Bitter Magic

by Nancy Kilgore

  Margaret stood in the farmyard, still layered with sand. The chickens didn’t seem to mind it. They scratched around her, fluffy yellow chicks following a mother hen this way and that, pecking at whatever was available. No sound came from Isobel’s hut except for a few animal snorts and knocking of hooves on wood.

  Isobel’s home was squat and poor, but today, there was something charming about it. What was it? Margaret raised an eyebrow, studying the front of the hut. The roof! The roof was thatched with heather, and the heather was blooming. It formed a field of lacy pink flowers on top of the hut, like a soft hat.

  In the door hole appeared a face, and with it, a bright smile. “Lady Margaret!” Isobel called, stepping out to greet her. Her dress seemed a little cleaner today, and her hair was neatly pulled behind a cap. She beckoned. “Come inside.”

  Margaret bent low and stepped through the door hole into what was beginning to feel very familiar: the smoke, the darkness, the feeble peat fire. And now she saw other people . . . two women.

  “D’ye ken Elspeth Nychie?” Isobel pointed to the gray-haired woman who greeted Margaret with a sudden embrace. Margaret looked around with confusion. To be embraced by a peasant? This was a different world, with different rules.

  “And this be Jane Martin,” Isobel continued. Jane was a young girl of not more than sixteen, a pretty lass with light blonde hair and fair skin who, as opposed to Elspeth, gave Margaret a timid smile and a curtsy.

  Isobel indicated the chair, and Margaret sat as the others squatted down on the dirt floor around the fire. “Art thou ready to learn the magic of fair Elfane?” Isobel asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Margaret replied, then gulped. Was she, really? She was here now, and there was no sense in hesitating. “I want to learn everything, Mistress Gowdie.”

  “Ye may call me Isobel.”

  “Isobel. I want to know how you call the dolphins and how you go to the fairy places, and how you change your body into a hare or a crow.”

  Isobel and Elspeth exchanged a look. “But first ye must learn about the Earth and the seasons,” Isobel said.

  “I already know about the Earth and the seasons.”

  “Not in the way of magic, ye don’t. For this is not a thing ye can know in kirk or castle. Tis a thing can only be known in feeling the Earth beneath your feet every day, in walking the ground and the sand, hearing the waves all day, listening to the crows as they perch and talk, and sitting with the hare as she comes close. To know all the animals and plants that be living with us.”

  “But how can I do that? I do walk and listen, but I do not live as you do. I wear shoes and read and learn from books.”

  “Aye, but I have seen you with your horse.”

  “Yes, I talk to Miranda. And I try to listen to her, to what she needs.”

  “So. And you did listen to the crow.”

  “The crow?”

  “The crow ’round the path when thou first came to me.”

  “I heard and saw it.”

  Isobel nodded.

  All was dim inside the hut, dark as night, with only the little fire for light, but when Elspeth Nychie smiled a broad smile, Margaret saw that, amazingly, for a woman of her age and status, she had all of her teeth.

  “And now ye must learn,” said Elspeth, “to listen to the wind and the rain, and the trees in the forest, even each plant in the field. Each one has a spirit if ye be still enough to know it.”

  Alert in her whole body, Margaret felt her skin tingling. “Are the spirits the same as the fairies?”

  “Aye, the fairies be there,” said Isobel. “They need quiet waiting and listening.”

  “And singing,” added Jane.

  “Singing?”

  “They love music, and so we sing all the songs for each thing.” Elspeth spoke in a rich, clear voice, as if she, too, had the magic to spin meaning and beauty out of words. Was she also a storyteller?

  “Songs for the cows, songs for the fish, songs for the trees and each flower,” Isobel said, and her voice, as she spoke, took on a lilt like a song.

  “For each day and each time of day,” Elspeth added.

  Jane stood and began to sway and dance slowly around the fire, singing,

  I will kindle my fire this morning,

  In the presence of the holy angels of Heaven,

  In the presence of Ariel of the loveliest form,

  In the presence of Uriel of the myriad charms,

  Without malice, without jealousy, without envy,

  Without fear, without terror of anyone under the sun,

  But the Holy Son of God to shield me.

  Jane coughed and fanned the smoke away from her face as she sat down again, smiling sweetly at Margaret. “A prayer for the morning.”

  “A prayer,” Margaret said. “With angels.”

  “Angels and fairies. They know themselves, each to each,” Elspeth said as she poked the fire.

  Isobel, however, was not smiling like everyone else. Perhaps because she was the cunning woman, though it was curious that anyone would not smile at such a lovely song and dance. Isobel’s face looked more worried than serene. “Tis enough for now,” she said.

  Walking back home on the farm path, Margaret felt something new within her. She felt the ground beneath her feet, the air that buffeted her dress, the grayness of the clouds, the sounds—wind, birds, distant waves—all in a new way, in her body. As if she belonged here, not just as a member of the Hay clan. As if she were not separate and above the Earth, but a part of it. The song came back and lifted out of her like a mist from the sea: “I will kindle my fire this morning in the presence of the holy angels of Heaven, in the presence of Ariel of the loveliest form . . .” She remembered all the words and the tune and sang the whole song.

  On the roadside ahead appeared an old woman. As Margaret came closer, she noticed that the woman was not a peasant, as she’d assumed, but a well-dressed woman of some rank. The woman stood back from the road in a patch of yellow gorse, and she was still, very still. She wore a faded velvet gown and pearl necklace. Like the pearl necklace Grandmother used to wear, the one Margaret had inherited.

  She approached to greet the old woman, but then stopped. It was Grandmother. “Grandmother!” Margaret exclaimed, excited and happy, not pausing to reflect that her grandmother had died four years ago. She wanted to run up and touch her.

  Grandmother stood silent, immobile, still as stone. Margaret hesitated. “Are you really there, Grandmother?” she whispered.

  The woman didn’t move or smile, but Margaret felt her presence, a presence filled with love. There was no sound, but she felt something, a message, as if Grandmother was warning her of some danger on the road ahead, but at the same time promising protection. This road will not be easy, but I will be with you. I will guide you.

  Margaret walked closer, but when she approached, the woman had disappeared.

  She was alone on the path, the wind gusting and frisking around her. As she continued on, she watched the road, scrutinizing the way ahead and everything around her: open fields changing from dark to light under the racing clouds, the flax and rye swishing and bending in the wind, the treetops of Lochloy Wood swaying, and she, walking the path and holding her bonnet and her skirts.

  This was an ordinary day on the Moray coast, and there was no danger.

  The castle was enveloped in gloom. Margaret felt it the moment she stepped into the tower and began to climb the stairs. In the great hall, Lucy sat reading, and she glanced up when Margaret approached. She took a chair beside her sister, who remained silent, eyebrows pursed. “What is it?” Margaret asked.

  “Ah.” Lucy shook her head. “Mother.”

  “Oh! Is she—?”

  “No, not—” Lucy’s brown eyes were sad. “Just the cough again, and she s
tays abed. I have been sitting with her, and Bessie has brought tea and warm blankets. Father wants to call Doctor Urquhart, but Mother refuses,” she sobbed.

  Margaret took Lucy’s hand. Her little sister was more like an older sister, in some ways. She tried so hard to care for everyone, even their mother. “Mother is right, Lucy. The doctor will only bleed her, and, according to Lady Anne, he almost killed Mister Hugh that way.” She took a deep breath. “I know what to do,” she said, and sprang up from the chair.

  “Nothing rash, please, dear sister,” Lucy pleaded, the familiar mother hen taking care of her sister, as well.

  “Not at all,” Margaret called as she raced to the stairs and back down the tower.

  Isobel was sitting on a stump in front of the hut, weaving a half-finished basket. Her lips formed into a grim smile as she worked, snaking the willow shoots in and out, lacing, winding, and turning. She looked up as Margaret approached. “Back so soon, Lady?”

  “We need a healing, Isobel! Tis my mother.” She sat down in the sand at Isobel’s feet. “She coughs and coughs, and we fear she has the consumption.”

  “Aye, there’s a charm ye can learn.”

  “But you have the power!” Margaret protested.

  “Nay, ye do have the gift, and this is not a difficult one.” Isobel smiled. “I can learn you.”

  Margaret’s shoulders dropped. “Yes, I do want to learn, but—”

  “And you may learn to be a cunning woman as well.” Isobel wove the willow basket with a quick hand, in and out, over and around.

  “Oh.” She, Margaret, a cunning woman? She felt a sudden elation, but then a shiver of fear. What would that mean?

  “Here is what you do, but it must be once on a Thursday and then two Sundays.” Isobel spoke quickly, and Margaret struggled to come back to Earth and concentrate.

  “First, you take two sprigs of hyssop, and boil them in wine. Lady Elizabeth must drink that, and then, when she is lying down, you take a bowl of water, dip in your fingers, and sprinkle it o’er her body. As you do, say this charm:

  Let me tread on thee, tightness,

  As the swan treads on the shore,

  Tightness of the back,

  Tightness of the chest,

  Tightness of the throat,

  To strip from thee the foul disease,

  From the top of thy head to thy sole,

  To thy two thighs beyond,

  By the might of God and His powers together.

  Margaret repeated the instruction and the words.

  “And then you must say it again, twice more.”

  Margaret said the charm a few more times until she had learned it. She jumped up. “Oh, thank you, Isobel!” she cried, mounting her horse.

  When she arrived home, Margaret went out to the kitchen garden and picked the green hyssop stems, then into the kitchen, where Cook boiled them in wine for her. She skipped up to her mother’s chamber. “Mother, I have a special cure for you from the cunning woman.”

  Lady Elizabeth, wan and weak, gave her a skeptical look. “You know we don’t go in for that, Margaret.”

  “I know, but this is just some hyssop in wine, and a prayer. Shouldn’t we try it?”

  Her mother shrugged feebly. “I suppose it will do no harm.” She drank the wine that Margaret offered, and Margaret repeated the charm three times, as Isobel had instructed. When she finished, her mother’s eyes closed, and she tiptoed out of the room.

  Margaret followed the instructions and waited until Thursday to repeat the ritual. Before the following Thursday, Lady Elizabeth was up and about, taking charge of the household again. She thanked Margaret for her care but denied that the charm had cured her. Nevertheless, Margaret was thrilled, and determined to go to Isobel for more lessons.

  Perhaps she could be a cunning woman.

  KATHARINE

  Chapter 32

  “I am going to meet the king!” gushed Grissel Brodie. The people around the table stopped eating and looked up in astonishment. “I will accompany my father to London for the coronation.” Grissel was a tall woman, dark of hair and complexion like her cousin Elizabeth and her father, Alexander, the laird. While the laird was quiet and soft-spoken, Grissel was always in motion, always tucking in the corkscrew curls that flew around and out of her cap. “Father, you escorted the King back from Breda. Tell, me, what is he like?”

  Katharine sat at table with the family in the dining room of Brodie Castle. Alexander had given a long and heartfelt prayer of grace, and a young maid was now serving the soup. The fragrance of herbs and mutton filled the room.

  A crystal chandelier with at least thirty burning candles made the silver gleam and the faces shine as twilight fell outside the windows. Grissel’s two lads fidgeted beside her, and across the table, the laird’s son, James, and his wife watched calmly. The family seemed peaceful, she thought; a community in harmony, so different from the atmosphere in Katharine’s own home, where John Ross erupted in angry tirades at every meal. He was away on business now, though what kind of business, she had no idea. The incident with Mistress Forbes burned heavily in her heart.

  The lads slurped their soup, each trying to outdo the other in volume. Grissel ignored them, no doubt accustomed to their antics.

  The laird looked from Grissel to the lads. “This is not an alehouse,” he said. The lads became silent, and he turned to Grissel. “The king is a young man, just turned thirty, tall and commanding in presence. He is overjoyed at the Restoration, as are we.”

  Grissel clapped her hands.

  “And what are his sympathies?” Katharine asked. “Will he remain true to the Covenant?”

  “He says as much.”

  James, a thoughtful young man, stroked his beard. “But when he agreed to the Solemn League and Covenant back in fifty, it was under duress. Signing that was the condition we set to allow him back in the country.”

  “Yes,” the laird reflected, “it did take some measure of persuasion. He was just a lad then, and I believe that now, he has begun to see the wisdom of the Covenant. This month, he issued the Declaration of Breda, a worthy document that promises tolerance and liberty of conscience for all religions.”

  “But,” James argued, “that gives him license to favor the Anglicans if he decides to change his course again.”

  Katharine looked from son to father: two tall, intelligent men, though Alexander was more seasoned and settled, a man of wise compassion and solemn countenance.

  Grissel burst out, “Are we bringing back Charles as king, but not sure of his allegiance?”

  “This is the Restoration,” said the laird. “And everyone, especially the king, knows that this means the restoration of Presbyterian Scotland. It is not to be taken lightly. We must trust the king to keep his word.”

  “I will remind him of his word and his duty!” Grissel exclaimed.

  Katharine smiled to herself. She was proud of the tradition of Scottish women to speak their minds. They were of strong stock, and not prone to accommodating or compromising their principles. Grissel would, she was sure, hold the king to account.

  Just as suddenly, Katharine’s smile faded, and she sighed. Her husband was not, like Alexander, a man of integrity. Did she accommodate him too much? Compromise her own principles? Perhaps Alexander could shed some light on this, in addition to the other matter.

  After dinner, as the company dispersed, the laird ushered Katharine through the great hall and into one of the chambers. She took the chair he indicated beside the fire, and he sat opposite, poking the fire with a set of tongs. The drawing room looked out on the gardens of Brodie Castle, glowing now in the light of this June evening.

  Katharine turned her gaze from the window and back to Brodie. “I fear that I must leave this place,” she said.

  He started an
d raised his eyebrows. “This is a great surprise.”

  “I have been accused and threatened—sorely and falsely accused of an immorality.”

  “Immorality? You are a woman above reproach, Katharine. You are greatly treasured by my niece for the teaching of her daughters, and I highly value our discourse as well your contribution to the Covenanter cause. Who dares to make such an accusation?”

  Katharine studied the pattern on the carpet, then raised her eyes to the tall windows and flowering fruit trees. “I am loath to tell tales,” she said, “but I am so aggrieved and shamed.” Her cheeks and arms were hot and red just at the telling of it, but she had to go on. Katharine hung her head. “Tis Mister Harry’s wife.”

  “Ah!” The laird raised his arms in a gesture of helplessness. “And now I see, to my own despair.” He looked so downcast that she thought he might weep, but he lifted his head and looked at her. “When I first met that woman, I found much ignorance—even invincible ignorance—in the family. I desired to groan under it, and their incapacity to God.”

  “But Mister Harry is so earnest and pious.”

  He shook his head. “Mister Harry is, indeed, an educated theologian, and I know not how he lives with such a woman.”

  She remained quiet. Alexander himself had chosen Mister Harry to be minister here in Auldearn. Dare she tell him what Harry had done?

  He studied her carefully, looking hard at her face, and suddenly, his eyes widened in an expression of shock. “Did Mister Harry,” he asked, as if reading her thoughts, “commit an indiscretion?”

  She bowed her head slightly in assent. “And Mistress Forbes, in her ignorance, as you say, believed that I reciprocated. She pushed me and accused me in front of my husband. He then punished me, as well.” She rubbed her cheek where he had struck her. Hopefully, the bruise was not visible now. Of course, one didn’t talk about such things, but she felt such despair in this moment, it hardly mattered what she said.