“Gar.”

Not that noise again. Why was that sound the only one left to her, a mockery of a word, so utterly meaningless?

“What do you want, Healing Martha, a drink perhaps, is that it?”

“Sa… gar.”

“Yes, I heard you. Are you cold? Shall I stoke up the fire?”

What was I doing in the infirmary? My duty was to be in the chapel, praying, but my prayers vanished into a void. I didn’t even know if Healing Martha could hear me, but at least her one sound, senseless though it was, was better than cold silence.

“Sau… garde.”

I stared at her. “What? What did you say?”

“Sauve… garde.”

This time there was no mistaking it. Sauvegarde-the inscription written above the gateway to the Vineyard in Bruges.

“Is that what you’ve been trying to say all these weeks? No, Healing Martha, no! You cannot ask me to go back to Bruges. We might as well be nuns sheltering from the world, hiding behind thick walls. But we are not called to be safe. I thought you of all people understood that.”

She winced and I cursed my own tongue. Hadn’t I hurt her enough?

“Forgive me, Healing Martha. I’ve been selfish. You’re old and sick and it’s right that you should return to spend your last days in the Vineyard with people to care for you properly. I should have listened to you with more patience and realised you were asking to be sent home.”

There was a surprisingly sharp slap on my hand. I rubbed my skin more to acknowledge the rebuke than because it stung.

“Sauvegarde!” She tapped the side of my head and then her own.

“I believe she’s asking you what Sauvegarde means, Servant Martha.” I jumped at the sound of Merchant Martha’s voice behind us.

“We all know what it means, Merchant Martha,” I snapped. “Refuge-the place of refuge.”

“Refuge for what, though?” Merchant Martha asked mildly. “I think she’s saying you have not understood it.” Merchant Martha sat down on the edge of the cot. “Tell me why you became a beguine.”

“To serve God,” I said impatiently.

“Then why not serve God as a nun or anchorite or wife? What did you find in a beguinage?”

“Freedom. Somewhere I could be-”

“That’s it, Servant Martha-in a beguinage, you had the freedom to be yourself, do what you thought was right, not what others told you to do. Thoughts. That’s what Healing Martha is trying to tell you. What we safeguard is not our bodies, but our freedom to think.

“I don’t hold with what Osmanna did, you know that. There was a time when if I’d had the care of her, I’d have taken a strap to her backside, as well you know. But that day in the Marthas’ Council you said, ’Osmanna desires to seek the truth for herself.’ You gave her the freedom to do that. You and me, we may not have liked the truth she found, but she’d the right to try to find it. And if there is to be true refuge for thought, then we must be free to explore any path without hindrance. That’s what you taught me that day in council, Servant Martha. It’s taken me a while to accept it. You know me, I’m a stubborn old goat, but even old goats can change.”

Merchant Martha slipped off the cot, she touched my shoulder, just for a moment, before she walked away.

Healing Martha squeezed my hand again. For a moment, I thought I saw her smile, then a sudden spasm of pain twisted her face. Her hand dropped mine and clutched at her chest. She coughed, choking and wheezing, struggling to reach for the cup of herbed wine beside her. I held it to her lips. She drank and slumped back, shaking with the effort. A few drops of the red wine had spilled into her open hand. She gazed at them wonderingly, then slowly closed her fist, letting the drops run through her fingers and fall onto my open palm. By the glow of the fire’s embers, I watched her eyes close. Her good hand fell limp in mine. The flame on the rush candle guttered and died, leaving only the scent of smoke.

iF THE TWO OF YOU DON’T stop squabbling, I’ll tell your father and then neither of you’ll be going to the burning tomorrow. There’s me trying to help your poor dear father out of the goodness of my heart and all you two can do is mither me until my head’s fit to burst. And you can get out of here now.” Lettice flung a ladle of water at the dog trying to slip in through the door behind her. It growled, but slunk off.

“Now see what you’ve done,” William hissed in my ear. “It’s all your fault, you little pig’s turd.”

“I can’t be doing with you two under my feet all day,” Lettice grumbled. “Make yourselves useful: Fetch some water-and not from the well that’s still cursed and will be until that wicked girl is ashes. You go down to the river, draw the water from there, and mind you find a nice clear patch, don’t be bringing me back a pail of mud. Now off with you, before I tell your father to take a switch to the pair of you.”

She hung a pair of leather pails strung together with a rope over William’s shoulder and shooed us out of our cottage.

William shoved me aside and hurried ahead of me down the path, trying to leave me behind. I had to run to catch up with him. It really annoyed him if I walked with him, that’s why I did it, even though I’d sooner walk by myself. It was hard keeping up with him. Although I was better, my legs still felt wobbly.

I didn’t remember much about being sick. It was all a jumble-the flood, being ill, the Owlman. Sometimes I didn’t know what had really happened and what was just a bad dream.

I don’t know how long I’d been in the house of women, but I woke up in a room that was bigger than two cottages together and had lots and lots of beds in it with people moaning. I was scared. I’d eaten the food the grey women had given me and it was witched and now I was going to waste away and die. I’d felt the birds pecking me, like Lettice said. I was so afeared I yelled and wouldn’t stop yelling, but Lettice came to rescue me, not a moment too soon, she said.

I thought Mam would be waiting for me at the cottage. But she wasn’t there. Father said she wasn’t ever coming back. I didn’t believe him and I kept crying for her till Father smacked me. I still cry, but only at night and I stuff my blanket in my mouth so he can’t hear me.

“Stop trying to walk next to me,” William said, deliberately nudging me into the bushes. “You think I want everyone to see me walking with a girl? And you needn’t think you’re coming with me tomorrow, ’cause you’re not. I don’t know what you want to come for anyway. You’ll be pissing yourself and crying for Ma… Anyway, you’ll be bawling before the flames even touch her.”

“I won’t so!”

“You will too. You don’t even know what happens, do you?”

“Neither do you,” I said. My legs were shaking, but I wasn’t going to drop behind.

“I do ’cause Henry told me.” William looked all smug. “He’s seen loads of burnings in Norwich. Shall I tell you?”

I knew it was going to be horrible and I didn’t want him to tell me, but if I said no, he’d make me listen. I shrugged, trying to look as if I really didn’t care.

“First all her clothes burn off and you can see her bubbies and everything. And her skin starts to blister and pop, then it melts and starts running down her legs. The stench is powerful. Just one whiff of it and you’ll be sick as a dog, and she’ll scream and scream and scream and you’ll never be able to get the scream out of your head.”

I pressed my fist against my mouth and shuddered. I already felt sick.

William grinned down at me. “See, I told you, Pisspuddle-you’re scared.”

I ran a few steps ahead of him, so he couldn’t see my face. “Doesn’t bother me. I’m going to go to the Green afore it gets light, so I can get right in the front.”

“Oh yeah.” He grabbed me by my braids. I wriggled and tried to kick him, but his arms were too long and I couldn’t reach him. I bit him hard on the arm, hard as I could. He squawked like a strangled goose and let go.