Before he could answer there was a sound on the roof above them. A scraping and then a scream falling past the window. By the time Tavish looked out, it was too late. The princess was dead, her body laid below them in the courtyard.
He should have run. He should have left the castle with his father. The two of them had survived living off the land before. They could do it again. But how could he have known that within an hour he’d be hauled before the laird? That Lilias would point an accusing finger at him and tell the story that soon spread across the Highlands like wildfire. “You killed her, Tavish Sinclair. You pushed her from your window.”
“Why?” someone shouted from the packed crowd, all of them eager to get a glimpse of the accused. Questions were thrown his way but his answers were lost in the noise.
“She spurned his advances,” Lilias screamed, her face a picture of aggrieved innocence. She spat the words out, her face turning bright red. “He threw her to her death.”
The crowd gasped.
Tavish looked around. Was there no one who believed him? “I didnae,” he said but his voice was drowned by the noise.
His father waited until there was a lull to speak. “He was with me the entire time.”
The laird called for silence as the noises of the crowd grew louder once more. “You believe in your son’s innocence, Fingal Sinclair?”
Fingal nodded. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“A princess lays dead in the chapel. A nation mourns. We are without an heir. You swear your son had no part to play?”
“I swear.”
“Then how does he account for the fact that when her highness was reached in the courtyard, his mother’s locket was found in her clenched fist?”
“She took it from me,” Tavish said. “I swear it.”
“A princess stealing from a blacksmith’s son?” Lilias shouted. “She tore it from his neck as she fell,” Lilias shouted at the top of her voice. “I saw it happen. Murderer!”
“Murderer!” The word began to echo around the room. Tavish looked from face to face, people he’d known since childhood. They were all twisted with rage, all except his father who was begging them to listen. None did.
He awoke in the dark to echo of their voices still screaming for his death. He might as well plead with the echo as with the clan. His fate was sealed.
Unless he could get this strange woman to help. He lay back down, an idea forming in his mind.
* * *
Tavish awoke to find Lindsey nudging the fire back into life. “Morning,” she said as he sat up and stretched. “How do you feel?”
He grunted in response. “Ye managed to relight the fire.”
“I’m not totally useless,” she said with a smile. “Look, I’m going home and I might never get the chance again to find out the truth. What happened, with the princess I mean?”
He told her what had happened, the dream all too fresh in his mind. When he was done, he finished by saying, “They locked my father in the dungeon and told me he would be killed if I ever returned to the castle. I was banished forever, told to be grateful for the mercy of the clan for not having me hung, drawn, and quartered.”
He retrieved the last of the rabbit meat from the previous night and began to slice it into strips, struggling to cut through the burnt flesh with his blunt knife.
Lindsey was angry on his behalf, her chest puffing up as she spoke. “But Lilias lied. Why would she do that?”
He shrugged. “She was a child. She wanted revenge for me turning her down.”
“But you could fix this. All you need to do is go see her and get her to confess. Don’t you see? Get her to tell the truth about what happened and your father will be released. You’ll be allowed back into the clan.”
“I cannae go back without the stone or they’ll kill ma father.”
“What stone?”
About a week after they were accepted into the clan, Quinn came to fetch Tavish. “Come with me,” the old druid said. “I have something to show you.”
Together, they swam across the loch to the island. Tavish climbed out to find Quinn already at the well. How could someone so old swim so fast? He stood shivering as Quinn looked down into the depths of darkness. “Do you know what this is, Tavish?”
