There Will Be Wolves by Karleen Bradford Read Free Book Online Page B

obeyed. Nevertheless, Ursula was not about to give in so easily.
    “It’s mine,” she countered. She faced the monk defiantly, using every effort of will she could summon up to keep her voice steady. Her knees were weak, and the sickening pain was back in herstomach, but her relentless grip on the book kept her shaking hands from betraying her. “It was given to me by a brother from your own order. He was my friend. He wanted me to have it.”
    The monk stopped short, shocked. “Who? Who from among our community would give a book to you?”
    “Brother Bernhard. Just before he died. He was a healer and he knew that I was one, too. He wanted me to have it.”
    “Child, you are condemning yourself with every word you speak!” The monk turned pale. “If that is indeed Brother Bernhard’s book of healing, then you have committed an unpardonable sin. The book disappeared just before his death. It belongs to the church, to God. You have stolen from God!”
    “I did not steal it! I am no thief!” Anger momentarily overcame Ursula’s fear. “He gave it to me. I would go and talk with him by the river below the church. He knew that I was a healer. He taught me many things.”
    “Enough! You will give that book to me immediately.” The monk stepped forward and held out his hand.
    Master William suddenly gasped, clutched his chest, and fell to the ground.
    “Father!” Ursula reached for him and dropped the book.
    The monk swooped down and picked it up inone quick, hawk-like movement. He opened it carefully and looked at it; he then looked back at Ursula, crouching beside her father. “You will come with us,” he said.
    “But my father—”
    “The good people here will tend to him. He has no need of you. You will only do him more harm than good.” He turned his back on her and signaled to two other monks. “Escort her.”
    “No!” Ursula cried.
    “Escort her!” the monk ordered again.
    The monks flanked Ursula on either side. They did not touch her, but it was clear that they could force her to move if she chose to protest. With one last, despairing look at her father, Ursula rose to her feet.
    “Follow me,” the monk commanded.
    Ursula forced her feet to move. Her whole body was shaking now so badly there was no longer any hiding it. She began to walk. Just at that moment she saw Bruno turn the corner into their street. Samson trotted down to meet him, tail wagging.
    Bruno stopped. Then, taking in what was happening, he rushed forward but was prevented from reaching Ursula by the crowd. Pandemonium broke loose. The women, who had fallen silent when Master William collapsed, burst into noise again as they surrounded him. Above the din one voice rang out.
    “Now we’ll see justice done!” shrieked Mistress Adelheid. “Now we’ll see the witch pay for her sins!”
      *  *  *  
    When Ursula awoke the next morning she lay for a moment, confused and disoriented. Cocks were crowing outside, as usual, but everything else was wrong. No light filtered in through the oiled sheepskin-covered window at the foot of her straw pallet as it ordinarily did. The blanket covering her was thin and scratchy and smelled sour. She almost panicked—then she remembered. The monks had brought her to the nuns at St. Maria Lyskirchen. She had been shut into a narrow, windowless cell and left there for the rest of the day. Except for one nun who had brought her some bread and a bowl of thin gruel that she hadn’t been able to eat, and another who had come to empty the pail that stood in the corner, she had seen no one. They had let her have a wick floating in tallow for a light. As long as that lasted, she had paced the room restlessly, waiting, expecting something, but not knowing what. Finally, when the wick had flickered out, she had given up and thrown herself down onto the pallet in the corner. Even then she had lain awake for hours, going over and over in her mind what had happened. From one day to the