“What man?”
“Robin was it? What had he done to you?”
“I was not angry with him.”
“I could hear it in your voice even if he could not. What’s he done?”
“Dinnae worry about that. It is not your concern.”
He spurred the horse into ever greater speed until it was foaming at the mouth, sweat pouring down it. In no time they were back at the castle.
Before she was even on the ground Jock was shouting for a groom to come and tend to his horse which was steaming in the cold air as it dunked its head into the trough by the castle gates.
“This way,” Jock said, leaving the grooms to tend to his horse. He walked through the gate into the courtyard where Daisy stopped dead.
“I don’t understand,” she said, staring around her at the torchlit space. “Where did all these buildings come from?”
The grass was gone, the space a ramshackle collection of thatch covered huts with mud and straw in between to serve as pathways.
“Oh God. Tabby was right. The key. I’ve gone back in time.” The shock knocked the wind out of her. She could say nothing else. “I’ve actually gone back in time. This is insane.” She grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t you get it? I’ve broken the laws of physics. I’m actually here in the Middle Ages.”
“Come on,” Jock said, grabbing her hand and pulling her up the steps. “It will all make sense soon enough.”
She let him guide her upstairs, staring back and feeling dizzy. What was going on? It couldn’t be true. Could it?
Once inside, she found herself in no time at all in Jock’s bedchamber. He looked furious once again. “What are you going to do?” she asked. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“I promise I willnae hurt you. I intend to save you,” he replied, taking hold of her dress and lifting it from her shoulders.
She should have told him to stop but she could say nothing at all. As the dress came free she began to wonder if she was dreaming.
She had seen that bed before. She was sure of it, in those regular dreams that had been haunting her for months. It had to be a dream. Else why would she be letting him undress her like this?
With the dress off, and only the chemise to cover her, she felt lighter than air, blown rather than walked across to the bed where he lay her down, brushing her eyes closed with the tips of his fingers.
“Dinnae move,” he said quietly.
She heard something to her left and she was tempted to look but managed to resist. It had to be a dream. Any moment now she would wake up at home and all of this would become nothing more than a memory.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she felt something at her left wrist. She looked up in time to see him binding her to the bed with a length of cord.
She went to rise but he was faster, leaping across her and binding her right wrist to the bed. That done he moved down, ignoring her lashing feet as he bound her ankles in place.
“You are no witch,” he said. “But you are possessed by a demon and I will free you from such torment. Then we can talk.”
“Let me go,” she yelled, tugging at the bonds that held her tight to his bed. “Let me go right now. You’ve no right to hold me here.”
She began ranting and raving again, spitting venom toward him. “You said I could trust you and you do this? Let me go!”
She saw him kneeling in the corner of his room, genuflecting before lifting his eyes and hands up to heaven.
“Save her, Lord,” he said, as she shouted again for him to let her go. “Banish the vile denizen of the underworld that lurks within her soul. Send it back to the fiery pit from whence it came and allow this innocent one back into the your good graces.
Take me instead if you must punish someone. I have sinned, she has not. I should have prayed for her from the moment I first met her. Forgive me, Lord, my omission, and save her.”
“There’s no demon in me,” she yelled back at him. “Stop saying that.”
He was up and he had something in his hand.
