Chapter 8 Isabeau #2
We reached the village square, where the wooden stage used for the Harvest Moon ceremony still stood.
The platform where just days ago, Papa had been selected for sacrifice.
Where Father Simon had pulled our family crest from the bag through a honey-coated piece of wood, condemning my father to death by Gaspard’s design.
And now it would be the place of my condemnation as well.
Gaspard pulled me up the wooden steps, my bare feet catching splinters from the roughly hewn planks. He positioned me at the center of the platform, his hand still gripping my arm tightly enough to leave fresh bruises, as if he expected me to flee or perhaps vanish into thin air.
The crowd gathered, their faces a blur of suspicion and fear.
But among them, I spotted two that stood out from the rest. Colette, her face streaked with tears, her hands pressed to her mouth in horror.
And Margaret, standing nearby, her expression carefully blank but her eyes communicating a world of sorrow.
“Behold!” Gaspard shouted to the assembled villagers. “The witch Isabeau Dubois, whom I have caught in the act of dark sorcery!”
Murmurs spread through the crowd. Some nodded, already convinced by Gaspard’s word alone. Others looked uncertain, glancing between him and me with confusion in their eyes.
“She lies in the form of beauty to tempt good men,” Gaspard continued, his voice carrying across the square. “But beneath that fair skin beats the heart of a demon!”
“That’s not true!” I cried out, finding my voice at last. “He’s lying! He’s been hurting me, forcing himself upon me!”
The crowd’s murmuring grew louder. A few people exchanged uncertain glances. They had known me my whole life, had watched me grow from a child into a young woman. I had never shown signs of witchcraft, had never harmed anyone.
“Look at her neck!” someone called out from the crowd, pointing. “What are those marks?”
Every eye turned to my throat, where the choker Gaspard had given me couldn’t fully hide the ring of raw, bruised skin left by days wearing the iron collar. The evidence of his cruelty, visible for all to see.
Panic flashed across Gaspard’s face for an instant before his hunter’s instincts took over. “The marks of her dark magic,” he declared smoothly. “The demon she channeled left its touch upon her.”
“That’s not true!” I shouted, desperate now. “He chained me like a dog! He put an iron collar around my neck!” I turned my pleading eyes to the crowd. “Please, you know me. You’ve known me all my life. I am no witch. I’m Isabeau Dubois, the inventor’s daughter.”
For a moment, doubt flickered across many faces. People began to whisper among themselves, some pointing at my neck, others at my bound wrists and torn clothing.
“She’s lying,” Gaspard insisted, but I could hear the first note of uncertainty in his voice. He hadn’t expected me to fight back, to challenge his narrative.
“I’m not lying,” I said, my voice stronger now. “Gaspard has kept me prisoner since my father’s sacrifice. He’s been hurting me.” I looked directly at the women in the crowd. “He plans to force me to marry him. He was about to...” I swallowed hard. “He was about to breed me before the ceremony.”
A gasp went up from several of the women. They knew what I meant. They understood the horror of what Gaspard had intended.
For a moment, I thought I might have reached them. That they might see through Gaspard’s lies and recognize the monster beneath the handsome exterior.
Then Father Simon stepped forward from the crowd.
“My children,” he called, his voice carrying the authority of his position. “Do not be deceived by the witch’s silver tongue.”
He climbed the steps to join us on the platform, his black robes swirling around him like the wings of a carrion bird. His eyes, when they met mine, held no mercy, no doubt. Only cold certainty.
“We all know the goodness of Master Coventry,” he continued, gesturing toward Gaspard. “How he provides for our village, how he protects us from the dangers of the forest. Would such a man commit the sins this girl accuses him of?”
Heads shook throughout the crowd. Of course not. Not their hero, their provider, their protector.
“And let us remember,” Father Simon added, his voice dropping to a more ominous tone, “this girl’s lineage.
Her mother never attended church, preferring to practice her.
.. ‘herbal medicines’.” He made the words sound filthy, corrupt.
“Witches have long used herbs in their evil spells. Like mother, like daughter.”
“My mother was a healer,” I protested, but my voice was drowned out by the growing murmurs of the crowd.
“There is only one way to be certain,” Father Simon announced, raising his hands for silence.
“Only one method that never fails to reveal a witch.” He paused for dramatic effect, his eyes cold as they met mine.
“Water will not accept a witch’s body. If she floats, she is in league with the devil.
If she sinks... then God hath accepted her innocent soul. ”
My blood ran cold. The water test. A death sentence either way. If I drowned, I would be declared innocent, but I would still be dead. And if by some miracle I survived, they would burn me as a witch. Everyone had drowned that went into the vile contraption.
“Bring the cage!” Father Simon commanded.
Three men stepped forward from the crowd, dragging between them what looked like a human-sized bird cage made of iron bars. Its door hung open on creaking hinges, a portal to my doom.
“Please,” I begged, looking out at the sea of faces I had known all my life. “Please listen to me. This is murder, just as my father’s death was murder!”
But it was too late. The villagers’ eyes had hardened, their minds made up. I was already condemned in their sight, already something other than human. The iron cage was dragged up onto the platform, its door yawning open to receive me.
I looked desperately for Colette in the crowd. She stood frozen, tears streaming down her face, clearly wanting to speak but too terrified to move. I caught her eye and shook my head slightly. Don’t, I tried to tell her with my eyes. Don’t sacrifice yourself for me. They’ll kill you too.
She understood. Her shoulders slumped in defeat, but she remained silent, saving her own life even as mine was forfeit.
Margaret stood beside her now, one arm around the younger woman’s shoulders in silent comfort. Their eyes met mine, two women powerless against the tide of hatred and fear that was about to consume me.
Rough hands seized me, shoving me toward the iron cage. I struggled automatically, but it was useless with my hands still bound. They forced me inside, the metal cold against my skin as the door clanged shut behind me.
“Take her to the river,” Father Simon commanded. “Let God’s water reveal the truth.”
Four men lifted the cage, carrying me as if I were already a corpse. The crowd parted to let them through, then followed in a grim procession to the deep river that marked the boundary between our village and the Forbidden Forest beyond.
The river that would be either my grave or the witness to my condemnation as a witch.
The journey was mercifully brief, though each jolt of the cage sent pain shooting through my already battered body. The sun was setting now, casting long red streaks across the water’s surface. Blood in the river, an omen of what was to come.
They carried me to the deepest part, where the current ran slow but strong. Where the water was deep enough to swallow me whole.
Father Simon stood at the riverbank, his arms raised in false supplication. “Lord, reveal to us thy truth. Show us if this woman is of thee or of thy enemy.”
The men holding the cage waded into the water until it reached their waists. I clutched the iron bars, heart hammering against my ribs. I knew how to swim—Papa had taught me in this very river when I was small. But with my hands bound and trapped in an iron cage, that knowledge would do me no good.
“May God have mercy on thy soul,” one of the men muttered, almost apologetically, as they prepared to submerge the cage.
I took one last, deep breath as they pushed the cage beneath the surface. The cold water rushed in, soaking my dress, my hair, climbing rapidly up my body. My lungs burned with the held breath as the cage sank deeper, the men’s hands guiding it down, down into the murky depths.
The light dimmed as I descended, the last rays of sunset distorted through the rippling surface above. The iron cage settled on the riverbed, mud clouding around it as the metal bars sank into the soft bottom. I struggled against my bonds, panic mounting as precious seconds ticked away.
My chest ached with the need to breathe. Spots danced before my eyes. I yanked frantically at the rope binding my wrists, but succeeded only in deepening the already raw wounds. The lock on the cage door remained stubbornly shut, impervious to my increasingly desperate attempts to break free.
This was it, then. The end. I would drown here, and they would pull my lifeless body from the river and declare me innocent…too late for it to matter. Too late for justice, too late for vengeance against the men who had murdered Papa and condemned me.
As my consciousness began to fade, that strange sensation returned. The humming at the back of my mind, growing louder, more insistent. Warmth spread through my limbs despite the icy water, a fire beneath my skin that defied the river’s chill.
The energy built like a wave, starting in my core and radiating outward through every part of me. My vision cleared, the spots disappearing as new strength flowed into my oxygen-starved body. I felt the power gathering, coiling like a spring about to release.
And then it exploded from me in all directions.
The iron bars of the cage bent outward as if struck by a giant’s hammer. The rope around my wrists disintegrated into floating fibers despite being in water. The lock on the cage door blew completely off, tumbling away in the current.
I was free.
My lungs screaming for air, I kicked toward the surface, my arms reaching upward through the water. The current tried to drag me downstream, but determination gave me strength I didn’t know I possessed. My head broke the surface, and I gasped, drawing sweet air into my burning lungs.
The shouts from the shore reached me immediately. Screams of “Witch!” and “She lives!” and “God save us!” The villagers backed away from the riverbank as if I might leap from the water and curse them all.
I treaded water, trying to orient myself. The current had carried me several yards downstream from where they’d submerged me. On the far bank, the dark line of the Forbidden Forest loomed, forbidding but also... beckoning. My only chance.
A splash behind me made me turn. Gaspard had waded into the river, his face contorted with fury, his hunting knife clutched in his hand. He was coming for me, determined to finish what the water had failed to do.
“Thou will not escape me, witch!” he roared, pushing through the water with powerful strokes.
I dove beneath the surface, swimming with the current now to put distance between us. When I came up for air again, I had reached the opposite bank. The darkened wilderness side, where no villager willingly ventured.
My hands found purchase in the slick mud of the riverbank. I clawed my way up, fingers digging into the earth, grasping at weeds and exposed roots to pull myself from the water. My sodden dress weighed me down, but fear and desperation gave me strength.
I collapsed on the far shore, gasping for breath, my body trembling with cold and exertion.
When I looked up, I saw the entire village gathered on the opposite bank, their faces visible in the dying light of day.
Some held torches now, the flames reflecting off the water’s surface like accusing fingers pointed in my direction.
Between us flowed the river, a boundary I had never expected to cross. Behind me waited the Forbidden Forest, home to the beast that had dragged away my father.
A harsh caw drew my attention upward. The raven—the same one that had visited my window in Gaspard’s house—circled above me, its dark wings cutting through the twilight sky. It dived lower, cawing again as if demanding my attention, then flew toward the treeline.
I struggled to my feet, knowing Gaspard would reach this bank soon. Already he was more than halfway across the river, his powerful form cutting through the water with the determination of a predator who has caught the scent of prey.
The raven cawed once more, insistent, impatient. As if it was trying to tell me something. To show me the way.
With one last look at the village that had been my home for eighteen years, I turned and followed the raven into the dark embrace of the Forbidden Forest. Behind me, Gaspard’s furious shouts echoed across the water, but I didn’t look back.
I was a witch now, or so they believed. And if that was my new identity, I would embrace it. Better a witch in the forest than a corpse in the river, or a wife in Gaspard’s bed.
Better in every way than returning to the village that had betrayed me, just as it had betrayed my father.
The raven called again from deeper in the trees, and I followed, letting the darkness swallow me whole.