The Last Balfour

by Cait Dee

  ‘Iona . . .’ she says, her tone pregnant with warning. Don’t test me.

  ‘Do you not think it strange your husband’s befriended the men who killed Grizel?’

  ‘Gregor had nothing to do with what happened yesterday,’ she says through gritted teeth.

  ‘Are you certain of that? It’s quite a coincidence. The very next morn they make him a councillor.’

  The slap comes out of nowhere. I’m used to the feel of Gregor’s leather belt, but until now Ishbel has never laid a finger on me. I cup my smarting cheek with my hand.

  ‘Cushie doo, please forgive me, I didn’t mean to —’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’ I take my cloak from the hook on the front door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she calls after me.

  ‘Home.’

  * * *

  I run all the way through the woods to the bothy. It sits on the edge of the wildwood; a dark woodland of ancient fir, rowan, birk and juniper. Nobody owns the wildwood and, living all the way out here, Grizel didn’t pay rent to the laird like the other villagers.

  The sight of the bothy peeking through the trees fills me with relief. Ishbel and I grew up here. This small home was Grizel’s pride: she kept it neat as a pin and scrupulously clean, everything in its place, the earthen floor swept out every day. I’ll spend the night here, I decide. That will show Ishbel.

  But as I get closer, I can see that something’s wrong. The door has been ripped off its hinges. With dread, I peer inside. Grizel’s sparse plenishings — the wooden table, stools and the oak settle — have all been smashed to pieces. Someone has piled up the broken bits of wood and used them to make a fire, but the fire burned itself out without causing too much damage. The horsehair bolster has been ripped to shreds and the stuffing strewn about.

  Standing at the threshold, I gaze at the destruction in disbelief. The very people Grizel spent her life helping did this to her home! My aunt cared for everyone in Heatherbrae: she birthed weans and mended broken bones; she helped barren women fall pregnant and she held the hands of the dying as they passed over to the Summerlands. Everybody in the clachan had sought Grizel’s ministrations at one time or another, yet this is how they marked her death?

  Rage and grief engulf me and I let out a howl, crying out to the twelve winds until my voice grows hoarse. When I can scream no longer I fall to the ground, exhausted. It makes no difference. She’s gone. And she’s never coming back.

  With the bothy in this state I can’t bide here, but it’s too early to go back to the farmhouse. Besides, I’m still angry with Ishbel. It would serve her right to worry about me for a while yet. And there’s something else I need to do while I’m here.

  The cow byre is at the top of a brae in a clearing behind the bothy. As I walk up the hill, I weigh the promise I made to Grizel against Ishbel’s misgivings. Edinburgh is a week’s ride away, perhaps three times that on foot. Much of the journey would be through uninhabited wildlands. Without a letter of reference from the kirk elders, another clachan won’t take a stranger into their community. But worse than that: it’s the wolf month.

  About a year ago, a lassie about my age ran away from Strathcraig. It was whispered she was with child after the Beltane fires, which were held in secret as the harvest festivals were forbidden by the kirk. The lassie kept her condition hidden until it was time to give birth, then fled into the wildwood. Her remains were found a few miles south, after the black frosts had passed. Nobody knew if the wolves got to her before or after she died. Either way, there was not much left of her to bury.

  Grizel would have laughed at these excuses. Since Ishbel and I were old enough to walk, she had taught us wildcrafting. We knew the names of every plant in the forest and which mushrooms were safe to eat; we knew how to snare coneys and catch trout in a stream. We could build fires and make crude shelters. Grizel knew we could survive, even in winter, even during the wolf month. If I do as Grizel said and stay out of the villages and towns, I know I can make it to Edinburgh. But I’m not so sure about Ishbel.

  Shortly after she wed Gregor, Ishbel began to change. It was as if the light inside her began to dim, like a candle flame guttering in melted tallow. Gregor would not brook the old ways in his house. He was a devoted supporter of the Reformation and wouldn’t let Ishbel continue with her apprenticeship to Grizel. To his mind, our ways were sinful, heretical. My sister thought she had to choose, and so she chose her husband and adopted his pious ways. She turned her back on magic.

  A waft of stale cow dung greets me as I open the door to the byre. It is empty now; after she was arrested, Gregor took Grizel’s three cows and added them to his herd, together with her hens. It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for. I’ve been in the byre hundreds of times before and never noticed that one of the stones above the lintel is a different colour from the others. The milking stool is nearby and I climb up on it and lift out the loose stone.

  The dark hole left by the stone looks empty. I stick my hand in and feel around. Right at the back there is something soft. My fingers pull out a small bundle of calfskin, bound with a leather cord. Sitting on the stool, I unwrap it.

  Inside the bundle is a shiny stone with a natural hole in the centre. It’s a deep sea-green colour with swirls of cream, mottled all over with dark crimson: the colour of dried blood.

  I’ve never seen its like before. I pick up the bloodstone and hold it in my palm. Despite the cold outside it’s warm to the touch, as if somebody just handed it to me. I turn the stone over and then hold it up to the light, looking for some sign that would explain why Grizel would ask me to risk my life to journey all the way to Edinburgh. It does not yield any secrets. I thread the leather cord through the hole and tie it around my neck. Then I tuck the stone inside my clothing so Ishbel won’t see it and ask questions.

  Before heading back, I decide to have a proper look around the bothy, to see if there is anything to salvage. But I can’t delay my return to the farmhouse much longer. Ishbel and I will be alone in the house tonight. I have lived in Heatherbrae all my life and this is the first night I will go to bed afraid of what my neighbours might do once the sun goes down. By now, Dougal will have told everybody that Gregor stayed in town. And Malcolm Calder won’t care that Gregor’s a burgh councillor.

  As I survey the ruined bothy, I notice something hanging above the front door. It’s Bride’s cross. My aunt had dedicated her life to Bride, who was a fire goddess long before she was a Romish saint. Grizel told me that before I was born, Candlemas was observed in Heatherbrae as Bride’s day, heralding the advent of spring and the light’s return after the long winter. Even after the kirk elders forbade its celebration, she continued to observe the old festival. Grizel would make us clean the bothy from top to bottom. Then, after supper, we would go out into the woods and light a fire. In the bonfire’s glow we each wove an even-armed cross from reeds plucked from the banks of a nearby stream. We sained the crosses in the fire, petitioning Bride for her blessing for the twelvemonth to come.

  The cross hanging over the door is the one Grizel made a year ago. Perhaps it protected the bothy so that the looters couldn’t burn it down. This is precisely what we need at the farmhouse: a protection charm.

  I look out the window. The sun is sinking low in the western sky, the trees of the forest casting long shadows. Dusk is an in-between time; a favourable time for the spell-forger. And it’s said that on the quarter days, the veil between this world and the Unseen world becomes very fine: more readily pierced by magic.

  Hanging in Grizel’s storeroom at the back of the bothy are bunches of dried herbs that haven’t been disturbed by the looters. I take a few handfuls of pearlwort, vervain and white heather. In the bottom of a wooden box there’s some yarn dyed red with madder root. I bite off a length of it and head out into the woods with the herbs.

  In the nearby copse is a rowan, the sacred tree of magic and protection. I snap off two small twigs, carefully choosing brittle, dead ones.
Then I go deeper into the woods until I come to a clearing with a blackened hollow in the centre: Grizel’s fire pit.

  Grizel’s warning from yesterday echoes in my mind. But I’m certain she wouldn’t tell me not to use magic if she had seen the sheep’s head, or if she knew what her own neighbours had done to the bothy.

  My aunt never used magic lightly. She only turned to it when all her healing powers were exhausted. Even when I asked her to forge a spell to save her own life yesterday, I knew she wouldn’t do it. Magic should only be used in the service of others, she always said. Your intention can never be pure if you forge a spell for yourself, as your mind can trick you into thinking you want something to happen, when deep down you really want something else. Magic seems to act at the level of the something else: the unspoken, true desire.

  The fire spits and crackles. I cast a circle, walking sunwards around the fire pit, imagining a beam of light coming from the tips of my fingers. The circle is a world between, a place out of time where it’s safe to forge magic. I call to the guardians of the four quarters and the elements that bide there, using the words Grizel taught me. Can you feel the power of the circle moving through you? Grizel would ask, and I’d always nod in reply. It was a lie. I felt nothing.

  But now, the tips of my fingers are tingling. For just a moment I see it, that beam of light. Everything feels different. The forest sounds fall away and I can feel my body rocking gently to the rhythm of the swirling energy. This has never happened before. This time, I’m not pretending. Beads of sweat form on my brow and I pull off my cloak and throw it aside.

  With nimble fingers I fashion the rowan twigs into the shape of an even-armed cross that I tie in place with the red thread. Pulling a strand of hair from my head, I wrap it around the centre of the cross. This will bind my personal essence to the spell. Something of Ishbel’s will need to be added when I get back to the farmhouse, to make sure she is protected, too.

  The flames leap up as I throw the pearlwort, vervain and heather into the fire and chant:

  By my will and with Bride’s power,

  I forge a spell this twilit hour.

  Rowan tree branch and red thread,

  Bind my enemies, slow their speed!

  By lady Bride and fire so bright,

  Gregor’s home be safe this night.

  Red thread and the rowan tree,

  This charm be charged, so shall it be!

  In my mind’s eye I imagine Gregor’s farmhouse cloaked in a protective mantle of golden light. I see Ishbel and I sitting together inside, safe and warm by the hearth fire.

  After a time, the picture disappears and I am back in the forest. It’s cold now. The fire has all but died out, so I stamp on the remains and tuck the charm into the waistband of my skirt.

  With the cross and the bloodstone in my possession I head back to Gregor’s farmhouse feeling more alive than I’ve ever felt before. A laugh escapes my lips. So this is how it feels to forge magic! Wait till I tell Ishbel —

  A branch snaps behind me. I whirl around, but there’s nothing there.

  I continue to walk, but now there’s a niggling feeling in my gut; something’s not right.

  It isn’t far to the farmhouse, only a quarter-mile, so I pick up the pace.

  Just ahead of me, shadowy figures move through the tree cover.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I call.

  There’s no reply.

  My breath comes quick and shallow. I do my best to control it, the way Grizel showed me, drawing it deep into my belly to help me think clearer. I stop walking, hoping that whoever is out there will keep moving, but they stop, too. I bend down and pick up a fallen branch near my feet to use as a weapon. After a while, when there is still no movement ahead or behind, I continue walking.

  A rock whizzes past my head, cracking against a tree behind me.

  ‘Witch!’ a voice yells, followed by muffled laughter. Male voices, but young.

  ‘I know that’s you, Forsy Kintor!’ I yell.

  More laughter. Forsy and his brother Hew, perhaps a couple of other lads from the village.

  They won’t hurt me, I tell myself.

  Another rock whistles over my head. My hand goes to the cross, willing it to protect me, as I run all the way back to the farmhouse in the dying light of evenfall.

  GOODWIFE ISHBEL

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Ishbel looks alarmed as I burst through the door. She’s sitting in Gregor’s chair, sewing; she has already started work on his new sark. She pierces the linen over and over with her needle, making her tiny, even stitches. I don’t know anybody who sews as well as Ishbel.

  ‘They chased me all the way home and they called me a witch!’ I’m trying hard not to cry. Don’t let them see you cry.

  ‘Iona, calm down. Who did?’

  I sit down on a stool and Ishbel kneels before me.

  ‘Forsy and Hew. Some others. They threw rocks at me!’

  ‘I hope you threw some back.’ She smiles. ‘Wheesht, lass! From the look of you I was feart it was something dreadful.’ She returns to her chair and picks up her sewing as though nothing’s happened.

  My hands become fists and it’s all I can do to keep them by my side. ‘How can you say that? I could’ve been hurt. Killed, even!’

  ‘Really, Iona!’ she scolds me. ‘Forsy and Hew are like two pups chasing a kittlin. If you ran, then of course they’d run after you.’

  I shake my head so hard my neck hurts. ‘Nae, it was more than that. You should see the bothy. All Grizel’s belongings destroyed. They — they tried to burn it down! Grizel spoke true: we have to leave Heatherbrae.’ My voice cracks as I struggle to hold back my sobs.

  ‘Nobody’s leaving,’ she says calmly, not looking up from her work.

  ‘But —’

  ‘You’re exhausted. Just look at your face; it’s so pale and you’ve dark shadows under your eyes. You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you?’

  ‘Nae, but —’

  ‘And you’re grieving for Grizel. It’s only natural. Come, have something to eat. You’ll feel better once you’ve supped.’

  She gets up and ladles into a bowl some mutton broth thickened with barley and seasoned with wild garlic leaves. My stomach growls at the smell of food. It’s a long time since I ate anything.

  After I’ve eaten I don’t feel so angry with Ishbel. I reach into my skirt and pull out the cross.

  She gasps and takes a step back. ‘What is that?’

  ‘You know what it is. I made it. We’ll hang it over the front door.’

  Ishbel shakes her head, disbelief and horror written on her face. ‘You can’t bring that in here. Gregor would never allow it.’

  ‘Gregor’s not here, Ishbel,’ I say. ‘And we need to protect ourselves!’ But I know as well as she does that if Gregor saw the charm he’d have me locked up in the kirk steeple.

  ‘Whatever possessed you to forge magic? You know how dangerous it is.’

  ‘Why do you think? Everybody knows by now that Gregor didn’t come home with us. Do you really believe Malcolm Calder will leave us in peace tonight?’ Why must I explain everything to her? She seems blinded to our peril.

  Ishbel goes quiet and after a few moments her face softens. ‘Very well, give it here. You’ll not reach high enough. Get me a nail from the woodshed.’

  With relief I hand her the cross and head out to the woodshed behind the farmhouse. In a wooden box I find a half-rusted nail and Gregor’s hammer. When I return, Ishbel is standing empty-handed. The rowan twigs crackle in the hearth fire.

  ‘What did you do?’ I scream at her, running to the hearth fire. I try to save them but they’re already aflame.

  Ishbel grabs my arm but I push her away.

  ‘Iona! Stop and listen. Gregor will come home tomorrow. What do you think he’d do if he saw that hanging above his door?’

  ‘I don’t care!’

  ‘You’ll care when you’re sitting in the Tolbooth. Cushie doo, don’t be angry
with me. I’m doing what’s best for you, for both of us. Can’t you see?’

  A wave of exhaustion overwhelms me. My bones ache and I don’t have the strength to argue anymore. I sink down on my sleeping mat and pull my blanket around my shoulders. All I want to do is curl up in a ball and sleep; sleep for days.

  In that moment of surrender, something about Ishbel’s words enlivens a thought that has been in the back of my mind since Grizel’s arrest; one that I’d not wanted to dwell on before now. I stand up and face her.

  ‘You knew they were coming for her,’ I say. ‘Didn’t you?’

  Ishbel walks to the window and opens the shutter wide. ‘The fire needs more air,’ she replies. She stands with her back to me, gazing into the darkening sky, so I continue.

  ‘That night, when they seized her, I was here. You asked me to help you with the butter churning that day, and then you bade me stay the night. You said it was too late to walk home in the dark. But that never bothered you before.’

  There’s a long pause. ‘Quarter moon tonight,’ she says. I follow her gaze to the tree line, where a perfect half-orb hangs in the velvety darkness.

  ‘Ishbel!’

  ‘It was Gregor’s idea,’ she says quietly. She turns then and looks at me. ‘He wanted to keep you safe. Calder told the kirk session that Grizel cast the evil eye upon him when he refused to pay her for treating his gout. A few weeks later, his crops withered overnight, as if someone had salted his fields. Do you not remember? Then his cow stopped giving milk. A month after that, Mary died in childbed with Grizel midwifing. Everybody thought it was Grizel. Everybody.’

  I feel sicker now than I did watching Grizel’s execution. ‘Why didn’t you tell her? Warn her?’

  ‘I tried, many times. I told her she needed to come to the kirk, that folk were gossiping about her. She just laughed and said she was not one to heed auld wives’ clavers; that she’d always done things her own way and wasn’t about to change. I didn’t know they were going to arrest her, I promise you. Gregor just told me to keep you here with us that night. I didn’t question him.’