They ignored me, and the wagon made its way down the road that led from the keep and its fields to the town.
I will jail the girl and consider it.
Perhaps I would burn too. And that was why the horse had not been returned to me. I tried to breathe, placing my hands over my heart. I glanced around in the dying sunlight, but the growing dark only allowed for me to see so far. As we neared the town square, I saw torchlights and faces.
What seemed to be the entire citizenship of Sheridan was gathered.
A stake, something that would be the center beam of a roof, from which rafters would be structured, was driven into the middle of the square. Dry firewood and kindling sticks were tied to the base of it.
“Oh gods,” I said. “Oh gods. They are burning her tonight?”
The guards continued our procession and did not answer me.
When the wagon pulled into the town square, my mother spotted me from the crowd and began screaming. My father tried to calm her, but her outrage and terror were unchecked.
“My girl!” she shrieked and ran to one side of the square.
Torm, his wife, his sons, a triumphant Starling, and the keep’s guards were gathered. Two men held a tired Magda between them, her hands bound in front of her.
I made to get out of the wagon, but one of my captors tersely instructed, “You’ll stay put. If you know what’s good for you. Stay put, girl.”
I froze, not out of cowardice but from shock. What was my recourse? What should I do?
“Torm!” My mother was still shrieking, my father close on her heels. She threw herself on him, her fists hitting his chest. “That is my child!My child!”
My father called her name and reached out to pull her away, but she was ungovernable, frantic, and would not hear him.
Lady Sheridan gave my mother a cool stare.
Thane moved to step forward, but Bertram pulled him back by his shirt.
I saw Rowena running from where she had been in the crowd to where I stood in the wagon, tears streaming down her face.
“Back!” snapped a guard at her, holding his spear out to bar her. “Stay back! Return to where you were. Now!”
They closed ranks around the wagon.
“Madam, contain yourself,” Starling was warning our mother from where he stood near Torm. “I fear your intervention will anger our saint. You’ll only make the fire blaze hotter for your daughter.”
Torm Sheridan took my mother’s wrists in his hands as if to throw her off his person, but he pulled her close and put his mouth to her ear. His eyelids fluttered closed. It was an odd intimacy, two people who perhaps had loved each other more than twenty winters ago but were now married to others, parents to children. And yet, there was a poignancy in the tilt of his head, the way his mouth brushed over her temple like the most fleeting, wistful kiss.
My mother jerked away and fell into my father’s arms.
My father must have heard the lord, for he said, “Your mercy, my lord. We thank you for it.”
Before Torm could reply, Starling, a bitter scowl on his features as he looked at my mother, broke away from their grouping and crossed the square to where my wagon and the guards were.
The driver, sensing his intent, reached down a hand and helped the priest up into the wagon.
I stepped away from him, but Father Starling, a well-built man only in his forties, followed my steps, took my right wrist, and pulled my hand up into the air. He was taller than me, and my shoulder felt nearly yanked from my back. He sneered down into my face before he turned to the crowd gathered.
“See this!” the priest called out. “See the mercy of your lord? Torm Sheridan is a man of compassion and clemency. The Miller girl has spent winters under a witch’s roof. She too was at the bedside of the woman whose unborn child was put to death by the witch. Sheshould burn too. They should be tied to the stake back-to-back. But no! Torm Sheridan grants her lenience. He shows this heathen girl charity and quarter. You should call yourselves blessed, people of Sheridan. To have such a man at your head.”
He did not sound as if he praised the lord.
“Bring forth the malefactress!” the priest ordered.
The guards that had been holding Magda began to march her towards the stake. She was going willingly, but she was old and slow, and they were half dragging her by the time they reached the base of the stake.
