Suddenly worried, she peered apprehensively at Galen.
His eyes glittering hard and flat like hammered iron, Galen stormed over to where the abbot stood before the gathered monks. “Suffering hell! She is no witch. Am I not the living proof of it?” he snarled, thumping on his chest with a balled fist for added emphasis.
“While I am relieved that you have survived the dark malady from which you earlier suffered, Father Giroldus was able to prove that the countess used devilish wile to strike you down,” the abbot stubbornly maintained, refusing to relent.
“And I can easily prove that she did not.” With a look of utmost confidence, Galen turned to her and said, “Do you wish me dead, lady wife?”
Without hesitating, Laoghaire vigorously shook her head. “I do not! And I would defend ye with my very life,” she added, raising her voice so that it would ring across the entire forecourt.
“There! What more proof do you need of her innocence?”
Having thus far remained conspicuously silent, Father Giroldus suddenly found his voice. “That she is able to spin a witch’s lie proves nothing. She confessed to wearing a pagan charm and practicing the evil art of divination.”
His last remark aroused the ire of the crowd, inciting someone to shout out, “Burn the witch!”
Even from a distance, Laoghaire could see a muscle begin to tick in Galen’s cheek. Though he was but one man, she knew that he would do all in his power to protect her against the angry mob. Or he would die trying. A dire thought that was too terrifying to contemplate.
“Is this how you take your revenge, priest? By falsely accusing an innocent woman of a heinous crime?” Galen taunted, his eyes burning with a terrible, unforgiving rage.
Father Giroldus’s heavy features twisted, his contempt made plain. “While I was none too pleased to bid my cods adieu after I left Castle Airlie—”
“Ye had him gelded!” Laoghaire could not help but exclaim, that being the first she’d heard of it.
“My actions are not motivated by malice,” the priest continued, ignoring her rambunctious outburst. “Rather, I am driven by a desire to rid this monastery of the devil’s taint.”
“I have no knowledge of the devil!” Laoghaire declared. “How many times must I tell ye?”
“Silence, witch!” the abbot rebuked, pinning her with a quelling glare. Then, returning his attention to Galen, he said, “My lord, you were overheard to say, ‘You have bewitched me, lady wife.’ What would prompt you to say such a thing?”
“Had you ever lain with a woman, you would know the answer to that question.”
Several of the men in the crowd chortled knowingly, and more than a few sly winks were exchanged.
Given the abbot’s indignant expression, it was obvious that he was not amused. “Your wife has been found guilty of witchcraft. The sentence stands,” he proclaimed in a voice as hard as winter’s ice.
Her heart in her throat, Laoghaire watched as Galen clasped hold of his sword hilt. “Then, I stand ready to prove my wife’s innocence with my body.”
Raising a beringed hand, the abbot gestured to a man who stood at the edge of the crowd. “I bid the court’s champion to now come forth.”
Simon Blàrach stepped forward, and almost immediately a cheer went up in the crowd. A behemoth of a man, he stood nearly as tall as Galen, but with a much heavier frame.Depending on how the contest unfolds, that could be to his advantage, Laoghaire fretted. Although given that his nose sat crooked on his face—prominently so—it was obvious there had been at least one occasion on which the sheriff suffered a brutal beating.
With an ugly sneer plastered on his face, Blàrach came to a halt a few feet from where Galen and the abbot stood. After casting her a dismissive glance, he said to Galen, “Your defense of the countess is naught but the ravings of a man besotted with lust. You are trapped in this witch’s web, and you will not be able to disentangle yourself . . .my lord,” he added with mocking courtesy.
Laoghaire felt a cold shiver course down her spine. She knew Simon Blàrach’s type: an embittered man who despised those who wielded more power than he did. Such acrimony—having accrued over a lifetime—could often imbue a man with superhuman strength.
“Words will not resolve this matter,” Galen said without inflection. “But a sword thrust through your heart should amply prove that you gave false witness.” That said, he turned his back on his opponent and said to the abbot, “Before combat begins, I would ask that you allow me to converse with my wife.”
Abbot Theodore granted the request with a grudging nod. “You may briefly speak to her.”
As the deputies began to push back the crowd to clear a space for the combat arena, Galen strode over to the ladder that was still leaning against the stake. He quickly climbed several rungs, coming to a halt once they were at eye level. At that close range, Laoghaire could see that beneath the three days’ growth of whiskers, Galen’s face appeared as white as a sheet of parchment. Earlier, he’d fooled her with his commanding air and manly bluster into thinking that he’d fully recovered, but she now feared he was in no condition for combat.
“Please, Galen, I beg you . . . do not do this,” she urged in a lowered voice, terrified that the bout might prove deadly for him.
Long moments passed, and all the while he held her spellbound in a fixed gaze, the force of which emphasized what she’d known for some time now—that they were bound to one another, husband and wife. Galen and Laoghaire.
“Don’t you know?” he said at last. “I would rescue you from the depths of hell itself.”
Although the avowal was quietly spoken, Galen’s beloved gray eyes gleamed with fierce emotion.
