The Bedeviled Heart (The Highland Heather and Hearts Scottish Romance Series) (32 page)

Quitting Edinburgh castle with a host of the queen’s men under his command, he ordered them to search for Mar and Kate, leaving no stone unturned.

Striding down the streets of Edinburgh himself, he questioned all who crossed his path. But it was not long before he discovered the fear of witches running rampant through the town. With a growing alarm, he made his way to the Mercat Cross next to St. Giles Cathedral, and found posted on its stones the proclamation accusing Mar of witchcraft.

With a curse, Cameron tore the parchment down.

In a bold script, the words named Mar a warlock, presiding over a coven of witches with the purpose to practice the black arts against the king. And under Mar’s name ran a list of others, men and women, with two scheduled for execution on the morrow.

James himself had signed and sealed the proclamation.

Cameron cursed again.

The man had truly gone mad if he would allow the burning of his own subjects over Thomas’ lies. With such short notice, it would be difficult to defy the king and stop the executions, but he had to try.

Cameron ordered a contingent of his men to search the Tolbooth prison immediately, for any sign of Mar and Kate, while the others continued to gather information from the streets of Edinburgh. After seeing them on their way, Cameron hastily returned to the castle to speak with the queen and her advisors, pleading with them to defy the king’s order and stop the executions. They discussed the matter long into the night, crafting letters to the king and his advisors begging them to put an end to the madness, but they all knew it would take time, longer than some of the prisoners had left to live.

In the early hours before dawn, Cameron was once again searching the streets, and as soft colors painted the sky, he questioned the local innkeepers and halted travelers along their way, seeking any clue that might lead him to Mar and Kate.

It was then, that one of his men found him.

“Tidings, my lord!” the man gasped, holding onto his knees to catch his breath. “A lad waits for us at the Mercat Cross. With his own eyes, he saw Mar led into a house with a red door, and he’ll show us the way.”

Drawing his cloak about him, Cameron followed his man with great haste, clutching Kate’s bloodstained bodice close to his heart and vowing soundlessly, “I will find ye, Kate, stay strong.”

As promised, the lad awaited them, and in short order, Cameron and his men stood in front of the house with the red door. Raising his sword, his men followed suit, and they burst into the house, and swarmed up the steps.

The skirmish was short-lived.

Thomas’ men were too few and lacked the will to fight. Laying down their weapons almost at once, the men knelt and pointed to a door in the corner of the room.

Still brandishing his sword, Cameron crossed the chamber in two strides and kicked the door back with his foot.

The interior room was dark, lit only by a single taper and the dull glow of a dying fire. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to see a tall, cowled monk clad in coarse woolen robes hovering over a wooden bathtub filled with water.

And next to him stood Thomas Cochrane, pale and shaking.

With a red tide of anger rising to possess him, Cameron found himself in front of the man, clutching his throat and demanding in a chill, deadly voice, “Where is Kate? What have ye done with her?”

A weak, gurgling sound from the tub interrupted him.

Glancing down, Cameron saw Mar lying silent, still, in a strangely dark water with an overwhelming odor.

“My lord, he … he was ill with a fever!” Thomas began to explain in a trembling voice. “The monks bled him, to save his life!”

With eyes widening in alarm, Cameron shoved Thomas back. “What have ye done!”

Ach, it was the stench of blood that met his nostrils!

His heart leapt into his throat.

Mar lay in his own blood.

“No!” Cameron cried. Bodily lifting Mar out of the water, he heaved him over the edge of the tub, collapsing with him onto the floor.

But one look at the man’s white face signaled it was too late.

Desperately, Cameron sought to staunch the bleeding gashes on Mar’s wrists and legs, all the while crying out for his men to assist him and beseeching under his breath, “Mar! Not like this! Not like this!”

And then Mar’s lashes quivered feebly, and his marble lips formed his name, “Cameron.”

With tears in his eyes, Cameron leaned down, placing his ear close to the man’s trembling mouth.

“Promise … me…” Mar breathed in slow, rasping words. “Save James, Cameron. Promise me … that ye’ll save James.”

Cameron closed his eyes.

“Save … James,” Mar repeated, dropping his eyes to see his own blood pooling on the chamber floor. He lifted his lashes again to look upon Cameron in stunned disbelief. “James … didna do this, Cameron. Save … him.”

And then with a last frail breath, his chest moved no more.

For several moments, Cameron stared in shock at the lifeless form of the prince lying in his arms, and then, rising swiftly to his feet, he struck Thomas a mighty blow across the face.

The man fell down, but after some groveling, regained his feet.

“I’ll see ye hanged when this is over!” Cameron vowed, grabbing the man’s arm and dragging him roughly into the adjoining room. “But tell me first and I’ll ask ye only once. What have ye done to Kate? Where is she?”

Thomas swallowed.

With anger raging in his veins, Cameron pulled him to the table, kicking a chair out of his way and sweeping the cups off to clear its surface.

Forcing Thomas’ hand down upon it, he spoke in a cold, measured tone, “Then know ye this, Thomas. Your life depends on Kate’s. And this scar will ever remind ye of that fact.”

With a single, swift motion, he drew his dagger and plunged it through Thomas’ hand, pinning it to the table.

Thomas screamed in agony and the blood drained from his face. “She’s at the Tolbooth Prison, to be burnt as a witch!”

Cameron’s eyes flooded with alarm.

“We searched the Tolbooth, my lord,” one of his men inserted quickly.

Cameron’s eyes narrowed at Thomas. “Think ye to lie to me?” he hissed, twisting the blade still embedded in Thomas’ hand.

The man screamed again, licking his lips nervously. “I swear, my lord, I swear I am speaking the truth. ‘Tis a secret cell. I will take ye there myself!”

“Then do so, at once!” Cameron all but roared the order.

Wrenching his dagger free, he grasped Thomas by the neck, shoved him down the stairs and out into the secluded close.

Drawing his sword, he warned the man, “I will not hesitate to smite your worthless head from your shoulders, should ye think to escape me! Now give wings to your feet!”

With his hand leaving a trail of blood, Thomas began to run, and Cameron swiftly followed.

Black clouds of smoke billowed over the rooftops as they approached the Tolbooth Prison. A frenzied mob of trouble causers and malcontents had gathered outside, armed with stones and sticks.

Screams rent the air.

The burnings had already begun.

Not allowing himself to think, Cameron forced his way to the front to behold a sight that would sicken him the remainder of his days. He closed his eyes, relieved the two victims were clearly men, even as their screams burned through his soul.

It did not last long. As the flames rose to consume them, he turned, his eyes sweeping over the bloodthirsty crowd with revulsion before dropping a contemptuous gaze upon Thomas. “What manner of devil are ye?”

Shoving the man through the mob, they finally stood on the steps of the Tolbooth Prison, and then Thomas led them to the secret cell.

Pushing open the iron and oaken door, Cameron burst inside the cell, crying, “Kate!”

The cell was empty.

Chapter Fourteen - Skye

Kate had not slept from the moment she arrived at the Tolbooth Prison. No sooner had she collapsed on the sour straw than two guards entered the cell. Lifting her up, they escorted her to a small chamber where a middle-aged man with thick lips, slanted eyes, and a bulging belly sat at a writing desk. He held a long, feathered quill in his hand.

“Are ye Kate Ferguson?” he mumbled, spitting a little as he talked.

Kate grimaced. The persistent pain at the back of her head had dulled, but it was still strangely difficult to think.

“Are ye struck dumb?” The man lifted a bored brow.

“She’s Kate Ferguson,” one of the guards answered on her behalf.

The man at the desk grunted, “Witnesses?”

“Maura McKinney, your lordship,” Maura said, stepping from the shadows. “I’ve come to offer my testimony, your lordship.”

Scratching his scalp with the tip of his quill, the man yawned. “Swear ye’ll tell the truth, lass.”

Picking up an ivory cross from the desktop, he held it out to Maura and watched apathetically as she knelt and kissed it reverently. He then tossed it back on the desk in a careless gesture.

Dipping his quill in the inkpot, he ordered, “Ach, be quick. I’ve two witches more for which to pen testament this night!”

“I swear upon my soul’s salvation that I witnessed Kate conspiring with the warlock, John Stewart, Earl of Mar,” Maura replied in a hurried, rehearsed manner. “I saw them dancing about a wax figure of the king, roasting it with the intent to cause his majesty harm, and suspending it above a cauldron of boiling water to melt its feet so his majesty would suffer difficulty and—”

The man held up a hand signaling Maura to wait as his quill scratched furiously across the parchment. Then he asked, “Dolls? How many?”

“I saw three, your lordship!” Maura curtsied, her blue eyes round and earnest. “They were making many, your lordship, and devising many tortures to heap upon them to hasten his majesty’s demise. Kate bedecked the dolls with thread from his majesty’s robes and locks of his own hair.”

Kate frowned in confusion. ‘Twas Maura who had made the doll. Dimly, she wondered if she should mention it.

The man’s head bobbed up and down as he continued writing. Finally, he gave a nod of satisfaction. “’Tis duly noted, lass. ‘Tis enough—”

But Maura was not finished yet. Licking her lips, she added, “Aye, and Kate called the Devil’s minions last fall to curse her own village with a plague. She alone did not suffer, and when the good folk sought to cast her out, she cursed the harvest as well!”

Kate stared numbly at the woman. Plague? She had lost her own mother and wee sister, Joan, in that illness. Ach, her father still suffered from it! Or had. The memory of his death rose in her mind, but she was oddly unable to weep.

She scarcely heard Maura continue.

“And she practiced her accursed ways in Stirling, taking coin from good womenfolk for potions of love but giving them malicious ones in their stead that caused them to break out in a pox and to lose their hair!”

Lifting his quill from the page, the man glanced at Maura with a snort of impatience. “Ach, ‘tis mischief only and not a crime worthy of death as the others! Hie ye off, lass.” With a frown, he waved her away and motioned to the guards. “Bring the next witch!”

The guards opened the door and brought in a shriveled, wizened old woman. She shuffled past Kate with her aged face resigned as though she had accepted her fate. And as Kate was led away, someone stepped forward and accused the woman of conspiring with Mar against the king in exchange for the promise of perpetual youth.

It was only after the men had shoved Kate into her dark cell, closing the door behind her, that she felt a vague sense of alarm. Sinking to her knees, she buried her face in her arms.

What was happening?

She began to shake, and her forehead beaded with sweat.

Threads of light from the flickering torches of the passageway filtered through the tiny window in the iron and oak door.

She did not know how long she sat there, watching the shadows play across the rancid straw on the floor. It could have been hours or minutes, before a weak shaft of gray light fell through a small window high on the cold, stone wall behind her, and the door to her cell creaked slowly open.

“Kate!” Maura’s voice snaked into the room. “Ach, Kate! Ye must be quick afore we are caught!”

Kate blinked slowly.

“Ach, have ye truly gone mad?” Maura’s tone wavered between fear and disgust.

Cold fingers closed around Kate’s wrist, tugging her to her feet, and then a hand delivered a stinging slap across her cheek.

“Kate! I’ve not the time for this now! We must run afore they burn us both as witches!”

With a great effort, Kate focused her eyes on Maura’s frightened blue ones.

Pressing her lips in a tight thin line, Maura’s nostrils flared. “We’ve only a moment afore the guards return! Come!”

She didn’t wait for Kate to reply. Yanking her by the forearm, Maura pulled her out of the cell and down the corridor, hurrying through a large, rank-smelling chamber with a group of women huddled in one corner opposite a man fettered in chains.