Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [249]
Entertaining as this all was, I could see Mutt becoming rather restive. Professional jealousy, perhaps.
“Er, your Reverence,” the judge said, with a slight bow in Father Bain’s direction, “have ye evidence to bring as to the charge regarding these women?”
“That I have.” The first explosion of oratory spent, the little priest was calm now. He leveled a menacing forefinger in my direction and I had to brace myself to keep from taking a step backward.
“At noonday on a Tuesday, two weeks past, I met this woman in the gardens of Castle Leoch. Using unnatural powers, she called down a pack of hounds upon me, such that I fell before them, and was in mortal peril. Bein’ wounded grievously in the leg, I made to leave her presence. The woman tried to lure me wi’ her sinfulness, to go awa’ in private with her, and when I resisted her wiles, she cast a curse upon me.”
“What bloody nonsense!” I said indignantly. “That’s the most ridiculous exaggeration I’ve ever heard!”
Father Bain’s eye, dark and glittering as with fever, swiveled from the examiners and fixed on me.
“Do ye deny, woman, that ye said these words to me? ‘Come with me now, priest, or your wound shall fester and go putrid’?”
“Well, tone it down a bit, but something to that effect, perhaps,” I admitted.
Jaw clenched in triumph, the priest whipped aside the skirts of his soutane. A bandage stained with dried blood and wet with yellow pus encircled his thigh. The pale flesh of the leg puffed above and below the bandage, with ominous red streaks extending up from the hidden wound.
“Jesus Christ, man!” I said, shocked at the sight. “You’ve got blood poisoning. You need it tended, and right now, or you’ll die!”
There was a deep murmur of shock from the crowd. Even Mutt and Jeff seemed a bit stunned.
Father Bain shook his head slowly.
“You hear?” he demanded. “The temerity of the woman kens nae bounds. She curses me wi’ death, a man of God, before the judgment seat of the kirk itself!”
The excited murmuring of the crowd grew louder. Father Bain spoke again, raising his voice slightly in order to be heard over the noise.
“I leave ye, gentlemen, wi’ the judgment o’ your own senses, and the injunction o’ the Lord—‘Ye shallna suffer a witch to live!’ ”
* * *
Father Bain’s dramatic evidence put a stop to the testimony. Presumably no one was prepared to top that performance. The judges called a short recess and were brought refreshments from the inn. No such amenities were forthcoming for the accused.
I braced myself and pulled experimentally against my bonds. The leather of the straps creaked a bit, but didn’t give an inch. This, I thought cynically, trying to still my panic, was surely where the dashing young hero was meant to ride through the crowd, beating back the cringing townspeople and scooping the fainting heroine up onto his saddle.
But my own dashing young hero was out in the forest somewhere, swilling ale with an aging poofter of noble blood and slaughtering innocent deer. It was rather unlikely, I thought, gritting my teeth, that Jamie would return in time even to gather up my ashes for ceremonial disposal, before I was scattered to the four winds.
Preoccupied with my growing fear, I didn’t at first hear the hoofbeats. It was only as the faint murmurs and head-turnings of the crowd attracted my attention that I noticed the rhythmic clopping, ringing from the stones of the High Street.
The murmurs of surprise grew louder, and the fringes of the crowd began to draw apart to admit the rider, still beyond the range of my sight. Despite my earlier despair, I began to feel a faint flicker of illogical hope. What if Jamie had come back early? Perhaps the Duke’s advances had been too pressing, or the