Page 38 of A Temptress in Tartan

The guards forced Lachlan forward. It took everything inside him to keep on walking despite the betrayal that racked his soul and knotted every muscle. The king had broken the sacred oath he and his brothers had taken when they’d become the king’s Magnificent Seven.

Lachlan had been abandoned and left to the devices of others who would see that he was not only accused of witchcraft, but that he would suffer for that supposed crime as well. He was undone.

And yet, he had learned time and again in the heart of battle, that just when he thought all was lost, something would come along and remake him. Help him turn the tide. Help him win the day.

’Twas what he needed now. Someone or something to intervene—to cast a glimmer of light into the darkness. As though compelled by a force outside himself, he looked back over his shoulder and into Elizabeth’s face.

Have faith, she mouthed the words to him. I am with you.

He continued to look at her until they dragged him through the doorway, cutting off his view. Even so, hope sprang to life within him. A bright burning flame that caught, flared, and grew. If Elizabeth stood by him in his most urgent hour of need, then there was hope he could yet survive whatever ordeal came at the end of John Swinton’s needle.

Chapter Twelve

The guards took turns walking Lachlan back and forth across his small cell all through the night. The church had decreed that suspected witches and warlocks must be kept awake because during the hours of sleep, the Devil may easily enter their bodies and exert his power. The goal was to make the accused disoriented and confused so they might confess to their crimes more easily.

What the king or the church failed to consider was that as a warrior, Lachlan was used to long hours of wakefulness. One did not sleep when the enemy might attack. So, he plodded back and forth across the decaying, straw-strewn floor, enduring it all, for he knew this was not the worst of the challenges ahead of him.

When the tolbooth clock chimed eight times, the guards finally left him alone. Weary, but not beaten, he settled upon the cold stone floor, waiting. Lachlan did not have to wait long until footsteps sounded in the hallway. He heard the door of his cell creak open. The aureole of light cast by a torch illuminated the eager face of John Swinton. The similarity of his features to those of his daughter left no doubt about who he might be. He was dressed in a mud-colored monk’s robe, complete with a rope belt tied about his ample belly. He shuffled into the chamber, giving Lachlan a better view of his soon-to-be torturer. His face was full, his lips hard, and his eyes studied Lachlan with cool objectivity. “Greetings of the day, m’laird. I am told you have been wicked among men and that it is up to me to uncover your sins.”

“I have not said I am without sin,” Lachlan clarified. “But what I am is no sorcerer. Your time with me shall be wasted, I fear.”

“I very much doubt that. For I have yet to let a witch slip through my grasp.” With a nod of his head, he instructed two guards to step forth and seize Lachlan. They escorted him out of the cell and down the long hallway until they came to a short staircase. The guards forced him down the stairs and into a stone chamber illuminated by a torch set into a sconce near the doorway. The only other light in the room came from a fire in the brazier at the far end of the chamber.

Eerie shadows crept over the contents of the room. But even in the low light, Lachlan could clearly make out a torture rack in the middle of the chamber.

“Help me.” The weak and pitiful sound of a woman’s voice jerked his attention to the left.

As his eyes adjusted to the low light, Lachlan saw that a young, blonde-haired woman sat upon a three-legged stool with her legs stretched before her and propped up by a slightly taller stool. Atop her legs were several iron bars that bit deep into her skin. Her back was flayed open from lashings as evidenced by the blood pooling on the floor beneath her. Listlessly, she turned her head toward Lachlan. His stomach pitched at the desperation in her eyes and the pain etched into every line of her weary face.

A moan sounded on his right. He turned toward the sound to see an older woman with gray hair, hanging from a hook in the ceiling with her arms tied behind her back. The woman’s head lolled forward as though she had suddenly fainted. Weights were tied to her ankles, no doubt to increase her pain.

At the sight of the women suffering, Lachlan tensed. He twisted violently, sending his manacled hands into the belly of first one guard who held him, then the other. Both released their grip on him as they struggled to right themselves. Before Swinton could react, Lachlan advanced, wrapping the chain of his bonds around Swinton’s neck and pulling him back against his own body.

The guards drew their swords, but stopped when Lachlan pulled the chains tighter until Swinton’s face turned red. “Release these women, or I will kill him,” Lachlan threatened.

Both guards looked to Swinton, who managed a small nod of his head. One guard removed the weight from the older woman’s legs before lowering her down from the ceiling. He deposited her on the floor where she shivered uncontrollably, then vomited. The other guard removed the iron bars from the blonde-haired girl. As he did, she screamed in pain as the feeling returned to her legs. She tried to stand, but instead fainted, collapsing on the floor.

“What . . . would you . . . have me do . . . with them now?” Swinton struggled to ask as the chains still cut into his flesh.

“I only want their suffering to end.”

“You’ve only hastened . . . their deaths . . . and yours.”

He had realized such the moment he acted, but he’d had to do something. “If you will not release them, then at least return them to their cells and give them something to eat and drink.”

Swinton nodded as much as the chains at his throat would allow. Obeying orders, the guards helped the women to stand and half-carried, half-dragged them from the chamber.

Lachlan knew he would never make it out of the tolbooth alive if he tried to use Swinton as his prisoner or as a shield when the guards who had left sent for reinforcements. The only option available to him in such a secure place and on his own was to release the man and let him continue. He had no doubt his impending torture would be extreme because of his own actions.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs as Lachlan released Swinton. Six guards flooded the chamber and took Lachlan to the ground. The stone floor slammed against his back.

“Strip him down and get him on the rack,” Swinton growled to the guards.

With little hope of fighting them off, Lachlan allowed the men to undress him. When they were done, they secured him to the rack at his feet and his waist. His manacled hands were brought up and tied over his head. He became chillingly aware of the cool, damp air that also carried the fetid odor of blood, urine, and death. Lachlan shivered.

Swinton smiled. “Not so brave now, are you?”

“I’ll not give you the satisfaction you seek.” Lachlan forced his features to harden and his body to tense. Swinton wanted his fear. He could see it in the man’s beady eyes.