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 her apron over her face to hide her weeping.
As though the mother of the changeling had been a signal of some sort, the crowd parted and the figure of Peter the drover came out. I groaned inwardly when I saw him. I had felt the emotions of the crowd turn against me as the woman spoke; all I needed now was for this man to tell the court about the waterhorse.
Enjoying his moment of celebrity, the drover drew himself up and pointed dramatically at me.
" 'Tis right ye are to call her witch, my lords! Wi' my own eyes I saw this woman call up a waterhorse from the waters of the Evil Loch, to do her bidding! A great fearsome creature, sirs, tall as a pine tree, wi' a neck like a great blue snake, an' eyes big as apples, wi' a look in them as would steal the soul from a man."
The judges appeared impressed with his testimony, and whispered between themselves for several minutes, while Peter glared defiantly at me, with a "that'll show you!" sort of look.
At length, the fat judge broke from the conference and beckoned imperiously to John MacRae, who stood to one side, alert for trouble.
"Locksman!" he said. He turned and pointed at the drover.
"Tak' that man away and shut him up in the pillory for public drunkenness. This is a solemn coort o' law; we'll no ha' the time of the examiners wasted by frivolous accusations from a sot who sees waterhorses when he's taken too much whisky!"
Peter the drover was so astonished that he did not even resist as the locksman strode firmly forward and took him by the arm. Mouth hanging open, he glared back wildly in my direction as he was led away. I couldn't resist fluttering my fingers in a tiny salute after him.
After this slight break in the tension of the proceedings, though, things got rapidly worse. There was a procession of girls and women to swear that they had bought charms and philtres from Geillis Duncan, for purposes such as causing illness, ridding oneself of an unwanted babe, or casting spells of love upon some man. All, without exception, swore that the charms had worked—an enviable record for a general practitioner, I thought cynically. While no one claimed such results for me, there were several to say—truthfully—that they had seen me often in Mrs. Duncan's herb room, mixing medicines and grinding herbs.
Still, that might not have been fatal; there were an equal number of people to claim that I had healed them, using nothing more than ordinary medicines, with nothing in the way of spells, charms, or general hocus-pocus. Given the force of public opinion, it took some nerve for these people to step forward to testify in my behalf, and I was grateful.