“You know the law, Martin. You cannot desert a patrol. Let’s have no more talk of ghosts or ghoulies that creep in the night.”
“I will not go back,” Martin said, shaking his head violently. He began to tremble as he spoke. “I’ve seen what he does to people. I willnae wait for that.”
Without another word he turned and flung himself straight off the cliff edge. Cam could only watch as he fell from the sight.
The thing he remembered most afterward was that Martin never screamed. He fell in silence all the way down.
Back at the village, the people were gathered together by the cage. Cam found them all looking anxiously up at him. “Was it true?” one asked. “Is the barefoot man coming for us?”
“Martin was not in his right mind. Have no fear.”
“Then where is he? What happened to him?”
“He chose to be judged by the Lord instead of his Laird. Half a gold piece will come the way of Wicke as reward for catching a deserter. You have my thanks.”
He turned and headed back for the castle. There was nothing else he could do but wait for news of the northernmost patrol. He was not the superstitious type but even he could tell the omens were not good. Someone had appeared from nowhere just like the prophecy said.
No one knew his name but one clan after another had fallen to him as he worked his way slowly closer to MacGregor territory. He would get no further south, Cam would see to that. The rumors of him could be as wild as they liked. Rumors always swirled around the unknown.
In his father’s day there were tales of a man from the Isles with one eye and the ability to fly over his enemies, burning them to ash with fire. He turned out to be a five foot tall bald sallow youth of no more than fifteen. One battle with the MacGregors and the fire breather was just one more corpse. Cam had no doubt this man was the same. A warrior who had fought well so far but a warrior nonetheless. One could be defeated in battle as any warrior could.
His thoughts dwelled on what would rumors could do to a man who let them take hold of his heart. They had made a man such as Martin desert. He had been a good fighter, a solid enough man in a scrap, though prone to a little too much mead when it was offered.
It happened sometimes, even without rumors. Perfectly good men just snapped. Often they refused to fight and next time a patrol went out they would find themselves quietly moved into laboring or the monastery. Only occasionally would they try to run from a patrol, and then justice would be applied, firmly, not harshly. Martin would have been sent to the monastery to atone for the rest of his life, his assets forfeited.
For him to choose death over that? Cam had never known anything like it before. Nor had the villagers. No wonder they were spooked.
He was still thinking when he arrived back at the castle. He left Harry with the stable-boys. Still deep in thought he walked out of the stable and across the courtyard, heading for his chamber to change, his riding clothes covered with mud of the road.
By his bed was a wardrobe. He picked fresh hose out, tossing it onto the bed before throwing off his baldric. As he went to lower his filth splattered hose he heard a hammering from inside the garret.
That was when he remembered the witch. It was a day without end, he felt, as he pulled the hose back up. He crossed to the door and listened carefully. There was the hammering again but it wasn’t on the door. What was she up to in there?
He unlocked the garret quietly, pulling the door open and looking inside. To his surprise she was over by the window, hammering the shutters back into place. The room was dark with the shutters closed while she worked on fixing them but his eyes quickly adjusted. He looked at her closely. She hadn’t noticed him yet. He was just a shadow in the dark.
For a witch, she was a strange one. Her clothes that had seemed so witch-like at first looked different as he examined them a second time. She wore hose like a man yet different somehow. On her feet were black boots of a kind he had never seen before. She was so slender she looked like a strong breeze might blow her away. Her skin was pale, her hands almost dropping the hammer each time she struck a blow.
He was about to ask her what she thought she was doing when she pushed the shutters open. Daylight streamed in and all of a sudden she was illuminated like an angel. Her hair looked like it was on fire, golden shafts of sun piercing the dark curls, shooting out the other side, giving her a halo of light around her head. She turned away from the window with a smile that fell when she noticed Cam was right behind her.
He found himself wanting to look away, ashamed of being caught staring secretly at her. He kept her gaze, making himself look her in the eye. What he wanted to say was gone.
She looked scared of him. So she should be. A click of his fingers and she’d be strung up in the courtyard, a warning to other witches. Could she cast a spell in time? He doubted it. She would have done so already. She was a fake like so many of them were.
“Tell me who sent you to kill me,” he said, planting his feet apart and folding his arms. “And I better hear only the truth from your lips. I will ken if you’re lying and it’ll be the worse for you if you do. Now speak and speak well, your life depends on it.”
Chapter Four
Rachel put the hammer down before answering. “You could start with nice to meet you.” She held a hand out toward the hulking figure over by the door. “Anyone ever told you you’re not the friendliest of hosts?”
He loomed over her, almost scraping his head on the ceiling as he snarled, “Speak, witch, or I will have you executed at once.”
“I’m not a witch and if you were going to execute me, you’d have done it already. So why not just calm down and talk to me like a civilized person?”
She held her hands behind her back, hoping he couldn’t tell they were shaking. She prayed she was in the middle of a dream. If not, she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life.
He shook his fist in her face. “You will not bewitch me.”
“Good to know. Now before this interrogation goes all searching spotlights and Nazi jackboots in my face, would you mind telling me where I am?”
