Chapter Six #2
Tavig yanked the girl into his arms, holding the squirming child out of her mother’s reach. “Nay, I dinnae try to steal her. But wait a moment. I cannae tell ye why, but the child must stay out of the road.”
“Are ye mad, then? She wants to go to her father.”
At that moment the lanky young man arrived and began to struggle with Tavig, who clung to the little girl.
He could see Moira’s face through the gathering crowd.
She was pale and clearly afraid, but she moved to try to keep people away from him.
By doing so she showed that she believed in his foretelling ability no matter how much she disliked it.
Tavig knew she could never understand how much that meant to him.
Just as he feared he would lose his grip on the now-screaming child, a low thunderous sound began to steal people’s attention away from him.
Even the child’s parents although still keeping their hands on their daughter, turned to look in the direction of the sound.
A large troop of heavily armed men galloped down the road from the laird’s tower.
They rode heedlessly through town, kicking up clouds of dust and slowing for nothing in their way.
An old man was knocked aside, and several chickens were trampled beneath the hooves of the men’s horses.
Tavig knew why he had felt compelled to keep the child out of the road.
She would never have made it to the other side in time, and the scowling men-at-arms would have ridden right over her.
The men rode out of the village, disappearing into the surrounding wood.
For one long, tense moment after they were out of sight no one said a word.
Everyone slowly turned to stare at him. Tavig released the child to her parents and felt Moira slip her hand into his.
He saw the suspicion and fear begin to settle on the people’s faces.
He heartily wished he had never brought Moira into the village.
“Witch,” whispered one old woman.
“Nay,” snapped Moira. “Ye old fool, he but saw the men riding this way.”
“He kenned what was to happen,” said a plump, graying woman, pointing an accusatory finger at Tavig. “No one else saw those men. He is a witch.”
“Get out of here, Moira,” Tavig ordered, nudging her away from his side. “Run, lass.”
“I cannae leave ye,” she protested.
“Run for your life, ye fool lass,” he snapped, but, even as he spoke, he knew it was too late. “The woman has naught to do with it,” he cried as the people swarmed around them, grabbing Moira as well as him. “Let her go.”
He fought to break free of the two men holding him, but two more moved to help them. The sight of Moira being roughly restrained by a burly man enraged him, and he struggled all the harder. When he saw one of his captors raise a thick club, Tavig braced for the blow.
Moira screamed when the man hit Tavig on the head. Tavig slumped in the arms of his captors, blood trickling down the side of his face. Moira tried to wriggle free of the huge man who had her pinned in his arms, but he just tightened his grip.
“Be still, witch, or ye will get the same as your mon,” her captor growled in her ear.
There was no doubt in Moira’s mind that the man meant exactly what he said.
She went very still, barely breathing. A youth pulled forward an officious-looking little man who decided she and Tavig should be kept in the storage hole at the inn until the priest could judge them.
As she and Tavig were dragged to the inn, she listened closely to what the people were saying.
Moira bit back a cry of horror when a man said the priest was not due to pass through the village for a fortnight or more.
The innkeeper would not meet her eyes as he opened the hatch in the floor of his tavern.
The people crowded around her did not even wait for him to lower the ladder, callously pushing her into the hole.
Moira hit the packed dirt floor hard. Winded and unsure of how badly she was hurt, she scrambled out of the way as they tossed the unconscious Tavig in after her.
She cried out a protest as the hatch was shut, leaving her and Tavig in complete darkness, but no one paid her any heed.
Fighting a stomach-knotting panic, Moira took a moment to examine herself as best she could in the dark.
She breathed a sigh of relief. She was only bruised and battered; no bones were broken.
She groped her way through the blackness until she felt Tavig’s limp form.
It was difficult, but she slowly, carefully, ran her hands over his body until she felt certain that he had no broken bones, either.
The wound on his head felt sticky with blood, but she could not feel any new blood flowing from it.
She prayed she was guessing correctly that it was only a small wound and he would soon wake up.
A soft scurrying sound echoed in the dark, and she shuddered.
She hated rats. She particularly hated when she could hear them but not see them.
It surprised her that she was not terrified.
Her guardian was fond of locking her in places for days at a time which had left her with a deep dread of such dark places.
Fear was a bitter taste in her mouth, but she still possessed all her senses.
She decided it was because she was not alone.
Moira took Tavig’s limp hand in hers, huddling closer to him. It was going to be a long, frightening time while she waited for him to wake up.
Tavig clawed his way back to consciousness, groaning and cursing.
Although his head rested on something soft, it was throbbing badly with pain.
He felt a cool, faintly callused little hand gently caressing his forehead.
Again he cursed, suddenly recalling what had happened.
He opened his eyes to look at Moira and saw only blackness.
He was momentarily alarmed. It took a minute for him to realize his eyesight had not been affected by the blow to his head; he was simply in a very dark place.
He started to move, then stayed where he was, a little startled at how soothing Moira’s touch was, each stroke of her fingers lessening his pain.
“I should have let the twice-cursed bairn toddle to her death,” he muttered.
“Nay,” Moira said. “She would have been killed, and ye would have ached with guilt kenning that ye could have stopped it. How is your head?”
“It feels as if it has been split clean apart.” He frowned. “Although the throbbing already begins to ease.”
“Dinnae fret. ’Tis still in one piece. E’en a thick club cannae break such a hard pate.”
“Thank ye. Where are we? For a moment I feared I had been blinded for when I opened my eyes, I saw nothing. ’Tis cursed dark in here.”
“We have been tossed into a storage hole beneath the inn. I fear we are to be kept secured here until a priest can judge us. From what was said, that willnae happen for a fortnight or so.” She shuddered, and Tavig groped in the dark until he held her hand in his.
“I think there are rats in here,” she whispered.
“Verra likely, sweeting. They will do naught if one of us remains awake. If this is where the innkeeper stores things, they probably have enough to eat without trying to have a wee nibble on us.”
“Dinnae say such things!” She glanced around even though she could see nothing.
“Weel, I got us a roof o’er our heads for the night.” He grimaced as he slowly tried to sit up then relaxed, surprised that the movement did not increase throbbing in his head. “A poor jest. Sorry, lass.”
“Most of your jests have been poor ones,” she murmured without any animosity or anger, frowning up toward the hatch they had been tossed through. “Do ye think they will feed and water us?”
“Oh, aye, though it may not be as much as we would like. They will wish us to be alive to face the priest’s godly judgment, howbeit. But of course there is always the chance that the much-feared laird of theirs will hear of all this and seek to judge us for himself.”
“Ye dinnae sound as if ye think that will be a good thing.” He draped his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him. “A priest might be harder in his judgment than some laird.”
He rested his head against the top of hers. “True, but mayhap not this time. Recall what was said about this laird.” He felt her tremble and briefly tightened his hold on her. “I wish I could say something to lift your spirits.”
“Nay, I prefer the truth no matter how dire it is. I just wish it wasnae quite so dark.”