The Dream
Sorcha knelt before the king almost as if she were in a dream—nay, a nightmare.
The hell of the past week had passed in a blur of pain interspersed with long periods of cold darkness.
Her hemp rope bindings chafed her wrists raw.
Her back burned from Hugh’s whippings. Her parched lips bled.
Her stomach felt withered and empty. Yet through it all, only one occasion truly stood out—the day Hugh’s nasal tones informed her Alec had wed a lady of the king’s choosing.
The words had broken her heart—not because she believed Hugh.
Far from it. Nay, but because his words made her fate real.
For the first time, she acknowledged that she would soon die.
And Alec? Soon, she would fade in his memory.
Nothing really mattered after that. Now, she only wanted the torture to end.
“Sorcha Cunningham,” the king announced her name with a dramatic inflection of tone. “Ye come to us this day, facing the charges of witchcraft. What say ye, Sorcha Cunningham? Deny that ye be a witch?”
“Aye, your majesty,” she replied, summoning a shred of defiance simply to uphold the truth. “I am no witch.”
Snorts of disbelief circled the crowd behind her, but she didn’t care. She already knew how this farce of justice would end. For her, it was a given, but she wouldn’t make it easy on their conscience.
Sitting down with exaggerated pomp, the king commanded, “Bring forth the witnesses!”
David Seton stepped forward, his bald head reflecting the afternoon sun streaming through the hall’s tall, arched windows. For a moment, Sorcha allowed her exhausted mind to wander. In her dream, the skies had been dark, heavy with snow. Dimly, she wondered if clouds lurked on the horizon.
A man’s unnatural laugh brought her back to the present with a startled jerk. Summoning tremendous effort, she focused on the matter at hand.
Seton stood before a petite, brown-haired woman in her thirties. “And then?” he asked the woman.
“The butter went bad,” she replied in lilting, high-pitched tones.
Again, laughter rippled through those gathered in the hall, louder this time.
The amusement displeased Seton. Scowling, he asked in a gravelly voice, “And who was the last to touch it, woman?"
Wordlessly, she pointed to Sorcha.
Sorcha drew her brows in confusion. “I’ve never seen her afore,” she said in her own defense. But no one heard, or if they did, they didn’t acknowledge it.
A hum of voices filled the castle’s massive hall as Seton gave the woman a curt nod of dismissal and waved his hand for the next witness to take her place.
This time, it was a man, grizzled, and with an angry bearing.
In a loud, raspy voice, he blamed Sorcha for bringing ill luck to his village and conjuring up a storm that devastated his fields.
“Called the devil’s minions to destroy the harvest of good folk, she did!” he declared, his eyes flicking continually toward Seton’s face as if seeking the man’s approval.
Judging by the gasps escaping the lips of the crowd, they found this witness more interesting than the others.
Again, Sorcha responded, “Never have I seen this man!”
And again, no one listened.
Seton waved his hand, bidding the next witness appear, and this time, surprise held Sorcha wordless.
A ruddy mountain of a man stepped up, his jowls reminding her of a hound: the leech from Kilpatrick.
The man’s steely-gray, arrogant gaze swept over her in obvious contempt.
“Aye, I knew she was a witch from the start,” he announced as he jerked his hand in short, chopping motions.
“Even afore I saw her dance naked in the moonlight, aye, and beg the devil for an evil brew, with which to strike the tinker dead!”
Sorcha’s lips parted in shock.
“Truly?” the king leaned forward in his chair, his eyes brimming with excitement. “Tell the tale, liegeman!”
Revelling in the royal attention, the man bowed low. “’Twas a dark and windy night, a night of unholy origin, whence I was summoned from my croft,” he obliged, his voice adopting histrionic overtones. “I rode, the hounds of hell chasing my horse the entire way to a peatcutter’s croft.”
Silence fell in the hall as its occupants strained to hear.
“That peatcutter—a God-fearing man—met me at the door,” the burly leech continued, puffing his chest with importance.
“And there I saw the lass, spooning his cousin an unholy brew! Her eyes were red, glowing, aye, as red as the devil’s.
I struck the cup from her hands, but alas, she then changed into a cat and ran out the door! ”
The king gasped.
The onlookers followed suit.
“I ran, I did, right after her, your majesty,” the leech said. “The witch dinna know I followed, and ‘twas there in a meadow nearby that she changed back into the form of a maiden, naked. The devil came then, to dance with her there.”
The tale was so preposterous that Sorcha could only stare at the man in utter shock.
The crowd, however, seemed enthralled with the revelation. In the far back, someone cried out, “Burn the witch! Aye, burn her now!”
It was enough to jolt Sorcha into awareness. “’Tis all lies! Mad tales!” she burst out. “‘Twas only an herbal tea, angelica, and the peatcutter himself thanked me—”
Seton turned upon her then, interrupting coldly, “Aye, the peatcutter, ye say? Thanked ye, did he?” Focusing over her shoulder, he nodded. Once.
Sorcha cast a quick glance back to see the man who was being nodded forward. Relieved, she welcomed him with a heartfelt, “Sir, clear this madness, I beg ye …”
But her words faltered as the old peatcutter passed by without a single glance her way.
With a growing sense of dread, she caught her breath and waited for him to speak.
“And what have ye to say?” Seton prompted the old man. “Did ye have dealings with this witch?”
The peatcutter hesitated, long enough to earn the impatient complaints of several gawkers.
But at last, his lips opened, and he spoke, slow and halting.
“Aye, the witch deceived me with her smooth tongue. ‘Tis as the leech says. All of it.” It was only then that he darted a quick look Sorcha’s way, guilt playing across his aged face.
She could only stare at him, astonished.
“Aye, ‘tis grisly business,” Seton said, clasping the peatcutter’s shoulder. “Thank ye, good man, for traveling thus far to speak the truth.”
Shocked murmurs rippled over the crowd.
Sorcha bowed her head, letting the tears slip out from under her lashes. “Many lies dinna make the truth,” she insisted, her voice breaking with emotion.
Seton brought several others forward. She didn’t hear them. She couldn’t. It was all too unreal.
Finally, the last witness appeared. A plump, middle-aged woman. After a moment, Sorcha recognized her as the brewer’s wife from Neilston.
“Aye, I saw her turn into a cat myself. A black one, as dark as midnight,” the woman claimed, spinning a tale as outrageous as the leech’s own.
“She came to the brewery with that other witch, that Gellie Duncan. And when I rose early that next morn, I stumbled upon her dancing naked with Gellie and the devil. Aye, they were feasting on the body of a bairn, poor soul.”
The Neilston woman paused to wail, wringing her hands as stronger cries issued from the throng, demanding Sorcha’s immediate execution.
“And then?” Seton prompted when the din had died down.
“They all turned into cats and sped away. But that one put a hex on me, she did.” The brewer’s wife paused to spit in Sorcha’s direction before adding, “My back’s ached ever since she came. Aye, at times, I canna walk. She’s put a hex on me!”
Sorcha shook her head in disbelief.
“We have heard more than enough,” the king said, rising to his feet. “We have interrogated this witch ourselves, and would have the confession of her sorcery read to all.”
“Nay, I’ve confessed no such thing!” Sorcha denied, but the voices murmuring around her drowned her words.
“Come, father.” The king beckoned to the black-cowled priest standing nearby to join him.
Sorcha eyed the priest, leery. In the past week, she’d learned he was evil incarnate. He’d been particularly fond of dunking her head into buckets of iced water until she would pass out, and then waking her up again by inserting small needles betwixt her toes.
“Father, we would thank ye and honor your contributions in vanquishing witchcraft from our realm ere ye set sail for Rome on the morrow,” the king said, dipping his head and clapping his hands.
A polite round of applause circled the hall.
When it had receded, the king waved at Seton.
“Bring the records of Sorcha Cunningham,” he said.
“We would fain have the father read the confessions of Sorcha Cunningham in the very words we heard her speak with our own ears.” As Seton moved to comply, the king chuckled to the nobles surrounding him, “Aye, ‘tis no small wonder that kings suffer not the longest of lives.
‘Tis a dangerous undertaking to interrogate witches, and in this week, we have done so to not just one, but three.”
Again, applause filtered through the hall, intermingled with sounds of awe.
The priest lifted the parchment then, and squinting, began to read, but Sorcha bowed her head, refusing to listen to anymore lies.
Soon, it would be over, and soon … aye, too soon, Alec would find that the memory of her had faded and he would take his comfort in the arms of another woman.
Her eyes burned with tears. It didn’t matter.
She would carry him in her heart. She would remember him.
She’d fill every last moment of her remaining life with visions of his laughing green eyes, the dimple in his chin, and the heat of his lips upon hers.
Dimly, she heard the king intone, “Sorcha Cunningham, I proclaim ye a witch, to be strangled and then burned at the stake, a week hence.”
A cheer erupted in the Castle of Edinburgh’s great hall.