Bitter Magic

by Nancy Kilgore

  The light was dim in Harry’s chamber, with only three candles around the bedside. Heavy gray clouds outside the window made it feel like night. His wife, Julia, and Agnes Pierson stood in the shadows, watching.

  When the first cup had filled with Harry’s blood, the doctor took another one out of his bag.

  “No!” Agnes yelped.

  There came a scuffling sound and a slap. “Quiet!” Julia barked.

  Doctor Urquhart punctured the skin again and held the second cup while turning toward the women. “The only cure for the fever is a vigorous bloodletting,” he stated in a quiet, authoritative voice. “This removes the burning heat from the skin and lessens the pain. It will require several cups.”

  “Proceed, doctor,” Harry whispered. He suddenly felt so depleted he thought he might faint, though fever still raged throughout his body.

  Agnes ran out of the room.

  Harry lost consciousness.

  When Harry awakened, it was to the sound of someone murmuring. He barely made out a young woman walking around the dim room, and he could hear but a few words: “. . . in his bed . . . sick and sore . . .” She was carrying something, a bag, perhaps, and was swinging it as she swayed and chanted.

  He tried to sit up, but could barely move, and when he tried to speak, the words barely emerged. “What’s this, lass?” he finally managed.

  She came close to his bed, and he saw that it was Jane Martin, the fairest lass in the village with her soft skin and hair, rounded curves, and blue eyes rimmed by dark lashes. When she bent over his bed and looked at him, he smiled. Such lovely breasts . . . so enchanting a lass. And such a gift at his sickbed. He immediately felt a little more alive.

  “Tis for your sickness,” she said, putting her hand in the bag and smearing his forehead with something greasy and foul-smelling.

  This was some superstition of the peasants, he knew. And if they were trying to help him, what harm could it do? Perhaps it might even help.

  Harry tried to take her hand, but he could still barely move his arm, so he smiled up at her in gratitude.

  Like a deer in the forest, she vanished.

  KATHARINE

  Chapter 28

  In the gray light before sunrise, Katharine entered the parlor.

  It had been several weeks since the sandstorm that had devastated the land, and the farm workers were still struggling to save the crops. Walking to Inshoch Castle, Katharine had tried to give them some encouragement. She’d recognized the first man she met on the road and had stopped to speak to him. Hugh Gilbert was a silent sort who doffed his hat and bowed when he saw her. He’d said that almost all the flax and half of the oat crop had been lost.

  The curtains drooped and sighed in the draft. She sat down in the chair by the fire and stirred the embers, knowing that this wouldn’t heat the room, but that she’d soon feel a warmth within herself. She knelt on the floor. This kneeling in the quiet before dawn, before her husband John Ross awakened, was precious time. She could turn all her thoughts to the Lord, knowing that his presence was with her.

  Perhaps, in another time and place, she would have been suited to the monastic life. In a nunnery, she could have devoted her days to prayer and supplication. Several hundred years ago, perhaps, before these places became so corrupt, and the popes so full of greed and lust.

  A loud knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Katharine made for the hallway, only to be accosted by the stolid presence of Mistress Forbes, who had let herself in.

  Julia Forbes, in a tall hat with wide brim that rendered her short, compact presence and angry glare all the more menacing, stepped forcefully into the room. “Whore of Babylon!” She shouted, reached out, and pushed Katherine back against the banister.

  “What–?” Katharine clutched her heart.

  “I know what you’ve done and where you’ve been!” Mistress Forbes’s face, with its short nose and gaunt cheeks, was like a snarling dog, and there were tears in her tiny eyes. She appeared barely able to keep herself from bawling hysterically.

  “What’s this? What’s this?” John Ross bellowed as he came down the stairs, buttoning his shirt over a hairy chest.

  Katherine took hold of the banister to keep herself from falling over. She blinked and stammered, “I don’t know, John.”

  “Well, what have you done?” he demanded.

  “I have done nothing.” Katharine could barely speak, and her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know.”

  “Why is the minister’s wife here accusing you if you’ve done nothing?”

  “Aye, she knows what she’s done, all right,” rejoined Mistress Forbes with a smirk. Now that she had an ally in John Ross, she was more composed. “Improper relations with my husband, is what.”

  “What?” Katharine cried. “No, no, not at all!” Where had this wild accusation come from?

  John, more riled now than Mistress Forbes, raised his hand and smacked Katherine on the cheek. And now Katherine was crying, clinging to the banister.

  Mistress Forbes shoved her again and turned to leave. “You’d best be away from here altogether,” she said. “Be gone from this place.” She shut the door behind her.

  John looked to hit her again, but Katherine held up her hands in a plea. “No, John, she is wrong. Nothing improper with the minister. All I’ve done is take counsel and guidance from him.”

  “And should I believe such a story? Perhaps you should be gone from here.” With that, he climbed back upstairs.

  Katherine went to her room and looked in the mirror. A red swelling was forming on her cheek. The Lord does not give you more than you can bear. That was what she had always believed. But now?

  She went back to the parlor and her prayers but could not regain peace. Julia Forbes could bring great shame upon Katharine’s head with this accusation, and people would believe her. What could she do? Perhaps this was a sign that the Lord was calling her to leave Morayshire. Katharine would consult Alexander, Laird of Brodie.

  MARGARET

  Chapter 29

  “Isobel Gowdie must be a true cunning woman,” Henrietta said. She stooped to rake her fingers in the wet sand, pulled up a cockle, and held it high. “Aha! We’ll have these for soup tonight!” She placed it in her leather satchel and stooped again to rake.

  “Isobel Gowdie truly is a cunning woman,” Margaret agreed, wrinkling her nose at the cockles. Sometimes her cook prepared these, but only when they were low on other supplies, and she herself had no fondness for cockles.

  The two young women had hitched their horses to a post, taken off their shoes and stockings, and were now walking along the strand beneath the high-tide line.

  “I was so afflicted, so downcast, I feared I would never mend. And now look at me!” Henrietta skipped and twirled around, her petticoat flipping gaily beneath her dress.

  Margaret watched and smiled, then resumed gazing out to sea.

  “But what causes you such quietude?” Henrietta asked.

  “I am watching for Titania and Oberon.” Margaret brushed back the hair that had escaped from her cap. “I’m trying to think of a charm that will bring them in.”

  “A charm?” Henrietta lowered her voice and came closer. “But that sounds like magic.”

  “I believe ’tis more like a prayer. Or perhaps a prayer in combination with a wish. Mistress Gowdie used one to talk with the dolphins. And they understood her! Or perhaps ’tis a call, like the farmers call the cows, with a rhyme in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

  Henrietta looked hard at her friend, then laughed, putting her satchel down in the sand. “Yes! We can devise a rhyming prayer.” She raised her hands to her mouth in a cupping motion and called, “All the dolphins in the sea, come to Margaret and me.”

  The waves rolled, and the sea shi
mmered calm and blue.

  Margaret stepped up and shouted even more loudly, “Saint Michael, Saint Mary and Trinity Three, bring Oberon and Titania to me!”

  The sound of the waves, the smell of the sea, but no dolphins.

  Margaret kicked the sand and looked up at Henrietta’s innocent face: her delicate nose, the blonde eyebrows and lightly waving red-gold hair. “I went to the Beltane feast,” she said.

  Henrietta started. “No, my lady!” The pair often called each other “my lady” in jest or affection, but this time, it seemed Henrietta was using it to tamp down a sense of fear that had arisen. “And what was it like?”

  “Mistress Gowdie was magnificent. She led me round the fire, and we danced! I danced! And then she told a story of the fairies. She knows the fairies, Henrietta. She visits them and dines with them!”

  “The fairies? Did you believe it?”

  “I wasn’t sure, but I do now.”

  “But we are taught the higher truth of Christ’s presence, not that of the fairies.”

  “Why couldn’t both be true? And why are we not allowed to dance? The dancing was glorious!” Margaret lifted her arms and kicked her feet, twirling so that her skirts flew up.

  “Yes! Dancing is glorious.” Henrietta took friend’s hand, and they skipped along until Henrietta stopped them both short. Her face seemed to freeze.

  “What is it?” Margaret asked.

  Henrietta didn’t answer. She stood still, her face paler than pale, her body trembling. The strands of hair that had come out of her cap hung like limp seaweed across her eyes, and she didn’t wipe them away.

  “Henrietta?”

  Finally, Henrietta turned to face Margaret, but her gaze was still far away.

  Margaret’s shoulders sank. “Were you back on that mountain just now?”

  Henrietta bowed her head, her body stilled now. “There were so many of them.”

  Margaret hesitated. “What did they do?”

  Tears welled up in her clear light eyes as Henrietta sank down on the sand, curling up her body and shaking her head back and forth.

  Margaret sat beside her and put her arm around her friend.

  Henrietta’s shoulders stopped shaking and she seemed to calm down but remained silent.

  “But then you were rescued.”

  “Yes, and I praise God for those English soldiers. How did they find me, I wonder?”

  Margaret took a deep breath and gave a satisfied smile. “Again, ’twas Isobel Gowdie.”

  “Isobel Gowdie? What can you mean?”

  “I went to visit her and implored her to use her second sight. And she did! She saw you with her second sight, right on Ben Rinnes, and then I told the lieutenant what Mistress Gowdie had said, and Mister Harry stepped in, and the next thing I knew, you were found.”

  Henrietta’s eyebrows knit together in an expression of fear. “Mister Harry and Mistress Gowdie?”

  “Oh, he didn’t know I had consulted her. Margaret looked hard at Henrietta and her red-gold tresses blowing about. “Isobel Gowdie saw you there, on the mountain. And I believe that I saw you, too. I think I have the second sight, Henrietta.”

  Henrietta raised her eyebrows.

  “I didn’t believe it at first, either, but now I know ’tis true.”

  They walked silently along the sandbar, Henrietta stooping to rake and pick cockles again.

  “That lieutenant is the most handsome soldier.” Margaret smiled dreamily.

  At this, Henrietta smiled, and her spirits seemed to lift. “The spring doth come at last, and hearts turn to love.”

  “Love? I do not think so far ahead as that,” Margaret said, frowning. “But when can I ever see him? My father forbids any association with the English.”

  “Dancing,” Henrietta said out of the blue.

  “Dancing?”

  “You can come to the ball!”

  “The ball?”

  “Yes! The ball at Darnaway to celebrate the coronation. Father disapproves, but Mother thinks it would be good for me, to liven my spirits. And there will be no Royalists there. Just the English officers. Your young man may well attend!”

  “A ball! To think of it! But my parents would never allow such a thing. You know what the Covenanters think of dancing. Besides, I don’t know how to dance.”

  Henrietta smiled smugly. “You’ll come stay with me for a while, to help me regain my strength.” She winked. “And I will teach you how to dance. Such fun we’ll have. We’ll do the allemande, the sarabande, and the gavotte. And we’ll go to the ball!”

  They untethered their horses and mounted, waving goodbye as they rode off in different directions. How can Henrietta change so quickly from happy to sad and then back again? Margaret wondered. And to think of a ball. Would it really be possible?

  Chapter 30

  “The venison was delicious, Cook,” Lady Elizabeth said as Cook circled the table. Cook was a small, thin woman with a turned-up nose that caused her to look constantly cheerful, even though she rarely was. She was serving whim wham, a custard made of cream and eggs, Margaret’s favorite pudding.

  “Thank you, m’lady,” Cook said as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  Everyone immediately took a spoon to the pudding—even wee John, who ate so little that Lady Elizabeth worried and even became frantic at times. Wee John was a tiny, frail boy of five, and most of the time, he was unable to come downstairs to the table, much less go out and play like other children. Margaret didn’t know what illness he had, only that it kept him sick and in bed most of the time.

  Mother looked down the table at Father. “Grissel was here this afternoon. And she has invited us to the coronation and ball.”

  “Oh!” Lucy cried and clapped her hands.

  “The coronation! Westminster Abbey!” Margaret exclaimed. “Oh yes, Mother, I have for so long wanted to go to London! And to a ball! Just think of the gowns, the lords and ladies, the dancing, and—”

  “Quiet!” the laird roared. “You know quite well that dancing is a sin. There will be no dancing, and no trotting off to London with Grissel Brodie!”

  Lady Elizabeth glanced at Margaret, holding a finger to her lips. Sometimes, she could bring her husband round.

  “But,” Lucy interjected, “couldn’t we go to the coronation, Father, just the ceremony?”

  “To see the king,” Mother said, “and to participate in history, John. Such an opportunity may never come again for our family.”

  “Do you not understand, Elizabeth? We have suffered a raid and a sandstorm, and our stores are dangerously low, worse than after the raid. Even with the stores from the farmtown, I’ll have to borrow again. We cannot afford the gowns, the trip, and the wastefulness of that decadent city. I said no, and I mean no!” He threw down his serviette, stood up, and stalked out of the room.

  After some silence, Mother looked at the girls with regret. “I’m afraid we’ll have to accept that, lassies.”

  “Do you think, though,” Margaret inquired, “that Father would accept a compromise? Henrietta has invited me to a coronation ball here in Nairn with the English soldiers.”

  “Ah, the English. Nay, I’m sorry, lassie, but you know what your father thinks of the English. To say nothing of dancing.” Mother gave Margaret a sympathetic look as she leaned over the table and took her hand. Well, Margaret thought, perhaps Henrietta’s idea had some merit.

  Lucy narrowed her eyes at Margaret as if she knew that Margaret was scheming for a way to go the ball. Margaret glared at her, a silent threat not to tell.

  After the meal, Margaret slipped outside again and gazed over the lands to the east toward Darnaway Castle, where the coronation ball would take place. As much as it sounded heretical, she did NOT believe that dancing was a sin. And she knew that Au
nt Grissel agreed with her, though she may not have said it in plain English. Grissel had told Margaret stories of the dances and balls she had been to in Edinburgh and London, and even in Paris. So why should Margaret not go to the ball with Henrietta?

  The music of the pipes, fiddles, and drums of the farm folk, and the harpsichord Aunt Grissel played, all so lively and sweet—none of that could be a sin. Grissel had taught her to play a little and sing to accompany her. Music was Margaret’s greatest joy. Music was for the soul, as Mister Shakespeare wrote.

  I must, then, be a heretic, Margaret thought, for she would abjure her Covenanter belief in this. Perhaps not just in part, but in whole. Perhaps she would renounce the Covenanting kirk and Mister Harry. Perhaps she would choose the music and the songs of Isobel, and the fairies flitting in the flowers.

  She laughed and gazed across the land to the east, toward Darnaway, as the western sun lit the fields and woods. Of course, she would not renounce her faith. Now she knew that Isobel’s magic was real, and certainly, it would do no harm to learn a bit more about it.

  Chapter 31

  Margaret hesitated as she approached the hut. Isobel had invited her to visit today but hadn’t said what time. Perhaps it didn’t matter, since the peasants had no clocks or timepieces, so she wouldn’t be expected at any particular time.

  It was midmorning, another day of oppressive clouds and wind and seagulls screeching back and forth, busy at their sky-soaring and squabbling over fish.

  Yesterday, she’d had her lacemaking lesson along with the usual homily from Mistress Collace—this one on a passage from Romans. The early Christians, Mistress had said, suffered much at the hands of the Romans, like the Covenanters suffered from the Royalists and the English. However, they clung to their faith and followed Paul’s instructions to love and care for one another, even through the murders of their friends. Margaret wasn’t sure what the point was, but perhaps it had to do with the death of her brother Malcolm, and Mistress’s own lost children. She found it difficult to see the Auldearn Kirk as a place where people would join in caring for one another, as in the Roman kirk. Most of the farm folk hated Mister Harry and went to kirk only because they were forced to do so by the law.