The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,118
again and pulled out the pouch of stolen money. "You can have this if you'll let us both go, me and my uncle."
He snorted with scornful laughter.
"What do you take me for? I'd never let a prisoner go. He's an enemy of the crown. His name's written down on the list. I'd be arrested too."
But his eyes were on the money. I began to return it slowly to my pocket.
"Tell you what." His fingers were reaching out to twitch it away from me, and I snatched it back just in time. "I could get you freed. It should be easy. Your name's not down on the charge sheet. A word with the captain should do it."
"If it's so easy, it's worth less than all this money," I said, jingling the coins, and thinking out the bargain. "Look, I'll give you half the money now, if you can free me, and the rest when we get to Edinburgh, if you'll make sure that my uncle's not driven too hard and gets some decent food."
He laughed.
"You're a one, you are. Give me a kiss, and I'll throw in some wine for the man as well."
I drew back.
"I don't sell kisses," I said, my cheeks on fire with blushes as I dropped the coins into his outstretched palm.
I was afraid, as I went back through the throng of exhausted prisoners, that my uncle might have seen me talking to the soldiers and would question me. He would have been disgusted, I knew, by my attempt to win him special treatment with the help of stolen money, and, in fact, my conscience did prick a little as I saw the desperate state of some of the other prisoners.
To my relief, someone started to sing before I'd reached our corner of the barn, and by the time I'd arrived, Uncle Blair was already joining in:
"But blessed be God
Who doth us safely keep
And hath not given
Us for living prey
Unto their teeth
And bloody cruelty."
Some people were already asleep, their mouths open, making vacant, black holes between their hollow cheeks. Others were too weak to make a sound, but they were mouthing the familiar words, and I saw tears slide out from under closed eyelids.
"Ev'n as a bird
Out of the fowler's snare
Escapes away,
So is our soul set free.
Broke are their nets
And thus escaped we."
Uncle Blair and I were lucky to have a good corner, beside a pile of hay bales against which we could lean our backs. He put up his hands to rest them on the front of his filth-encrusted coat, and I saw with a shock that they were roughly bandaged with strips of torn linen.
I put out my own hand and he flinched, as if afraid that I would touch him.
"What happened, Uncle?"
He shook his head.
"It's best forgotten."
"No! Let me see."
He hesitated but allowed me to unwind the bandages, biting his lip hard with the pain. I had to suppress a gasp of horror. His fingers were a pulpy mass of raw flesh, deeply ulcerated. Yellow pus oozed out.
"How did this happen?"
He had lain back against the hay as if the sight of his own hands had exhausted him.
"It was one of their punishments," he murmured. "I spoke out in anger when one of our sisters was forced to give birth in that—that place. She died under their cruel neglect, with the babe. They put lighted splinters of wood between my fingers and blew on them till they had burned away. Oh, don't look so upset, my dear. The Lord has been good to me. One of the brethren lost all his fingers that way. As the Lord Jesus said, 'Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you for my sake.' If he asks me to suffer, I must do it gladly. Only think of his sufferings for us on the Cross! How little this is to bear for his sake."
"It seems rather a lot to me," I muttered crossly under my breath, then bit my lip, afraid that such a thought was sinful.
Aloud, I said, "You must let me care for them, Uncle. I know how to treat this kind of injury."
He smiled at me.
"Thank you, my dear. If you would add your prayers to mine, they will rise as a sweet odor to the throne of the heavenly grace, and surely the Lord will hear us."
I nodded but thought, with another little spurt of rebellion, Prayers are one thing, but healing herbs are another.