On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all)

On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) Read Online Free PDF
Author: Kate Silver
with a cheeky grin.   He had died as he had lived, hiding away from his duties in a dark corner, a stolen pastry clutched tightly in his hand.
    By the time she found the head gardener slumped against the orchard wall, flies crawling in and out of his open mouth, she was inured to death, and had no room left for more horror or disgust.
    Behind the herb garden she found what she had been half looking for all the while – a partially filled-in grave.   The length and breadth of it left no room to doubt the seriousness of the plague that had descended upon the manor house.
    She had no wish to disturb the light covering of soil that lay over the human remains – to uncover the ghastly remainder of people she once knew and loved.   She could only add her mite to the pile.
    Carting dead bodies for burial was heavy work, and she was not yet back to full strength after her long weeks of illness.   Still, she persevered, dragging one body after another to the edge and tipping them into the shallowing pit – unwilling to spend another night in a charnel house.   She refused to cry over each familiar face as she tipped the rotting corpses one after the other into the hole.   She had no energy to waste on tears.
    Her family she left until last.   She could not mete out such an undignified end in a common grave to her mother and father and brother.   The shovel was heavy and awkward, but the ground was soft enough, and after an afternoon’s labor, she had dug three graves –deep enough to keep their bodies safe from scavengers.
    “Farewell,” she whispered into the wind, as she lay them gently side by side in the ground.   “May we meet again in Heaven.”
    With the last of her strength she shoveled a covering of dirt on their bodies.
    The sun had set before she returned to the house once more.   She was filthy – covered from head to toe in mud and filth and the stench of corruption.
    The water from the well was sweet, with no taint in it.   She stripped naked in the courtyard and hauled bucket after bucket of water up from the well, tipping each one over her in turn to wash away the horror of the day.
    Only when all of her felt clean again, from her head of dripping wet hair to her bare feet on the cobbles, and she had overpowered the smell of death with that of sweet lavender and rosemary, did she go inside once more.
    She lay exhausted on the bed, unable to sleep, thinking back to the last day of normality, before her world had turned into a living hell.
    How trivial her concerns of a few weeks ago seemed to her now.   She would gladly marry the Count a thousand times over to have her old life back again, but no marriage would bring the dead back to life again.   How foolish did her thoughts of rebellion seem, another whole life ago, that morning in the marshes.
    The marshes.
    Her blood suddenly ran cold, and fear and guilt assailed her.
    Her mother had warned her against going into the marshes for fear of the swamp fever that had hit the next village.   She had disobeyed her mother, and God had punished her by sending the fever to her house.
    Faint with despair, she racked her brains with the effort of remembrance.   She had been well when she went to the marshes – she had returned sick.   The household had been in good health until she went to the marshes - and when she returned to herself again, they were all dead or had fled.
    She could not escape the feeling of dread that washed over her.   With her willfulness, she had murdered all those she had ever loved.
    If only Count Lamotte had not wanted to marry her, this tragedy would never have come about.   Had she not had this marriage sprung upon her, she would not have disobeyed her mother, she would not have caught the plague from sleeping down by the marshes, and her family would yet live.
    She half hoped that Lamotte had not escaped the destruction that had fallen on her family.   It would be no more than he deserved.   She would have traded his life
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