“I but came here to bury him! I couldnae abide the thought of him tied to the chair.”
“Burying is a good way of hiding what ye have done.”
“I didnae do this!”
“Yet ye were going to bury him.”
“Of course I was. He is dead. He shouldnae be left to just rot in a chair. He was my father.”
“Was he?”
“What do ye mean by that?”
“Seems he was fond of telling the world and its mother that your mother was already carrying ye when he wed her. ’Tis why they allowed a mon like him to have such a fine lass. Why they gave him this land. Said she finally gave him one bairn, a lass, and it wasnae ye he was talking about. So where are the others?”
“The others?” Bethoc felt a cold wave of fear, wondering why these men would care about where the boys were.
“All the laddies that run about here, working the land for this fool. The laddies he stole.”
“Ye kenned that? Ye kenned it and did naught?”
“And what should I have done? They were cast-off children. He did weel by them. And now this is how ye repay him.”
“Are ye nay heeding me? I didnae do this! Look at the mon. Do ye think I could wrestle him into that seat, tie him to that chair, and then do that to him? Do ye think I could even lift him?”
“Tell me where the others are,” he demanded, and grabbed her by the chin, his eyes fixed on hers as his men wrapped Kerr’s body in the blanket she had put down.
“They ran away when the men arrived,” she said, beginning to think speaking to this man was akin to banging her head against a wall.
“What men?” he demanded and made a sharp gesture to signal his men to carry Kerr’s body out of the house.
“The five who came here and killed Kerr.”
The man frowned. “The ones who heard the poor mon’s screams and told us to come here?”
“A tall mon with a scarred face? Rode here with four others who looked nearly as rough as he did?”
“Aye. Those men and they sent us here. To catch a killer. Came to warn the sheriff like honest men should. Come along now,” he said even as he began to have her dragged out of the house by his men who had just returned.
“They lied! They were the ones who did this to him.” She tried to pull free of the men’s hold.
“Cease, woman! Ye have been caught. Now we will take ye up for punishment.”
“Dinnae ye mean justice?” She knew the men had decided on her guilt but hoped to shame them into what they were supposed to do. “Ye are the sheriff and ken weel I deserve a trial, a chance to prove my innocence.”
“Ye will get the chance to tell us exactly what ye did,” said the sheriff. “No less.”
“Ye mean tell ye that I did it,” she snapped.
“Aye,” he said flatly. “Ye and nay other.”
Bethoc began to fight the hold they had on her like a wild thing. To her dismay, all the men joined in trying to hold her still. All the while she loudly denied killing Kerr, protesting her innocence over and over again. When they tied her hand and foot and tossed her over the back of a horse, she was still protesting. They gagged her with a barely clean cloth, the sweaty smell of it making her want to vomit. Only her fear of choking held her back, even as the men mounted their horses and rode back to the village, adding more abuse to her uneasy stomach.
She thought briefly of Kerr. They had taken his body although she had no idea why. She dreaded the possibility that the boys would return and see the blood left behind. And a part of her, the one that had lived in the man’s house for so many years, felt sad that no one was burying him. Or that they might never know where he was buried.
Once at the jail, she was dragged inside and the sheriff sat at a table. The officious man calling himself the sheriff demanded that she confess to what she had done as he tore the gag off her mouth. Bethoc yet again swore that she had not touched Kerr. He nodded and mumbled something about changing her mind. That did not sound good, she thought, and sat tensed and ready for trouble. She heartily wished she had told Callum where she was going.
* * *
