Chapter Three

The road looked like all the others Malcolm Montgomery had traveled since leaving Dun Ballan, where he’d lately been imprisoned—narrow, hedged by flowering bushes, and backed by rolling fields and hills. He could not say what set all his senses on alert or caused him to check his weary horse and search the stretch just ahead.

Two rows of puddles remained after last night’s rain, and a rise kept him from seeing very far.

His mount—one of Latham’s animals given to him for his task—snorted and blew. Once fresh, the animal no doubt now felt as spent as Malcom did, for he ached with bone-deep weariness kept at bay only by iron determination.

This road, to the best of his estimation, led straight northward, though certainly he had never ridden it before. Northward—homeward—had been his chosen direction ever since his release from Latham’s dungeon.

Upon that thought, and in defiance of the pleasant day, he began to sweat as he did each time he remembered the black hole that had housed him…how many days? Faith and he’d lost count.

He dragged in a deep lungful of clean air and let his eyes follow the flight of a bird on the horizon. He’d been unable to breathe properly in the dungeon. A few days longer and he might well have lost his senses.

And his brother, Mercien—most beloved person in Malcolm’s world—languished in Dun Ballan still, in a hole no doubt identical to the one Malcolm had occupied.

That bastard, Latham, had not permitted Malcolm to see Mercien—nay, that would have been too merciful, too heartening. Latham would not understand the advantage of a kind gesture if it walked up and slapped him.

Nay, he’d but given Malcolm the chance to ransom his brother in the most impossible of ways.

And now Malcolm could feel something ahead, just over the rise in the road, that both called to him and made him want to turn his horse around and ride as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

Trouble.

He’d always had an instinct for it. It had served him and Mercien well in battle when they fought together under Lord Turney’s banner. Before Lord Turney had fallen, that was, and his lands were confiscated by the King. Before Mercien got himself captured for love of a woman, and the world, as both Montgomery brothers knew it, fell apart.

Women. God defend him from them!

He drew another breath and concentrated on the sensation that slithered down the road toward him. A calling. An invitation. A demand.

He recognized the longing contained in that call—the same that had possessed him when, chained to the dungeon wall, he’d ached to be set free. It spoke to him so loudly he urged his horse forward with his knees, leaving his hands free to slide his sword from its scabbard.

This sword had traveled with him to France and back, fighting other men’s battles, and when Latham had returned it to him, he’d sworn it would be raised hereafter only in his own or his family’s service. But his heart trembled at the force of what came to him down that narrow lane. And instinct far stronger than intention took him forward.

The scene burst upon his eyes as soon as he crested the hill. A throng of people occupied a crossroads just ahead. He could see a tiny clachan beyond, its peacefulness so at variance with the rest of the scene he could scarcely reconcile it. The noise found him likewise—screaming and hollering, voices raised in what sounded like anger and protest. The emotions, too, rushed at him, all too close to what he’d felt in his confinement.

Anger. Despair.

He slowed his horse once more, seeking for wisdom. He should ride on, skirt this dire situation with all its trouble, for God knew he had trouble enough of his own. One thing stopped him.

A figure stood lashed to the pillar at the center of the crossroads.

Even at this distance, he knew it for a woman, a slender figure with wild black hair tumbled over her shoulders, tied to the post. The desperation and agony he sensed stemmed directly from her, feelings so powerful they slammed into him like a crashing wave. The other figures danced around her like devils round a bonfire. Even at a distance of thirty paces Malcolm registered their eagerness, their glee.

What unholy thing took place here in this bucolic place?

Naught to him.

He told himself so even as he once more urged his mount forward, drawn by curiosity and that odd sense of compulsion. Everything seemed to slow down. He could hear the voices of the folk gathered around the post—like the cries of birds—sharp with excitement and something else far less savory. He saw what looked like glee as their faces turned toward him; he felt the impact—like a hard blow to the gut—as the woman tied to the post looked up and her gaze met his.

Aye, and it might as well be a blow; the desperation he’d sensed all the way down the road roared from her, bright as pain or the light reflected from a battle shield. Her eyes, silver as any shield, looked uncanny, terrified—fey.

“What goes on here?” he called out, and the crowd went silent, like a field of barley when the wind dies. The sweating faces, most flushed, registered shock at his appearance. No one replied.

“I say, what is this madness?”

“Sir Knight!” A man stepped forward. Tall and rawboned, he had blood on his face and a wild look in his eye. “I beg for your succor. They have seized my daughter. They accuse her of witchcraft.”

Witchcraft. For an instant the edges of Malcolm’s world darkened; he flailed inwardly. The pursuit of witches had become a sickness in the land he loved and a blackness at its heart.

He hauled involuntarily at his mount’s reins, and the animal danced a few steps. He looked at the woman tied to the post.

Young. So many of those accused were aged grannies guilty of nothing more than imagined slights—not a bit of evil in them. He knew that too well. But to accuse this lass, her body bound against the post like a graceful willow bough, eyes great with longing, struck him hard. An abomination. But not his trouble, not at all.

The man reached for the bridle of Malcolm’s horse. “Please, Sir Knight. They will send her to the Royal Commission for questioning.”

Would they? To Malcolm, it looked more like they meant to burn her on the spot.

He called out, “Who is in charge here?”

Another man stepped forward. This one, stout and balding, wore good boots and a fine jacket. His face shone red with effort or annoyance.

“I am Stephen Farquharson, miller. This, Sir Knight, is a town matter and naught to do with you.”

So it was. Malcolm experienced an almost overwhelming desire to ride away—leave these madmen and women to their unsavory pursuits.

But the lanky man still gripped his bridle and bent his gaze on Malcolm, beseeching.

“Please, Sir Knight, stop them.”

“I have no power to stop them, my good man.” Who was he to brandish authority? Just a dispossessed knight on an impossible quest.

“But my daughter, she is a good lass. A bit wayward at times, mayhap, like her mother…”

“Her mother,” seethed a young woman, who might have been bonny if not for her sharp expression, “a witch of the first water, that one.”

“Let the Commission decide,” declared the stout man. “For, Sir Knight, this one did curse my daughter, and we dare no longer suffer her here in Slurt.”

“Then turn her out along the open roads. The Commission is no’ called for.” Malcolm paused. From what he’d heard, he’d not wish to see a true witch fall into their hands. And the woman lashed to the post looked like naught more than an ordinary lass, even though Malcolm could feel the emotions streaming off her like steam from a kettle.

The stout man looked horrified. “Let her go? And have her come creeping back in the dead of night?”

Impatience touched Malcolm. He tried to free his reins from the lanky man’s grasp and move around the post. “Leave go of me.”

Please.

The word came in an agonized whisper, so soft that for a moment he doubted he’d heard anything at all. His head swiveled involuntarily, and his gaze found that of the accused witch.

By all that was holy! She truly had the most uncanny eyes he’d ever seen—silver, as he’d marked even from a distance, flashing bright. And they held an intensity that seemed to reach right inside him, take hold of his spirit, and bend it to her will.

A magpie called close overhead. Even the harsh sound failed to sunder the fierce connection that had fused itself to Malcolm’s soul.

Please. Free me. Free—

Aye.

He brandished his already bared sword and jerked his horse’s head free all in one movement. Two big, young louts stood guard at either side of the post. A strike to the arm eliminated one; the second shied away when Malcolm looked at him. He pressed his mount in close to the post, close enough to see naked hope flood the young woman’s eyes. Close enough to slash the bonds that held her.

Everyone began shouting at once. The crowd rushed at Malcolm, and he turned the horse to ward them off. The woman leaped; he saw her fingers, slender and white, clutch at his stirrup. He hauled her up by the back of her dress and spun the horse to face the others, sword at the ready.

“Tansy, lass!” the lanky man cried.

The lass made no reply. Huddled in front of Malcolm on his saddle, she’d frozen like a rabbit before the fox. He could smell her terror. So could his mount. Weary as the animal might be, it danced again, forcing the mob back a few steps.

“This is the work of the Devil!” the stout man cried.

No doubt it was.

“She has enchanted you, Sir Knight. You will live to regret—”

Malcolm stayed to hear no more. He urged his mount away from the post, away from the crossroads and the howling crowd, back the way he’d come.

As for regret—a near-constant companion of his—he heeded it not.