The Last Quarrel (The Complete Edition) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Cavan snapped.
    The sergeant fished in his belt pouch and then reluctantly handed over a small scroll. Cavan glanced at it quickly. There was nothing to it: just a simple order to burn the Widow Eithne publicly for the crime of witchcraft. It had the King’s seal and he knew only too well the penalty for disobeying his father’s orders. Yet he could not stand by and let this woman be burned alive on the flimsiest evidence. Now the mystery around not being told what this ceremony was became clear. His father knew he would have found some excuse to avoid being there and he was needed to make it look good. The popular Prince Cavan would not burn an innocent woman, so she had to be a witch.
    But where had this all come from? He had not heard of children going missing, let alone of witchcraft. If a woman had magic, she hung a shingle outside her door and charged money for using it. There were a dozen such in Berry that he knew of. Witches were only tales to frighten children. A person without magic who gave their soul to the Dark God Zorva in exchange for power, power bought with blood. The more innocent the blood, the greater the power. He had listened to those tales with a delicious shiver of fear when he was a boy, never thinking they could ever come true. He looked over at the Widow Eithne. She was weeping, her arms wrapped around herself, rocking back and forth. Somehow he could not imagine a witch doing that.
    “Highness, we have to do something now,” Niall said urgently.
    Cavan looked up from the scroll to see the crowd surging forwards. He had been ignoring the shouts and screams but he could hear the anger and fear now and the guards had to work hard to keep the people back.
    “Highness, if she wasn’t a witch, why do they hate her so? The people know something,” Niall said persuasively.
    “Highness, she isn’t leaving this square alive. These people are not going to let her walk out of here. They’ll rip her apart – and us as well, if we try to stop them,” Eamon said, more calmly.
    “But I can’t stand by and let a woman die for no reason!”
    “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made,” Eamon said. “Something has happened and the people are terrified. If we don’t give them something, they will rip first Berry and then Gaelland apart. Besides, the King has spoken the words of her death. Will he go back on that?”
    Cavan opened his mouth to declare King Aidan would, if the proof was found – but closed it again. His father had never changed his mind. Once he made a decision, that was it and woes betide any who disagreed with it.
    “Highness, I beg of you. My life and the lives of my men depend on this. You must read your speech and then I must light the pyre,” the sergeant cried.
    The noise of the crowd seemed to hammer at Cavan. He looked at Widow Eithne and she raised her hands to him, pleading. He glanced to his right and saw the sergeant there, his eyes begging. He looked back at Eithne. He wanted to lift her up into his saddle, ride out of here and then find the proof she was innocent, present it to the crowd and make them understand, then show his father … He closed his eyes. It was hopeless.
    Hating himself, he held out his hand to Niall. “Give me the speech,” he said roughly. Every time he represented his father, he could not use his own words: he had to give the speech written for him. The one time he had tried to change it, he had been whipped.
    “Thank Aroaril!” the sergeant cried. “Get the witch onto the pyre, boys!”
    “I don’t think he will thank any of us for today’s business,” Cavan said, mostly to himself.
    “Silence for the Prince! Hear the words of the King!” the sergeant yelled, his men echoing him, while Eithne screamed as they lashed her to the stake and packed the wood around her feet.
    The crowd was calming down as they saw things happening and the shouts of hatred were replaced by a huge cheer at the sight of Eithne being tied to the