by Laura Frantz
How she longed to be sunk into her work, to feel the weight of the mortar and pestle, to hear the gentle buzz of bees and breathe in the garden’s special fragrance at midsummer. Her former life, at times so mundane, now seemed altogether winsome and delightful. How desperately she missed her island. The castle. The sea. Her simple tasks.
Magnus.
“The laird hasna come,” the captain said, echoing her private thoughts.
“D’ye truly expect him, mourning as he is?” she said softly.
“I would expect him to stand by those still living, aye.”
She heard a harsh laugh. “Ye’ll not be living ere long. Yer trial is set to begin, I heard the gaoler say.” The prisoner across the way peered at them, having been brought in the night before. “Ye well ken the penalty for free trading.”
Lark shrank back from the bars. Sitting on the straw, she gathered her soiled shawl about her.
“One has to be found guilty first,” the captain replied.
“Aye. But ye were caught red-handed, ’tis said. I’d be praying for mercy if I were ye.”
Lark heard the creak of the bars as the captain shifted. “Since yer throwing stones, what brings ye here?”
“Sheep thief.”
“Pillory. Whipping. Mayhap hanging then.”
The man grunted. “First offense. Likely a fine. But the lass there . . .” Lark felt his probing eyes on her, though hers were fastened on the straw-strewn floor. “She’s here for murder—”
“Nay.” The captain cut him off. “She has naught to do with it.”
Nothing more was said. A pouring rain strengthened, a hundred tiny hammers on the leaking roof. Supper consisted of soggy hardtack taken from the gaoler’s grimy hand. Ship’s rations, the captain said. Mindful of her ever-loosening dress, Lark ate without complaint, falling asleep even as the cold deepened.
By morn, she would be gone.
Lark’s trial was at hand. Though she’d been to Edinburgh and counted it more friend, Glasgow was an unkempt stranger. Once a small merchant town, ’twas known for its fine weaving of linen and woolen cloth as much as its polluted drinking water from the River Clyde. Controlled by the Tobacco Lords who made their fortunes trading with the American colonies, which named city streets Virginia and built palatial houses, it boasted a thriving shipbuilding industry. The sight of so many masts and sails drove home the captain’s absence.
Atop the wagon used to transport criminals, she winced at the feeble sunlight after being so long indoors. Tottering stone tenements looked precarious as child’s blocks throughout the dirty, crowded city. Child beggars stared and ran after her as if knowing she secreted the lovely coral beads in her pocket. Overcome with the stench of the city, Lark covered her nose with her shawl.
The reek of her cell was worse. Here in Glasgow’s crowded tolbooth, she was treated like any other prisoner awaiting trial. Dozens of cases were heard each day, some in mere minutes, though few carried the weight of hers.
“Ye’ll not have long now,” said the gaoler who made his nightly rounds, holding a lantern aloft. “Else ye’ll get gaol distemper.”
The dreadful words settled over her as he moved on, darkness enveloping her cell. Never had she felt so humiliated. Her skin crawled and itched. She seemed to move in a cloud of filth. Would it not be easier for them to condemn her given she now looked the part? Shame flushed her face as dozens of probing eyes roamed every unkempt inch of her when the gaoler passed by a final time. Not one familiar face did she see. Nor did she understand how the proceedings would play out.
Magnus would know all the details, the legalities. But the laird was not here. Were Granny’s fearful murmurings true? Had he turned his back on them?
As she was led out of her cell the next forenoon, she bent her head and murmured a silent prayer.
Once she set foot in the courtroom, the tumultuous hubbub ceased. Herbs and scented flowers were sprinkled about the cavernous chamber. To fight disease? Or simply staunch the smell of unwashed prisoners?
Thirteen strangers she guessed were jurors were grouped at the front of the room. A pockmarked official held the dittany sheets, the thick ream of court papers. He read—nay, shouted—the charge against her. “The prisoner, Lark MacDougall, spinster, is indicted for the crime of manslaughter.”
Shouts and curses erupted from the gallery, followed by the judge’s gavel pounding. How she longed for someone to leap to her defense, shout nay. Beneath her soiled bodice her heart thudded so loudly she had trouble drawing breath.
“Your name, miss?” This from a stone-faced, bewigged gentleman she took for the court clerk. No matter that they’d just announced it. They would have her speak before this terrifying assemblage. “Your age and occupation?”
She hated that her voice shook. She stammered out her answer. Next the name of the victim was read. A sharp cry rent the courtroom. Lark’s gaze swung to a veiled woman in sable. Rhona. Would they call Isla’s lady’s maid as a witness? She was regarding Lark as if she was the worst sort of criminal.
Lord, nay, please.
The proceedings started on a precarious foot. Benumbed, Lark fisted the ends of her shawl in her lap to keep from keeling over on the hard bench as the questions rattled on.
“So you’re saying there was ill feeling between the stillroom mistress and your own?” the prosecution asked Rhona.
“Oh aye,” Rhona replied, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Many a time I did plead with Mistress MacDougall for some remedy to help my mistress.”
“What malady do you speak of?”
“A bodily female complaint. She’d lost six babes, ye see.”
A murmur of dismay washed over the chamber.
“And Mistress MacDougall was unwilling to help, thus causing enmity between the deceased and Mistress MacDougall?”
“My mistress was nigh driven mad because of it.”
“Would you say this was the reason your mistress went to the stillroom the day of her death, seeking such a remedy?”
Rhona’s dark veil swayed as she nodded. “Indeed. My mistress was the gentlest, most obliging creature. She was so afraid of Mistress MacDougall that she had to sneak into the stillroom when the woman was out to try to find the help she needed.”
“And instead of finding help, she discovered this particular bottle?”
A green glass vial was held aloft. Granny’s mysterious concoction, labeled “Fertility Herbs.”
Nodding, Rhona cleared her throat, voice pitching higher. “That’s naught but poison, left there in plain sight to harm my mistress.”
“And Mistress MacDougall is the one who concocted this tincture, this poison?”
“Indeed she did. My mistress is not to blame for taking it. Desperate she was. Mistress MacDougall knew it too. Killed my mistress as sure as if she’d run a dagger through her.”
Such venom. Such blame. Lark’s jaw ached from clamping her mouth shut.
“And so, finding no help, your former mistress drank the contents?” the man intoned.
“She did just that, sir. What was she to do otherwise, given the promise of the bottle’s label?”
“And where were you when this tragic incident occurred?”
“Going about my duties inside her dressing room, sir.”
“At what point did you realize your mistress was not in her bedchamber?”
“The supper hour, sir. Near about eight o’clock.”
“Where was the laird?”
“Detained in Balliemore on business, sir.”
“And so, realizing your mistress was missing, you went in search of her?”
“That I did, sir. Found her by the castle cliff, out of her mind from drinking the poison. She was standing too near the edge, she was, her back to the sea. Her legs were unsteady. I could see her sway a bit, so I called for her to come into the castle.”
“And her response?”
“She was crying, you see.”
“And?”
&nbs
p; “I reached out my hands to her, but she stepped back as if forgetting just where she stood. And then—” A half sob. “She fell back, off the edge. It happened quick as lightning. If she’d not drunk the poison the stillroom mistress meant for her—”
“That is all, Miss Gilliam. For now, we’ll examine another witness.”
Lark held her breath as Dr. Hunter appeared. He gave a long, scholarly explanation of Isla’s inability to carry a child and her resulting melancholy. He regarded Lark with a kind of distant pity as he stepped down.
“All rise,” the bailiff said.
At this, the entire courtroom got to their feet as if the king himself was present. ’Twas Isla’s father, from Edinburgh’s Court of Session. Lark was cast back to the rare times he’d visited the castle when she’d seen him from a distance. Now, clad in unrelieved black, he was a daunting presence. Isla’s mother, too grief-stricken and too highborn for courtroom drama, did not appear.
Lark noted the news hawkers at full gawk. Before the afternoon waned, their broadsides would be all over the sooty city, their pockets bulging with coin.
Throat parched, head a-spin, Lark was finally returned to her cell. The verdict would likely be read on the morrow, the gaoler said, pending any other witnesses. Her pulse throbbed in her ears at the thought. So thick were her tears, she tripped over a chamber pot as the iron door slammed shut behind her. Sitting down hard on the cell bench, she groped for even a shard of hope.
Banished? Imprisoned? Hung? Transported to parts beyond the sea?
She could only hope and pray for not proven, akin to not guilty.
Meanwhile, the facts stayed hidden. Lark had not concocted the contents of the green bottle. Granny had. And she doubted Granny’s remedy would have caused the symptoms Isla displayed at the last. Perhaps when combined with the other medicines and spirits she was taking, but not alone. Herbs were powerful but seldom so potent as to be fatal. Besides, Lark herself had been away at a birth when Isla met her demise.
There were many unaired details at play, and Lark knew they would remain so. ’Twas as Jillian said. Isla’s powerful parents wanted a scapegoat, someone on whom to pin blame. They could not live with the taint of a daughter who had died from self-harm. Someone else would assume the responsibility, leaving their good name untarnished.
Her spirits were on the ground. She could not sink lower, weighted with the lies and half-truths Rhona had told. The court was all too aware of Isla’s father’s ability to sway both judge and jury simply by his appearing.
Lying down on the unfamiliar cot, she tried to block out the clanging of chains and the groans and epithets from the long cell row. Supper was eventually brought. Barely enough to keep a bird flitting, Granny would say. But in truth, she had no appetite. How odd to feel only half alive, to have hope lost like some misplaced, forgotten thing.
Lord, let the sighing of the prisoner come before Thee.
15
It’s a complicated issue requiring careful analysis.
George Washington
On the day the verdict was to be read, the courtroom was nigh to bursting, the news hawkers foremost. The unsavory air rippled with tension. Lark sensed it immediately upon entering the packed chamber.
She sat with her back to the gawkers, wrists shackled. Was it true what was said about being branded on the thumbs with an M for murder? She’d never seen such, though some vague memory tugged at her. Once in the castle kitchen there’d been a scullery maid who’d kept her thumbs hidden. Some said she was a thief and had snitched a silver sauceboat. Cook had asked the laird to employ her, which he promptly did. What had become of her Lark couldn’t recall.
Would Lark hide her thumbs too? ’Twas preferable to hanging. Or transportation. All she wanted was to flee the crowded courtroom and return to the castle, to her beloved isle. But her dismay soared amid gavel pounding and a fight that erupted in the gallery.
Rhona was brought back for questioning. Lark kept her head down, eyes on a crushed stem of rosemary at her feet. Its pungent smell had long faded. How her heart craved the solitude and sanctuary and fragrance of the castle garden. The comforting hum of the bees. Both seemed like heaven on earth.
Rhona was sobbing again. Oh, to shut one’s ears to such a display. Did Rhona truly miss Isla? No doubt the horror of her mistress’s final moments was a heavy weight to bear. But Lark had sensed no true affection between them in life, none other than an oft fractious mistress-servant relationship.
The jurors were whispering among themselves as Rhona was dismissed. She resumed her seat to Lark’s far right on the front row. Lark lifted her head, her aching tooth throbbing along with her head. The judge was perusing court papers, the court clerk scribbling furiously.
“No other witnesses?” an official asked in a loud voice, casting a baleful eye about the large chamber.
“Aye.”
Lark stilled at a deeply resonant voice behind her. A startled hush descended, and then came the shuffling sound of a great many people getting to their feet. Yet no one had said, “All rise.”
The deep-throated voice came again. “I call myself as a witness.”
Lark looked over her shoulder, a wild tumult of emotion inside her. She struggled to stand, dizzy and queasy and disbelieving. Magnus was making his way to the front of the chamber. He had a presence that eclipsed that of anyone who’d entered, an undeniable vitality and intensity that made people stand when there was no formal call to do so. His longish hair, uncut during mourning, was worn loose, absent of his usual tie. Whiskers stubbled his jaw. Lean and lithe yet powerfully built, he looked ready to storm the courtroom, even tackle both judge and jurors.
His black armband, the only nod to mourning, was not lost on her.
She tasted freedom. Hope. Just a glimmer of each, yet . . .
“Ye kilt-wearing Jacobite!” The jeer was screamed from the gallery. Did someone in the crush of onlookers know his habit, his political leanings?
The judge looked in a fury. From the hurled insult or the fact that it was true? Lark tore her gaze from him to the laird, sensing all that was at stake.
The judge stared at Magnus. “A witness, you say? Your title?”
This almost made Lark smile. Magnus had the look of a bonny prince. But he was also angry and aggrieved, more so than she’d ever seen him.
“I am Magnus MacLeish. Laird of Kerrera. Husband of the deceased.”
A murmur of shock washed over the chamber.
“Son of Wallace MacLeish, killed at Culloden,” the judge said slowly.
“The same, aye,” Magnus replied. Without acknowledging Lark, he moved in front of her and faced the jury. As if by standing between her and those who would condemn her, he aimed to shield her.
The subtle act swelled her heart and blurred her vision. She traced the beloved set of his shoulders and back through damp eyes, hardly hearing what he said, though the timbre of his voice touched her deeply.
She was cast back to their years of schooling in a cold castle turret. She, being a girl, had been left out of the debates between Magnus and his tutors. Had that prepared him for this moment? Was this what he did in Edinburgh, having studied the law?
“I beseech ye members of this jury . . .”
She swallowed and tried to focus. He was indeed arguing. On her behalf. Every word rang true, countering Rhona’s lies and half-truths without calling them out. Nary a murmur was heard as he spoke. All were rapt. But not all were approving.
Rhona looked livid. The judge’s face grew more florid. Even the court clerk, surely hardened by countless cases, stood transfixed, lips parted. Yet it was not just that Magnus was eloquent and compelling, even forceful. It was that he was kilted. And a widower, husband of the deceased. While some clapped at intervals, others looked murderous.
“Ye blethering Jacobite!” someone cried from the floor.
At this came several shouts in Magnus’s favor—and then absolute mayhem. All around her erupted shoving, fighting, kickin
g, and biting.
Dropping to her knees, she took cover, crouching behind the bar. Her gaze swiveled from a stoic, now silent Magnus to the judge who’d lost control of the courtroom. His call for order and repeated pounding of the gavel were snuffed beneath the brawling. Rhona fled out a near door, as did several other women who’d come as spectators, hungry for scandal.
Should she follow? Lark stood on trembling legs as Magnus moved toward her. A burly man, toppled by a blow to her left, was righted by Magnus, only to be kicked in the shin by another man. One lad threw a leather fire bucket at the jurors, dousing them with water. A bench overturned, and someone began pelting rotting neeps and tatties down on them from the gallery. One struck Lark’s shoulder, a glancing pain.
An open door was to her right. Wanting to flee yet still shackled, Lark breathed in the unsettled air now tainted with . . . smoke?
“Fire!” someone screamed.
She was shoved viciously from behind, and then her world went black.
Who’d have thought a blow to the head would be a blessing in disguise?
“I’ll not examine a patient I might well get the pestilence from. Besides, there’s too much blood from the wound.” The stern voice helped clear Lark’s head. A physic? “See that she is bathed—with soap. And I insist on clean clothes for her.”
“Very well, sir,” came the obliging female voice. “A half hour then.”
Lark was stripped. Scrubbed. Nigh scalded. The wound at the back of her head stung like fire and her tooth still ached, but she was deeply grateful for a bath. She gritted her teeth as the gaol matron cleaned her hair.
“These plain clothes will do. The Society of Friends oft visit here.”
Lark regarded the olive-green cloth, the plain linen capelet, and the white cap. Weak-kneed, she sat in a simple shift and loose stays. Her parting with her filthy shawl was bittersweet. It seemed to belong to her former life, not her new, unknown self. Benumbed by all that had happened, she stared at white thread stockings and scuffed low-heeled buckled shoes. Even a simple linen apron.