Eternity: Immortal Witches Book 1 (The Immortal Witches) (3 page)

“‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’” the priest quoted.

“‘Thou shalt not kill,”’ the young Scot—Duncan—replied. And he looked at me again. They’ve nay been tried.’’

“They were tried in the square by the magistrate himself.”

“It canna be legal.”

“His Honor’s own child is ill with the plague. Would you have us wait for the child to die?”

The young man’s gaze roamed my face, though he spoke to the old one. I felt the touch of those eyes as surely as if he caressed me with his gentle hands, instead of just his gaze.

“I would have us show mercy,” he said softly. “We’ve no proof these women have brought the plague.”

“And no proof they haven’t. Why take the risk? They are only witches.”

The beautiful man looked at the older one sharply. They are human creatures just as we are, Nathanial.” And he shook his head sadly. “What are their names?”

Their names are unfit for a man of the cloth to utter. If you so pity them, Duncan, ease your conscience by praying for their souls. For what good it might do.”

“‘Tis wrong,” Duncan declared urgently. “I’m sorry, Father, but I canna be party to this.”

“Then leave, Duncan Wallace!” The priest thrust out a gnarled finger, pointing to the steps.

Duncan hurried toward them, but he paused as he passed close to me. Then turned to face me, as if drawn by some unseen force. His hand rose, hesitated, then touched my hair, smoothing it away from my forehead. His thumb rubbed softly o’er my cheek, absorbing the moisture there. “Could I help you, mistress, believe me I would.”

“Should you try they would only kill you, as well.” My voice trembled as I spoke. “I beg you...Duncan....” His eyes shot to mine when I spoke his name, and I think he caught his breath. “Do not surrender your life in vain.”

He looked at me so intently it was as if he searched my very soul, and I thought I glimpsed a shimmer of tears in his eyes.

“I willna forget you,” he whispered, then shook his head, blinked, and continued, “In my prayers.”

“If there be memory in death, Duncan Wallace,” I said, speaking plainly, even boldly, for what had I to lose now? “I shall remember you always.”

He drew his fingertips across my cheek, and suddenly leaned close and pressed his lips to my forehead. Then he moved on, his black robes rustling as he hurried down the steps.

“Do you wish to confess your sins and beg the Lord’s forgiveness?” the old priest asked my mother.

I saw her lift her chin. “‘Tis you who ought to be begging your God’s forgiveness, sir. Not I.”

The priest glared at her, then turned to me. “And you?”

“I have done nothing wrong,” I said loudly. “My soul is far less stained than the soul of one who would hang an innocent and claim to do it in the name of God.’’ Then I looked down at the crowd below us. “And far less stained than the souls of those who would turn out to watch murder being done!”

The crowd of spectators went silent, and I saw Duncan stop in his tracks there on the ground below us. He turned slowly, looking up and straight into my eyes. “Nay,” he said, his voice firm. “‘Tis wrong, an’ I willna allow it!” Then suddenly he lunged forward, toward the steps again. But the guard at the bottom caught him in burly arms and flung him to the ground. A crowd closed around him as he tried to get up, and he was blocked from my view. I prayed they would not harm him.

“Be damned, then,” the old priest said, and he turned away.

The hangman came to place a hood over my mother’s head, but she flinched away from it. “Look upon my face as you kill me, if you have the courage.”

Snarling, the man tossed the hood to the floor and never offered one to me. He took his spot by the lever that would end our lives. And I looked below again to see Duncan there, Struggling while three large men held him fast. I had no idea what he thought he could do to prevent our deaths, but it was obvious he’d tried. Was still trying.

“‘Tis wrong! Dinna do this thing, Nathanial!” he shouted over and over, but his words fell on deaf ears.

“Take heart,” my mother whispered. “You will see him again. And know this, my darling. I love you.”

I turned to meet her loving eyes. And then the floor fell away from beneath my feet, and I plunged through it. I heard Duncan’s anguished cry. Then the rope reached its end, and there was a sudden painful snap in my neck that made my head explode and my vision turn red. And then no more. Only darkness.

Chapter 2

Duncan didn’t even know her name.

He didn’t even know her name.

And yet he felt as if he’d lost a treasured friend–more than that, even. ‘Twas as if a part of his own soul had just been brutally murdered in the town square.

Her surname, St. James, he’d heard that much muttered in the streets. More than that he did not know. Might never know.

“I tried,’’ he whispered. “God knows I tried.’’

He’d been moved beyond all reason, all logic, when he’d heard her strong, deep voice and the courage it held as it rang out over the spectators, shaming them as they should well be shamed. And he’d known then that he had to try. Though he had no idea now what he could have done, even had they let him pass. Even had he reached her again. Perhaps he’d been a bit mad.

Perhaps she truly was a witch and had cast some spell, some enchantment, o’er his heart there on the gallows. He didn’t know. He only knew that something had possessed him—some sudden, violent, desperate need to save her.

And that he’d failed.

She swung slowly from the end of a rope beside her mother, her life snuffed out far too soon. And he realized, by the cold dampness seeping through his robes and chilling his legs, that he knelt now, before the gallows. He seemed to have fallen right where he’d been standing when the trapdoor had jerked away from beneath the beautiful girl. And he remained there still, kneeling in the snow.

He got to his feet, but his legs felt weak and his chest hollow. Staggering forward, he snatched a blade from a local man’s belt as he passed the fellow. Ignoring the man’s outcry, he moved beneath the gallows, to gather the young woman’s body into his arms. He held her tight to him as he sawed at the rope until it gave way. Her weight fell upon him, head resting on his shoulder like a lover’s. Satin soft hair, snow damp and fragrant, brushed against his cheek. He closed his arms round her body and turned his face full into that hair to inhale it and to feel it and to commit it to memory—as well as to hide the inexplicable tears that welled up in his eyes. So warm, her face on his skin. So much as if she were only sleeping.

“What might you have been to me?” he asked her, his voice a strangled whisper. “What might we have been to each other?”

But he spoke to death, and death did not answer.

Though it makes no sense, lass, my heart is broken. I didna know you at all, an’ yet it feels so very much as if I did. As if I always have.” He rocked her in his arms, and a sob choked him. “Can you hear me? Are you out there, somewhere, listenin’, lass? I’ll give you a proper burial, I vow it. An’ your dear mother, too.”

He held her close, enveloped in a sadness he could not explain and a new certainty about the path he would walk in this life. And he owed her thanks for that, if nothing else, he realized.

A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder. “What sort of spectacle do you wish to make of yourself, boy?”

Duncan turned to see the murderer himself, Nathanial Dearborne, his own trusted mentor. “Do you ken what you've done this day?” he asked the man.

Nathanial’s eyes narrowed, and he signaled to someone with a flick of his wrist. Immediately three men rushed forward to tear the beauty from Duncan’s arms, as he cried out in protest. They bore her away, dumping her body on the back of a rickety wagon where her mother already lay. The man in the driver’s seat snapped the reins, and the wagon trundled away.

“Where are they takin’ her?” Duncan demanded, addressing Dearborne but keeping his gaze riveted to that wagon—to her—until it rounded a curve and disappeared from sight.

To the pit beyond the town. Best to get their kind as far from decent folk as possible, lad. You’ll understand one day. This was for the best.”

“‘Twas murder,” Duncan spat out, “an’ sin of the most vile sort!” He glared at the man now that the wagon was gone from his sight. “I canna continue under the tutelage of a man who would condone it. My studies end here, today, Nathanial. I want no part of your priesthood, for you’ve shown it to be one of purest evil.”

Nathanial’s cloudy blue eyes narrowed, but not in anger, and he didn’t shout “Blasphemy!” as Duncan had expected.

He simply said, “I’d hold my tongue, were I in your place, Duncan. You have no idea what sorts of forces you are dealing with.”

“I willna hold my tongue. I canna!”

Nathanial shook his head slowly. “You know the teachings of the Church. The elimination of witches is our duty as Christians, Duncan. ‘Tis imperative we wipe them from existence, rid the world of the scourge of witchery.”

Duncan searched the old man’s face. He’d been close to him once, thought of him almost as fondly as he did his own father. No more. “An’ what will you do next, Nathanial, when you’ve murdered them all? What will your next mission be? To rid the world of anyone else whose beliefs differ from your own?”

Nathanial smiled. “The Crusades attempted that and failed. I simply seek to do my duty, Duncan. And ‘twill be a service to all Christians if I succeed.”

“Nay,” Duncan said. “Not all.” And he turned from the man, feeling nothing now but loathing for him–a man he’d once thought to be closer to God than anyone he’d known. But Duncan realized now that Nathanial was nothing. Less than nothing. A killer who seemed to enjoy his work.

“Where are you going?” Nathanial demanded. “Do not turn your back on me, boy! Answer my question!”

With a glance over his shoulder and an awareness of the people looking on, listening in, Duncan replied. “I’m goin’ to gather my things, Nathanial. An’ then I’m goin’ to see those two women get a proper burial. After that, I only know I’ll be goin’ as far away from you an’ your kind as I can. You are no man of God, but a hypocrite an’ a killer, an’ I canna abide bein’ in the same village with you.”

Then he continued on his way without another word, hearing the gasps and whispers of the townspeople as he passed.

It surprised him when a hand fell upon his shoulder. Stopping in his tracks, he didn’t turn around. For he knew that gnarled old hand well.

“Duncan, wait,” Nathanial said. “Perhaps I was too harsh. ‘Tis obvious this morning’s work has distressed you. But there is truly no need to take such drastic measures. Surely you do not mean to leave here—”

“Aye, Nathanial, that I do.”

“You cannot!”

Frowning, Duncan turned. Nathanial composed himself, tempered his voice. “Duncan, you’ve been like a son to me. Believe me, boy, were this action not necessary, I’d never have—”

“But you did. ‘Tis done, Nathanial, an’ there’s no undoin’ it now.”

Lowering his head, Nathanial drew a breath. “I am ill, Duncan. Surely you know that.”

“Aye, I know it. I’ve seen you growin’ weaker by degrees, an’ wished to God I could do somethin’ about it, Nathanial. But I canna help you. An’ being ill, even facin’ death itself doesna give you the right to go about hangin’ innocents.”

“I had no choice.”

“An’ I have no choice now,” Duncan said. He turned away, having nothing more to say to the old man he’d once loved. But as he walked on, he heard Nathanial continue.

“‘Tis because of the girl, is it? This is her doing.”

Duncan kept walking.

“Damn her,” Nathanial cried. “Damn her, she’ll pay. I’ll make sure she pays!”

“She’s beyond your reach now, Nathanial.”

“Oh, do not be so sure of that, my boy,” Nathanial muttered.

Duncan turned then, to see the old man walking away. He did not know what Nathanial could have possibly meant by his words. But it did not matter. The lass was gone now. Dead, and Nathanial was as responsible as if he had pulled the lever himself. Duncan would never forgive the man.

He went to his stark room in the back of the church, to gather his meager possessions into a sack. He would never return here again; he’d meant what he’d said. This place had been his home for two years as he studied for the priesthood at Nathanial’s feet. But that was over now.

What he had seen today—and what he’d felt—had changed him forever. He sensed it deep inside, though he had no idea how this change would manifest. He only knew he had to leave.

He only knew that the strange beauty had touched him, touched his heart, his soul, and his life, and that he would feel that touch for a long, long time to come.

Slinging his sack over his shoulder, he walked out again into the streets. People whispered and pointed as he passed. He didn’t care. He would have liked a horse. It was a long walk to the place where they’d taken the girl and her mother. But he sensed it would be only the beginning of an even more distant journey. That the steps he took now were the first steps on the way to his destiny.

* * *

The darkness that descended on me when I reached the end of that rope was a temporary one.

I remember so clearly the sudden, desperate gasp I drew, the blinding flash of white light that stiffened my body and made me fling my head backward as I dragged in as much air as my lungs could contain. The rapidly fading pain in my neck and my head. And the shock I felt as I realized...I was still alive.

I was alive!

I blinked my eyes open and looked around me, and then my stomach lurched. ‘Twas daylight, morning. Still early, I guessed. I lay upon the ground with the bodies of the dead strewn around me. The bodies of hanged criminals, and those taken by the disease plaguing the area. This was the pit they’d dug for this purpose. Every so often men would come here with shovels to cover over the dead, and ready the place for another layer of victims of the plague and the gallows. But I was not dead.

I was not dead.

I sat up slow, gagging at the stench of rotting flesh, and looked around me, frantically searching for my mother. I’d had no idea her magic was strong enough to save us from the gallows, but it must have been, for I was alive, and she...she.... No. Oh, no!