CHAPTER 5

Adira's mother paused on those steps and looked back at her, and caught her gaze, and sent a silent message to her. 'Dignity.' She mouthed the words, then. And Adira stopped fighting and tried to imitate her mother's courage, her dignity, as she was marched up the steps to stand beside her, beneath a dangling noose. Someone lowered the rough rope around Adira's neck and pulled it tight, and she struggled to be brave and strong, as her mother had told her so often that she was. But knew she was trembling visibly, despite the warmth of the morning sun on her back, and she could not stop her tears.

That priest whose touch had jolted her so much stood on the platform as well, old and stern-faced, his eyes all but gleaming beneath their film of ill health as he stared at her... as if in some kind of anticipation. Beside him stood another man who also wore the robes of a priest. This one was very young, Adira observed, almost her age or perhaps a few years elder to her. In his eyes, she did not observe any joy, nor eagerness. Only horror, pure and undisguised, Adira observed. The younger priest's eyes were brown, and they met hers and held them. She stared back at him, and he did not look away, but in fact held her gaze, searching her eyes while his own registered surprise, confusion. She felt something indefinable pass between them. Something that had no place there, amid this violence and hatred. It was as if they touched, but did so without touching each other, a feeling of warmth flowed between him and her, a feeling so real that it was almost palpable. Adira knew he felt it, too, by the slight widening of his eyes.

Then his gaze broke away as he turned to the older priest and said, "Nicholas, surely this is no way to serve the Lord."

The elderly priest whispered in a shallow voice. "You are young, Brother Damien. And therefore no doubt, this seems harsh to you."

"What it seems like to me, Father Nicholas Davenport is murder," Damien said to him.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," Father Nicholas quoted.

"Thou shalt not kill," the young Scot; Damien replied. He then looked again at Adira. "They have not been put on trial, too."

"They have been tried in the square by the magistrate himself," Father Nicholas replied.

"The hanging cannot be legal," Damien argued.

"The honorable Magistrate's own child is ill with the plague. Would you have us wait for the child to die?" Father Davenport asked Damien.

The young man's gaze roamed Adira's face, though he spoke to the old priest. She felt the touch of those eyes as surely as if he had caressed her with his gentle hands, instead of just his gaze.

"I think I would have us show mercy," Damien said softly. "We have no proof that these women have brought the plague."

"And we also have no proof that they have not. Why take the risk? They are only witches," Father Davenport said.

The young man looked at the older one sharply. "They are human creatures just as we are, Nicholas." He then shook his head sadly. "What are their names?"

"Their names are unfit for a man intending to be a priest to utter. If you so much pity them, Damien, ease your conscience by praying for their souls. For what good it might do," Father Nicholas said.

"This is wrong," Damien declared urgently. "I am sorry, Father, but I cannot be a party to this murder."

"Then leave, Damien Walter!" The priest stuck out a contorted finger, pointing to the steps.

Damien hurried toward the step, but he paused as he passed close to Adira. Then he turned to face her as if drawn by some unseen force. His hand rose, hesitated, then touched her hair, smoothing it away from her forehead. His thumb rubbed softly over her cheek, absorbing the moisture there. "If I had any powers, I would surely have helped you, believe me, I would."

"Should you try they would only have killed you, as well, with us." Adira's voice trembled as she spoke. "I beg you...Damien..." His eyes shot to hers when she spoke his name, she noticed that he caught his breath. "Do not surrender your life in vain."

He looked at her so intently it was as if at that moment he searched her very soul, and she thought she glimpsed a shimmer of tears in his eyes.

"I will not forget you," he whispered, then shook his head, blinked, and continued, "in my prayers."

"If there is memory in death, Damien Walter," Adira said, speaking plainly, even boldly, for what had she to lose now? "I shall remember you always."

He drew his fingertips across her cheek, and suddenly leaned close and pressed his lips to her forehead. Then he moved on, his black robes rustling as he hurried down the steps.

"Do you wish to confess your sins and beg the Lord's forgiveness?" the old priest asked Adira's mother.

Adira saw her mother lift her chin, and said, "It is you who ought to be begging your god's forgiveness, sir. Not me."

The priest glared at her mother, then turned to her. "And you?"

"I have done nothing wrong," Adira said loudly. "My soul is far less stained than the soul of the one who is going to hang an innocent and claim to do it in the name of God." She then looked down at the crowd gathered below them. "And far less stained than the souls of those who would turn out to watch murder being perpetrated.

The crowd of spectators went silent, and Adira saw Damien stop in his tracks there on the ground below them. He then turned slowly, looking up and straight into her eyes. "No," he said, his voice firm. "It is wrong, and I will not allow it!" Then suddenly he surged forward, toward the step again. But the guard at the bottom caught him in brawny arms and flung him to the ground. A crowd closed around him as he tried to get up, and he was blocked from her view. She prayed that they would not harm him.

"Be damned, then," the old priest said to Adira, and he turned away.

The hangman came to place a hood over her mother's head, but she flinched away from it. "Look upon my face as you kill me if you have the courage."

Growling, the man tossed the hood to the floor and did not offer one to Adira. He took his spot by the lever that would end their lives. And she looked below again to see Damien there, struggling while three large men held him tight. Adira had no idea what he thought he could do to prevent their deaths, but it was obvious he had tried. He was still trying.

"It is wrong! Do not do this thing, Nicholas!" he shouted over and over. But his words fell on deaf ears.

"Take heart," her mother whispered. "You will see him again. And know this, my darling, that I love you."

Adira turned to meet her loving eyes. And then the floor fell away from beneath her feet, and she plunged through it. She heard Damien's anguished cry. Then the rope reached its end, and there was a sudden painful snap in her neck that made her head explode and her vision turned red. And then no more. Only darkness.