Chapter 1 #2
Rose had never been one to back down from a fight, especially when it came to one of her patients, and this was no exception. She did not fear her uncle. Beneath it all she knew he loved her and her sisters, but of late, he’d been especially hard on her.
She took a step forward so they were nearly toe to toe. Though a big man, Roderick was not tall. He stood but an inch or two above Rose’s height.
“I am a healer—healing is what I do.” She gestured helplessly at the bed. “But I can do nothing for my own father. This man can help. I will not stop writing him because you are afraid of witches.”
Though Roderick tried to remain stern, his blue eyes were merry with the effort to contain a smile.
Finally it burst forth and he shook his head, chuckling.
“Afraid, aye? And here I am, surrounded by them.” His smile faded and his eyes grew serious again.
“It’s not the wizard I’m afraid of, but the trouble he’ll bring. ”
“I don’t care about that.”
Rose turned away, but Roderick grabbed her shoulder and forced her to face him again.
“You should. He is a hunted man. His own clan has turned against him. They say he can change forms—turn into wolves and such, and has familiars. It’s said he goes nowhere without a demon rat.”
Rose made a dismissive sound and rolled her eyes.
Roderick’s fingers tightened on her shoulder.
“Nonsense it might be, but the fact remains people are talking, and they are frightened of him. It takes less than that for a burning. He’s too dangerous.
I have heard, too, there is a witchpricker traveling the Highlands, searching for work.
If he gets word the Wizard of the North is here at Glen Laire, where do you think he will travel next, aye?
Would you really bring this upon your family in these times? ”
Her jaw tightened. These times. They were bad times.
Burning times. At one time, only the king could burn a witch—legally, but witches were often lynched and burned anyway.
Rose’s mother was the perfect example of such a transgression gone unpunished.
Five years ago, the king had granted commissions to any body of men in any village, giving them the power to try and burn witches.
Churchmen and villagers had wasted no time rooting out suspects and singeing the air with pitch and fire. There was still no end in sight.
And that was exactly why there was no time to lose.
What if Lord Strathwick were lynched as her mother had been?
The urgency of the situation descended on Rose with renewed force.
She could take care of herself, and her sisters had able husbands.
Bringing the wizard here was an acceptable risk.
This traveling witchpricker need never know a thing.
But there was no convincing her uncle of this.
She let out a defeated sigh and nodded, eyes averted.
Despite twelve years apart, in the few months they’d been back together her uncle had gotten to know her relatively well.
“I mean it, Rose. Ye’ll not convince me so easily. No more letters, understand?”
She glared at him, which seemed to be what he expected from her. He nodded and went to the door. He turned back, his hand on the latch, and asked pleasantly, “Ye’ll be up to tend my Tira, aye?”
Rose managed a curt nod.
When he was gone, her father’s guard, Hagan, entered, his heavy brow creased apologetically. “I’m sorry, lass. Roderick just told me I was not to aid you anymore.”
The enormous Irishman had been helping her smuggle the missives to Lord Strathwick out of the castle so they could be given to travelers heading north. Hagan stood at the door, dark head lowered, thoroughly sheepish.
It seemed there was nothing left to do but fetch the wizard herself.
Rose found her sisters in the great hall.
They were both seated near the largest fireplace at the west end.
Isobel’s gloved hands were extended out before her, draped with wool yarn.
Gillian rolled the red yarn from Isobel’s hands into a ball, gray eyes on something in the corner that only she could see.
“Well, dear, what is the last thing you remember?” Gillian asked the empty air.
Isobel watched the corner avidly, as if she might see something materialize.
“Any luck with the bairns?” Rose asked, sitting on the bench beside Isobel.
The ghosts of two wee lassies haunted this hall.
They’d been spotted on occasion by servants, laughing and playing, but when someone got close they always disappeared.
Gillian not only saw them all the time but spoke to them, too.
It hadn’t always been this way for Rose’s sister.
Someone had cursed Gillian after their mother was burned, and she’d only recently regained her ability to communicate with the dead.
Gillian ignored Rose for a moment, soft gray eyes intent on the corner, apparently attending to something the ghost children said to her.
She was as lovely and perfect as always, in a green silk gown draped with a red-and-green arisaid.
Thick sable hair was pulled away from her face, the glossy curls packed into a jeweled caul. The perfect countess.
Isobel’s pale green eyes turned toward Rose, and she whispered, “They don’t understand they’re dead.” She shook her head sadly, her thick copper-gold braid slipping over her shoulder. It, too, was kinked from curls. Rose was the only one of the three with impossibly straight auburn hair.
Isobel continued in a low voice, “It’s making it most difficult for Gillian to help them move on.”
Gillian smiled ruefully. “All they want to do is play.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Rose asked. “I think I’d like to be a bairn forever and have nothing better to do than play.”
Gillian’s eyes softened and her smile faded. “You never did play much, did you? Always healing, even when you were a wee thing.”
“Aye, well,” Rose said, feeling guilty for expressing such feelings.
Her mother had worked very hard to teach her, even though Lillian herself had not been a healer.
She’d had such faith in her youngest daughter, and Rose had failed her.
She’d been barely competent when Lillian had died.
Rebellious and complaining, she’d given her mother fits.
Rose gave a small shake of her head, putting it from her mind.
She couldn’t change it now, so there was no value in dwelling on it.
Instead she worked hard to be the healer her mother had always believed she could be.
Rose nodded to the corner. “Why can’t they just stay here and play?”
Gillian sighed and gazed at the empty air thoughtfully. “I suppose they can for now. But they should move on. Others are there, waiting for them. They’ll be happier.”
“It sounds as if they’re happy now.”
“They keep asking about their mother,” Gillian said. “They understand that she’s dead, but they don’t understand they’re dead. If they’d move on, they’d be with their mother again.”
“Unless she went to the other place,” Rose said.
Gillian shook her head firmly. “She didn’t.”
“How do you know?” Rose asked, skeptical. Her sister could see ghosts, but so far there’d been no mention of an afterlife.
“Because there is no hell.”
Isobel looked around the hall nervously, but no one was close enough to overhear. “Hush, Gillian. That’s blasphemy you speak.”
Gillian shrugged. “It’s the truth—or so it seems to me. Hell is of our own making, if we’re afraid to move on.”
“So the wee lassies are in hell?” Rose asked.
“That’s not what I said. They’ve not made it into a hell. They don’t even understand they can move on. They’re just children. It’s the ones that tie themselves to a place and haunt it. Those are the ones in hell.”
Rose considered this while Isobel glanced around nervously.
“Can we speak of something else?” Isobel whispered. After nearly being burned herself for witchcraft, Isobel had become quite cautious about such things.
“Aye,” Rose said. “I’ve something to tell you, but you must not breathe a word to anyone—especially Uncle Roderick.
” Rose scanned the hall. It was deserted except for a few hounds lazing in the rushes.
She leaned closer to her sisters. “I’m leaving at first light.
I’m going to bring Lord Strathwick here. ”
They both stared at her as if she’d gone mad. And perhaps she had, to undertake this alone, but she could see no other alternatives.
“Tell Da for me, but give me as much of a head start as possible in case he tries to send someone after me. Two days would be good.”
Isobel reacted first, shaking her head in bewilderment. “You’re going north—alone?”
Before Rose could respond, Gillian gripped her arm. “You cannot go alone.”
“And who should I take? Who can I trust here?”
Isobel and Gillian exchanged an uneasy glance.
“Fash not. I will disguise myself as a man.”
Gillian grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Rose—think! Broken men roam the Highlands. Even lone men are in danger.”
“You and Isobel traveled alone, and not disguised as men either. You came to no ill.”
“We were fortunate.”
“As will I be.”
Her sisters still looked uneasy, and Rose couldn’t risk them doing something foolish, like telling their husbands.
That might end her journey before it began.
She stared down at the rush-strewn floor for a long moment, then inhaled deeply through her nose.
“I’m not a fool. I know that some of the stories about this wizard might be just that—fables.
But I can’t help hoping…” Rose’s heart raced at the thought, her voice catching momentarily.
“If he is real, then I’ll bring him back if I have to tie him to my horse.
But if he’s not…” She didn’t want to consider that. “I have to know.”
Gillian’s lips thinned, and she gazed at Rose with worried gray eyes. “But are you sure it’s wise? Nicholas’s man never returned…we don’t know what happened to him. The journey north is harsh and dangerous.”
“Aye, but they haven’t burned nearly as many witches up north. It’s far safer than what you two did a few months back, traveling into the heart of the witch hunt to save Sir Philip.”
“Aye,” Isobel conceded, “but there are other dangers in the north.”
“It’ll be fine. I promise. I lived on Skye, remember? I can’t imagine a bigger band of hempies then the MacLeans. I’m well used to such men.”
They both still looked so worried. Rose sighed and held her arm out to Isobel. “Have a look—see what happens.”
Isobel frowned uncertainly. She had visions when she touched some things.
Sometimes she saw the past, sometimes the present, sometimes the future.
She’d been working hard to gain greater control of the gift, and she was having some success.
She removed her gloves and gripped Rose’s sleeve.
After a moment she shut her eyes, her smooth brow creasing.
Rose and Gillian watched her closely. When her sage green eyes drifted open, they were empty, sightless.
The troubled lines in her forehead became more pronounced, and her hand tightened on Rose’s arm.
She shook her head slightly, as if trying to shake off something disturbing, then her shoulders relaxed and a smile spread across her face. She released Rose’s arm.
“What is it?” Rose asked impatiently.
“Oh, you’ll be back—and in time to deliver Tira of a large son.”
“You saw this?” Gillian asked, eyes wide.
“Aye, I did. It will be a difficult birth—you’ll nearly lose both mother and child. There is a strange man there I don’t recognize. He has gray hair. I think he’s your wizard. He helps with the birth.”
A surge of excitement and determined hope shot through Rose. Isobel’s visions weren’t always accurate, but they were often enough to make Rose confident her mission would be a success. “You see? There is naught to fash on. I’ll be back with the wizard within the month.”
Isobel grew serious. She seemed to be mulling something over, then she blurted out, “I saw something else, Rose, before the birthing. Something from your past.”
Rose’s gut clenched. “Aye?”
Isobel bit her lip hesitantly. “Would you like to talk about what happened on Skye?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Rose tried to keep her face expressionless, though it felt stiff and unnatural from the effort, but she was determined to discourage further questions.
Gillian, of course, had no clue what they were talking about, and she looked between the two of them curiously. Rose was certain Isobel would fill Gillian in later, and that made resentment simmer, but not enough to discuss it. Let them think what they would. She had other things to fash on.
“What about Jamie MacPherson?” Gillian asked.
Rose’s hand went to the ribbon around her neck, drawing the locket from her bodice where it lay against her heart.
Jamie MacPherson was her betrothed. He’d been writing letters to her for months now.
They’d known each other as children, and she remembered him with great fondness.
She longed to wed him, but she’d written him, telling him she could not in good conscience marry him so long as her father was so ill.
He’d written back assuring her that he understood and would wait.
She opened the locket and gazed down into her betrothed’s cerulean eyes, his handsome face framed by golden hair.
She shut the locket abruptly and tucked it back into her bodice.
“He doesn’t have to know…besides, if he ever finds out, he would understand.
He is a good man, like Sir Philip and Lord Kincreag. ”
Her sisters had been most fortunate in their husbands—fine men both, who adored their wives.
Rose stood. “I need to have a look at Tira so Uncle Roderick doesn’t suspect anything.” She gave them both a penetrating look. “Not a word to anyone. If someone comes looking for me tomorrow, tell them I’ve the bloody flux and cannot leave my chambers.”
Isobel and Gillian stood, giving Rose swift, firm hugs and wishing her Godspeed. Filled with hope and resolve, she left to begin her preparations.
From his tower window he watched her leave under shadow of darkness and fog.
She thought she was being clever—she always thought she was being clever.
But in truth, she was doing exactly what he wanted.
She’d interfered for the last time. The demon-raising ceremony was a lengthy one, consisting of days of fasting and prayer, and he could not do it with her present.
Her sisters might cause some problems, but not nearly the delays Rose had caused him.
Besides, he could charm the sisters into anything.
Rose did not respond to charm or scolding or anything.
How she had become such a hard woman, he didn’t know—her time on Skye with the MacLeans, no doubt—nor did he care. Not anymore. He looked to the sky. The moon was waxing. Soon it would be full and he could finally begin.