Hue and Cry

by Shirley McKay

  In this waking gulf of darkness, Agnes felt herself disintegrate. Her terrors danced around the room. Archie wagged a playful finger, shook his head at her, dragged the purpled dyer’s hose about his feet. Once, she saw Alexander, sweetest of children, sticky-sweet with blood. She did not remember his name. The ghosts brought her comfort, and she talked to Archie, scolding him for dying, and to the red-haired boy. She told them both about the bairn that fluttered in her womb, and Archie held his tongue for once. ‘I wish I could have told you,’ she explained to him. He rolled his eyes and clucked her chin, saying not a word; and then she saw it was not Archie but her father come to kiss goodnight to her, not her father but the hangman, and the apparitions fled, and would not return.

  There came a tap-tap-tapping, like the iron of her father’s anvil, ringing the steel outside the door, and a slow prick-pricking, creeping of her skin, until her flesh squirmed around her like a living thing. Then she knew that there were fiends and devils come to haunt her, that she really was a witch.

  When they brought the light she reared up, spitting like a tomcat, and it took the beadle and the lockman both to loosen and restrain her, pinning her down upon the straw. The lockman struck Agnes hard upon the face to quiet her, and pulled her filthy shift above her head. This shielding from the sudden light subdued her, like a kitten in a poke. She submitted passively while the midwife pumped the swollen nipples and the blue veins of her breasts, ranged her restless womb and answered shortly.

  ‘There is no question that this woman is with child, I would hazard some four or five months. Aye, no less, for I feel the bairn quicken.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Perhaps it was the candlelight; the minister had turned a sickly shade. He pressed a handkerchief against his face, perspiring in the chill damp air, and mopped his brow.

  ‘There can be no doubt,’ the woman answered.

  ‘Then you must release her,’ the minister said thickly to the beadle, ‘pending trial.’

  When the man looked likely to protest, he countered, ‘Witch or no, it is not right that ye should treat her so.’

  ‘We have tret her well,’ the man objected, ‘and ye will not find a mark upon her, I will swear to it, save the hangman had to slap her, which you witnessed for yourself. And she has vexed us sorely with her crying and her cursing and her spit and scratching. Then there is the fee for her release and for her warding, which was long and arduous.’

  ‘Aye, it was,’ said Hew abruptly. ‘Here’s your money.’ And he threw the man a purse. He pitied her, but did not blush to see her mauled and stripped. Their cruelties had reduced her to a wild, inhuman creature, and in her fear and filth she scarcely seemed herself.

  ‘Agnes, you are free to go.’ Hew gave her back her name, and covered up her nakedness. He lifted down her dress.

  Agnes did not stir but, blinded by her darkness, blinked bewildered at the light.

  ‘Agnes,’ said the minister, in his booming kindly voice. ‘You may go home to your Tibbie. And we’ll summon you next week to compear before the session. Do you understand? To answer,’ he began to look uncomfortable, ‘are you a witch, and all. I’m sure you’ll make an answer, when you put your mind to it. That you understand the charge, and are under no compulsion, and so on. Sleep now, change your clothes. Go home and prepare yourself.’

  He cleared his throat and rounded on the beadle.

  ‘Clean this place. There’s a stench cannot be fit to breathe. It may spread sickness to the kirk.’

  ‘Tis sickness, sir,’ the beadle answered brightly, fingering his purse. ‘I’ll change the straw.’

  He gestured to the lockman, and together they lifted Agnes by the arms and bundled her downstairs.

  Hew followed Agnes into the street, where he found her shrinking, baffled by the day. He could not persuade her to walk with him. Her limbs refused to carry her and in the end he had to lift her in his arms. She clutched and murmured vaguely but did not resist as they stumbled the few yards to Strachan’s shop. Tibbie laid fresh linen on the bed and Hew set Agnes down on the counterpane, on the white embroidered pillow that was Archie’s final resting place. In the absence of all other friends it fell to Hew to fetch the water and to heat it on the fire while Tibbie washed her tenderly, sombre as a mother laying out her child. She coaxed the tangles from her hair, wiped the dribble from her lips and burned the filthy clothes upon the fire. As Agnes was made clean, Hew felt a little shy of her. He turned his eyes away, embarrassed at her nakedness, though he had seen her stripped and foetid in her prison cell.

  When all was clean and fresh, and the room restored to its accustomed neatness, Tibbie bowed her head and wept. Hew came close to comfort her. He took the candle from her hands and drew the curtains round the bed, leaving Agnes to her rest. As he closed the drapes she stirred and smiled at him. ‘Gilbert, is it you?’ she murmured. ‘Do not leave me now. For I have told them nothing.’

  And so it was it was Hew Cullan, gentlest of inquisitors, who heard her name the father of her child.

  The Reckoning

  On Tuesday, Hew represented Agnes at the session court. Giles came with him as a witness. Agnes was surprisingly recalcitrant. ‘Physician, what physician?’ she whimpered in bewilderment. ‘I do not know him, sir.’

  Hew hissed at her. ‘Listen, and be silent. He has evidence to help you.’ He informed the court, ‘This case is not in your jurisdiction. It is an accidental death.’

  Thomas Brooke the baxter sneered. ‘What are you, an advocate?’ He appealed to the minister, ‘By what authority has this man had her freed? She was arraigned for witchcraft.’

  ‘That I shall contend. I am her counsel. And this man is a witness to the case. He is a physician, Doctor Locke.’

  ‘I’ve heard the name.’ The minister looked closely at Giles. But before he could explain himself, Agnes cried out wildly, ‘He cannot be a witness, sir. I do not know him.’

  ‘He is a mediciner and a scholar and has information crucial to this case that he will put before you,’ Hew answered patiently. ‘I pray you, hear him out.’

  Thomas Brooke began to rant. ‘The woman has confessed she baked the pie and fed it to her husband. She confessed the pie was poisoned. She was caught red-hand.’

  ‘Therefore she must be arraigned for slaughter, not for witchcraft,’ Hew proceeded smoothly. ‘This is not a matter for the kirk.’

  ‘There,’ roared the baxter, poking his finger, ‘is where ye go wrong, for she admitted to the coroner that she had the poison from a witch. Therefore,’ he concluded triumphantly, ‘she is indicted for witchcraft, and for conjuring with charms, and etcetera, and etcetera, which she must confess.’

  ‘No, sir, I did not,’ protested Agnes. ‘For I am no witch. The lassie is the witch. She said the herbs were harmless, knowing they were poison. I bought them in good faith.’

  ‘That is a lie,’ observed Hew.

  ‘A lie?’ The baxter sniggered. ‘I thought you were her counsel!’

  ‘I counsel her to tell the truth. Come, madam,’ Hew prompted her gently, ‘for you know you stole the seeds.’

  ‘You promised to defend me,’ Agnes cried.

  ‘If you tell the truth. The truth is,’ he addressed the minister directly, ‘that Agnes stole the seeds. She had no knowledge what they were.’

  ‘And what were they?’ the baxter asked snidely.

  ‘Hemlock,’ interjected Giles. ‘They were prescribed to a patient of mine who suffers from convulsions, wherein their sparing use is proven beneficial. This woman stole them from my patient’s bedside in mistake for carrot seeds.’

  ‘Confession of this theft,’ Hew whispered to Agnes, ‘is essential to your cause. Or you will burn for witchcraft and be wirrit at the stake.’

  Agnes nodded fearfully. ‘Aye, it’s true. I took them.’

  ‘Then there was no witch?’ the minister asked sceptically.

  Agnes hesitated, looking from one man to the other, and conceded, ‘No.’
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br />   ‘Agnes is with child,’ explained Hew smoothly, ‘by a man who is not her husband. You will hear her claim that she was raped. That you may look into as and when you will. Her husband has not dealt with her for years. She had met Doctor Locke’s patient, and knew her to keep carrot seeds as prophylactic for her fits in a pocket in her dress. The seed has a reputation as an aphrodisiac and is harmless. She resolved to ask for some. Unhappily, when she came into the house, she found her friend insensible, in the grip of a convulsion. What then should she do? It was clear to her. She found the pocket by the bed and took the seeds inside. Only now, the seeds were hemlock.’

  ‘Is this her defence?’ The minister frowned.

  ‘It is, sir. She confesses to the theft. And she confesses to the pie. She does not confess to murder or to witchcraft. You must let her go to trial.’

  The minister sighed wearily. ‘I doubt you speak true, sir, when you say this is not in my remit. No, Thomas,’ he assured the baxter, ‘I will not be swayed.’ He turned to Giles. ‘Your practices are strange. Is it your habit to prescribe your patients poisons?’

  Giles assented. ‘In minute amounts, when all else fails. I deal with some desperate cases.’

  ‘Then was it from your own house that the seeds were stolen?’

  ‘No, sir, it was not. Agnes took them from the patient’s bedchamber. I keep my medicines locked away.’

  ‘And yet you did not think to warn your patient to do likewise? Agnes Ford could simply walk in from the street?’

  ‘I confess, it was a dereliction, and my fault. I was careless with the herbs, and it is my negligence that brings about this tragedy.’ Hew motioned to protest, but Giles continued quietly, ‘But that the physic was unnatural, I cannot allow. There were no charms, no witchcraft here. Medicines can be fatal when they fall in careless hands, for which this tragic case is surely the exemplar.’

  ‘Aye,’ the minister conceded. ‘I understand your plea. Well then, look here, counsel, I will set the case before the magistrate. Agnes Ford,’ he put to her, ‘do you confess to witchcraft?’

  ‘No, sir, I do not.’

  ‘Did you consort with witches, seeking charms to cure your husband?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Then I must conclude. At present, I can find no case for witchcraft. As more evidence is found, we’ll deal with it. I will report my findings to the justice and appeal for a commission. Meanwhile she is free to go.’ He spoke in a low voice to the baxter. ‘Let the law untangle it. Firstly, Agnes is with child; second, she has not confessed. But in a month or two, we shall return to this.’

  It was a grim little party that left the session house. Agnes turned on Hew. ‘I thought you were my friend, sir. Yet you accused me of lying and theft.’

  ‘You did lie,’ Hew said reasonably, ‘and you did steal. And I am your friend. For that you stole and lied must make up your defence. Believe me, if you plead that you consort with witches it can only be the worse for you.’

  ‘I am grateful that you freed me. But it will not come to trial.’

  ‘I fear you are mistaken there. Our work is just begun.’

  ‘When Gilbert comes, then all will be resolved,’ she answered boldly. ‘I thank you, sirs. I have no further need of your defence.’

  ‘Tis strange she puts her faith in him,’ Giles pondered as she left. ‘When she has killed his brother, accident or no.’

  ‘They were lovers,’ Hew said softly.

  Giles whistled. ‘Truly? Then did she mean to kill him after all?’

  ‘I know not. Time will tell. For us, what matters is the present danger. Though it is diverted, yet it will return.’

  ‘Well, your sister’s name is spared. I thank the Lord.’

  ‘But what of yours?’ Hew countered. You expose yourself to censure, knowing this is not your fault. You did not prescribe her physic. It were perjury, if you were asked in court.’

  ‘Is it? I know nought of that,’ his friend considered carelessly. ‘I have not read the law. Perjury, you say? Well, my back is broad. Listen, though, you shall not mention this to Meg? I would not have her hear I took the credit for her medicines. She thinks me vain enough already.’

  ‘Took the credit?’ Hew smiled wryly. ‘What a wit you are!’

  They walked in silence down the south street to the priory gates, and parted at the entrance to St Leonard’s. Hew shivered in a breeze blown off the sea. He watched his friend tug close his coat and hurry past the glower of the cathedral, where he turned the corner into the north street, and was gone.

  Gilbert Strachan did not repay the trust that Agnes placed in him. The letters that Hew had sent to the Scots house were returned unread. From Lucy they received the news that Gilbert had moved on. To prove the point he sold his third share in the Angel to his partner Robin Flett. Robin had a good deal more to say about the matter. But the crux of it was that the Angel was his, and the partnership with Strachan was effectively dissolved. Neither Archie’s death nor Agnes’ despair would bring Gilbert Strachan home from foreign shores.

  Within a week or two, the writ was served, and Agnes indicted to appear before the justice ayres for the slaughter of her husband Archie Strachan, that she had fed him poisons in a pie. There was no citation of Giles Locke, though he was named as witness. Hew remained uneasy on his friend’s behalf. He read the paper pinned up in the marketplace, and noted that the charge did not expressly state that Agnes knew the pie was poisoned. Nor was she charged with murder, out and out. This provided hope, for it allowed the way to her defence. It was a peculiarity of law that the defendant might not contradict the terms of the indictment. The prosecution might well prove the pie was poisoned, and that Agnes made the pie. That was understood. It would be harder to prove that Agnes had intended it to poison him. Encouraged by this, Hew went to see her.

  It was Tibbie who came to the door. The house stood in darkness, closed to the street, and he was about to turn away when he heard the bolts draw back. She was thinner than he had remembered her. Behind her the lamps were unlit. ‘Forgive the dark. We’re quiet here. My mother sits below stairs in the shop.’

  ‘I did not know that you were open.’

  Tibbie sighed. ‘She makes a show of winding wools, she says for when my uncle comes. But the shop is closed. Boys throw stones at the windows. Yesterday, a man came offering to buy the looms. My mother turned him out of doors. This morning, the coroner came.’

  ‘I read the libel in the marketplace,’ he told her gently. ‘That is why I’m here.’

  She nodded. ‘It has happened, then.’

  ‘The trial will not take place until the spring, at the next circuit court. But I must talk with her.’

  ‘You can go down the backstair. Tom has gone. I don’t know where.’

  ‘Thank you. Are you hungry? Would you like to buy some bread?’ Hew felt for his purse.

  Tibbie hesitated, shaking her head. ‘Is it not we who are meant to pay you? No thank you, sir. I do not care to go to market, with my mother’s scandal blazoned on the cross. It is not only those that read, that can throw stones.’

  He was touched by her dignity. But there was something else he had to ask of her. ‘Tibbie, when your cousin died, what happened to his clothes?’

  ‘I expect my mother gave them to the poor. It’s what she did with our old things.’ She smiled a little at the irony. ‘Now we are poor ourselves. I remember there were some things that my uncle wanted kept. He could not bear to part with them.’

  ‘There was a green cloak. It was lying on the floor by Alexander’s bed,’ he prompted her.

  ‘Aye, that’s right. I think that that was one of them. He said that he would have it for himself. I never saw him wear it, though. Perhaps he changed his mind. Sir, when you have finished with my mother call up and I’ll open the door. We have to keep it locked now. Times have changed.’ She turned her back to him and knelt before the fire.

  He found her mother in the shadow of a single candle, in the bar
e hull of the back of the shop. It was where they found the boy. Yet there was nothing to remark it, no pervasive sense of violence. As if she read his mind, she said, ‘It is an ordinary place.’

  Unconsciously, she smoothed her belly with her hand. He saw the swell.

  ‘I did not think it would come to this,’ she faltered, ‘for I did not mean to kill him.’

  ‘It has come to it,’ he told her. ‘We must work on our defence. You wanted to provoke your husband’s lusts.’

  ‘He would not lie with me.’

  ‘And yet you were with child.’

  ‘For I was raped,’ she answered simply.

  ‘Tell me about the rape.’

  ‘It happened here.’

  Perhaps he had looked sceptical. She read his mind again, for she went on. ‘You wonder how it is that I can sit here, winding wool? People imagine that ghosts inhabit places, engraved in walls or blood-drenched beds. Ghosts do not haunt places. They haunt souls.’

  ‘Whose ghost? Alexander’s?’

  ‘Alexander? Ah, poor boy. I almost had forgotten him. And the day we found him – aye though, you remember – I forgot the rape. It hardly mattered then.’

  Hew was startled. ‘That day? You were raped the day that Alexander died?’

  ‘Aye.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘Did I not say so?’

  ‘I must ask you what happened.’

  Agnes sighed. ‘The men had gone to market. It was after kirk.’

  ‘What time did they leave?’

  ‘Before the bells, at daybreak. I remember Archie grumbling, and I waited in the house. Tom was loading up the cart. Afterwards, he locked the doors and brought the keys to me. We keep them on a chain behind the curtain in the hall. And at the second bell I went to kirk.’

  ‘You did not see your nephew?’ Hew demanded.

  ‘No. How should I, though?’ Agnes seemed surprised. ‘I thought that he had gone to Crail with Archie. When they left, the house was still. I did not know he was the cause of all the fuss. Well then, I went to the kirk, and after the psalms and the sermon I came back here to the house and sat before the fire. I may have dozed a little, for the day was warm. I was awoken, I know not when, perhaps at twelve, by a knocking on the door. It was George Dyer. He had come, he said, upon the order of the session, to inspect the shop and see no work was done there on the Sabbath day. I protested my man had gone to Crail, which has statutes still for Sunday markets, which he knew, detesting it. But he insisted he was required to go to all the booths and workshops in the town and make report. There could be no exceptions. He was an elder in the kirk, and most assiduous. And so to appease him I took the key from the chain and unlocked the shop.’