Small Magics (13 page)

It would certainly be a distraction.

Thomas grabbed Eileen’s hand. “Jump with me. Now.”

Eileen’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“It’s the best luck of all, isn’t it?” Thomas started pulling her through the crowd. “Better than if Timothy jumps.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” demanded Sister Brigit, hustling along beside them.

Thomas ignored her. “Well?”

“But—” Eileen looked to the fire. “—the flames are too high.”

“You wanted to jump them at their height,” countered Thomas. “Tie up your hair, you’ll be fine.”

“Don’t be silly, girl,” said Sister Brigit. “You’ll cook yourself!”

“Please,” Thomas took both Eileen’s hands and pulled her towards him. She stopped with her face only a foot away from his. “It’s important. Please.”

Eileen looked from him to the fire, to the nun glowering at her with a stern, disapproving frown. She pulled her hands out of Thomas’s, pushed back her hood, and started tying her hair into a knot.

Thomas could have kissed her. He stopped, looked across the common and the crowd to the bishop standing on the stage and shouted, “Wait!”

The entire village turned to look. On the stage, Thomas could see the bishop’s jaw nearly drop, then the man’s entire face become rigid as he hid his surprise. Beside him, John Flarety’s eyes were wide and his hands were clenched shut in what Thomas could only guess was rage. His ignored it and ploughed on.

“I am Thomas, son of John Flarety, and I have come to offer my strength to the village.”

The bishop stepped forward to the edge of the stage. Thomas was impressed at how calm he sounded when he said, “Thomas. Why are you not at home praying?”

“Because the High Father has moved me to come here,” said Thomas, stunning himself with his own audacity. “As He moves all men throughout their lives and as He has moved this young lady to come with me.”

“Eileen?” Magda’s voice rang out above the sudden, excited buzz of the crowd. “What do you think you’re doing? You’ll be burned!”

“Clear the way!” Thomas shouted in a voice which would have made his fencing instructor, whose commanding barks could be heard the length and breadth of the Academy, very proud. “We will jump together, to ask the Four’s blessing on the harvest!”

The buzz grew to a roar and the crowd began to part, leaving a clear path across the common to the raging fire. The blaze was high, and for a moment Thomas wondered if he was going to be able to manage the jump. He forced the thought out of his mind and turned to Eileen. “Ready?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Go head first. Do a dive-roll, like we used to when we were little.” He took her by the shoulders. “Can you do it?”

Eileen looked at the fire again. She was pale, and Thomas could feel her trembling through the cloak. She bit her lip, and for a moment he was certain she would refuse.

She didn’t. “Yes. Yes I can.”

Thomas felt a wild grin break over his face. “Right.” He turned to the fire, holding her hand. “Run beside me. On three.”

“Eileen!” Sister Brigit’s face was red. “You will not jump with a boy!”

Eileen looked at the nun, then back at Thomas. From beneath the fear in her face a small, wicked smile rose to her lips. She let go of Thomas’s hand, swirled her cloak off her shoulders and threw it into Sister Brigit’s arms. Sister Brigit’s jaw dropped and the crowd’s roar changed to a cry of surprise and several catcalls when they saw what she was wearing. “That will show her,” Eileen whispered, taking his hand again. “Start counting.”

Thomas felt a heat rising in his face that had nothing to do with the fire. “Right. One.”

Eileen added her voice to his for, “Two!”

“Three!”

They ran. Straight forward, hard and fast, hands still tightly clasped. Thomas’s boot pounded against the packed earth of the common. The fire grew larger with every step, as if it was racing forward to meet them. Faces flashed past. George was cheering. The nuns looked furious. Eileen’s parents looked stunned. Up on the stage, John Flarety and the bishop had identical, thunderous expressions.

The fire rushed towards them and their hands unclasped and they
leapt!

Fire surrounded Thomas. They had jumped high enough to clear the wood, but not the flames. For a moment all Thomas felt was the heat all around him and saw the world turn yellow with fire. Then they were through and he was hitting the ground hard and rolling to his feet. He turned at once, saw Eileen rolling to her own feet beside him. He grabbed her, spun her, looking for fire in her hair or her clothes. There was none.

“Am I on fire?” she asked, her eyes large.

“No. Am I?”

She looked him up and down then spun him around and back. “No.”

“We did it.” The wild grin came back, spreading across his face. Eileen answered back with a wild grin of her own. “We did it!”

Eileen let out a scream and they wrapped together in a huge hug. The crowd let out its collective breath in an enormous cheer. Thomas hardly heard it. His arms were tight around Eileen’s body, hers around his, and for that moment, nothing else was important.

There was a shout of warning, and Timothy flipped over the fire, clearing the top of the flames with a good foot to spare and landing on his feet beside them. “You did it!” he crowed. “By the Four, boy, you did!”

The cheering crowd surged forward, surrounding them and shaking his and Eileen’s hands and slapping them on the back. Eileen linked her arm with his and moved them back from the fire, holding tight as the jostling crowd threatened to knock them apart. George was next over the fire and ran straight for his sister. On the other side of the flames, Thomas could see the other young men of the village lining up to jump.

Thomas turned from the fire and found the bishop still up on the stage, his smile set like stone on his face. He looked straight at Thomas first then shifted his gaze to Timothy. He turned and said something to his familiar. Randolf nodded, and made his way off the platform.

A small, strong hand pulled him around. “I must go, Master Scholar,” Timothy said, shaking Thomas’s free hand. “Thank you.”

“Why is he after you?” Thomas demanded. “And what does my father want with you?”

“Your father?”

“Up on the stage,” Thomas pointed.

“Him?” Timothy looked confused. “He just asked me to come out for the festival. Paid my way, in fact.”

“And the bishop?”

“Doesn’t like jugglers,” Timothy said. He looked around quickly to make sure no one was paying attention, then leaned in and added, “Or magic.”

Thomas felt his mouth fall open. Before he could put together a question, Timothy released his hand. “I must go. Good luck and protection of the Blessed Daughter to you.”

The little man turned and vanished into the crowd.

Thomas, watching him go, was nearly yanked off his feet by a sudden pull in the other direction. When he had recovered his balance, Eileen was no longer on his arm. Sister Brigit and her mother were wrapping her cloak around her, haranguing her in no uncertain terms. Worse, Lionel was bearing down on him. Even in the yellow light of the fire the smith’s face looked red as a radish at its ripest. Thomas, who had spent half his childhood in the smith’s house and knew Lionel’s temper, turned to run.

George grabbed him. “Don’t.”

“Are you joking?”

“Don’t,” George warned. His hands were like iron shackles, holding Thomas in place. “If you run from him, he’ll chase you down, tie you to a tree and whip you like a thief. Stand up to him and the worst you’ll get is a bit of bruising.”

Thomas glanced back, seeing the crowd part for the angry smith. “You sure?”

“It’s the way it usually works,” George grinned. “Besides, after that, you deserve what you get.”

Thomas hardly had time to give him a dirty look before Lionel was upon him.

“By the Four above! What were you thinking?!” the smith bellowed. “She could have been burned!”

“A good thing she wasn’t, then,” Thomas said, without thinking. “Otherwise you’d have a reason to be angry.”

“Angry?!” The man grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him onto the tips of his toes. “Angry?! I’ll show you angry!” He shook Thomas like a terrier with a rat. “You could have killed her! She could have been burned to death just so you two could show off!”

“Is that why you did it?” asked the bishop, stepping into the rapidly clearing circle around Thomas and Lionel. “Just so you could show off?”

Thomas grabbed one of Lionel’s arms for balance and turned his head towards the bishop. “I said why—”

“I heard,” the bishop’s face was stern, his voice brooking no argument. “Pity it wasn’t the truth.”

“It was!”

The bishop ignored Thomas. “He didn’t jump the flames to show off,” he said to Lionel. “
He did it to steal the virtue of your daughter.
”

“What?!” Thomas heard the bishop’s voice change, felt the power in it that would make the accusation seem almost reasonable to Lionel’s ears.

“What?!” Lionel echoed, his voice booming over the crowd. “What was that?”

“Ask him.” The bishop leaned close to Thomas, “Tell us, what were you planning to do with the maiden after you two had jumped the fire?”

“I wasn’t—”

“You want to bed my daughter?” demanded Lionel. “You risked her life just for a chance to lie with her?”

“I swear—”

“
He did
,” the power in the bishop’s voice left no room for argument. Thomas could feel the words fly across the clearing and bury themselves in Lionel. “
He has betrayed your family to lie with your daughter.
”

“You little bastard!” Lionel yelled. He shoved Thomas away. “I’ll whip your hide off!”

Thomas hit the ground hard as the smith went for the thick leather belt around his waist. Eileen yelled at her father, tried to reach him, but Magda held her back. George stood, rooted in place, obviously helpless. The people around them were now well back and watching nervously. From the back of the crowd, Thomas could hear Bluster, shouting and shoving his way forward.

Thomas scrambled to his feet, ready to run despite George’s warning. He caught sight of the bishop backing away with the rest of the crowd, a tight, self-satisfied little smile on his face.

It was the smile that did it.

Well,
Thomas thought,
George said stand up to him.

In the loudest voice he could manage, Thomas shouted, “Apologize!”

The smith looked up from his belt. His mouth was open and his eyes bulging. “What?!”

“I said, apologize!” Thomas closed the distance between them, praying his mind would stay one step ahead of his mouth. “Your words are an insult to me, and worse, an insult to Eileen’s virtue and I will
not
tolerate it!”

Lionel was frozen in place, his mouth working for words. The man looked apoplectic. “You will not tolerate it?” he repeated. “YOU?!”

“Aye, me!” Thomas stepped to within inches of the huge man, ignoring the fact that he only came up to the other’s chest. He kept his voice loud and steady. “I have no designs on your daughter. She has no designs on me. To say otherwise is to insult the both of us to the greatest degree and I will not tolerate it.” He looked deliberately over to the bishop. “From
anyone
.”

Thomas raised his voice even more, making it carry over the entire crowd. “I swear that I did what I did for the glory of the Four, for the strength of this village, and with the intention that harm come to none! If anyone says otherwise, they will be answered with steel!” Thomas turned his eyes back to the smith and watched the man’s expression change from anger to surprise. “Well?”

The smith’s jaw dropped. “By the Four, you’re serious, aren’t you, boy?”

“I am.” Thomas’s heart was pounding in his chest. He raised his voice again. “I will retire to my father’s house, to resume my prayer. Those who wish to dispute what I have said may deliver their challenges tonight, and meet me here with their swords at dawn!”

He took a deep breath, surveyed the now-silent crowd. The bishop’s smile was gone, Thomas noticed, and the observation did him a world of good. “To the rest of you, good night. May your own leaps over the flames be just as successful, and cause much less stir.” He stepped back, bowed his best formal bow, then turned on his heel and walked into the woods.

Chapter 6

What, in the name of the Four, was I thinking?

Thomas stumbled through the woods towards his father’s house, his body shaking with shock. After four years away, Thomas wasn’t certain he knew the woods well enough to make his way home in the dark. He was certain, however, that he’d rather be wandering in circles forever than meet the bishop or his father on the road.

He was stunned at his own recklessness. What if he hadn’t made it through the flames? Worse, what if Eileen hadn’t? What if she had been burnt and scarred for life? The thought made him shudder. Small wonder her father had been angry with him. He was lucky the man hadn’t beaten him to death on the spot, especially with the bishop egging him on.

At least he’d put stop to that, though the audacity of what he’d done appalled him. What if someone actually answered his challenge? What if they killed him? It would be very annoying to have made it through four years in the city, only to come home and be killed by someone he’d known all his life.

Thomas forced himself to move faster, ignoring his shaking legs. He had to beat the bishop and his father back to the house. He had said that he was returning home to pray, and he had no intention of putting the lie to his own words. His father would be angry enough. There was no point in making it worse. As it was, Thomas was expecting a scene that would make what had happened at the dinner table seem like polite conversation.

Assuming, of course, that I find my way.

The woods might have been familiar, but in the dark Thomas could scarcely tell. Part of him wanted to be lost; to be stuck in the woods until the bishop moved on. His father would still be angry, certainly, but he wouldn’t have the bishop putting ideas in his head and making him do whatever he was told.

He couldn’t really do that, could he?