Judith E. French Page 5

  He was an educated man, not a superstitious savage. He’d put feathers and war paint and heathen drums behind him. The only similarity between this woman and the one he’d carried in his dreams was the color of her hair.

  That had to be the truth, because if it wasn’t, he was in far worse trouble than the difficulty he’d have in trying to explain away his resignation from the army.

  He should have left Scotland the day his release papers had come through. There had been no reason to come to Edinburgh and inquire into the status of her criminal case. He’d gone as far as saddling his horse and packing his few belongings, but in the end, he’d headed the animal toward this Scottish city rather than home.

  Paying for her bath and a change of clothing had been simple Christian charity. Once he’d learned her name and been told the conditions of prisoners in Edinburgh Castle, he’d felt obligated to assist her in some small way. In all honesty, he had to admit he’d been relieved that her name hadn’t struck a chord. Cailin MacGreggor. It meant nothing to him. She meant nothing ... as long as he avoided reliving the memory of holding her in his arms ... as long as he denied the sorcery that had drawn him unwillingly to Edinburgh and to this courtroom.

  A bewigged judge pronounced sentence on the prisoner before the bar, and the doomed man was dragged away cursing and struggling against his captors. Someone called for order, a door opened to the left of the chamber, and a bearded warder led in a woman in manacles.

  Gooseflesh prickled on Sterling’s arms and torso. His hands closed on the back of the bench in front of him, gripping the wood so tightly that his fingernails bit into the worn surface. His chest felt tight, and it was hard to breathe.

  He couldn’t take his gaze off the slender feminine figure in rough homespun. He knew that this was Cailin MacGreggor before the bailiff called out her name. There could not be two women with such glorious hair. Damp red-gold curls escaped the plain linen cap to frame her face and catch the last rays of afternoon sun that streamed in a sooty barred window.

  Sterling’s heart hammered against his chest as an unnatural weakness washed over him. The thought that whatever happened to Cailin MacGreggor in the next few moments would affect the rest of his life echoed through in his mind.

  He strained to hear the judge’s words, but the whispers of the crowd drowned them out. Sterling continued to grasp the bench back as colors and sounds swirled around him. It seemed that all his senses were enhanced tenfold. He could hear the loud buzz of flies, smell the unwashed wool clothing of the waiting prisoners, see the faint stain on the wide-board floor that might have been old blood. And deep in the recesses of his soul, he could swear he heard the throb of an incessant drum.

  He lost track of time. Witnesses were called, barristers argued, and the judge slammed his gavel against a polished wood table. And all the while, Cailin MacGreggor stood, back straight, chin high, and faced her accusers.

  As shadows lengthened, servants came to light the candles. Suddenly, Sterling felt a gust of cold wind. Startled, he glanced around the room, wondering who had opened an outer door, and then remembered that it was summer. He could feel the wind straining against his skin and clothing, but when he looked at the candles, their flames had not even flickered. Unable to stand the tension, he leaped to his feet and started forward. Then the judge’s voice came as clear and loud as thunder.

  “... you, Cailin MacGreggor, be taken at first light to Edinburgh gallows and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead for the heinous crime of murder. And may God have mercy on your soul.”

  Chapter 5

  Purple ribbons of dawn flowed across the gray eastern sky. It would be a clear day, Cailin decided, one of those jewel-box mornings of brilliant light and sweet sparkling air that gave the inhabitants of Edinburgh a taste of Highland glory. Somehow, she felt it would have been easier to die on a cold, cloudy day with a promise of rain. It was hard to keep her head high and the tremor from her step as she neared the gallows, knowing that she’d never see another morning ... that she’d never smell the blooming heather again ... that she’d never hear the deep voice of her grandfather this side of hell.

  The warder had offered her a priest and a chance to make confession for her sins. She’d refused. She’d not make a lie of her death by saying she was sorry she’d killed that dragoon in her father’s barn. She only wished she’d killed the three soldiers who had made sport of her on the way to prison. Now she would die with blood on her hands and hatred in her heart. There would be no heavenly gates opening for Cailin MacGreggor. Her stubborn will would see her serve an eternity in Satan’s kitchen.

  At least I’ll have company, she thought wryly. Johnnie had always said that heaven would be hard-put for saints and hell have standing room only. Truth was truth, and the MacGreggors were no better than the MacLeods. “A wee bit rough around the edges,” Johnnie had admitted, “cattle thieves and rebels all—but loyal to their families until the last stroke of eternity.”

  Loyalty meant taking revenge on those who wronged them, man or lass. And loyalty to Johnnie’s memory meant sending his murderer to his grave. “Mayhap I’ll come face to face with that accursed English blackguard in hell,” she murmured. Leaving him alive to walk free and boast of Johnnie’s death would be a duty unfulfilled. And she had always been a woman who liked to finish what she’d started.

  “No talking!” the warder snarled. He gave her a shove, and she whirled on him with such a black look that his Lowland curses died on his tongue and his pocked face paled.

  An oversized raven fluttered down to peck at scraps on the cobblestones directly in the path of the execution party. The bird’s black feathers gleamed ebony in the early light as it cocked its head and stared round-eyed at Cailin. One of the guards muttered “Witch” in English.

  The second crossed himself furtively. “’Tis her familiar,” he said in the same harsh language.

  Cailin smiled at their ignorance. It gave her some comfort to know that the guards were afraid of her. “Were I a witch, I’d show ye a trick or two,” she replied in perfect English. “Brave men ye be to fear a chained woman and a poor bird.”

  They’d not expected her to understand their words. Gaelic was the native tongue of most Highlanders, but she’d had the benefit of a formal education; Johnnie had seen to that. “Ye never know when your blood sire may call you to London,” he’d said with a wink. “It never hurts a lass to be smarter than the men around her.”

  Her blood sire. She almost laughed aloud. He’d showed little concern for her, once when he’d sent a silver christening cup and again when he’d sent her the amulet, and a final time when she’d received a sum of money from Edinburgh bankers on her wedding day. Cameron Stewart had never laid eyes on her since she’d been born. He’d not have known her if they’d shared a pew at Sunday Mass. If caring and love mattered, Johnnie MacLeod was her blood sire.

  She glanced back at the raven, wishing she had a scrap of bread to throw the bold creature. Or a scrap of bread for herself, she corrected silently. They’d not fed her that morning. She was going to her grave with an empty belly and cold stones under her feet.

  Others better than I have died this way, she thought. Maybe it was preferable to be one mourned over than one who must live out a life forever in mourning. Still, there was much left undone, and she bitterly regretted being unable to care for Jeanne and the others who depended on her. Her sister was too gentle, too sweet to survive in a Scotland ravaged by the likes of Cumberland’s army. Her pretty face and soft voice would only bring her to sorrow. And brave little Corey . . . How long would he wait and watch the road for her to come for him as she’d promised? He was so young to be cast adrift in a hard world with none but Fergus to guide him.

  God in heaven! Why had she fought the soldier in the barn? If she’d lain back and let him have his way with her, she might have still been free to help her family.

  The self-pitying notion passed as quickly as it came. What she had done would make the
English think twice about cornering a Scottish lass in a dark stable. She’d do the same thing again, given the chance. She was no sheep to go meekly to the slaughter. She was a Highlander, by God, and they’d best remember it.

  Suddenly, she heard an outburst of cheers and shouting. Startled, Cailin looked up to see the gallows platform looming black and ominous before her. A single tartan-clad body dangled from a rope. The condemned man—a Mackintosh by the weave of his kilt—no longer lived; his twitching corpse swung slowly to and fro to the delight of the gathering crowd.

  “So die all traitors to the Crown!” shouted a man in an old-fashioned Scots bonnet.

  “The Mackintosh danced good, didn’t he?” crowed an old woman beside him. “They all dance, but some dance higher than others.”

  A peddler with a tray of gingerbread skeletons suspended from a cord around his shoulders held up his wares and cried, “Death cakes! Who’ll buy my death cakes!”

  A painted whore laughed and tossed him a coin. “Bring on the next!” she demanded as she reached for a sugar-coated treat and bit off the skeleton’s head.

  “Aye!” echoed a drunken baker. “We want to see another! Where’s the lass?”

  “Bring on the woman!”

  “Hang her! Hang the murderer!”

  Cailin shuddered. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit down hard, trying to fight the faintness that had come over her. Her hands were fastened behind her back, and she was afraid she’d lose her balance and have to be carried like a sack of grain up the thirteen steps to the noose.

  Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them away. She’d give no show to these ghouls. She took a deep breath and kept walking. Under her bodice next to her skin, she wore her amulet. The ancient necklace was an empty token, as powerless to aid her as it had been the night her mother died. But still the familiar weight of the gold necklace gave her comfort, and she could imagine that the metal emitted a warm pulsing.

  If only the legend were true, she thought; if only the Eye of Mist did carry a blessing. But then she heard Johnnie’s voice in the far corner of her mind. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. And she knew that desperation had made her foolish. There would be no miraculous rescue. She had been sentenced to die this day, and die she would. Her only choice was to remember who she was and to go with dignity. At the foot of the platform, a brown-robed priest waited patiently. “Will you make last confession?” he asked. His breath smelled of strong cheese.

  Cailin shook her head. She could not trust her voice to keep from breaking.

  “Have thought for your immortal soul,” he cautioned sternly. “Will you go to your grave unrepentant?”

  Cailin put her foot on the bottom step. At the top, a tall figure in a black hood waited. Only his eyes were visible through slits in his mask. They gleamed as cold as glass ... as pitiless as the raven’s eyes.

  “Repent,” the priest intoned.

  Pulse racing, Cailin forced herself to climb the narrow wooden stairs. When she reached the platform, the executioner raised a dirty blindfold.

  “Nay!” she said. “Do not bind my eyes. I’ve a mind to see the sunrise.”

  “As ye wish.”

  His voice grated on her ears like a rusty hinge. As he settled the rough hemp around her neck, she caught a strong odor of whiskey. Ah, she thought, so even death’s accomplice needs some added courage to fulfill this job.

  She heard a squawk, and a raven flew up and landed on the wooden railing that surrounded the platform. “Come to see the performance firsthand, did you?” she murmured to the bird.

  The mob surged forward.

  “Get on with it!” someone cried.

  “Hang her! Hang the murderess!” shouted a man at the foot of the steps.

  The priest appeared at Cailin’s shoulder and began a prayer in Latin. She stared at the blossoming sunrise, marveling at the streamers of coral and mauve and crimson that tinted the clouds with gold. Her head bade her heed the cleric, but her stubborn heart held firm. I’ll find Johnnie’s killer and make him pay, she thought, if I have to come back from hell to do it.

  The priest stepped back. Cailin stared into the executioner’s eyes and knew that her moment had come. Time seemed to stand still for her, and a calm acceptance replaced the fear and anger that had filled her body and mind. The MacLeod clan motto echoed in her brain. “Hold fast,” she said clearly in Gaelic.

  “Hold!” shouted a stranger in English. “Executioner! Hold your place! I have a decree from ...”

  The rest of his words were lost to her in the angry roar of the crowd. Why did the executioner hesitate? she wondered. One motion of his hand, and the trap door beneath her feet would fall away. Seconds passed, and sweat beaded on her forehead.

  “For the love of God,” she cried. “If you’re goin’ to hang me, do and be done with!”

  Then gloved hands were lifting the noose off her head. Her cap fell off, and one braid came undone, but she stood like a statue, unable to comprehend. She was prepared to die like a Highlander. What was happening?

  Hands closed on her shoulders and spun her around. The din of the mob was so loud that she couldn’t hear what was being said to her. Something hard struck her in the center of the back. Vaguely, she was aware that people were throwing eggs, turnips, and—A stone slammed into her elbow, and the sudden pain jerked her from her stupor.

  Half-dazed, Cailin looked up into the face of the man who had killed Johnnie MacLeod. “Sweet Jesus,” she exclaimed in Gaelic. “I’m already dead and in hell.”

  “Listen to me!” he shouted in English. “I have a writ for your release.”

  She began to laugh. This was hell for certain.

  “Your sentence has been commuted to exile for life,” he said. “Provided that you marry me immediately. I—”

  A musket shot from the foot of the steps sent the surging onlookers into a scramble away from the gallows. A woman screamed, a horse reared up, and a second gun fired. Soldiers rushed from the castle toward the mob.

  “Do you understand?” the priest demanded, pushing his seamed face into Cailin’s. “If you would save your life, you must join in marriage with this man. Will you?”

  She shook her head.

  “You choose death over marriage?” the cleric asked in disbelief.

  “I canna,” she said.

  “Are you now married to another?” her English enemy demanded.

  She shook her head again.

  The priest tugged at her arm. “Are you bound by vows to the church? Are you a nun?”

  She laughed at that thought. “No.”

  “Then you must wed me or die.”

  “There is no time,” the priest insisted. “Now, will you—”

  “I’d sooner wed Old Scat himself,” she replied hotly.

  The priest gasped. “Blasphemy!”

  An egg hit his right cheekbone, smashed, and spattered over the three of them. A volley of shots rang out, and the remaining rioters scattered. Hoofbeats thundered on the cobblestones as a company of dragoons galloped down the street.

  Johnnie’s killer shook her. “You’ll be the devil’s bride soon enough if you don’t agree to—”

  “Enough of this.” The bearded warder pushed forward. “She has made her decision. She hangs. Executioner! Do your duty.”

  “She agrees,” the dark-eyed Englishman declared. He pushed her toward the steps.

  “Nay!” she protested. “I dinna—”

  He slapped her across the face with the flat of his hand so hard that her ears rang. “Think, woman!” he snapped. “Are you daft?” He pointed to the body of the Mackintosh still hanging from the rope. A raven had landed on the dead man’s shoulder and was beginning to peck at his face. “Will you end like that with your eyes—”

  “Nay,” she said. Tears betrayed her. “Nay, I will wed,” she said in broken sobs. “If only to have the chance to send you to hell first.”

  “Fair enough,” he answered. “Priest, you have
the woman’s agreement. Read the marriage lines.”

  “Here? Without banns or—”

  “Here and now, priest, before those eggs and rocks turn to musket balls. For you’ll not descend those stairs until you’ve made us man and wife.”

  “How dare you?” the cleric sputtered. “I’ll protest to—”

  “Little protesting you’ll do with a broken neck, Father. The words! This platform makes too easy a target.”

  “I warn ye,” Cailin said softly, “I know not what madness possesses ye, but ken this, Englishman—I mean to take your life.”

  “And I mean to save yours. Will ye, nill ye, woman, you shall not stir from this spot until you are my legal wife.”

  “You’ll regret it,” she retorted.

  “We’ll chance that, won’t we?”

  “Aye, we will.”

  And then the priest began to mutter the ceremony, and Cailin shut her eyes and made the correct responses with a heart as cold and dead as those that lay in Culloden Field.

  Chapter 6

  “You arrogant Sassenach bastard,” Cailin reviled him. “You murder my father. You hit me when my hands are chained, and then ye force me to go through the mockery of a marriage ceremony. And now ye expect gratitude?”

  Sterling glanced over his shoulder at his newly acquired wife and decided that marrying her was the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life. The four days since he’d rescued her from the gallows had been a complete and utter disaster. After reason and patience had failed, he’d resorted to tying her wrists together in front of her and securing her ankles by a leather strap that ran under her horse’s belly. She was still far from subdued, and only the threat of gagging her with his stock had put an end to her calling out to every Scot that they passed to save her from an English kidnapper.

  They’d not been in the saddle an hour this morning when he’d had to come to blows with a scowling Border lout who weighed twenty stone at the least. It wasn’t until he’d unhorsed the crude fellow and produced their marriage papers that the giant had let them cross his farm in peace.