Page 4 of Dragon Lord
The priest hadn’t been able to vanquish the great devil with his many prayers. Einin’s return with the talon implied that she might be more powerful than he was, and she a woman! That was why he disapproved of her so much.
“I returned but by God’s grace,” she hurried to say, keeping her voice meek, knowing as soon as she said the words that they wouldn’t help. The priest would hate the idea that some inconsequential maiden had been chosen as God’s instrument and not him.
He proved her right the very next second.
“You boast of your unwomanly and ungodly ways,” he accused her. “Women are weak and unable to resist sin. You are too proud to subject yourself to the godly correction that is men’s duty to provide. You refuse young Wilm’s offer of marriage.”
Wilm was the butcher’s son, a beefy man two years older than Einin. He beat the family dogs, the family livestock, and his sisters, as his father beat Agna, Wilm’s mother. Einin had no wish for Wilm’s godly correction.
She clasped her hands in front of her and dipped her head lower, hoping one of the matrons on the cobbler’s front steps might speak up for her. Minde, the cobbler’s wife, cradled her youngest daughter to her side. She, and her friends, avoided Einin’s eyes.
They have their reasons.
Einin cast no blame.
The war had left few able-bodied men. When Einin had gone to the cave as sacrifice, it meant one fewer maiden to compete with these matrons’ daughters for a husband.
Her hopes had been foolish. Of course none of the women dared speak up before the priest. They saw the writing on the wall as Einin herself was beginning to see. The priest was working up to an accusation of witchery. Anyone who took Einin’s side might get caught up in the net the man was weaving.
As the “Father” went on berating her for her unwomanly clothes and other disobediences, a few of the village men ambled over to see the source of the disturbance.
Einin knew them all, as they all knew her, had known her from the moment of her birth.
Yet none of the men spoke up for her either.
None had been brave enough to confront the dragon, and they felt shamed that Einin had done so and lived.
Her very presence in the village was a daily reminder of their own cowardice.
Men were superior by the will of God, the priest always preached. By God’s will did husbands rule their wives; by God’s will did their wives owe them full obedience. Men were, by far, stronger and braver than women. And yet it’d been Einin who had returned with a talon. Unnatural.
She blinked hard as she understood at last why her victory had been celebrated upon her return but the victor had not. She’d volunteered as the sacrificial virgin, and the only thing anyone had expected of her was to die. Instead, she had shown up the men. So talon or no, she would not be forgiven.
Her instincts prickled—an indistinct premonition of danger—the same feeling as when in the woods she found herself watched by a wolf from the ridge.
The priest narrowed his beady brown eyes. “I cannot fathom why the evil beast let you leave.”
“Perhaps it is not entirely evil?” She dared offer an opinion, immediately regretting it.
“That is precisely what an evil beast would want you to think.”
“Is it evil because it’s a beast?” The question escaped Einin before she could stop it. She best explain herself. “We keep beasts in the village and don’t call them evil.”
“Sheep, goats, swine, and cows. God put them under our dominion, for man’s benefit.”
“Only the wild beasts are evil, then?” Stop talking! She bit her lip.
The priest shook his head. “Even a wolf pup can be tamed. Even a bear. You’ve seen them at the traveling carnival.” His tone turned frigid, as if to let her know his pronouncement was final. “But that dragon is evil.”
Because it cannot be tamed? Because it is truly wild and free? Because it is not under the priest’s dominion and could not be trained to bend the knee? Einin dared ask no more. She was grateful that the man hadn’t struck her down already for all her impertinence.
Yet with all that she was, she wished for freedom. Did that mean that she too was evil?
“I’m told you are to embark on a journey,” the priest said, every word laden with suspicion.
Einin stole a glance.
He watched her as closely as before, but something in his gaze had changed. He no longer watched her as if examining her. His gaze had hardened, as if he’d come to a decision.
A cold shiver ran up Einin’s spine. In that very moment, she understood that she must leave, that indeed her very life might depend on a speedy departure.
“I am to go to Morganton, Father, leaving on the morrow,” she said in a voice as meek as she was capable of uttering. “My Aunt Rose had her babe, her seventh, and she’s sick with the fever. Her husband came home maimed from the war. I go to help.”
She had resolved to stay in her village as many times as she had resolved to keep her word and return to the dragon’s cave.
She’d made up the tale of her aunt at one such point, since she could not tell anyone that she was returning to the dragon of her own free will.
Making a pact with the great devil would mark her in the priest’s eyes as the servant of the devil. She would be burned on the spot.
Were she to go to the dragon, her ruse would likely hold. She did have family in Morganton, and the place was far enough to the north that nobody in Downwood would ever know whether Einin arrived at her aunt’s house or not.
The priest watched her as if he intended to see right into her heart. Silence blanketed the street.
Robet, the miller, broke it, limping around a corner, a wide grin on his wrinkled face as he called out to the small gathering.
“I’m come from the woods. We’ll have timber enough to rebuild the mill!
Must have been a mudslide. All the trees on the ridge felled by last night’s storm have been brought down to the valley.
The timber is all right here, close enough now. ”
When his good news wasn’t received with cheers and pats on the back, he stopped, his jubilant expression turning puzzled. Then he caught the undercurrents, and the smile slid off his face.
Einin glanced up at the priest from under her lashes.
The zealous fires that burned in his eyes did naught to reassure her.
If she’d thought her departure from the village would be viewed with relief, she’d been mistaken.
The priest clearly saw her wish to leave as an attempt to escape his judgment.
Einin’s throat tightened as she waited for him to order her to stay.
He didn’t.
He turned without a word and strode away, casting a meaningful glance to this man and that as he went.