All three move to stand at the edge of the salt circle, peering down at me. ‘And so?’ says the oldest. ‘Who is the innocent party?’
I clear my throat. ‘Well, Fox, you are clearly lying because why would a rich man’s daughter who brought a fat dowry need or choose to cheat customers with hard goods? That ring,’ I say, and nod at it. ‘It was hers, and I can see there’s blood around its edge where you cut off her finger to take it. I doubt she was even your wife, but some poor girl kidnapped on the highway. You were justly requited.’
The other two laugh. Fox steps back, hangs his head.
‘Jacob, why would you become poor when you joined the family business, which you are all at pains to tell me was so prosperous? And I can see burrs in your hair. You put them under your bride’s saddle, so that when she mounted the barbs bit into the horse and he reared, throwing her. It was happy, though predictable, chance that she broke her neck. The mark of your sin is upon you and you were justly requited.’
Fox and Joseph snigger. Like his brother, Jacob steps back, hangs his head.
The lad fixes me with eyes as blue as a summer’s day and smiles.
‘And you, Joseph, you learned your brothers’ craft well, yearned to do as they did much sooner than you should, and gave a woman the only value you deemed she should have. You sent your love a poisoned dress, did you not? I can see the marks on your fingers where you touched the thing; it made you ill. Perhaps it would have carried you off before long, but you were found out and they strung you up alongside your brothers. You too were justly requited.’
Joseph falls away to stand beside his siblings. I look at the three of them. ‘You were all rightly hung.’
‘Too clever by half. Not that it will matter to you, Miss,’ says Fox, and points to the floor. A trickle of water has run from the bed beneath the leaking ceiling along a runnel in the dirt floor and is about to reach the circle of salt. There’s no salvation for them to have and none for me. Despite judging their cases, they think they’ll get me anyway. I can see their rage burning up inside them, anticipation making them heavier, more solid. But I know something they don’t: that outside the sun is breaking through the clouds and the rain stopped some while ago.
The beams of light pierce the brothers’ bodies and they all scream though one would hardly think it would hurt them. And then they are gone and I am alone, just as the trickle of water breaches the salt barrier.
Before I ride away – the horse appears happy, well-rested, contented – I make a point of visiting the gallows. I kindle a fire from the sticks of the chair I broke in my temper, then use a flaming brand to set the corpses alight as they hang there – they go up like tinder despite being wet from the storm. I wait only long enough to make sure that bodies and gibbet all are certain to burn.
19
Another two days and I encounter no one on the road, which is partially luck and partially intent. Whenever I hear the sound of carriage wheels, of horses’ hooves, I duck off into the trees and hide. The horse, whom I’ve not named, keeps quiet too. Perhaps in hope of gaining a name through good behaviour. The last time I spoke to someone was just after leaving the gallows hut; a woman at a farmhouse gave me bread in exchange for some coin bits. I asked if she’d heard of Blackwater, but she squinted and asked if it was some new kind of plague. I’m still afraid of being noticed and remembered – would Aidan bother to hunt me this far?
The thing about avoiding other people is that you spend a lot of time with your own thoughts and mine are neither pleasant nor useful for I have no answers, merely speculations and more questions. At Hob’s Hallow, there was plenty of solitude if I wanted it, but there were also people to talk to when I sought company. I think back to all the times they annoyed me and offer a silent apology. Aoife and Óisín gone, Maura and Malachi equally lost to me – and I hope they’re safe.
I hope Aidan hasn’t sought to punish them for my escape. I hope he thinks I achieved it all on my own; it’s not too far a stretch to believe, after all. He sees me as an untamed thing requiring a firm hand so I’m sure he’s utterly certain it was my own mad scheme. What will he do? He can’t inherit Hob’s Hallow without me, at least not yet – as I recall he must wait ten years before he can have me declared dead and put in a claim on the estate. But then, so might any of the other distant relatives with a mind to do so. Let them fight over that crumbling pile, let them waste their remaining years doing so.
Perhaps he’ll bide his time then apply for the estate to be transferred to his own name, his own family... but to whom? There’re no longer any judges in Breakwater, no one to make such decisions. Perhaps the Queen of Thieves will be his judge; perhaps they’ll make some mutually beneficial new deal. Or perhaps she’ll take it away from him. Perhaps he’ll marry some prim miss from one of Breakwater’s last good families, if any of them choose to remain in a city of thieves. Perhaps a rich girl from elsewhere
