“Why do you choose out me? And I thank you, Gervaise, but I think that I will not go.”
Gervaise looked at her with light blue eyes, not sharp but penetrative, with a kind of basal, earth understanding. “You listen to me, Joan, and while you listen, just bear in mind that this is a dangerous business! Figure some authority out there storming, ‘Where, in Cerberus’s name, is the new gaoler?’ Keep that in mind, I say, and that time’s gold—gold?—nay, rubies and diamonds! Now, look you! ’Tis no easy jaunt, forth from this prison and town, to some land of safety for witches and warlocks! Naught but courage and wit and strength and good luck by the armful will make it—and a crowd would never make it! There are two who are not to suffer death—but if they tried to flee and were taken, as, of course, they most likely would be, they would suffer it! Common sense saith, ‘Those two are better where they are.’ The old woman named Dorothy died to-day. She’s gone anyhow—made her escape clean, with Death and the scythe and hourglass. Do you think that Mother Spuraway could be dragged free—do you think that she could run and lie hidden and disguise herself, and starve if need be? For Grace Maybank—she hath pleaded that she is with child, and is not to be hanged until the elfling is born. Naught can be done there. And Elspeth No-Wit sits and laughs, and the sweetest words would not persuade her forth.” He ceased speaking and stood with his light blue eyes upon her.
“There is,” said Joan, “one other.”
“Aye, aye,” said Gervaise. “Well, you see mine is the kindly feeling to youward, and Sir Richard’s is the kindly feeling to himward. Not that Sir Richard hath not a kindly feeling to youward likewise! But, I know not why, he hath the greatest liking for the sorcerer!”
“Aye,” said Joan. “And after?”
“In fact,” said Gervaise, “and though I would not hurt your feelings, making you seem of less importance to yourself, this is a rescue planned in the first place for the sorcerer and not for the witch! But when I am brought in—having, see you, watched you from a nook in the crowd through the trial—I say to Sir Richard.... More than my saying, the sorcerer makes some such catechism as you’ve been making, and will only have freedom on terms. So Sir Richard nods and agrees. Double peril! But if he will not come forth else? Then I may say that Sir Richard, too, marked you, if for a witch, then a brave witch, and that he hath a taste for the quality.”
“Do you mean that Master Aderhold escapes this night?”
“‘Escapes’!—’escapes’! I know not who escapes. It’s full of peril. But Humphrey Lantern, who takes him bread and water, served under Sir Richard in the wars. He’s weary of turning keys, and hath an itch to see far countries. I know not; Fate’s got it all hidden.—But if the stars are propitious, you might touch another prisoner’s hand on the dark, windy road.”
He stopped speaking. Joan took up the braided straws and laid them again in patterns, then brushed them aside. She sat with one hand in the other, her eyes upon the wall. Then she stood up, tall in her ragged gown. “Thank you, Gervaise! If it goes wrong, save yourself, for no worse harm can come to me. I’ll make ready.”
The sunset light dyed the town, the looping river, the castle on the hill, the great church, and the prison a pale red. The glow faded, night came down. Within the prison every passageway was dim enough; here a smoky light and there at a distance another, and all between a wavering dusk. The new gaoler and a youth, whom he mentioned to one they met as his nephew and helper, pursued these passages with a slow step and a halt here and a halt there, as the gaoler’s duties presented themselves.... But at last they turned a corner and saw before them a low portal. “Win through that and we’re outside!” muttered Gervaise. “I’ve the key—and it would make a story, my getting it! Oiled, too.”