Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [252]
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After an exceedingly restless night, I was roused soon after dawn and marched back out to the square, though the judges didn’t arrive for another hour.
Fine, fat, and full of breakfast, they buckled straight down to work. Jeff turned to John MacRae, who had returned to his station behind the accused.
“We find ourselves unable to determine guilt solely on the basis of the evidence presented.” There was a burst of outrage from the regathered crowd, which had made its own determination, but this was quelled by Mutt, who turned a pair of eyes like gimlets on the young workmen in the front row, quieting their yapping like dogs doused with cold water. Order restored, he turned his angular face back to the locksman.
“Conduct the prisoners to the loch side, if ye please.” There was a pleased sound of expectation at this that roused all my worst suspicions. John MacRae took me by one arm and Geilie by the other, to steer us along, but he had plenty of help. Vicious hands tore at my gown, pinching and pushing as I was yanked along. Some idiot had a drum, and was beating out a ragged tattoo. The crowd was chanting in a rough rhythm to the tuck of the drum, something that I didn’t catch among the random shouts and cries. I didn’t think I wanted to know what they were saying.
The procession flowed down the meadow to the edge of the loch, where a small wooden quay projected into the water. We were pulled out to the end of this, where the two judges had taken up their posts, one at either side of the quay. Jeff turned to the crowd waiting onshore.
“Bring out the cords!” There was a general mutter and expectant looking around from one to another, until someone ran up hastily with a length of thin rope. MacRae took it and approached me rather hesitantly. He stole a glance at the examiners, though, which seemed to harden his resolve.
“Please be so kind as to remove your shoon, Ma’am,” he ordered.
“What the he—, what for?” I demanded, crossing my arms.
He blinked, plainly unprepared for resistance, but one of the judges forestalled his reply.
“ ’Tis the proper procedure for trial by water. The suspected witch shall have the right thumb bound by a cord of hemp to the great toe of the left foot. Likewise, the left thumb shall be bound to the right great toe. And then…” He cast an eloquent glance at the waters of the loch. Two fishermen stood barefooted in the mud of the shore, trews rolled above their knees and tied with twine. Grinning insinuatingly at me, one of them picked up a small stone and heaved it out across the steely surface. It skipped once and sank.
“Upon entering the water,” the short judge chimed in, “a guilty witch will float, as the purity of the water rejects her tainted person. An innocent woman will sink.”
“So I’ve the choice of being condemned as a witch or being found innocent but drowned, have I?” I snapped. “No thank you!” I hugged my elbows harder, trying to still the shiver that seemed to have become a permanent part of my flesh.
The short judge puffed himself up like a threatened toad.
“You’ll nae speak before this court without leave, woman! Do ye dare to refuse lawful examination?”
“Do I dare refuse to be drowned? Too right I do!” Too late I caught sight of Geilie, frantically shaking her head, so that the fair hair swirled around her face.
The judge turned to MacRae.
“Strip her and skelp her,” he said flatly.
Through a daze of disbelief, I heard a collective inhalation, presumably of shocked dismay—in truth, of anticipatory enjoyment. And I realized just what hate really meant. Not theirs. Mine.
They didn’t bother taking me back to the village square. So far as I was now concerned, I had little left to lose, and I didn’t make it easy for them.
Rough hands jerked me forward, yanking at the edges of blouse and bodice.
“Let go of me, you bloody lout!” I yelled, and kicked one man-handler squarely where it would do most good. He crumpled with a groan, but his doubled form was quickly lost in a boiling eruption of shouting, spitting, glaring faces. More hands seized my arms and hustled