The Spellbound Bride (25 page)

Chapter Fifteen

The cart rocked and jostled along the road to North Berwick, each pothole jarring her to the bones, increasing the ache in her body. Sorcha glanced for a moment at the other women in the cart with her and saw their misery mirrored her own. Only one thing eased it for her. From the back of the cart guarded by six men she could see Ian following along behind.

He was near enough for her to see his face clearly, but not close enough to talk to. The combination left her more miserable in her heart than the ride did her body. There were so many things she wished to share with him, but she realized that time had passed. She would probably never be alone with him again. Sorcha bent her head, peering at the rough rope bonds about her hands. Regret for believing the lies of her childhood and sorrow for allowing them to sour her chance with Ian ate at her.

Aye, she was cursed—by her own pig-headed ways. Only now did she see how her fierce desire to protect those she loved had worked this time against her, rather than Ian.

Her precious belief in the lies had taken her opportunity to flee, deprived her of a home, ruined her chances to bear a child with Ian and left her subject to her greatest fear—death by fire.

When she looked up, he was staring at her. He clicked his tongue and gave a subtle kick to Merlin, to move him up alongside the cart. He moved first to the front asking permission of a guard to talk to Sorcha. Once it was given he waited for the cart to stop.

"Are you thirsty?"

Until he spoke the question, she didn’t realize that the dust had clogged her throat, parching it.

"Aye," she rasped.

Ian nudged Merlin up against the cart, and leaned over to squeeze water into her mouth from his leather flask. Sorcha gulped greedily, aware that they would seldom be allowed to stop before reaching North Berwick.

They had almost reached the crossroads to Leith. If they had been traveling to leave for France, they would have taken that turn toward the water to board a ship. Suddenly a thought tugged at her brain. While she could not avoid the trial, she could spare him and give him his future.

Determination steeled her spine. She wiped her mouth against her sleeve, then looked in Ian’s face.

He was grim, the lines tight around his mouth and his scar showing white with tension.

She gave him a small smile.

"Thank you."

"I only wish I could do more."

"You can," she sobered, pausing to take a deep breath, before leveling her gaze at him, focusing all her intent on him, hoping he would listen to her. "Leave for France without me."

His eyes narrowed in response.

"I cannot leave you."

"The trial will be no different if you are there. Is being there to hear me condemned worth losing
Chaumiere de Heureux
? In the end you will lose us both if you do not leave."

"It is my duty to protect you."

"And you have done your best. I release you from your duty. The time has come for you to go."

"Do you not want me?"

Her lip trembled.

"Aye, with all my heart." The swell of pain deep in her chest was beyond tears, but she held them in check by sheer force of will. "But I also know that when I am gone you will need something else to hold on to. Go and claim your future."

"Are you sure this is what you want?"

"Aye."

"If I leave, it will be the last we see of each other."

She squeezed her hands, lifting her chin in a show of strength she pulled up from the very core of her being. "Aye."

He shifted in his saddle, the leather protesting with a creak. His expression was one of mute wretchedness, his eyes dark with pain. She could tell he weighed his choices and found he had none. Ian sighed heavily.

"I will stay with you until morning," he said, even though the words were caustic in his mouth, and reason told him that leaving was the only option left. He glanced at the six guards and his fingers itched. Aye, he could slay them all easily enough, but the kirk would only send more to hunt them down. Besides, if he did slay them, the other women would be just as helpless as his wife and he could not take them all with him. There would be no mercy for any of them if he acted as his heart ached to. Ian pulled Merlin away from the cart. It jerked forward, causing Sorcha to grip the side to recapture her balance. An intense sickness and desolation pressed in on him.

He urged Merlin forward, riding past the road that turned toward Leith. Ian refused to look down that road, and focused on Sorcha. He didn’t see the grime or the rough ropes that bound her, instead what flashed before him were his memories of their time together.

She was imprinted on his mind forever. The glorious fall of her black hair, the subtle smile that held him captive, the magical way her touch fired him when no other could, so many things made the ache intensify. Her request ate at him. Time to reach
Chaumiere de Heureux
was ticking away and the weight of his responsibility to the people there grew heavier with each passing day.

He flicked his gaze back at her. She grew tired, he could see that, and it galled him to know he wasn’t allowed to do more to ease her journey. Lord MacIver had convinced the clergy with some coin to allow him to travel with Sorcha on the way to North Berwick. This was to be their last night together before her trial.

They stopped shortly before nightfall at a small roadside inn. While the others shared a single room, Ian paid dearly for them to have a room alone. A guard stayed outside their second floor room and the windows were nailed shut as a precaution against escape.

Ian carried her to their room and the door shut soundly behind them. On the small table sat their dinner, meager but still warm, along with the wash water Ian had requested and paid for.

Taking the softest cloth he could find, Ian dipped it into the warm water and wrung it out. Using the rosemary soap she’d made him, he gently washed her face and the raw skin around her wrists where the bonds had chafed her.

She sucked in a sharp breath, the sound of it hissing.

"Sorry. I know it must hurt."

"‘Tis not your fault."

"Aye. It is. All of it. Had I just taken you with me to
Chaumiere de Heureux
in the beginning as I’d planned to, none of this would be happening right now."

"Shh..." She placed her warm fingers against his mouth. The tender touch assaulted his senses. She looked deeply into his eyes. "I’ll hear no more of it. Tonight is all we have left. Let’s not waste it on what was or could have been."

He nodded, then grasped her fingers and with slow tenderness kissed each of her fingertips. Sorcha closed her eyes.

"Love me, Ian."

The pounding in his blood increased, but he remained gentle, painfully aware of where she was injured. He undressed her with infinite care, sliding the clothing from her milky skin. He drew his hand down along the slope of her shoulder and along the swell of her breast, his touch light as he worshipped her skin under the misty moonlight that filtered through the window slats. Their touches grew frantic in the increasing darkness that surrounded them.

Only when he gathered her up against him did he feel a measure of completeness. Her even breathing assured him that she slept.

He stared at the cracks in the wattle and daub ceiling and ached bone-deep for the choice he had to make: to leave her in the morning. He knew she asked it of him, but could he do it?

His dreams that night were a hellish mixture of battle and the gaunt faces and thin hands of those waiting in France reaching out to him. He awoke in a sweat and realized Sorcha still lay beside him.

He gazed at her. Her dark lashes echoing the dark circles beneath her eyes. Had she not looked at him with such determination when she had asked him to leave, he might have dismissed her request. But he knew her well enough by now to know she would not be swayed. She was right. It was futility for him to stay. He couldn’t alter the course of the trial. But leaving had become far harder than staying. She had to know that.

He dressed, then sat there staring at her until the sky began to change with the first cold light of dawn. He could not leave her without one last goodbye. Ian placed a kiss on her brow and stroked her cheek. Sorcha’s eyes opened slowly, the blue deep and dark as she awoke. Her hand reached out, the smooth warmth of it against his face reaching in and breaking his heart.

"Good morrow, lady of the wood."

"Good morrow to you, husband."

His chest tightened. "I had to kiss you one last— "

She leaned forward, her mouth sliding over his. Despite her eagerness, the kiss was short and she would not meet his gaze.

"Please do not make this harder than it is," she said. "Promise me you will go. It is all I ask of you. Can you not give that to me?"

Her words made his head felt heavier than it ever had before and caused his chin to sink to his chest. How could he, when it went against everything he been trained to do and believed in. To stand and fight was all he knew.

"Sorcha— " the words stuck fast in his throat and he tried to swallow to get them free. He had vowed to himself he would never beg again, but his need to keep her near made it impossible to stop. "Sorcha, I beg you. Let me stay with you until as long as I may."

Her lip trembled and her eyes grew bright.

"There is no more time."

A pounding at the door broke the moment between them. Ian rose quickly to answer it, the ache had settled so deeply within him it made him feel cold to the core. The guard was there, waiting to take Sorcha. Ian slipped another coin into the man’s palm to give her time to dress. The money only bought him a few more minutes’ time with his wife. He closed his eyes as he shut the door and heaved a great breath.

"You must dress. You leave shortly."

Her hand, warm and tender settled on his back.

"You are a good husband, Ian."

His skin tightened at her praise and Ian gritted his teeth, then blew out slowly.

"If I were a good husband, we would not be here now."

Her hand slid down his back, leaving him even colder still at the loss of her touch.

"I cannot change what I have done, and neither can you," she said.

He glanced back at her, his gaze connecting with hers.

She reached out a hand and he took it, wishing with all that was within him that he never had to let go.

They sat staring at each other, as he tried to memorize every thing about her, but too soon the guard returned.

She stood to leave, but he pulled her back hard against him for one last kiss. She leaned away, her gaze strengthening.

"I’ll never forget you."

The words cut cleanly through him as she slipped from his grasp. Ian gripped the door post, determined to control himself as he watched her go.

"Nor I you, my lady."

Chapter Sixteen

A bone-chilling scream rent the stagnant fetid air inside the castle dungeons of North Berwick at their arrival. In the weak light of the rush torches, Sorcha couldn’t see the misery that waited her as much as she smelled it. The air was rank with unwashed and neglected humanity—and the odor of death. Her stomach rolled, threatening to heave.

Men and women huddled in rag-covered bunches on the cold stone floors, their forms barely human in the confines of tight cells where they could neither lay down or stretch themselves.

She was pushed along to a larger cell where several women crouched together on damp slimy floors. The lock grated with the key, and the iron bars swung open. In the flicker of the light, she saw their dirty faces look up, their pupils wide and black from the darkness.

The edge of one woman’s stained skirts moved. A small face appeared. The dark-haired child focused on her and gave a lost look, then disappeared back behind her mother’s wraps. Sorcha’s stomach lurched again, this time not from the stench but from anguish that a child should be in this godforsaken place.

The guard shoved her, and Sorcha stumbled into the cell. As he shut the barred door and refastened the lock, she arranged her cloak as best she could to cover herself completely and dropped down beside the women.

The light faded into blackness as the guard retreated down the row of cells. Sorcha’s eyes adjusted quickly and the meager light from the rushes near the stairs were enough for her to vaguely see their shapes.

The woman next to her shifted.

"Where are you from?"

"Ballochyle."

"Accused of witchcraft?"

"Aye, and you?"

"Aye. All of us, even the wee one."

At the mention of her, the little girl poked her head out again from her mother’s skirts and stared at Sorcha. Though she could not see the child’s face, she felt her gaze.

"What is your name, lass?"

"I am Anne." The small voice supplied. Sorcha’s heart contracted at the mention of her older sister’s name.

Her throat felt too thick when she spoke. "The same as our good queen."

The woman next to her grunted.

"There ‘tis nothing good about her. She ‘tis the reason we’re here."

Another woman spoke. "The king believes that his cousin used us to call the storm that threatened to sink the ship he and the queen sailed from Denmark."

"That’s madness," Sorcha whispered.

"Aye. But who are we to gainsay him?"

Sorcha knew the truth of that.

"Besides, they’ll torture a confession from all of us before they send us to court," the first woman added.

From the corner came a groan.

"What was that?"

"Margaret Thomson. They took her yesterday to confess. There’s not much we can do for her, but let her sleep while she can. They used the boots on her. They broke her legs with the hammered wedges in so many places, she’ll never walk again."

Sorcha flinched. "But she’s in pain..."

"Aye."

"How bad is it?"

"The bones are shattered and she’s in a fever. She’ll not live the night."

"Does anyone have water? I have herbs with me." The need to think on anything but the agony ahead of her was as necessary as breathing. If she could help someone, ease their pain, it would relieve the thoughts.

"You’ll find a bucket of it by the door. But watch out for the rats."

Sorcha shuddered. She stood and shuffled her feet slowly along the floor, unsure of her footing. She knew she reached the bucket when she hit it with her toe.

"Is there anything for her to drink from?"

"‘Tis in the bucket."

She reached her hand forward in the blackness, unsure of what she would find. Her fingers quickly grew numb in the icy water as she grasped a small wooden cup floating in the bucket. She dipped it, filling it about half-full, then shuffled back toward the form on the floor.

Sorcha reached her dry hand into her shirt and pulled out the flattened leather pouch she had hidden within her corset. She put two pinches of the herbs in the cup and swirled it with her finger, then stuffed the pouch back into its hiding place, the soft leather warm and comforting against her skin.

She felt another woman beside her.

"Let me help." It was the one with the softer voice. "I’m Agnes." Together they lifted the trembling woman’s head and helped her drink the liquid. They laid her back down, bunching the cloth of her plaid beneath her head.

Sorcha grasped Agnes’ shoulder.

"Thank you."

"Nay, ‘Tis I who should thank you. To ease the suffering of another is a great gift."

"Are you a healer?"

"Nay, but I can appreciate one. You best get some rest before the guards come."

"Why do they come?"

"To wake us. They’ll not suffer us to sleep long. ‘Tis a way they make the brain fevered enough to confess more easily. ‘Tis why most of us wear a hair shirt, to keep us awake with the discomfort." Now that her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the abject misery about her was plain to see.

She was in hell. If the king and kirk thought that these men and women were in danger of slipping into the grasp of Satan, they had missed the important fact that they had already put their prisoners as close to the experience as most of them would ever get.

Sorcha could not tell if it had been hours or merely part of an hour in the dark dankness of the cell when the guard came to wake them all.
Bang! Bang!
He slammed a metal rod against the bars.

"Hoy, wake up you lot! You in the corner, up with you!"

"She’s had the boots and canna’," Agnes said.

He nodded. "You there," he said, pointing to Sorcha. "Time to talk to the confessor."

He led her from the cell. As she tramped down the dark stone hall, all her thoughts centered on Ian. She remembered his strong hands, his comforting strength and the confidence he wore like a mantle. A twist of guilt pulled at her heart.

She had taken any chance she had at a good marriage and thrown it all away for the sake of protecting those from something she could not control. She had never known about her own birth, and now it could destroy them all, except Ian. He could escape it.

A heavy oak door swung open to reveal a table neatly lined with all manner of gruesome looking devices as well as a parchment, a quill and an inkpot. The door slammed shut behind her.

She stood alone in the room waiting for her confessor. Thirty minutes later a florid man, nearly bursting the gold buttons on his rich brocade doublet and liberally doused with what smelled like bergamont oil, entered the room, followed by a heavily-muscled man.

The confessor hefted himself into the only chair, adjusted his wig and narrowed his piggish eyes at her.

"Are you Sorcha MacIver, wife of Ian Hunter?"

"I am, sir."

"You are here so that I may hear your confession."

"I have no confession to make, sir."

The bulky man leaned forward, his great jowls hanging. "You will be tortured until it loosens your tongue, mistress. Why not spare yourself and confess now? When did you renounce your faith in God?"

"I didn’t."

He leaned back. "Very well then." He snapped his fingers. The guard tied Sorcha’s hands to a metal ring on the wall and then brought out a rough, thick rope loop and placed it upon her head, like a macabre circlet. Sorcha felt the rope squeezing about her temples and forehead as the man twisted it at the back of her head with a wooden handle. Pain made her vision spark with stars.

"When did you renounce your faith?"

"I didn’t," she gasped.

The rope tightened still further. The pain dulled her vision to black at the edges and finally caused it to fade completely.

Sorcha awoke back in the fetid dungeon with the other women, her head aching so badly she could barely lift it. Two hours later the guard came again. Sorcha’s stomach dropped, fearing they would take her back for additional torture until she confessed.

She followed behind, still dizzy from her last bout with the confessor. Sorcha paced the small room in the dungeon where she’d been taken from her cell. The room had one open window, with bars fastened securely across it. This must be another room where they forced confessions from people.

From the walls hung all types of instruments, including the boots that she guessed had been used on Margaret, and the twisting rope that made her stomach lurch just to look at it. Near the gaping fireplace was an iron chair with leather straps on the arms and a brazier filled with gray ashes beneath the metal seat.

The door opened and in walked Archibald. Sorcha leaped forward and threw her arms about Archibald’s neck. He hugged her close.

"Archibald, ‘tis so good to see you!"

He brushed a light kiss on her mouth and held her for a moment, which surprised her, but she was too happy to see him to make much of it.

"I’m glad you’re doing so well under the conditions." His arms released her. "We’ve only a few minutes to speak, I could ask for no more. This matter is quite personal for King James, and he’s unkindly disposed to those involved."

"Aye. Uncle Charles told me of my birth."

"Then you know this has nothing to do with witchcraft. The king is using you to get to undermine Bothwell and the lords behind him."

"Aye, they wish to use me to reach the throne. But circumstances have changed."

He reached out and grasped her hand.

"What is it?"

"I fear I carry Ian’s child."

His form stiffened, and he released his hold on her as if she were heated metal.

"You must tell no one. Swear this to me. I am afraid that any should know until the trial. If they knew," she held her hand tightly over the slight swell of her stomach, "they might threaten the babe to force me to confess."

He clenched a fist.

"I swear." He paused, the silence stretching out between them. "How can you be sure?"

"Henna taught the village girls such things. I have three of the four signs she told us meant a bairn was in our bellies."

His shoulders pulled tight, his eyes narrowing.

"So you’ve lain with him?"

"He is my husband."

He nodded curtly.

"If you hold your tongue, you know this could mean the life of you and your child should they find you guilty. Would you heap that sin upon your soul, the life of an innocent?"

She shook her head.

"Nay, I wouldn’t. You are right. If the court determines guilt against me, I have no choice but to protect the child by pleading for his life."

He lifted his chest and straightened his shoulders. "I will stand for you in court."

Sorcha grasped his hand. "Nay! Archibald, please do not do this! It could cost your position as leader of clan Campbell. I cannot ask that of you. Too many are at stake."

"If you would not let me, what of Hunter? Couldn’t he stand for his own child?"

"Aye, he could. But I don’t want there to be any reason to hold him from going to France."

"But he could save your child if you plead your belly to the court."

Sorcha bit her lip. Would he forgive her for asking him to come back, when she had already sent him away? Aye, he would. He was that kind of man. His child would be worth it to him.

"Has he boarded ship yet?"

"Nay."

She grasped him by the shoulders.

"Then make haste, Archibald. The trial begins in but two days."

"Aye, but we have a bit longer. You will be questioned after some of the others, so it may be weeks before you come before the judge."