Maddy curled into the warmth of her bed, aching, hollow. How did he expect her to sleep after that? She was wound up tight, like a spring.
What a time for him to decide to play the gentleman instead of the rake. She punched the pillow and willed her body to sleep.
Eleven
Someone was moving around outside the cottage. Maddy sat bolt upright in bed. The Bloody Abbot? She listened, straining to hear every sound, braced for moaning, banging, and scratching at the doors and windows.
Nothing. But someone, or something was definitely outside. An animal? A fox? The hens were making a noisy, but it wasn’t the demented squawking that heralded a fox’s arrival. A cow or sheep, perhaps, broken into her garden, intent on her sweet greens?
She slipped out of bed and hurried to the window.
“What’s the matter?” He sat up.
“There’s something outside.” She peered through the thick distorted glass. It was hard to see much. The moon was out, but it was cloudy and the garden was dappled with shadows. Impossible to tell if something was moving or whether it was just the clouds.
He stood beside her, pistol in one hand, the other in the small of her back. Warm. Solid. Protective. “That swine again?”
“I don’t think so. It might be an animal.”
They listened. There was certainly something there. They could hear snapping noises as if twigs were being broken.
“I’ll go out and see what it is,” he said.
“I’ll come, too,” she told him and grabbed her cloak.
But just as they opened the door, there was a whooshing sound, then another, and suddenly a row of fires blazed up along the back wall of the garden.
For a moment Maddy couldn’t think what was there to burn, but then—“My bee hives!” She ran toward them, then came to a shocked standstill. Her hives were all ablaze, the straw skeps a mass of flame, the beeswax inside fueling the fire to greater heights. Sparks and shreds of burning straw danced and twirled up into the darkness, carried on the brisk wind.
“My bees, oh, my bees!” But there was nothing she could do: the hives were already turning to glowing, charred lumps. White shreds of ash peeled off in the breeze. She shivered.
“What’s that smell?” Nash sniffed the air. “Deliberately set,” he said, lifting up a rag. “This is soaked in lamp oil.”
What did she care how? Her bees were dead? Cruelly destroyed. Maddy felt sick. Her precious bees . . . They were part of the family, these bees. They knew her secrets, had been her confidantes and her comfort, her link with Grand-mère and her past.
“Who would do such a terrible thing? Murder bees? And why?” she asked.
Part of the answer was obvious. The robed silhouette stood on the crest of the hill, watching. Too far away to pursue.
“Why?” Maddy whispered again. “I’ve done nothing to him. And the bees harm no one—they only sting in self defense. They just work and give honey.” Tears trickled down her cheeks unregarded.
Every hive was destroyed, every little worker, every martyred queen. All that honey, all that wax, all the work of weaving the skep . . . gone. The children running home in the summer, shrieking that they’d spotted a wild swarm in the forest, the adventure of catching the swarm and bringing home the bees, each new swarm another source of income . . . All the work of keeping the bees alive and fed through the coldest part of winter . . . ruined.
Maddy was ruined, too. The honey was a major source of income. All that stood now between her family and destitution were her chickens and the vegetable garden.
The chickens! She broke away from his comforting embrace and ran to the hen house. The door was open. The chickens were scattered throughout the garden and some in the field beyond the wall . . .
Her garden! The clouds parted, letting moonlight flood the garden . . . or what remained of it. Seedlings trampled into the ground, trellises knocked over and smashed.
The sound of breaking twigs.
Plants not simply uprooted, but broken and torn apart and ground beneath a hostile heel. Total, deliberate destruction.
She surveyed the devastation in silence, shivering. The wind sliced through her clothing, harsh and bitterly cold, chilling her to the bone.
All her work of the last year destroyed in one short night. To what purpose? So that children would starve? She felt sick.
His arm tightened around her. “Come inside, there’s nothing you can do now.”
