Chapter 9 #2
He’d given the townspeople every opportunity to change course. If anything, he’d given too much weight to his own opinion, believing he could sway the mayor and priest. He’d drawn the trial out too long, letting tempers rise. Asher had almost died because of his hesitation.
“If I encountered the same situation today, I would insist on a closed trial. I’d call in neutral judges as soon as I even suspected that one of them had too personal of a relationship with the accused.”
Rowan’s stormy gray eyes flashed up to meet his. “So you say.”
“I use Jarn as an example when I train new recruits. I don’t want anyone to ever be placed in that situation again. Not witch hunter or accused.”
Rowan gave him a disgusted look. “So you’ve just been telling our story over and over again to all of the new witch hunters for the last six years?”
“I don’t tell them your names.”
“As if that makes it better.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe they asked you to train people how to do a good job.”
He had to look away from the accusation in her eyes.
“It’s hard to imagine normal townspeople turning into a pack of wolves like that until you’ve seen it for yourself.
I didn’t believe it would go so far and then, when it did, there was no turning back.
The vote had been cast. My men were being overrun.
If the mob had reached the stage, they’d have torn you apart. I thought the brand would stop them.”
With more grace than he had any right to expect, Mistress Yahl nodded her understanding. “The crowd would have turned on you too if you’d done anything else, Captain. They would have turned on you next, Rowan.”
Rowan finished securing the bandage and pulled away to look at him. He could still see traces of the child she’d been. Now that he saw it, he didn’t know how he’d missed it. It was there in the curve of her cheek, that pointed chin, the stormy eyes.
“Of course it stopped them,” she said with a bitter twist to her mouth. “Why wouldn’t it? You gave the mayor exactly what he wanted. My mother was hurt and shamed. We were cast out of Jarn with nothing. We were only gone a day when the wound became infected,” Rowan told him. “I couldn’t—”
The way her voice cracked ripped something open inside him.
He pictured her—the terrified girl out on the open road with her wounded mother.
They would have been entirely vulnerable to any wild animal that came across them, to any man who meant them harm.
Whatever her mother had done to cause the people of Jarn to declare her a witch, Rowan had been innocent.
He reached out instinctively to touch her shoulder. She jerked back, wiping the salve from her hands with sharp, angry strokes. “I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.”
“You did everything you could,” Mistress Yahl told her daughter. “You kept me alive. The rest was God’s will.”
It was a good thing Mistress Yahl couldn’t see the furious look her daughter shot her way. Her gaze flicked to the scar before returning to him, her eyes hard.
Why had she saved him?
Rowan stooped and grabbed the tub, hoisting it to her hip. “I need to clean these.”
And she was out the back door like a bolt, slamming it behind her. He listened as her footsteps faded and stared down at his hands.
Mistress Yahl pushed the food and tea in his direction. “Eat. You need to rebuild your strength. I think it’s best you leave as soon as you’re able. This is hard for her.”
He stared at the eggs with no appetite whatsoever. It would be rude to refuse when she’d gone to the trouble to cook for him, and when they clearly had so little to spare.
He rubbed at his face and looked up to find Mistress Yahl’s white eyes fixed unnervingly on him. “Was any of it true?” he asked. “There were so many accusations.”
Mistress Yahl took a thoughtful sip of her tea and then set it aside.
“Once the mayor called for an investigation, there was nothing you could have done to change what happened. The truth ceased to matter the moment that man took the dais. Your error was believing too strongly in the goodness of the people around you. You believed that the law and your procedures would unveil the truth.”
She made him sound naive. He’d never had the luxury of naivety. He knew all too well how easily the people you trusted could turn on you.
“Why did you tell me to brand you?” he asked.
It was something he’d always wondered. Before the verdict came down, she’d called his name and he’d had to bend to hear her over the outrage from the villagers.
She’d told him to fire the brand and he’d believed it to be a confession.
He’d been shocked by it. He hadn’t believed the charges against her.
He’d been steeling himself to fight off the mob.
To try to get his men out alive before he slunk back to the capital in shame, seeing his captaincy stripped from him at the end of the road.
“Rowan was going to tell that crowd that she was the one who gave the tea to Ethel. She delivered supplies to her every week. I saw no harm in it. Ethel liked the company and Rowan always liked the woods. The tea didn’t kill Ethel.
Her heart had been weak for years by then, but she refused to move into town.
To be fair, I wouldn’t have wanted to live with Urich either.
” She smiled faintly and shook her head.
“It was over then. Truly over. They’d already decided to hurt me. I couldn’t let them hurt Rowan too.”
“You did it to protect your daughter.”
He fell silent for a moment, his gaze moving to the door through which Rowan had disappeared. He wanted to follow her. To speak to her again and what? Apologize? Try to make her understand? Impossible.
“She doesn’t know,” he said.
Mistress Yahl shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “She would only blame herself for what happened.”
“Instead, you let her blame me.”
Mistress Yahl raised an eyebrow as if to say, what do you expect? The movement did terrible things to the brand on her forehead. “I’m not a witch, and you did brand me. You’re not blameless.”
“No.” He stared down at the cup in his hands. “I suppose not.”
“If it’s any consolation, I forgave you for your part in all of that a long time ago.”
He blew out a breath and moved to the stool at the table. He picked up his fork. “Thank you for that.”
It was far more than he deserved.
“Rowan will forgive you too someday.”
He sincerely doubted that.