"Marked" Chapter 2 (Part One)

I pulled my cloak around me, secured the hood, and pinned the woman with all my authority. Her eyes were large with fear, but she looked at my face for an answer.
“A trick of the light, nothing more.” I felt I was boring the message into her, to convince her she had seen a shadow only.
Turning to her husband I continued “Now, our business is concluded. I must return home. Immediately. I trust I do not need to remind you of the importance of discretion.” He pulled a small pouch from his vest pocket and handed it to me. The dull clink of the coins and the weight felt right enough, I did not stop to count it. I left the merchant’s great hall to mount the horse he had waiting for me. The same stable boy rode with me. I was glad for his company as I paid little attention to the way home. I was too preoccupied with concern. I worried that the wife would say what she had seen. It would be interpreted as a sign of evil. What if she told her priest in confession? Somehow the news would get back to the Bishop of Lincoln. He would not stand for it, any of it. He would charge me with heresy, and more. Anyone caught using my services would be subject to the same. And the Bishop would get more than a small pouch of silver for his trouble.
I arrived home in the dead of night. I was relieved the stable boy could be so easily persuaded to bed down with the horses in a stable closer to town. I gave him two farthings to see him on his way. As soon as he was out of sight I squared my shoulders and walked across the lane to Sarah’s cottage. I knocked on her front door as loud as I dared, not wanting to wake any other neighbors. I stood in the shadow of a shadow. After a few minutes Sarah came to the door.
“I need your help.” I whispered. She opened the door to let me in.
“Tell me.”
“I may not be safe. And it may not be safe to be seen helping me.”
“I understand.”
“I will need food, I have nowhere else to go. If the Bishop’s men do not come for me I will resume my work and no one here will be any the wiser.” I watched her as she listened, hoping that the trust we had built since her husband’s death would be enough. She looked away and bit the side of her lip.
Finally she looked back at me and said, “I will leave pottage over the embers and bread in a cloth on the table for you every evening. You may enter in secrecy. We must never talk of this again.”
As I walked out her door, Sarah gripped my arm and said, “I could never have continued my life here after John’s death had you not spoken up for me. I would not be here making my own way. I owe you a great deal. I will help you any way I can.”
I patted her hand, and managed a smile. I had been surprised too, that our village had let her stay in her house when she was widowed. It helped that the clothes she made were better than most could get in the big city. She stood out without a husband, but she belonged. And that was enough.
Over the next few days I stayed out of sight. I did not speak with anyone, not even Sarah. I went back to work making arrows, but I kept my cottage shuttered. I used my oil lamps but I was afraid to light a fire. I ate what provisions I had stored. A week passed. No one came for me. I snuck into Sarah’s cottage across the lane, at night, for pottage and ale. I left her a silver penny. Once there was a sausage in a cloth with some oat cakes left out on the table. Two furtive weeks passed and still no sign that the Bishop would send for me. I dared to go to market to sell my arrows. I began to doubt they would ever come for me.