Chapter Five #2
Helene swept her gaze over faces in the hall, and when she looked to the gallery opposite and above, she saw Caitrin MacLanoch, Cuthbert, and Grizel.
None of them had noticed her presence. Agnes and Lady Sutton were nowhere in sight.
Either they still lay abed, or it was not a requirement they attend these proceedings.
Helene assumed the latter explained why she had been excluded from the assembly.
The scribe said something to his laird. Lachlan replied and then suddenly switched to English. ‘Father Crawford. Step forward.’
Helene blinked, her curiosity piqued.
There came an unsettling murmur from the people as a man dressed in the cloth broke through the crowd to present himself. Helene picked him as being not much older than Lachlan.
‘Welcome to Drumocher Castle,’ said Lachlan. ‘I understand ye to be travelling north?’
‘Yes. To the next soldier camp. I am to replace their priest who took ill and died.’
‘Ye travel alone?’
‘No. My guide is readying the horses and wagon as we speak. We shall be on our way as soon as a certain matter is resolved.’
‘Aye. I trust ye were comfortable enough in the guest quarters last night?’
The softly spoken clergyman nodded. ‘I thank you for your hospitality, laird.’
To Helene, his refined English enunciation distinguished him as a man who hailed from a privileged background. She could not imagine what he’d done to warrant an audience with Lachlan.
Lachlan gestured to the crowd at large. ‘Father Crawford, do ye see in this room the boy whom ye allege to have stolen a chicken from yer wagon?’
‘Indeed.’
Helene followed the direction of Father Crawford’s accusing finger to see a child with a mop of red curls. Her heart reached out to the lad, who looked no more than ten years old.
‘Donnie Ewing,’ said Lachlan. ‘Step forward.’
A forlorn couple, who must surely be the boy’s parents, stood directly behind him. He looked at them over his shoulder before doing as his laird asked.
‘Did ye steal the chicken, Donnie? Answer me truthfully, now.’
‘Aye. I did, my laird.’
‘Why?’
‘The last of our egg-laying hens was taken by a wildcat, and Pa doesnae have the coin to replace it, so I prayed hard and thought the Lord wouldnae mind if I took—’
‘Stole,’ corrected Lachlan.
‘Aye.’ Donnie bowed his head. ‘Stole.’
Helene held in check her fear for the boy.
What punishment would Lachlan mete out to a child?
The lad stood still, bravely awaiting his fate, chin dipped to his chest with signs of a tremor in his left leg.
Helene fought her every instinct to rush forward, scoop him up in her embrace, and run from the hall.
His mother swiped at a falling tear. The father hung his head in shame.
Helene held her breath. She prayed Lachlan would go easy on the lad. In suffering the humiliation of standing amidst accusing eyes, and after publicly admitting to his wrongdoing, then surely a verbal reprimand from his laird would suffice in teaching the boy a lesson.
‘Donnie Ewing, ye stand before me having pleaded guilty to the crime of stealing a chicken, and from one of the Lord’s servants no less. Theft is a serious crime, ye ken, one which carries a heavy penalty.’
At this, the boy nodded, still with his eyes downcast. He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve.
‘Look at me, lad,’ said Lachlan.
The boy dragged his gaze from the floor to meet his laird’s implacable eyes.
‘Yer punishment, Donnie, is to lose the hand ye stole with. ’Tis I who’ll use my broadsword to slice it from yer wrist.’
Helene gasped in horror. Heads turned in her direction, and Lachlan glared at her as if sighting his enemy down the barrel of a pistol.
She gave an ever so subtle shake of her head, her way of pleading with him not to administer such brutal punishment on one so young.
He ignored her, returning his attention to the boy.
‘Do ye ken, Donnie?’
‘Aye, my laird.’ The boy’s voice wavered. To his credit, he stood straight and as tall as his thin frame would allow. ‘I’ll ne’er steal again.’
‘Aye. Good lad. Best we get it over and done with now.’
Lachlan vacated his chair and stepped down from the dais. ‘A wooden bucket,’ he called to a manservant standing against the wall. ‘To catch the severed hand.’
Donnie thrust his right hand under his left armpit as if to hide the offending appendage. Helene’s heart broke when he slid the hand ever so slowly across his chest, pressed a kiss to the palm, and let the arm flop at his side.
Panic set in. Would no one protest this outrageous penalty and step forward to challenge their laird? She looked to the gallery, at Cuthbert, thinking he might hold sway over Lachlan’s reasoning, yet he showed stoic resolve in favour of his cousin’s ruling.
Helene stared in vain at his mother, willing the MacLanoch matriarch to look her way. Surely Caitrin, if anyone, could make him retract his decision. Instead, she sat visibly proud of her son’s handling of the grim situation.
Despicable!
Helene looked away in disgust. Her chest tightened upon hearing the hiss of a broadsword drawn from its sheath.
Lachlan examined each side of the blade.
Forged steel glinted in the sunlight streaming through slitted windows, portraying the weapon as even more devastatingly lethal.
He ran a finger along an inch of the razor-sharp blade and viewed the cut to his flesh.
Index finger and thumb rubbed together, smearing blood.
‘The smithy made good with my new broadsword,’ he said to Donnie. ‘’Tis a shame its first use will be to take off yer hand.’
Helene stifled another gasp. Was this the weapon she’d seen the blacksmith toiling over yesterday after having passed beneath Drumocher’s portcullis?
‘Are ye ready, lad?’
The boy’s legs trembled even though he stood with back straight and chin up. ‘Aye, my laird.’ He lifted his arm horizontally to the floor as proof of his resolute obedience.
Helene’s stomach lurched with visions of the blade falling like a guillotine, severing the boy’s hand, and hearing it fall with a dull thud into the bucket below.
She imagined blood spurting from his wrist only for him to suffer more intolerable, excruciating pain when a lit torch would seal the severed limb.
She bore the boy’s pain even before the deed was done.
Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed, the nausea overpowering, and jumped down from the stool. She carved a path through the onlookers to stand shoulder to shoulder with those at the front of the crowd.
Lachlan had positioned himself at right angles to the boy and tested the weight of the blade in his hand. He’d said he was a man of his word. An admirable quality of character for sure, but to inflict such cruel torture on a child?
Helene’s heart thumped in her chest. Each breath came in short, sharp gasps. She froze, gripped by fear for the boy. Every fibre in her body screamed in outrage at the laird as he lightly rested the blade on the boy’s wrist and then raised the sword high in the air.
‘No!’ Helene rushed forward and stood between the boy and Lachlan. ‘I won’t allow it!’
The crowd sucked in a collective breath before falling eerily silent. If Lachlan’s narrowed eyes had the power to kill, she’d have dropped dead where she stood. He lowered the sword to his side.
‘Ye . . . won’t allow it?’
‘I will not!’
Lachlan’s chest expanded on a long, deep breath. Slow and steady, he exhaled. ‘Step aside, lass.’
Helene shook her head. ‘You will not harm this child.’
‘Step. Aside. Sassenach!’
Her chin tilted in defiance of his minatory tone.
An outsider she might be, and unaccustomed to their ways, but she would not stand by and watch a man butcher a helpless child.
She stepped forward, bringing them face-to-face, and saw the tightness around his eyes.
Though the heat of his anger seared her soul, she was determined to protect the boy.
Their eyes remained locked in a standoff.
‘All right,’ relented Lachlan, loud enough for all to hear.
Helene closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Pent-up tension dissolved in an instant.
‘If not the boy’s hand, then I’ll take yers.’
Helene’s eyes flashed wide. His words, like a punch to her gut, left her suddenly giddy and cold. ‘What?’
‘Aye. Ye heard me. Ye’ll take the place of the lad. After all, ’tis acceptable in the Highlands for someone else to take the punishment intended for another.’ He addressed the crowd at large. ‘Unless . . . there’s anyone here today who’ll pay for the boy’s crime?’
Lachlan waited. ‘Nae?’ His eyes pinned Helene. ‘Then ye will stand in for the lad.’
‘Nae!’ cried Donnie, insinuating his small frame between his laird and Helene. ‘I cannae let ye do it, m’lady.’
Helene’s swift reaction saw the boy safely within the embrace of his mother. Despite his brave protest, Helene bent down before him.
‘Donnie,’ she said, taking the boy’s hands in hers. ‘Do you understand what you did was wrong?’
‘Aye, m’lady.’
‘And as God is your witness, do you swear never to steal again?’
He shook his mop of curls. ‘Ne’er again. I swear it.’
‘Do we have your word on that?’
He gave an enthusiastic nod. ‘Aye! Ye do.’
‘Good.’ She thumbed away tears rolling down the sweet boy’s cheeks. ‘Honour your word, Donnie, because a man without his honour is nothing.’
Helene glanced up at the boy’s father, wondering why he, of all people, hadn’t stepped in for his son.
Shame on him! He kept his eyes downcast with head bowed.
Coarse, work-roughened fingers fumbled the rim of his cap.
Losing a hand might be to the detriment of his livelihood, whatever that might be, but young Donnie would be there to take up the slack.
‘Sassenach!’
Anger in Lachlan’s voice at her back sent her mind reeling. Choose, it said. Your hand or Donnie’s?
An internal war waged between seeing the boy’s hand lopped off and calling on Lachlan’s promise to protect and keep her safe.
One look at Donnie and Helene had her answer.
Another dilemma surfaced. How would she care for Prudence with only one hand?
One hand!
She would learn to manage. The disability paled in significance to what her sister had already suffered, especially now, ensconced in that madhouse.
Short of breath and feeling faint, Helene stumbled to her feet. She swallowed a sour taste in her mouth, helpless to control the shakes in her legs and the cold spreading through her body.
Scotland. Highlanders. Barbaric! Just as she’d been warned.
She glanced at the clergyman. God’s representative. If this was His way of punishing Helene for her sins, then so be it. She squared her shoulders and positioned herself with one raised, trembling arm over the bucket. Mental numbness took hold, resigned to the reckoning she deserved.
‘My right hand,’ she said to Lachlan. The one used to push Prudence down the stairs. ‘The hand that sinned.’