The tide was coming in, bringing the storm. Dair felt the ship lift beneath him and sniff the wind hopefully. The vessel was like an extension of his own body. He glanced up at the clouds, read them, watched them advancing on the moon, surrounding it. Lightning lit the sky behind Logan.
“I’m Padraig’s son, Logan. I’ve always been his heir.”
Logan gnashed his teeth. “You are not fit to be chief! You’re mad, Dair, a monster.”
Dair shook his head, his mind clear. “I’m not mad, cousin.” Fia had saved him. Now he had to save her. “I’m your chief.” He straightened, waited for Logan to recognize his authority.
Instead Logan screamed and stamped his foot. “I am the chief—or I will be. For Jeannie’s sake, I will be the next chief of the Sinclairs.”
Dair raised his fists. “Fight me, Logan. Punch me if you wish, but I will fight back. Jeannie is dead, and I will regret that as long as I live, mourn her forever, but I will fight you for Fia, and as the rightful chief of the Sinclairs. I will not allow you to take my place.”
Logan hesitated. His dead sister’s muslin skirts blew around his legs, and he wrestled with them and looked anxiously at the sky, only now noticing the weather. Thunder rumbled, and he flinched, his eyes widening with terror.
Logan looked truly mad now, and afraid, his eyes wide, his face white. The dirk shook in his hand.
“There’s a storm coming. The moorings could break,” Dair said.
Logan retched, his eyes rolling.
“The storm will be a bad one. Let’s go back to shore.”
The ship shrugged, tossed Logan against the rail. He dropped the dirk, and it spun over the side, a silver fish leaping for the sea. Logan swore. He rubbed his hand over his mouth and clenched his fists.
“Go to the mast, and put your arms around it,” he ordered Dair, screaming to be heard over the wind.
It was a position for punishment. A man would be tied to the mast for his transgressions, his back whipped.
“Do you intend to whip me for my sins, like Father Alphonse does, until he’s so crazed by pain he sees God?” Dair asked. “No. I am your chief. I won’t allow it.” Logan was already seasick, his limbs trembling.
“No,” Logan insisted. “I’ve planned it carefully, you see. When you are dead, I will tell the clan you ran mad, had to be stopped. Then I will make them vote, but since there is no one else of Padraig’s blood but me, I will be chief.”
“Then let’s go back, organize the vote, see who wins,” Dair said.
Logan’s mouth twisted. Too late, Dair saw the heavy spar in Logan’s fist. It hit the side of his head with a sickening crack, and Dair felt the world slide into blackness.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
“Will you confess that you are in league with Satan, that you practice the dark arts of witchcraft?” Father Alphonse demanded.
The priest had come to her at dawn and lit candles in a circle around her. He hovered outside the pool of light, his crucifix clutched in his fist, ready to vanquish her if she moved to be-spell him. He’d removed her gag so she could confess.
Fia tugged against the bonds that bound her to the chair, felt the ropes bite into her wrists. Warm blood trickled over her hands. Still, she faced him fiercely. “I am not a witch.”
He struck her, and his bony knuckles split her lip. Blood dripped down her chin. He stood before her, avidly watching as it soaked the linen of her gown. She glared at him. “Release me.” He threw holy water in her face, muttering in Latin, and looked disappointed when the water did not burn her. It proved nothing, neither innocence or guilt, and his eyes continued to burn with the madness of his witch hunt.
She licked the droplets off her lips, thirsty.
“I have evidence, mistress. There are witnesses.”
“What witnesses? I have done nothing!” Fia said.
“You cursed Effie Sinclair’s son. He was well one day but sickened and died after knocking you down in the village. You cast a spell on Alan Sinclair’s cow, which also died. And Muriel Sinclair died after you visited her, laid your hands upon her. Another lad is also ill—”
Fia raised her head, her chest tightening with concern. “Who is ill? What lad?”
“Alex Sinclair, as well you know. But he is strong in the Lord, will fight your evil curse—”
“Angus Mor’s son? Angus knows I would never hurt anyone. Please, father, if Wee Alex is ill, let me tend to him.”
“I am praying for him.”
Fia felt tears prick her eyes. “Prayers alone won’t save a sick child. Send for—” She stopped. She did not dare to mention Moire’s name, not when they were hunting for witches.
His eyes flared in the candlelight. “You dare to put your power above God’s?” He brought the crucifix close to her eyes. The candlelight glinted off the polished surface, made her squint, and he made a sound of triumph. “You flinch at the sight of the cross! Are you in league with other witches? Did the Moire o’ the Spring help you in your dark deeds?”
She looked alarmed. “No! Moire is a midwife, just a midwife.”
He slapped her again. “Confess!” Her head swam, and her vision grew patchy.
“I am not a witch. I am a healer, and a MacLeod—one of the Fearsome MacLeods of Glen Iolair!” she said with surprising strength.
“How did you bewitch Alasdair Og Sinclair?”
She felt a hard knot of new fear. What would they do to Dair?
“You tempted him, turned him from God with whispered spells. I saw you with my own eyes. It wasn’t a simple lullaby you sang. It was a spell of beguilement, entrapment, wicked lust.”
“No,” she managed to say again, her mouth swollen. Where was Dair? Did he believe that she had bewitched him? She remembered the look in his eyes as he slammed the door. He spoke of ghosts, madness. “He’s not mad,” she murmured. “Not mad.”
The priest grabbed her chin, twisted her head, turned her scarred cheek into the light. “Are these the mark of the devil?”
She pulled free, glared at him. “They are the marks of injury. Everyone has scars. Even you.” She nodded toward the half-healed whip marks visible above the neck of his cassock.
“Mine are holy marks, the marks of piety and penance.”
“They are madness!”
His pale face darkened to scarlet. “I am God’s holy instrument. I have proven my devotion to the Lord, and He speaks to me, makes me strong. He has given me the power to defeat your evil. I know you for what you are.” He stepped back. “It is done. I can see your wickedness. Your evil soul will be purified by fire, the demon inside you consumed by the burning of your body.”
“Burning?” Terror left her breathless, gasping.
He smiled, pleased to see her afraid at last. “Oh yes. We cannot suffer a witch to live. You must burn.”
She was trembling, but she gritted her teeth and met his eyes. “Then you must prove that I am indeed a witch. Can you do that? There must be a trial, witnesses. I am innocent. If you kill me without proof, then you will be the one to burn in hell. Are you so certain, father? What of the chief of the Sinclairs? He must give his permission—that is the law.” Dair would not allow this. He was a gentle man, a good man. He did not believe in witches or demons or curses. Yet he said he saw Jeannie Sinclair’s ghost. Uncertainty fluttered in her breast like a trapped bird.
Triumph gleamed in the priest’s eyes. His yellow grin was feral in the candlelight. “Oh, I have the chief’s permission, Mistress MacLeod.”
Her heart sank. “Dair will allow this?”
“Alasdair Og is not the chief of the Sinclairs. He is mad, and the people know he is Satan’s instrument, that he was bewitched by you. Logan Sinclair is the chief.”
“Logan? Where’s Dair?” she cried, her fear for him far greater than her fear for herself.
“Gone. He cannot save you. He is a broken man. He will be confined, chained, kept from doing further harm. Chief Logan has commanded it. You should worry about your own f
ate now. You will burn, mistress. You will burn.” He made a small moue of disappointment. “Alas, there is a storm coming, and the rain would douse the flames, so we must wait. But when the clouds clear, you will be taken to the stake, and you will die.”
She opened her lips to scream, but he was too quick. He shoved the gag back into her mouth and bound it in place behind her head, unmercifully tight. The injuries on her face protested, and she moaned, but he had no pity.
He blew out the candles, one by one. “Rest, if you can—or pray if you dare. Not that it will matter. I will hear your confession, if you wish it, but your penance will be the same.”
Tears soaked the cloth across her mouth. Not for herself, but for Dair. Surely Meggie would find her, or Angus, or John. They’d come for her, put a stop to this. But the stormy dawn crept through the shutters that covered the window, and no one came at all.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
He was caught in the grip of another nightmare. Dair waited to relive Jeannie’s scream, to see the English soldiers boarding his ship, swords drawn, set on murdering his crew, but this time the dream was different. He was sailing, and the ship was in peril. His hands were cold and numb on the wheel as he sought a safe course through dangerous seas. The ship pitched, and his body slid across the deck, stopped suddenly. The pain in his arms roused him, and he forced his eyes open.
It wasn’t a dream. He was aboard the Maiden, and she was no longer at anchor. She drifted and spun out of control on the open sea and he was bound to the mast with the wind driving rain into his flesh like needles.
“Logan!” he bellowed, but the storm tore the word from his throat, tossed it away, and there was no answer.
He was alone. How long had he been here? It was day now, though the sky was dark and forbidding as the storm raged at full force around him. The sails were loose, and the wheel spun wildly. He knew the coast, the dangers of cliffs and shoals and headlands. Without a guiding hand to sail her, the Maiden would founder on the rocky shore, doomed, with him aboard, tied, unable to save himself—but that was his cousin’s intention.
Dair pulled on the ropes that bound him, but they held tight, like the shackles that had chained him at Coldburn Keep.
But there was a greater danger still, not to him, but to Fia, the woman he loved.
He tugged on the wet ropes again with all his might, felt the rough hemp bite into his wrists and hold fast.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“Surely Fia wouldn’t venture out in a storm like this,” John said, his cloak and Meggie’s soaked as they returned from the village and the storm reached its height. The villagers hadn’t welcomed them as they usually did. They were in mourning again, this time for Effie’s child and for Muriel Sinclair. Folk peered at them suspiciously through half-opened doors, made signs like Moire did, against witchcraft and evil. There was no sign of Fia or Dair.
He took Meggie’s arm, angled his body to protect her as much as possible as they walked along the cliff path, heading back to the castle. The wind was strong, the rain coming down sideways. Meggie stopped suddenly and peered out over the bay, her blue eyes filled with tears. “What if she’s fallen, hurt herself, or worse?”
John scanned the empty beach below, watched savage waves scourge the shore, and hoped her fears were groundless. He looked at the ships lying at anchor, and beyond them—he stopped, looked again. There was only one ship. Yesterday there had been two.
John shut his eyes, his heart sinking. He drew a deep breath. “There were two ships in the bay yesterday. One’s gone. I think perhaps that Fia and Dair might have—”
“Eloped?” Meggie said. She shook her head. “She hasn’t. For one thing, she knows my father would take his claymore to any man who dared to act so dishonorably with one of his daughters. She’d be a widow before she was a bride!”
She looked so certain. “Have you never been in love, Meggie?” John asked. “Even sensible folk do mad—impetuous—things, when they are in love.”
“Not Fia.”
John frowned at her stubbornness. “How can you know that?”
Meggie pointed back toward the castle, barely visible through the rain. “Because Beelzebub is still here, in the stable. I checked. Fia would never, ever leave him behind. She’s here, somewhere. If she’s gone, if he’s taken her, then she didn’t go willingly. Not without that cat.” She looked down at the bay, emptier by one ship. Worry clouded her eyes as she met his. “So where is my sister?”
John was a near expert on the kinds of places lovers might go for a bit of privacy—shielings, barns, empty cotts, the woods, even caves in the hills. They could hardly check all of them in a rainstorm. He took Meggie’s arm, began walking again. “We’d better think this through.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Angus looked around his cott. It had always been a place blessed with happiness and good fortune. Now Wee Alex sat by the hearth, pale and listless. At least he was alive. Annie was sobbing over her beloved grandmother, who had died quietly during the night, as peaceful as a ship slipping its moorings and sailing away. Angus enfolded his wife in his arms, comforted her.
“Gran was well yesterday, brighter. I thought she was improving,” Annie sobbed.
“She was very old,” Angus murmured against his wife’s soft hair. She still mourned their child, and now this…
She shook her head, looked up at him.“Folk are saying it wasn’t a natural death. Not so soon after Robbie’s passing, and with Alex ill, and Alan’s cow. There was no reason for Robbie to die. He wasn’t old—he was healthy, strong. Effie says it’s witchcraft, that Robbie and Alex were be-spelled.”
“That’s nonsense,” Angus said.
“Is it? What reason was there for a healthy child to die, a healthy cow? Alan found his beast in her byre, her tongue swollen, her eyes rolled back. It wasn’t a natural death.” Annie wiped her eyes. “Fia MacLeod treated Alan’s foot after he stepped on a nail. He forgot to offer her payment, Angus.”
Angus’s mouth dried. “Fia? She’d not hurt anyone. She healed Dair—”
Annie shook her head. “No she didn’t—he’s still mad, isn’t he? The Sinclairs are cursed with a mad chief. She’s no healer at all, and she’s bewitched this clan.”
“Where did ye hear this?” Angus demanded, releasing her.
“The priest said it the night Padraig died, and others are saying it too. Folk think Logan should be chief. I know yer Dair’s friend, Angus, but our son almost died, and Gran was the only one that knew all the old spells against witches, and now she’s dead, in her prime.”
“She was past eighty,” Angus muttered, but still wondered if it might be true. Where there were miracles, the opposite existed as well. He crossed to the door.
“Where are you going?” Annie asked.
“I need to see Dair.”
Annie took the wee crucifix from her neck and stood on tiptoe to hang it around her husband’s. “Be careful,” she said, and he saw the fear in her eyes. She truly believed Fia MacLeod was a witch and the clan was cursed. He wrapped his plaid over his head against the rain and ducked out the door. He remembered Fia’s gentle hand on Wee Alex’s head, how she’d healed the pup with a thorn in its paw. Muriel liked Fia. Could she truly betray them all like this? “No,” he muttered. “No.” But he felt a shiver run up his spine that had nothing to do with the rain.
The cotts were shuttered tight against both the weather and ill luck, and no one called to him as he passed through the village and took the path that led up to the castle. On such a gloomy, stormy day it was easy to believe in curses. How many Sinclairs had died—been murdered—in the span of half a year? And Dair was mad, worse than dead. And now children and cows. He paused on the cliff and crossed himself, made a sign against evil.
Then Angus noticed the Maiden was not in the bay. He stood in the rain and stared down at the empty spot she’d occupied. She was the pride of the Sinclair fleet, and now . . .
Perhaps she’d broken free in the
storm. He scanned the sea, but it was empty, and visibility was poor. The storm had raged for hours, and it was still raining.
Angus picked up his pace, the bad feeling in the pit of his belly growing worse. He had to find Dair.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The bell gathered the villagers to the chapel door. They came looking somber and stood in the rain to listen. Logan held pride of place beside the priest, his arms folded, his face grim and strong, a practiced copy of Padraig’s visage. Still, no one looked to him. They waited for the priest to speak.
“Fia MacLeod has been found guilty of witchcraft. I have her confession,” Father Alphonse said. “She must burn. We must rid this clan, this place, of her evil.”
“Where’s Dair? The chief must approve,” Tormod Pyper said, leaning on his staff. “’Tis tradition and law.”
Logan stepped forward. “Alasdair Og stole a ship and fled into the storm. Surely that proves he’s mad. I am your chief now.”
There were more expressions of sorrow than relief. What did that mean? How should he play it? Logan shook his head ruefully, strong but solemn. “The Sinclairs have been cursed with ill luck since our holy maid, my sister, Jean, died. And who was responsible for that?”
No one answered. Logan rolled his eyes impatiently. “Alasdair Og,” he said.
Folk looked uneasy but still not convinced.
“And Fia MacLeod—she’s an outsider, a witch, and she brought more ill luck to this clan, and—”
“Aye, the witch is to blame!” Effie cried, and at last the crowd shifted and muttered. Logan nearly sagged with relief.
“Yes! And now we must burn her.”
Ruari Sinclair looked up at the sky dubiously. “It’s pouring rain. How can we burn anything in the rain?”
“It would surely put the fire out, if we could light it at all,” Jock agreed.
Logan gritted his teeth. Were they so reluctant to set things right, to do God’s will—his will? “Then we’ll wait until the rain stops.” He pointed to the middle of the wee square. “Set up a post to tie her to, gather wood, make ready,” he ordered. Effie Sinclair and Alan led the way eagerly. The rest of the clan moved more slowly, but they went.
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