and conversations she listened to between Marion and the other women began to echo again in her head, the way they giggled over what they'd done with men, things Elena couldn't imagine any woman doing or wanting to do. Half the time she'd thought they were making it up just to make the younger girls blush, now she wasn't sure.
She had only ever slept with Athan, and the thought of any other man lying on top of her, his hands all over her, made her gag, never mind the thought of what else they might want her to do. She turned over and winced as her tender swollen breasts pressed against the coarse straw of the pallet. She longed desperately to feel her baby's soft little mouth nuzzling against her, to hold him just one last time.
Elena's eyes burned with tears from exhaustion, hunger, fear, but mostly for the great ache that was the absence of Athan and her son. She loved Athan so much. But the face that rose up in front of her when she tried to picture him was distorted with the doubt she'd seen in his eyes when he'd last looked at her. Did he really believe she could have done it? Why hadn't he spoken up for her to Osborn? Why hadn't he even tried to come to her last night in the pit? He said he would always love her. Those were the last words he had spoken to her and she clung desperately to them. But could you really love someone and believe them capable of murdering your own little son?
Tears forced their way from under Elena's eyelids but angrily she rubbed them away. Of all of them, Raffaele had been the only one to help her in the end and she must believe he would continue to protect her. Who else was there she could trust? If she allowed herself to think that there was no one, she'd never be able to go on living.
That first day after he'd taken her to see Lady Anne, Raffaele had promised to be like a father to her and no father would let his daughter be used as a whore. He had sent her here to keep her safe, and it had been a good plan, for Osborn's men would never think to search here. And when Gytha returned to Gastmere and proved her innocent, she would be able to go home again to Athan and he would look at her tenderly the way he had that night they conceived their son. Everything would come right. It must. All she had to do was wait. Clinging to that single thread of hope, Elena finally drifted into an exhausted sleep.
11th Day after the New Moon,
June 1211
Ants — which some call pismires, for they stink of piss.
As many swellings or warts as a mortal has, he should take that number of ants, bind them in a cloth with a snail and burn it all to ashes and mix with vinegar. Then remove the head of an ant and crushing the body between his fingers anoint the juice on the swellings and they shall shrink.
Some say ants are Muryans or faeries who undergo many earthly transformations, getting smaller and smaller until they become ants before vanishing for ever. Others say they are the souls of unbaptized children who cannot enter either heaven or hell, therefore an ants' nest must never be destroyed. And if a piece of tin is placed in an ants' nest at just the right moment under a new moon it will turn to silver.
Ant eggs can be used to destroy the love of a man for a woman, or a maid for a lad, if they should desire that person for themselves. For mortals are fickle in all ways but this, that they burn most fiercely with love for another when that love is not returned.
The Mandrake's Herbal
The Stew
A wisp of lilac smoke filtered up through the bright green leaves of the great beech tree, dissolving before it could touch the pale dawn sky. Beneath the branches, Gytha turned the wizened apple in her hand, counting the thorns pressed into the flesh: eena, deena, dina, das, catiler, weena, winna, was, eena, deena. The counting was to strengthen the power of the fetch, but Gytha knew exactly how many thorns she had used — one to bring the girl, and one for the babe, and now to set them spinning. She plucked the third thorn