But she had learned to swim well in the chilly lochs of Scotland, and she wouldn’t have far to go once she surfaced. She would emerge wet and cold, but that would be a problem to deal with once she reached the bustling docks.
She scrambled down to the end of the ladder and convinced her unwilling fingers that she must let go. The fall was not as bad as she had expected. The icy clutch of the water embraced her immediately and she plunged downward … downward … until she feared that her lungs would burst. The saltwater stung her eyes, but she forced them open, knowing that if she saw light, she would make it. The water seemed to release its hold, and she jackknifed her legs strongly, reaching upward for the light. Seconds later she breached the surface, gasping for air. Her skirts weighted her down terribly and so she did not hesitate, but began clean strokes eastward of the Sea Hawk where the small boats found dockage. There she could climb an area of jutting rocks to reach the dock and then the street.
It was too late to wonder what passersby and fishermen would think of her rising from the water. She would have to pretend that she had veered too close to the land’s edge and fallen.
But she was never to have a chance to explain. Just as she found a foothold upon land and struggled to her feet, panting with her exertion, a horribly familiar shout riddled the air about her.
“Witch! Good people—see how her master the devil embraces her and carries her through water! Take her—this day she will hang, and sleep with the incubus in the fires of hell!”
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. Shock held her immobile. She didn’t even shiver as she stood there dripping seawater—and staring at Matthews’s fanatical eyes as he waved his walking stick at her. She had lost her mind and impossible visions were filling her head.
“Take her!”
“No!” The protest at last ripped from her throat in terror and agony as she saw beyond Matthews a dozen men in uniform. She tried to stagger back to the sea, but she tripped upon her soaking gown and crashed to the rocks instead. A sickening pain speared the back of her head; darkness spread its wings across her eyes and she drifted into oblivion as rough arms wrenched her from the earth.
“Damn her!” Sloan raged as he read the note scrawled upon his blotter. “Damn that little Scottish witch to hell!”
Paddy, who had followed him, halted in the cabin doorway, knowing that the hammer of rage was about to fall his way. He didn’t care—he had never known such a sinking panic himself.
“She must be aboard, Cap’n—I swear by me life she never walked off the ship.”
Ledgers, papers and quills went flying from the desk in a furious sweep. “That wench is more trouble than she’s worth! I’ll have to search the town and hope I find her before Matthews does.”
“Captain!”
The shout sounded from topside. Sloan stalked past Paddy and up the steps to collide with Robin upon the deck.
“They’ve got her, Captain. They’ve got her!”
“Calm down, Robin. Who’s got her? Where?”
“Matthews!”
“How do you know?”
“A town cryer just passed by. They’re trying and hanging a witch in the town center sharp upon the noon hour.”
“Trying her—and hanging her?” The pain that pierced Sloan’s insides was so great he almost doubled over. No! His rage and pain were explosive. He could not lose her, by God, not to Matthew’s sick fanaticism! Not now, not when he had discovered how deeply he …
Loved her. Loved her more than the vast ocean, more than the Sea Hawk … more than his own existence …
He forced himself to draw a ragged breath, stiffen his spine, and clear the darkness from his mind and think.
“Captain?”
He waved his hand for silence. “Here’s what we do. Robin, get back to the tavern. I want all hands on deck except for ten men. I’ll need horses for myself and those ten. Give me Pickens, Beaufort, and Gest—they’re best with crossbows. And Miller and George—they can hit a bird’s eye with a pistol at a hundred feet. And—”
“I’ll be with you, Captain,” Robin said staunchly.
“Me bones may be old,” Paddy offered, “but they still sit astride a horse just fine.”
“No, Paddy. I need you here. The Sea Hawk is going to have to be able to sail at a second’s notice. We’ll need the guns manned, and the men aboard will have to be ready for hand-to-hand combat. Robin, get going. I’ll join you at the tavern as soon as I’ve laid out my plan for Paddy.”
Robin nodded grimly. Still in his disguise, he walked to the dock and onto the street unaccosted. Sloan exhaled a shaky breath and turned to Paddy. “Call whoever of the crew is aboard. Tell them what we’re up against, and tell any man who chooses that he may go ashore and not be forced to this battle, for I am labeled a criminal now, as well as a traitor. Association with me will guarantee a rope around a man’s neck if we lose. The guns must be discreetly set at the ready to fire—and the sails prepared to unfurl.”
Paddy shook his head dolefully. “Aye, aye, Sloan. That I kin manage fer ye—and I warrant not a man will step ashore, though I’ll give them all yer offer. But how will ye manage with just ten men to save the girl from the hangman’s noose?”
“Surprise will be my main weapon, Paddy. And my prayers that the devil will take the hangman.”
He gave Paddy a few more instructions, and then he, too, slipped away unobtrusively back to the tavern, where further meticulous plans had to be formed.
Chapter Nine
Brianna was already drifting back to reality when a booted toe slammed painfully against her ribs. Stunned by the blow, she cried out, squeezing her eyes tightly against the pain. Her sea-dampened hair was plastered about her face, as was her clothing to her body; she was miserably stiff and sore and cramped—and horribly, horribly afraid to open her eyes to the terror of what was happening.
“Up, witch. Now.”
Rather than receive another cruel blow to the ribs, Brianna forced herself to open her eyes and willed her cramped legs to raise her up off the cold stone floor.
She was alone with Matthews in a small room crudely furnished with a wooden desk and high-backed chair. The room had spun when she stood, but she gritted her teeth against nausea and faintness. Beveled glass windows overlooked the town center, where she could see workmen constructing a haphazard gallows.
“Am I already tried and condemned, then, Matthews?” she challenged the witchfinder, amazed that her voice was strong and not filled with the tremors that she felt.
He did not reply. He waved a hand toward the door. Brianna followed his direction and saw two very dour matrons standing there, heavy women with faces hardened by years of harsh toil, or so she assumed. Their shoulders were as wide as those of many men, their hair gray, and from her distance Brianna could see no color at all to either woman’s eyes. Their mouths were turned in sullen frowns and they did not gaze at her at all, but looked to Matthews, as if for instruction.
He stood very straight by the desk and nodded grimly toward the women. Brianna kept her gaze sharply upon the women and began to back away along the wall. There would not be far to go, and her heart was pounding fiercely. They moved slowly toward her, but with determination. Brianna turned her stare to Matthews. He smiled, or rather his lips twisted into a sickening grin. “We must find the proof of Satan upon you,” he told her simply. It was then that she noticed a tray on the desk behind him filled with strange instruments, the likes of which she had never seen before.
“Torture is illegal!” she blurted out wildly. “Even I know that, Matthews. I know the law. Torture is illegal!”
“Girl, I know the law,” Matthews said, and he turned to the matrons once again. “Strip her,” he commanded.
“No!” Brianna cried. Good God! That this man would kill her was horror enough, yet Christ had promised that death brought peace and solace. That they should be allowed to strip and humiliate her, bring agony to her flesh and senses, was beyond all realms of justice an
d humanity.
Was this what Pegeen had endured? Dear God. But her fair aunt had been a braver woman, and Brianna might have wept and raged for her all over again now were she not in such mortal terror herself.
The women were upon her, and she screamed again, trying to evade them first, but found herself backed into a corner. Then she lashed out with all her fury, but neither woman uttered a sound of pain, and they were two very sturdy specimens against just one. Her vicious fight against them came to a quick halt when Matthews stepped forward, stunning her with a hard blow to the cheek. She fell limply against the wall, struggling against unconsciousness, grasping desperately at the material of her gown as it was roughly wrenched from her. Tears stung her eyes, but she would not cry. She could not give up, not while her heart still beat and breath was in her body.
But no matter how wildly she fought, the end was the same. She was left there, naked and vulnerable, dizzy and ill. Gray mist seemed to swirl all about her, and at first she was barely aware when Matthews came at her again—with a long steel pick from the tray on the table. She heard his cold words. “We will find her devil’s mark,” he told the women, and they nodded, each gripping one of her arms.
“You are vile! You are loathsome—you are a viper!” Brianna told him, hating that he would touch her, that she could do nothing to stop him. She gritted her teeth, praying to keep her courage, but she screamed when he stuck the pick into her shoulder, drawing blood. Blinded by her tears, she stared into his eyes. They swam dizzily before her, gleaming pools with no mercy.
“Not even God could forgive you, Matthews!” she cried.
“God has given me this task,” he answered her, and she was quite certain that he was totally, utterly mad. Why didn’t others see it?
The pick struck again, upon her back. She screamed in pain, and the pick fell again, and again. When it struck again, at her left breast, she fell to the floor screaming with the pain. Matthews paused. Brianna lifted her eyes, filled with tears and pain—and hatred—to his. “God’s mercy, Matthews!” she cried. “Christ himself would confess beneath your hands.”
Matthews did not reply with words. He compressed his lips and brought his knee to slam against her jaw. The world seemed to recede—and then, though she felt the touch of the pick again, she could not even draw the breath to scream against the agony.
But she heard his excited words. “We have found it! There—see how she feels no pain when I touch that mole. It is her witch’s teat, and there she suckles her familiars—and Satan!”
She was going to die. There would be no help for her this time. No Sloan Treveryan—no, heroic knight—to come along and save her from Matthews’s hell. Sloan would find her note, and he would rage against her, and then he would sail away as they slipped the noose about her neck.
“Confess, witch!” Matthews commanded.
Naked, soaked, and miserable, and left to huddle against the wall on the floor, Brianna felt hysteria rise again. She laughed, harshly, bitterly. She stared at Matthews, and wondered desperately what manner of demon lived inside the man that could make him so totally, ruthlessly cruel. She shook her head, unable to fully comprehend that this man could so eagerly bring her such agony.
“You’re insane, Matthews,” she whispered.
“Confess!”
“Confess? To what? I am no witch, Matthews. I have no ‘familiars,’ I have harmed no one. And one day, when God judges us both, it is I whom He shall find innocent of malice.”
Matthews knelt down beside her, wrenching her face to his by jerking her hair. “I’ve charges that Pegeen MacCardle of Glasgow did bewitch and kill one Mary Corcoran with herbal concoctions, made with the blood of infants. That—”
“Mary Corcoran died by her own hand!” Brianna cried out in protest. “Pegeen only mixed herbs to soothe fevers and gout! Never would she have harmed an infant! You murdered a good woman!”
A scream tore from her throat as he pulled her hair again. “Brianna MacCardle, I bring charges that in the forest you did knowledgeably and willingly consort with the devil in the form of various animals. Confess! Save your immortal soul. Cry out now to the Lord, and admit your guilt, and He will find the mercy to allow you to enter His Kingdom.”
She was in shock, barely able to fight a flood of laughter, the charges were so ridiculous.
She spat in his face.
“You cling to the devil still!” Matthews cried, wiping his face with a white handkerchief and rising. He jerked his head at the two matrons. “Go now. With God as my witness I will drive the devil from her that she may enter God’s grace with death!”
Misery hung over Brianna so darkly that she barely noticed the women leave the room. The will to fight was being sapped from her. The room seemed to drift into light, then shadow, and back to light again. It was not the room, she realized, but the way she perceived it.
There was silence, a silence that allowed her to think and feel, and she wished she could do neither. She realized her state of abject humiliation, naked on her knees before this hideous creature, her hair spilling over her shoulders in tangles. She clutched her arms around her like a shield.
She thought of her battles with Sloan—of the many times she had feared him. She knew now that Sloan would never have harmed her, and that even the days of being vulnerable before him had been a time of beauty. But Sloan was a normal man, possessing all the best qualities of character and heart that could create a man. Matthews was not normal. And beyond her pain and fear and terror there was also the misery of feeling unclean, tainted and fouled by his very nearness.
He came to kneel beside her again, threading his fingers through her hair once more, and yanking at it so fiercely that tears sprang to her eyes.
“Confess your sins, girl. Confess to me now. Tell us of your fornication with Satan. Else we’ll leave you here. The shackles can be tightened about your ankles until they bleed. You’ll be bound and cast into the water again.”
“Bind me, cast me—I care not.”
He stood, and walked across the room. Her head was spinning, and she shivered with the severity of the cold that remained from the chilly waters, and from the damp room. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Matthews was before her, holding his lethal pick. “Confess!” he ordered. “Or, by God, I’ll find more of the devil’s marks upon you, until you bleed out your love for Satan.”
Sight of the pick brought her staggering to her feet, clutching the cold stone wall behind her. “No!” she cried, reaching out with her hands only to feel the merciless strike of Matthews’s hand across her cheek again, a blow that sent her sprawling back to the floor.
Torture was illegal by English law! she reminded herself dully, but “Pricking” a witch for the devil’s mark was not. Ah, the law! How it was twisted for those who knew how to manipulate it. She had seen what they had done to her aunt. She had heard, even in Glasgow, what ghastly torments had been inflicted upon the poor wretches in Newgate prison. And now Matthews, she knew, one way or another—within the gray area of the law—would find a way to see that she confessed.
She hadn’t any more strength to fight him. He would prick her until she was a mass of blood, and he would hang her anyway. Tears stung her eyes, and panic rose within her. Then a weariness settled over her.
“If you would have me be a witch, I am a witch. I consort with the devil. He comes to me every night. I expect him to arrive any minute in a burst of fire to slit your throat and save me from your touch. Were I truly a witch, I could certainly demand that he do so. Now leave me be. Hang me! Have done with it!”
Exhausted, her eyes closed, she leaned against the wall, huddled there, naked. She expected him to call for the soldiers to take her away. But she heard nothing; instead she sensed him beside her, kneeling. Then he touched her hair, and she opened her eyes with new alarm.
“I can save you, girl.” His voice was very low, but held a ring of passion.
“Save me?” she whispered. What new manner
of trick was this?
“Hold me. Hard, and close, and I will take the devil from the weakness of your body to the strength of mine!”
Brianna stared at him, incredulous, desperately trying to think with her pain-ravaged mind. His arms came around her. She felt his bony fingers over her breast, and she fought the raging desire to slap him and the nausea that almost overwhelmed her. It came to her with a sense of absurdity that almost sent her again into bitter gales of hysterical laughter, that he wanted her. Matthews—the great seeker of virtue and enemy of the devil—would save her if she would “fornicate” with him—rather than with the devil.
As his hands moved over her, she felt as if she were being touched by a creature so vile that she would never rid herself of his filth. Then she felt his touch no more, as she became numb, reverting to a distant place far within her mind. She hated him, loathed him—but enough to die?
The door was suddenly flung open.
“Matthews!”
An officer, bedecked with the ribbons and jewels of the nobility, stood in the doorway.
Matthews stiffened, dropped her as if she were fire itself, and rose. Then he fell to his knees, his hands clasped in supplication. “Almighty Father! Bless this, your servant!” He crawled to the officer at the door, kissing the hem of his cloak. “Darton—thank God! For this confessed witch hath almost taken me from His glory. Man—you have saved me.”
“Confessed?” the man inquired with a skeptical edge to his voice.
“Aye, confessed!”
The officer was looking at her, but Brianna could no longer see. The blows to her head were causing everything to swim before her eyes. She wanted to speak, to retract her confession, and swear that the charges were absurd. But she could not make her lips move. All she could do was lapse in and out of consciousness, and pray that death’s embrace would be as gentle as this gray place, easing her from pain.