Chapter 34
Word of Elspeth Stewart’s witch trial spread over the Highlands on swift, dark wings. Folk left their hearths, braving the possibility of being caught in snow, for the chance to watch her burn. Those who witnessed the witch burning would retell the story all winter long. Their flagon would remain full, and they’d never have to buy a drop of their own ale. Rob and Hamish fell in with a merry party on their way to Drummond’s castle.
“Why didna Lord Stewart lead a party of men against Lord Drummond to free his daughter before it came to this?” Rob asked the fellow who seemed to be leading the group they’d met along the road. The man had provided a steady stream of details about the trial, seemed to know a good deal about the particulars, and wasn’t afraid to share his knowledge. No doubt honing his storytelling skills for later use.
“Because the Stewart’s being held by the Drummond till the burning’s over. He canna send word for help,” the fellow said. His few teeth were yellow as gourds. “They say Lord Drummond has posted guards on all the roads to stop any wearing Stewart plaid, just in case.”
Rob digested this bad news in silence. He hadn’t wanted to delay his coming long enough to raise a force from Caisteal Dubh, but he’d hoped to join with Elspeth’s father and his men. Hamish had brought the new hand-held cannon he’d recently forged, but even with a fearsome weapon, two men wouldn’t be enough to project much power.
“The Lady Elspeth’s been the devil’s consort, they say,” Yellow-teeth said to no one in particular. “D’ye suppose they’ll lead her to the stake bare breasted? That’s what they do, ye ken, when a witch admits to swiving the devil.”
Rob gritted his teeth. He was the only devil who’d swived Elspeth Stewart. Imagining slicing Yellow-teeth’s head from his shoulders gave him grim satisfaction. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t help Elspeth one bit.
“Never seen a noblewoman’s tits before,” Yellow-teeth said, blissfully unaware of how close he was to decapitation. “Ought to be a fair treat.”
To remove himself from further temptation to do murder, Rob dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and left the party of burning-goers behind. As they neared Drummond’s stronghold, the roads became almost impassible. Carts carrying whole families were stuck in the mud. Using game trails, Rob and Hamish picked their way around the mess.
When they reached the open gate, Rob flipped up the hood on his cloak and pulled it closer around his face. There was nothing on his person that marked him as the laird of the Clan MacLaren. Even his horse was of ordinary quality, not worth a second glance, as he and Hamish rode into Lachlan Drummond’s stronghold with the rest of the crowd.
Everyone was required to leave their blades and bows in a pile outside the gate. Hamish kept the hand cannon, which was bound up in his cloak and strapped to the back of his saddle.
Rob gave up his longbow and dirk, but beneath his cloak, he bore the solid weight of a claymore strapped to his back in a shoulder baldric. He kept his boot knife. If he had to fight his way back out, at least he’d be armed with the means to do so.
The atmosphere was more like a fair than a burning. Enterprising merchants had set up stalls ringing the bailey to sell foodstuffs and other goods. Children scampered between the stalls, light-fingered urchins lifting a sweetmeat or two. Everyone seemed in high spirits.
But at the far end of the bailey, Rob saw the stake, already ringed with fagots. A path had been marked with ropes, leading from the stake to the tallest tower at the opposite end of the courtyard. Elspeth would walk that way to her death. His gaze swept up the tower.
A small figure stood at an unshuttered window. A woman. Her long brown hair fluttered in the breeze like a banner. The distance was too great for him to make out her features, but he knew instantly who she was.
“Oh, God. Elspeth,” he whispered. “Dinna jump, lass.”
Drummond had placed her in the tower chamber with that hope in mind, Rob was sure. He held his breath until she stepped away from the window and out of his sight. His relief was short lived.
What was one man, or even two, against so many?
“I thought I could…I dinna see what’s to be done,” Rob said, suddenly bone weary. They’d ridden without stopping, except to rest the horses, in order to make it here in time. Now he realized what Hamish had probably known all along but was too good a friend to say.
It was all for naught. There was no help coming from any quarter. All they could do was watch Elspeth die.
But he didn’t have to let her burn. A desperate plan formed in his mind. If Rob could find a longbow and stake out a position with a clear shot, he’d have one chance to put a shaft in Elspeth’s heart before the flames reached her. Then he’d bury his boot knife in his own chest. It would be a small matter. His heart would already be dead.
“I can keep her from suffering,” he said woodenly, “but…I canna save her.”
“Come, Rob,” Hamish said, his rumbling voice soft with pity. “Let’s see to stabling the horses; then we’ll see what’s what.”
When they reached the stables, Rob heard a ruckus at the rear of the structure. A pair of grooms was trying to move a black stallion into the far stall, but the horse wasn’t having any of it.
“Come, ye big bastard!” one of the men shouted, raising a whip to the beast, which only infuriated it more. “If ye dinna mind, they’ll burn ye next, I shouldn’t wonder.”
The horse lashed out with its rear hooves, and one of the grooms sailed over the rail into the next stall.
A grim smile spread over Rob’s face as he tied up his biddable gelding. “That’s my Falin, or the black devil has a twin,” he said to Hamish. Having that stallion under him would be worth ten men at his back. “Either way, I need your help. I have an idea.”
***
The sun balanced on the Highland peaks for a heartbeat and then began to sink behind them. Elspeth sat perfectly still while Normina ran the boar-bristled brush through her hair. She’d decided to wear it unbound, falling past her hips.
“Once the hair catches, it goes fast, they say,” Normina had advised, tight lipped.
If Elspeth had to burn, she wanted it fast. And besides, it was the only decision left to her. She’d been given a clean chemise to wear, and all her other things were taken from her. She’d walk on bare feet across the bailey’s cobbles to her death.
She wouldn’t let herself think of Rob. Whenever she did, the desire to live was so great, she felt as if her heart would leap from her chest. It hurt too much. If life was going to be ripped from her by violent means, it would hurt less if she weaned herself from earth first. And the dearest thing on earth, the man she loved.
“I’ve been tending to the needs of your parents, my lady. They send ye a message by me,” Normina said as she laid down the brush. “Lord and Lady Stewart say to tell ye they know ye are guiltless and they will see ye in heaven.”
Tears gathered at the corners of Elspeth’s eyes, but she blinked them back. “I thank ye.”
“Have ye a message for them?”
A heavy knock sounded on her door. The guard had come for her. Elspeth squared her shoulders. “Tell them…tell them I was unafraid.”
God had forgiven her so many things. Surely He’d forgive one more small lie.
***
She never thought so many people could fit into Drummond’s stronghold. On the other side of the ropes, they stood ten deep, chest to back, all jostling for a better view of her in her thin chemise. Their angry shouts were a wall of sound. Her hands were bound before her, but even if they were free, she wouldn’t have been able to stop her ears against their roar.
She tried not to look around, focusing instead on the long tassel dangling from the back of the judge’s surplice. It swung back and forth as he led the way before her, bearing aloft a gilt cross.
Cold lanced the bottoms of her bare feet and shot up her shins. It didn’t matter. She’d wish for cold soon enough.
One foot in front of the other. That was all she had to do. The last task. She must walk across the bailey with her head held high.
The first rotten bit of cabbage that struck came as a surprise. These were the people who would have owed her fealty if her wedding to Lachlan hadn’t been interrupted. Now all they offered her was scorn.
She hoped her parents were being held some place where they couldn’t see what was happening.
Then suddenly the walk was ended. They reached the stake. Lachlan Drummond was there, waiting for her with a death’s head grin on his face. She looked away. Her hands were jerked over her head, and a leather strap was run from her wrists through the iron loop at the top of the pole. Elspeth had the eerie sense of watching herself from outside her own body, a poor puppet whose strings were so tight her arms couldn’t be lowered.
The crowd quieted to listen to the judge drone on about something. Elspeth heard only the pennants overhead, snapping in the breeze, and in a distant meadow, the mournful call of a rain crow. There’d be a fine, soft rain this night, maybe a hint of snow, and the world would wake with hoarfrost painting every tree and bush and blade. The winter-brown grass would crackle under her boots. She closed her eyes. She could hear it crunching beneath her tread. Then those sounds faded, and all she heard was the rush of her own blood, pounding in her ears.
Torches were lit as the light faded. Several guards held them nearby, waiting for something. Someone lifted a little boy up and propped him on their shoulders. He was a beautiful child, with a mop of poorly cut hair and the brown eyes of a roe deer.
Elspeth smiled at him. She and Rob might have had a dozen just like him.
Oh, Rob. Oh, God! I want to live.
A tear slid down her cheek as the guards lit the branches at her feet and stepped back lest they be engulfed once the flames took hold. Smoke curled around her.
Then Elspeth was visited by her Gift.
A loud boom followed by a puff of smoke drew every eye to the battlements near the gate. Hamish stood there, holding a hand cannon. His first volley struck the slate roof of the Great Hall. The crowd scattered as bits of the slate slid off, peppering them with shards.
A wild battle cry echoed throughout the bailey. “Mad Rob” MacLaren was riding down the center aisle of the kirk astride that black devil horse of his. Its hooves threw sparks off the cobbles.
Fire licked at her feet, and she cried out in agony.
No, she wasn’t having a vision. Rob really was bearing down on her, laying about with his claymore. The stunned crowd gave way, scrambling to stay out of reach of his blade. He reined Falin to a stop before her.
The hand cannon boomed again.
In one smooth stroke, Rob slashed the strap binding her wrists and pulled her up onto the stallion’s back behind him. Rob beat back a trio of guards with several wicked swipes of the claymore. Drummond stood behind them, shouting orders, but no one wanted to dare Rob’s blade.
Then he wheeled Falin around, and they bolted back down the roped-off path, while people shouted and scattered before them. Elspeth peered around Rob to see that Hamish really was on the ramparts. He was working the wheel that raised the heavy portcullis and lowered the drawbridge.
They were almost there. Rob crooned an oath to the stallion, and Falin laid his ears back and stretched his neck out to give them more speed.
Then one of the guards whacked Hamish over the head with the butt end of a pike, and the big man went down. The chain raising the portcullis rattled back down, and the gate dropped into place with a thud, trapping them inside Drummond’s stronghold.
Rob reined Falin to a stop and turned back to face the mob. Elspeth laid her head against his back, thanking God she was able to touch him once more. They might be torn to pieces, but at least they’d die together.
“Drummond!” Rob bellowed, and the crowd quieted before him. “Ye have no right to burn this woman. Elspeth Stewart is a noblewoman, and as such, she’s entitled to wager de battel!”
“He is correct, my lord,” the judge said to Drummond. “If the lady has a champion, she may challenge the ruling of the court with trial by combat.”
“She has a champion,” Rob shouted and slid off the stallion’s back. “Stay on Falin,” he ordered her quietly, thrusting the reins in her hands. “If any come near ye, he’ll kick them into the next world.”
Then he strode forward as the crowd parted before him. “I will prove upon my body that the Lady Elspeth is innocent of the crimes of which she’s accused.” His deep voice rang against every stone in the castle. “Who will meet my challenge?”
No one spoke up. The judge turned to Lord Drummond. “God will favor the right, my lord. Have no fear to take up the sword in defense of the truth.”
“Aye, wee Lachlan,” Rob said, cocking his head at his adversary. “Defend the truth, if ye be a man.”
“I’ll defend the truth, right enough, and ye’ll be a dead man, MacLaren,” Drummond said, his dark eyes blazing. He drew his sword, roared his defiance, and ran toward Rob. The crowd stumbled back to clear a space for the arcs of the blades.
Rob and Lachlan met in the center of the bailey with a clash of blades and the rasp of steel on steel.