up the stairs, but they heard no murder hole being uncovered. Nevertheless, Argoth walked about the room, holding his lamp so he could inspect every one. When he was sure nobody was listening, he motioned Hogan to Purity’s cell.
Purity lay in a blanket at the bars of her cell on a bed of straw. Underneath the blanket she was naked except for her bandages. Her head had been shaven. The silver king’s collar ringed her neck. Hogan knelt close to the bars and held his lamp up. Her wounds from the arrows were stitched in tidy rows. Even so, the wounds were red, angry, and corrupting. She would not last long in this room, but she might survive long enough to do the Grove damage.
“Purity,” said Hogan.
She spoke, but did not sit up. “I hope you brought wolfsbane roots,” she said. “If I’m to be poisoned, let it be quick. Not an insufficient dose of hemlock and honey or some two-day mushroom.”
“Calm yourself,” said Hogan. “It hasn’t come to that yet. First, we need to know what has happened.”
She coughed and her breath rattled in her lungs. “I’m sure the Fir-Noy gave you the full report,” she said.
“I don’t care about the battle,” said Hogan. “I want to know about the stork and your child. And what happened to the harvest master’s family afterwards.”
“I thought maybe someone else in the Grove decided to take justice in their own hands,” said Argoth, “but it wasn’t anyone in the Grove. Nobody I know could have drained the bodies like that. Not even a Divine can do that. I inspected the bodies, and they were dry. Completely wrung out.”
Argoth referred to the Fire in the bodies of the family. Death was the separation of Fire, soul, and body. Some said the soul took the Fire with it. Others claimed the Fire poured forth like smoke or steam. However it separated from the body, there was always some that remained and leached away only very slowly. Fire could be found in bones a hundred years old, yet the bodies of Barg’s family had been empty husks.
Argoth continued, “There were the markings of an immense draw of Fire, a blackening of the skin. It looked almost as if some monstrous hand had grasped hold of each victim’s face.”
Purity was silent for a long moment. And then, “I know nothing of what happened to the harvest master’s family.”
Hogan squatted down next to the cell. He reached in and gently stroked Purity’s shaved head. “Whatever you’re hiding, you need to let us know so we know how to set it right.”
Purity looked at them then. Large cuts and bruises covered her face. Her left eye was almost swollen shut. Her lip was split.
“Give me the poison,” she said. “You cannot free me. I have broken our trust. I am willing to abide by the covenant; cut me down and preserve the rest.”
Not a tear fell. And how could she weep? She was broken. Argoth’s heart ached for her.
Hogan continued to softly stroke her hair. “We decide if the covenant is broken. Besides, not all is lost. Your children yet live.”
Argoth had not known that.
Purity looked at Hogan, and now the tears began to well in her damaged eyes. “I have done horrible things.”
They waited for her to continue.
Purity was a handsome woman, but her grief had shattered her. And now her face twisted with what she was about to tell. “In the early autumn of last year the children brought in a young stork with an injured wing. It could not join the others in their flight south, so we decided to nurse it back to health. Sugar and Legs made a pen for it next to the chicken coop and brought it frogs and fish to eat. They loved the excitement of that long, dangerous beak.
“It was a smart bird, and a temptation came to me, a forbidden and foolish thing. I wanted to reach out and touch its soul, to see what the mind of this great bird might be like. I’d done it before with other animals and knew how to be careful. Every few generations someone in my family manifests this gift. I’d been taught by my great-grandmother. But I had never done this while pregnant. I was only a few weeks from delivering Cotton.”
Argoth suspected he knew where the story would end. This poor woman . . . and yet, that’s why the codes were so strict.