’Tis you.
What had she meant by that? The question had circled in his mind as much as the lady herself. Those long legs in red trews, her glossy dark hair, the depth to her blue eyes. He clenched his fist. Even now she infiltrated his thoughts. Distracting him. Mayhap he was bewitched.
“Why are ye in Liddesdale?” Niall asked Bernard to take his mind from Lady Leila.
“I did not know I was so far north. Many priests have fled their villages to escape the pestilence and the ones who remained have all died.” He released the Bible long enough to make the sign of the cross with a shaking hand. “I had been hearing confessions and delivering last rites to the dead. There are so many English and Scottish on both sides of the border that I did not know I had gone so far north.”
Niall stared incredulously at the man trembling behind his Bible. A man he had thought to be a coward. “Ye put yerself at risk for Scotsmen?”
“All are souls in need of absolution regardless of their land of birth.” Bernard lifted his head up a notch, showing an unmistakable bravery Niall would not have credited him with moments ago. The priest knowingly put himself in danger to help others.
Alban began to pace the room with a bored expression.
Niall ignored him. “We were told ye had warning the plague was coming. Is that correct?”
Bernard hesitated. Niall said nothing and let silence pressure the priest into speaking.
“Aye,” Bernard answered at last.
Alban met Niall’s eye. It was answer enough for Alban, who was ready to find Lady Leila and put her on trial. Niall, however, held himself to a higher standard of honor and wanted firm proof before he arrested someone on the charge of witchcraft.
A priest’s word, especially the priest of the castle where she lived, would be ideal.
“Was it Lady Leila who gave ye warning?” Niall pressed.
Bernard shifted in his seat and Niall tried not to think of the discomfort of the man’s wet clothing beneath him in the chilly dungeon.
“She’s ill,” Bernard said eventually. “With the pestilence. She goes to the village often to help others, to heal them. We feared her being around the contagion, but she insisted. We don’t think…” He swallowed. “We don’t believe she will survive.”
“It’d be fitting if she didn’t,” Alban spat. “Considering she cast it upon us with her magic. She made it obvious by cursing the Armstrongs first. Families of the very men who took her several years—”
“Enough.” Niall’s voice echoed off the stone walls.
In truth, it did not surprise Niall to hear she had the pestilence. What better way to appear innocent than to suffer from the same affliction she had cast with her spell? That her own people had become ill as well had troubled him initially, but her determination to aid them brought it all to light.
No doubt her own spell had grown beyond her control, spreading out to hurt her own countrymen over the whole of England.
Witches had great power, more than even they surely realized. However, Niall knew well the impact of their craft. As did his father, Renault the Honorable, God rest his soul.
“Is Lady Leila Barrington a witch?” Niall asked abruptly.
The priest’s eyes went wide. “I b…beg your p…pardon?” he stammered.
“Do ye think Lady Leila Barrington is a witch?” Niall repeated slowly.
Bernard’s chest rose and fell quickly from behind the Bible, making it move with each frenzied breath. “She’s different from her sisters,” he answered carefully. “I was different from my brothers too. Markedly so. Like her. She feels alone, cast out from them, despite their attempts to make her feel loved and wanted. It is hard to be different. So, so very hard to be different.”
The tirade had yielded nothing of use. If the man didn’t hold a Bible in his hands, Niall would have assumed he was lying to get out of the questioning. The woman he met in the village outside of Werrick Castle did not appear to care if she was unloved or unwanted.
Niall crossed his arms over his chest. “Do ye believe Lady Leila to be a witch? Aye or nay.”
Sweat glistened on Bernard’s brow and he huffed in frenzied pants.
Alban stepped closer to him. “If he willna talk, I’ll make him.”
Niall held out a hand to stay the younger man. Bernard was still a priest, one who had put himself in harm’s way to aid their people. He deserved their respect.
“I’ll ask ye one more time, Priest,” he said levelly. “Do ye think Lady Leila is a witch?”
Bernard swallowed and met Niall’s gaze. “Nay.”
Niall narrowed his eyes at the twitchy little priest, who shrank behind his Bible. Slowly, Niall moved back to allow access to the open door. It hadn’t been necessary to close it. If the priest even tried to run, Alban would have killed him before he got to the entryway. Lord Armstrong’s son was fast, Niall would give him that.
“Ye can go.” Niall nodded toward the door.
The priest did not move.
“Now. Before I change my mind.”
Bernard scurried from the room, his wet robe clinging to his flat bottom.
Alban stared after the man with contempt in his eyes.
“Why’d ye let him go?”
“We have all we needed.” Niall left the room. The priest was nowhere in sight, having already fled.
Alban exited the dungeon and fell into step beside Niall. “He’ll go back and tell them we’re seeking the witch. We should have killed the coward.”
Niall stopped and stared down at the younger man. “That ‘coward,’ as ye put it, was the only man brave enough to offer last rites to yer people when yer own priests were too frightened to stay. And ye’d kill him for having made the effort?”
Alban brushed aside a lock of red hair from his eyes, not bothering to reply.
Niall had enough. He climbed the stairs, eager to be done with the whole mess. It didn’t matter if Lord Werrick knew they were asking about his daughter. If she was out tending to her people, Niall would see her again. They would have a scout watch the village and once she was seen again, they would find a way to lure her from the village and trap her.
Once she’d recovered from the pestilence. And she would recover; of that, he was certain. He was also certain of another truth: that even as the priest held his beloved Bible, he had lied.
Niall would notify Lord Armstrong, who would summon Father Gerard from Edinburgh, the famed priest who had sent many a witch to her death. The earl had held off as Niall did his own investigation to be able to say with absolute confidence that Leila Barrington was indeed a witch.
Now, with Bernard’s lie souring in Niall’s gut, he would stop at nothing to see her brought to justice.
3
After a day and night of laying abed, Leila could not stand it a moment longer. Her back had begun to ache and every part of her was restless. If nothing else, she could at least help Isla sort items to make teas, or grind up herbs, or mayhap even work on the book of remedies she had been writing. Anything but this inertia.
She sat up slowly, her muscles weak after over a sennight of inactivity while she’d been ill. Rose was there in an instant.
“I must get out of this room.” Leila pulled her feet to the side of the bed. “Please help me dress.”
“Where do you intend to go?” Rose was already aiding her, despite her apparent concern.
“To assist Isla.” Leila put up a hand before the woman could protest. “Not to the village, but to the small room she keeps in the castle. To assist with preparing what she’ll need on the morrow for the village, as well as organizing other herbal remedies.”
Rose’s slender face had filled out some now that she was fully recovered from the pestilence. There was a lovely rosiness about her cheeks and her hair shone like copper with threads of white running through. She was a lovely woman, Leila realized for the first time, with pink apple cheeks and a kind smile.
She helped Leila first by running a cool, d
amp linen over her skin to clean her thoroughly, and then helping her into a blue wool kirtle with a red surcoat. The belt at Leila’s waist needed to be linked more tightly to compensate for how the fashionable attire hung on her frame after the weight she’d lost during her illness. Over the gown, Rose had insisted on putting a thick fur mantle.
While Leila had protested initially, she was grateful for Rose’s persistence once she was in the hall. The winter chill permeated the stone and left the halls icy cold. She kept a brisk pace, eager for the fragrant warmth of Isla’s small room, where the woman usually had a small fire in the hearth to keep a pot of water set to boiling. The door to the room, however, was closed.
Leila leaned her back against the opposite wall while she waited and caught her breath. The journey down to Isla’s healing room had been more laborious than Leila had expected. Not that she would ever admit such a thing.
The door opened, and Bernard stepped out.
Leila straightened in an effort to appear as though she had not been panting from overexerting herself. Bernard glanced at her, then immediately lowered his head and mumbled something she could not make out. With that, he quickly strode down the hall with an awkward gait.
A tsking sound turned Leila’s attention back to the open doorway where Isla regarded her with a frown. “Ye shouldna be out of bed.”
“I couldn’t stand to lay there a second longer.” Leila stepped past Isla and into the room.
“Ye and yer sisters are a heap of mischief. Ye know that, aye?” But Isla was not looking at Leila when she spoke. Instead, she stared off after Bernard, her face pinched into a map of wrinkles.
“Is Bernard unwell?” Leila popped her head out of the room to peer at the priest’s departing form. It was strange to see him meeting with Isla of his own volition. He’d always been cautious of the healer, assuming her to be a witch, or figment of evil or something of the like. Every time she was near, he crossed himself and muttered a quick prayer. Isla had found it a great source of entertainment and took joy in goading him.
She was not smiling now though as she led Leila into the room. “The reivers took him. Armstrongs.” She spit into the fire, where it sizzled amid the flames.
“Bernard?” Leila asked in horror. The poor man had always been deathly afraid of reivers.
“Poor bastard pissed himself.” Isla shook her head, looking as regretful as she sounded. “Those robes of his chaffed his arse the whole ride back to Werrick Castle. I gave him a balm to ease the discomfort, but there’s only so much I could do.” She cast another sad stare back toward the empty doorway from where he’d waddled off. “’Tis his soul that weighs most heavily on him.”
Leila covered her mouth. The poor priest; frightened to the point of making a mess of himself in front of the people who scared him most.
“He lied on the Bible, he said,” Isla continued. “Fears his soul belongs with the devil now.” She scoffed. “If every holy man who lied ended up in hell, there wouldna be room for the rest of us. Bernard is one of the few good ones, I tell ye.”
Isla must truly feel bad for the priest if she was saying such kind things for a man she’d always reveled in tormenting. Leila discreetly lowered herself to a stool to ease the burden of her body weight on her tired legs. “What did he lie about?”
“Ye.” Isla turned to Leila. “They asked him if he thought ye were a witch, and he said on the Bible that he dinna.”
Upon hearing such news, Leila was glad she was sitting. “He thinks me a witch?”
“Bah, he thinks I’m one too.” Isla waved without concern. “But they werena asking about me. They were asking about ye.” She lifted an empty basket to the tabletop. “I dinna want ye going to the village anymore. No’ even when ye’re fully well, and even then, it would be best no’ to go. There are mad men about, my lady.”
Leila’s hands went to work stuffing herbs into linen bags. “When I’m fully well, it will be the best time for me to go. I cannot get the pestilence again. We’ve never heard of a second bout.”
“I’m no’ talking about the illness,” Isla said. “I’m talking about the man asking about ye. Bernard said the Armstrongs pulled him from the bedside of a dying man and put him in the dungeon to be questioned. They dinna even let the man get his last rites. Bernard shouted them as they dragged him off but worried it hadna been heard. The poor bastard.”
Leila didn’t know which man Isla referred to as “poor bastard” but didn’t bother to ask. Not when it seemed quite applicable to both men.
“Bernard was questioned,” Isla’s voice was soft in the way people did when they wanted to be heard, “by a man called the Lion.”
Leila sucked in a breath. The weakness she’d experienced earlier buzzed in her mind and made her suddenly dizzy.
“Ye shouldna be out of yer bed.” Isla’s strong grip caught Leila’s shoulder, keeping her upright. “And I shouldna have told ye.”
Her hand on Leila blazed in icy pain. The mark of Death on Leila’s skin flew into her thoughts, as well as his message. The Lion was coming.
She would do well to keep from the village. And she did, for at least a fortnight. She remained within the castle where it was safe. But there were only so many times she could walk past the walls she was so familiar with. She remained within them until they started to close in on her and squeeze at her awareness, until thoughts of the villagers and their suffering pressed at her heart.
Isla and Rose still went out every day to the village to tend the scores of ill. Leila wanted to be there with them. Needed to be there with them. To be an extra set of capable hands, to prevent the likelihood of Isla getting ill. Especially when most likely, both Leila and Rose could not get sick again.
Bernard, who now did not ever wander past the village, had remained busy comforting and administering last rites. It was through his bravery that Leila found herself out at the pestilence hut once more, caring for the dying.
It was there, on the fifth day, she met a small girl who wore little more than a scrap of cloth in protection against the frigid winds.
“Are ye the healer?” the girl asked.
Leila crouched to be on the child’s level. Her dark brown eyes were nearly hidden beneath a fur cap far too large for her.
“Aye, I’m a healer,” Leila replied. “Are you in need of one?”
“’Tis no’ me, but my mum. Will ye help her?”
“Of course.” Leila straightened and prepared to follow the girl. “What is your name?”
“Ainslie.” She took Leila’s hand and led her, not into the village, but away from it.
Leila hesitated. “I cannot go this way,” she protested.
“Please,” she girl pleaded. “My mum is delivering a babe and there are no’ any healers to aid her.”
“How far is your home from here?” Leila asked.
“It isna far on a horse.” The girl pointed to a beast tied to a tree at a nearby forest line.
“Where did you—?”
“Dinna tell anyone, please.” Ainslie twisted her bare hands together. Her fingers were red chapped from the cold. “I happened upon it wandering around the fields and no one was about. I took it. To help find someone to save my mum.”
Leila relaxed. It was not uncommon to find animals roaming with no master. The number of abandoned beasts had been so great, in fact, that many lords were foregoing heriot, their tenant’s family’s gifts of an animal to the lord when a laborer died.
Ainslie led Leila to a nag, most likely an animal left to fend for itself after the family owning it died of the pestilence. “’Tis over the border,” the girl said sheepishly.
A knot of unease twisted in Leila’s stomach.
The girl’s large brown eyes went liquid with fear. “Please dinna say ye’ve changed yer mind.”
Leila gazed out to the sprawling landscape before them, where winter had turned the grass to straw and sifted a fine dusting of snow over it all.
“She keeps screaming.” The
girl whimpered. “I canna help her. Please.”
Leila set her shoulders. “I will go.”
They climbed onto the horse’s bony back and the girl led the way to the small hut on the outskirts of the debatable lands. Her immaculate sense of direction was not surprising. Most likely the child had been on at least one raid with her father at some point to the English side of the border.
Leila leapt from the horse, following Ainslie’s eager steps as the girl pointed toward the hut. That disconcerting sense of uncertainty pitched to a scream of alarm. Leila shook her head in silent apology and clambered back onto the nag’s back.
“Where are ye going?” Ainslie cried. “Please! My mum!”
If she said anything else, Leila did not hear. She was running the knobby-kneed nag as fast as its hooves would carry her. Only it wasn’t nearly fast enough.
A prickle of fear tingled at the back of her neck. She chanced a glance behind her and found a band of reivers chasing her at full tilt, far faster on their stocky-legged horses than she was on the skinny nag.
A frantic glance to find a place to hide returned nothing but straw-like wheat-colored grass covering swells of hills. No forests, no trees, not even any large bushes to crouch behind. She was vulnerable on this landscape; exposed.
Her options would be to try to outrun them, which was impossible. Let them catch her, which surely held an unsavory outcome, or she could turn and fight. After all, she had been well-trained with her sisters. She would not go down easily.
She pulled on the reins to stop the aging horse and turned to face the men. Icy winds stung at her cheeks and made her eyes water, but she threw off her cloak anyway. The bulk of the garment would slow her down and could cost her life. Warmth was not worth the risk. She slipped the first set of her daggers free from her belt and tensed for battle.
If they were going to capture her, she would at least put up a fight.
Niall wasn’t at all surprised when the witch stopped to face them. He turned to the ten Armstrong clansmen with him and looked pointedly at Alban. “We’re taking her alive.”
Leila’s Legacy Page 3
