Chapter Twenty-Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Kirkwall, Orkney

December 1594

ALISON

Four days later, the castle bell tolls four times—today the trial is to recommence. Mr.Couper meets me at my cell an hour beforehand with a flagon of honey water, sweetmeats, and bread. I straighten my coif and dust down my kirtle, but he tells me not to.

“A state of dishevelment may gain the sympathy of the bishops,” he says with a wink. “However…” He presents me with a bundle of lavender stalks, and after a moment I comprehend the meaning in this gesture—to remove the stink of the dungeon before we go to court. He turns away, allowing me to scrub the lavender into my skin before stuffing it into my bodice. A woeful appearance is one thing, smelling so is another.

I must still wear my chains, however, and with those heavy instruments I follow him up the narrow stone staircase. At the doorway of the courtroom, my breath quickens and my throat tightens as a sea of faces confronts me, a hush falling across the room as the spectators watch me enter.

Such is the look of disgust in their eyes that I cower, shrinking into myself as I am led to the dais and made to face the gallery. There, sitting directly before me, is John Stewart. He seems angered by Mr.Couper’s presence. I force myself to lift my eyes to his, and there is that same deep look, loud as words, warning me.

And for the first time, it strikes me that he is afraid. He tried to kill his brother to take the earldom, and he failed. And because of what I know, I can bring him to his death.

He must succeed in portraying me as a witch.

“Good morrow, Madam Balfour,” Father Colville greets me as I sit down. “Are you well?”

“I am, Father,” I say, though my stomach is in tight knots and my heart pounding. I do not like being so hated.

“I have been praying for you,” he says.

I bow meekly. “I am grateful.”

My eyes fall upon a hooded figure at the very back of the room. He is trying to keep himself concealed, but I recognize him—it is Solveig. My heart lifts a little, though I am curious—why did the Triskele pay for Mr.Couper? They were angered when I renounced my heritage, yet it seems they are trying to help me.

Mr.Couper strides to the center of the room, glancing up at the bishops.

“Bishop Sinclair, Bishop Vance,” he calls up, drawing a hushed silence from the spectators in the gallery. “I would like to request a notary.”

Bishop Vance grimaces from beneath his ill-fitting headdress. “A notary?”

Father Colville strides toward Mr.Couper in a bid to counter this request. “Your Grace, if I may…” he begins, but Bishop Vance silences him with a wave of his hand.

“Why do you request this, Mr.Couper?” Bishop Sinclair asks.

“My lord, you are no doubt aware that I practice the law in Edinburgh,” Mr.Couper says. “And there we are instructed to assign a notary so that an accurate record of proceedings may be kept, should the king wish to peruse the order of events.”

The bishops consider this gravely, sharing a look.

“Very well,” Bishop Sinclair says after a moment. “Father Colville, Mr.Couper—who would you have assigned as this notary?”

Father Colville begins to speak, but Mr.Couper shouts over him.

“Your Grace, I would like to propose Mr.Moncrief,” Mr.Couper says, glancing at David at the back of the room. The way David looks back at him tells me they have had a previous discussion, and I am wary. I know David can write, but it unsettles me that someone so involved in the case is possibly to serve as the notary. My words are already being twisted and used against me. If they are reported by him, it could be used against me, and my family.

“Father Colville?” Bishop Sinclair says. “What say you?”

“Very well,” Father Colville replies, but I sense he is much displeased with Mr.Couper’s request, a muscle tightening at his jaw.

“Good,” Mr.Couper says, after a few moments, and David is given a table in the corner of the room, an ink pot and quill already awaiting him there. “Our notary is installed.” Mr.Couper beams at me. “This is progress.”

“I am informed that you wish to invite certain members of the public to testify of the woman’s character?” Bishop Sinclair calls to Mr.Couper.

“That is right,” Mr.Couper says. He turns with a flourish to the gallery. “I call as my first witness Agnes Glendinning.”

The silence stretches out, and I search the room for sight of dear Agnes, my heart lifting at the prospect of her sympathetic face, her words of support and love. She is warm and articulate, and always seems to find the right words to speak her mind. I am so grateful to Mr.Couper for asking her to testify of my good character.

“Madam Agnes Glendinning?” Mr.Couper calls out again, louder this time. The spectators look from left to right, all of them scanning the room for Agnes. Where is she?

Mr.Couper calls her name again, but the silence stretches out, and I feel my courage falter.

“Perhaps she has been unable to make the journey from Gunn?” Bishop Sinclair says. I see Mr.Couper’s certainty shrink. He stretches a smile on his face.

“I will call my second witness, in that case,” he says. “Doubtless Madam Glendinning will be with us shortly. I call upon Alison’s husband, William Balfour, to testify.”

I start at this. William is to take the stand? Why did Mr.Couper not mention this?

William arises from his seat and walks confidently to the dais, the atmosphere in the room like the moments after a great bolt of lightning has streaked across the sky. Sweat gathers between my shoulder blades. I find I am fearful of his presence here. Agnes’s failure to show up has unsettled me deeply. Perhaps something has happened, I tell myself, but I am on edge, a different concern creeping into my mind. Was she too ashamed to be seen as my friend?

Father Colville watches on, his hands pressed together and that same small smile on his face. I imagine he is determined to paint Will with the same venom as he has painted me, and the thought makes me nauseous.

William is wearing his best mantle, fastened at the shoulder with the swan brooch that he last wore on our wedding day. Beneath, he wears his linen shirt, which I dyed in saffron, his sable trews, and his shoes shined to glass. He has washed his hair, trimmed his beard, his eyes sharp and clear. He looks as though he has come here to negotiate, to go to war if necessary. Beneath the disappointment I feel at Agnes, there is a sting of pride.

“Good morning, Mr.Balfour,” Mr.Couper says. “I wonder if you might tell us when you and Madam Balfour were married?”

“We were wed seventeen years ago next June,” he says. “In the parish at Fynhallow on the Isle of Gunn.”

“Where you continue to live, yes?” Mr.Couper says.

William nods. “We raise our family there.”

“You are known in Kirkwall, too, I believe?” Mr.Couper says. “For your work as a stonemason?”

“I have worked at the masonry in Kirkwall for fifteen years,” William says. “The stonework at the transept of the cathedral is my own work.”

“St. Magnus Cathedral?” Mr.Couper says, impressed, though I’m certain he already knows this.

“The very same.”

“So you are a man of considerable skill,” Mr.Couper says. “And doubtless a man of excellent reputation.”

William clears his throat. He does not like to boast, but he nods. I know he is doing it for me.

“Can you tell us about your wife?” Mr.Couper asks.

William pauses, thinking for a moment. “My wife has always been a kind, gentle woman. She has borne our five children, three of which are with God. She rises before dawn each day to take care of our animals and to fetch the milk from our cow. She makes the best broth I have ever tasted.”

“Which broth is that?” Mr.Couper asks.

“It is one involving both trout and vegetables,” William says, and I smile to think of the way his face lights up every time he comes home and smells the pot bubbling over our fire.

Mr.Couper turns to the gallery. “Surely no servant of Satan could make so fine a broth?” he says, drawing a laugh from the crowd. He turns his eyes back to William. “Tell us a little about Alison and her work as a healer, if you please.”

William looks over at me, his eyes filled with tenderness. “I have known Alison to venture out in midwinter in the dead of night to help a neighbor on the other side of the island,” he says loudly. “I have known her to sit up for days by the bedside of an elderly man who has lost his mind, whose life is slipping away. Although she knew there was not anything she could do to ease his illness, she wanted to be there to comfort him, to ensure he did not depart this life alone. She held his hand and whispered words of comfort, and even though she was large with child she did not complain, nor did she return home until the man had passed on and the body was interred in a coffin ready for burial.”

The mood in the courtroom lightens, and I find myself recalling the night I sat with the old man, Brodie, in his home, his frail hand in mine. He had no family, no one at all to sit with him while he died. His home was dank, and the smell made me retch, but I felt honored to be the one to accompany his passing.

Mr.Couper asks William more questions about me, about our lives together, about our children and home. After a while, the discomfort of so much personal information being shared with a crowd of strangers eases, softened by the memories that are stirred up. William chronicles our relationship, offering up moments that I had forgotten. He tells them of the time our dog, Kelpie, was set upon by bees, his poor muzzle swelling to the size of the hive itself. I used a potion and a spell to take down the swelling and reduce the pain. Kelpie lived to the ripe age of sixteen, much loved by us all. We buried him behind our barn.

The afternoon light bathes the courtroom in a honeyed glow, and the air feels warmed by William’s stories. His words about me have made the weeks spent alone in the dungeon fall away from me, just for a time; I am reminded of who I am. I am reminded that I am loved.

And then Mr.Couper’s allotted time for questioning is over. Agnes does not appear, and while Mr.Couper delays, promising the bishops that she will yet arrive, they insist he give the time over to Father Colville.

William rises from the dais, but Father Colville lifts a hand to signal that he should remain.

“I have some questions also,” he says, and William sits down again. I can see he is unprepared for this.

“It is very pleasing to hear you speak of your wife with such affection,” Father Colville says. “But then, I suppose it would not be advantageous to speak ill of your wife, would it? Especially if you know she is a witch.”

A noise of agreement sounds in the gallery, and I see the bishops nod at each other.

William flinches. “My wife is no such thing,” he says, his voice measured but firm.

“I see,” Father Colville says. “Though she is a spaewife?”

“She is.”

“Pray, what is the difference between a witch and a spaewife?”

William falters. “One is led by the Devil, and the other is—”

“Both rely on magic, do they not?”

“Yes, but—”

“And how does one tell the difference between magic inspired by Satan and magic that is not?”

“Let the man speak, Father Colville,” Bishop Sinclair calls down in a frustrated voice.

“Beg pardon, Bishop Sinclair. Perhaps the witch’s husband might clarify where the line is drawn between the practice of magic for good and that which is used for harm.”

“I have never known Alison to harm so much as a flea,” Williams says tersely.

Father Colville raises his eyebrows. “Is that so?”

I can feel William’s ire from here. “It is so.”

“Not so much as a flea?”

“No.”

Father Colville lifts his eyes to the mezzanine. “Your Graces, perhaps I might call upon a woman that the witch treated in the past?”

“Aye,” Bishop Vance replies.

Father Colville dismisses William from the dais. William strides across the room, his head held high and his hands in fists. I feel a prickle on the back of my neck as he takes his seat, and my eyes track the gallery again, looking for Agnes.

“I call upon Madam Elspeth MacGruer to bear testimony,” Father Colville says. Elspeth’s name causes my heart to lift a moment, fond memories of our childhood years flooding through my mind. Elspeth is a woman whose presence causes the air to shift; often I could sense her before I saw her, and she made me laugh like no one else. Her cheerful, vivacious nature always brought such color to my days.

But then I remember the terrible rumors her sister, Anna, spread, after I assisted in delivering Anna’s first child. The babe died; a tragedy, but for years afterward, Anna blamed me for the child’s death, though it would not have mattered who assisted. The bairn could not be saved. Very few people took heed of Anna’s stories, but it was an uncomfortable period for a time.

Father Colville greets Elspeth warmly. “Thank you, Madam MacGruer, for coming today.”

She nods, and my cheeks flush. My joy at seeing her fades quickly to wariness.

“You have said you are friends with Madam Balfour?”

“I was friends with her, yes,” Elspeth corrects. “A very long time ago.”

“Oh?” Father Colville says. “So you were friends as children but no longer?”

“That is correct.”

“Forgive me, Madam MacGruer,” Father Colville says. “But surely childhood friends have the strongest bond? What tore such a precious connection apart?”

Elspeth takes a deep breath, and I can see she is suddenly moved to tears. “It makes me sad to think on it,” she says, reaching to her mouth. “Sad, and also angry.”

“Why?” Father Colville says, in exaggerated, breathless shock. He steps closer to her, a hand pressed to his chest in a gesture of deep concern. “Pray, tell us, if you can bear it.”

“It was Anna’s first baby,” she says. “My sister. She had fared well, but then seemed to struggle. I had promised to help her, seeing as I’d delivered my own six babies. I thought I knew well enough what to do in order to help a woman bring a child into the world. But Anna’s birth was different, and I grew fearful. I sent word to Madam Balfour.”

“And I believe it was Anna’s husband, Simon, who fetched Madam Balfour?”

She nods. “Yes. But as soon as she stepped inside the cottage I knew something was wrong. She wasn’t the same person I knew in my younger days. There was a darkness about her.”

“But then, why let her into your home?” Father Colville says. “If you had such doubts?”

Elspeth hesitates, as though searching for the right words. “I was panicked,” she says. “I needed help for my sister, and so I put aside my misgivings.”

Her words are not her own, I think. I know Elspeth too well—she would never use this phrasing of her own accord. Even her accent seems different, her speech slowed so as to wrap her lips around the words that someone else has placed inside her mouth.

Father Colville turns to address the gallery. “You see how the Devil requires permission of entry into our homes, and our lives, so He can wreak havoc? And how deviously He finds a way to gain permission.” He turns back to Elspeth. “Tell us, my child—did the witch assist in the birth?”

Elspeth’s face crumples, and she gives a loud sob. Father Colville produces a handkerchief from his pocket and passes it to her. She dabs her eyes and takes a breath before continuing.

“I’m sorry,” she says in a broken voice. “It was a dreadful, terrible time. That night has left a deep scar across all our lives.”

She tells them that she saw a change over me, the very features of my face shifting. And at the moment she witnessed this physical alteration in my face, Anna’s birthing went awry. Blood began to trickle from her, and her laboring stalled. The wind battered at the walls of the cottage, howling like a thousand demons.

“She shouted at me,” Elspeth says, raising a hand to point at me.

It is the first true thing she has said of that night. I remember shouting at her to get some water, for I feared Anna was slipping away. “She shouted at me to leave her alone with Anna, but I begged her to let me stay.”

“Why?” Father Colville asks, his voice barely a whisper.

“I was afraid,” Elspeth says. “I felt a coldness enter the room. And when I looked at the window, I saw a personage.”

She tells Father Colville that she saw what she thought were two horns rising from its head. She opened her mouth to scream, but then she saw me turn to the shadow with an outstretched hand.

“The shadow gave her a reversed cross,” she says. “I saw it. I saw it as clear as I look upon her now.

“And then what happened?”

“The bairn came out,” she says. “But he was already gone.”

Elspeth’s emotions overcome her, and she weeps into a handkerchief as Father Colville dismisses her sympathetically. Then he turns to Mr.Couper.

“Is it true, Mr.Couper, that you asked all of Madam Balfour’s neighbors to testify in favor of her, and not a single one would agree to it?”

Mr.Couper’s eyes dart away, and his face burns. He tries to recover himself, straightening and lifting his head in confidence. “It is true that I had but a short time to seek out some witnesses before the date of today’s trial,” he says.

Father Colville shakes his head, tutting. “To lie before God is shameful, and as a man of the law, you are doubly accountable…”

“Please, Mr.Couper,” Bishop Vance calls. “Answer the question precisely, in the affirmative or the negative, if you please.”

“I will ask again, to assist you,” Father Colville tells Mr.Couper, clasping his hands. “Did you seek out a neighbor of Madam Balfour, or a friend, or anyone in the whole of Orkney other than her own kin and the witness who has clearly changed their mind, and found that not a single soul would attest to her innocence?”

“Yes,” Mr.Couper says finally.

Father Colville turns to the spectators, his arms spread out wide, as though Mr.Couper’s reply has made his point.

As though this proves that I am a wretch, too wicked for kith or kin to profess my virtue.