Cate Tiernan - Origins

I turned to Diarmuid and sent him an urgent message: The man shows disrespect toward my mother! I wanted to say. Step forward and set him aright! But now he was watching the reverend, pretending not to understand me.

“So,” the minister went on, “it was no surprise when this young maiden came to me with proof that Rose MacEwan is a witch.” He gestured toward Siobhan. “Tell us what you know, please.”

Siobhan stepped forward, her long neck craning as she lifted her chin proudly. “She is a witch!” she said in a tinny voice. “I have witnessed her performing her craft.”

Although she was hardly convincing, she smiled gleefully.

I turned to Diarmuid, wondering what he thought of his betrothed now. Had he known that she was a backstabbing hypocrite?

Diarmuid’s face was pale, his blue eyes flashing with something I couldn’t determine. Surprise? Perhaps he hadn’t heard that Siobhan was my chief accuser.

Step forward and make her cease, I ordered him. You have the power to stop her. Don’t let this drag on!

But he didn’t seem to be receiving my messages. Where was his mind today?

“What have you seen Rose MacEwan doing?” Reverend Winthrop prodded Siobhan. “Remember what you told me?”

“Aye!” Siobhan answered. “I have seen her dancing in the woods at night! Dancing with the devil!”

Her words lashed out like the crack of a whip. How could she say that? Even if she hated me, did she not realize those words would be my death sentence? I pressed my hands to my hot cheeks, too afraid to respond, too frightened to cry.

The crowd gasped and murmured.

“Quiet, please!” the reverend shouted. “Let’s not waver from the point at hand. Did you or did you not see Rose MacEwan in her dance with Satan?” he asked Siobhan.

“I did!” she shouted. “And I can prove it.” She pointed a finger at me, hatred gleaming in her pale gray eyes. “Rose MacEwan is with child! She is carrying the devil’s spawn!”

I felt stung. How did she know I was with child? Had Diarmuid told her? It would have been a huge betrayal, something I could not believe of him. She must have found out some other way. But how?

The crowd was rumbling with speculation. Ma had collapsed onto Miller MacGreavy’s cart, and I saw Norn embrace her. I tried to catch Diarmuid’s eye, but he was blocked by one of the villagers, who was laughing heartily. Should I send him another tua labra , or was that a waste of time? Oh, Goddess, help me!

“Is it true, Dr. Wellington?” Reverend Winthrop asked the physician. “Is Rose MacEwan with child?”

Dr. Wellington stroked his bristly beard as if the answer lay there in the folds of his chin. “Well, aye, ’tis true.”

“My child is not the devil’s spawn,” I cried. “She is a healthy, human child with a father who will love her!”

“Liar!” Siobhan shouted. “There is no father! Rose MacEwan has lain with the devil. That is why her belly is swollen with his evil seed!”

Reverend Winthrop made the sign of the cross, and those standing closest to me took a step back, as if my evil could spread to them.

“There is a father for my child!” I insisted. “He is among us now.” I dared not name him, for fear that the crowd would turn on him, too. The answer had to come from him; Diarmuid had to be the one to stand up and lay claim to me as his future bride and mother of his child. By doing so he could turn this scandalous dilemma into something honorable in the eyes of the Christians, who at least believed in redemption.

I glanced toward him, beseeching him, but he did not move. What was he waiting for? I need you — now! It’s time for you to save me. Denounce Siobhan’s lie. Claim me as your own true love and lover.

“A father among us?” Reverend Winthrop said tartly. He glanced over his shoulders at the men in the crowd. “All right, then. Let the father of Rose MacEwan’s child step forward. What human among us has lain with this woman?”

I looked at Diarmuid, begging him to act now.

But he would not meet my glance. It was as if he were cast in stone, a useless pillar of rock.

Please! I thought, beseeching him with every fiber of my being. Please. they’re going to kill me and our baby!

But he did not move.

“Oh, Goddess,” I mumbled under my breath. “Let it not be. He is choosing her! He is choosing her over me!”

“Just as I suspected.” The reverend shook his head, eyeing me with mock sadness. “There is no father, is there?” His eyes glittered with malice.

“There is!” I insisted.

I wanted to protest, but my throat had gone dry.

Going over to a horse trough, Reverend Winthrop pushed back the sleeves of his gown, making a show of washing his hands. “I wash my hands of the matter of your redemption. I do believe you are guilty as charged.”

“Aye, she is guilty!” someone cried.

“Guilty! Guilty!” The cry became a chant taken up by the villagers around me.

I felt myself collapsing against the hitching post, my hands hugging my belly. I couldn’t let them hurt my babe. But how could I stop the swell of hatred that raged out of control?

“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”

Strong arms clamped around me. I felt myself being lifted, then dragged off through the crowd. Villagers stared at me, their eyes full of scorn or pity or curiosity. One woman snatched her children away and tucked them behind her skirts, as if I would harm them. How wrong she was. Didn’t she know I would defend any child, especially my own, to the ends of time?

“Another useless Wodebayne to the gallows,” I heard a Vykrothe man mutter just loud enough for me to hear. “ ’Tis no loss for us.”

Is that what all of this had boiled down to? Hatred and prejudice? I wondered, but my thoughts were clouded with pain and confusion.

“At last she’ll be getting what she deserves,” said a familiar voice.

I glanced up to see Siobhan sidling up to Diarmuid, a smug expression on her face. Beside her Diarmuid stood staring at the ground.

Not man enough to defend me! I wanted to say, but the words were caught in the painful lump lodged in my throat.

I dug my heels into the ground, making the guards halt for a moment. “Mark my words, Siobhan,” I told her, my voice cracking with emotion. “Your evil will come back to you threefold!”

“Begone!” she said, waggling her fingers at me like a sprite. “You’ll not harm me again.”

Without thought I was upon her, grabbing and scraping in an attempt to shatter her silly composure. I felt my nails dig into her skin, scratching the side of her cheek.

“Aaah!” she yelped. “The witch has attacked me again!”

The men quickly yanked me off her, but before they dragged me away, I had the satisfaction of seeing her sad little pout, along with a trickle of blood running down her graceful neck.

That is the neck that should be snapped at the gallows! I wanted to scream. She had tried to kill my mother, had she not? The urge to send dealan-dé her way was strong, and it took all my restraint to control myself as the men took me off to my tiny prison.

My cell was actually the springhouse behind a villager’s cottage. The roof was made of leaky straw thatching, but the mud-plastered stone walls prevented my escape. Tossed onto the dirt floor there, I curled into a ball and thought of Diarmuid, my heart truly breaking. What had happened to the power of our love?

He had said that I was destined for great things—to become high priestess! And he knew the Goddess’s plan for our union—that together we could unite all the clans!

But no. The path to redemption had been crossed by Siobhan, and Diarmuid had succumbed to her. He had failed me, failed us, failed our child.