Tidelands

James nodded and Mr. Miller led the way into the kitchen, ordered that the big kitchen table be dragged to the back of the room, set the high-backed chair behind it, and indicated that James should sit in justice, with Mr. Miller standing beside him as a makeshift clerk of the court.

“I have no authority,” James muttered to him as he took his seat.

“Know Latin?”

“Yes, of course.”

“That’ll do.”

James sat square in his chair and put his hands before him on the table as everyone crowded into the room, sweeping Alinor, with them, still holding the old coins. Mrs. Miller put a sheet of paper before James and Jane set a pot of ink and a pen before him. As if they were watching a mystery play, the wedding guests filled the room, pushing Alinor forwards, to stand isolated before the table. Alys would have gone to her, but Richard took hold of her hand and gently pulled her to his father and mother at the side of the room.

“I want . . .” she whispered to him.

“Better wait here,” he whispered back. “See how this goes. Why did she think I had an inheritance?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alys said, silenced.

James dipped the pen in the ink, hoping that Ned would come soon and Sir William swiftly behind him. All he wanted to do now was play for time.

“Name,” he said as if to a stranger.

There was a little satisfied sigh. The deep terror of witchcraft was under the control of an authority. They need not scrabble to protect themselves against the unknown powers of the other world: a gentleman who knew Latin was taking responsibility.

“You know my name,” Alinor replied sulkily.

There was a murmur against her defiance.

“She’s Goodwife Alinor Reekie,” Mrs. Miller interrupted. “Sister to Edward Ferryman, of Ferry-house.”

James lowered his eyes and wrote his lover’s name at the top of the paper.

“Age?” he asked.

“I am twenty-seven,” Alinor replied.

“Occupation?”

“I am a licensed midwife and healer.”

“No license,” someone reminded them all from the back of the room.

Alinor lifted her head. “I am a midwife and healer,” she amended. “Of good repute.”

“And the accusation?”

Mrs. Miller stepped forward, trembling with anger, her voice low and passionate. “I am Mrs. Miller, of Mill Farm. I keep my savings, my daughter Jane’s dowry, in a hiding place in my kitchen.” Dramatically she pointed to the fireplace. “There! Right there! Behind a loose brick in the chimney.”

Everyone looked to where the brick was missing from the chimney breast, and back to Alinor’s white face.

“Months ago, in the autumn, in September it was, she was running an errand for me to Chichester Friday market. I trusted her to buy something for me. I trusted her!”

There was a hushed comment on the notoriously mistrustful nature of Mrs. Miller. She continued: “I made her turn her back as I took my savings purse out of the hiding place. My secret hiding place. But she saw me. She had her back to me, but even so, she saw me!”

There was a ripple of amazement.

“How could this be?” James asked skeptically, his pen poised.

“With her special sight she saw me, though her head was turned away. When she turned round I could see in her face that she had found me out. I just knew. She had seen me, with her witchy eyes.”

There was a murmur. Everyone but Mrs. Wheatley and the Stoney family agreed that this must be proof. Mr. Miller shook his head.

“You may not call her a witch until it is proven,” James reprimanded her, his level voice cutting through the talk. He turned to Alinor. “Did you see this hiding place?”

“I saw her reflection in the trencher,” she said shortly. She gestured to the silver dish ostentatiously displayed on the big wooden dresser. “She told me to face the big platter and I could see her reflection, like in a looking glass. I wasn’t looking for her; but I did see her. But many people know that she kept her savings there. She sometimes paid with hot coins and her fingers were sooty. It was no mystery.”

A couple of the Millers’ gleaners muttered yes, they had been paid with warm coins.

“Is this the case?” James asked a little too eagerly. “The hiding place was generally known?”

“Only a witch could have seen that reflection,” Mrs. Miller said staunchly. “No one else could have made me out.”

Mrs. Wheatley pushed her way across the crowded room to the sideboard, looked in the silver platter. “You can see,” she reported to James. “You can clearly see.”

“Why did you not change your hiding place?” James asked. “If you thought it had been seen?”

Mrs. Miller hesitated. “I didn’t,” she admitted. “I didn’t.”

Her words fell a little flat and she struggled to restore her credibility. “Because she enchanted me!” she declared. “I forgot all about it until now. I simply forgot until now, and I trusted her again and again, because I had forgotten that she had seen me. What’s that if not spell casting?”