Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [247]
“Stating in evidence whereof the accused did cause the death of Arthur Duncan, by means of witchcraft,” MacRae read, in a firm, steady voice. “And whereas they did procure the death of the unborn child of Janet Robinson, did cause the boat of Thomas MacKenzie to sink, did bring upon the village of Cranesmuir a wasting sickness of the bowels…”
It went on for some time. Colum had been thorough in his preparations.
After the reading of the dittay, the witnesses were called. Most of them were villagers I didn’t recognize; none of my own patients were among them, a fact for which I was grateful.
While the testimony of many of the witnesses was simply absurd, and other witnesses had plainly been paid for their services, some had a clear ring of truth to their words. Janet Robinson, for example, who was haled before the court by her father, pale and trembling, with a purple bruise on her cheek, to confess that she had conceived a child by a married man, and sought to rid herself of it, through the offices of Geillis Duncan.
“She gave me a draft to drink, and a charm to say three times, at the rising o’ the moon,” the girl mumbled, glancing fearfully from Geillis to her father, unsure which one posed the greatest threat. “She said ’twould bring my courses on.”
“And did it?” Jeff asked with interest.
“Not at the first, your honor,” the girl answered, bobbing her head nervously. “But I took the draft again, at the waning o’ the moon, and then it started.”
“Started?! The lassie near bled to death!” An elderly lady, plainly the girl’s mother, broke in. “ ’Twas only because she felt herself to be dyin’ as she told me the truth o’ the matter.” More than willing to add to the gory details, Mrs. Robinson was shut up with some difficulty, in order to make way for the succeeding witnesses.
There seemed to be no one with anything in particular to say about me, aside from the vague accusation that since I had been present at Arthur Duncan’s death, and had laid hands on him before he died, clearly I must have had something to do with it. I began to think that Geilie was right; I had not been Colum’s target. That being so, I thought it possible that I would escape. Or at least I thought so until the hill woman appeared.
When she came forward, a thin, bowed woman with a yellow shawl, I sensed that we were in serious trouble. She was not one of the villagers; no one I had ever seen before. Her feet were bare, stained with the dust of the road she had walked to come here.
“Have ye a charge to make against either o’ the women here?” asked the tall, thin judge.
The woman was afraid; she wouldn’t raise her eyes to look at the judges. She bobbed her head briefly, though, and the crowd quieted its murmur to hear her.
Her voice was low, and Mutt had to ask her to repeat herself.
She and her husband had an ailing child, born healthy but then turned puny and unthrifty. Finally deciding that the child was a fairy changeling, they had placed it in the Fairy’s Seat on the hill of Croich Gorm. Keeping watch so as to recover their own child when the fairies should return it, they had seen the two ladies standing here go to the Fairy’s Seat, pick up the child and speak strange spells over it.
The woman twisted her thin hands together, working them under her apron.
“We watched through the nicht, sirs. And when the dark came, soon after there cam’ a great demon, a huge black shape comin’ through the shadows wi’ no sound, to lean ower the spot where we’d laid the babe.”
There was an awed murmur from the crowd, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stir slightly, even knowing as I did that the “great demon” had been Jamie, gone to see whether the child still lived. I braced myself, knowing what was coming next.
“And when the sun rose, my man and I went to see. And there we found the changeling babe, dead on the hill, and no sign of our own wee bairn.” At this, she broke, and threw