Episode 107: The Acolyte
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Lavinia was pulled from sleep by the man's screams. She woke with a start, her heart pounding, and clutched a heavy quilt to her chest as she stared around. A narrow beam of weak winter sunlight pierced a set of heavy drapes, allowing her to make out a vanity table, a chest of drawers, the shape of a trunk of the foot of the bed she lay in. Her cat, Azzy, lay near the foot of that bed, head up, his ears alert. And for a moment, she couldn't place where she was. Then she remembered. She was in the house of the man she had been betrothed to. And somewhere, someone was screaming. She threw off the blankets and reached for her dressing gown, belted it tightly over her nightdress in the interest of modesty, and shoved her feet into her slippers before venturing from her bedroom.
Lavinia descended from her room in the tower as quickly as she could, the darkness of the windowless passage and the tight spiral staircase slowing her steps, and joined a handful of servants, following the sounds of distress across the foyer toward the unfinished wing of the house. The screams led them to the farthest corner of the house, where a young man lay on the unfinished stone floor, pinned beneath what appeared to be a massive stone fireplace. It was immediately clear his legs had been crushed and blood seeped from beneath the mantle into the bare rock around him. the boy, clearly even younger than Lavinia herself, clung to the arm of an older man who she thought must be the foreman, sobbing now for his mother.
The foreman alternated between soothing the young builder and shouting, Heave, damn you, to the four other men as they struggled to lift it off him. Lingering at the edges of the gathered onlookers, Lavinia stood near a housemaid she recognized and a man in a pair of paint-stained overalls. They were hoisting it up to install on the second floor and the ropes broke. Damnedest thing! Lavinia's eyes traveled to the space above the fallen fireplace where indeed she could see a number of frayed ropes dangling from the unfinished second story. On the ground below, the workers finally managed to set the fireplace upright and the foreman quickly pulled the young man out of danger lest it topple over on him.
He called for the other men to carry the young builder to a wagon so they could transport him down the mountain to a doctor. As they lifted him by his mangled legs, the boy's anguished screams rose anew. Lavinia's troubled gaze followed the poor builder as they carried him out of the house, then returned to the blood staining the floor. It cut a long streak across the stone where the foreman had dragged him across it. More pooled in the space where he had lain under the fireplace, though... Not as much as she might have imagined. It almost seemed as if the rock had already absorbed it. Lavinia shivered at the morbid thought and took a step backwards. Around her, the servants and workers began to disperse, returning somberly to the work at hand.
The maid, whom she had overheard, turned with a start as she noticed Lavinia standing behind her. Oh, oh, I'm sorry you had to see that, miss. A terrible thing. Yes, that poor boy. Do you think he'll be
all right?
If the Lord wills it, he'll be in our prayers.
Yes, of course. We'll all pray for his recovery.
The housemaid, who looked to be ten years or so older than Lavinia herself, glanced around the dusty, bloody construction area and eyed her with a worried expression. Her voice was hesitant when she spoke again.
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