Chapter 17 #3
Her father chuckled ruefully. “Don’t I remember! You would rail at me every time I came to visit at you, begging me to take you home. And then running away!” He looked skyward and shook his head. He was smiling when he looked back at her. His smile faded when she didn’t return it.
“Aye, I ran away. And you sent me back. Why?”
He blinked, seemingly at a loss, then said, “It’s what your mother wanted, for you to learn from Crisdean Beaton. And you did, did you not? He wrote me what a fine healer you’d become.”
Rose sighed, abandoning the plait and staring down at the blanket again. This was harder than she’d thought it would be. “Aye, I learned a great deal from Crisdean. It’s just…” She closed her eyes. “It’s…it’s nothing. Forget I mentioned it.” Coward.
“I don’t think I can, love. Ever since you’ve returned from Skye you’ve had shadows in your eyes. I thought it was because of my illness and your inability to heal me, but I see it’s something else. Tell me what ails you, Rose, and mayhap I can make it better.”
She shook her head, eyes still closed tightly. “No, I was wrong. Nothing will make it better…except forgetting, trying to put it from my mind.”
He was silent for a long moment, then said, “You’re scaring me—and me an old sick man. Tell me. Now.” When she didn’t answer, he said, “You aren’t too old to take over my knee.”
Rose gave a snort of laughter at that, and when she looked up at him, his gray brows were raised nearly to his hairline.
“Tell me. Why did you run away?”
“It was the MacLean…he made me do things—and he said if I told he would have me and my sisters burned for witchcraft. So I couldn’t tell you. But you knew I hated it there.” Her voice shook suddenly, thick with emotion. “You knew and still you made me stay.”
Her father did not say anything for a long time; he kept his gaze steady on her. Then it fell away, until he stared at the ground. “What things did he make you do?”
Shame flushed her cheeks. She shut her eyes, her lips pursed tighter. She didn’t want to say, not out loud. She’d said it already to William, but this was her father. She didn’t know if she could. It was too vile.
“Tell me, Rose.” His voice rose to a command.
“Things only a wife should do. Or a whore.” After a long, heavy silence, she said, “That’s what he did. Made me into his whore when I was eight years old.”
Her father said nothing. He only stared at her, and as he did, his skin seemed to pale. His throat worked, and his eyes grew bright. He closed his eyes and pressed a white-knuckled fist to his mouth.
When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “If he wasn’t already dead—”
“You’d kill him. I know.”
She looked away from his wounded expression, wishing she’d said nothing.
She’d finally told him, and she didn’t feel any better.
If anything, she felt worse. She heard movement, and then the bed dipped slightly.
Her father put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
Rose let him, pressing her face against the plaid covering his bony shoulder.
“Forgive me, lass, for being so blind and stupid.”
Like a dam breaking in her heart, the tears came then, burning her eyes. “I should have told you! I shouldn’t have been so stupid and believed him!”
Her father shook her slightly. “No! It’s my fault. I knew Fagan MacLean was not a kind man, but I never guessed he’d touch you—whom I was paying him to protect. I’m the stupid one. Can you ever forgive me?”
Rose nodded, wiping her eyes. “Aye, I think I can.”
So this is what it feels like to be just like everyone else. Utterly helpless.
William sat on the floor of a grimy cellar—a dirt hole dug in the ground for storing turnips and onions and apples…
and apparently witches. His daughter lay across his lap, her head against his shoulder.
She had finally awakened a few hours ago.
After her initial fright, she’d grown silent.
Speaking to the rats, probably. William didn’t ask.
He now wished she’d stayed unconscious. No child should be put through what was in store for them, but especially not his child.
He didn’t know if he could bear it; he was twisted in knots just thinking of it and being so damn helpless to do anything.
It seemed ironic that it should end this way.
He’d been so arrogant, setting himself above everyone else, refusing to take the chances and risks that others took every day—that Rose took.
And now here he was, all three of the people he’d let into his heart lost to him.
Drake bleeding to death on the mountainside.
His daughter held for witchcraft. Rose at the mercy of her uncle.
And he was useless to them, just like everyone else.
And he was a fool, too. But it was too late to do anything about that.
Deidra stirred against his shoulder. “Someone is coming.”
He didn’t know how she knew—the vermin, most likely—because he heard nothing.
“Who did you tell that you can speak to animals, Squirrel?”
Deidra’s curls brushed his shoulder as she shook her head. “No one, Da. I promised.”
William sighed, impatient. “You must have told someone. How else did MacPherson know?” Unless Rose had told him. No. She would never. But his stomach felt strange and queasy, and his chest tightened.
“I know not! But the red-haired man—he already knew. He told me so.”
Roderick.
Cold fury settled over him. “When did he tell you?”
“In the stable. He wanted to show me something, but Moireach warned me. He’s the one the animals fear—the bad man. He uses them—kills some of them for black magic, puts demons in others. They all hate him.”
William closed his eyes, the irony of it all making his mouth curve grimly. All along his daughter had held the answers, and he’d never thought to ask her. And she’d never thought to tell him, too worried about burdening him.
A shaft of light flooded the cellar, and a rope ladder rolled down until it hit the dirt.
William stood, setting Deidra on her feet and taking her hand. A bearded face thrust through the hole. “Get up here. Now!”
“Stay behind me,” William murmured, grabbing the coarse hemp and climbing. He hoped no one would think to check his arrow wound, as it was nearly healed. Such a miracle would surely be construed as the devil’s work.
When he was clear of the hole, he stood to the side until Deidra was out, too. They both squinted in the bright sunlight as villagers grabbed them, thrusting them along before them. William held Deidra’s hand, keeping her close.
They were pushed into a cottage. The door shut behind them.
William scanned the interior, his gaze fixating on a table covered with instruments of torture.
A selection of wooden mallets. A “spider,” a sharp iron fork used to tear flesh from the body.
Phallus-shaped irons rested beside it for heating and inserting into various orifices.
The turcas, a set of pinchers for ripping out fingernails, lay clean and gleaming next to the irons.
Needles to be driven into the nailless fingertips were stuck in a cushion next to the turcas.
Beside them lay the penniwinks. The last tool on the table was the thumbscrews—a vise used to crush the bones in the thumb, similar to the penniwinks.
A rope was looped over the side of the chair, for thrawing the skin from the head.
William swallowed hard, his hand tightening on his daughter’s, his gaze lighting on a tall, thin man in black robes. He was not a Highlander. He wasn’t even local.
“Good day, my lord Strathwick.” He looked down his long, sharp nose at Deidra, his lips wrinkling slightly.
“I am Luthias Forsyth, former witch-finder to the king. I trust you are well rested and ready for our first session?” He spoke pleasantly, as though this were a social call rather than a prelude to torture.
William’s guts clenched. They were in serious trouble.