Read Online Stone Cradle by Louise Doughty - Free Book Online

the others we had been in the wagon with on our way across the Fens. They were eager for news of them, and we were sorry as our trial had been before theirs so we knew not what their sentences had been. But Dadus promised he would find out when we got back to Ramsey, and get word down to them.
    They were mostly Smiths, and Greys, but none of the Greys were related to Redeemus Grey and his lot that we’d been with in Werrington, although of course they knew of them. There was a cousin of Dei’s, from the Kent Marsh Smiths, and when she saw the state Dei was in she fell to a-wailing and a-weeping and swore to us she would nurse Dei like her own daughter, and though I was grateful I couldn’t help feeling that what Dei needed most wasquietness, and me. They weren’t well-off folk, otherwise they would never have been stuck on the common with the weather so bad, but they were better off than us and took us in.
    Dei died four days later. I was with her, holding her hand. Dadus had gone out with some of the other Smith men. The other women had taken over the caring of Lijah and I just had him for feeds. I sat next to Dei the whole time, in the bender tent the folk had, with an extra layer they built over to try and help. It was bitter cold, but she didn’t seem to notice. I stroked her fine-boned hand and I talked to her softly of what trouble Lijah was going to give me and how she’d better get well soon as I’d be needing help of her. At that, she gave a small smile, though she was long past speaking by then.
    When she was gone, I couldn’t bear her cousin, a-weeping and a-wailing. I felt like she was trying to take my grief, for who was she, after all? It was an uncharitable thought. I would have cried myself, I think, but for the wailing cousin. She made my face stony, for I wanted to be different from her to show her how much less my Dei was to her than me. You wouldn’t think such things should matter at a time like that, but they do.
    I let the cousin’s wailing tell Dadus what had happened. He would have heard it as he came back towards the camp. I hope he let himself stop for a minute and take a breath, a deep breath, as it would have been the last breath he took before he knew for certain that our Dei was gone.
    We burned her, that very night. We put her on the cart, with her few things, her shawl and her sewing things, and took her to the far side of the common and laid her down and piled wood on her.
    Dadus and me stood by and we were getting through it, just watching the flames alongside the others gathered round who were our new family now. Then, all at once, there was a loud bang, and an orange flame shot skywards, and the branches we had piled on collapsed inwards. A shower of sparks flew up into the night air, and it was like Dei was escaping into the black sky. And Dadusnext to me fell on his knees and bent over with both arms across his stomach as if he was going to be sick. He opened his mouth wide, and there was an awful, long moment when no noise came, but then he let out his howl, and it filled the sky. I dropped to my knees as well and put my arm around his shoulders, and tears were running down my face; but I realised I was frightened by Dadus collapsing down more than wanting to comfort him. I thought, after this he will be broke, just like Dei’s legs were broke, and I will have to take care of him just like I do Lijah, and I already saw me making the decision about getting the cart back to the farrier and how we would pay back the Lees up at Ramsey and the whole future was falling on me, and I was foreseeing it – and I had never really thought on Travellers who tell the gorjers they see such things, but I saw my life there, going up in flames.
    And then I could not forgive myself for thinking of myself and not of Dei.
    *
    Dadus stayed to see the fire out, but I could not, and, as it died down, I took my leave and said I would go back to the camp for Lijah. I was wept out and spent by then,