Sins of the Highlander (21 page)

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.

Elspeth dug her fingers into Falin’s mane and urged him to stand still. The stallion’s ears pricked forward, his hooves restive. Blades flashing, tartans swirling, the combatants circled each other, looking for weakness. When Falin snorted, the people standing near them gave way. His reputation as a horse with a wicked temper, whom no one could ride, preceded him.

Several people made the sign against Evil. Of course, a witch could ride the devil’s horse, they seemed to say. But in truth, they had more to fear from Falin’s sharp hooves than any malevolent spirit.

Even though she was a good distance away, since Elspeth was on the stallion’s back, she saw every stroke and parry of the fight. She almost wished she could not. Lachlan’s blade whistled over Rob’s ducked head, missing him by a hair’s breadth. For the life of her, she couldn’t look away.

At first, the populace cheered for their laird, but as the fight wore on, boiling in tight circles, the people quieted. The only sound was the clang of steel on steel and grunts of exertion from Rob and Lachlan. They were strong men, seasoned warriors and canny in the way of the blade. Lachlan had a stone of weight on Rob, but Rob was younger by several years.

It didn’t seem to matter. They both fought like men possessed. Three lives hung in the balance. Theirs and hers.

Elspeth couldn’t swallow for the lump in her throat. She struggled for each breath, not realizing she was holding it as Rob’s blade sang.

“Ye have no heir,” Lachlan said between gasping breaths. “Once I kill ye, I’ll take your lands before your people have time enough to rally in their own defense.”

“No one has ever taken
Caisteal Dubh
,” Rob said between clenched teeth. He leaped to avoid a blow that would have taken his legs off at the knees.

“No one’s ever known for sure if there was a secret entrance, but there must be one. I dinna believe Elspeth flew over your walls,” Lachlan said, feinting right and then swinging around to strike from the left. Rob barely had time to meet his blade. “She’ll tell me where it is.”

“I willna,” she whispered, not wanting to distract Rob. That’s what Lachlan was trying to do with his gasping words.

Rob parried Lachlan’s shoulder-jarring blow and answered with one of his own.

“Elspeth wouldn’t tell to save her own neck, but I hold her parents, ye ken.” Lachlan leered at him with an evil grin. “Think ye she’ll keep silent while I take them apart once ye’re gone?”

Rob roared and rained a hailstorm of blows, which Lachlan managed to parry while giving ground. Then in one sickening moment, Drummond caught the tip of his blade in the hilt of Rob’s and twisted Rob’s sword from his hand.

The claymore flipped end over end, landing directly in front of Elspeth and Falin, point buried in the crack between two cobbles. The stallion reared, but Elspeth kept her seat and managed to quiet him after a few quick turns and kicks.

When Falin settled, Elspeth saw that Rob was unarmed, on his knees far enough from his lost sword that a single lunge would not bring him close enough to snatch it. Lachlan circled, toying with him. He bloodied him in half-a-dozen places. The crowd urged their laird to finish his enemy.

“Oh, God!” she prayed. “Not like this.” Then Elspeth lifted her voice. “Stop, for the love of Christ, I beg ye! I waive my right to
wager
de
battel
! Ye dinna need to kill him. I’ll return to the stake of my own free will.”

“In good time, my dear,” Lachlan said. “In good time. But first, we’ll settle the question of your guilt once and for all.”

He lifted his sword in preparation for the strike that would take Rob’s head from his body. But as the blow fell, Rob dropped and rolled toward his sword. In one smooth motion, he drew the claymore from the cobbles and drove the blade between Lachlan’s ribs clear to the hilt.

A collective gasp ringed the bailey. The crowd watched in stunned silence.

For a moment, the two men were locked in a death embrace, Lachlan clutching at Rob, Rob gripping Lachlan’s sword wrist like a hound at a boar’s throat. He gave the claymore a twist. Drummond’s sword clattered to the cobbles. Rob yanked out his blade. A spurt of red spewed out like a fountain as Lachlan sank to rise no more.

Rob squared his shoulders and walked over to kneel before the judge. “Father, ye have a verdict.”

“By dint of trial by combat,” the judge said in a quavering voice of disbelief, “Elspeth Stewart is found innocent of witchcraft. She is free to go.”

Accommodating as a whore, the crowd roared its approval. They’d come for a spectacle, and by God, they got one. It didn’t matter one whit that it wasn’t the one they’d expected.

Rob stood. “Lachlan Drummond died without an heir. Release Lord Stewart. He and I will meet with the leaders of the Clan Drummond to help ye choose a new laird.”

The cheers that greeted this proved Lachlan Drummond’s passing would not be mourned overmuch.

Then Rob walked toward Elspeth, the crowd scrambling out of his way like sheep giving a wolf a wide berth. He held a hand up to Elspeth.

“And as laird of the Clan MacLaren, I’m choosing a new lady.” His eyes shone with love. “If she’ll have me.”

“With all my heart.” She accepted his hand as he helped her dismount. He swung her into an embrace and deep kiss.

The fickle crowd roared with as much enjoyment over this display as they had for the combat that led to the death of their laird.

***

Later that evening, Rob and Elspeth were reunited with her parents, and they feasted in Lachlan Drummond’s hall with Osgar Drummond, the good man named to succeed him. Osgar’s first act was to expel Father Kester, Mrs. Beaton, and the other false witnesses from his keep. Rob and Elspeth’s father admonished them never to show their faces on MacLaren or Stewart land again either, lest the lairds be in a less merciful mood.

As the evening wore down and wine flowed freely, the old serving woman, Normina, leaned to whisper in Rob’s ear.

“I ken where she lies, my lord.”

Rob’s head turned sharply toward the woman, but his hand gripped Elspeth’s more tightly.

“Yer lady wife,” Normina said. “A kindly lady, she was. If ye wish, I can show ye where she rests.”

“Go, Rob,” Elspeth whispered. “Ye should go.”

He brought her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on her knuckles. “If ye come with me.”

They said their good nights to their host and donned heavy cloaks to follow Normina into the night.

They slipped out of the castle by a small gate and tramped toward a copse of trees. Snow-kissed air washed down from the surrounding peaks, but there was a break in the clouds, and the moon shone on their path with silver light.

Normina led them to a massive fir. Protected from bitter winds by the giant tree, a cairn of granite stones lay in the leeward side. Frost glittered on the mound, bedecking Fiona MacLaren’s grave with pinpoints of light.

“She deserved better, my lord,” Normina said softly. “So I tend her resting place. In the spring, I’ll plant heather and holly, so even once I’m gone, she’ll still have flowers.”

Rob nodded his thanks as Normina withdrew, his heart too full for words, his gut all a-jumble. If Fiona was there, she’d be able to tell him what he was feeling.

“I’ll leave ye for a bit,” Elspeth said softly and started to pull her hand from his.

“No, stay. I want ye here,” he said. “’Tis fitting. Fiona was the first woman I ever loved.” He turned to Elspeth and cupped her cheek. Her hazel eyes sparkled up at him. “Ye are the last. And I’ll love ye, Elspeth Stewart, with my whole heart till I’m dust. Longer, if such things be.”

He lowered his mouth to kiss her, savoring her sweetness mixed with the salt of a tear. He thought it was hers but couldn’t be sure. The last hint of madness sizzled out of him. He was no longer driven, no longer tormented. He felt only peace and love and longing for more of Elspeth Stewart. She was the woman who filled his heart. Filled his bed. And, God willing, would fill his hall with rosy-cheeked bairns.

And from that place, where only love bides, Fiona MacLaren looked on and smiled.