Read Online In Honor Bound by DeAnna Julie Dodson - Free Book Online

ring, my sovereign?"
    Robert snatched it from him. "My son's! A token by which she might rule him, God defend us!"
    "God defend us from false accusations!" Philip spat.
    "He is likely to have some talisman of hers as well, Your Majesty." The justice flicked open Philip's shirt and lifted up the fine sapphire cross that hung against his skin. "This."
    "No." Philip struggled again. "A holy cross, my lords. It speaks for her innocence. Would a witch give such a token?"
    Robert came to him and examined the cross. "When ever did evil shun to put on seeming grace to disguise itself?"
    He snapped the fine chain and dropped it to the floor. Philip watched in horror as he ground the delicate cross under his heel.
    "Take the prince away. I shall not bid you again."
    Philip howled curses at them all, struggling once more to free himself until it felt as if his sinews would snap.
    "God will judge all of you for this!"
    It took four of them to drag him backwards out of the door and he fought them wildly, straining every muscle, using every ounce of strength he had, screaming all the while to be freed, to be heard.
    The silence that followed was sullied by the echoes of his cries and by the girl's desolate sobs.
    ***
    "What say my lords now?" Robert said finally. "The witch seems guilty to me. I trust you will find her so."
    "What can we say, Your Majesty, in the face of such evidence?" asked Dunois, then he turned to the other lords. "We have seen his bewitchment with our own eyes. Can we find, in our love for the poor oppressed boy, any verdict but guilty?"
    ***
    Philip sat numbly in the corner of his cell, oblivious to the dawn light that had filtered into his bleak surroundings. His mind was fixed on his last sight of his young wife, looking scared and small, flanked by soldiers, forbidden to speak to him. He knew it would likely be the last time he ever saw her.
    It still astounded him that he was even here in his father's prison, forbidden to communicate with anyone. His father thought him mad or bewitched and would not hear him. Katherine was doomed, he could feel it in the cold dread that sat heavily in the pit of his stomach, and he could do nothing.
    He knew Margaret had somehow engineered this mockery of a trial to cover her own infanticide, but still he could not answer why. He believed Katherine's story, knew her tender heart incapable of such a monstrous deed as that of which she had been accused, but even she had no explanation for what Margaret had done. What could Margaret have gained by it?
    The low noise of a crowd broke into his thoughts and drew him to the window. The people thronged the streets, pressing against the soldiers who were holding open a pathway through them. The rumble grew until it seemed loud even high up in Philip's prison tower, and then he saw what he had most feared.
    There was Katherine being brought along in a cart, tied to a post, barefoot, wearing only her shift. Her face was pale and there was a terror in her eyes that Philip could not bear. And her hair! The long, glorious locks that had hung like spun gold past her knees were gone, shorn as a sign of her excommunication and disgrace. She was truly condemned and he could do nothing.
    "No!" He struggled with the bars on the window. "Do not do this! Kate! Kate!" He was drowned out by the jeering crowd.
    "Burn, witch!" they taunted. "Die, and be damned!"
    Even from where he was, Philip could see she was covered with cuts and bruises from the stones they threw and, as he watched, they spit on her, taking pleasure in her suffering.
    "You'll not practice your damned arts on our Prince Philip after today!"
    "Kate!" Philip howled, cursing their misdirected loyalty to him, still grappling uselessly with the bars. "Kate! Kate!"
    He did not know if she actually heard him over the din, but she looked up just then and their eyes met.
    "Kate!" he cried again, and he stretched his hand down towards her. Her mouth formed his name, but he could not hear her,