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When the men went inside the house, Morainn debated whether to go or stay. So far luck had been with her and no one in the crowd had yet spotted her. When they did, however, she knew she could find herself in a lot of trouble. Someone who was already called a witch should not be caught so close to a place where a woman had been horribly murdered. Yet, curiosity held her in place. Some of that curiosity was of the morbid kind. Morainn wished to know what the men meant when they said Lady Isabella had been butchered. She sighed and waited for the two men to return, promising herself that she would slip away at the first sign of anyone seeing her or recognizing her.
Tormand looked at what was left of the once beautiful Isabella Redmond and wanted to flee the room. Her thick raven hair had been cut off and was scattered around her body, although he had a strong suspicion that it had not been cut off in this room. If it had been it had probably been done after she was dead. All his instincts told him, however, that it had been brought here along with her body, that a scene had been carefully set. As with Clara, Isabella’s face had been destroyed. The big green eyes Isabella had used so well in tempting men to her bed were in a small bowl on a table by the bed. Her soft, bountiful breasts had been slashed to ribbons. The horrendous wounds were too numerous to count and he wondered how many the poor woman had suffered through before death had freed her of the pain.
“This is worse,” murmured Simon. “Far worse. Either the killer hated Isabella far more than he hated Clara or he is verra angry that ye escaped his fine trap last time and havenae been hanged yet.”
“I but pray that so much wasnae done to her because Isabella took too long to die,” said Tormand, as he watched Simon begin to search the room for some sign the killer may have left behind.
“She was with child.”
“Ah, Jesu, nay. Nay.”
“I fear so. I hope William doesnae ken it or that the women who prepare her body dinnae see it and tell him. I think he would become near rabid with grief and rage.”
“And he will aim it all at me. I willnae ask how ye ken that she was with child.”
“Best if ye dinnae. Ye are already looking pale.”
“Do ye think the killer kenned it, that he might have been even more enraged by that?”
“’Tis possible.” Simon frowned at the floor near the window. “They brought her in through here.”
Tormand moved to Simon’s side and looked outside. An odd array of barrels and wood were piled against the side of the house forming an unsteady stairway. He could see the droplets of blood leading from the window down to the ground.
“So we now look for a strong, agile mon.”
“Strong certainly. He doesnae need to be agile, just lucky.”
“Do we fetch the hounds again?”
“In a wee while,” replied Simon. “As soon as Sir William is too busy to see what we are about.”
“Afraid he will want to join us in the hunt?”
“Him and most of the other fools gathered in front of this house.”
Tormand grimaced and nodded. The fools would turn it into a loud, crowded hunt. If the killer were anywhere near at hand, he would be warned in plenty of time to flee the area. It was very doubtful that the killer was still around, but if the man was fool enough to want to watch the reactions to his crime, Tormand did not want a crowd screaming for retribution to make him go into hiding.
Just as he was about to ask Simon if he had found anything else in the room, he heard the sounds of the crowd outside begin to grow loud. “What do ye think is stirring them up?”
“I dinnae ken,” replied Simon as he started out of the room, “but I doubt it is good.”
“Look ye there! Isnae that the Ross witch?”
Morainn was abruptly pulled from her wandering thoughts about Tormand Murray by that sharp cry. She felt a chill flee down her spine as she slowly turned toward the crowd. She saw Old Ide, the midwife, pointing one dirty, gnarled finger her way and her unease began to change to fear. Old Ide hated her, just as she had hated her mother, for she saw her as competition. Whenever she could, the older woman tried to cause trouble for Morainn. This was not a good time or place to meet with her enemy.
“What are ye doing here, witch?”
A soft cry escaped Morainn when Sir William grabbed her by the arm. She inwardly cursed herself as a fool. If she had not been so caught up in her thoughts about Sir Tormand, not all of them particularly chaste, she would have seen Old Ide in the crowd. That would have been enough to make Morainn leave. Ten years ago it had been Ide who had goaded the crowd into turning against Morainn’s mother. Now Morainn was trapped and she doubted any of these people were in the mood to listen to or heed her explanations or their own good sense.
“I was but caught up in the crowd,” she said, hiding her wince as Sir William tightened his grip.
“She has come because this is a place of death,” said Old Ide, as she pushed her way to the front of the crowd to glare at Morainn. “Her kind always comes to where there is death. They can smell it, ye ken.”
“Dinnae be even more of a fool than ye already are,” snapped Morainn.
“Fool am I? Hah, I say. Hah! I ken what ye are about, witch. Ye have come here to gather up the soul of that poor murdered lassie in there.”
Morainn was about to tell the woman that she was an idiot when the murmuring of the crowd caught her attention. Several people were actually nodding in agreement with Old Ide’s nonsense. There were not that many, but there were far more than she could ever escape from. If Ide did not shut up, Morainn feared there would soon be even more people ready to heed the woman’s lies. Morainn remembered all too well how easily a crowd could be stirred by Ide’s words into a dangerous mob. Ignoring the threat of Ide’s hatred was what had killed her mother.
“I was but trying to get home,” she said in what she prayed was a calm, soothing tone of voice.
“Ye didnae need to stop here. Ye could have slipped around us. But, nay, here ye are, lurking in the shadows. I tell ye,” Ide yelled to the crowd, “she is after gathering that poor woman’s soul.”
She looked at Sir William, hoping to find an ally, but he was looking at her as though he believed she could do exactly as Old Ide claimed she could. “I am nay a witch and I am nay here to catch souls,” she said.
“Then why are ye e’en in town?” he demanded. “They banished ye, didnae they?”
“They may have tossed me out, Sir William, but nay one of them complains when I come to heal them or spend what little coin I have in their shops.”
“That still doesnae explain why ye were hiding here, lurking about in the shadows near my home.”
“And why dinnae ye ask all of them what they are doing here?” She glared at Old Ide. “Aye, why dinnae ye ask why they flock СКАЧАТЬ