Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kirkwall, Orkney

November 1594

ALISON

Father Colville and the others leave the dungeon, Mr.Addis still petitioning for payment even as he bolts the heavy metal doors of the cell with a chain and lock.

And then I am alone, with only shadows and insects for company, my thoughts spinning rapidly.

I dress, pulling on my shift and stockings, my dress, and kirtle, wrapping myself tightly in my shawl. I pull my coif back over my bare head, the fabric sticking to the bloody cuts on my scalp.

The pain in my mouth is ferocious. I do not sleep, curled up in the dark pit of the cell. The air down here is foul, and there is no chamber pot or water. There are two hay bales teaming with insects. I push them together to form a bed off the wet stone floor.

I think of William and the children at home. They will be frantically wondering how to make sense of this. Our neighbors Angus and Maggie will have seen; Angus often gives us extra milk when our cow is too dwamly to produce more than a few drops. Agnes, too, may come to see me and find I am in Kirkwall.

For four days and nights, I am left without food or water, though the soreness beneath my tongue from the parson’s needle makes it too difficult to so much as open my mouth.

The dungeon walls are damp, and after the third day I am driven to gather moisture that runs along the stone. The taste is so bitter I can barely stomach it at first, but the thirstier I get the sweeter the taste. I can’t help but think of Earl Patrick, who is said to have three trumpeters herald each meal.

My mother’s stories whisper from the stones. The tale of the dragon who breathed water, not fire. The tale of the king’s feast—bite by bite, plate by plate, the food revealed itself to be his own children, a spell put upon their bodies to make them appear as beautiful portions of fruit, freshly baked bread.

On the fifth day, I call out to Mr.Addis, who spends long hours at the other end of the hallway, sitting by the fire and using a knife to cut dead flesh from the soles of his feet.

He ignores me, so I call louder.

“What is it, witch?” he retorts in a gravelly voice.

“I have a petition,” I say hoarsely. “If you please.”

I cannot shout any longer, and so he rises from his chair reluctantly, grumbling and shuffling down the hall toward me, his lantern raised against the gloom. When he appears at the bars of my cell I see the deep lines of his face, the silver strands of hair smeared with grease across his scalp and the row of wooden teeth that click out when he speaks. He sneers at me, pushing his teeth in with a grubby finger.

“Go on, then.”

“Please,” I say. “I have not eaten.”

He looks over the floor of the cell, his eyes landing on the long pink tail of the dead rat that has lain there since my arrival. I moved it beneath a bale of hay to keep it from my sight, but other rats have since disturbed the hay.

“Prisoners usually feed on the rats,” he says. The thought of it turns my stomach.

“I need food, Mr.Addis. Surely it is the law to feed prisoners?”

He scratches his beard, puzzled. “Not witches.”

“And it is the law that visitors are permitted?” I say. “Can you ask the earl to allow my husband and children to visit, and that they might bring food and water?”

His lips curl in a sneer of disgust, and I expect him to turn and walk away. But then his face softens, and he is lost in thought.

“What can you do for worms?”

“Worms?”

“Arse worms. I am sorely, sorely afflicted. Perhaps, if ye were to make a potion…”

I nod, eagerly, though my stomach is turning at the thought of it. “Yes, yes, I can help.”

His face lifts into a beaming smile. “Oh, that would make me very happy. You see, I asked the physician and he gave me goose fat but it has not worked. Let me show thee…”

He makes to lower his breeches and present his arse to me, but I insist that he has no need.

“Can you fetch me wormwood, and orange water, some comfrey and garlic and—this is very important—eel grease.”

“Don’t you want to look at my pish?” he growls, lifting a hook-shaped eyebrow. “The physicians always look at my pish.”

I shake my head. “That won’t be necessary.” Long ago, I began to recognize the instincts that rose up in me when I spoke with a person about their sickness. I would see that their particular sickness might require more of one herb than another, or a type of spell or charm that is for another ailment entirely. I suspect Mr.Addis’s arse worms are to do with the pig’s feet he eats in the evenings.

“I will fetch these things on the morrow,” he says eagerly. And then he turns, his lantern casting a long orange seam along the corridor, and begins to return to his seat near the fire.

“Mr.Addis!” I shout after him, but he doesn’t reply. I sink down to the floor, my head seeming to lift up and float across the room from hunger. A few minutes later, the orange seam returns, and I see Mr.Addis carrying a wooden trencher. He throws it down on the floor by the bars, and I pull it to me frantically, resorting at last to lowering my cheek to the floor and tipping the contents of the trencher into my mouth. It is gruel, but I eat it desperately, thank him weakly as I return to the corner of the cell.

···

Two nights pass. Mr.Addis brings slop once a day, and the ingredients for the potion. I pour it all into a glass jar, the smell of the orange water so beautiful that I have to bite my lips to prevent myself from drinking it.

“Here,” I tell him, handing him the finished potion. He stares down at it with a doubtful look, then drinks it down.

“Please may I have visitors?” I ask him. But he turns and shuffles back to his fire without another word.

A week passes.

I am so hungry that I do not know if I am still alive.

I do not know if I will ever see my family again.

“Madam Balfour, wake up. Wake up!”

My grandmother’s face looms close, a wavering shadow. I gasp, and her face bursts, revealing that of another. It’s Mr.Addis. I can tell from the stench of his breath, his clicking wooden teeth.

My mind is swampy with dreams, my spine rubbed raw from sleeping on the hay bale. Nearby is a fierce light and an alarming heat, as though the sun has risen inside the castle. I squint at the source and find a row of candles against the wall to my left, dozens of little flames coalescing into a vibrant sunrise.

“On your feet.”

Mr.Addis tugs at the chains around my wrists, pulling me sharply upright. I am still so immersed in my dreams that I stumble forward, and another pulls my arm to steady me. It’s Father Colville, and behind him is David Moncrief.

“Walking and watching,” Father Colville says. “We walk, and we watch. See?”

He strolls slowly alongside me until he’s certain that I’m awake enough to continue. When I reach the far wall of the cell I rest my hands on it, then my weight, feeling my body sink down again into slumber. But Mr.Addis is there in an instant, hauling me up.

“No, you don’t,” he says, and shoves me away from the wall to walk. Why must I walk? Where am I going? I know not, only that he insists upon my walking back and forth across the wet stone floor.

Every time I have started to sway back into dreams Mr.Addis kicks me awake and makes me walk again. The candles hiss. The stone wall teases with its promise of support and rest.

Somewhere in the gloom, I know others watch. Is it William, or the children? I call out to them, though my voice sounds far away, an echo rather than a voice.

“She murmurs,” a voice hisses from the far reaches of the dungeon. I recognize it as Father Colville’s.

Mr.Addis pulls my arm. “What say you, witch?”

I open my mouth to speak but the words feel clotted in my mind.

“Look! In the corner of the window.” David’s voice. Four of them here with me in the middle of the night. My limbs ache and my mind swims with wild thoughts.

The room descends into silence. I lift my head to see what Father Colville has spotted in the cell window, high up in the far wall. The shadows thicken and move.

“It is a hare, I think,” Father Colville says. A hare? I squint, hard. For a moment I think I see the shape of it, two long ears held aloft.

“By God, it is,” Mr.Addis says fearfully.

“Take note of it,” Father Colville hisses at David, who stands in the corner. “You see it, too?”

“I do,” David says, his voice filled with fear. “I have heard that cunning folk often have familiars, animals that do their bidding.”

“Mark you,” Father Colville says. “That is no hare. It’s the Devil.”

Mr.Addis makes a low noise of fear in his throat, and I scuttle back into a corner, terrified. Father Colville turns to me, and I bury my head in my hands. I do not want the Devil near me. I pray silently to God that he will banish Satan from our midst.

Carefully, I raise my head and look at the window once more. Now I see that it is a hare-shaped shadow, but the men in the room are insisting it is a hare. Or rather, that it is Satan in the form of a hare.

“The Devil has come to save her,” Father Colville hisses.

As I watch the shadows drift, a passing cloud unveiling the light of the moon, the shadow changes again. Just for a moment, it seems to take the form of a person. A tall man, striding through the small window into the night.

I flinch. Surely a trick of the light? The others react with gasps.

“Did you see that?” Mr.Addis says.

“It was Satan Himself,” Father Colville says. There is fear in his voice. My heart is pounding so loud in my ears I would not be surprised if others could hear it.

“Perhaps He came not to save her,” Mr.Addis growls. “But to ensure she is obedient.”

“Aye,” Father Colville says. “That is so.”

I scan the corner of the window nervously, desperately trying to make sense of what I saw. Was it really the Devil? Or was it my own mind, so influenced by the pronouncements of the men that I thought I saw it?

No—I saw it, and the others did, too. My blood runs cold.

“Write that down,” Father Colville instructs David. “We have all of us witnessed the most damning evidence yet. The arrival of Satan to spy on His servant, ensuring she remains at His bidding.”