The girl glanced at the door before answering. "Moira."
"A fine name. Tell me, Moira, do ye ken where they keep the women who tried to help the witch?"
The girl's eyes widened. "In the pit," she whispered. "My mam's there too."
"The pit?"
She nodded solemnly, her eyes filling with tears. Her small fingers continued to work as if she were afraid to stop. "She only said there was no proof the first one was a witch."
Flanders’ blood boiled and his guts hardened with anger, but he kept his voice gentle. "How many women are in the pit?"
"Ten," said a boy from across the circle. "My mam and sister too."
Robert joined them, crouching low. "And Gerts?”
Moira nodded.
“Don’t tell the woman, or anyone else, but we’ve come to help get them out.”
The children exchanged hopeful glances.
“And we’d like to help the dead woman’s sister as well. But we can’t find her.”
A silent communication passed between their little faces. After a nod from the others, Moira spoke again, so quietly they had to lean in to hear. "She's not in the forest."
"Oh?" Flanders raised an eyebrow. "And how would ye know that?"
She bit her lips shut.
A smaller boy with a mop of dark curls whispered, "Because she's in the muds.”
The girl jumped to her feet. "Wolfy! Ye’re not supposed to tell!"
"The muds?" Flanders didn’t understand.
Mael headed for the door. “Mud and sod dugouts, shelters built along the inside of the palisades. It would help if we knew which one.”
Moira sighed, resigned now. “Wolfy's."
"How do we find it?"
"Last on the left. Please don’t tell her we said.”
Flanders gave the lassie his most charming wink. “Ye’ve done nothing but help her, I swear it.”
Robert lingered, waiting for all the children's attention. “Now, if ye want to help yer mams, do a better job of keepin’ our secret, aye?”
Little heads nodded all around the room. The ones too young to understand thought it was a game and nodded as well. When the woman returned, Robert helped her move her heavy bucket inside and they took their leave, promising to watch from outside to make sure the witch wouldn’t get to her precious charges.
* * *
They stepped outsideand Robert closed the door. “What are the chances they’ll all forget our visit, our conversation, and our faces?”
“Not likely.” Flanders shrugged. “We’ll have to move fast is all.”
Mael nodded to the west, where a row of muds sat up against the wood poles of the palisades. Half below ground, the walls of the small shelters needed only half the material of a cottage and didn’t take up much room, though it would take some engineering to keep the rain out. Perhaps the walkway above was enough.
Last on the left, Moira said.
