by L. L. Muir
A clever tongue had God endowed her with, but it would not serve her.
“Why, then,” he argued, “would God give man dominion over women?”
Through the little holes, he thought he saw her brows rise.
“Hah! Did he, now?”
He sat forward. “Do not blaspheme again. I warn you.”
“Pah! I know men, good men, who do not seek dominion over their women. I believe God is well-pleased with these men, and that those who would rule over women do so to satisfy their own hunger for power. And it doesna take a witch to foretell that one day, women will rise up and take that dominion back.”
He jumped to his feet. “Enough. Enough.”
“What I say frightens ye?”
He moved to the gate so she could more clearly read the concern on his face. She stepped off the bed and moved to the gate as well. There was but two feet and a few iron bars between them. He could barely see her features what with the candle behind her.
“Of course it frightens me,” he said. “I fear what will happen to you if you cannot control yourself. Men will not stand idly by while you guess what pleases God. You could be easily condemned and burned for the arguments you so freely give. If you believe you can speak what you think, simply because you truly believe what you say, then you must change your thinking. For your own survival.”
She stared at him in silence. And he stared back, hoping she at least believed that he believed where her true danger lay.
She gave a half-hearted smile and shrugged. “Well, ye’re not the first to say so, if that gives ye comfort.”
He wished he could reach through the bars and shake those shoulders, and he gave thanks for the wise plan to send the key away with Icarus, or he would have had his hands upon her again. But all that was left to him was to try shaking her with his words.
“And of those who have warned you, woman, who among them remains at your side? Who among them was able to remain standing in spite of the winds that come so forcefully from your mouth?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, and with her eyes on the floor, she shook her head, sending her hair swaying, then settling again. Answer enough.
“Look to me,” he said softly.
She shook her head again.
“Look to me, Isobella. Please. You are not alone. I am here. Still here. Still willing to help you.”
She looked up, frowning. “Why? I am a stranger to ye. Why do ye insist on changing me?”
“Because, my Isobella, I have seen so many others like you and could do nothing. They, too, would not curb their tongues, refused to hide their thoughts, would not submit to the will of…men. So many preferred to die a tortured death rather than bow their heads.”
“Ah, then ye do understand. Finally.” Her eyes lit from within. He was unable to look away.
He stepped closer to the bars, wishing she would do the same. “What is it you think I understand?”
She leaned slightly forward. “That I would rather die a tortured death, than change.”
He was afraid that he did, indeed, understand. And the comprehension burst something inside him, something hot and dangerous, like the lava from a volcano, bubbling and expanding, threatening to consume anything in its path.
With more calm than he felt, Gaspar straightened and took a step back. He breathed in and out until his breath no longer shook. Only then did he dare speak.
“Perhaps,” he growled, “now you will understand why I brought you here.” He moved to the doorway and turned back. “And why I cannot allow you to leave.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Isobelle held her smile until the angry tyrant was gone. She’d seen too much of his softer insides for her to be frightened. The dragon had a man’s emotions. He had blood in his veins. And he had a weakness for her beauty, a fascination with her hair, though he fought to hide it. One day soon, he would let her leave. He would soften, and he would let her go. And though it was not in her nature to do so, she would be patient.
Considering her imprisonment, Isobelle was relieved to find that her bed was comfortable. Not nearly as comfortable as the one in her new cottage, but much preferred over sleeping in a hammock and rocking all night to the progress of a ship. Her emotions were spent, and with her new confidence that she would indeed leave this prison, her worries faded away with the sounds of the waves patting against the shore below her window. And she slept without dreams, unknowing, unseeing, unhearing.
Until someone began shouting at her.
She lifted her head, but her eyes refused to give up the darkness. A man’s voice. Not Ossian’s. Then she remembered where she’d laid her head to sleep and her eyes flew wide. She leapt from the bed and braced herself for some sort of attack. She pulled up her right leg, to free her small blade, but her foot was bare. No sock. No knife. Had he taken it?
The gate was closed. He had not yet come inside. Where, then, was her knife?
She eyed the mattress to her left, remembered slipping it beneath. She reached for it, but stilled her hands when his words finally reached past her panic.
“Isobella! Rouse yourself, I say.”
Candles lit up the other side of the wall where the bench was placed. She could see the man’s shadow pacing the length of it, stopping short of the gate. She relaxed, knowing he was not watching her through the latticework.
“What do you want from me?” Her body begged her to crawl back onto the bed, but she could not bear to do so until the man left the room. So she rested her back against the round, outer wall, and waited for him to answer.
“You shall celebrate the hours, Isobella, much as you would have done had you been forced to remain at the abbey. Matins begins at midnight. Lauds at sunrise, then the six hours of the day, ending with Compline, at nightfall.”
“I doona ken what ye mean,” she said, though she did indeed know. He might suppose she came from a barbaric Highland clan that had little dealings with the church, and if that would make his task harder for him, all the better.
She heard a faint sigh of exasperation and grinned.
“Come to the gate,” he barked.
She tucked away her smile and slowly swayed to the other end of her cell, rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child, peering at him from half-closed lids.
“Take this,” he said, overloud, no doubt trying to frighten her more alert. He opened a small silver box with a dark lining and pulled a string of beads from inside.
“What is it?” she asked. She raised her brows as if they might lift her eyelids a wee bit more.
“A rosary. Take it.” He pushed a loop of the beads through a large triangular gap in the gate’s decoration and waited.
She blinked her eyes wide and recoiled. “No! I’ll nay touch it!”
“Isobella. Do not be foolish. I know you are not, in fact, a witch. Touching the beads will cause you no discomfort. We both know it.”
She was so tired, she wished only to fall back onto her bed and escape back into slumber, but she could not resist toying with the man further.
“I was allowed to take nothing inside the tomb with me,” she whispered, “save a bewitched torque and a rosary. I vowed I would never touch one again.”
He stared at her for a moment, as if waiting for her to say more. When she did not, he rolled his eyes. “Stop your nonsense, Isobella. Take the rosary. If you want to be left in peace, to sleep until sunrise, you will pray the rosary.”
She frowned, stepped up and drew the things through the hole, not at all happy he’d taken no pity on her.
“It is true,” she mumbled.
“I do not doubt it,” he said, his handsome smile showing his pleasure and chasing away her sleepiness, damn him. “I am relieved a mere necklace does not truly frighten you. However, if you had given that little performance before any other audience, you might have been tried on the spot. Surely you realize that.”
It was her turn to roll her eyes.
“Proceed, Isobella. And if you lose c
ount, you will begin again.”
She marched back to the far wall and ungraciously lowered herself to the floor. “Our Father,” she began. And while she recited the prayer, she watched his shadow move back toward the bench. She was three quarters of the way finished, when she paused, to see if he was still listening.
“Yes, Isobella. I am still listening. And counting.”
She smiled and resumed praying. Toying with Gaspar, the dragon, would not be dull work.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The next day, to Gaspar’s relief, Isobella gave no protest and prayed when she was expected to pray. Each time she acted as if she were an unschooled waif, he would laugh as if she were simply trying to amuse him. Then he would carry on with his instruction. They practiced arguing, at which she demonstrated just how keen was her mind, and at other times, she simply turned away from him and ignored him until he left the room. She was as clever as she was stubborn. He simply needed to show her that she need not give up the former if she ceased the latter.
The next day of prayers passed without any reminders from him. She knew her prayers like any lady of nobility would know. And she seemed to harbor no real resentment toward the church as a whole, only toward the exact men who had sent her to her grave in Scotland. It was a tremendous relief he would not have the task of rehabilitating her views toward a quarter of the men on the face of the earth.
He also realized, with a measurable amount of dread, she could learn so quickly he might not have the pleasure of her company for long if she applied herself.
What he planned next was justified, even though it might upset her enough to reverse some of her progress, but he refused to imagine he might be sabotaging her progress on purpose. He did want to be able to allow her to leave his island—he wanted it equally as much as he wished for his own salvation. For were the two not linked?
But he also had to admit his curiosity, a weakness he tried not to indulge often. He found it impossible to believe there were, in fact, real witches roaming the world, so he was anxious to hear more about these witches Isobella claimed to know. And it was necessary to discuss it with her, if only to show her why she should wipe any witchly experiences from her memory, to never admit them again, so she might not suffer from her association with them.
So, that night, after Vespers, he lingered. She noticed and backed away from him, wary. He’d been training her up to be distrustful, had he not? So her close attention was good for the most part. But at the moment, he wished she would trust him.
“Isobella,” he began.
“‘Tis Isobelle,” she snapped.
“In truth?”
“Aye.”
“Why did you not tell me before?” He was almost hurt by the omission, like she’d been lying to him.
“My name was the only thing I still had that was mine alone.” She faced the window and clutched the bars. “I shouldn’t have told ye.” The last, he imagined she had not intended to say aloud.
“Forgive me, Isobelle.” He took the edge of his long bench and dragged it toward him, then swung it around to face the gate. He gestured toward the end of her bed. “Sit. Please. Let us converse for a while. Night is a while away yet. Will you pass the time with me?”
She cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes. Eventually, she gave a single nod, then she moved to the far end of her bed and sat sideways, facing him. He tried not to dwell on the arrangement of her legs beneath the white skirts. She caught him raising his eyes from those skirts and gave a slight shake of her head in warning. There might not be another soul on the island of Venice who would suspect him capable of carnal thoughts, but she did. Of course she could not have heard the rumors that he himself had started, that he was unable to perform as other men. But it was only a rumor, and a rumor he doubted she would have believed, especially after the look they’d exchanged in the boat, and those moments against the wall.
There was also a chance she had a talent for seeing people as clearly as he did, that she might also know when others were lying.
Such a talent would prove useful once she left the tower. She would need to know how to recognize those who might prove dangerous to her, so she could watch her tongue. But there was absolutely no one around whom she should not guard her words, even when she was alone. For if she’d been that careful before, he would have never heard the words witch or spell tumble from her lips at the abbey.
That was all he sought to teach her, in the end. To stay her tongue, to control her temper, and to play the fool so no one would see her as a danger that wanted removing. But that was a discussion for tomorrow. Today, he wanted to hear her tale.
“Tell me of your home.” He folded his arms and waited, wondering if she would tell him anything at all. And if she did, he may or may not believe what she said.
She tilted her head and considered him with narrow eyes. He could almost hear the debate in her head. Was her home something else she might hold tight to her? To keep him from knowing all there was to know about her?
“The Highlands of Scotland.” She shook her head. “I’d rather not specify, aye?”
He nodded. She had no reason to trust him with the lives of people she loved after what he’d already done to her.
“My brother is the laird of a clan. Monty, we call him.”
“Is he one of these good men of whom you speak, the kind who have no need to have dominion over women?”
She smiled. “Auch, nay. Monty dominates all other women in the clan.”
“Just not his sister?”
Her smile fled. “Just this sister. He managed to force Morna into an unwanted marriage.”
“Ah. Not uncommon for a leader to need alliances.”
She sat forward. “It was not needed. It was a punishment.”
Gaspar propped an elbow on a crossbar in the gate, then rested his chin in his palm. “Tell me.”
Isobelle sat back again, rested against the wall behind her, then pulled her blanket into her lap. She took a deep breath, then huffed it out.
“Morna fell in love with Monty’s bosom friend, Ivar. He was from Clan—” She caught herself before completing the name. “From a clan to the west, say. They were close as brothers. And one day, Monty found Morna and Ivar together. It broke his heart. He banned Ivar from our lands and sent Morna to marry the son of another chieftain. But Ivar and Morna were made for one another, like a rock broken in twain, then brought back together again. They fit perfectly in every manner, aye?”
He nodded, understanding too well how two people could fit together so well it made one wonder what God intended.
“I was desperate to aid them, aye? So I went to the witches for help.”
He could see the regret contorting her face and wished he could think of the perfect words to comfort her, but before he could, the regret was gone. Her chin rose, and when she looked his way again, there was a hardness in her eyes—a determined hardness—and he wondered if she were simply too proud to believe she’d made a mistake. It was a look he was getting used to, a look she would need to learn away before she could safely be released back into the world again.
“I went to Mhairi and Margot,” she continued. “Their clan is steeped in witches, aye? But mostly when they come in pairs. Sometimes not. But those old sisters visited our clan more often than my brother would like, and I was nay afraid of them.” She smiled. “They were pleased as puddin’ to help me. Said I needed only to create a token, a necklace or a brooch of metal, affixed with a bone from our clan and a bone from Ivar’s. I had the smithy’s young son help me and we ended with a torque. I spoke of it to no one else. There was no danger.”
Gaspar bit his tongue. Obviously, there had been danger, but to point it out would be to disrupt the moment.
Isobelle glanced at the window and closed her eyes and he couldn’t resist doing the same, to listen for a moment to the tide rolling onto his modest shore. Sometimes he felt a bit guilty for enjoying the sound as much as he did. He tried to disreg
ard the fact that Isobelle’s voice was equally as pleasurable.
“I took the torque to the sisters.” Her eyes were open again, her voice dreamy—an indulgence to which he would limit himself. “They cast a spell on it, that one day a faery would come and claim the piece, and this faery would bring Morna and Ivar together again. I only hope it comes soon, aye? While they’re still young and… and can enjoy…” She shrugged and took great interest in her fingers and after a long silence, he worried she had decided to end the tale there.
“How did the clergy discover you?” he asked. “Did your sister tell them? And were the old sisters tried as well?”
She shook her head. “Auch. Nay. Morna was glad for a bit of hope. As was Ivar. They’d have never said a word before it became a common tale. It was the smithy’s son. He couldna sleep for the guilt he felt, so he went to the kirk, to confess. Only it wasn’t our Father MacRae who was there to accept his confession that day. It was another. Someone who had no ken of the clan. Our Father MacRae would have known I was not a witch, knowing the sisters as he does. He would never have reported me to others. O’ course I canna blame the wee lad. I should have never sought his help. I only thought he might like a bit of excitement, ‘tis all.”
“So, what happened at the trial?”
“The bastard that came to try me only asked the boy to repeat his story. No one was allowed to speak for me. Then the jack-n-apes conferred with the two priests he’d brought along with him. They found me guilty and pronounced a sentence of death.”
“I must admit, I’ve never heard of a witch being buried alive. Is this something they do regularly in Scotland?”
“Nay. Nay. That was Monty’s doin’. He’s got a fine temper for a man with no red to his hair. And he would not allow the kirk to kill his sister, even if she was the troublesome sort most days. So he took advantage of the fact the bastard had only sentenced me to death, and announced to one and all that it would be up to him, as laird, to decide how I would die. He chose to bury me alive, for he thought he could dig up underneath the cairn and get me out.
