WILD CHILD PUBLISHING has just announced that my award-winning historical novel, THE FLIGHT OF THE SORCERESS will be available as a free download on Amazon on April 2 and 3. 2012.

As the current candidates for President debate the issue of separation of church and state, THE FLIGHT OF THE SORCERESS has become increasingly relevant. This carefully researched historical novel accurately recounts the consequences of joining together church and state the last time a world power tried it.

Many friends and readers have responded to my prior posts, admitting to their troglodyte tendencies and requesting notification when my historical novel The Flight of the Sorceress comes out in print.

Now it’s here, and with a brand new cover!

Here’s what people are saying:

“A read that will keep you turning the pages! …(M)eticulously researched and beautifully portrayed….Willdorf’s prose brings the moment alive. The themes explored in this book, of prejudice and power, are deftly interwoven with the beliefs of the time. The conflict manages to educate and compel at the same time and you can’t help but feel for these women, who are so grossly over-matched but who still do not give up... (A) rare look at a time and place not often seen in historical fiction …that will keep you turning the pages!” Historical Novel Review, by Vanitha Sankaran, author of Watermark. http://historicalnovelreview.blogspot.com

“Locks you in for the ride” Ransom Stephens, author of The God Patent.

“Big, Bold, Imaginative…Spectacular women characters…Soars majestically.” Jonah Raskin, author of Natives, Newcomers, Exiles, Fugitives.

“Rich in ideas…Compelling characters…A page-turner to boot.” Holly Shumas, author of Five Things I Can’t Live Without, and Love and Other Natural Disasters

“The only problem I had with the book was that it ended. Hopefully, there will be sequel.” Stan Goldberg is the author of the award winning book, Lessons for Living: Stories of Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Courage at the End of Life

“A stirring adventure tale that is also a timely warning.” James Warner, host and co-producer of InsideStoryTime, voted SF Weekly BEST NEW READING SERIES 2006

The historical research is fantastic! The settings just “breathe” they are so real. Joel Gates. Clayton, NC.

I read the book and enjoyed it and passed it along to my book club, many of whom went right out and downloaded it to the Kindles. Darlene Meskell, Washington D.C.

Thoroughly engaging. … Your book gave this world a substance and point of view that made me want to read more and understand the change better. John Nash, Molokai, HI.

The Flight of the Sorceress also has received:

Five Stars on Amazon

Four Cups of Coffee on Coffee Time Reviews

4.7 out of 5 on Scribd

You can also…

Order “The Flight of The Sorceress direct from my publisher, Wild Child Publishing at http://www.wildchildpublishing.com

OR, you can

• Order from your local bookstore
• Avoid California tax at Amazon

To purchase one or more of a limited number of print copies directly from this site, signed by me, for $15.00 tax, shipping (at USPO media rate) + S&H directly from this site using PAYPAL. Click the “Buy Now” button below. Sorry, this offer is not available outside the U.S. due to S&H issues plus differing postage rates. For non-U.S. purchasers, please use my publisher, Wild Child Publishing, Amazon or B&N>

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, my publisher decided to release BURNING QUESTIONS, the first part of my 1970s mystery/suspense Trilogy, August 1, 2011. It will be available in both print and e-book formats. Order from WHISKEY CREEK PRESS. It’s got characters, scenes you won’t want to miss. More blatant harassing promotional material will follow.

The Roman province of Numidia lends itself to many scenes in my historical novel, The Flight of the Sorceress. Major scenes take place in ancient Carthage and the Auras Mountains in Tunisia. Numidia, what is now called Al Maghreb, in the years of The Flight of the Sorceress was a Christian land. Its spiritual leadership was in the hands of men like St. Augustine, pillars of the Roman Catholic Church and they held power under the auspices of the Roman legions.

But Numidia was also a land inhabited by Jews, a large number of whom were refugees from the pogrom of Alexandria in 415 A.D., a story that is recounted in detail in The Flight of the Sorceress (although, in the novel, only the westward migration of refugees is related.)

Readers should be aware that there was a Jewish presence in Numidia for several thousand years. But that is no longer true. Libya, in the last century, before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, had about 40,000 Jewish citizens. By 1967, that number deceased to 7,000. In 1961, all but six Jews were deprived Libyan citizenship. By the time Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power in 1969 only about 100 Jews remained in Libya.  Under Qaddafi’s rule, the last remnant of the Jewish population was forcibly expelled. All Jewish property was confiscated. All debts to Jews were canceled. Emigration for Jews was legally prohibited. Today, there are no Jews in Libya. It is the only North African state that can make such a claim. Indeed this ethnic cleansing of an ancient minority population was so complete it would make a Nazi drool with envy. In fact, Qaddafi was so hung up on this Jewish thing that after he took power he demanded that the U.S. Air Force, which then had a large airbase (Wheelus AFB) close to Tripoli reassign its Jewish personnel (about 135 of them) out of the country. The entire base closed down shortly afterward.

When the faction dominated by the Augustinians kicked the Donatists out of the Catholic Church by force of Roman arms in 411 A.D. did it lay the groundwork for a military enforcement of religious dogma? Did that set a precedent for the forcible expulsion of Jews from Alexandria four years later? Did it preface the subsequent demise of Christianity in Al Maghreb at the hands of Muslim conquerors two centuries later? Is it a stretch to think that Qaddafi is an inheritor of that very same state of mind? Does intolerance have a half-life longer than Cesium?

At the beginning of The Flight of the Sorceress I have several quotes from the Bible admonishing people to not tolerate sorcery, wizardry and witchcraft. What is that all about? Come on over to the blog and find out. Comment. Criticize. Everyone is welcome.

“The Flight of the Sorceress is meticulously researched and beautifully portrayed….Willdorf’s prose brings the moment alive. The themes explored in this book, of prejudice and power, are deftly interwoven with the beliefs of the time. The conflict manages to educate and compel at the same time and you can’t help but feel for these women, who are so grossly over-matched but who still do not give up.

“This book is a rare look at a time and place not often seen in historical fiction and is a read that will keep you turning the pages!” Historical Novel Review, by Vanitha Sankaran, author of Watermark. Read the entire review at http://historicalnovelreview.blogspot.com

“locks you in for the ride”

“The Flight of the Sorceress locks you in for the ride and delivers a blend of historical fiction and fantasy. The Sorceress is an enlightened mind… her tenacity will impress you, but it is her will to flourish that will make you want more.” Ransom Stephens, author of The God Patent.

Read Barry Willdorf’s new novel from a purely historical perspective. Or read it as an allegory of our own twisted times. Or just    read it for the fun of it. A big bold imaginative work of fiction, with spectacular women characters and dramatic settings, Flight of the Sorceress soars magically. The past comes to life, and ancient struggles take on new meanings in a powerful story that transcends time and place and achieves universality.    Jonah Raskin, author of Natives, Newcomers, Exiles, Fugitives.

“tight and it’s dynamic… the best sort of historical fiction”

“The Flight of the Sorceress is the best sort of historical fiction: set in a grim and fascinating age, when Roman civilization was giving way to triumphal Christianity, it brings a vanished world vividly to life. The Flight of the Sorceress is tight and it’s dynamic.” Tamim Ansary, author of West of Kabul, East of New York, Destiny Disrupted, A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes and The Widow’s Husband.

“Rich in ideas…Compelling characters…A page-turner to boot”

“Impressive breadth and scope…Painstaking attention to detail and to the big themes of feminism, anti-Semitism, patriarchy and violence against women by men…Flight of the Sorceress is bold, vivid, and engrossing.  It’s rich in ideas, full of compelling characters, and a page-turner to boot.” Holly Shumas, author of Five Things I Can’t Live Without, and Love and Other Natural Disasters

“The only problem I had with the book was that it ended. Hopefully, there will be sequel.”

“From the very first page of Flight of the Sorceress you are thrust back into 410 AD by the vivid description of Britannia. The drama of this chaotic period places you within battles between sanity and delusion. The suspense never stops, setting up conflicts that move you forward. Throughout the book are insightful explorations of ancient prejudices and myths that for someone like myself, with little knowledge of the period, made me want to know more. The story draws vivid parallels to the great religious conflicts throughout history into modern times. The continuous development of characters is laudable, especially with Glenys, the heroine of this marvelous story. The only problem I had with the book was that it ended. Hopefully, there will be sequel.”  Stan Goldberg is the author of the award winning book, Lessons for Living: Stories of Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Courage at the End of Life

“I could hardly put it down. It calls out for a sequel.”

“…(V)ery exciting to read because of the always moving and changing story elements. The women were especially wonderful as characters, and women…. As the book drew toward its conclusion, I could “hardly put it down” or as I guess we say now about a digital book, I could hardly turn it off…. It calls out for a sequel.”   Johnny Sundstrom, author of Dawn’s Early Light.

“a stirring adventure tale that is also a timely warning”

The Flight of the Sorceress dramatizes the end of Antiquity, bringing to life such iconic figures as Hypatia and Pelagius. Willdorf’s sympathies are primarily with the pagans and the Jews, as he follows the adventures of plucky heroines from Bath to Rome to Alexandria. Re-imagining the onset of the Dark Ages and the consequent loss of secular values, he has written a stirring adventure tale that is also a timely warning against fundamentalism.  James Warner, host and co-producer of InsideStoryTime, voted SF Weekly BEST NEW READING SERIES 2006.

WATCH THE VIDEO:  Flight of the Sorceress trailer

The Roman Empire is crumbling. The Catholic Church moves to fill the power vacuum. Soon, books are being burned. Pagans are persecuted. Pogroms begin against Jews. Women are restricted from traditional occupations. The Dark Ages loom. But two women resist. Glenys, a Celtic herbalist/healer, is branded a sorceress. Hypatia, teacher, philosopher, mathematician and the last librarian of the great library at Alexandria is condemned as an idolater. Yet they fight on. Their struggle culminates in the cataclysmic events of Lenten week in 415 A.D.

Can anything be preserved?

FLIGHT OF THE SORCERESS is now available as an E book from Wild Child Publishing www.wildchildpublishing.com or at Amazon www.amazon.com for $5.95. The Flight of the Sorceress is the result of eight years of research, writing and editing. It represents an accurate portrayal of the Roman Empire in the Fifth Century A.D. with appearances by several notable personages of that period including Hypatia of Alexandria, Pelagius the heretic, Pope Innocent, Saint Augustine and the Roman Prefect, Orestes. Wild Child Publishing is a high-quality publisher recommended by Predators and Editors.

To read an Excerpt from The Flight of the Sorceress click here>

PART ONE A WANING SLIVER OF MOONLIGHT

Chapter One Aquae Sulis (Bath), Britannia: Spring 410 A.D.

Glenys was roused from sleep by pounding at the door. It was well past midnight. Concerned that the tumult would awaken the old woman in her care, she gathered her bedclothes about her and stumbled barefoot across the drafty hut with only the light of stars and a waning crescent moon through an open window to guide her. Reaching the door, she pushed aside the hide that covered its peephole to spy the face of a man who had always viewed her with contempt.

His ruddy nose glowed by the flickering light of the torch he held. Dank hair matted his forehead. Great beads of sweat clung to his eyebrows and moustache, like raindrops on the eaves of a hut. His sour odor seeped through the cracks in the door, making her gasp. “What do you want?” she hissed. “It’s late and you’re waking the whole town.” He was panting heavily and obviously had been running. “Are you Glenys? Glenys, who is the healer?” “What if I am?” “I hoped to find you at the baths but Ceallaigh told me to try here.” “You’re breaching the peace, you know. What is it you want?” “It’s me, the thatcher. My w…wife,” he sputtered. “Come quickly. She cannot…the baby…is stuck… Please, Lady Glenys, come. We need you.” Glenys cautiously pulled back the bolt. The thatcher pushed aside the door and clamped a powerful hand around her wrist. Instinctively, Glenys pulled back but was unable to free herself. “We do not live far from here,” he blurted before she could protest. “We need your help right away.” Without awaiting her reply, he pulled Glenys down the alley and then through a maze of passages until the shrieks of the mother became audible. Women were standing in doorways, their hands over their mouths, shaking their heads and choking back tears. Men, bleary-eyed, peered over their wives’ shoulders looking worried. “It’s just right over…here,” the thatcher stuttered, pointing with his torch to a cottage that boasted a door of polished planking and matching shutters, in distinction from those around it—signs of his prosperity. He set the torch in an iron cradle, pulled clumsily at the latch and burst in, Glenys still tightly within his grasp. A circle of flaming torches illuminated a young girl lying naked on a bed of soiled sheepskins. Shading her eyes from the glare with her free hand, Glenys gazed into terrified blue eyes desperately pleading for succor. She gulped a breath, gagging on the acrid black smoke that hung in the low rafters like a prescient storm cloud and sniffed the sobering odors of urine and of broken water. As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, Glenys observed that the girl’s tongue had become swollen, likely from dehydration, and now drooped to the side of her contorted mouth as if she were a shipwrecked sailor expiring of thirst. Her thin child’s legs were splayed wide, knees fully bent, soles flat on the sheepskin. She shivered frightfully. The image of her mother, who had lovingly taught her the contraceptive secrets of Queen Anne’s Lace and pennyroyal danced before Glenys’ eyes. Glenys unconsciously ran a hand over her mature hip. She’s no more than fourteen years of age. Hardly five years separates us, but it is all the difference. A gray-haired crone with a misshapen skull and a face as deeply crevassed as the bark on an ancient oak ceased daubing the girl with a wet cloth and squinted at the newcomer. Licking her barren gums with a colorless tongue, she cocked her head and with a gnarled finger gestured at the girl’s vulva. “She’s a small one, she is.” The girl shrieked. A second woman, younger than the crone, the girl’s mother, Glenys guessed, put her hands to her temples and began to cry out, “Dear God, dear God.” Glenys bit hard into her lip to keep from chuckling. The woman’s face appeared to her as an exaggerated pair of pendulous cheeks like sacks of the flour hung from the rump of the miller’s ass. Glenys felt a hot blush of guilt. I am a healer, and this is a matter of life and death. She regained her composure and plucked a torch from the circle. Holding the fire as close as she dared, she knelt down to examine the girl closely, running educated fingers first along the cervix and then probing further inside. To no one in particular, she reported, “She is ready to deliver but the head’s not engaged. I’m feeling the baby’s rear. It’s breached, and the feet are caught. I’ll try to push the baby back and free its feet.” The girl screamed again and the muscles of her abdomen tensed. Glenys pushed away from the child and stretched to relieve her own cramping. She accepted a damp cloth from the old woman, wiped her hands and turned to the thatcher. “Your wife is very young and very small,” she explained. “Unless I’m able to relax her sufficiently so I can free the baby’s feet, they both will surely die.” Failing to make eye contact, she shook her head and addressed the mother. “Even then, I can’t promise success. The baby’s head will come out last. It may be too large for her. If that’s the case, the only thing to do is to cut the baby free.” Again she turned to the husband. “Your wife will certainly die if cutting must be done, but I cannot do it. Just three weeks ago, the vortigern prohibited all women from performing surgery. Perhaps you saw the edict nailed to the door of the old temple? You must summon the physician at once.” The thatcher’s mouth opened and shut like a netted salmon. Balling his fleshy hands into ham hock fists, he pounded his temples. “The physician . . . cannot . . . be found,” he sputtered. “We looked for him before I came to you.” He fell to his knees and, looking up at the woman towering above, clasped his hands at his chest. “She is only fourteen, Lady Glenys. Only fourteen. Please help her, I beg of you.” The mother too was praying now, her hands pressed together, mouthing the words of a psalm. Glenys had little hope. She wiped the perspiration from her brow with the sleeve of her nightgown and attended once more to the screaming girl, whose feeble attempts to writhe were being foiled by exhaustion. Absent a miracle, the young girl and her baby were both going to die. Taking an iron key that hung from a cord around her neck, she dangled it and addressed the thatcher, hardly sparing him another look. “How well do you know the baths?” “…well.” Glenys ventured. “But I am certain you will find it without difficulty. Be quick. This key will open the gate. Go to the great pool. At the far end there’s a hall. The first door you come to will be my treatment chamber. Inside you’ll see shelves. Upon the top shelf, in a blue basket, there you’ll find herbs. The one you are looking for has leaves of dark blue-green and the smell will remind you of a skunk. Bring me that basket in all haste!” The thatcher snatched the key and rushed from the cottage. “What herb is that?” asked the old crone. “A rare herb,” said Glenys. “I obtained it from a Jew in Clausentium who trades with Palestinia. It should relax the girl so that I can manipulate her baby.” The old woman fussed with the wattle beneath her chin. “From Palestinia, you say? I’ve heard of this herb. You will burn it, yes? The girl will breathe the smoke and lose her senses? Is this the herb?” Glenys scrutinized the woman before responding. “Perhaps, I’ve not used it before. But this is an emergency and I’ve been told that in Egypt they use this herb for difficult childbirths.” I hope it’s still there, Glenys prayed silently. With luck, Ceallaigh’s not gotten round to dismantling my chamber yet. But he’s become so erratic… Could it have been just three weeks? So much has changed since that night.

Great News!

Wild Child Publishing has just released my new novel The Flight of the Sorceress as an E book. It is available now at the publisher’s bookstore and will soon be available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

As the Roman Empire crumbles, the Catholic Church fills the power vacuum by launching attacks on classical culture. Books are burned. Women are restricted from traditional occupations. The lives of pagans and Jews are imperiled. The Dark Ages loom.

But two women, Glenys, a Celtic herbalist and healer, and Hypatia, teacher, philosopher, mathematician and the last librarian of the great library at Alexandria, resist. Though one is branded a sorceress and the other an idolator, they refuse to submit to the demands of the state-sanctioned religious leaders. Their struggle culminates in the cataclysmic events of Lenten week in 415 A.D.

Can anything be preserved?

Ebook price: $5.95

Order the novel at WILD CHILD PUBLISHING BOOKSTORE:
www.WildChildPublishing.com

AND NOW ALSO FROM AMAZON

TO VIEW AN EXCERPT, CLICK ON THE LINK TO  “The Flight of the Sorceress” ABOVE

http://agauchepress.com/category/publications/dawn-of-darkness/

The Flight of the Sorceress
A Novel
by
Barry S. Willdorf

Wild Child Publishing.com
Culver City, California
The Flight of the Sorceress
Copyright © 2010 by Barry S. Willdorf
Cover illustration by Wild Child Publishing © 2010

For information on the cover art, please contact valerie.tibbs@gmail.com.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote brief passages for review purposes. If you are reading this book and
did not purchase it or win it in a sanctioned contest, you have obtained this book
illegally. Illegal copies hurt both the author and publisher. Please delete this book
immediately and purchase it from either Wild Child Publishing or an authorized
distributor.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead,
any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story
lines are created from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Editor: Marci Baun
ISBN: 978-1-936222-34-6

If you are interested in purchasing more works of this nature, please stop by
www.wildchildpublishing.com.
Wild Child Publishing.com
P.O. Box 4897
Culver City, CA 90231-4897
Printed in the United States of America

Do not allow a sorceress to live. Exodus 22:18

Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them.
Leviticus 19:31

A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall
surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be
upon them. Leviticus 20:27

Let no one be found among you…who practices divination or sorcery, interprets
omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or
who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the
LORD… Deuteronomy 18:10-12

PART ONE
A WANING SLIVER OF MOONLIGHT

Chapter One
Aquae Sulis (Bath), Britannia: Spring 410 A.D.

Glenys was roused from sleep by pounding at the door. It was well past
midnight. Concerned that the tumult would awaken the old woman in her care,
she gathered her bedclothes about her and stumbled barefoot across the drafty
hut with only the light of stars and a waning crescent moon through an open
window to guide her. Reaching the door, she pushed aside the hide that covered
its peephole to spy the face of a man who had always viewed her with contempt.

His ruddy nose glowed by the flickering light of the torch he held. Dank hair
matted his forehead. Great beads of sweat clung to his eyebrows and moustache,
like raindrops on the eaves of a hut. His sour odor seeped through the cracks in the door, making her gasp. “What do you want?” she hissed. “It’s late and you’re waking the whole town.”

He was panting heavily and obviously had been running. “Are you Glenys?
Glenys, who is the healer?”

“What if I am?”

“I hoped to find you at the baths but Ceallaigh told me to try here.”

“You’re breaching the peace, you know. What is it you want?”

“It’s me, the thatcher. My w…wife,” he sputtered. “Come quickly. She
cannot…the baby…is stuck… Please, Lady Glenys, come. We need you.”

Glenys cautiously pulled back the bolt.

The thatcher pushed aside the door and clamped a powerful hand around her wrist. Instinctively, Glenys pulled back but was unable to free herself.

“We do not live far from here,” he blurted before she could protest. “We need
your help right away.” Without awaiting her reply, he pulled Glenys down the
alley and then through a maze of passages until the shrieks of the mother became
audible. Women were standing in doorways, their hands over their mouths,
shaking their heads and choking back tears. Men, bleary-eyed, peered over their
wives’ shoulders looking worried.

“It’s just right over…here,” the thatcher stuttered, pointing with his torch to a
cottage that boasted a door of polished planking and matching shutters, in
distinction from those around it—signs of his prosperity. He set the torch in an
iron cradle, pulled clumsily at the latch and burst in, Glenys still tightly within his
grasp.

A circle of flaming torches illuminated a young girl lying naked on a bed of
soiled sheepskins. Shading her eyes from the glare with her free hand, Glenys
gazed into terrified blue eyes desperately pleading for succor. She gulped a
breath, gagging on the acrid black smoke that hung in the low rafters like a
prescient storm cloud and sniffed the sobering odors of urine and of broken
water.

As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, Glenys observed that the girl’s
tongue had become swollen, likely from dehydration, and now drooped to the
side of her contorted mouth as if she were a shipwrecked sailor expiring of thirst.
Her thin child’s legs were splayed wide, knees fully bent, soles flat on the
sheepskin. She shivered frightfully.

The image of her mother, who had lovingly taught her the contraceptive
secrets of Queen Anne’s Lace and pennyroyal danced before Glenys’ eyes. Glenys
unconsciously ran a hand over her mature hip. She’s no more than fourteen
years of age. Hardly five years separates us, but it is all the difference.

A gray-haired crone with a misshapen skull and a face as deeply crevassed as
the bark on an ancient oak ceased daubing the girl with a wet cloth and squinted
at the newcomer. Licking her barren gums with a colorless tongue, she cocked
her head and with a gnarled finger gestured at the girl’s vulva. “She’s a small one,
she is.”

The girl shrieked.

A second woman, younger than the crone, the girl’s mother, Glenys guessed,
put her hands to her temples and began to cry out, “Dear God, dear God.”
Glenys bit hard into her lip to keep from chuckling. The woman’s face
appeared to her as an exaggerated pair of pendulous cheeks like sacks of the flour
hung from the rump of the miller’s ass. Glenys felt a hot blush of guilt. I am a
healer, and this is a matter of life and death. She regained her composure and
plucked a torch from the circle.

Holding the fire as close as she dared, she knelt down to examine the girl
closely, running educated fingers first along the cervix and then probing further
inside. To no one in particular, she reported, “She is ready to deliver but the
head’s not engaged. I’m feeling the baby’s rear. It’s breached, and the feet are
caught. I’ll try to push the baby back and free its feet.”

The girl screamed again and the muscles of her abdomen tensed.

Glenys pushed away from the child and stretched to relieve her own
cramping. She accepted a damp cloth from the old woman, wiped her hands and
turned to the thatcher. “Your wife is very young and very small,” she explained.
“Unless I’m able to relax her sufficiently so I can free the baby’s feet, they both
will surely die.” Failing to make eye contact, she shook her head and addressed
the mother. “Even then, I can’t promise success. The baby’s head will come out
last. It may be too large for her. If that’s the case, the only thing to do is to cut the
baby free.” Again she turned to the husband. “Your wife will certainly die if
cutting must be done, but I cannot do it. Just three weeks ago, the vortigern
prohibited all women from performing surgery. Perhaps you saw the edict nailed
to the door of the old temple? You must summon the physician at once.”

The thatcher’s mouth opened and shut like a netted salmon. Balling his fleshy
hands into ham hock fists, he pounded his temples. “The physician . . . cannot . . .
be found,” he sputtered. “We looked for him before I came to you.” He fell to his
knees and, looking up at the woman towering above, clasped his hands at his
chest. “She is only fourteen, Lady Glenys. Only fourteen. Please help her, I beg of
you.” The mother too was praying now, her hands pressed together, mouthing the
words of a psalm.

Glenys had little hope. She wiped the perspiration from her brow with the
sleeve of her nightgown and attended once more to the screaming girl, whose
feeble attempts to writhe were being foiled by exhaustion. Absent a miracle, the
young girl and her baby were both going to die. Taking an iron key that hung
from a cord around her neck, she dangled it and addressed the thatcher, hardly
sparing him another look. “How well do you know the baths?”

“…well.” Glenys ventured. “But I am certain you will find it without difficulty.
Be quick. This key will open the gate. Go to the great pool. At the far end there’s a
hall. The first door you come to will be my treatment chamber. Inside you’ll see
shelves. Upon the top shelf, in a blue basket, there you’ll find herbs. The one you
are looking for has leaves of dark blue-green and the smell will remind you of a
skunk. Bring me that basket in all haste!”

The thatcher snatched the key and rushed from the cottage.

“What herb is that?” asked the old crone.

“A rare herb,” said Glenys. “I obtained it from a Jew in Clausentium who
trades with Palestinia. It should relax the girl so that I can manipulate her baby.”
The old woman fussed with the wattle beneath her chin. “From Palestinia, you
say? I’ve heard of this herb. You will burn it, yes? The girl will breathe the smoke
and lose her senses? Is this the herb?”

Glenys scrutinized the woman before responding. “Perhaps, I’ve not used it
before. But this is an emergency and I’ve been told that in Egypt they use this
herb for difficult childbirths.”

I hope it’s still there, Glenys prayed silently. With luck, Ceallaigh’s not gotten
round to dismantling my chamber yet. But he’s become so erratic… Could it
have been just three weeks? So much has changed since that night.