The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

‘And you had only the one opportunity to speak privately with her while I was gone?’

‘I did,’ he said. ‘For when the baillie was not about her, her mother was, and she would not talk before either of them.’

‘And she really told you nothing of this business?’ I pressed. He turned away and stoked the fire. ‘We spoke of other things.’

I knew of old the tenor of Jaffray’s voice when he wished to close a subject, and it betrayed him now. Yet I was not ready to leave it. ‘Do you think she knew about Davidson’s activities – the map-drawing, and what it was for?’

‘She cannot but have known about it – certainly about the drawing, for when else would he have made his sketches than when they were wandering about the countryside? As to the espionage – if there was any – Marion was not the girl to get caught up in great causes or secret plots. They would have been an unnecessary distraction for her from the essentials of life – of her life at least. She had too great an interest in her father’s craft and in other science to waste her time on the politics and religion of nations. I think had Davidson been involved in those pursuits, or attempted to entangle her in them, their companionship would have come to an earlier and cleaner end.’

I thought about the girl, trying to remember the few true conversations we had had together. Jaffray was right. In her hours away from her work in the provost’s nursery, she had worked steadily and with great focus on the understanding of the pharmacopoeia of her father’s craft and the nature and purpose of every plant that grew around these parts. She would have cared little for Spanish invaders or popish plots, and certainly would not have lost her life in their defence. But how far might her fascination with science have taken her? ‘Jaffray,’ I began, ‘do you truly give no credence to the idea that she was …’

His brow darkened and he looked at me hard. ‘Go on, Alexander.’

‘Do you truly give no credence to the idea that she meddled in witchcraft?’

He breathed a great sigh of exasperation. ‘This again? Do you tell me you believe that pernicious nonsense?’

‘No,’ I answered truthfully and emphatically, ‘I do not.’

‘Then why …?’

‘Because she went to all the places, James. The Elf Kirk, Ordiquhill, where John Philp is much suspected as a witch, where the waters are said to have properties, and Darkwater.’

Instead of continuing in his anger, Jaffray broke into a smile and laughed at me, though nervously, I thought. ‘Oh, Alexander, come now. Half the bairns in the town are at the Elf Kirk precisely because their mothers and the session warn them from it. And as for Ordiquhill and Darkwater, well, both are places of importance to those who would seek to land or make their way inland from our coast. Findlater guards the coast at Darkwater, and Ordiquhill is on the road from there to Strathbogie, by Fordyce. Davidson would need to know them both for his mapping.’ He turned away from me and went again to stoke the fire. I knew he was hiding something from me.

‘James, she went twice to Darkwater: once with Davidson, and once on her own, after he was dead. They say she went to the wise woman.’

He spun round angrily. ‘“They say”. Who is this new “they” in whom you place such trust?’

‘It was much muttered by the mob last night–’

Jaffray was incredulous. ‘What? You now take the word of a rabble under the direction of a beggarman thief? Lang Geordie would have great interest in directing any accusation of witchcraft away from himself and his followers.’

‘Yes, I know that. He admitted as much to me himself. But there was also Mistress Youngson. She is no idle gossip, as you know, and she wished the girl no ill.’

Jaffray’s shoulders sank. ‘Aye, you are right. She did not.’ He went to the door and looked down the passageway. Nothing stirred in the house. ‘I know that Marion went to Darkwater, with Davidson, and alone. I think I know why she went, and there was no witchcraft nor yet spying in it.’ I waited, but he evidently considered himself to have finished. ‘Oh, for the love of God, Alexander, you of all people must know the crone is not a witch. Who nursed you from your delirium last year? Who saved you from death on the rocks of Findlater?’ I knew it, I knew it all, for Jaffray had told it to me, but I had no memory of any of it, nothing until the day Jaffray arrived on the beach below the castle rock to take me home. He continued, ‘She is no witch, but a healing woman, a wise woman who was in her day a skilled midwife who brought many into this world who might otherwise have died in their struggle. But then, years ago now, I do not remember when, she took herself off, away from the world, to that cave in Darkwater to glean her living from the sea and from the cliffs and plants around her. I have not seen her since then, but they say it was because she had seen too much pain and death where there should have been joy and life. There are those who say she feared the witch-mongers, who are too ready to blame the misfortunes of life or the will of God on the agency of another. And that may be true – it would not have been long before the death of some child would have been laid at her door.’