“Surprise will be my main weapon, Paddy. And my prayers that the devil will take the hangman.”
He gave Paddy a few more instructions, and then he, too, slipped away unobtrusively back to the tavern, where further meticulous plans had to be formed.
Chapter 9
Brianna was already drifting back to reality when a booted toe slammed painfully against her ribs. Stunned by the blow, she cried out, squeezing her eyes tightly against the pain. Her sea-dampened hair was plastered about her face, as was her clothing to her body; she was miserably stiff and sore and cramped—and horribly, horribly afraid to open her eyes to the terror of what was happening.
“Up, witch. Now.”
Rather than receive another cruel blow to the ribs, Brianna forced herself to open her eyes and willed her cramped legs to raise her up off the cold stone floor.
She was alone with Matthews in a small room crudely furnished with a wooden desk and high-backed chair. The room had spun when she stood, but she gritted her teeth against nausea and faintness. Beveled glass windows overlooked the town center, where she could see workmen constructing a haphazard gallows.
“Am I already tried and condemned, then, Matthews?” She challenged the witchfinder, amazed that her voice was strong and not filled with the tremors that she felt.
He did not reply. He waved a hand toward the door. Brianna followed his direction and saw two very dour matrons standing there, heavy women with faces hardened by years of harsh toil, or so she assumed. Their shoulders were as wide as those of many men, their hair gray, and from her distance Brianna could see no color at all to either woman’s eyes. Their mouths were turned in sullen frowns and they did not gaze at her at all, but looked to Matthews, as if for instruction.
He stood very straight by the desk and nodded grimly toward the women. Brianna kept her gaze sharply upon the women and began to back away along the wall. There would not be far to go, and her heart was pounding fiercely. They moved slowly toward her, but with determination. Brianna turned her stare to Matthews. He smiled, or rather his lips twisted into a sickening grin. “We must find the proof of Satan upon you,” he told her simply. It was then that she noticed a tray on the desk behind him filled with strange instruments, the likes of which she had never seen before.
“Torture is illegal!” she blurted out wildly. “Even I know that, Matthews. I know the law. Torture is illegal!”
“Girl, I know the law,” Matthews said, and he turned to the matrons once again. “Strip her,” he commanded.
“No!” Brianna cried. Good God! That this man would kill her was horror enough, yet Christ had promised that death brought peace and solace. That they should be allowed to strip and humiliate her, bring agony to her flesh and senses, was beyond all realms of justice and humanity.
Was this what Pegeen had endured? Dear God. But her fair aunt had been a braver woman, and Brianna might have wept and raged for her all over again now were she not in such mortal terror herself.
The women were upon her, and she screamed again, trying to evade them first, but found herself backed into a corner. Then she lashed out with all her fury, but neither woman uttered a sound of pain, and they were two very sturdy specimens against just one. Her vicious fight against them came to a quick halt when Matthews stepped forward, stunning her with a hard blow to the cheek. She fell limply against the wall, struggling against unconsciousness, grasping desperately at the material of her gown as it was roughly wrenched from her. Tears stung her eyes, but she would not cry. She could not give up, not while her heart still beat and breath was in her body.
But no matter how wildly she fought, the end was the same. She was left there, naked and vulnerable, dizzy and ill. Gray mist seemed to swirl all about her, and at first she was barely aware when Matthews came at her again—with a long steel pick from the tray on the table. She heard his cold words. “We will find her devil’s mark,” he told the women, and they nodded, each gripping one of her arms.
“You are vile! You are loathsome—you are a viper!” Brianna told him, hating that he would touch her, that she could do nothing to stop him. She gritted her teeth, praying to keep her courage, but she screamed when he stuck the pick into her shoulder, drawing blood. Blinded by her tears, she stared into his eyes. They swam dizzily before her, gleaming pools with no mercy.
“Not even God could forgive you, Matthews!” she cried.
“God has given me this task,” he answered her, and she was quite certain that he was totally, utterly mad. Why didn’t others see it?
The pick struck again, upon her back. She screamed in pain, and the pick fell again, and again. When it struck again, at her left breast, she fell to the floor screaming with the pain. Matthews paused. Brianna lifted her eyes, filled with tears and pain—and hatred—to his. “God’s mercy, Matthews!” she cried. “Christ himself would confess beneath your hands.”
Matthews did not reply with words. He compressed his lips and brought his knee to slam against her jaw. The world seemed to recede—and then, though she felt the touch of the pick again, she could not even draw the breath to scream against the agony.
But she heard his excited words. “We have found it! There —see how she feels no pain when I touch that mole. It is her witch’s teat, and there she suckles her familiars—and Satan!”
She was going to die. There would be no help for her this time. No Sloan Treveryan—no heroic knight—to come along and save her from Matthews’s hell. Sloan would find her note, and he would rage against her, and then he would sail away as they slipped the noose about her neck.
“Confess, witch!” Matthews commanded.
Naked, soaked, and miserable, and left to huddle against the wall on the floor, Brianna felt hysteria rise again. She laughed, harshly, bitterly. She stared at Matthews, and wondered desperately what manner of demon lived inside the man that could make him so totally, ruthlessly cruel. She shook her head, unable to fully comprehend that this man could so eagerly bring her such agony.
“You’re insane, Matthews,” she whispered.
“Confess!”
“Confess? To what? I am no witch, Matthews. I have no ‘familiars,’ I have harmed no one. And one day, when God judges us both, it is I whom He shall find innocent of malice.”
Matthews knelt down beside her, wrenching her face to his by jerking her hair. “I’ve charges that Pegeen MacCardle of Glasgow did bewitch and kill one Mary Corcoran with herbal concoctions, made with the blood of infants. That—”
“Mary Corcoran died by her own hand!” Brianna cried out in protest. “Pegeen only mixed herbs to soothe fevers and gout! Never would she have harmed an infant! You murdered a good woman!”
