“I don’t know where he is. You have to stay here with Stephen. If Fergus arrives, send him to Hawkirk.”
Gillian clamped both hands over her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. Then she threw her arms around Isobel’s neck and held her tight. “Please, please, have a care, sister. I’m so frightened for you.”
Isobel hugged her sister back. “I am, too,” she whispered. And it was more than fear for Philip and fear of doing this on her own. It was also fear of her vision. Though she’d never had a vision of her own future, she couldn’t help wondering ifthiswas the source of the foreboding she’d been feeling for so long—that the charred body bound to the stake, stinking of burned hair and flesh, was Isobel MacDonell.
Chapter 22
Philip sat in the dank, dark cellar, trussed up like a Christmas goose, still unable to believe he was being tried for witchcraft and murder. He worked at his bindings some more, but it was no use. Colin made certain he was guarded carefully. Every time someone came into the cellar, his bindings were checked and tightened. It still amazed him that Colin had managed to convince an assembly of men—men who had apparently been convinced of Ewan Kennedy’s guilt until Colin’s arrival—that the deaths of Laurie Kennedy and Roger Wood was all Philip and Isobel’s doing.
Currently they were going through the motions of a trial, but as Philip wouldn’t tell them who the woman he’d been traveling with was, it was going nowhere. The conclusion, however, was inevitable. He would burn—probably within the week. The odd thing was that Colin knew it was Isobel, and yet pretended he knew as little as the elders. Philip decided he should be happy for small favors.
There was a jangle as someone unlocked the door. It swung open, and he turned his head, closing his eyes against the blinding light of the lantern. They untied the rope binding him to the pole and pulled him to his feet.
He was being held in someone’s cellar, he didn’t know who.He’d stopped attending to his own trial after the first day. No one listened to his protestations of innocence, and no one seemed to care that he was the son of a Highland chieftain—in fact, that seemed to count against him, especially after Colin revealed how he’d been disinherited. And the scratches and bruises on Ewan were not seen as proof of his guilt but as evidence of witchcraft. They believed Isobel made them appear to incriminate Ewan and remove guilt from Philip.
Philip was shoved onto the street. He squinted against the dull sunlight. A storm was coming, but the sun fought it, sending down shafts of light through the thick clouds. Colin, flanked by Niall and Aidan, waited for him on the street.
“They have a surprise for you today,” Colin said, falling into step beside him as they pushed him up the main street. Philip didn’t respond; he’d tired of Colin’s taunts. He should have expected something like this, but he’d underestimated his brother. He’d not thought him capable of something on this scale. Of course, in retrospect, it was just his style—using others to do his dirty work while keeping his own hands clean of murder.
“I’ve been trying to help you,” Colin said. “I vow it. I told them to just burn you and get it over with, but they want the witch, and they’re not through with you until they get a name.”
“Why don’t you just tell them, then?” Philip asked, loud enough for his jailers to hear.
Colin sighed. “You should know by now lying won’t work. I have no idea who she is.”
Something hit Philip in the back of the head. He looked over his shoulder, and Niall grinned at him. His pocked face was sporting fresh boils. He snapped a leather strap at Philip again, catching him in the neck this time.
“Stop it,” Colin said irritably, snagging the strap out of hisbrother’s hands. The idiot twins, as Stephen called them, were becoming a bit of a liability for Colin, causing problems in Hawkirk. Though the elders seemed to like Colin well enough, they didn’t appreciate Niall and Aidan’s drunken brawling every night in the tavern, or the way they bothered the local women and boys when they were drunk.
They stopped outside the blacksmith’s forge. Three of the elders and a small group of spectators had gathered around. One of them was Ewan Kennedy. Though Heather was frequently absent from the proceedings, Ewan never missed a minute of it. He stared at Philip now with stony eyes. Philip wondered how he could live with himself, but didn’t particularly care. He was tired of all this. Stephen was dead, he’d lost Isobel forever, his sister wanted nothing to do with him, and Colin had won. These things pressed down on him until he found he cared about little that went on around him.
The man at the forge, however, did manage to catch his interest. It was the blacksmith. His enormous bulging arms were currently pumping the bellows. He turned his head and fixed Philip with a wicked, toothless grin.
A tremor of unease went through Philip, and he looked quickly to the elders.
Colin leaned close, and whispered in Gaelic, “Hawkirk has burned several witches in the past few years, but they’ve never had need to…er, forcibly persuade them to confess. Though it’s done all the time elsewhere, it never occurred to the good men of Hawkirk. Luck is with them, however, as I’m here to advise them.” He sighed ruefully. “But unfortunately they don’t have a formal place for such diversions—so I suggested the blacksmith could manage in a pinch. Look at him—he seems right willing to fill in.”
“How fortunate they are to have you,” Philip answered in Scots.
“What’s that?” one of the elders called out to Colin. “What did he say?”
Colin sobered. “I believe he’s frightened. Perhaps he’s ready to talk?”
Philip stared straight ahead blandly, sighing as if bored. He was far from bored. Although he was not afraid to die, he was afraid of what the blacksmith had planned for him and prayed he was strong enough to hold his tongue. He would never voluntarily reveal Isobel’s name, but he’d never been tortured and was afraid he’d lose control. That was the point—to make someone so mad with pain he’d say anything to stop it.
“Bring him here,” the elder named Ramsay said. He seemed to be the leader. He wasn’t the oldest, but he had the longest beard and the tallest black hat.
Philip was pushed into the forge and forced to sit on a stump. One of the other elders came forward—Andrew, Philip’s only friend in all of Hawkirk it seemed—and said, “He’s a knight, Ramsay. I dinna think we should be doing this.”
Ramsay looked down his nose at the little man. Andrew was the youngest elder, he had the shortest beard as well—black and well trimmed—and he wore no hat. “We have the commission, Andrew. The king has put the power in our hands.”
Andrew nodded patiently. “I ken—but we’ve never tried aknightbefore.”
Ramsay seemed to waver, thinking on this, until Colin spoke up. “I’ve seen lairds tried, and the king hasn’t become angry. He’s glad to be rid of another witch. Think on it. What of the wizard earl of Bothwell? Aye—I wager he wishes someone burned him when they had the chance. Worry not. I’ll speak for you if it comes to aught.” Colin looked Philip up and down as if he were covered in dung. “Besides—he may be a knight, but he is nobody. Our fatherdisinherited him because of his perfidy. Not a farthing to his name.”
That wasn’t true, but Philip didn’t bother to correct him. He had considerably more than a farthing.
“Sir Philip Kilnobody,” Aidan said, and Niall snickered. “No one’ll miss the farthingless knight.”
