The dim, dark gray of a cold mist lay over the houses. From all directions in the fog came voices calling, asking, and answering, and someone lit a rush light, spreading a meager glow. They saw excited faces in the pool of light, and black silhouettes against it.
“The witch is gone!” cried Gillies. “The Hole is still locked up tight, but she’s nowhere inside. I tried the padlock. It didn’t budge.”
“But I have the key!” exclaimed Black Ewan, reaching for it and holding it up.
“She’s walked through the stone,” guessed Horse.
“She’s been snatched off to hell,” suggested Little Ian. A wild babble ensued, and it was impossible to learn anything from the result.
All that foggy day, the town was like an overturned hive. The men strode resolutely out into the swirling gray gloom and were swallowed up in it, calling to each other as they lost their bearings. The dogs found Lady Mary’s trail and followed it out of the castle to the loch shore, but no one found the tiniest sign of the witch. She had evidently walked right into the lake. The Water Horse had taken her home.
That night Father Mac sat by the weaver’s peat fire. “It went well,” he told them, “in spite of the weather. Your key worked nicely.” He nodded at Paul. “I took Little Ian’s fishing boat and rowed her across the loch. Then I brought back the boat and swilled it with water to put off the dogs.
“Getting home across the loch was a bit of a trick. The fog was solid by then, and not a breath stirred; the water was like black glass. I thought I’d never get across. I thought I was rowing in circles. She’s with a friend of mine, and he’ll see that she’s safe. You’d best keep this for a few days, James,” he added, taking out the key. “Hide it somewhere till Colin goes out on his next trip around the settlements. Then he can take it with him and melt it down.
“She cried and cried, poor thing,” he said sadly. “She cried the whole time. She said it wasn’t the hanging, it was the torture she couldn’t bear. She said she’d seen what torture did, how it changed people into animals, and she was so afraid of that happening to her.”
“When has Lady Mary seen torture?” wondered Maddie.
“I didn’t ask her,” said the priest, “but I have an idea. That book Black Ewan handed me had a name in it. It used to belong to a brilliant scholar from a well-known family, quite a rising star among the clergy when I was young, and the darling of the university until his ideas became too wild. Then there was a scandal, and they investigated him, and he fled to the Continent. Shortly afterward, he was burned at the stake for heresy.
“Lady Mary would have been a young woman then, and she must have been part of the clergy-man’s scandal. She probably followed him to Europe and saw what happened to him. She couldn’t have come back to the city after such behavior; her family wouldn’t have taken her in. The new lord’s wife was probably the only friend she had left.”
Maddie stared into the fire, remembering the look in Lady Mary’s eyes when she had mentioned burning. That haunted, desolate look. No wonder Lady Mary had kept so much to herself and had had so little patience with God and neighbor.
The townspeople were frightened and dismayed by their witch’s disappearance. No one wanted to mention Lady Mary by name—that might be unlucky—but no one could think of anything else, either. She might know who had taken her sewing kit or who had kept her silver necklace. Perhaps she would come to their hearths at night and draw a fatal charm in the ashes. Or she might have managed to escape to the new lord and told him what had happened to all that valuable furniture. He might take Lady Mary’s part against them because they had acted so rashly and not consulted him first.
A feeling of melancholy settled over the town, leaving its people surly and out of sorts. They were like a man waking up after a drinking binge, a little afraid of what had been done, and resentful about the fear. Most resentful of all was Black Ewan. He stalked about his work looking like a thundercloud, and the people knew his temper well enough to leave him alone. All but one, that is.
“Hey!” called Ned as the farmer passed. The Traveler and Mad Angus were at work mending the earthen dyke under the watchful eye of Horse. During the year, it had slumped in spots, and Mad Angus was industriously shoveling it back up again, his whole front covered in mud.
“Hey! I hear you got a witch you can’t lay a hand on,” jeered the Traveler. “You people make me laugh, the whole lot of you sent on a dance by one little woman.”
“Maybe you know something about it,” said the farmer, although he knew it was highly unlikely.
“Maybe I do,” retorted the old man with a grin. “Maybe I saw you let her out with that great big key, and kiss her good-bye, too.”
“You filthy liar,” growled Black Ewan, grabbing him by the tunic and shaking him like a dog. “Threshing’s over and done. It’s time I dealt with you.”
“You can’t deal with a woman, how you going to deal with me?” taunted Ned. “Take more than you to scare me. Wish I’d let her out. I’d have did it to see the stupid look on your face.”
“You lying, murdering drunkard!” shouted Black Ewan. “That witch got away from me, but you won’t. We’ll lock you in the Hole tonight to see if the hell-fiends let you out. And tomorrow morning, I’m going to kill you.”
Horse climbed to his feet and stared at his master, and Gillies came over the dyke, his spade in his hand. Ned rubbed his whiskered chin thoughtfully, a twinkle in his faded eyes.
“What do you say to that?” demanded the enraged farmer.
“Wish I had my staff,” responded the old man. “I’d whip you proper, you yapping pup.”
Word spread like wildfire through the town that the Traveler was to be killed at dawn.
“You’ll not let him die like that,” Maddie challenged her family, but no one spoke in reply. Her father was winding yarn onto his shuttles. Her mother was stirring up the fire. Paul stood by the door with his back to the rest of them. She hadn’t seen his face since they’d heard.
“You can’t mean you’ll leave that poor man to die!” she insisted. “He doesn’t have to. You have the key.”
“Maddie, that’s a secret,” said her mother. “You’re not to talk of it.” So many secrets. Maddie was sick of them.
“Black Ewan’s no fool,” said her father seriously. “He thinks someone can get into the Hole, and he’s watching for it. If that key is found, there’ll be more than one death. Paul here will be the next to go.”
“But there has to be a way,” Maddie protested miserably. “Ned’s important. Paul needs him.”
The young carver turned around and looked at her, a warning glittering in his eyes. Maddie felt the sting of it, and a lump rose in her throat. She wrapped her blanket around herself and ran past him out into the rain.
“Father Mac!” she called at the door of his little cottage, and the priest looked up and waved her in. “They won’t do anything for Ned,” she exclaimed, warming up before the hearth. “Paul and my dad, they won’t help him because Dad says Black E wan will be waiting for them.”
Father Mac sat for a short time in silence. “Your father’s right,” he said finally. “Black Ewan’s probably hoping we’ll be fool enough to try again.”
“But Ned doesn’t deserve to die!” she protested. “He’s just like Lady Mary.”
“No, young Madeleine, you’re wrong,” replied the priest. “Ned really did what he’s accused of. He beat a child, and he almost killed him. Men have died for less.”
“He had to!” insisted Maddie.
“And why’s that?” asked Father Mac. But Maddie remembered the look in Paul’s eyes. She couldn’t tell him.
“So you’ll not do anything, either?” she demanded fiercely. “You’re letting him die, too.”
“Here’s something the young don’t think of,” answered the priest. “We all of us have to die. This life is just a test to see w hat sort of person you’ll be, whether you’ll be honest and faithful or wicked and mean. The hardships
that come with it are part of the test, and at the end of it, we die. Folk worry about that overmuch. They can’t see beyond the grave. But there’s a life beyond this one, the life that we prepare for ourselves while we’re here.”
“Then I’m minded Black Ewan is preparing a hot one,” snapped Maddie. “First Lady Mary, and now this. It’s cruel to send an old man to his death.”
“I’m worried about Black Ewan myself,” sighed the priest. “Tell the truth, I’m more worried for him than for Ned. Don’t take it so hard, lass. There’s all kinds of ways to die, and we each of us face one of them sooner or later.”
Maddie left the priest’s cottage meekly enough, but she was in no way resigned to letting Ned die. She knew where her father had put the key, and she resolved to rescue the Traveler alone. That afternoon, she walked to the castle to see him, right past Gillies and Black Ewan, who were standing guard outside. She knelt down by the Hole and looked in.
It was dark by the trapdoor of the little prison, and pitch-black inside it. Ned’s face appeared below the barred grate, ghostly in the dim light.
“Evening, miss,” said the old man just as cheerfully as if he weren’t condemned to die.
“Evening, Ned,” replied Maddie in a low voice. “Is anyone in there with you?”
Ned rubbed his bristly chin. “Couple of rats, maybe,” he guessed. “Couple of louse, maybe. Why?”
“I can get you out of here,” she announced excitedly. “I’m meaning to set you free.”
“So you’re the one that done it?” He chuckled. “I might have knowed it was you, you got a hand in every pie roundabouts. Well, it ain’t like springing a trap this time. Old meddle is watching. Best save your kind works for the poor and leave me where I be.”
“But I can’t!” said Maddie urgently. She hadn’t expected resistance from this quarter. “You have to escape! Paul needs you. You can’t let him down.”
The old man scratched his dirty tunic and stared at the walls of his cell. He said nothing for a long time.
“I was away when my boy was bit,” he began, as if talking to himself. “Away working the harvest for my own lord. I come home to find my wife and babies died and my boy mortal sick. The folk of him that done it, they took us in with them, and we traveled together for years. They learned me how to manage my boy. What to do and where to go. There’s hidden places all over this land—old, old places. Places with a chain to them for to chain up the wolf when it’s time. That’s what we did, we travels up and we travels down, following the ways, visiting the places. That’s how a wolf’s got to live.
“I watched my boy so sick, I watched him change, the life leak out of him drop by drop. I was just as keen as you be, I was going to save him. I was going to cure my boy. Everywhere we go, I’d find the wise and the weird, the saints and the witch hags, and I asked them all. What do I do? How do I do it? What’s the cure for his bite? I learned it, too, at long last, and a hard road behind, but it’s when I learned that the road got really hard. Because I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t work the cure. It was too much for me.”
So there was a cure! Maddie tensed in excitement, but the old man was still speaking. She held her breath to stop herself from interrupting him.
“My boy was a man now, a man with no man’s life. Month after month I watched him change, and I done nothing about it. I took to drink beforehand to give me courage for the cure, and I took to drink after because I always hadn’t done it, and I took to drink most times because I didn’t want to see his eyes, my wife’s blue eyes with that hunted look in them.” He paused, and Maddie remembered the hunted look in Paul’s eyes. No matter what he was doing, it never went away.
“Well, one time I go to drink,” continued Ned, “and I say, This time is it. But I drank too much this time. I’m drunk, and I fell asleep. My boy got loose because I wasn’t by to help. When I seen that chain empty on the ground, I sat right down and cried. But you know, I didn’t go out after him. I stayed right where I be. It was the one safe place that night, you know, the one place where he wouldn’t come back to.
“In the morning I found my boy crying over his dead, and we, both of us, we knew he can’t live after that, not with what he seen and what he done. Me, I didn’t want to live, neither, it’s all my fault, you know. I let him down, let down my boy, all those years I knew what to do, and I never, ever done it. But me, I had to live, I had the young lad now to think on. I had to learn him the ways, same as was done for me. So we leave my boy and burn the place, and I looked after the lad.” His voice became harsh and final. “But curing him, oh, no, that’s never been my aim! Not if I ain’t done it for my own boy.”
“There’s a cure!” exclaimed Maddie, interrupting at last. “What is it? Tell me! I have to know!”
The Traveler studied her in the dim light. “You have to, do you?” he said dryly. “Ready to go old Ned one better? There ain’t nobody you wouldn’t save.”
“Tell me,” she pleaded. “I want to help him. How can I cure him?”
“It’s simple,” he said in a low voice. “No trick to it. Anyone can do it. You wait till he’s changed. Then you give yourself over to the wolf, all of your own free will. You walk right up so he can tear you apart and kill you and eat you. That’s all you got to do.”
Maddie stared at him with her mouth open. She couldn’t even speak.
“And that’s what I never done, God help me,” he whispered. “Not to save my own poor boy. You let me be, now, young missy, with your saving and your curing. I don’t want to be saved. I done the best I can by the lad, and you’ll take care of him now. That meddling farmer, he’s detestable and all, but he ain’t really mean. He’ll make it quick for me tomorrow, and me, I’m glad to go.”
Maddie didn’t realize she was crying until she was back outside the castle. She stood in the rain by the loch shore and cried and cried, and she didn’t care that the men were watching.
12
Father Mac stayed that night down by the Hole. Black Ewan was keeping watch, and he complained about it.
“Stop singing songs!” he said irritably. “You sound like a catfight, and I don’t see what that has to do with preparing a soul for death.”
“Ah, lad,” rumbled the big priest cheerfully, “just you hope there’s someone to sing with you when your time comes.”
Early next morning, the townspeople gathered outside the castle. The older ones remembered the dawn executions of former years, when their chief had lived there with his family and warriors. Maddie was too young. She didn’t remember the busy times, when the castle was a place of power. She knew only the quiet little settlement that had remained when the fight for the land was over.
Black Ewan went into the castle with his three farmhands while the quiet crowd waited outside. They heard the grinding and clanking of the trapdoor and then indistinct voices within. After a time, the farmer reappeared, his execution finished. His men dragged the body of Ned out behind him.
Father Mac emerged, too, and he walked over to Maddie and her parents.
“He made a good end,” said the priest in a low voice. “He confessed his sins and had the Last Rites of the Church. That’s something to think of, young Madeleine. The best thing we can do in life is be ready for our own death.”
Maddie wasn’t listening to this consoling speech. She was staring at the castle doorway. A wide track of blood crossed the stone threshold. It matched the brown smear she had seen in her dream.
“Hey, now!” called out the priest. “That’s not necessary!”
At work over the sprawled body, Black Ewan didn’t reply. He was hacking the head off the old Traveler. Horse and Gillies brought up a long ladder and leaned it against the castle where a thick beam jutted from the wall overhead. The farmer tied a knot in Ned’s greasy gray hair, climbed the rungs, and hung the head from a hook on the bottom of the beam.
“I protest!” said Father Mac indignantly. “This isn’t a legal execution, and we don’t need that kind of pagan
display.”
Black Ewan climbed back down the ladder and looked up to study his handiwork. What the head meant to him he couldn’t exactly say, but he felt a deep satisfaction at the sight. His distant ancestors had returned from battle with such heads slung about their necks and belts, convinced that they owned the souls of those dead enemies.
Mouth and eyes open, the head of the old man stared vacantly out over the crowd. It swayed in the breeze and turned a little, hanging from its knotted hair. Blood rimmed the dark neck and dripped sluggishly to the ground. Watching those drops soak into the earth, Maddie felt decidedly ill. Whenever they passed that place, the townspeople scuffed a cross into the dirt with a toe. She herself had done it since she was a small child. Now she finally understood the reason. Human blood fell there and had fallen there many, many times before. As long as the castle had stood, heads had hung from that beam and dripped onto the cross-marked ground.
A loud cry rose from behind them, like the bellow of a cow that had lost her calf. The whole crowd turned around to see. Mad Angus shuffled forward, bleating and wailing. Tears ran into the madman’s filthy beard as he lifted the corpse of his comrade in chains. He sank down onto the ground to cradle it, howling with grief.
There, you see what you’ve done with your meddling, thought Maddie angrily. She looked around for Black Ewan, but the farmer was already walking away with his men. Father Mac stepped forward instead.
“Come along, Angus,” he said to the weeping giant. “Let’s get him buried as well as we can.”
While the rest of the town followed their priest away to the churchyard, Paul returned to Maddie’s house. She lingered outside to wait for him. The young man emerged carrying a sack and a small carving of the Madonna.
“You’ll give this to your mother for me, won’t you?” he asked, handing the carving to her.
“You’re leaving!” she gasped. He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked away. Maddie hurried after him.