“All we have to do is get past the crowd in the square,” said Kaetha.
“Hell’s teeth!” said Margaret.
“And how are we going to do that?” said Asrid.
Kaetha looked across at McDonn and his witch hunter, at their smug, self-important smiles. She reached out to Margaret and Asrid. “With courage,” she said, leading the group through the shocked gathering and out to the square.
As her eyes fell upon the mob, her heart leapt to her throat. Eyes glinted, faces twisted in wry smiles and grimaces. Those who crowded in on them had the look of hungry wolves.
“What’s going on?” shouted someone from the crowd.
“Which ones are for hanging?” asked another.
McDonn stood in the doorway, flanked by guards. “I would have filled the gallows for you,” he said, his deep voice resonating over the chatter of the crowd, “but strangers to our town have brought a legal document which binds my hands on this matter. The witches walk free in the light of day, despite the darkness of their crimes.”
A surge of angry voices filled the air. Kaetha held up the document. “The king’s decree allows them to choose exile,” she shouted, but trying to be heard over the crowd was like swimming against a forceful current. “They are allowed safe passage to the port, by order of King Svelrik. You cannot hurt them!” Spit hit her face and sprayed the document she carried as the crowd closed in on them.
Then shrill screams sent an icy shiver through her. A figure was slumped on the ground behind her, her long, grey hair spilled in wiry tangles around her contorted face, her hands, spotted with age, knuckles bulging, pressed into her belly, darkness spilling through her fingers, forming a puddle on the dirt beside a bloody knife. Kaetha pressed her hands onto the wound. She thought of Nannie as she looked into the old woman’s cut and bruised face. The woman stared into nothing, releasing a steady, last breath.
Whilst chaos churned through the crowd, a tiny movement on the ground caught Kaetha’s eye. A mouse. “We need protecting now, my friend,” she whispered. Then she rose to face the crowd. “Who did this?” she roared. “Whoever it was should hang for murder.”
“Death’s their due punishment,” said someone from the crowd. “I say if our thane can’t bring these people to justice, we must take things into our own hands!”
Kaetha spread her arms like wings to guide her group backwards as a number of people stepped towards them brandishing sticks and knives. Then a deep-throated snarl ripped through the air and Tam the wolf leapt between the crowd and Kaetha. Those bearing weapons stumbled backwards.
“If you let us go in peace, he will not hurt you!” shouted Kaetha. “But if my wolf sees that I or any of my friends are threatened, I will not be responsible for the lives he takes.”
“Go. Deal with that beast!” called McDonn to his guards.
Tam prowled, hackles raised, eyes fixed on the guards. One sword cleaved the air above him and he dodged it, sinking his jaws into the guard’s leg before circling to a defensive position again. The guard dropped his sword and hobbled away.
Kaetha led her group forwards, taking the ground that Tam had gained for them. However, the mob simply targeted the unguarded people at the back, hurling mud at first, then stones, and Kaetha was sure they would not stop there. So much power, she thought, feeling the force of anger and hatred from the people. It gripped and boiled and tore through the square.
A crow squawked as it flew from the gallows and Kaetha thought of the crow flying in the mountains, the energy of its cry redirected.
She broke away from the group and away from Tam’s protection.
“Where are you going?” shouted Mairi.
“She’s abandoning us,” said one of the released prisoners.
Kaetha raced up to the scaffold and climbed it, drawing the attention of those who weren’t fighting.
“People of Creagairde,” she called. “Listen to me!” More turned to face her. “These people are not your enemies. They are your healers. They are the ones who helped your mothers through their birth pains to bring you into this world. They are your neighbours, your friends, ordinary people who have worked and lived beside you. They are the ones you turn to when the physician’s ignorance makes your loved one’s illness worse. They just want to do good. They don’t have the power or desire to curse, to cast spells, they mean you no harm but there is someone here who does.” She heard her voice growing louder, stronger, as if it were a stranger’s voice. “Someone here has, year upon year, cursed you with poverty whilst he grows richer and richer. His spells are demands for unfair taxes, for rents that mean your children go to bed hungry. He bewitches you by saying that these innocent people – your own people – are the cause of your hardships, when it is he who is the cause.” She pointed an accusing hand at McDonn. “I ask you, what kind of witchcraft is more real than that?”
McDonn whispered something to Roy Macraith as people in the crowd responded to Kaetha’s words. ‘A broken arm I got, last time I couldn’t pay— My lad got ill because I couldn’t afford to feed him properly— He doesn’t care about the clanland, only himself— He taxes people until they’re forced to steal, then he cuts off their hands— Damn him and his thugs! McDonn can go to the devil!’
Though heartened by the swiftly kindled anger towards McDonn, Kaetha also felt a sickening dread as Roy Macraith swept towards her, robes billowing in the wind, a twisted smile on his
