The Devil's Mistress by David Barclay (summer reads txt) 📗

step back, and a few of the elders crossed themselves. Even Sloop was put off temper, his mossy eyes flickering this way and that.

Jacob’s elbow flew into his captor’s nose, and he tore free. “Elly,” he yelled, running across the square. “Elly, I’m coming!”

He was almost there when Wembly, the young watchman from Isabella’s cell, tripped him with one long-heeled boot and sent him sprawling into the mud. The watchman pulled him up under the edge of his sword and grabbed ahold of his hair.

Behind them, Sands was on one knee, holding his nose and swearing.

The members of the crowd stirred, unsure whether or not to watch the coming debacle or flee.

“Order,” the magistrate cried. “Order!”

Isabella bit down upon the remains of her tongue and spat upon the table. Blood flew from her mouth, striking the magistrate, the guards, the priest. Marianne gagged as a large, red droplet landed upon her lips.

Isabella laughed, a high tittering sound tinged with madness. In the throws of that laughter, the watchmen grabbed her and dragged her to the ground.

“To the rope,” Sloop cried. “Get this thing from my sight!”

The magistrate leaped to his feet. “You will not! She has yet to speak in her own defense.”

Sloop looked at the creature on the ground, bound helpless, deformed, yet still struggling. “She cannot speak, not with any perspicacity, Mister Beauchamp. Her mind is as severed as her tongue.”

The magistrate looked on, his face working for an answer that would not come. Then came the sound of a throat being cleared. It was a small, delicate sound, but it cut the uproar off before it had verily begun.

At the edge of the gallows, Marianne Huxley was dabbing her face with a handkerchief, her expression as honey-sweet as a poisoned apple. “Gentlemen, it is clear the girl is not herself, though we must obey the law and allow her a defense, must we not?”

“We must,” the magistrate said, still looking at Sloop.

“Then perhaps we should employ a test.”

The magistrate broke his gaze and turned to the woman. “A test?”

“Yes, Mister Beauchamp, one embraced by our kinfolk in England.” She looked toward the shoreline. “The waters of the inlet are said to be cleansing, and so they shall be. We will employ the test of dunking. She shall be cast into the sea, and if the waters push her out, we know she is a witch, true. I had my carpenter build a chair for this express purpose yesterday. Is the chair ready, Charles?”

The crowd parted to reveal a stocky man with orange hair and thick, muscular forearms. “Ready as steady, madam.” Then, turning to Isabella, in a lower tone, “Told you you’d rue the day, you little cunt.”

The other men at the gallows still looked confused.

“What do you mean?” the magistrate asked.

Marianne sighed, gesturing once more toward the bay. “We drown her.”

Chapter 17

Upon the shore was built an apparatus in the shape of a child’s seesaw, with a wooden chair dangling above the water at one end, and a counterweight tied to land at the other. In the center was a long wooden pole attached to a primitive fulcrum, and though a certain beauty rested in the device’s simplicity, the haste of its construction left the observer with the impression of flimsiness more than strength.

“Will it hold?” Sloop asked doubtfully.

“’Twill hold as surely as the gallows,” the carpenter huffed. “’Tis my work.”

The court stood in a semicircle near it, the members of the town milling about in open fascination. Isabella stood at the center, bound in rope and secured by Sloop’s cronies. Following the outburst at the gallows, she was once more a placid, docile thing. Blood ran freely from her mouth to her chest, and she paid it all the mind of a babe drooling at the feeding table.

“You cannot do this.” Jacob was on his knees at the far end of the circle, his hands bound behind him and a rope round his neck.

“Shut it, dog,” the young watchman said. “Watching God’s work, you are.”

The magistrate approached the contraption with his small hands upon his hips. “This is most irregular.”

Marianne appeared beside him. She towered over the magistrate by at least a head. “If the girl is innocent, she has nothing to fear. We shall pull her up before her body has grown cold.”

The two watchmen hauled Isabella toward the rocky shore. Her body was limp as they navigated the path, her feet dragging through the mud behind her. Jacob renewed his struggle and was again shut down by the young watchman, who laughed as the boy choked and sputtered.

The men forced Isabella down upon the chair and bound her to it. The stocky carpenter gathered several men from the crowd to hold the counterweight.

Though Sloop was getting on in years, he was not about to waste the opportunity, and thus climbed unsteadily upon a protruding rock, holding his hands high before the murmuring assemblage. “Friends, you have come to witness expiation, and expiation shall be done. If she be of God above, He shall hold her near beneath the drink, and if she be of the pit, He will cast her out and spit her from the waters.” He took a breath. “For those who believe we are not watched, that we are not judged, I ask you to look no further than this poor, wretched soul. Mark this day. This be what happens when you stray from the path. Attend, fair children, and see His will.”

Sloop motioned to the men at the counterweight, who were in such a hurry to obey that they removed their hands completely, allowing the opposite end to drop with full force into the water.

“No,” Jacob yelled.

Isabella sank beneath the water in a violent splash. Her mouth opened reflexively beneath the tide, and she sucked in a full measure of brackish water. She screamed into the gurgling silence.

The magistrate paced back and forward as the seconds passed. “Isn’t that quite enough?”

Sloop ignored him, looking toward