Chapter 3 #2
It didn’t matter. Both soldiers moved at once with a speed that surprised her. She was bone weary and stiff with shock. She never would have outrun them.
The older soldier grabbed her first, his hard hand closing around her upper arm, tight enough to make her squeak.
The younger one cast him a glare. “Easy, Kenet. She’s only a child.”
“A few years and you’ll know better than to trust any of them, Ash.”
Ash released his grip on his sword. “We don’t even know if the charges are true yet.”
“They are,” Kenet said as if it were unquestionable truth. “The captain wouldn’t have called for a trial if the woman wasn’t a witch.”
Ash’s mouth twisted. “It doesn’t mean she’s guilty.”
Kenet rolled his eyes and tugged on her arm. She dug in her heels, her eyes darting around her, looking for an escape route. If she could get free, then she could…she could… What? Storm the prison and rescue her mother? Hide away in the woods? She couldn’t leave her mother.
“Where are you taking me?”
Ash took her other arm and together the soldiers got her moving, guiding her back toward the town center.
“Don’t worry,” Ash said. “We’re only taking you to speak with the captain. You haven’t been charged with anything.”
But she saw the angry and frightened and excited expressions on the faces of the people they passed as they walked to the town hall and knew that in the eyes of the town she was already guilty.
The soldiers marched her swiftly through the curious villagers that had gathered before the town hall. Rowan heard the mayor’s voice above the hum of conversation, but the blood thundering in her ears prevented her from making out his words. This couldn’t really be happening.
A trial.
They wouldn’t kill her mother, would they? These young soldiers with their neatly tailored uniforms and bright swords. They should be off hunting witches. They were supposed to protect people like them.
She glanced up at Ash, and he smiled grimly at her as Kenet pushed open the doors to the town hall. She was ushered back into a small room and directed to sit on a plain wooden bench.
She looked around her. “Where is my mother? Is she all right?”
Ash paused with his hand on the door. “She’s alive. The captain will be with you in a moment.”
She waited for what seemed like hours, pacing the small room.
It was more of a cell than a room. There were no windows.
The stout door was locked, and the walls were very thick.
The mayor’s family lived upstairs with their servants, all of it paid for by the town.
She’d never been friends enough with Maisey to have been invited upstairs.
She’d never been inside the town hall past the main entryway.
She tried to remember the layout of the building, to guess where the stairs to the underground prison might be located but she could only guess.
Her mother was being held somewhere nearby, questioned by one of the king’s witch hunters.
She dropped to the bench and rubbed her hands on her thighs.
The witch hunter’s presence meant that someone from town had sent a report to the capital accusing her mother of witchcraft.
Each patrol rode in a circuit during which they visited each province in the kingdom, but Jarn was a remote village.
They wouldn’t have accidentally come here.
Someone had requested an investigation. Someone petty and cruel and small-minded.
No one could seriously believe that her mother was possessed by a demon.
No one.
Who had made the request? Anson, the village priest?
The old, unsmiling crow. There was nothing soft or kind about him, but he wasn’t a sneak.
He was too proud to have called for help.
If Anson had decided there was a witch among his flock, he’d have stirred them into a mob.
She and her mother would have burned in their beds rather than face a trial for their crimes.
The five men who made up the elder council were useless.
They’d been bickering for three years over whether to build a second grain bin.
It would take decades for them to decide on how to word a letter to the king.
There were any number of people who disliked her mother.
Master Walis didn’t like that their chickens kept escaping their fence and pecking through his garden.
Mistress Colsan didn’t like that her husband occasionally slipped in a sweet roll for Rowan when her mother stopped in for bread.
The mayor… But, no. The mayor liked her mother.
It had always made Rowan uncomfortable how much the mayor seemed to like her mother.
It could have been anyone—anyone with a small mind and wicked heart, which meant half the town.
But just because the town didn’t like them, it didn’t mean her mother was guilty of anything.
Surely the king’s witch hunter would have enough experience to see that.
He hunted evil for a living. He’d probably seen dozens of witches, hundreds.
He would take one look at her mother and laugh.
It would take a fool to be tricked into believing her kind and beautiful mother was evil.
The lock turned, the metal clunk of it echoing in the room.
Rowan came to her feet as the door swung open and a soldier entered the room.
The witch hunter was a young man. Tall and slender with neatly trimmed blonde hair and sky blue eyes, he looked like a hero out of a storybook.
The gold braid at his shoulder marked him as a captain.
She knew that because her father had been a captain too.
Her mother still kept his braid in a box under her bed.
For a second, she just stared at him, feeling a sliver of hope. Maybe he’d help.
“Where is my mother?”
The soldier glanced around the small room, turned to order one of his men to bring in a table and chair and then looked her over.
She felt a blush rise to her cheeks, well aware of how awful she must appear.
She’d fallen in the woods before running all the way home only to be arrested and dragged here by his men.
Her skirt was muddy and torn and her hair, neatly braided when she set out that morning, curled around her face.
She wasn’t pretty like Maisey. She was gangly and plain with a tipped nose and freckles.
The dirt and tears and terror on her face couldn’t possibly help her look any better.
“Please.” He gestured toward the bench. “Have a seat. This won’t take very long.”
Wanting to scream but knowing that would get her nowhere, she sat, knotting her hands in her lap. “Sir? Please, my mother, where is she? May I see her?”
A frown pinched his brows, but before he could answer, his men returned, carrying in a small table and sturdy wooden chair.
A third soldier, dark and handsome, carried in a round scarlet cushion embroidered with blue and yellow flowers.
That soldier looked at his captain as he set the cushion down on the chair and smirked.
“The daughter insisted. I think she’s taken a liking to you. ”
Of course Maisey had taken a liking to this captain. He was young, male, and from the capital. Maisey was probably dying to get him alone in a room like this. Well…maybe not just like this.
With a shake of his head, the captain shooed his men from the room. Once the door was closed—and locked—behind them, he pulled the chair out from behind the table, set it only a few feet in front of her and sat, regarding her gravely.
“Do you know who I am, and why I have come?”
To make her life miserable, yes.
“You are a royal witch hunter,” she said, her voice only shaking a little bit. “I assume you’ve come to investigate a report of witchcraft. If you think my mother is a witch, you’re mistaken. She’s a healer. She would never hurt anyone. We go to church every week. Ask the priest.”
“I have. You did not attend services two days ago.”
“Because Mistress Colins was ill! My mother sat up with her all night tending her fever. She’s alive because of my mother’s care.”
“She’s alive because the good Lord chose to heal her.”
Rowan bit her lip at that. If the Lord was so good, why did he allow Mistress Colins to get sick in the first place? She knew better than to ask questions like that. They’d only ever gotten her into trouble. She drew in a steadying breath. “Who asked you to come?”
The captain’s brows rose and he leaned back in his chair. She had the impression that he was weighing every word she spoke, every nuance of her expression. “Does it matter?”