Chapter Thirty-Seven

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Kirkwall, Orkney

December 1594

ALISON

The year tilts toward the winter solstice. I feel the drag of the days, darkness and ice creeping ever closer and the earth preparing for her long sleep.

The trial is suspended, no one has told me why, and I lie and wait in my cell for something, anything, to happen.

My sleep is thick with dreams. I dream of the time my mother taught me about the gifts of a Carrier. When I said I would not follow her path and become one, that I would have nothing to do with The Book of Witching , she grew impatient and told me a story.

“The book is many things,” she said. “It is a storehouse, a map, and it is also a door.”

In the dream, I see the book transform into its many variations, springing from a square binding made of bark to a vast storehouse in which shadows bustle and pour through the stones like smoke. Then it spreads outward, revealing the cartography of evil. It morphs again, taking the form of a black door, at which I stand, my hand on the door handle, fashioned to resemble a claw made of iron.

“The book allows a Carrier to soul-slip,” my mother whispers in the dark. “If you need, you may pass through it and reside in the body of another Carrier for a time.”

“Why would I do that?” I ask.

“There are many reasons why a Carrier would need to escape,” she says. “You might be in danger. Ravens are Carriers. A human Carrier has been known to soul-slip into the body of a raven in times of danger.”

“Into its body?”

“Yes.”

“And then what happens? Where does the raven’s soul go?”

“They coexist. A body is just a portal, a container for all that a soul is. The raven and the Carrier become one.”

In the dream, I see a burst of black feathers as I open the door, and suddenly I am lifted high, high above the earth, the trees and fields shrinking beneath and the clouds arranging themselves around me like a vast white dress.

···

The trial recommences when I am yet suffering from the scorching of my legs. I can walk very slowly with the aid of a stick. Mr.Addis leads me up the stairs, and it takes me a long time to follow.

In the courtroom, Earl Patrick is not present, which is a relief, though John Stewart maintains his usual seat before me, eyeing me sourly. When Father Colville approaches, I notice he is wearing the smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, the one that tells me he is about to do something terrible. He turns to the gallery and holds his hands out wide.

“We wish to apprehend William Balfour,” Father Colville bellows. He looks up, and I see Bishop Vance give a nod of approval.

For a moment the name doesn’t mean anything, because why would he be calling to apprehend my husband? But then a stramash starts up at the back of the court, and in the middle row the spectators make way for two guards who wrestle William off his seat, pulling his coat and his hair. My heart thuds in my throat as I watch William thrashing against the guards, the scuffle terrible to witness. The guards haul William up the aisle, his feet dragging, and for a desperate, jagged moment, we make eye contact. I cry out as two more guards walk toward Will, their heavy boots squealing on the wooden floor. The four of them wrestle him down, tying his hands and ankles together. I can scarcely breathe for fear of what they plan to do to him. I glance nervously at the fire. It is lit only a small amount, and no metal strips are visible.

But then Father Colville orders the guards to take William outside, and a commotion sweeps across the courtroom. William’s shouts ring off the stone staircase as the guards heft him into the hallway. The spectators follow, pushing and shoving to see what is happening.

Mr.Addis leads me behind the crowd. I am too stricken to speak, to breathe, the pain from the burns in my flesh gone entirely. I am too afraid of what is to become of William to feel anything other than terror. Has he been taken to the dungeon? Surely a charge would have had to have been made for that to be the case?

We follow the crowd not to the dungeon, but to the front of the castle, out into the street. The spectators have gathered all the way to the archway joining the castle estate to the marketplace. From out here the castle is a looming, black specter, slick with rain and old snow, but the crowd remains, despite the weather, growing thicker as onlookers from the marketplace and the fishing boats are drawn near by the commotion.

At Father Colville’s bidding Mr.Addis tugs me roughly through the throng to the front, where I find my husband. He is pinned down on the ground by the guards close to a cart laded with stones and, bizarrely, a door. William is fighting them, and I cry out.

“Stop!” I plead. “Please, leave him alone!”

“Don’t confess, Alison!” he shouts with a strained voice. “For Orkney!

His cries break my heart. I have to cover my mouth with both hands, so desperate am I to make them stop, to set him free. Father Colville signals hastily to the guards to gag him. They fetch a hangman’s hood from the cart and slip it over his head, then fasten it secure with a belt across his mouth. I fall to my knees, sobbing.

“Madam Balfour,” Father Colville calls out to me. “Do you still deny your crimes before God?”

I open my mouth, willing myself to say the words. I confess . I look at William, straining to get up, telling them to get off, and I call upon God to save him.

Father Colville steps closer. “Say the word, Alison, and it can all end.”

But William’s shouts have lodged in my mind, stopping up my words. For Orkney! I remember what he said when he visited me last—that my confession may be a tool that Earl Patrick can use to deepen his plundering of Orkney.

How can I allow it?

“Say it,” Father Colville hisses.

I shake my head, but it breaks my heart.

Two more guards fetch the door from the cart and place it lengthwise across William’s body. Two others gather heavy stones. They heft them and stagger back toward him before dropping them with a loud clatter on the door.

With a horrible grunt, William stops bucking against the door. The sound he makes is unlike anything I’ve ever heard.

Some spectators look away.

“Alison?”

Father Colville is before me. His face is wet. It has started to rain in earnest, the light spit from the sea escalating to a heavy lash, pooling darkly in the nooks of the road. William’s clothing is soaked through, his hands in fists, the tremor and clenching the only things I can still see moving below the weight of the door, the boulders. My stomach roils as I eye the stones on the cart. There must be the weight of a house on that cart. Enough to crush him.

Spectators cluster together, watching my husband on the ground beneath the door and the stones. Birds cry overhead. On a wall opposite sits a large black raven, its darkness hooking the scene as it watches on.

In my mind’s eye I see my mother, pleading with me to sign the black book. Had I signed it, perhaps I would have had powers to escape. Perhaps I would have foreseen the dangers to come.

A stream of dark liquid runs from under the door, down through the cobbles like a snake. The rain falls hard, the sky a silver shield.

And I look up and meet Edward’s eyes through the crowd. My son. It breaks my heart to witness him here, watching on as his beloved father is killed before him, and in such an unspeakable manner. Edward’s mouth hangs open in a wordless howl, his eyes sightless and streaming with tears. I should confess. But even as I open my mouth to scream out the lies, I cannot—to do so is to damn my soul forever. I will not see my family in heaven.

Father Colville turns his head and nods at the guards. A moment passes before I realize what is meant by this exchange, and then I gulp back air to scream it out again in a long, single word.

“No!”

Father Colville pays me no heed. The wind unfurls as it does, no pause in the rain, the insistent movement of light. The birds call above, stars winking in the firmament, that old, death-defying pulse of light. And wherever He rests, God’s ear does not turn to my cry.

The guards make for the row of boulders and heft one each. They don’t stop until Will’s groans cease. Until the crowd grows quiet and disperses, Edward disappearing with them. Until Mr.Addis drags me away, Will’s body lifeless and still beneath the weight of the stones bearing my silence.