‘The law will support me,’ declared Fleming feverishly, ‘I’ll take the evidence to the Sheriff straight way, and he’ll see the right o’ my actions! I ha’ proof positive now of the witchcraft that’s being worked here, and one or all of these wicked women will — ’
‘We’ll ha’ no more of that,’ said one of the colliers, hefting his mell.
‘And as for you, Simmie Wilson,’ continued Jamesie, ‘I’d ha’ thought you’d more sense than turn up here poking your nose where this glaikit sumph tells you.’
‘Sumph, is it?’ howled Fleming. Alys studied him anxiously; she was astonished to see him on his feet, but it was clear his recovery was anything but complete. The man was trembling and sweating, hollow-eyed and hollow-cheeked, his clothes hanging from him as if he had lost half his weight. She could smell the pear comfits from where she stood.
‘Aye,’ Simmie was saying, ‘but I found what he said I’d find, which is proof o’ witchcraft, Jamesie Meikle, so what do you think of that?’
‘Proof? Aye, proof of your own soft-headedness,’ said someone.
‘There’s all the candles gone from the chapel,’ protested Simmie, ‘just as Davy here said I’d find, though he put new ones just the other week — ’
‘Is that what Agnes Brewster’s been burning?’ said another voice, to laughter.
‘Well, what d’you call this?’ said Simmie, goaded. He fetched a bundle out of the breast of his doublet and opened it out into an appalled spreading silence. Between the coal-blackened shoulders Alys saw as clearly as any of them what lay within the sacking. Four little mommets, clumsily modelled of white wax, clad in scraps of cloth and pierced with thorns through heart or head, three with bare crumbling waxen legs, the fourth in petticoats. Her heart sank. This was definite proof of witchcraft. But who — which of the people here — had made and hidden these?
For perhaps five breaths the silence hung, and then incongruously a lark burst into song over their heads. As if it was a signal, the man nearest to Simmie struck out, knocked the little figures to the ground, and stamped on them with a muddy boot, saying savagely, ‘Where’s yer proof now, Simmie Wilson? Show that to the Sheriff, won’t ye?’
The other men began shouting round him. Fleming threw himself forward with a cry of rage, scrabbling in the dirt for the fragments of wax, and Phemie, white and trembling, seized Jamesie Meikle’s elbow saying under the noise, ‘He made that up! Surely he made that up, he must ha’ made those things himself!’
Meikle turned to look at her, as some of the men laid large rough hands on Fleming, and Simmie held the sacking wrapper up above the mêlée saying indignantly, ‘No I never, I found them, they were up yonder hid in the thatch!’
‘Up where?’ demanded Phemie, but Alys, who had seen where he pointed, stepped back away from the group and set off round the end of the house and up the hill, the dog at her heels. One for Thomas Murray, she was thinking, one for David Fleming. And the others must be — yes, they must represent Gil and herself, newly constructed, the immediate reason for the absence of candles in the little chapel. And Gil had that terrifying dream. She shivered, crossed herself, and turned uphill, making for the new over wyndhous which Arbella had accounted for so meticulously. For the first time, she had begun to consider that there might be some foundation for Fleming’s persistent ideas, and it was an unpleasant thought.
Halfway up the slope, she found the two men who had accompanied her from Belstane were beside her.
‘What’s ado, mem?’ asked Steenie, still wiping ale from his mouth. He acknowledged Socrates’ greeting and added, ‘Davy Fleming was like to die yesterday, and now he’s up here shouting at the colliers, is it a miracle right enough?’
‘More like the fasting has helped him,’ said Alys, pausing to look over her shoulder at the group in the yard. As she watched Phemie spoke, distracting the men, and Fleming seized the chance and ducked away from the grasping hands round him, slipped into the colliery office and slammed the door. By the time the sound floated up to them Jamesie Meikle had already deployed three men to guard the little building, and was confronting a belligerent Simmie.
‘And what’s the stushie about?’ asked Henry at her other elbow.
‘Fleming has been searching the place for signs of witchcraft,’ said Alys.
‘Witchcraft?’ said Henry in alarm. ‘Here, if Beatrice Lithgo’s taken up for a witch, where am I to get supplies for dosing the horses?’
‘Embro?’ suggested Steenie. ‘Where are we going, mem?’
‘Here,’ said Alys, pausing before the wide, low structure of the upper shaft-house. ‘Simmie said he found something here, hidden in the thatch, and I wondered if there was anything else to find.’
‘Proof?’ asked Henry sharply. ‘Simmie Wilson wouldny ken proof if it bit him on the bum, any more than our Patey Who I’ve sent back to Belstane, by the way, mistress.’
‘This could have been proof,’ admitted Alys, ‘but one of the colliers destroyed it.’ She shivered. Her skin was still crawling at the sight of the little figures, brief as it had been, with their tatters of clothing and their pierced bodies.
‘Colliers is odd folk,’ pronounced Steenie. ‘But who’s he naming for the witch? Who’d hide something up here as far from the house? What are we seeking anyways?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alys. ‘I want to look for a hiding-place, but there may not be anything left in it, if Simmie found it.’
Both men looked at her a little oddly, but they began to inspect the thatch obligingly enough, looking under the eaves at the bundled ends of the heather-stems and prodding as far up the roof as either could reach. Alys ordered the dog to sit at the doorway, stepped inside and peered up into the shadows at the purlins which supported the thatch, trying to ignore the shaft gaping blackly at the centre of the hut. There seemed to be nowhere to hide anything; the clay-daubed hurdles rose to meet the roof-frame, with no ledge or wall-plate at the top, and she could see nothing like a shelf or niche under the thatch. Up in the crown of the roof there was the ruffling sound she had heard before, exactly like feathers, like a bird settling its plumage. She turned towards the winding-gear, and something fell from the rafters in silence and swooped at her face, missing her as she ducked and exclaimed in terror, sailed on out of the doorway and up over the hillside, the dog in delighted pursuit.
‘What’s up?’ demanded Henry, arriving with Steenie as she straightened up. ‘What made ye squeal, lassie? Mistress,’ he corrected himself. ‘What was yon?’
‘It was a owl,’ said Steenie, looking back over his shoulder. ‘Did it hurt ye, mem?’
‘No,’ she said shakily, her heart hammering, ‘no, it gave me a fright, that’s all. It came down from nowhere, out of the roof.’ Yet another of the creatures. And no wonder Gil had a bad dream, she thought, after the same thing happened to him.
‘Out of the roof? Where was it perching?’ asked Steenie.
Henry nodded. ‘A good thought, Steenie lad. What was it standing on?’ He swung himself up on to the frame of the winding-gear and peered along under the roof-tree. ‘I see it — there’s a cross-beam. Now can I reach it?’
‘Have a care!’ said Alys involuntarily, as he stretched out an arm, but he drew back, with a wary look at the rope disappearing down the shaft, swung himself on to the ground and tried again from the other side of the structure.
‘Aye,’ he said, groping along the beam. ‘I’d say it roosts here. Foot of the shaft must be littered wi’ its pellets. And what’s this? Cloth?’ He came down again, holding his find by one corner, and looked at Alys. ‘We’ll take it into the light, mistress, but are ye for opening it up?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She took the thing from him, and stepped out into the daylight to inspect it. Socrates returned from his pursuit of the owl and sat down, tongue hanging out, as she did so. The cloth bag was as big as the palm of her hand, very dirty though not troubled by owl droppings, and seemed to be of silk damask as if it contained a relic. She untied the cord and drew out a swaddled bundle; both men were watching intently, and Steenie crossed himself as she began to unfold the brown linen wrappings.