Chapter 7 - Justice

It was still dark when I woke. I thought for a moment I must be blind, but as I blinked frantically I began to see a very faint light above me. Starlight…it was night.

I moaned, and almost immediately I felt gentle hands touching my face and heard a muttered prayer of thanks.

"Janey, you're awake! I've been so worried, I thought you might never wake…"

I groaned again as I felt the pulsing pain in my head. I gingerly reached up a hand and touched the place that hurt most, wincing at the pain and the wetness that was probably blood in my hair. "Where are we?" All I could see was the night sky above us, and feel dirt below us.

"The thieves hole," Alec said. I could feel him shudder. "After they hit you they threw you across the saddle and made me walk and they brought us here. They said the lord will be back tomorrow and he'll decide what's to be done with us."

"They really think we killed the baby?" I felt disoriented in the dark, and I struggled to pull myself up to a sitting position. My wrists burned, and as I rubbed them I could feel the rough skin, chafed raw by the ropes. "Babies die all the time."

"It's not just the baby," Alec said quietly. "It's all those stories they tell about us. They believe them. They think that we can cast spells and wish ill on people, and that by worshipping the old gods we're using dark magic. We're in real trouble Janey."

"This is so stupid!" I hissed. "Babies are always being born dead! Everyone used to worship the old gods! And do they really think if I could work spells and had dark magic I'd allow us to be caught and thrown into a stinking thieves hole by idiots like them?"

"Well, that doesn't really matter, does it? Because we're down in the thieves hole and there's a group of people up there who believe we're wicked and want us dead."

"Can we get out?" I ask. "It's too deep for a man to get out, but there are two of us and they haven't put on the bars." The heavy logs that usually covered the thieves' hole would have been impossible for either Alec or I to move.

"We can try."

We tried standing on each other's shoulders, and pushing each other up with hands in the hopes that one of us could jump high enough to grab hold of the edge and haul themselves up, but nothing worked. By the time we were forced to give up my head was aching worse than ever.

"It's getting colder isn't it?"

I put my arm around Alec as he sat next to me and laid my head on his shoulder. "The storm's nearly here…it will be nice to have a break from this awful heat." Looking up I realised I could no longer see any stars for the clouds that covered them, and far in the distance thunder rumbled.

"I wish Mother were here." Alec's voice was so quiet I could barely hear him.

"I wish I really was what they think I am, and could get us out of here and smite them all," I said darkly.

Alec chuckled weakly, but I hadn't been joking. My heart was full of a dark, furious hate for the people who had brought us here and if I could have punished them all for it I would have.

The storm blew in with a roar of wind that made all the trees shake and a rumble of thunder that seemed to make the very earth at my back tremble. Alec and I could do nothing but cling to each other as we cowered in the dark hole that rapidly turned into a mud pit. Down there were sheltered from the wind, but nothing could save us from the pitiless onslaught of rain that poured down from the sky. Great sheets of lightning lit up the sky, brighter than daylight, and the thunder crashed and the earth shook like it was the last days.

Alec and I huddled together, heads bent close as we shrank beneath the wrath of the heavens. The floods of rain pooled beneath us and I shivered uncontrollably as the wet and cold seeped inexorably into my skin. There was no real sense of time passing as we endured the maelstrom from our dark hole, but eventually the rolls of thunder sounded further away, the lightning stopped flashing, and at last even the rain stopped as the faint light of dawn began brightening the sky.

Alec's teeth were chattering. "Maybe they'll let us out soon."

"Do we want them to? What kind of justice are we facing?" I wasn't sure if my shivering was from cold or fear.

"We didn't do what they say," Alec said, and I envied him his simple faith. "I know the stories about us, and I know that some of them seem to be true…but they can't be! Nobody can do those things that they are accusing us of. We've done nothing and they'll see that and let us go back home."

I said nothing, but I didn't share his optimism. They had killed Bran, they had sent ten men with axes and knives and bows to bring just two of us to meet their justice…they were afraid of us, and fear breeds hate and hate could lead to terrible things.

As the day wore on though, no one came. Despite the cold and damp leaching into my bones I was thankful for the puddled water in the bottom of the thieves' hole when my thirst became too great that I couldn't resist scooping it up and into my mouth. My stomach growled too. There had been no time for food the previous day and I was starving.

We heard the villagers as the day wore on, though we could not see them. There was shouting and angry voices, and then a great wailing that made my flesh crawl with dread. There was hammering and crashing and the regular sound of axes biting into wood. At one point we heard the higher voices of children, and then a shower of manure and rotting vegetables and other unpleasantness was thrown down upon us.

I swore furiously as I tried to clean the muck from my hair, but Alec simply pushed himself a little deeper into the corner and did nothing.

"How can you just sit there?" I demanded, swiping a chunk of something disgusting out of his hair with unnecessary force. "Doesn't it make you angry?"

"There's nothing I can do," Alec said softly. "What good is it to rage now?" He put his hands over his head so I could no longer yank on his hair. "I'd rather just think about home and Mother and Bran, and think about when we'll be back there."

"Well Mother and Bran are dead," I snapped brutally. "And we're in a thieves' hole and for all we know they're going to let us die here!"

Alec sighed heavily. "I know that. But what good does it do right now to get angry and shout and stamp and kick the walls?"

"It stops me from being afraid," I said sullenly. "When I'm angry I'm not scared…and I don't want to be scared."

"Then come and sit with me," Alec said gently, and without another word I went and sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder, just as we'd always been.

We talked little as the afternoon wore away. The sun came out after the storm and the mix of mud and refuse in the bottom of the hole smelled cloyingly of rot. I think both of us dozed a little, slumped upright against each other in the corner, waking up to more of the same uncomfortable reality. When we couldn't hold it any longer both of us had to urinate where we were, adding to the foulness of our prison. I almost wished they would come and fetch us for their version of justice, and then I remembered that sometimes people were kept in the thieves' hole for weeks and I shuddered. Not that.

But it was early evening when we heard them coming for us. Alec and I scrambled to our feet so that we were standing upright and composed when the first faces peered over the edge at us. I knew there was no use fighting so when they lowered the rope ladder I scrambled up it, Alec following.

I was afraid then, when I first saw what I'd been raised up to meet. This wasn't the group of men from last night. It looked to be everyone from the village and this mob of people weren't only there to witness…they were there with rage in their eyes and revenge in their hearts as we were dragged to the square.

"Evil, unnatural…witch…witch…witch…" The words came from all around.

"Set their spells and their mischief."

"Nothing but mischance and ill luck from those two."

"Killed a baby they did…it's dark magic that needs the sacrifice of an innocent."

"Conjured the storm last night, because they'd been caught…wreaked havoc on the village and razed the crops to the ground…curses and spells."

"Worship the old gods…worshipping the devil more like!"

This was so much worse than I had thought! I glanced across at Alec, wishing I could reach across and touch him, but we were separated by so many as the hard, cruel hands pushed and dragged and jostled us along. Then we reached the square and my legs turned to water because what I saw there was unmistakeable.

The pyre.

I screamed. I tried to fight my way free, but there were too many of them, too many strong people with pinching, squeezing fingers digging into my flesh and pulling my hair. Too many people for me to have any chance of getting away as Alec and I were both dragged to the stake and bound to it, back to back. The stake was rough and splintery at my back and the ropes were rough and bit deep into my flesh, but I could think of nothing but the flames as they piled the wood closer.

"Alec! Alec!" I gasped, trying desperately to twist my head to see him. The rope around my neck was too tight though, and when all I managed to do was choke myself I had to turn back.

"Don't be afraid Janey." Alec's voice was thin, and seemed to come from impossibly far away. "It will be over soon. Just think of home, think of Bran, pray to Tiw*…just go far away inside yourself, and it will all be over quickly."

I could say nothing. Nothing to Alec and nothing to the mob of people who didn't care to hear me, not when they were so sure of our guilt. I simply stood there, bound and helpless, as they stacked the pyre higher.

It was the Lord of the manor house who made the pronouncement. "For the crime of infanticide you have been found guilty. For the sins of using witchcraft, for using dark magic and spell work and bringing mischance and conjuring storms upon those of us here you have been sentenced to die!"

"No!" I knew it was useless, but I could no more go quietly than I could have set the fire myself. "We didn't do anything! You're wrong! You stupid fools, you're wrong!"

They laid the burning torches to the branches, and immediately a wisp of smoke curled up, floating skyward, before it was scattered by the soft breeze. A moment later there was flame, a small lick of orange catching on a twig and then beginning to blaze higher. Fire.

I wasn't struggling anymore. But I could move my fingers, just a little, and I stretched and strained until they touched the very tips of Alec's fingers.

We would die as we were born. Together.

*Saxon pagan god of justice and the sky. The equivalent of Thor in Norse mythology.