Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Kirkwall, Orkney

December 1594

ALISON

I have been in the dungeon for three weeks when Mr.Addis unlocks the cell, flinging the door open. At first, I think he has finally kept his promise and permitted me a visitor.

“How are the worms?” I ask him weakly.

He makes a noise that’s difficult to discern, but I suspect he is healed.

“I’m to take you upstairs,” he grumbles.

“Why?”

“The trial. It starts this afternoon.”

I pull myself to my feet and follow him up the stone steps, a murmur of voices from deep in the castle making the muscles in my face tight with fear. On the second floor is the courtroom, a large room flooded with colorful light from seven stained-glass windows depicting saints.

At the far right is a gallery, twelve rows of seats wrought of oiled mahogany, filled with spectators. Facing the gallery is an ornate dais, gleaming woodwork carved with intricate depictions of cherubs praying, their clasped hands fixed, as though the prayer is eternal, never answered.

A chair sits on the platform at the top of four oak steps, upon which have been carved four large words in florid script: fiat justitia ruat caelum . I recognize it from my mother’s schooling, when she drummed Latin clauses into David and me.

It means: let justice be done, though the heavens fall.

It means: seek justice, whatever the consequence.

As I am thinking of my schoolfellow, I see him: David Moncrief, standing at the side of the room, the familiar colors of his robe, one shoulder higher than the other. Coward , I think bitterly, though as I move closer to him I notice a look of shame pass across his face. It brings a sudden heat to my face—he pities me. But perhaps that is a good thing.

The spectators’ whispered voices arrow through me as I shuffle past, chains squealing behind me across the wooden floor. A woman scowls at me before raising a hand to cover her nose. It strikes me that I must smell as foul as I look, the damp dungeon making the odors of urine, rodents, and rot cling to my skin.

The noise of the gallery rises as the spectators discuss the scene, and the charges against me. I keep my head bowed, my eyes on my bare feet.

“Where is he?” Mr.Addis grumbles, looking around. We pause by the wooden lectern, and as I glance over the gallery, I see John Stewart striding through the doors. My heart jumps into my mouth as he moves up the aisle to a seat at the front. As he sits down, he holds me in a meaningful look, his head tilted.

“Father Colville!” Mr.Addis shouts then, waving at the figures standing on a mezzanine that juts over the gallery. “I brought her up, just like you said!”

Father Colville stands by the railings of the mezzanine, in conference with two bishops. I realize they are here to oversee the proceedings, and William’s words come back to me: the udallers have the ear of Bishop Law . Among the spectators I spy Jacob McVeigh and Peter Gauldry, both udallers whose inherited lands have been stolen by the earl. They watch me intently, and Peter gives me a nod.

I move my eyes nervously to John Stewart. He is still staring at me, and he draws a finger to his lips in a gesture filled with menace.

I am to be silent. That is why he is here.

It does not matter that the bishops are here, nor the udallers who have come to show their support. John Stewart is more powerful than them all, and his presence feels like a wolf in the room, waiting for his chance to devour me.

The murmuring among the spectators begins to die down in anticipation. My mouth running dry, I see more familiar faces—our neighbors, Angus and Maggie. They must have journeyed here by boat and by carriage. It is no small sacrifice to leave their farm; I’ve seen Angus and Maggie working the fields in all weathers, and through devastating sickness, precisely because rest comes at a high price under Earl Patrick’s rule.

They must be here to show their support. It brings a little comfort, to see them here.

Maggie is wearing her blue cap, the one she’s so proud of. I recall her showing it to me when she got it, soon after Beatrice was born. She has worn it only once that I recall, to her oldest boy’s wedding, preferring to keep it wrapped in linen in a wooden chest. Angus’s long copper hair has been combed and tied back, his farmer’s shirt swapped for a smart gray mantle pinned with a silver brooch at the shoulder. I stare, hoping they’ll catch my eye and see my undying gratitude for coming today. It means so much.

But then Maggie’s eyes flick to mine. She does not smile, her face stiff and her gaze filled with metal.

My stomach twists. Has she seen me? I am sure she has. Angus glances at me, too, but he grimaces. All the friendliness is gone. My cheeks burn. Why have they come, if not to support me?

I scan the rows for my mother, and for Agnes, but I do not see them. At the back of the gallery, however, I see Solveig, his face almost hidden by his dark hood. So, the Triskele have come to spy on me. A burst of anger rushes through me at the cruelty of it. My mother insists that I cannot leave the Triskele, and that I am still part of the clan. Yet they will not save me.

Just as I am wondering where William is, he walks in, followed by Edward, both of them anxious to find a seat. Edward’s face reddens when he catches my eye, his eyebrows rising and his mouth falling open. I lift my hands to my face, unable to stop the tears that wet my cheeks. Relief washes over me like a warm tide. How I wish I could tear off these iron cuffs and run to them. Edward grows upset, too, and I remember that he has not seen me since I was arrested. I must look frightful to him, bowed down by heavy chains, my head shorn and the bones at my chest rippling through the skin like weft work.

I touch my chin, and he does the same.

In contrast to my shameful state, Father Colville looks immaculate, a vision of godliness sweeping across the room toward me. He is clean-shaven, his silver hair brushed and set in fine waves atop his head. His sable cloak is lined with ermine, the white panels at his collar freshly pressed.

“Alison,” he says gently, taking my arm and gesturing toward the dais. “Are you well?”

“I am…as well as can be expected, Father,” I say, fear stopping up my throat. It is stunning to think that this is the same man who pushed a needle into my body over and over, the man who pushed a needle underneath my tongue. Now he is courteous and gentle, holding my elbow. The contrast between these two acts makes me dizzy, as though there are two of him.

From the cathedral across the street twelve loud tolls from the clock ring out, telling the city that it is noon.

“You may proceed,” a voice calls out from the balcony when the last bell sounds. One of the bishops has given the order for the trial to begin, and my stomach clenches at the quiet that falls upon the gallery before me. A hundred pairs of eyes turning to me.

“State your name for Bishop Vance and Bishop Sinclair,” Father Colville says, gesturing to each in turn.

I swallow hard. “Alison Margaret Balfour,” I say, my voice hoarse after being silent for so long. The seats on the mezzanine creak loudly as the bishops lean forward to perceive me. Bishop Vance is a small, red-faced man with a hooked nose, preoccupied by the white headdress that keeps slipping down across his eyes. Bishop Sinclair has a thick jaw that he works as though chewing food, his black eyes shining like pebbles as he grimaces down. I offer up a silent prayer that they might be merciful. That they may discern my innocence and call a halt to these proceedings.

“Madam Alison Balfour,” Father Colville says, turning his back on me on to address the crowd seated in the gallery. He moves to the side of the room and plucks a Bible from a table there, raising it high in the air. “Do you swear by God, upon this Holy Bible, to tell the truth during the proceedings of this trial?”

He moves the Bible toward me, standing close so I may lower my hand upon it.

“I do.”

As my head touches the black cover of the Bible, I think of another book. A book with both a black cover and black pages.

I am a girl of twelve again, and there is a woman standing before me, wearing the antlers of a deer as a crown, her face hidden by a long veil of plaited hazel twigs.

Scream into the pages , the woman says.

She hands me what I think is a quill, but as I take it from her, I see it is a knife.

Write with a scream, not ink, she says. Else you cannot be a Carrier .

And then I am back in the courtroom, the Bible on the table, Father Colville’s plush velvet robes catching blood reds and ochre yellows from the stained-glass windows as he strides between the dais and the gallery. On the wooden floor next to me I spy the face of one of the glass saints reflected, his eyes lifted up in solemn petition.

“Alison,” Father Colville says in a loud voice. “You are indicted and accused of the sinful and damnable renouncing of God, your faith and baptism, enslaving yourself onto the Devil, following and practicing the fearful and abominable craft of witchcraft. Do you confess to these charges?”

The courtroom falls silent, and I flick my eyes at John Stewart. My heart is beating so fiercely against my chest that I fear it may burst out.

“I do not.”

I see John Stewart shift in his seat, and I flinch. But I must stand my ground.

Father Colville turns to the gallery and calls out in a clear, loud voice: “You are further accused of consorting with Thomas Paplay, servant of John Stewart, to kill by poisoning Patrick Stewart, the Earl of Orkney. Do you confess to these charges?”

I glance again at John Stewart. His eyes bore into me, and I have to steel myself to tell the truth. “Before God, Father—I do not.”

A sudden fervor swells throughout the gallery, as physical as the air that swells in the valley before a storm. I feel myself shake all over, but I know I am watched, my every movement read as though it might reveal some inner evil.

Father Colville looks wearily to the mezzanine. “Your graces, I ask that I may proceed with my efforts to draw out a confession from her, that her soul may perhaps be purged of these dark stains before God’s holy judgment.”

Bishop Sinclair makes a gesture with his hand for Father Colville to proceed, and he seems much relieved.

“Alison, you have long established yourself as a spaewife, a wise woman, having been sought out on diverse occasions by many for charms, spells, potions, and superstitions.” He turns to me, his face saddened. “Is this true?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Have you, from time to time, provided charms, spells, and potions to the people of Orkney for the purposes of recovery from illness?”

“I have.”

“Can you give examples of such occasions?”

My eyes search out Mr.Addis, who seems cured of his arse worms. I imagine it may be prudent not to mention that, for several reasons.

“I…I recall when I treated a child in our parish. A little boy named Malcolm. He had eaten a plant full of poison and was vomiting.”

“And how did you treat him?”

“I made him a tonic of kettledock, vervain, and I placed the petals of a belladonna flower and the bones of a raven’s wing by his head. I said an incantation and turned three times sunwise.”

Father Colville nods, having heard me, but his eyes move to the faces of the spectators in the gallery, surveying their response. There is nothing outrageous about my treatment—this is an old remedy, and many here will recognize it. Some folk turn sunwise upon crossing the threshold of their own house in the morning, to bring fortune with them into the day. It is to harness the energy of the sun, turning the way light falls upon the sundial, from left to right. It is for this reason, too, that I was not permitted to write with my left hand as a child, but was instructed to use my right.

“Perhaps it might be said that the same power you possess to heal might also be used to harm,” Father Colville says.

“I do not wish to harm,” I say.

“But by your own words, you are a skillful practitioner in the magic arts. And all who are present will know that there are two forms of such arts: dark and light.”

“Yes, but…”

“So it follows that anyone who is skillful at one must also be skillful in the other?”

“I do not practice the dark arts,” I say quietly. From the corner of my eye, I see John Stewart murmuring to one of his aides.

“I am told that you spared the life of Thomas Paplay,” Father Colville says. “Is this true?”

“It is, but…” I want to say that I did so out of innocence, not because I was consorting with him. The very idea makes me feel ashamed.

“When did you spare his life?”

“It was a year ago,” I say. “He was gravely ill with smallpox.”

“And what potion did you provide?”

“Sheep dung boiled in milk,” I say. It is an old remedy. But it must be prepared under a spell. I open my mouth to confess this, but the words will not come.

“Why did you spare his life?”

“Because I…”

“Is it because you were lovers?”

I look from Father Colville to the bishops, appalled. “No!”

A murmur ripples across the courtroom, the spectators turning to one another, heated by this repugnant suggestion.

“And what of those charms you have prepared for those seeking to bring about harm?” Father Colville says, though it takes a long while for the words to sink through my shock at his former question. Lovers? I search out William in the crowd. He throws me a brave smile, but I know he must feel humiliated.

“You have provided harmful charms?” Father Colville continues.

“Never.”

“But if I were to ask you for a charm to bring a foul wind upon a ship, or to cause an animal to fall foul of pest, you could provide these things?”

“I would not…”

He strides across the room, his footsteps pounding the wood of the floor, the sound making me jump. Then he hefts up the Bible, holding it aloft, and approaches me with such aggression that I think he means to bring it down upon my head. “Remember your oath, Alison,” he hisses. “I asked you if you could provide such things, if it is within your capacity as a healer to do so.”

I scan the faces in the room, my eyes settling upon other women I know to be capable of such a thing. I want to cry out, But there are many healers in Orkney! But then I wonder what might happen if I do. What might I unleash, if I say such a thing?

“It is,” I murmur.

“It is said that you are a woman of low means, correct?”

“That is true,” I say, though his question confuses me. Why is he asking this?

“Would you be willing to state to the court the annual income of your household?”

My eyes search out William in the crowd. I do not wish to bring shame upon him.

“Answer, Madam Balfour,” Bishop Sinclair calls down from the mezzanine.

I see John Stewart smile.

“What say you to this, Madam Balfour?” Bishop Vance calls out. “Do you renounce Christ and His Holy baptism?”

“My husband’s earnings are often in trade,” I say. “And so we earn wheat and sometimes labor in our fields in exchange for his work in the cathedral, as well as money.”

“And how much money is that?”

I falter. “I would say, five pounds each quarter.”

The bishops consider this, weighing up among them whether it is enough to force me to seek other means of income.

“Do you renounce Christ and His Holy baptism?” Bishop Sinclair calls down after a few moments.

“I have not renounced God,” I say loudly. And so there is no pain and no love on this earth that will make me renounce God.

“Madam Balfour has a mark upon her person that would surely prove her words sadly to be untrue,” Father Colville says.

“What mark is this?” Bishop Vance asks.

“On the night of November twelfth, I inspected her and found the Devil’s mark hidden beneath her tongue,” Father Colville says, glancing at John Stewart. “This was witnessed by myself and three others, including the Master of Orkney.”

John gives a deep nod to confirm this, and I shudder to think of that night, when I was standing naked in the dungeon before the men, blood drawn all over my body by Father Colville’s long needle.

“I have sundry reports from various others on these isles concerning Alison Balfour’s misdeeds,” Father Colville continues. “But perhaps the most damning evidence that she is a malefica , a harborer of mischief, was perceived when we witnessed her familiar enter the dungeon of this very castle.”

“What familiar is this you speak of?” Bishop Vance asks.

“A hare, my lord, with a hide of darkest sable.”

“All four men witnessed a hare in the dungeon of this castle?” Bishop Sinclair asks.

“We did, Your Grace,” Father Colville replies. “A moment later, the same hare transformed into a man. I believe this dark figure to be Satan himself.”

Somewhere in the gallery, a woman cries out: the spectators are unsettled at the thought of Satan walking the land of Orkney.

“I am not persuaded that the Devil would deign to visit His subject while she is incarcerated,” Bishop Vance says. “This would seem to contradict scripture, whereupon we understand the Devil not to care a jot for those who do His bidding. Indeed, it is unheard of for Lucifer to trouble Himself at all, other than to have sexual relations with the witch. I am taking it that this did not happen?”

There is a long pause, as though the whole room is holding its breath. I watch Father Colville carefully as he considers his response. The smile never leaves his face.

“We did not witness such a thing, no,” he says. I think of the shadow taking the shape of a long thin man as it passed through the window, and my skin crawls.

Was it really the Devil?

“Then I suggest we forget the last charge,” Bishop Sinclair says.

“Have you any evidences that we may consider?” Bishop Vance says, pushing his headdress up his forehead. “Any of the witch’s potions or tokens that may give us insight into her pact with the Devil?”

Father Colville hesitates, and for a moment I think that smile might yet slip from his face. “We have evidence in the form of Thomas Paplay’s confession, Your Grace…”

“Has the witch’s home been searched thoroughly?” Bishop Sinclair says.

“We will search again,” Father Colville says. “Mr.Paplay mentioned that the charm made for him by the witch was wrought of wax. This may be difficult to obtain…”

“Try, Father Colville,” Bishop Sinclair says, and Father Colville’s eyes slide to John Stewart again. It strikes me then—he wishes me to be found guilty. It does not matter that his duty is to God, to save my soul.

He intends to see me to my death.

···

The cell door swinging shut will forever be the noise of doom, the toll of hell. Mr.Addis rattles the key in the lock and throws me a satisfied sneer, and I turn my face to the wall to hide the pain of being separated from Will and Edward. Seeing them in the courtroom before was the worst pain I have ever felt, but now, being returned to this cell, not knowing if I’ll see them again, transcends even that.

“Open it again, if you please.”

I turn to see Father Colville approaching, beckoning Mr.Addis to unlock the cell door. He smiles at me like a dear friend, as though he has not spent three hours relentlessly pursuing false ideas of my evilness, tearing me down in front of my neighbors, my family, the bishops.

He steps inside, allowing Mr.Addis to lock the door behind him before passing the keys through the bars. This is curious, though I do not feel assured by his presence. With a shiver, I find myself looking over his hands and the outline of his pockets for needles, or some such instrument of torture.

He is clutching to his chest the Bible I swore upon in the courtroom.

“I know you will wish to pray,” he says, stepping forward, and I flinch. He sees, and his face falls.

“My child, I am not here to harm you. My intention is solely to bring you closer to God, to feel His love. I offer you a chance to pray and feel His holy peace.”

I think of the way he looked at John Stewart in the courtroom, how I told myself he wished to see to it that I take the blame for Master Stewart’s crimes. Perhaps I am mistaken. He is a parson. Surely he would not offend God by seeing an innocent woman burn?

He sits on the ground next to me and rests the Bible on his robes. It is too precious to place on the cell floor.

“Let us pray,” he says, clasping his hands and bowing his head. “Oh Lord, Father in heaven, we humbly offer up a prayer to Thee upon this day…”

As he speaks, repenting to God on my behalf for my stubborn refusal to confess, pleading to God that my heart might be softened else my soul will be damned, I feel doubt rise up again. A parson may be swayed by the Devil to believe that lies are truth, that black is white. A thought drifts into my head, as real and as formed as a feather:

I see the crown of his head, his clean, soft hair.

I look down at the heavy chains and cuffs, the raw flesh around my wrists.

I glance through the bars at Mr.Addis, finding him already gone, and for a moment I think I have already lifted the chains and dropped them with all my might upon the soft part of Father Colville’s skull before reaching for that knife I know is tucked in his boot, drawing it quickly across his throat. Then I filch through his pockets for the keys and let myself out, out into the night, my feet light upon the floor of the castle as the last drop of life pulses out of his veins.

“…and forgive her trespasses, Lord, if Thou wilt, for we know that within Christ all things are possible…”

I give a jolt, landing back in my skin, realizing with equal parts relief and regret that the idea was just that—I have not acted upon it, I have not seized the moment and bludgeoned a man of God to death to purchase my freedom. But the temptation is still there, unfurling ever darkly in my heart—the way is open.

My husband’s face springs to my mind. I imagine his anguish upon hearing that I committed such a terrible crime. His wife, the woman he has cherished and cared for all these years, capable of murder. He would wonder if he ever knew me at all.

“…in the holy name of our beloved Jesus Christ, amen.”

Father Colville lifts his blue eyes to mine, the skin around them soft and fine as wrinkled silk.

“Let us read from the Bible. I think it will benefit you to learn of the Lord’s plan for us. That oftentimes, it is the ones He loves most that He causes to suffer. For it is written, ‘whoso I chasten, I cherish.’?”

He reads with me until the curfew bell tolls at eight o’clock, and even when I am nodding off to sleep I hear his voice, the falling and rising pattern of his intonation lulling me, teasing me to slumber.

When I come to, he is already gone. I am lying on my side on the hay bale. I shuffle toward the cell door and find it is locked. With anguish I wish that I had seized my chance to escape.

And it is while I am marveling at this development in my character that I spot something on the ground, where the slate rises slightly. Something that was not there before.

A book. An old book, quite large and visibly heavy, many pages beneath its old wooden binding.

I recognize it instantly. My heart begins to clamor in my bones, a distant bell clanging in my ears.

Still, I approach it, eager to prove to myself that it is a figment of my imagination. I am dreaming. The book is not there. This is my conscience chiding me for my wild sins.

But the book is on the ground, rough to the touch. The cover is made from a tree, and inside the pages are black. The pages are pieces of night, for the book is from the dawn of time, before humankind, before love, and death.

With a trembling hand, I reach out and open it. The black pages appear blank, but I know otherwise. And right as I am telling myself this, the surface of the open pages quiver, as though a shadow has passed over them. I watch as an image appears there, a white light flickering with shadows that sharpen into figures.

I see a moving image of a white room, the items strange and shining. A silver bed with white sheets, a young woman with a shorn head, her limbs badly burned. Another woman is tending to her.

Her mother.

Why is the book showing me this?

But as I stretch my arms out to heft it, the book is no more. It is gone.

I stagger backward, falling to the ground. Then I lunge forward, sweeping my hands across the dark stone in case it has moved, been shunted by a rat, moved by my chains.

But the book is nowhere to be found.

And yet, I know I saw it. The Book of Witching .

It came for me, just like she promised.