The Hiring Fair

by Laura Strickland

  “No need,” she muttered, “to ask who has started such talk.” She stumbled to her feet. “Ned Randleigh means to destroy me.”

  “Aye—because you ha’ defied him. We all have. But he kens fine harming you will hurt us most.”

  Annie stared at the lad, feeling as if the floor fell away beneath her feet.

  “Och, Jockie,” she whispered, “what am I to do?”

  “Leave this place e’en as we mean to do.”

  Leave here? For the first time Annie truly considered it. But the place was part of her, in her blood and in her bone. Should she allow one evil man to chase her from it?

  Better, far better, to destroy the threat Ned Randleigh represented.

  ****

  “How does that feel?”

  Tam groaned in appreciation as Annie stroked the palm of his injured hand. He lay on his back in the big bed, completely sated and more than half drunk with pleasure. Annie had just loved him right well, and now he could feel healing flowing from her gentle fingers into his knitting bones.

  Those fingers—as well as her soft lips—had been all over him, elevating him once more to the status of a king. His contentment would be complete did he not harbor the nagging conviction that something bothered her—something she sought to hide from him.

  He turned on his side and sought her face in the light from the dying fire. The animals lay everywhere around them, and Sol sat on his perch, but Tam had got used to that. Just as he’d grown used to Annie’s presence in his life, a subtle music he now needed like breath.

  He let his eyes caress the smooth line of her shoulder, breast, and hip, and touch the tangled wealth of glossy hair spread on her pillow.

  “Annie, wife, you are so bonny.”

  Her fingers stilled on his hand; he heard her breath catch.

  “I am that glad you think so, husband.”

  “How could I think aught else?” He let the fingers of his good hand trace the graceful line his eyes had followed, marveling at her perfection. Whatever came to him in the future, at least he’d had these precious days and nights with her. Nothing could take that from him.

  His hand found the soft weight of her breast and she leaned in to kiss him. When the sweet exchange ended, she whispered, “Will you love me again, Tam Sutherland?”

  “You ken fine I will. But first I would ha’ you tell me what troubles you.”

  She stiffened where she lay. “Me? Naught.”

  “Annie, I hoped we would keep no secrets from one another.” There certainly seemed room for none when they clove together so completely and made one flesh. “Yet you are keeping somewhat from me.”

  She gave a sigh. “Have you spoken wi’ Jockie?”

  “Jock? Nay, why?”

  “He came to see me this morning. To warn me. It seems Ned Randleigh is going about the district talking up the fact that I am—a witch.”

  She spoke the word barely above a whisper, as if she feared loosing it into the room. Aye, and it felt like a demon let out of a cage, in this peaceful place—abroad to do mischief and damage.

  Tam tensed in response.

  “But…” Dismay nearly stopped his throat. “No one will heed aught he says of you. They know what he is—and what you are, for that. You do good for everyone you touch.”

  “I have tried so hard to continue my mother’s work, to carry on as she would ha’ done. But, Tam, it comes to me now—perhaps that is no’ enough. Perhaps I need to act in my own right, seize my own power.”

  Tam frowned, not certain he understood. “Eh?”

  “I canno’ live her life over again. I maun live mine here wi’ you and out there facing Randleigh.” She shivered. “I am ashamed to say the prospect frightens me.”

  “I do no’ want for you to be frightened. How can I help?” The best person he’d ever known, Annie deserved whatever he could do in her defense.

  But she shook her head. “I do no’ think you can. My mother says—”

  “Your mother!”

  “She spoke to me, advised me.”

  Now Tam fell silent, wondering.

  Annie went on, “I ha’ choices before me. Decisions only I can make that will determine the pattern of my life.”

  Aye, and did those choices include deciding whether to keep him, Tam, with her? For he knew very well their marriage had started out a lie, and even though she’d taken him to her bed and he brought her pleasure, she might at any time change her mind about him, move on with her magical life and leave him behind.

  If she did not destroy herself first.

  He seized her wrist. “List to me, Annie. You maun be careful. The folk round here, aye, will take your part against Ned Randleigh, but that may no’ keep him from plotting against you. Bad enough you curried his anger by winning me free—”

  “No fault to you, in that. The trouble stems all from him; he is like a spider spinning a trap and always, I fear, a few steps ahead of me.” She seemed to muse, “Even our marriage did not placate him as I ha’ hoped.”

  Tam experienced a pain to his heart, as if thumped hard in the chest. Did his Annie, his beautiful Wee Crow, rue their joining after all?

  “’Tis up to me,” she whispered, “to stand on my own, be my own woman, and fight this battle.”

  Tam prayed she would continue wanting him to stand at her side.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Witch.”

  The whispered word flew at Annie like a flung stone, and not the first time she’d heard it this morning. Market day, and she had waited long for the women to begin streaming to her door as they always did. But her door, standing open to the pale sunshine, remained empty—no visitors on market day for the first time in her memory. Even as a young lass she had seen the women coming to her mother for charms, advice, and remedies.

  The folk round here will take your part, Tam had said, and aye, she’d believed that. She’d not doubted the love and caring she put out into the world would come back to her tripled. But now she began to think again.

  Was it possible her friends’ and neighbors’ fear of the factor outweighed even their appreciation for her past kindness?

  It had taken a wealth of talking and persuasion for her to convince Tam she should go to the market when no one came to her—and then he insisted on accompanying her, a silent presence at her side. She wore her green cloak, the strength of it surrounding her like her mother’s arms, but that did no good. For it seemed she—and Tam with her—had ceased to exist.

  Folk they met on the road purported not to see them. If she passed someone at his gate, he stared at the horizon. When she spoke a greeting, the recipient proved deaf. The most she won from anyone was a brief glance before his or her eyes fled.

  Aye, and Jockie had tried to warn her of what Ned Randleigh intended. She had not dreamed, though, the factor could spread his poison so swiftly. Yet he—and the men with him—did the job of instilling fear and hate all too well.

  For when Annie and Tam reached the market, they found Randleigh’s men there before them, everywhere among the barrows and stalls, speaking the dreaded word and intimidating any who might otherwise speak in Annie’s defense. Her anger grew as she went, tinged with more than a bit of fear every time one of Randleigh’s henchmen repeated the word, like a curse.

  “Witch.” Unleashed like a weapon while she inspected Agnes MacEwan’s jars of rowan jam. Agnes—whom Annie had cured of the ague just last winter—shrank from her, one eye on the men who circulated through the crowd, and out of pity for her Annie drew Tam on.

  “Witch.” Again, several moments later when she paused to inspect some potatoes for sale. She looked up to encounter the gaze of the old man standing behind the potatoes. Looking apologetic, he quickly avoided her eyes. Would no one here speak up for her? Did no one have the courage to defy Ned Randleigh?

  “Enough of this,” Tam breathed in her ear. “Come awa’ home.”

  But she drew her arm from his grip, turned about, and gazed wildly at the
faces that surrounded her. Several women of her acquaintance stood nearby—all steadfastly avoiding her gaze. Indeed, the only ones who would look at her directly were Randleigh’s men, surely more in number than they had been before, and they kept her under close observation.

  Annie focused on the nearest woman. “Good morn, Molly. How is your wee bairn doing now?” The child had greeted nonstop with colic until Annie prepared a syrup of fennel to ease him.

  Molly’s face tightened, and she edged away into the crowd.

  “And you, Mairi—how is that sore on your husband’s leg?” Mairi and her husband, an older couple, worked their croft alone. He had cut his leg on a scythe several weeks ago and, it having taken poison, Mairi came to Annie for a salve.

  Now the old woman’s eyes filled with tears and she looked in the other direction.

  Hurt and hopelessness arose together in Annie’s breast. Tam was right; she should go home, try to make sense of this betrayal.

  Stubbornness made her move on instead, the conviction she could find at least one person willing to stand up for her, to defy Randleigh’s watchful men. Yet the silence only seemed to grow around them as they went, until it filled the normally bustling market.

  The unnatural quiet made it even more shocking when there came a sudden clatter of hooves on the cobbles, and a voice rang out.

  “Mistress Sutherland!”

  Annie and Tam both swung to see the crowd part like the Red Sea, admitting Ned Randleigh on his big black horse. Fear, cold and primal, slithered down Annie’s spine, for danger preceded the factor like a cold wind. But how could he harm her here among all these folk, and with Tam at her side?

  And if she now endangered Tam, the man she loved more than her own life? Och, why had she insisted on coming? They should have stayed safe at home. If any place was safe for her now…

  She could feel the tension run up Tam’s arm and through her own body. What if he acted to defend her, and the bones in his poor hand barely set? She’d counted no less than half a score of Randleigh’s men planted in this crowd. Tam, for all his courage, would not stand a chance.

  She wished she could wrap her love around him, keep a lid on his anger, wished with sudden passion she could cast a spell on Ned Randleigh and remove him like a blight.

  The factor wore his broad, black hat on his head and an ugly, intent look on his face. His cold eyes fixed on Annie as if he saw nothing else, not even the man at her side. Folk shrank back from him in a widening circle, like ripples spreading out from a rock tossed in water.

  He addressed Annie in a harsh voice that rang through the market. “What is in your pouch?”

  “Eh?” The question, the last Annie had expected, shook her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your pouch, woman.” Randleigh nodded at the leather sack Annie wore as always, fastened to her belt.

  Annie’s fingers fluttered to it, even as she tried to discern her level of danger. Beside her, Tam remained stiff and silent.

  “Come, woman. You can no longer hide what you have been about all this while, with your cures and potions. The truth has come home to you, and you stand accused of a grievous crime: witchcraft!”

  A ripple of horror ran through the listening crowd. Annie felt it travel straight to her heart and tear through Tam also. For an instant, her knees weakened. Nay, not that! Her mother had always been so careful to keep any such charge from their door. Now, left on her own, Annie had failed—failed in all things.

  “Lies!” Tam barked, sounding very like Ruff. “How dare you accuse a good woman o’ such a thing?”

  “Good woman?” Randleigh switched his narrowed gaze to Tam, acknowledging him for the first time. “Does a good woman take payment from folk for magical remedies? Does she surround herself with a host of familiars? Does she take strays—including human strays—to serve as her minions? Does the spirit of her uncle, in owl form, haunt her house?”

  The crowd had now gone so quiet Annie could hear a bairn wail.

  She huffed out a breath, and Tam spoke again. “You twist the truth, factor!”

  “We shall have the truth here and now,” Randleigh declared. “Woman, I ask you again, what is in your pouch?”

  “Herbs.”

  “Herbs!” Randleigh repeated victoriously. “Used for casting spells? Answer truthfully and it will go easier with you.”

  “Nay, I cast no spells,” Annie denied. “I use these only for making cures—”

  “Potions, then.” Randleigh glared at the hushed crowd. “You have all heard her admit her guilt.” He said to his men. “Seize her. And if her husband gets in the way, beat him down.”

  “Nay!” Annie spread her arms and made a barrier of her body. “You will not hurt him again!”

  Tam, though, pushed her aside and shouted, “She has done no harm!”

  “No harm—the cry of every witch ever burned at the stake,” Randleigh declared.

  Burned? Heat suffused Annie where chill had held her. Surely—surely someone would speak up for her? Surely the crowd as one would intervene, keep Randleigh’s men from hurting Tam—her Tam!—and take her part.

  Yet no one so much as moved as Randleigh’s men closed in from everywhere in the crowd, no one but Tam, who snarled and made as if to leap forward. Her fear for him flared much brighter than any she felt for herself. She rounded on him and said, “Nay, Tam—it is no use. And I can face anything rather than see you hurt. Or killed.” She whispered to him, “He is just looking for an excuse to kill you.”

  The rage in Tam’s gray eyes terrified her almost more than her own plight. She leaned in and kissed him fiercely, an effort to forestall the words she could see hovering on his lips.

  As if in response to the gesture, Randleigh snarled, “Hold him—and take her.”

  No fewer than four men laid hold of Tam and wrested him from Annie. He bucked and fought even as she willed him to stillness, and his gaze reached for hers.

  “Where are you taking her? Where—”

  “She will have her case heard. All shall be done properly and fairly. This very day I will send for the priest.”

  Father Alban, Annie thought desperately—aye, surely he would take her part. She calmed slightly, seeing that Tam had stilled in his captors’ hands.

  “Take care of Sonsie and the animals—” she called to him even as Randleigh’s men drew her away. And may all the powers take pity on her plight.

  Chapter Thirty

  “What do you want of me? You ken fine this charge you ha’ made against me is false. You canno’ put me on trial for—for witchcraft.”

  Annie forced herself to speak the dreaded word and swayed where she stood. She had been standing here ever since they arrived at the laird’s house, in front of the same table where Tam had stood before. Emotions ravaged her relentlessly all the while—terror, uncertainty, and this terrible dread—but Randleigh said little. He merely sat writing on some papers while Annie’s knees grew weak and she feared more than once she would fall.

  She could not so disgrace herself, though, in front of this man. Ned Randleigh wanted to break her—he had set her prey to her fears so he could watch her crumble. Of that she had no doubt.

  Somehow, despite her trembling legs and soured stomach, she lifted her chin. “I am no witch.”

  “Are you not?” he spoke at last and looked up to fix her with his cold stare. He laid his pen aside and got to his feet.

  All at once Annie rued the fact that she had his attention and that they were the two of them alone in the chamber. She had no doubt his men stood guard outside the door, but no one could see what he might do to her here.

  He had arranged things so he could be alone with her. By the powers, she’d no need to ask what he wanted. She knew; she had always known.

  Outside the parlor window, a crow cawed, the cry sharp and raucous. Ignoring the sound, Randleigh approached her.

  “But mistress, I have evidence which I’ve collected over some time to say you have been practicin
g the dark arts.”

  “What evidence?”

  “The contents of your pouch, for one thing.” He had taken it from her when they arrived, wrested it away without mercy. “Herbs for casting spells.”

  “They are nothing of the kind. Merely for simples…”

  “Simples.” He pronounced it like a curse. “But another word for potions, that. And I am certain we will find far more such incriminating material when we search your house.”

  New horror speared through Annie. “You have no call to go there! No right.”

  “As your landlord’s agent, I have every right. And if those in residence resist me, they may be dealt with, men and dogs alike.”

  Tam. And her beloved Ruff and sweet, sweet Ella—Sonsie, if she sought to protect them. And she would.

  Annie’s traitorous legs did give way then. She began to sink, but Randleigh seized her arm and hauled her up again, his touch relentless.

  Coldly he accused, “You are a witch, and your mother before you. I have countless witnesses who stand ready to speak out against both her and you. No one would blame me for stamping out an evil that has infested this little pocket of the Highlands so long.”

  “Evil?” Incredulous, Annie stared at him, even as she shrank from his touch. “’Tis what you are, accusing me just so you might ha’ your way. Aye, I ken what you are about, and what you desire.”

  He leaned closer so his breath gusted across her cheek and assaulted her senses. “Then give it to me.”

  Defiant, Annie glared into his eyes. “That which you would take belongs to my husband alone.”

  “Your husband? That dirty crofter? He is barely fit to lick your boots. Why would you offer such a privilege to him when you knew I wanted it?” His eyes narrowed. “Or is that why? Is this some game you play with the farmer, taunting me?”

  “No game.” Could he not feel her terror? Swaying in his grasp, she spoke the words she’d never been able to gift Tam. “I love him.”

  Randleigh bared his teeth in a laugh. “Now, that I will never believe. You, love that worthless outcast? And you an educated woman. Do not insult my intelligence.”