“Betty—forgive me for what happened earlier. I vow I would not have hurt you…but I was desperate.” When the woman only stared at her, wide-eyed, Rose stood and took a step toward her. Betty backed away, and the lad at the fireplace straightened to give Rose a warning look.
“My father is dying…I’ve been writing Lord Strathwick letters. Then I came here and he wouldn’t see me. I didn’t know what else to do. Please forgive me?”
Betty’s suspicion softened as Rose spoke. She smiled slightly, showing good teeth. “Aye. I ken how it is. People come all the time and yell and scream for Strathwick to aid them. But they’ve never made it in—and it was all my fault.”
“I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble?”
Betty shook her head, and the lad returned to his work.
Rose took a step closer, and this time the servant didn’t retreat. “Your name is Betty? Are you from the village? Allister’s wife?”
Her face fell and she looked at the floor, nodding. “They told you about me?”
“Tadhg did.”
Betty looked up, her expression fierce. “They’re wrong, all of them. Lord Strathwick is not evil. And I am not a witch.”
“I know,” Rose said gently. “But this is a bad time, and people frighten easily. What happened? Lord Strathwick healed you?”
“Oh, aye, miss, he did. I don’t remember it, ken? But I remember Allister axing me. I remember the pain andthe fever when it began to fester. Then I remember naught else but nightmares. I would have died. Then it was all gone. I opened my eyes, and there was my lord’s fair face, gazing down at me.”
“Did he say anything?”
She shook her head. “No. When Allister saw I was awake, he grabbed me and started bawling like a bairn. When I was able to breathe again, my lord was gone.” She smiled shyly, looking down at her feet. “I’ve been able to thank him since I’ve been here, though.”
I’m sure you have. The thought pricked her when it shouldn’t have. She didn’t like imagining Strathwick embracing Betty as he had her—but it was good that she did imagine it, she told herself firmly. That was the way of things. He wasn’t Dumhnull, and he hadn’t kissed her for any reason but lust and that she’d been available. Rose wondered if he was married. Not that it mattered; lords and chiefs accosted female servants with or without a spouse.
“What happened in the village?” she asked, as much to stop the troubling direction of her thoughts as from curiosity. “Tadhg seems to believe you killed someone’s chickens.”
Betty shook her head, her shoulders slumping dejectedly. “I didn’t! Gannon left those poor beasts out in all sorts of weather. All I said was, ’Gannon, you must let those poor chickens in your house when it snows, or build them a shelter. Otherwise they’re going to die come winter.’ When the snow came, most of the chickens managed to get under the cottage, but two couldn’t fit and they froze. He said I killed them with the evil eye.”
The story chilled Rose, so similar to others she’d heard. It took so little to incite people these days.
“Do you believe me, miss?” Betty asked anxiously, her hands twisting in her skirt.
Rose gave her a reassuring smile. “Oh, aye.”
The lad finished with the fire. Rose moved closer to the blaze. Pale smoke wafted from the fireplace, and the sweet, acrid scent of burning peat filled the air. Rose coughed, but she welcomed the warmth, rubbing her hands over her arms.
“Your leave?” the lad asked, kinder now that Rose and Betty had made amends.
Rose nodded, and Betty followed him out.
Rose sat before the fire, warming herself and thinking about Betty’s tale and the caution with which Strathwick left his castle. Men had come for him, to lynch him, and that had been after he’d healed a child—brought her back from the edge of death. She unbraided her hair and combed her fingers through it, thinking about Strathwick, the miracle he’d performed, and how it had debilitated him afterward. That was why they were leaving at night, to avoid being seen and mobbed. What a dismal existence, to be hated and hunted by your own people. Even when her life on Skye had been naught but misery, she’d never feared for her life.
Her mood low, she lay in bed unable to put all the thoughts from her mind. Sleep would not come, and her stomach growled sullenly. She threw back the covers, slipped on her shoes, threw her arisaid around her shoulders, and left her room in search of food. The cavernous stone corridor was deserted and silent. Torches sputteredat intervals, casting strange, fluid shadows along the walls. Rose stole through the castle, feeling the intruder still.
There was no one in the great hall, not even the dogs. She went behind the screen, into the kitchen. The vast room was redolent of stew and bread, but it too was empty. She considered just helping herself to the larder but decided against it. On Skye, the punishment for pilfering from the larder was harsh. It was probably locked anyway. Surely someone was nearby. The stew bubbled merrily over the fire. Partially chopped vegetables lay on the table, knives beside them, as if something had caused the servants to drop what they were doing and leave. With a last, longing look to the loaves lined up along the table, Rose returned to the hall. It was then that she noticed the double doors leading to the courtyard standing open.
A breeze blew through the open door, setting the rushes to swirling and disturbing the hem of her nigh-trail, sending currents of chill air up around her ankles. She pulled her arisaid closer around her shoulders and stepped outside in time to see Lord Strathwick climbing the battlements, his long, lean-muscled body moving with quick grace that belied the many hours he’d spent wasted with illness. Her heart sped. Something was wrong. Half the household lined the torch-lit battlements staring at something over the wall. Rose climbed the ladder to follow. The wind caught her loose hair, wrapping it around her body and arms.
It was still dark out, being the early hours of dawn, but the battlements were alight. Strathwick immediatelydrew her gaze. Like the rest, he leaned forward, hands braced on the wall, peering at something below.
“Keep your witches!” someone shouted below.
The wall came to Rose’s chest, but raised blocks rose from the ground at intervals against the wall. She stepped onto one and leaned forward to see over the side of the thick stone. A group of men bearing torches and weapons had gathered on the other side of the wooden bridge. One man crossed it, dragging something behind him. Rose inhaled sharply. It was a person. The flickering of his torch revealed skirts—torn and stained. The face seemed strange, distorted, but it could have been the firelight; the hair, however, was loose and wild, matted with a dark, glistening substance. He hauled the body a few feet from the portcullis and dumped it next to another, smaller bundle in the same appalling shape.
These were the witches? A woman and child? They were dead, whoever they were. The man spotted Strathwick on the wall and shook his fist at him. “We don’t want your sorcery! Keep your hands off our women!”
