The Goddess Still Saves Someone Today

I was trying to keep a boy alive when the soldiers stopped our cart. The boy's name was Tom, and he had a fever high enough to make his lips c***k. I had found him beneath a collapsed bridge three days earlier, curled around a wooden toy horse and too weak to stand. I had no supplies except a wool blanket, a tin cup, and the silver coin I'd traded for bread. So I'd given him the blanket, the cup, and most of the bread. Now the fever had taken his voice. "Out," the soldier at the roadblock ordered. "Both of you." The cart belonged to a farmer who had let us ride as far as Bellweather, a town on the edge of the river country. He climbed down without arguing. The soldiers wore the blue-and-gold badge of King Aldren's army, but their coats were patched and their boots were muddy. One had a strip of linen tied around his wrist. The other held a crossbow pointed at my chest. "I have a child with a fever," I said. The crossbowman glanced at Tom. "Then you'd better hope it's not the kind that crosses a border." "I don't know what kind it is." "Convenient." The farmer muttered something about being late to market and hurried away. I watched the soldiers look through the sacks in the cart. They found a loaf of bread and a jar of onions, neither of which belonged to me. The first soldier pushed the food into his own pack. "Those are for the town," the farmer called from the road. The soldier looked back at him. The farmer stopped walking. I could feel Tom's small hand clenched in the back of my coat. The soldiers were taking food from a man who'd risked his wagon to carry us. I couldn't make my fear do anything useful, so I did the only thing I could think of. "Leave him enough to get home," I said. The words were quiet. They weren't a command. I didn't know the soldier's name, and I had no authority over him. He lowered his hand from the bread. For a moment, he looked as confused as I felt. Then he put the loaf back. The other soldier swore. "What are you doing?" The first soldier's jaw tightened. "We'll take the onions." The farmer seized his chance. He scrambled onto the wagon and drove away before anyone could change their mind. The crossbowman turned his weapon on me. "What did you do?" "Nothing." He stared at me for a long moment, then reached for my arm. Tom made a sound in his throat. I shoved myself between them. The soldiers let us pass after taking the last of the food. By the time we reached Bellweather, Tom was shaking so hard I could feel it through my coat. The town's gate stood open, but a line of people waited outside it. A guard checked everyone's papers, and a woman near the front clutched a bundle that was moving beneath her shawl. "Who's in charge here?" I asked. The guard shrugged. "Captain Rusk. Unless he's been replaced." "Replaced by whom?" "Depends who you ask." Beyond the gate, smoke rose over slate roofs. I heard a bell toll once, then stop. A few people flinched at the sound. I'd woken up in a ditch outside Bellweather two weeks before with no name, no memory, and blood dried beneath my fingernails. The first person who'd seen me had called me Mara. I'd kept it because a name seemed better than nothing. Since then, I'd walked east, helping where I could and trying not to ask why I had no past. I looked down at Tom. His eyes had gone glassy. "I need a healer," I said. The guard pointed to the chapel. "There's a priest there. He'll see you if he's not busy burying people." I carried Tom through the gate. The chapel doors stood open, and the narrow room smelled of wax and wet wool. A gray-haired priest knelt beside a child on the floor. At the sight of Tom, he stood. "Put him there," he said, pointing to a bench. I did. The priest checked Tom's forehead, then his pulse. His mouth turned grave. "I can cool him," I said. "I can't make the fever go." "What did you give him?" "Water. Bread." "Not enough." "I know." The priest's fingers moved over Tom's wrist. "Where are his parents?" "I don't know." The question stayed between us. I didn't know my parents, either. I didn't know whether anyone had ever loved me. I'd spent two weeks wondering if the emptiness where my life should have been meant I'd done something terrible. Outside, someone shouted. The priest glanced at the door. "Can you stay with him?" he asked. "Yes." A wooden rattle rolled off the bench. I caught it before it hit the floor. Tom had been clutching it in his sleep. I placed it beside his hand. The boy's fingers closed around it. "Will he die?" I asked. The priest looked at me instead of the child. "Not if I can help it." The bell sounded again. This time it rang three times, hard and fast. The priest's face changed. "The king's men are coming." "For what?" "To collect the town's winter stores. And any able-bodied people they can put in uniform." I looked at Tom's fevered face, at the priest's careful hands, and at the people gathering beyond the chapel doors. I had no memory of who I was. But I knew what it meant when soldiers came to take what little a sick child had left. "I'll help you hide him," I said.