Page 28 of The Story of his Highland Bride
Lennox stared straight ahead, as though he did not trust his expression not to give him away. “I’ve cared for her since I was a bairn, M’Laird. Just because she doesnae want me for a husband doesnae mean that I ceased to hold her in me heart.”
“Did she do anythin’ that ye’d describe as witchy behavior, while ye were courtin’?” Jackson thought he saw lights in the near distance, glowing hazily through the curtain of snow.
Lennox huddled deeper into his cloak. “There wasnae a herb she couldn’ae tell ye the name and purpose of, but it’s only because her grandmaither was a healer. To Father Hepburn, I suppose that might seem… ungodly.”
“Just walkin’ with a limp because ye’ve tripped and hurt yer ankle seems ‘ungodly’ to Father Hepburn,” Jackson hissed, wondering what the priest would think of a young woman who wrote with a mysterious quill, and carried strange stones with captive souls within them, and swore she had come from the future through a magical stone. Moreover, what would the priest make of Jackson’s growing affection for that woman, and the unyielding desire that pulsed through him, every time he thought of her?
A short while later, the hazy lights gave way to the squat houses and deathly silent streets of Falkernside. The thick snowhad a way of dulling every sound, but the absolute quiet that surrounded the two men was not entirely the snow’s fault. Of that, Jackson was certain, for there was a tense quality to the silence, like everyone in the village was holding their breath.
“He must have gathered them all,” Jackson grumbled, urging Claymore into a lope, and praying he had not come too late to save the poor girl who had been accused.
He charged into the village square, causing a few alarmed shouts to rise up from the crowd. Just as Jackson had suspected, the priest had corralled the villagers into the square, to form an audience for the grisly performance that was about to take place.
In the center of the square, a stake had been erected, piled high at the bottom with straw and kindling and wood. Tied to the wooden pole in the middle was a young woman who could not have been older than twenty or so: a familiar woman, at least beneath the dirt that smeared her face and the tears that cut two meandering streams down her filthy cheeks.
Jane McBride wore a torn leine, and looked like she had been starved to within an inch of her life, judging by the way her head lolled and only the ropes that bound her were keeping her upright. It was a common enough tactic. Jackson had witnessed it before: Father Hepburn starved the women he accused, until they were so delirious and hungry that they would have admitted to anything to gain a slice of bread. Jackson also had his suspicions that Father Hepburn slipped the women tainted water, addling their minds in order to gain a false confession, but he had never been able to prove it.
“What is the meanin’ of this?” Jackson barked, leaping down from the saddle with Lennox only a step behind him. The Man-at-Arms had his hand gripped around the pommel of his broadsword, seemingly ready to cut his former lover down, no matter what the priest had to say.
Father Hepburn emerged from the crowd to meet Jackson’s stern approach. The priest was a tall, thin creature, who rather resembled a heron, with wisps of fine, gray hair atop his head and keen, dark eyes that never failed to miss an opportunity to see “ungodly” things in his parishioners.
The priest bowed his head to Jackson. “My Laird, I didn’t wish to trouble ye with this wickedness. The hour is late. Ye should return to yer castle before the snows prevents ye.”
Though he claimed to be a Scot, born and bred, Father Hepburn had always lacked much of a brogue. He spoke as if he had spent most of his days in England, and though his loyal flock did not seem to mind it, it had always rankled Jackson.
“Ye’ll nae order me to do anythin’ in me own lands, Father Hepburn,” Jackson shot back, pushing past the priest to reach the stake. “What crime has she committed, eh? Speak quickly, as I’ve nae a jot of patience forthiswickedness.”
Father Hepburn walked slowly to join Jackson, crinkling his beak-like nose in annoyance before he replied, “She is responsible for the death of Anne Walker. Mrs. Walker’s sons swear to me that their maither was alive and well when they left her in the care of Miss McBride, but when they returned, theirmaither was dead… and there was blood upon Miss McBride’s hands when they found her with their maither.”
“Jane?” Lennox climbed up onto the stake and took hold of the young woman’s face, trying to urge her into awakening. “Jane, can ye hear me?”
The woman’s eyes opened. “Aye… Lennox, is that… ye?”
“It is, Lass.” Lennox nodded. “Ye’re safe, Lass. Nay harm will come to ye.”
Father Hepburn opened out his arms, addressing the crowd. “I assure ye, Miss McBride will pay penance this night for the evil she has done.”
“Anne Walker was sick,” Jackson interjected. “She’d been unwell for years, and almost five-and-eighty! If Miss McBride had been called to tend to her, it would have been as a healer, but there’s nothin’ a healer can do when death is already knockin’. Where are Samuel and John Walker?”
Two men stepped out of the crowd, raising their hands sheepishly. Jackson had always made a point of learning as many names as he could, and there was not a soul in Clan Faulkner who did not know of Anne Walker. She was famous among his people, solely because she had lived so long. Indeed, though macabre, each year he knew that many men in the village held a wager as to when she would finally die.
“Was yer maither more sickly than usual when ye called upon the help of Miss McBride?” Jackson figured that he would have to guide a trial himself, since it appeared that Jane had not been given one. Not one of any worth, at least.
Samuel and John exchanged a look, before nodding slowly.
“She’d been coughin’ blood for two days,” Samuel, the older of the two, replied. “It had happened before, ye see, and Jane had given our maither somethin’ to stop it. We thought she could do the same again.”
Jackson looked to the stake, where Lennox was in the process of discreetly cutting through Jane’s bonds. “And is it possible that the tonic or the herbs that Jane gave yer maither simply were nae enough, this time?”
“Aye, that’s what we thought,” John answered, “but Father Hepburn said that—”
“Father Hepburn told ye that this sweet, poor lass who has done nothin’ but help all of ye in yer hours of need—when ye’ve had sick bairns and poorly maithers and injured husbands and sons—cast some sort of curse upon an auld woman of five-and-eighty, who’d been coughin’ blood for two days already?” Jackson retorted, too incensed to listen to the end of John’s sentence.
John bowed his head. “Somethin’ of that ilk, M’Laird. Aye.”
“Enough of this!” Jackson turned on the priest, who had his nose in the air. “This is the true evil, Father—ye, choosin’ who ye’ve a right to burn, to make an example of them. For one thing, ye daenae so much as sneeze when ye’re inmeterritory, without me say so. For another, there’s nothin’ godly about terrifyin’ people into obeyin’ yer every whim and fancy. It ceases, now. If I hear ye’ve done this again, holdin’ trials and executions without me presence, I’ll write to the bloody King himself to have ye replaced by someone who isnae just itchin’ to burn lasses!”
A whisper of shock rippled through the crowd, none of whom looked too pleased to be witnesses to Jane McBride’s imminent demise.
