The Silent Songbird (Hagenheim #7)(19)

When she arrived at the kitchen, Golda stared down at her bucket of water. “Has the well gone dry? That’s not very much water.”

Evangeline’s cheeks heated—a frequent sensation these days.

Golda frowned on one side of her mouth. “Never mind. Just go get me another bucket of water.”

But as Evangeline walked away, the pity in the cook’s voice and expression made a lump gather in her throat.

“Wait,” Golda called after her, then sighed. “I’ll get someone else to fetch the water. You go and . . .” She glanced around until she spotted a couple buckets in the corner. “Take those two buckets of slop to the pigs.”

What was slop?

“Do you know where the pigsty is?”

Evangeline shook her head.

“It’s to the east of the manor house, across the courtyard and the small meadow. You’ll see the fence, and you’ll also smell it. Just dump the buckets over the fence and be careful you don’t fall in.”

Evangeline picked up the two buckets, which were surprisingly light and contained the pea pods from the day before, as well as some scraps from the morning’s meal. She carried them out of the kitchen, past the manor house, through the courtyard, and past the girl who was herding a gaggle of geese with a stick.

She kept walking until she smelled something foul. She was nowhere near the privy, but she saw a fence in a low place between the meadow and the woods.

Evangeline set down the buckets, which grew heavier the longer she carried them, to get a better hold on the handles. After flexing her fingers a few times, she picked them back up and finally reached the fence. A long wooden box was on the ground on the inside of the fence, and a wooden step was beside it on the outside. Was this where the slop was supposed to go? Flies buzzed all around it, while the pigs lay in the mud a few feet away.

As soon as she put a foot on the wooden step, the pigs lifted their heads and snorted. There must have been at least a dozen of them, squealing and squirming.

She couldn’t dump the buckets as long as she was holding both of them, so she put one on the ground and upended the first bucket into the trough just as the pigs reached it and plowed their faces into it.

Evangeline stepped down, picked up the second bucket, and climbed back up on the step. She tilted the bucket, dumping the contents and trying not to let any of the scraps touch her fingers. But it suddenly slipped from her hand and landed on the head of one of the pigs, making it squeal. But it only paused a moment in its feeding, pushing its snout back into the trough. The bucket rolled to a stop behind the pigs’ rumps.

Evangeline moaned. Another thing she did wrong. She climbed down from the step, eyeing the grunting, muddied animals as they used their snouts to root in the scraps as well as to push each other out of the way. The slop was already mostly gone. Perhaps when they had eaten it all, the pudgy animals, some of them bigger than a fully grown sheep, would move away so she could get to the bucket without getting too near them.

What would they do to her? She didn’t see any tusks, so they weren’t wild boars, but they still looked frightening and wild. At the very least, her feet and skirt hem would get muddy.

The pigs were still rooting around in the trough, grunting, occasionally squealing at each other, ramming each other with their snouts. But the slop appeared to be all gone.

Evangeline unlatched the opening to the pen. She had to lift the wattled gate of small sticks out of the mud to move it open. The pigs did not seem to see her at all. One pig stood between her and the bucket. She could not leave the bucket behind. Golda would surely notice if she did not return it to the kitchen, and Evangeline didn’t want to be exposed yet again for her incompetence.

Go on, piggy. Get out of my way so I can get the bucket.

The large swine snorted as it examined the ground, then made its way toward the bucket. It put its snout inside, sniffing and rooting, pushing the bucket farther away from where Evangeline stood just inside the gate.

She stepped forward, her shoes squishing in the mud as she held up her skirts. Maybe she could grab the bucket and outrun the animal. She walked around the animal, which still did not seem to see her as it moved the bucket with its face inside. She moved closer, finally taking the last step to bring her close enough to grab it. She leaned down and snatched it away. She turned to run, but the pig squealed and ran after her.

The muddy pig snout brushed her ankle as she reached the gate.

Her heart was in her throat. She took hold of the gate, but the pig was so close it was already halfway out. The animal’s big body slipped right past her and stopped just outside the gate.

She slapped at the pig’s snout with the bucket to drive it back inside, but it only squealed louder. The pig turned its tiny eyes away from her, then ran surprisingly fast toward the trees.

Her stomach sank. She started back to the gate, but several more pigs were rushing toward it. Before she could shut it, they ran right through. Their squeals sounded as if they were laughing at her.

No! What would she do now? Her first inclination was to sit where she was and sob. She couldn’t. She had to get those pigs! Everybody already looked at her doubtingly, especially Reeve Folsham after she nearly killed him. If they found out she let out all the pigs . . .

How could she get someone to help her? She couldn’t even call out for help.

She ran after them. She would get those pigs back in their pen, even if it killed her.