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‘No,’ gasped Kenna, shaking her head.
‘I owe you my life Kenna,’ he said, gazing into her stricken face, ‘and I give mine freely in return.’
Lord Braxfield sat back in his chair, frowning.
‘Kenna is here today and has been led down a dark path, but I am to blame,’ said Conall. ‘I took her from her family. I convinced her to leave them and inspired them to hate her for it. I brought her amongst you. I seduced her for my own evil ends. She is innocent. Everything you find her guilty of is my doing. I control and command her. It is I who communes with the Devil. I have always been a bad lot, ask anyone. I have never been a godly man. I fornicate. I am a drunkard and a gambler. I killed Euan Moncur when he tried to stop me from escaping Sgathach Dun. I am no good and bring shame to my clan. Take me out now and stretch my neck. I will give a full confession and sign it before witnesses, and you can have your victim if you give your word that this woman will be set free.’
‘No one is dying today,’ hissed his father.
‘Enough. I’ll hear no more from you,’ snarled Lord Braxfield. ‘She’ll not hang. Instead, she will burn for her heresy in the square for all to see her cleansed of her sins because of the contempt you have shown this court and its officers. You are clearly in thrall to this witch if you would throw your life away for her sake. This is your doing Campbell, your doing.’
Pandemonium erupted in the room. Shouting from the crowd, Kenna sobbing. Conall bellowed his rage at the judge. ‘Have mercy, you bastard!’
‘Get your son out of here, Campbell, before I order him to swing,’ said Braxfield.
Conall managed to throw his arms around Kenna for an instant. ‘I love you, I won’t let them do this, I won’t.’
‘Conall,’ she sobbed before the crowd swallowed her up, and she was torn away from him.
‘Why don’t you do something?’ shouted Conall at his father, anger making it hard for him to breathe.
‘I will do something, but not here. Nothing I said would have made any difference today. There was only one way this was going to go, from the minute she was taken. They tried to keep it a secret from us, this so-called trial. If Angus hadn’t found out about it, we wouldn’t even have been here to defend her. They wanted her condemned and dead before we could do anything to challenge it.’
Conall felt sick to his stomach. By taking Kenna from Sgathach Dun and bringing her into his life, all he had done was doom her, making her a target for their enemies.
‘Offering your life was brave but foolish,’ said Duncan. ‘They may have followed through and if their plan was to strike at the very heart of Clan Campbell, at my heart, then killing you gave them the perfect opportunity.’
‘I can’t let her die, Father.’ Conall looked around him and frowned. ‘Where is Murray?’
Chapter Thirty-One
The sound of keys in the lock and the grind of the door opening made Kenna want to scream. It was pitch black. Surely, they wouldn’t drag her off in the dead of night. She tried to stand up, but she was too weak with fear, and her legs were jelly. Blinded by the candlelight, she couldn’t see who was hauling her up as a rough hand took hold of her and dragged her to her feet. No point in screaming. No one would care. Her terrified mind raced about. Was it to be torture, strangulation or something worse?
‘Please, no,’ she whispered.
‘Quiet!’
‘I’m not a witch. I’ve done nothing wrong, I swear to you, please.’
The man pushed her up against the wall and shoved something in her mouth, a gag, tied tight, pressing on her tongue, cutting into her cheeks. He started to tear at her clothes. Kenna tried to resist, but he was strong, and soon she stood up against the wall in just her shift, with goosebumps stiffening her skin.
‘That will have to do,’ he said, looking her up and down. Then he grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and hauled her out of the cell and down along the dank passageway outside. Torches flickered, revealing a labyrinth of cages, like the pits of hell - wet walls, rank odours, moans from the darkness. When the man brought Kenna to some steps leading downwards, she heard voices below, men laughing, and her fear doubled. She couldn’t go down there, where those men were going to hurt her, where death awaited her. She screamed into the gag, choking on it, struggling to escape the man’s grip. For her trouble, she was cuffed hard across the face, making the world spin.
‘I said quiet now, for I’ve no time to tell you what I am about. Calm down, and it will go easier, girl. Now, this is for your own good.’
A sack came over her head and was tied tightly, and Kenna was pulled downwards, stumbling on the stairs until they reached level ground and then there were voices, dying away to nothing. The smell of mildew and smoke and the scrape of a chair being pulled back. Only the tiniest scrap of light filtered through the sacking and then it was blotted out by a dark shadow. Breath in her face, foul and overlaid with whisky.
‘Where are you going with this one?’
‘Need to get a confession,’ said the man. ‘The justice has some scruples about burning her and wants this one to be damned from her own mouth. She won’t cooperate, so we have to go the hard way on her.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘Not bad.’ Someone pulled at the sack.
‘No, leave it. Don’t look in her eyes. She’ll put a curse on you, a withering curse, for she hates men and sends them to hell. There’s many she’s doomed that way, unmanned them with evil incantations and potions.’
‘Best get on with it then. You should tie her hands, so she doesn’t scratch your eyes out.’
