Finding the Way (eBook)

Part One

Chapter One

1250 AD

SUMMER

The animals penned in the windward half of our stone hut woke us first. The aged goat, well beyond any useful purpose, staggered to her feet, chuffing and pawing the ground. The rooster squawked and pecked at the hens to wake them up, scurrying around them until they formed a tight ball. The dog roused himself from a sound sleep. His sentinel ears pivoted forward, standing alert, his low grumble escalated into a high whine like that of a frightened child.

“Mother.” Amika jostled the shoulder of the woman sleeping next to her on the straw pallet on the floor of the hut. “Listen!”

Esmene, now as fully alert as the dog, raked her fingers through her angry black locks. In a single, fluid movement, she bolted upright and reached for her hoe. Gripping it with both hands, like a soldier’s pike, she held it across her chest, resolutely facing the door.

“What’s happening?” Amika began. Then she heard it—the crackling of fire brands and the muffled drumming of stomping feet.

“Go!” Esmene barked. “Grab your cloak and go. Run to the cross marking the path into the mountains. I’ll meet you there.”

“But Mother,” Amika protested. Esmene’s answer was to push the girl out the door.

Hickory bark torches, bound at intervals with thick twine, tinged the darkness with an ominous glow. More than a dozen grim-faced neighbors marched toward the hut. Leading the pack, the tall, thin Father Ricardo and the barrel shaped Venena Arrosa were silhouetted against the smoky glow.

When Amika recognized the two of them leading the rowdy crowd she knew her mother was right. There would be trouble.

Without another moment’s hesitation, Amika crouched and scuffled out the door and, hugging the shadowy stones of the hut, hurried to the safety of the nearby trees. There she found the familiar stone cross marking the mountain track that marched into the sleeping hills. She dashed to the stalwart beech where village and forest merged. The tree was like an old friend, its branches both playground and refuge since she was old enough to clamber into its gnarled arms.

Now a blossoming youth on the verge of womanhood, she had lost none of her dexterity. From the safety of her perch, she squinted through the flickering light. Orange-yellow splashes of clarity sliced through the onyx night. Moments of luminescence revealed gauzy shapes roiling in the turbid darkness. Sharp cries pierced the stillness, announcing the unfolding scene.

The rabble dragged Esmene, flailing and shrieking, from the house. The priest grabbed her hoe, cracked its handle across his knee, and flung it aside. Arrosa’s plump fist gripped one of Esmene’s arms and Father Ricardo’s gaunt fingers squeezed the other as they clutched the writhing woman.

Delicate bones, finely arched eyebrows and long lashes framing her black eyes gave Esmene the misleading appearance of fragility, but her ungovernable black hair better conveyed her dauntless spirit. Though Esmene was still young, relentless toil and the weight of worry had begun to erode her face as a three-day rain wears gullies into a woodland path.

“Where’s Amika, that brat of yours?” Arrosa growled.

“The devil’s spawn,” Father Ricardo hissed. “The daughter of a witch is also a witch, polluted from birth by her mother’s devil-dealing.”

“She’s not here,” Esmene spat her defiant words at the priest. “You won’t find her, so don’t bother looking.”

“Very well,” Arrosa grumbled. “We’ll make sure she doesn’t come back. Luis, the rest of you, you know what to do.” She turned and seized a torch from one of the men. With a strong arm, she swung it toward the simple hut. The other torch-bearers followed her lead.

Sparks traced a graceful, arcing path through the darkness as the mob hurled their flares toward the thatched roof. The goat cried piteously. The chickens screamed as they rushed toward the door. A dozen onlookers cheered or growled like angry dogs baying at a treed fox.

Not everyone in the crowd was hostile. Around the periphery, a handful of disheveled old wives, roused from their sleep, shook their kerchiefed heads, and cast sidelong glances at each other. One woman in her middle years stood apart, leaning against her almost-grown son, an arm threaded through the crook of his elbow. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief, eyes bulging in horror. She tried to stifle her revulsion, but one ragged sob escaped her constricted throat.

“What was that?” Marco Mendoza’s hoarse voice rose above the virulent background noise. His head whipped around searching the crowd. “Who dares cry for a devil-worshipper?” His lips, pressed into a rigid line, slashed across his face as he pivoted around, searching the crowd. “Do we have another witch among us?”

The terrified woman clutched her son’s arm more tightly. The youth was tall but as thin as a willow switch in winter. He wore the undyed gray habit of a Benedictine postulant. Its pointed cowl hung down the middle of his back. A heavy rosary dangled from a knotted rope belted around his waist. He struggled to compose his face, barely managing to conceal his churning stomach and pounding heart behind a mask of impassivity. He knew the woman now being manhandled by the angry crowd.

When he was a young boy, his ailing mother had sent him to Esmene’s door. He remembered her kindness when she had seen him there, shuffling his feet in the dust.

“My mother sent me,” he had announced awkwardly as he studied the dirt at his feet. “She has a bad stomach. I can hear it grumble. But it’s not hunger,” he explained. When he lifted his eyes, he saw a petite woman with sable hair and eyes. A sturdy young girl of about four years with a face as round as a harvest moon and large, acorn-brown eyes peeked from behind a bunched fistful of her mother’s skirt. The woman had disappeared into her hut and emerged with a small packet. She spoke to him tenderly.

“Tell your mother to make an infusion with this.” Esmene handed the packet to him.

“What is this?” He turned the bundle in his palm to examine it.

“It’s a balm of ginger and turmeric. Tell her to prepare an infusion with these. I’m sure she’ll feel better quickly.”

Now, this image from his past swam through his pool of memories. He could hardly believe he was seeing that kindly woman accused of witchcraft. Since when had healing become so dangerous, he wondered.

“No point in wasting good food.” Father Ricardo turned his attention to Esmene’s animals. “Take the animals.” He nodded in Arrosa’s direction. “Heaven knows, we have plenty of poor, hungry people to feed, as the Lord commanded us to do.” Arrosa and the priest held each other’s eyes long enough for Arrosa to decipher Father Ricardo’s meaning. The only bellies to be filled would be those of Arrosa and her family.

Amika clutched her gray wool cloak more tightly around herself as she trembled in the arms of the beech tree. Esmene’s heels traced shallow furrows through the dirt as they dragged her away. Her mother had warned Amika this might happen. She knew there would be trouble when Marco and Andressa Mendoza’s fourth child, their only son, was born with a frightfully deformed mouth. His upper lip did not come together in the middle, leaving a ghastly gap. Horrified villagers turned their heads when Andressa passed by, holding her baby. They surreptitiously touched forehead, shoulders, and heart, making the Christian sign of the cross to ward off evil. Andressa was a capable, experienced mother and quickly adapted to her baby’s needs, holding him upright when the pathetic infant nursed, so milk would not run out of his nose or dribble down his chin. Though she loved him as she did her other children, she knew people’s aversion to his appearance would make his life lonely and difficult.

Andressa’s husband, Marco, a temperamental Italian prone to hot rages, had lashed out when he saw the ravaged face of his long-awaited son. Desperate to place blame for this catastrophe on someone, he visited Father Ricardo.

“I can find no reason for this,” Marco Mendoza whined to the priest. “Our other children are fine, perfect in every way. Why has God cursed us?”

“Are you sure it is God who has cursed you?” Father Ricardo asked, eyebrows arching almost to his hairline. “Have you been true to the Holy Church of Rome?”

“I am from Siena. You know that. Everyone in my country follows the teachings of the Roman Church, unlike some of the savages here who won’t give up their old ways.” Marco sniffed defensively.

“Do you know anyone who bears ill will toward you or Andressa?” Father Ricardo tapped the tip of his pointed chin with a boney finger.

Marco stopped to consider the question. “Last year our goat wandered into Esmene’s garden. Esmene found him nibbling the rhubarb leaves. She dragged the poor animal back to our yard. She warned Andressa not to let our animals wander into her garden because some of her plants could be harmful.” Marco paused, ruminating. He clenched his jaw, grinding it back and forth like a cow chewing its cud. “Shortly after that incident, Andressa’s goat died. Andressa was...