Chapter 52
THE CENTRAL JUDICIARY COURT OF Edinburgh is an imposing chamber on the first floor of the Tolbooth.
It’s a muckle room but it’s bursting at the seams, and the gallery for the public who’ve come to observe proceedings is full: folk crammed onto wooden benches, others standing at the sides in every available space.
Elspet is perspiring in her thick gown of velvet lined with woollen grogram.
She and Beatrix are hemmed in on all sides, sitting in the gallery.
These layers of stiff fabric are suitable for a caal winter in Edinburgh and the draughty corridors of the palace, not for the middle of a throng of people.
The crowd is restless and rowdy – it reminds her of the hall at Holyrood during the masque.
These people are expecting entertainment, even if it’s delivered by the Devil.
She fights back her rising fear as the judge, sitting on a raised bench at the front of the room, starts the proceedings. ‘Bring in the panel, our prisoner at the bar,’ he shouts over the din.
A red-faced official shushes the crowd, who ignore him until the door at the back of the room opens and Kitty is brought in, staring down at the ground and flanked by two guards.
They have to practically carry her into the courtroom.
She is in shackles, her enormous belly swollen under her dress.
It is a good gown from New-Frater House but it’s filthy, covered in the grime of three days in the cells.
Her arms where they are exposed are covered with thick red lacerations.
The judge is disinterested, focused on picking something out from under his fingernail.
Elspet is not prepared for the sight of Kitty so broken. Since the first day Elspet saw her emerging from the forest at Dunrobin during the wolf hunt, despite all she has contended with, Kitty has been defiant, full of fire. She’s never seen her cowed until this moment.
Recovering from their silent fascination at her entrance, the crowd begins to shout insults. ‘Here comes the witch.’
‘Look at her – no better than a beast.’
‘Consort of Satan!’
Elspet feels Beatrix touch her lightly on her arm.
‘Are you well, Mistress Balfour?’ she whispers, and Elspet wonders why she’s asking.
Then she sees the drops of water falling onto her skirt, darkening patches of green.
Her cheeks are soaked with tears. Kitty’s fate is terrible and her heart goes out to her, but there’s something else as well, something more self-interested.
This is the fate that could await her if her identity is revealed, if the Earl of Orkney pursues his persecution of her.
She reaches for Beatrix’s hand. ‘Why . . .’ She wipes her face. ‘Why have they done this to her?’
Someone spits in Kitty’s direction, but the globule hits another observer who turns and pushes him. Jostling and more shouting breaks out in the crowd. The proceedings are delayed as those fighting are removed by guards.
Then the official steps forward. ‘We have a recorded confession from the pannel, Kitty Muirhead, where she admits to communion with Satan.’ He waves a thick sheet of parchment around, as if that proves what he’s saying is true. If it’s written down, it must be fact.
Elspet thinks of Henry Colville and his cashielawes – the screams coming from his chamber in St Magnus Cathedral when he’s persuading a reluctant Orkneyjar udaller to part with their lands.
Under torture, a man will hand over property that’s been in his family for generations.
Someone whose legs are being flayed and cooked, someone whose bones are being pulled from their sockets – this person’s sole thought is to make the pain stop.
As a way of finding out the truth, nothing could be less effective.
And who knows what has been done to Kitty.
The man reads from the parchment. ‘I, Kitty Muirhead, do confess to communion with Satan, who took the form of a man in the kirkyard of Culmaily in Sutherland. There, I did desecrate the dead, and dig up a fresh corpse, to remove its knuckles to use in rituals. I did plot to murder the King of Scotland and I came to Edinburgh to carry out my infernal plans.’
He finishes with a satisfied smile, to gasps from the crowd.
Kitty Muirhead, the woman he’s supposedly quoting, says nothing. She holds onto the wooden partition, leaning to support herself. She doesn’t react as the words are read out.
‘Now, we come to the points of dittay against this woman. Who gives evidence against her? Bring in the witness.’
A door at the side of the courtroom opens and, as a peedie woman walks through, Beatrix cries out, ‘No!’
The breath leaves Elspet’s body as Dorothea walks forward and settles herself into the witness chair.
‘Lady Dorothea Ruthven,’ the court official says grandly. ‘We’re grateful for your good testimony in this trial.’
‘What is she doing?’ Beatrix whispers, looking at Elspet, her face full of panic. ‘There must be some mistake. She wouldn’t . . .’
Elspet holds Beatrix’s hand, squeezing it tight. The ground is disappearing beneath her feet, the courtroom swims.
Dorothea’s face is set in grim determination. She looks straight at the official, ignoring the room around her. She’s deliberately avoiding looking at Kitty, or at the gallery, Elspet thinks. She kens we’ll be here. She kens how Beatrix will feel about this.
‘Please tell the court your knowledge of the woman Kitty Muirhead,’ the official says.
‘I’m sorry to say . . .’ Dorothea begins.
Her voice is steady but low. Several people hiss at others to be quiet and the crowd hushes to listen to her testimony.
‘ . . . that Kitty Muirhead was involved in activity of the most infernal nature back in her homeland of Sutherland, activity she continues to this day here in Edinburgh, and under my very roof.’
Elspet leans forward. Despite the hush of the crowd, it’s difficult to hear Dorothea’s voice over the rustling and fidgeting.
‘I understand this is distressing for you,’ the official continues, ‘but I must ask you to be specific. What are the terrible activities you have witnessed the woman doing?’
Dorothea clears her throat, still refusing to look anywhere but directly at the official. ‘In Sutherland, she was part of a group – a coven, I believe they call themselves, of witches. The first we knew of this was when she stole a necklace of pearls from me to use in their full moon ritual.’
The official shakes his head. ‘Dreadful.’
‘It got much worse,’ Dorothea continues, getting into her stride. ‘The coven dug up corpses from kirkyards. They would use the body parts in their rituals. Kitty Muirhead was the chief handmaiden of a man called Jamie Bogge, the leader of these gatherings. Some believe him to be the Devil himself.’
There are gasps of disgust from the crowd.
‘No,’ Beatrix breathes through her fingers pressed against her face as she watches her mother in utter horror. ‘Kitty was driven there out of desperation.’
‘I visited Sutherland for the wolf hunts in the summer,’ Dorothea says, ‘and when I returned home, Kitty Muirhead had stowed away with our family belongings. She preyed on our kind nature and begged us to take her in due to her . . . condition. I agreed she could stay at our home because I didn’t want to turn a woman with child out onto the street. ’
‘Admirable,’ the official concedes. ‘You see how these witches prey on the kindness of good people.’
‘Indeed,’ Dorothea says. ‘You can imagine my horror when one of my servants caught her performing a ritual in her chamber in our house.’
‘What sort of a ritual?’ the official asks. The crowd leans forward, keen to hear more shameful details.
‘She drew symbols in chalk on the wooden boards of the floor, and placed what I believe were the finger and toe bones of the Sutherland corpses on these symbols. She was chanting something about the King’s death. Of course, I immediately informed the authorities, as is my duty.’
The crowd is beside itself now. Exclamations and more insults hurled at Kitty fill the chamber.
‘Is there anything else you can tell us about the pannel, this despicable woman?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Dorothea says. ‘It seems she has stolen from us once more, a valuable emerald, a Ruthven family heirloom.’
Beatrix’s face turns white. ‘I gave her that emerald! I wanted her to have it.’ Though she speaks loudly, she is drowned out by the jeers and boos of the crowd.
‘Appalling,’ the official exclaims over the noise. ‘We are most grateful to you, as is the King, I am certain. We thank you for your testimony.’
Dorothea nods and stands. She walks out of the courtroom, straight out of the side door she entered through, her head held high. Her daughter’s eyes, brimming with angry tears, follow her until she is gone.
Kitty Muirhead remains slumped over, her face bearing a glazed expression.
The sentence is inevitable.
‘You will be executed for your abominable crimes,’ the judge decrees imperiously from his bench, his eyes skirting over Kitty as if she’s no more than a fly to be squashed, before going back to removing the dirt from under his fingernails.
‘You are sentenced to be strangled and burnt on the Castle Hill.’
‘No!’ Beatrix cries out again, standing up. The gathered crowd turns to look at her. ‘The woman is with child. She cannot be executed.’
The judge looks at Kitty for what appears to be the first time, sees the roundness of her belly and registers this with surprise. He has not even really looked at her, Elspet thinks with a disgust bordering on righteous rage. This is nothing more than a day at work for him.
‘The woman will be held here in the court cells until she has delivered the child – and then her sentence will be carried out.’
Elspet searches Kitty’s face for some of her old defiance, or at least a reaction or understanding of what is happening to her.
But there is nothing. Her body is flooded with a wave of guilt so strong she almost loses her balance.
She should stand up and defend Kitty. But she knows it would only bring suspicion onto her, and it could do no good.
The guards grip Kitty from each side, lifting her up and leading her stumbling back out of the courtroom.