Now they must hurry, before she raises the alarm. All of this country lives in terror of their kind. Packs of them have been ranging through Swabia, Transylvania, Hungary, Slovakia, falling on villages and taking whole populations. They Sleep in graves to deter the superstitious, who will not approach a graveyard at night without much priestly preparation. When a village is depopulated they pull it down and throw the remains into the river, going on to the next town up the road.

Rumor has spread through the mountains. The whole region is obsessed with them.

It is a bad time for their kind. They had grown used to anarchy in the centuries that followed the fall of Rome. Now that government is returning to Western Europe they have been forced to the hinterlands.

Not a day passes that they do not have news of disaster. Ancient names are dying, names taught Miriam by her father: Ranftius, Harenberg, Tullius. All Europe is inflamed against them. Idiots creep about with crosses and garlic, spouting bad Latin.

Idiots though they be, the Inquisition is winning. Not a town west of the Oder has not burned at least a few.

The church bell begins to peal.

There is a horrible shriek at the door. Miriam’s sisters, now wild to escape, throw back the greasy cloth. A crowd of thirty or forty people is outside, standing around the overturned brougham. Her brother is being handed among them, his clothes being ripped from his body.

Suddenly, there is a shaft of light—other villagers have broken into the rear wall of the inn. Miriam moves quickly. She digs herself into a pile of hay in a corner. The roar of excited voices fill the room.

Heartsick and terrified, Miriam huddles in absolute stillness. The voices drown the frantic shrieking of her sisters.

Protect them, her father had said.

How can she face his memory now? And what of her mother, who died during the birth of the triplets? Was her death pointless?

Miriam is stronger than the three of them together because she has for a long time been better fed. But is she strong enough to free them from these maddened villagers?

The voices have become joyous as the villagers loot the carriage and rob the captured sisters. They are finding a few pitiful gold pennies, to them the treasure of kingdoms.

Suddenly men and women bustle over and pull away some of Miriam’s cover. She prepares herself to face them, but they rush off. The straw is to start a fire. They have not noticed her.

Against one wall of the inn stands a great iron spit, used no doubt when this village had porkers large enough to roast. There is crackling as the straw blazes up around logs.