Elisha’s heart gave a lurch, then settled down again. She must have sold it, or found another smith to take it up. As he stood, unsure what to do next, a man emerged, rubbing his hands on a cloth.
“Help you?” he called out.
Approaching a few more steps, Elisha said, “Yes, I’m looking for Nathaniel Tinsmith’s widow, do you know where she’s living?”
The man nodded his head to the house. “Still here, ain’t she? Go on through.”
“But who are you?”
“Roger Ironman, new to the parts. She’s rented me the shop ’til I get meself settled.”
As Elisha walked up, the door sprang open, and a child darted out, giggling like mad and bounding down the steps into the yard.
“I’ll get you!” a woman in a nun’s habit cried, springing after, then stopping short, her mouth dropping open. “Elisha!” Sister Lucretia wrapped him in an embrace, pressing her cheek against his chest.
It still ached, but he didn’t mind. Somehow, he freed his arms from the tangle of hers and returned the gesture. “Sister, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” he murmured. He felt the return of his sentiment and trembled. So long he had been surrounded by emotions he denied himself, from Martin’s love to Lucretia’s admiration. Since his awakening, he hurt more deeply, it was true, but he also laughed from that depth—cursed and blessed, and glad of it.
At last, they broke apart to gaze at each other. “You’ve changed,” she observed.
“Aye, that I have, Sister, and you don’t know the half of it.” He shivered in the suggestion of a breeze.
“Come inside—we’ve just got supper on, if I can catch that Annie!” her voice rose at the end, and a trail of giggles emerged from around the back.
Elisha looked toward the darkened door. He had last gone through it alone, bereft, and dripping with blood that should never have been spilt. “Am I welcome?”
Hesitating, Sister Lucretia kept his hand in hers, gazing with him. “Much has changed here, too.”
“Like Annie?” he asked, his surprise returning.
Lucretia brightened. “Aye, like that! She’s been God’s gift, and not his only. I convinced Helena to bury her grief in charity, and so she has. She takes in the country children, the ones recovering from the hospital, you know, who mightn’t be welcome back to their families as more mouths to feed.” She crossed herself quickly. “There are some as would rather their sick ones went home to the Lord.”
“I know, I’ve met them.” He took a deep breath. “I worried she might return to her old life. Nate would never…” But his brother’s name stopped his throat.
“Between what she’s given for the children and the rents from the workshop and your old rooms—sorry, Eli—she gets by.” Lucretia nudged him toward the house.
With some trepidation, but with the strength of her hand, Elisha walked toward his brother’s door.
At the steps, Lucretia detached herself and climbed inside, speaking in a low voice. From within, a baby wailed, and Elisha looked to the cloudless sky, mastering himself for what was to come.
After a moment, Sister Lucretia peered around the doorframe. “Come in,” she said, “It’s all right.”
The cry of the child had not prepared him for what met his eyes, and Elisha sucked in a breath. His throat seized up a little, and he forced himself to relax. What could be more natural, after all, than a woman nursing a baby?
Except if the woman were Helena, so recently bereft of her own child, and her husband as well. All that she loved had been torn from her, and Elisha had been the surgeon who made the first cut. He never thought he would see her again, so he sank himself in his work as if healing others could repair the wounds he had caused.
She glanced up from the child’s face, one of its tiny hands wrapped around her finger. The smile she wore faded away, leaving her solemn and yet radiant. No woman had glowed like that save the Virgin Mother. Or Brigit, when she looked on him.
Elisha’s head bowed to his chest, and he folded his arms together. His lips trembled, and he fought to keep them still. “Helena,” he said, “I am so sorry. For you, for the baby, for Nathaniel—” His voice broke.
“Come here,” she said, “Kneel down where I can look at you.” Her tone brooked no refusal, and he obeyed, only too glad to sink to his wobbly knees. “This surprises you, does it? To see me with a child at my breast? Look closer, Barber, look.”
Her words drew up his gaze, and he saw as she lifted the infant away, turning it to face the other breast. Although the other side of its face had glowed with that bliss particular to babies, this side seemed stiff, the eye sloping and twitching, the arm a stub with fingers too small even for a child. “The mother took one look and turned it away,” Helena murmured, caressing the child’s cheek with her finger. “Sister Lucretia came to me.” Her voice faltered, then grew stronger. “She came to me because my milk had just come in. I hurt in so many ways, then, and that one seemed the most terrible. God had taken my baby to be with Him, she said, but it did not mean I should be alone, and here was this child…” She looked toward where Lucretia hovered at the hearth. The smile that touched her lips echoed the joy he heard in her voice: She had found the blessing beyond the curse, in this giving of herself.
“Everything is changed,” she said. “Even our king is new, and his betrothed. They say the battle you fought has been only the rumor of a greater war.”
“It was not my battle,” he murmured, thinking of all of those who had died, the men under his care, the men felled by arrows, by fire and stone. “Not mine alone.”
“Forgive me.”
Helena’s voice rang in his ears, widening his eyes as he looked up to her face. “But what have you done to need forgiveness?”
She glowed with that smile and with something like sorrow, or pity. “The letter I sent you,” she said. “It was cruel in its words and its intent. I had not yet healed. I still have not, but at least I’ve come far enough not to inflict my pain on others. I’m sorry. I still hope you will one day trust me with all of your story.” At his expression, she shook her head. “Not today. It’s still too soon.”
Elisha’s hands gripped each other, almost like a prayer. He rubbed one thumb over the nail of the other. “That night I left, do you recall your curse to me?”
After an instant, she drew a quick breath. “I do,” she said, “I cursed you to love, and to lose your love.”
He nodded, missing again the weight of his hair, the way he could hide behind its darkness. “It came true.” He swallowed hard, trying to hold back the pain of this strange wound.
She sat silently, only her breath betraying her presence.
He had drawn into himself again, not daring to feel whatever emotions rocked her—not even to punish himself.
Then her soft words fell through the still house. “Oh, Elisha, I am sorry.”
With a strangled laugh, he whispered, “I forgive you.”
Then her hand brushed against his hair, and she did not need to speak to answer him, for his defenses fell away, and she drew him close against her knee. His brother’s widow stroked his hair, and Elisha felt the chill slivers of Death rise away from him toward Heaven.
Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle Page 33