Chapter 10
WHILE NELLIE LAY IN the straw trying to sleep that night, the conversation played in her mind many times.
Henrik made her uncomfortable. Whenever she spoke to him, it was as if he held up a mirror to her face and forced her to look into it. And she didn’t like what she saw: that she was self-righteous, that she didn’t know anything about other people’s lives, even if she thought she did, and that she was hopeless at leading groups of people, always having been in the shadow of much more powerful leaders. She simply couldn’t be like Mistress Johanna. She could only be herself.
If the group couldn’t agree about what to do, they would split up; and Nellie would never be able to break the stranglehold over the city held by the shepherd, a man who, curse his soul, used the cover o
