Chapter 25: Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live (Part I)

In this chapter, a question of anachronism, an unlikely hero, and a revelation.

Claire has been captured. The mob dumps her and Geillis into the damp, dark "thieves' hole" to await trial.

With nothing to do but shiver and dodge the occasional filth thrown at them by the villagers, Claire asks Geillis about what they might expect at the trial. Geillis doesn't know, but opines that the examiners will probably not bring a "witch-pricker."

At this point, my anachronism senses are tingling. I don't know much about Scottish history, but I do know American history, and one of the things to remember about the Salem witch hysteria was how late it was in the history of witchcraft trials in the Anglophone world. Google confirms this suspicion — there was a report of a witch convicted and executed in Scotland in the 1720s, but the laws against witchcraft were changed in the 1730s. Of course, people in a backwater like Cranesmuir didn't change their beliefs quickly, but the formal trial before examiners is unlikely.

In any case, this is historical fiction, not a historical monograph. The point is that Claire is stuck in a place where people do believe in the occult (regardless of the law), and where her 20th-century beliefs/morals/worldview are likely to get her in trouble. So I don't think the exact chronology of witchcraft trials is particularly important. What's important (narratively) is that Claire is in danger because she has acted without adequate respect for the place and time in which she currently resides.

And Claire herself does voice some skepticism along these lines:

I vaguely recalled something of this from Frank's books, but had thought it a practice common to the seventeenth century, not this one. On the other hand, I thought wryly, Cranesmuir was not exactly a hotbed of civilization.

So there you have it. The point of this witch trial is not that someone living in 1743 would be particularly likely to be tried as a witch. Instead, it highlights both Claire's precarious position and the discrepancy between a synthetic historical overview and the specifics of a particular time and place. I'm fine with both those points.

And this one:

"Ye still dinna understand, do ye?" she said. "They mean to kill us. And it doesna matter much what the charge is, or what the evidence shows. We'll burn, all the same."

Claire is still thinking of things as they should be, rather than as they are. There shouldn't be a witch trial in 1743. A British officer shouldn't try to rape a captive. People shouldn't fall through rifts in time. And yet, here we are. 

I'm actually glad the novel makes this point. Claire has adapted to 18th-century life in some ways (norms of privacy, personal comfort, food, etc.), but, in other ways, she has held onto her 20th-century beliefs (women are people, fairies are bullshit, etc.). I'm glad that the novel is punishing her here, not because it is fair, but because it's true that you can't just run around being awesome in Cranesmuir without offending the people who live there and drawing attention to yourself. This whole episode holds her accountable for acting as boldly as she does, and forgetting where she is and who she's dealing with.

Geillis suspects that Colum didn't really mean for Claire to be caught up in the trap he set for Geillis. Wrong place, wrong time. Claire should get that stitched on a pillow. Of course, it wasn't entirely an accident — Laoghaire put Claire in the mob's path by sending her to Geillis when she did.

"How did you know it was Laoghaire?" I asked, shivering.

"'Twas her that left the ill-wish in your bed," Geillis replied. "I told ye at the first there were those minded your taking the red-haired laddie. I suppose she thought if ye were gone, she's have a chance at him again."

Stupid Laoghaire. Trying to murder Claire. After all this, I had exactly zero sympathy for the pregnant, teenage diabetic on Season 4 of Call the Midwife, played by Nell Hudson. No one cares about your dangerous pregnancy, Laoghaire. Note: I'm sure that Nell Hudson is a lovely person and will enjoy hanging out with Jack Gleeson and Tom Felton for the rest of her life.

Somehow, Claire has gotten it into her head that Laoghaire is pregnant by Dougal MacKenzie. This seems a really big leap from what she saw while eavesdropping on landing outside Colum's library. Then again, Claire does lose about 25 IQ points whenever puzzling over pregnancy (her own or anyone else's).

Geillis sets her straight: Laoghaire isn't Dougal's pregnant lover. Geillis is. And Colum is taking care of the situation by getting rid of her.

We learn that Geillis tried to kill Arthur Duncan through slow poisoning, but it didn't work. She killed him at the banquet because he had seen her pregnant belly in her dressing room and could have denounced her. Also, Geillis didn't kill Ofdougal, but she would have if she hadn't died so fortuitously.

So she had taken her preventative measures, and Colum had taken his. And here was I, caught up in the middle.

Not so fast, missy. You're here because we need a narratively satisfying way of reinforcing that you are in a dangerous place and can't just run around ignoring good advice and acting like a secular person from the 20th century without consequences. You're not just a dolphin in Colum's tuna net.

News: Geillis is a Jacobite. In the past two years, she has diverted 10,000 pounds from Arthur Duncan's office to the Stuart cause. In fact, she implies that Dougal wasn't really a Jacobite before she got to him.

Wait, TEN THOUSAND POUNDS? How much money passes through the fiscal's office in this podunk village?

"No great matter. I've managed a good deal in the time I had; ten thousand pounds diverted to France, and the district roused for Prince Charles. Come the Rising, I shall know I helped. If I live so long."

Count Geillis among those who think that individual actions can change the future.

Things are looking bleak for our Heroine. Never more so than when Geillis asks Claire for an honest answer:

"Do ye love the man, then? . . . Really love him, I mean," Geilie persisted. "Not just want to bed him; I know you want that, and he does too. They all do. But do you love him?"

Did I love him? Beyond the urges of the flesh? The hold had the dark anonymity of the confessional, and soul on the verge of death had no time for lies.

"Yes," I said, and laid my head back on my knees."

I'm not quite sure what Geillis is getting at when she replies, "So it's possible." What's possible? Love? Or something about the time travel?

The trial begins. There is plenty of evidence against Geillis, who is, in fact, a murderous, spell-casting abortionist. Claire is feeling pretty safe until the mother of the changeling baby steps forward. See, Claire, you can't just go around trampling all over the locals with your 20th-century ways. 

Then, there's Peter the drover, who saw Claire with the waterhorse. To be fair, that was not Claire's fault. And the judges don't believe him anyway. But it still looks bad to everyone else. And even though the bulk of the evidence is against Geillis, Claire is implicated just by their friendship.

Then here comes Father Bain, being a creepy asshole. He reveals the festering dogbite that he wouldn't let Claire tend.

"Jesus Christ, man!" I said, shocked at the sight. "You've got blood poisoning. You need it tended, and right now, or you'll die."

The assembly interprets this as yet another curse, and things are not looking good.

This, I thought cynically, trying to still my panic, was surely where the dashing young hero was meant to ride through the crowd, beating back the cringing townspeople and scooping the fainting heroine up onto his saddle.

Hoofbeats! But instead of Jamie with a sword, it's Ned Gowan with a brain.

With a bow to the judges and another, no less formal, to myself, Mr. Gowan drew himself still straighter than his normal upright posture, braced both thumbs in the waist of his breeks, and prepared with all the romanticism of his aged, gallant heart to do battle, fighting with the law's chosen weapon of excruciating boredom.

This is delightful. Ned drones on and on, stalling and letting the crowd's bloodlust cool. He talks all afternoon, until the judges get tired and dismiss the court until the next morning.

Ned manages to get a few minutes alone with Claire. He brings her food, drink, and some hope that he will be able to beat the charges.

"What we must do is to play upon the fact of your Englishness—and hence your ignorance, ye ken, not your strangeness—and draw matters out so long as we may. Time is on our side, ye see, for the worst of these trials take place in a climate of hysteria, when the soundness of evidence may be disregarded for the sake of satisfyin' blood-hunger."

This is a good plan! 

There was one thing I needed to know.

"Mr. Gowan—did Colum send you to help me?"

This is your one question? Not, 'Oh, hey, Ned, you're doing really well and all, but do you think maybe you could send someone to find Jamie? Just in case?'

I suppose he wouldn't get there in time. But still, probably worth a shot.

And, in fact, Colum did not send Ned to help Claire. So screw him.

Chances were that Colum had forbidden anyone to come down to the village, for fear of being caught up in the witch-hunt.

Eh, probably to keep the castle inhabitants from rescuing either of you. How does your mind not go immediately to the worst-case scenario, Claire? Has Colum not been dastardly enough yet?

Next morning, the judges pronounce,

"We find ourselves unable to determine guilt solely on the basis of the evidence presented."

Yay!

"trial by water"

Boo!

The villagers get all worked up again, but Claire has had it with their bullshit and starts shouting back.

"Do I dare refuse to be drowned? Too right I do!"

I would have thought she was signing her death warrant by talking back, but in fact, the order to have her whipped probably delays the drowning, so not a bad idea.

Through a daze of disbelief, I heard a collective inhalation, presumably of shocked dismay—in truth of anticipatory enjoyment. And I realized just what hate really meant. Not theirs. Mine.

Claire Hulks out and starts kicking fools. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them. They strip her to the waist and bind her for whipping. All this

filled me with a hatred and humiliation I could not even have imagined.

Now, granted, this is terrible. But I am a lot less angry reading this than I was when Jamie beat Claire. They are miserable fools attacking her. He is her husband and he betrayed her. Fuck the patriarchy. 

The whipping itself is . . . not as bad as she expected? The guy holding the whip is not into it and is doing his best not to hurt Claire too badly. And she's doing pretty well with her mind-over-matter approach, "trying for all I was worth to be somewhere else." Of course, she is still bound and naked, so that's humiliating, but he's not hurting her any more than Jamie did, and I'm not even sure if she is actually more humiliated now than she was then. I'd think it would be way worse to be beaten by your husband in hearing distance of lots of people you know well than by a stranger in front of other strangers.

And then,

"Claire!"

Jamie's there, as Claire notes, the Patton to her McAuliffe. I was going to give Claire a fist bump for that historical reference, but then I remembered that she was actually in France during Bastogne, so not really a historical analogy for her. (Also, editor, it's McAuliffe, not MacAuliffe).

Then this silliness:

"Claire! Stand still!" 

. . . The blur struck my face with a clattering sting and the black beads fell on my shoulders as the jet rosary, flung bola-style, neatly ringed my neck.

Good call cutting this, TV adapters.

Jamie's doing pretty well here, even though his plan does involve inviting the entire crowd to ogle Claire's bare flesh simultaneously. But he can't make a clean getaway. In the end, it's Geillis, sacrificing herself by confessing to witchcraft and exonerating Claire, that lets Claire and Jamie make a break for it.

Poor Geillis. Not a very sympathetic character, but it's still sad to have her turned over to the howling mob. I do hope that the baby buys her enough time to figure a way to evade execution. Would Dougal help her? Maybe if he was pissed enough at Colum. I can't see him charging in from noble motives, but I can see him raging at his brother. Oooh, what if the baby's a boy? All Dougal's legitimate children are girls. That could make things very interesting indeed.

In any case, Jamie is getting the hell out of there. He hauls Claire out, too, but there's just that one last thing:

For I hadn't stood frozen at the revelation of Geilie's pregnancy. It was something else I had seen that chilled me to the marrow of my bones. As Geilie had spun, white arms stretched aloft, I saw what she had seen when my own clothes were stripped away. A mark on one arm like the one I bore. Here, in this time, the mark of sorcery, the mark of a magus. The small, homely scar of a smallpox vaccination.

That's good drama. Maybe not great writing (how did Claire notice the smallpox scar at any distance when Geillis was spinning around like that?), but a delicious slice of adventure genre cake.

And thus ends a chapter . . . 

GOD DAMN IT

The chapter is over. It is done. The action has concluded. There was even a thunderclap of revelation. Just let it go! This new thing that is happening now is a DIFFERENT CHAPTER. 

I can't. I'm sorry. I'm splitting this review into two parts.

Body Count:

Jamie: 5 + assorted redcoats + two years as mercenary in France

Claire: 1