The Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1)(44)

“What are you doing?” Leesha asked. “Let me pass. I’m here to help Bruna.”

Stefny shook her head. “You’ll not taint this sacred place with your sin,” she sneered.

Leesha pulled herself up to her full height, taller than Stefny by inches, but she still felt like a mouse before a cat. “I have committed no sin,” she said.

“Hah!” Stefny laughed. “The whole town knows what you and Gared have been up to in the night. I had hopes for you, girl, but it seems you’re your mother’s daughter after all.”

“What’s all this?” came Bruna’s hoarse rasp before Leesha could reply.

Stefny turned, filled with haughty pride, and looked down at the old Herb Gatherer. “This girl is a whore, and I won’t have her in the Creator’s house.”

“You won’t have?” Bruna asked. “Are you the Creator now?”

“Do not blaspheme in this place, old woman,” Stefny said. “His words are written for all to see.” She held up the leather-bound copy of the Canon she carried everywhere. “Fornicators and adulterers keep the Plague upon us, and that sums this slut and her mother well.”

“And where is your proof of her crime?” Bruna asked.

Stefny smiled. “Gared has boasted their sin to any who would listen,” she said.

Bruna growled, and lashed out suddenly, striking Stefny on the head with her staff and knocking her to the ground. “You would condemn a girl with no more proof than a boy’s boast?” she shrieked. “Boys’ bragging isn’t worth the breath that carries it, and you know it well!”

“Everyone knows her mother is the town whore,” Stefny sneered. A trickle of blood ran down her temple. “Why should the pup be different from the bitch?”

Bruna thrust her staff into Stefny’s shoulder, making her cry out in pain.

“Hey there!” Smitt called, rushing over. “Enough of that!”

Tender Michel was hot on his heels. “This is a Holy House, not some Angierian tavern …”

“Women’s business is what this is, and you’ll stay out of it, if you know what’s good for you!” Bruna snapped, taking the wind from their sails. She looked back to Stefny. “Tell them, or shall I lay bare your sin as well?” she hissed.

“I have no sin, hag!” Stefny said.

“I’ve delivered every child in this village,” Bruna replied, too quietly for the men to hear, “and despite the rumors, I see quite well when things are as close as a babe in my hands.”

Stefny blanched, and turned to her husband and the Tender. “Stay out of this!” she called.

“The Core I will!” Smitt cried. He grabbed Bruna’s staff and pulled it off of his wife. “See here, woman,” he told Bruna. “Herb Gatherer or no, you can’t just go around hitting whomever you please!”

“Oh, but your wife can go around condemning whomever she pleases?” Bruna snapped. She yanked her staff from his hands and clonked him on the head with it.

Smitt staggered back, rubbing his head. “All right,” he said, “I tried being nice.”

Usually, Smitt said that just before rolling up his sleeves and hurling someone bodily from his tavern. He wasn’t a tall man, but his squat frame was powerful, and he’d had plenty of experience in dealing with drunken cutters over the years.

Bruna was no thick-muscled cutter, but she didn’t appear the least bit intimidated. She stood her ground as Smitt stormed toward her.

“Fine!” she cried. “Throw me out! Mix the herbs yourself! You and Stefny heal the ones that vomit blood and catch demon fever! Deliver your own babies while you’re at it! Brew your own cures! Make your own flamesticks! What do you need to put up with the hag for?”

“What, indeed?” Darsy asked. Everyone stared at her as she strode up to Smitt.

“I can mix herbs and deliver babies as well as she can,” Darsy said.

“Hah!” Bruna said. Even Smitt looked at her doubtfully.

Darsy ignored her. “I say it’s time for a change,” she said. “I may not have a hundred years of experience like Bruna, but I won’t go around bullying everyone, either.”

Smitt scratched his chin, and glanced over to Bruna, who cackled.

“Go on,” she dared. “I could use the rest. But don’t come begging to my hut when the sow stitches what she should have cut, and cuts what she should have stitched.”

“Perhaps Darsy deserves a chance,” Smitt said.

“Settled, then!” Bruna said, thumping her staff on the floor. “Be sure to tell the rest of the town who to go to for their cures. I’ll thank you for the peace at my hut!”

She turned to Leesha. “Come, girl, help an old crone walk home.” She took Leesha’s arm, and the two of them turned for the door.

As they passed Stefny, though, Bruna stopped, pointing her staff at her and whispering for only the three women to hear. “You say one more word against this girl, or suffer others to, and the whole town will know your shame.”

Stefny’s look of terror stayed with Leesha the whole way back to Bruna’s hut. Once they were inside, Bruna whirled on her.

“Well, girl? Is it true?” she asked.

“No!” Leesha cried. “I mean, we almost … but I told him to stop and he did!”