The translation of the hundred and forty soldiers of Val-Mora was conducted with the quiet, respectful care of a sacred harvest.
By midday, sixty women from High-Fen and Brook End arrived at the sally port carrying great wicker hampers filled with bolts of coarse, raw, unwhitened linen, skeins of hemp thread, and fragrant bundles of dried marsh lavender and sweet fennel.
Led by Mirelle Voss, they dropped the granite stairs into the dry chapel of Saint Jude.
There was no haste. There was no noise. Working in pairs under the emerald glow of the moss jars, the women spread a six-foot linen sheet beside each skeleton.
With gentle, practiced hands, Tomas, Sile. Darrow lifted the bones from the stone benches and the floor straw. Every rib, every finger bone, every rusted buckle of their scale coats was laid in its proper body posture upon the white cloth.
Mirelle Voss sprinkled dried lavender and fennel across the iron armor to sweeten the dry dust. Then the linen was folded—left over right, bottom over top—and bound with three neat wraps of hemp twine.
On the breast of each shroud, Mirelle pinned the soldier’s original stamped brass identification tag, ensuring that no man’s identity could be confused during the journey.
