The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (7 page)

***

Though it was already May, it was a bitter night, with a near frost. The small barred window was set high in the wall, and the shutter was hooked back on the outside, where we couldn't reach to close it. The wind blasting through the open space set my teeth chattering. Our bellies were empty too. No food was brought to us, and without water I couldn't even stir up a cold porridge with my oatmeal.

"You're a fool," Granny said. "Why didn't you run when you saw them coming? You could have saved yourself."

"They'd have come after me. Where could I have run to?" I spoke sharply, but I don't think she heard me. She was listening to the din outside, the crowd in an ugly mood, whistling and calling, and the jailer, Master Donald Brown the locksmith, trying to keep them at bay.

"There's sixpence for you, Donnie my man," someone yelled out, "if you'll open the door and give us a peep at the witches."

"Get away to your houses and stop bothering us," Mr. Brown growled in reply. "You'll get your fill of their evil faces in the morning."

"What does he mean, in the morning? Where? What are they going to do with us?" I whispered to Granny.

"You think anyone's told me?" She gave a bitter laugh. "Listen to them, the dregs of the island. If my father could see this day..."

She turned away and began a kind of mumbling, her jaw working. She'd been doing it often recently, and I didn't like it. She looked old and a little mad, talking to herself like that.

We heard the outer door creak open, then clang shut. The bolt shot across, and there was a cough that told us that Mr. Brown had withdrawn to his little sanctum beside our cell. The noise from outside slowly died away.

"For the love of Christ, Donnie Brown," Granny suddenly called out, "will you not give us a blanket or a crust of bread and a drink of water?"

Slow footsteps approached the door.

"A blanket you want now? With a swan's-down pillow and linen sheets, I suppose? And a supper of roasted venison? My wife's cousin was on that ship that sank in the storm you magicked from the Devil. Get him to feed and warm you. You won't get anything from me."

"She never called up a storm!" I burst out, banging on the door with my fists.

Granny dragged me away.

"Save your breath. He'll not listen. He's closed his mind against us. You'll only make things worse."

"Worse?
Worse?
How can things be worse than this?"

"Ha! You really want to know? Just wait, miss, and you'll find out."

She had been prowling around the cell, and now she sank down into the far corner from the door.

"The draft's not so bad here. Settle down, for the Lord's sake. Let me think. There are things, maybe..."

Her head fell back against the cold damp stone wall, her eyes rolled up, and her lips began to move. I knew she was pulling from her memory spells and enchantments, blessings on us and curses on others, looking to her old knowledge to save us.

It would have been a natural thing for two people, facing a long night in a cold place, to sit close together and gain a little human comfort from each other's bodily warmth, but Granny had repelled my childish affection so often in the past that I stood hesitating. At last she snapped out, "Oh, stop dithering, Maggie, and sit here beside me. Wind your plaid around both our shoulders, and I'll lay mine across our knees. Be quiet and don't fiddle about. Go to sleep. Fetch the Lord Christ back again, why don't you? The Second Coming's about all that'll save us now."

Her sarcasm sounded like blasphemy to me, and I shivered with more than the cold.

***

I must have slept through a little of that long, weary night, in spite of the chill of the hard stone and the gale blowing through the open window—enough, anyway, to dream. Wild nightmares pursued me, and I woke several times with a start of horror, though the dreams fled before I could recall them.

Dawn came at last, and the rising sun sent a little warmth into us. It sent no breakfast, though. There had been nowhere, not even a bucket, in which to relieve ourselves, and the place stank already.

There was a strange absence of noise from outside: no cottage doors opening, no water splashing, no footsteps or greetings as people went off to work.

"What do you expect?" sniffed Granny, when I expressed surprise. "Today's the Sabbath. They'll all be getting themselves cleaned up to go to the kirk. They'll be spending the day droning out psalms and feeling pleased with themselves and having their holy ears filled with lies about us."

She had only just stopped speaking when I heard quick footsteps on the outer steps of the tolbooth, and someone rapped on the massive iron-bound door.

"Open up, man! You can't still be sleeping!"

"It sounds like Mr. Robertson," I said fearfully.

"Are they ready?" Mr. Robertson was saying. "Have they breakfasted?"

The great door swung open. We heard Donald Brown mutter something inaudible.

"Is that you, Mister Minister?" Granny called out. "We've not had so much as a crust of bread or a drink of water since you had us put away. So much for your Christian charity."

The bolts of our cell rasped back, and Mr. Robertson, as clean and pink as ever, appeared. He was frowning and seemed about to say something severe in answer to Granny's impertinence, but then his nose wrinkled at the smell and he looked with surprise at the window.

"How did you open the shutter?"

"We did not. The man never closed it," Granny informed him stiffly. "The cold wind had nothing to check it."

Mr. Robertson's long, thin frame twisted around, and he disappeared out of the cell.

"Common decency..." we heard him say. "...will not countenance undue ... some bread at least..."

We heard his quick retreat, and a few moments later Mr. Brown appeared. He planted a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water just inside the door and kicked a wooden bucket viciously toward Granny before slamming the door shut again.

I was so hungry and thirsty that I could have eaten three times the amount of bread and drunk the whole pitcher of water, but Granny made me keep some of it back.

"Wash yourself," she commanded. "No, not like that. I'll do it."

She dipped the corner of my plaid in the last of the water and scrubbed painfully at my face.

"Now do mine."

"What for?" I asked, when I'd done my best on her wrinkled red-veined cheeks. I was puzzled. She'd never made me wash before.

"They'll be taking us out today, I know it," Granny said. "We won't give them extra reasons for despising us. Here. Take off your cap."

I undid the strings that tied my little white cap under my chin and let her run her sharp nails through my hair by way of a comb, trying not to cry out as she tugged painfully at the knots.

Before I had finished tying the strings again and had the chance to do something to tame Granny's wild hair, Mr. Robertson's light footsteps were running back up the tolbooth steps.

"Bring them out, Donald. The sheriff's men will keep the crowd off them. I want them in the kirk before the people start arriving."

You can be beaten and starved and locked up in a cold, damp cell, but worse than any of these things is to be shamed in public, in front of people who know you. That's what they did to Granny and me that Sabbath morning in Rothesay.

We were hurried the short distance up the hill to the church of St. Mary's, the Virgin mother of Jesus. The Virgin was a kindly woman, so Tam had always told me. I believe he held to her more than to the Lord Jesus, but that was papist thinking, I knew, and so it must be sinful. Anyway, there was no help for Granny and me from the Virgin Mary, nor from anyone else.

The kirk was new, the ground all around it still strewn with the masons' off-cuts, and the sheriff's man was holding me so tightly against himself, I couldn't look down to see where I was going. I stubbed my toe painfully and cried out, and he took the excuse to hold me closer. He was a dirty-minded man.

Granny was in front of me. By the time I came up to her, they had already ripped off her outer dress so that she was standing shivering in her shift. They had the dress of sackcloth ready, a horrible brown shapeless thing, stained with the filthy things people had thrown at the last person they had shamed.

I couldn't help struggling and crying out when it was my turn, but a look from Granny stopped me. It was nearly eight o'clock, time for the service to begin. The church bell was jangling in the steeple, and people were hurrying up the hill—more eager to see us, I'm sure, than to hear Mr. Robertson's sermon.

There was nothing in their faces but hatred and cruelty and malice as we stood there at the church door, tied to the post, and the good people of Rothesay jeered and leered at us, jostling each other to get a good look.

The first gobbet of spit hit me on the shoulder. The second caught me on the cheek. Someone shouted, "Devil's whore! You lay with him, didn't you? Enjoyed it too!"

A hand plucked at my sackcloth robe, then another.

Mr. Robertson came hurrying out of the kirk.

"Get them inside," he said sharply to the sheriff's men. "They shouldn't be tied up here but sitting before the pulpit on the stools of repentance."

He even took a kerchief from his pocket and handed it to me once my hands were free.

"Wipe your face, Maggie. Compose yourself. You are entering the House of the Lord. Pray for forgiveness. The Lord is gracious and merciful. Cast yourself upon him. If you have not consorted with Satan, you have nothing to fear."

I heard Granny mutter, "Hypocrite," but I didn't think it was that simple. I couldn't understand Mr. Robertson. He'd come with the others to arrest us, but he seemed to be trying to protect us too.

The repentance stools were right at the front of the church, under the pulpit. We were shoved down onto them and had to sit there facing the congregation, who could stare at us as much as they pleased throughout the four long hours of the service. I knew what they were thinking. I'd not been to our parish church at Kingarth more than a few times a year, but once or twice I'd seen some poor soul sitting on the repentance stool, in the hideous sackcloth robe, and I'd spent the entire service enjoying my feelings of righteous indignation, despising the poor woman who was being punished for slander, or the red-faced man who'd been riotous and drunk.

There was a great rustling and creaking of stiff Sunday boots and a clatter of wood on stone as the people opened their folding stools and set them down on the flagstones, then settled themselves, ready to work their way through the psalms and prayers, waiting eagerly for the sermon.

Most of them had never heard Mr. Robertson preach before. The minister of Rothesay, Mr. Stewart—who was away on the mainland—was a hot preacher. He loved to denounce sinners and proclaim humiliating punishments. Mr. Robertson was standing in for him. I could see in the faces in front of me how curious the congregation was and how they were looking forward to some thunderous ranting from the pulpit. It was Granny and me they hoped to see condemned. They were longing for it.

It was cold in the church and the sackcloth robes were thin, but I was so nervous that sweat trickled down my back.

All too soon, Mr. Robertson mounted the steps to the pulpit, high above our heads. The congregation had been singing the psalm lustily, and now they coughed to clear their throats, gazing up at him.

"I have been commanded by the presbytery," began Mr. Robertson in a solemn voice, "to preach to you today on the subject of witchcraft. My text"—he ran a bony finger down the page of the Bible open in front of him—"comes from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter eighteen." He found the place, cleared his throat, looked up, and paused, making sure that all eyes were fixed on him.

"
'There shall not be found any among you,'
" he read, "
'that shall use divination, or is an enchanter, or a witch.'
"

A satisfied hiss went from row to row, and though I didn't dare look up, I knew that heads were nodding. "
'Or is a charmer, or a consulter of familiar spirits.'
"

The silence that followed was uneasy, and glancing up at the faces for a moment, I saw that some were no longer meeting the minister's searching eyes.

"
'All that do these things,'
" he went on, stabbing at the book with his finger, "
'are an abomination unto the Lord, and the Lord thy God doth drive them out before thee.'
"

He closed the Bible and looked up.

"Now," he went on, dropping his reading voice and speaking more naturally, "there are those among you who have accused Elspeth Wylie and Maggie Blair of using vile sorcery and witchcraft. But I am punishing them today for the true faults that are proven against them: that they have failed to keep the Sabbath, that they have not come to church at the set times, and that, in the case of Elspeth Wylie, she has used slanderous language and stirred up anger among her neighbors. It is for these sins that they sit before you today in a state of repentance, and if they will confess their sins before the Lord and their neighbors, they will be forgiven in the sight of man and the sight of God. As for the other charge, they will be brought tomorrow morning before a proper court assembled for the purpose, and until that judgment has been given, these women are not to be molested. Let everything be done decently and in order."

The thought of standing before a court made me shudder, but I was comforted by Mr. Robertson's words. He seemed determined that we should be treated fairly and, at the very least, protected from the crowd. I twisted my head around and stared up at him gratefully. Granny, I could tell, was just as surprised. She was blinking rapidly, and a grim little smile creased her cheeks.

"At this point, I shall announce the following punishments," Mr. Robertson went on, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket. "Alison McKirdy has been found guilty of drunkenness and accusing her neighbor of eating the lice off her head..." He paused for the laughter to die down. "She is to stand on the pillar for the next four Sundays. Andrew Macallister was seen plowing his field on the Sabbath day. He has admitted his fault and will be fined forty shillings. Robert..."