Wolves Among Us(43)

“I only meant to ask of your day. I am not trying to provoke you.”

A light rain began. Bjorn put a hand on her back, lightly pushing her toward the door.

Mia tried a new approach. “Last night Bastion said many new things, things I have never heard.”

“Yes.”

“And today? Did he say anything of interest? Anything you would want to share?” Mia paused at the doorway.

“Who cares what he said today? I arrested seven women. I worked hard.”

“Of course.”

“Bastion told me that you would seem skittish today. A lot happened last night. Your mind needs more time to understand it all.”

He pushed past her and went in, heading for the pottage pot. Mia nodded to herself, grateful she had attended to it earlier. Her home looked perfect, swept and tidied, serene with its full pottage pot. She could not bear to be idle today; at every moment she had found work to do. She had not sat down once, save to feed Margarite and Alma.

“I wish Stefan was not so offended by this man,” Bjorn said. “I would like to talk of these things with someone.”

“You can talk to me,” Mia said, in her quiet child’s voice, though it didn’t suit her anymore, she knew. A different version of her had taken over, one who hungered.

Bjorn snorted. “You can listen. But do not offer anything to me in conversation.”

Mia tried not to feel the sting of his words. “I will listen, then.”

“Bastion says women are a necessary evil. He is a bachelor. What does he know of my pain?” Bjorn watched Mia’s face as he laughed. She kept her expression still and empty, and Bjorn settled down into his chair with a bowl of pottage, talking between bites. He didn’t look at her again. “Bastion is a true man of God. His words change me. Today I learned even more. The Devil may occupy the body, but not the soul. A man may be essentially pure and good and right before God and still be driven by lust to a mistress’s bed, all by the power of a witch—a witch with charms, or the Devil occupying his mind and body. ’Tis a wondrous thing. A good man who sins is not always guilty. There is a type of madness, a strange lust that does not come from his own heart, but another’s. It’s as if something possesses him, and in this mad fit, he does things he should not.”

“I don’t know if you are accusing someone or confessing to something,” Mia said.

“Talking with you is a fool’s errand,” he muttered.

Mia’s father had known this moment would come. That is why he hadn’t wanted her to learn those letters, to learn how letters made words and words made a new world. Master Tyndale had taught her the letters, and she had learned how to lay them in the wooden case to make his words and sentences. Mia also printed pamphlets for the church and for profiteers, even spent weeks on one volume titled The Good Wife’s Guide. She could read by that time, and she read that one so many times that she committed entire sections to memory.

“You’ll put your father out of business,” Tyndale had laughed. “You’ll stand in the market and recite it all, line by line.”

“Not so. I’ll be married. I’ll be so busy being a good wife that I’ll have no more time for books.”

Tyndale scowled. Mia wrinkled her nose back at him, inching closer to him so he could hear her whisper.

“Unless you would let me sell your book, along with the others in the market,” she said. “You can trust me with it.”

Tyndale took her by the shoulders. “I do not trust the world around you.”

“’Tis not fair.” Mia’s eyes filled with tears.

Tyndale’s tone changed into a soft, soothing comfort. “Mia, I will never have a daughter. Did you know that? I will never marry, never hold a child of my own. You are the only daughter I will ever have. I am afraid you will get hurt.”

“But why?”

“Because these are dangerous times. If harm came to you, in my name, I would die in my heart, Mia. Promise me that you will tell no one you have helped print it. Keep that secret. Memorize it if you want, but tell no one what you know. Store it up in here,” he said, pointing to her heart. “But trust no one.”

Mia had begun to hear whispers in the streets as she fetched eggs or bought bread for her father. Those caught with Tyndale’s book were burned to death like criminals, they said. But for Mia’s father this book meant life, not death; bread for the table and eggs for his daughter. She forced herself to eat them, smiling, as if she did not understand the risks her father took to feed her.

“I will store it up in my heart,” she said, taking Tyndale’s hand. He drew her into a hug, kissing the top of her head.

“And keep me in there as well,” he whispered. “Always.”

“I’d like a taste of beer before I sleep.”

Mia was startled back to attention, refocusing her thoughts on her husband. She fetched a wooden mug and poured some of Stefan’s brew into it from a ceramic pitcher. She cocked her head to the side with a new thought. “How does Bastion interrogate the women? Surely no woman would confess to a crime if the punishment is burning.”

“Bastion knows what women hide in their hearts. And he knows every trick of the Devil. It is written that the Devil forbids some women to confess, even under the most severe torture, so that they will not admit the truth. Bastion must bring some to the very moment of death before they confess.”