“My lord, you have not yet fully recovered,” Melisande protested. “Surely, you are too weak for combat.”
Then, I must hope and pray the minstrels are indeed right—that love can strengthen a man beyond measure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A Boreas wind blew across the abbey forecourt, causing many a mantle to unfurl and flap in its wake. In that instant, Laoghaire wondered if some dark, malcontent spirit had suddenly taken up residence in their midst.
“The seventh hour has arrived!” Abbot Theodore announced as he gestured to the sundial affixed to the façade of the church.
Father Giroldus immediately bustled to the front of the pyre. “Bind the witch to the stake,” he ordered the deputies.
As Laoghaire was grasped roughly by the arms and yanked over to the ladder—on which she was expected to climb up to the platform that protruded from the middle of the stake—she trembled with fear, her courage flagging.
God’s heart! Where is my brother Iain? Why has he not arrived?
Holding the hem of her chemise aloft with one hand, Laoghaire grasped the ladder with the other as she made her assent. Once she was situated on the platform, one of the deputies climbed behind her and secured her upper body to the stake with a heavy length of rope, crisscrossing it between her breasts. Once he was finished with that, he then bound her wrists together behind the pole before he rejoined the crowd below.
From her elevated position, she was able to see the demented glee that emanated from so many of the onlookers.
There is not a sympathetic face among them.
“Venerable brothers,” Father Giroldus began, addressing his remarks, not to the throng, but to the monks who flanked either side of the pyre. “We have before us a momentous task, one in which I take no pleasure.”
The lie that he told was so flagrant, Laoghaire could not help but scoff, earning her a contemptuous glower from the priest.
“To save our own souls, we must purge the devil from this monastery,” Father Giroldus continued.
“If the devil is in our midst, he’s garbed in a black robe!” Laoghaire jeered, her exclamation causing more than one person in the crowd to gasp aloud with shock.
“Silence!” the abbot commanded, red-faced with anger.
He wants me meek as a lamb, but I’ll not go quietly to my death,she fumed, regaining some of her lost courage.
“Make no mistake: Wheresheroams—” Father Giroldus thrust an accusing finger in Laoghaire’s direction—“the devil roams. She is endowed with evil vices, lacking in all virtue. If she is not purged of the dark forces, she will cause the ruination of us all.”
“Take heed, priest!” a commanding voice suddenly boomed from the crowd. “Or you will meet a dire end.”
Sweet Jesu!
Instantly recognizing that deep, beloved voice, Laoghaire frantically searched the throng. When she finally caught sight of Galen—pushing and shoving his way to the fore—her joy at seeing him, alive and well, was so great that she shouted his name aloud.
Though she knew he must be weakened by his recent illness, she could detect no evidence of it. Indeed, there was a dangerous swagger in Galen’s step as he broke free of the crowd and strode toward her.
I have never been so happy to see that blood-red lion emblazoned on his surcoat!
No apparition, Galen finally stood before her in the flesh, his helm tucked beneath one arm, the linked mail of his hauberk shining brightly in the afternoon sunlight. Outfitted for battle, he was a formidable sight to behold. And given the stunned expressions of everyone present, it was obvious that they were as amazed as she was to see him. Even the assembled monks, Abbot Theodore included, openly gawked, unable to hide their astonishment.
All save for Father Giroldus, who glared at Galen with a feral intensity, a mad dog ready to attack.
Galen peered up at her and the expression on his face softened ever so slightly. “How fare thee, lady wife?”
“Now that ye are here, I am much improved,” Laoghaire told him, smiling through her tears.
Galen briefly returned the smile before he turned toward the abbot. “Release her! She is an innocent woman!”
Having yet to regain his composure, the abbot’s hand visibly trembled as he smoothed it over the front of his habit. “I must humbly beg to differ, my lord. Lady Angus has been convicted of sorcery, a most serious crime, as well you know.”
At hearing that, Laoghaire’s head snapped back, her body jerking against the restraining ropes. Like Galen, she had erroneously assumed that, on account of his having revived, she would be cleared of the charges and set free.
