Bitter Magic

by Nancy Kilgore

  I sighed and gathered the bairns. We tramped across the machair, a white gold light slipping between gunmetal clouds and Hugh’s tall darkness casting long shadows.

  The Auldearn Kirk sat high and wide on its hill above the town, an edifice of stone upon stone, stark in the morning mist. The few small windows, low and crude, gaped like empty eye sockets from the dark interior, and the wooden door was so low that Hugh had to stoop to get through it.

  At the top of the hill, we stopped in front of the kirk. To the left of the door a head and hands protruded from the stocks, her hair all a-tangle, her head drooping down. Jonet Fraser, this tall and proud woman, usually so loud and boisterous, moaned to herself.

  “What ha’ ye done, Jonet Fraser?” I asked.

  Jonet moaned again.

  “That woman has committed adultery with Robert Cumming,” Hugh Gilbert snarled, and he tugged at my arm. I quickly snatched it away and knelt with Jonet. But the strong smell of urine came at me, and I stood up again. The punishment for adultery was to sit here in the stocks all the day long, every Sunday for a month.

  “We’ll remember Mister Harry for this, Jonet,” I said and turned to follow Hugh into the kirk.

  We sat in the back, the coldest section of that cold kirk. Most of the other peasants and farm folk stood barefoot on the stone floor, but they always saved a seat for me, Isobel, the Cunning Woman.

  In came one-eyed Jack the Smith, smelling of stale ale and horse sweat, and sat down beside Hugh Gilbert. And now Angus Watson, limping on his crutch, his severed leg swinging, followed by his bonny wife Abigail Murray. Around the room, at least half the men had scars or missing limbs, these survivors of the Battle of Auldearn just a few years ago, these victims of the bloodthirsty English. After the battle, they were chased down and chopped up, and those who came back came defaced and disfigured. Those who didn’t come back, the dead, still roamed and flitted and sometimes even came to kirk. There sat Alexander Murray with half a head, beside Abigail, his sister, and on the end of the pew old James Glasach with no arms at all, who had been the first to die. I nodded to old James, though I knew the others couldn’t see him.

  At kirk, Margaret saw her again.

  Margaret sat between her mother and her sister Lucy and sang the psalm at the top of her voice. She was wearing the new gown that her mother had made in Edinburgh. Though she would have preferred satin, the gown was cotton, in a lovely pale green color and with an embroidered collar in white. Mother had convinced Father that this was a modest style befitting a Covenanter woman. The Covenanters, Margaret’s people, had formed the foundation of the Scottish Reformation, and their Kirk was now, she reflected, the most pure and earnest expression of Christianity. They believed that women should never flout fancy dress and jewelry or dwell on outward appearance. Margaret admitted, though, that she did enjoy being noticed in her new gown by an English soldier in town. In his bonny red coat with the shiny buttons, he looked so handsome and merry. He’d smiled at her, and she couldn’t help a smile in response until she noticed her father glaring at her, and she lowered her eyes. This father who hated the English, the “bloody red devils” who occupied his land, the land of the Scots.

  Mister Gordon, the precentor, a short man with a long beak of a nose, was leading a hymn, and Margaret sang out:

  Give to the Lord ye potentates,

  Ye rulers of the world;

  Give ye all praise honor and strength,

  Unto the living Lord.

  Give glory to His holy name.

  Everyone said she had a lovely voice, clear and high, and it was true that she loved to sing. This was her favorite part of the kirk service. Beside her Lucy, who, with her dark wavy hair looked very much like her sister, raised her eyebrows with a frown, as if to say be quiet, but Margaret took a deep breath and sang louder:

  Worship him in his majestie,

  Within his holy throne!

  Another frown shot at her from her father. She knew what he was thinking. Singing was a way to worship God, but one should focus only on God, not on the enjoyment of the music. She adjusted her visage to look more somber, though in truth she continued to feel the pleasure of it.

  Shouts and rowdy voices arose from the back of the sanctuary. The peasants were jostling and laughing, not still and proper like the gentry in the front, and of course they weren’t singing, as they couldn’t read the words. Margaret sang louder again to drown them out, but not before glancing back to see if she was there. Everyone had to go to kirk, it was the law, but she didn’t see Isobel Gowdie.

  And the peasants did sing. One day Margaret had heard music from the farmtown. She’d ventured near, seen the people dancing and singing, and longed to join them, but Bessie had pulled her away. “Ungodly ways,” she’d declared.

  Margaret peeked back again, but her mother pulled at her sleeve, admonishing her to turn around.

  The minister stood up, raised his arms, and the kirk fell silent. Mister Harry was tall and thin, with a pointed nose and wiry ginger hair that was never combed. “We are like naughty worms,” he proclaimed, his voice shrill and strident, “digging in the filth of our minds and deeds. Our thoughts lead us into sin and evil, and when we see our wicked selves, we shrink in shame and despair.”

  There were squirming and rustlings from the back of the church, and Margaret hunched up her shoulders. What horrible words. But then she straightened up and glowered. She was not a naughty worm with filthy thoughts.

  “So how, the believer asks, can saving work go on in the heart of one so unworthy and fickle?” He paused and wiped his pale hair back from his face, making it poke out like straw on top of his head. He looked up to heaven, then gave a satisfied smile. “Nothing,” he shouted, “is too hard for the Lord. God’s covenant is written on our hearts in a place much deeper than our own wickedness. Everything will perish, sun, sea, heaven, and earth, but not the Lord’s people.”

  Margaret sighed at the beauty of his words, and on the other side of the kirk, her tutor, Mistress Collace, smiled with a look of rapture. Mister Harry noticed Mistress and smiled back, but she puckered her brows and patted her cap as if to straighten her already perfectly coifed blonde hair.

  Mister Harry lifted one arm and pointed to the back of the room. “The devil is in our thoughts and also in the world, lurking in the ditches and glens, disguising himself as a fairy or an elf, and ready to trick you at any opportunity. When you see a fairy, pass on by. Do not give him opportunity, for he will lead you away from the Lord your God.”

  At the back of the kirk, the scoffing and murmurs grew louder, and the people moved about restlessly. Margaret’s hand sprang to her mouth. The peasants all believed in the fairies.

  She craned her neck. There she was, Isobel Gowdie, in the very back between Hugh Gilbert, the black-bearded farmer, and two children. She sat still and stern-faced amidst the restless and murmuring peasants, her icy eyes glaring up at Mister Harry.

  What was Isobel thinking?

  The murmurs and protests grew louder. This was common in the kirk, where the people chafed at having to attend and often argued with the minister—but now the ruckus escalated. Two men stood up, raised their fists at Mister Harry, and shouted something in Gaelic. They started to rush at him, but two other men held them back.

  Then a woman threw a shoe.

  A shoe! It hit Mister Harry in the stomach.

  The kirk fell silent.

  Mister Harry’s face flushed pink and twisted into a puzzled grimace.

  Protest was customary here, and people often stood up and argued with the minister, but never to this extent.

  Mister Gordon scurried down the aisle and prodded the shoe-throwing woman with a mace. Mister Harry bowed his head as if in humility, then went right on preaching. Was everyone supposed to ignore this occurrence? Margaret glanced around the room, and ever
yone, even the peasants in the rear, looked as astonished as she felt.

  After church, Mistress Collace and Mister Harry stood in the kirkyard off to the side, deep in conversation. He talked and gestured, his face erupting into florid smiles, his hands waving wildly as Mistress nodded and answered in her measured manner. Only her eyes, widening, narrowing, and changing expression with each word and sentence, reflected her brilliant mind. Mistress Collace’s father was a minister somewhere near Edinburgh, and she was well-versed in theology. Margaret’s mother admired her considerably and said that Mistress Collace’s steady hand was greatly needed in this volatile country. But what were they talking about so intently? It looked as though Mister Harry was protesting something.

  Margaret turned to stare at the woman in the stocks. Adultery, Bessie had said.

  The woman sat on the ground just beside the door, a filthy heap, her head and hands in the stocks, her hair a tangle of wild snarls. She smelled like a waste hole. A couple of lads taunted her, shouting, “Scurvy whore!”

  She spat and cursed back at them, “Rapscallions! Venomous toads!” Some of the peasant men gathered and laughed, enjoying the spectacle. The shoe woman would no doubt be the next captive here.

  Isobel Gowdie came out of the kirk with her husband and stopped as if to say something to the woman, but her husband tugged her arm and pulled her away. She and her little family walked silently down the hill toward the farmtown.

  Margaret

  Chapter 5

  The family was sitting in the drawing room after supper. Evening sun shone through the windows, making bright patches on the worn carpet, everything converging into stillness and serenity. Father sat at his desk, Mother was reading the Bible, Lucy working a sampler, and Margaret bowed over her assigned reading, the Westminster Confession, the crowning document of the Presbyterian faith. She smiled to herself. She and Henrietta had agreed to meet at the estuary tonight.

  A sudden bang startled them as Father pounded on the desk. “We were struck down at Inverness!”

  Margaret looked up. “Another battle?” She shuddered as images of bloodshed and death arose in her mind.

  Father shook his head. “Twas but a skirmish, and the Royalists had us outnumbered. But we’ll round up our lads and rout them out.”

  Margaret sighed. “Why couldn’t we live in a place where reason reigns? Where battles cease, where brothers can study and not fight?”

  Father laughed. “If you find that place, pray tell me. But I doubt ’twill be on this Earth.”

  “But now that our true king is coming home, we will have peace!” Mother proclaimed. The Lady of Park and Lochloy sat straight and dignified, her dark eyes shining with patriotism. “‘God alone is Lord of the conscience,’” she quoted from the Westminster Confession, “and King Charles understands this.”

  Under the king’s father, Charles I, all of Scotland, England, and Ireland had been Presbyterian. But when King Charles I died, Oliver Cromwell became the Regent, and Charles II was forced into exile. Cromwell, who had at first sided with the Covenanters, turned tail and fought against the Covenanters, joining with the Royalists to demolish them at Auldearn.

  But now that Cromwell was dead, the tables had turned again, and Charles II was coming back to Scotland. He had promised to restore the Covenanters to power.

  “And now,” Margaret declared in a surge of zeal, “we will be free to worship the true God!”

  Her mother smiled at her.

  Margaret’s father, surrounded by a cloud of pipe smoke, frowned and shook his head but said nothing.

  Thankfully, Margaret had not inherited her father’s skepticism or sour disposition. According to her mother, this angry father had once been happy and enthusiastic—until Malcolm, his firstborn, had been killed at the Battle of Auldearn.

  Margaret looked up from the Confession. “And may Oliver Cromwell feel the fiery scourge of Hell!” She shouted in a burst of loyalty.

  “Nay, Margaret,” her mother said with gentle firmness. “We must not wish that even upon our enemies. Rather, let us pray that his misguided soul be redeemed in the end.”

  “Is it true, what they say?” Margaret asked. “About Cromwell’s body?”

  Father looked up sharply, and Mother spoke quickly. “What did you hear about that?”

  Margaret shrank from her mother’s stern face.

  Lucy stood up and shouted, “That they dug up his body from the grave and cut off his head!”

  Margaret wrinkled up her nose. “And stuck it on top of a pike for all to see.”

  “None too harsh a punishment for that one,” Father growled. “The one whose hypocrisy lured us to his cause, then deceived us and turned his back on the true kirk.” He jabbed the air with his pipe. “The one who made a pact with the devil.”

  “But, John,” Mother said, “we must not become the savage beasts that our enemies are.” She turned to Margaret and Lucy with sadness in her eyes. “This brutal practice of piking heads exists on both sides. But our Lord instructs us not to return hate for hate. Though we live in such trying times as these, we must adhere to the Word for guidance.”

  Father’s voice rose in ire. “The devil cannot be dealt with like a man!”

  Margaret bowed her head then looked up quickly from the Confession. “It says here that the Pope is the Antichrist! Doesn’t that mean he is the devil?”

  Father smiled and nodded. “He is indeed. And it gladdens me to hear you are learning your Confession, Margaret.”

  “But Father, how can the pope be the Antichrist, when, according to Aunt Grissel, the Catholics believe that he is for Christ, and that they are worshipping the true God? She says we just have a different way of understanding.”

  Mother and Father exchanged a look, and Father pursed his lips, a sign of his rising anger.

  He adjusted his plaid around his shoulders. “Grissel Brodie, like her father, the laird, is too friendly with the Catholics.”

  “Aye, Father,” called Lucy, who was walking around the room lighting candles in the wall sconces, even though the sun was still bright. She held the taper high and stole a triumphant look at her sister. Margaret knew that she was favored by Aunt Grissel while Lucy was not and aligning with Father against Margaret was Lucy’s way of getting back at her.

  “But don’t forget, John,” Mother said, staring at him above her spectacles, “that Uncle Alexander is, at this moment, escorting Charles back to Scotland.”

  Father lifted his shaggy eyebrows. “May God speed the Laird and the King. But—”

  As Mother and Father launched into a heated discussion about Uncle Alexander, who was one of the dignitaries bringing the king back from exile, Margaret quietly left the room, noticed only by Lucy with a questioning look.

  It was the perfect moment to steal away. The tide would be going out, so Henrietta could cross the estuary, and the sun would be up until nine o’clock. Margaret could be back before dark.

  Henrietta, on her steed, was already waiting at the strand. The lasses pulled off their caps and let their hair fly loose, laughing and straddling their horses like men. Margaret thought suddenly of the woman in the stocks and shivered. They could be punished for loose hair in public. She let this thought fly away in the wind as they raced back and forth on the sand and into the water, where the horses waded and splashed.

  “Someone threw a shoe at Mister Harry in kirk!” she shouted, putting on a look of distress, as was proper.

  “And what did Mister Harry do?” Henrietta called over the wind, her pale hair whipping across her face in wispy strands.

  “He just kept talking!” Margaret replied, and they both burst out laughing.

  The pair slowed their horses to a walk and became more contemplative. This was the place where they shared their innermost thoughts.

  “What of the fai
ry woman?” Henrietta asked. “Do you still want to visit her?”

  A sudden image of the gibbet and the burning place made Margaret wince, but she stuck up her chin. “Yes. I want to hear about the fairies and see them myself.”

  “Did you know that Mister Harry was a commissioner in the execution of Jane Dunlop?”

  “Oh, no.” Margaret clutched her heart.

  “If you associate with that woman, you might be suspect, too.”

  Margaret stopped Miranda and glared at her friend. “Enough, Henrietta! I am not an ignorant peasant. I am a Covenanter woman striving for piety. No one can condemn me for talking to her.”

  Henrietta raised an eyebrow but said nothing, and they led their horses back onto the strand.

  “We have always been in such accord, Henrietta,” Margaret said. “And I thought you would be as keen as I about this. Tis a whole other world to be discovered.”

  Henrietta reached out and touched her arm. “Tis only that I care for you, dear friend. And perhaps I admire you, too. You dare to explore what frightens me.”

  The two clasped hands, and Margaret felt the peace return between them. The sky darkened suddenly as a cloud passed over. “Oh, I see the sun sinking. I must get back, or twill be the devil to pay.”

  “But ’tis such a beautiful evening.” Henrietta had dismounted and was stooping down to pick up a shell. “Shall we not stroll in the sunset?” She lifted her hand and gave the shell to Margaret, who put it in her pocket as she reined in Miranda and turned back to the path.

  “You can stay here, but I must go,” Margaret called over her shoulder as she spurred her horse into a gallop.

  She had almost reached the Wood of Lochloy when there came a thundering of hooves and a shouting of voices behind her. Stomping and neighing, and the clanging metal of swords. Battle cries. Was it an invasion? The Royalists again? Margaret turned Miranda toward the wood, and they trotted faster than ever through an opening in the trees. With twilight upon them, the wood was in shade. Margaret led the horse to a place where the trees were thicker, dismounted, tied the reins to a tree, and stole up to where she could see out.