of them, when they emerged from the trees. Ten men, three of them mounted on ponies and the other seven on foot, but all of them wielding weapons and with faces dark with menace.

Instinctively Alec and I moved to stand together. I had my hand on Bran's head and could feel the rumbling of a grown low in his throat. His fur bristled.

"Where's your mother?" one of the men called roughly.

"She died," I said defensively. "Only this morning, in childbirth."

"And the babe?"

"Born dead."

"I know what I saw!" One of the men snarled, and I recognised him as the lord's man I had seen earlier. "The babe all covered in blood and laid out as sacrifice on the river stones! The mother nowhere near, and that witch standing over it with her spells and mischief!"

"But that's ridiculous!" I was too angry now to be frightened. "The baby was already dead, I told you that! I was washing it for burial!" Below my hand, Bran growled.

"Of course you'd say that! Both of you…trying to conceal your wickedness and ill-wishing! But we know what you are and what you've been doing!"

Alec was speechless, but I was enraged by their accusations. "You don't know a thing!"

"Aye, we know enough." One of the mounted men looked down at me, his face set in a fierce frown even though his eyes were fearful. Below him the pony shifted uneasily. "We don't know why you did it, to be sure…a sacrifice to your pagan gods or some other spell, but we know that you killed the babe. We're taking you and your brother for the babe's death and all the wrong you've done to us in the village, and tomorrow you'll face the Lord's justice."

"No!" As one Alec and I turned to run, but with a roar the men were on us. I was kicked and shoved until I fell, and then I could see nothing as my face was pressed into the hard dirt, hands on my head and back holding me down as someone tied a coarse rope around my wrists.

I could still hear though. I heard the soft grunt as someone caught Alec with a fist and then another thud of fist on flesh and a scream. I heard Bran snarl and bark furiously, and then the barking cut away with a pained whine that faded to nothing.

"No, don't!" Spitting dirt I tried to rise, only being able to move enough to turn my face to the side. I half wished I'd kept looking away, because I found myself looking into the dead, lifeless eyes of my Bran, his throat cut and the blood spreading in a wide pool around him.

The blood…it's just like Mother. The baby too…that was only this morning! How many more are going to die today?

I could see Alec too, held on the ground like me. His face was a fearful mess of smeared blood and tears, the blood still bubbling out of his nose as he struggled to breathe, his blue eyes swimming.

As soon as the weight of the men on my back was gone I was struggling again, fighting to free myself. They'd tied my hands but I could still kick, and I landed several blows with my feet. When one of them made the mistake of coming too close I slammed my forehead into his nose, hearing the satisfying crack and the man's shriek as I broke his nose.

It was a short-lived victory though. Before I could do more one of the mounted men brought the heavy handle of his axe down on to my head and I fell down into the darkness.