“Have faith in all of us,” Padraic said.
She nodded.
Rowan turned to lead them. Padraic and Gareth each took a side next to Kyleigh.
They walked down the stairs and through the great hall of the main tower and on out to the courtyard.
Hundreds of people had gathered there; Rowan had called them forth.
As Kyleigh appeared, a soft rumbling went up.
Then cries of, “Witch! She must die!”
“She will kill us all!”
“A traitor in our midst!”
Rowan walked up the few steps to the old Roman podium and lifted a hand.
“Good people, you are mistaken.”
A rumbling went up again.
“She can turn into a hare!” someone said.
“A hare did not cause the explosion and damage. There is someone among who is not what they seem, perhaps. But that someone in not Kyleigh of the Village. I ask you to think on this. What evil would start such a rumor? Kyleigh was with me. By darkness, we went within the trees to watch our enemy’s movements. We were not in the fortress when the explosion occurred.”
“A witch can cause damage from afar!” someone shouted.
“So, it has been said. But Kyleigh was raised by good people in the village; she saved the village. In battle here, she saved the lives of many. She helped cause the vast damage of the weapons of war the enemy brought against us.”
“A ruse!”
Kyleigh heard someone murmur the words, but she did not know who.
Yet this time, a chant did not begin. People were heeding Rowan’s words.
“Think on this, good people!” Rowan said, and his voice seemed amplified and strong by the very stone of the fortress walls. “What is part of our best defense? What magic has so often been for good? The enemy would love to see us weakened. And thus, place fear in someone’s mind! Make them fear what they have that is so strong! The enemy would love for us to lose Kyleigh’s magic. It stands strongly against the enemy; and therefore, who would better benefit from her loss than Brogan and his men?”
A murmuring went up, but this time, those who spoke were noting Rowan was right. Brogan would benefit greatly from her loss.
Unless, of course, she was working for him, but...
The people were talking now in disbelief.
She walked up to stand by Rowan, uninvited, but determined.
“I swear on the love I bear those who acted as my father and mother, by the Christian God, by the people I have known and cared for all my life, I am innocent of any ill against being within this fortress or any human being or creature living within these walls. I have never travelled from the village or the area of this fortress. I have never seen the man, Brogan, unless as he sat his horse far distant as his men fell and died for him. I knew nothing of this magic until Brogan’s men tried to kill Alistair; I discovered it only then. And before the Christian God and any gods of this earth, I swear I am innocent of any such charge against me. You know me! Many of you have known me since I was nothing but a babe.”
Gareth was suddenly up beside her, and he pointed out into the crowd.
“Anne! She caught and prepared many meals for you, cared for you when you were ill. You! Samuel. She came each day to bandage your wounds when you were attacked by the boar. All of you—what is the matter with you?” He turned to one of the Celts. “She has defended you—I saw her parry a blow that wound have severed you in two while we were on the battlefield. Kyleigh has magic, yes, but she is no witch. Whoever started this loathsome lie is Brogan’s beast.”
“Where did this lie begin?” Rowan demanded.
It did not help; people began to point at one another. Someone had heard it from someone, and that someone claimed to have heard it from someone else.
Padraic spoke up. “We Celts will not believe or bow to such horrid words! And any who wish to continue with this farce shall meet up with a mighty resistance and a sharp sword!”
It almost appeared as if the men championing her had practiced their next move just as they practiced archery—Rowan, Padraic, and Gareth raised their swords at the same time, as one.
“We will look to the true cause of the explosion and fire!” Rowan shouted. “And by God, we will find the truth! Back to work, people, for an enemy lies not far from our great gate, and they are hoping that we, like Rome, fall from within!”
A murmur went up again as the crowd dispersed.
Padraic stepped from the podium and offered Kyleigh a hand to help her down. She accepted it as Gareth and Rowan also stepped down.
“Thank you,” she said simply, looking from one man to another.
“I said you must have faith,” Rowan said. But he looked at them, not with victory, but with worry and spoke again.
“There is a traitor among our people. That traitor, I believe, started this lie. There is no truer path to destruction of the greatest empire—or fortress—than to see it falls from within. I do not believe this will stop here. The enemy seeks to destroy Kyleigh. And the enemy is within.”
Chapter 10
Mary held Kyleigh tightly, her powder blue eyes soft with concern.
“I was so frightened for you!” she said. “Magic...it is a blessing and a terrible curse. And people! They are so easily led. If you speak to one man, he is logical. If you speak to several, it is as if they become of one mind, as if each must believe something that is not true because if others believe it is true, then it must be. And each man picks and chooses what he will and will not believe, who he will and will not believe...and so, it goes!”
“Mary, I am all right. Rowan, Padraic, and our newly knighted Gareth all stood up for me, and because of that those men you speak of may think differently.”
“Still, I am afraid. When something becomes set in the minds of some, it is difficult at best to dislodge.”
“We are—human,” Kyleigh said. “But I will be all right.”
She and Mary spoke as once again, Mary was busy with a giant pot and food preparation. Today, there would be fish soup.
Kyleigh smiled and pointed to where the smithy was under repair. Rowan was there working with the men—farmers, knights, warriors, smiths, all. Gareth was there as well while Padraic was near them, working with the Celts and Col, who was teaching them Roman “turtle” methods with their shields and other maneuvers that the Britons—and the mixed invaders who had become part of their people—had long been using.
“I do feel I am protected,” she told Mary.
Mary nodded, but still did not look happy. “What man can be with you day and night? And what man can sway the mind of another when that mind has been set?”
“Mary, I do believe more people think I am innocent than not,” Kyleigh said firmly.
“I pray!” Mary said, making the sign of the cross over her small chest.
“Thank you. All prayers are appreciated.”
“You are my daughter,” Mary said.
“And I have been grateful to have you as my mother,” Kyleigh told her. “And no man could have been a better father than Alistair.”
“Indeed, he did well! For my dear child, you could be quite a bit to manage!” Mary declared, smiling. Then her smile faded. “I wish I did not worry so.”
“We will come out of this,” Kyleigh said. “I believe it with my heart and mind!”
She took bowls of food and hurried across the courtyard. Rowan had seen to it that everyone in the fortress—the villagers, local farmers, and the Celts—all had pallets within a tower to sleep on through the night. But by day, the injured and those unable to work in any capacity sat against the walls, seeking the activity around them and the sun when it chose to peak through.
She delivered many bowls of food.
Kyleigh was startled when she brought a bowl to one old woman she did not know, who came from of the farms near the north side of the fortress, and the bowl was knocked from her hand. The woman looked at her as if she were Satan himself in the
flesh.
“I will touch nothing that has been in your hands, girl! Nothing. You have men, foolish, lusting men, convinced you are a sweet and innocent lass! I know better—I know Satan can don a mask and he can wait his time.” She wagged a finger at Kyleigh. “I know the truth! You cannot hide it from me with a face and body to lure men!”
“Are you then the one who started this horrid lie about me?” Kyleigh asked her. She held her temper; the woman’s words had been so foolish. Maybe she had spent too much time with Father Peter who had enjoyed learning so much in the great monasteries. The devil did not inhabit people, not according to Father Peter. But he had studied books and religions from so many places, near and far, and many so exotic.
“Wait, girl, wait. For the day will come when your mask is gone, and all will see the truth of what you are!” the woman said dourly, still pointing a finger at Kyleigh—as if her finger could pinpoint a witch or demon and even defend her from one.
Kyleigh was tempted—so tempted—to tell the woman that, indeed, she was Satan. And that the old woman had now marked herself, and Kyleigh/Satan would be back, ready to seize upon her body and soul and take her down in to the fires of hell, and once there skin her inch by inch as she burned.
She did not speak. She turned around.
Fine, the woman could starve.
She almost walked straight into Padraic.
“Now, lass, I do admire your control,” he said. “You gave her nothing, and I did not have to drag you away!”
“Ah, good that you were there,” Kyleigh told him. “For that control nearly slipped. Padraic! Who could have said this first? Who could believe it? Well, many believed it. I still have such difficulty believing this. People wanted me executed! Burned, beheaded, tortured...I have done nothing to merit such a horrible end or to hurt anyone who seeks such an end for me!”
“Kyleigh, don’t you see? Rowan is right,” Padraic told her. “Brogan is behind this.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “I know not. I worried it might have been one of my people. We are mixed, too, but there is a belief a witch might appear as a hare. But among our tribes, they think little of magic and witches. A witch may be good and have healing power, so accusing one of being a witch among my people does not mean someone is evil.”
“Even here, women who heal are sometimes thought of as witches,” Kyleigh murmured. “But it is not being a witch...it is they believe I could have threatened my own people and caused the explosion at the smithy.”
“It will pass; do as you always did, despite the vile hatred the old woman cast upon you. Rowan talked sense into most. And we will discover the truth,” he vowed softly.
“We must!”
He smiled, taking her by the arm and walking her toward the rear of the courtyard, in the direction of the riverside moat, away from much of the activity.
“Where are we going? What are we doing?” she asked.
And as the words left her, she was suddenly afraid.
What if Padraic’s friendship was feigned?
He was her brother.
That did not matter. They had grown up as different people in different places. And maybe there had been a long simmering hatred those of the north had felt for the south since the days when the Romans had built their wall.
Maybe he meant to get her away from Rowan and Gareth and any who would defend her!
“Where are we going?” he repeated lightly. “Well, if you were to ask Father Peter...well, if not careful, we shall all be heading to hell!”
***
“Rowan!”
He was hammering a peg into a joint when he heard Matthew calling to him from the walk atop the wall.
Rowan handed over his work to one of the nearby men and hurried out to the clearing in the courtyard to look up at Matthew.
“A rider! A ride with a white flag!” Matthew called.
“Brogan sent a rider with a white flag?”
“Aye! He drags something behind him, but I know not what,” Matthew said.
Rowan took the steps two at a time up to the top of the wall. He looked out and saw that Matthew had spoken true; a rider came with a large white flag, a sign of surrender, so said Father Peter, since 69 A.D.
White wool was common; a plain flag could easily be seen against the many crests of the different lords and lairds who might be engaged in battle.
But Brogan would never seek a truce; he had made his intent plain.
He meant to kill.
Any such movement came as a trick.
The lone rider was brave; he approached the walls of the fortress at a lope, stopping out far from the moat, but in easy reach of experienced archers. He wore a helmet and a metal breastplate that was etched with Brogan’s crest, a snarling wolf upon a crest.
“I seek Lord Rowan of Kenzie!” the rider called.
Rowan shouted down from the wall.
“I am Rowan, Lord of Kenzie. Why have you come?”
“I deliver unto you a gift. And a warning. Brogan wants the witch you hold returned to him. She is his, and he will have her back.”
“Brogan is a liar.”
“The gift I bring will be given again—and again. Brogan wants the witch. We have more gifts. And you will not like the manner of the gifts. We have a few. So, they will come again, until she is given unto Brogan.”
“So, Brogan will go away if he is given my sorceress? How can that be true when his will is known by all—he wishes all of us to be dead and rotting, eh?” Rowan asked.
“There is death. And there is death,” the rider said. He ran the horse in a circle, leaving something in a burlap bag at his last lap.
Rowan looked at the shape.
He had delivered a human being.
Rowan knew it had to be a man. One of his people, or perhaps one of the Celts. They had, in their retreat, taken some of the injured they had found along with their own.
But not to care for them.
He feared the “gift” was going to be a cruel one.
“Remember, more will come,” the rider warned.
More would come.
But not from that rider. Rowan turned to hurry along the wall and call out an order; Padraic was there, waiting silently behind him.
“Get your best archer; I do not want him dead. I want him injured and down.”
Padraic nodded. Rowan saw the man had a bow himself—ready to be fired. He moved to the wall and took aim.
His arrow sailed.
Just as Rowan had asked, he hit the man in the shoulder. The force of the arrow and the pain of the injury caused the rider to jerk back, the horse to rear, and the rider to fall.
“Lower the bridge!” Rowan ordered.
He was down the stairs himself quickly and saw Col and Matthew racing after him. He crossed the drawbridge and ran out onto the field.
“The horse!” he called to Col and Matthew.
Together they calmed the frightened animal before it could bolt and head back to the forest. Rowan went for the injured man, heedless of his screaming or the protrusion of the arrow. Col brought the horse and Rowan threw their prisoner over his back.
He left Col to lead the horse across the drawbridge and went for the “gift” himself, a bundle wrapped in filthy linen.
And it was a man. With the drawbridge down, he took no time to see what had been done to him or who it might be. He hefted the cold, stiff bundle that had been a human life over his shoulders and raced back the best he could with the weight.
The drawbridge was raised as he leapt onto it, almost falling under the weight of the dead man he carried.
A crowd was forming in the courtyard; people had heard, of course.
He walked through the people there. They fell back, silent. He carried the dead man to the main tower and set him down before the hearth. There, he took a minute to breathe.
Col, Padraic, and Matthew burst in there, dragging their prisoner with them.
Now minus his helmet, b
leeding profusely, he did not appear to be so arrogant. But he blustered out in fury, “I came with a white flag—”
“And the corpse of a man tortured unto death,” Rowan said.
“Brogan will expect—”
“He may expect what he will!” Rowan snapped. “What will change? He wishes to kill every Briton, Angle, Frisian, Pict, Caledonian—every man, woman, and child living on this island. What will change?”
“See your gift! I told you—there is death, and there is death!” the man shouted, before letting out a scream as Col shoved him into one of the large wooden chairs by the hearth.
“That is rather a pity for you, is it not?” Rowan asked.
“If you would kill me, do it,” the man cried.
Man. He was not much more than a boy, Rowan thought. He had not seen twenty years. He was clean shaven with long sand-colored hair and light eyes that were beginning to show true fear.
“I am not Brogan. I am not going to kill you. Unless you force me to do so,” Rowan said.
He could see Col and Matthew both frowned; Col arched an eyebrow.
Padraic, however, knew the man was more useful alive than dead.
Rowan hunkered down in front of him and asked politely, “Do you wish to live?”
“I will die; the arrow is in me. I am bleeding—”
“I can stop that. The question is...do you want to live?”
The fellow tried for a minute to be stalwart and brace. Then he cried out in a sob, “Yes, I want to live!”
Rowan stood and walked over to the hearth, kneeling then to rip the shredded linen from the corpse. He heard Padraic make a soft noise in his throat and knew the man had been one of his Celts.
He had been skinned, the whole of his body except for his head and face.
Rowan prayed he had been dead long before the savage work on his body had been done. He could see a gash on his ribcage; he had been severely injured. And still, he might have lived to feel the pain of what was then done to him.
His prisoner cried out, “I did not do that. I was ordered to bring him to you as you see him. I have a loud voice. Brogan knew it would carry to the wall.”
Daughter of Darkness & Light Page 16
