“Aye. Fair enough, yes. Agreed,” the people called out, excited at the prospect of a witch trial, looking from the slight woman to the huge wheel, which stood motionless, the bottom blades deep in the millrace, the upper blades white with frost in the freezing air.
Alinor’s knees were buckling beneath her, she swayed on her feet, fainting with fear. She had lost her voice. She barely knew where she was. James could not look at her, as two of the searcher women took her bound arms at the elbows and half led and half dragged her away from the bank of the millpond, to the platform at the side of the wheel. The women tightened her hands behind her back, and twisted the rope around and around her breasts and her swelling belly.
“Better than hanging,” Sir William reminded James, as they stepped on the platform beside the wheel.
“She’s terrified of water,” James whispered.
“Still better than hanging.”
The men had to lift her, as limp as a new corpse, up to the mill wheel.
“Put her on the blades of the wheel,” Mrs. Miller suggested at the forefront of the crowd. “Tie her on so she don’t slip off.”
Wordlessly, Mr. Miller gestured to the mill lad to hold the wheel steady by stepping on it with both feet, holding the green blades, and leaning back as a counterweight, as they lifted Alinor by her shoulders and legs and laid her on one of the blades of the wheel. They took another rope and lashed her on.
“Make sure she’s tied tight,” Sir William ordered. Aside to James he said: “We don’t want her falling off and getting trapped under the wheel.”
James could see her rounded belly as they laid her on her back on one blade, the second blade just inches above her face, the golden tumble of her hair falling loose against the green of the weedy wooden paddles. She did not cry out, or scream for help; she had not said a word since she had sent Rob away. He realized she was speechless with terror.
“Go on,” Sir William said to Mr. Miller. “Get on with it then.”
The miller turned abruptly. “I’m opening the head sluice,” he said loudly, to warn her of the sudden roar of water, as he turned the great metal key that lifted the gate from the pond to the millrace beneath the wheel.
The cascade of water pouring into the race forced a little sob from Alinor; but no one but James heard her. Now she could smell the icy water rising fast beneath the wheel, the weedy green smell of the mire, the creeping cold breath from the rush of icy water. She could sense it rising higher and higher beneath her. Soon the millrace would be filled, and then the miller would open the drain to the mire, and take the brake off the wheel, the water would pour through the millrace and out into the mire, and the mill wheel would turn, and take her down into the waters.
“Ready!” Mr. Miller shouted from inside the mill.
The miller’s lad took his balancing weight off the wheel and it shifted slightly, dropping Alinor towards the water. There was a little gasp of anticipation from everyone.
“Go on,” someone said.
“Turn the wheel!” Sir William shouted to Mr. Miller inside the mill.
They heard his shouted reply. “I’m turning now!”
“No!” James said. He stepped towards the blade of the wheel where her bright hair was lifting in the wind. “Alinor!” he shouted at her.
For the first time that day she turned her head and looked directly at him, but he saw from her agonized face that she was beyond hearing him, beyond seeing him. Strapped to the mill wheel, facing the great terror of her life, she was blind to him and heard neither the cascade of water pouring in, nor the creak of the wheel as it started to turn and lift her up.
Stunned, James watched her inexorable rise to the top of the wheel and then her descent on the other side. He took two steps to the back of the wheel and met her terrified gaze as she headed towards the flooding water beneath her. Down she went, into the narrow churning millrace, and he saw her hair swirl around her white face as she went down and down and then, horrifically, the wheel creaked and stopped. It turned no more, it was holding her underwater. There was a silence, there was a long moment.
“God’s will,” someone whispered in awe. “God has stopped the wheel to drown the witch.”
“No! No! It’s the weight!” Mr. Miller shouted from inside the mill. “It’s her weight on the bottom of the wheel.” He came bounding from the mill as everyone crowded round for a glimpse of her golden hair in the pouring water that rushed past the wheel and out to sea.
James understood, and flung himself on the back of the wheel, hands gripping and feet slipping, clinging desperately to the blades hauling it round. He could feel the wheel, yielding, and then slowly he felt it turn again, in the constant pouring swirl of the water, and then lift blade by blade. Slowly, the drowning woman came out of the depths.
He stepped back. Now the wheel was taking up speed. She went over the top of the wheel and past him again and he caught a glimpse of her white face striped with waterweed, water pouring from her clothes, her boots, her open mouth. He heard over the terrible roar of the wheel her retching cough and her gasp for air and then she was plunged under the waters again and she disappeared.
The wheel, turning faster in the churning water, brought her up on the other side, the miller’s lad shut off the sluice to hold back the water and Mr. Miller, inside the mill, clamped the grinding stone on its bed to hold the wheel with Alinor at the middle of the turn. There was seaweed in her hair, seawater streaming from her open mouth, her eyes black with terror, her gown plastered to her straining belly. Mr. Miller came from the mill, his face dark with anger, pulled a hefty work knife from his boot, and cut the cords that bound her to the blade of the wheel. Like a sack of flour he pulled her towards him, slung her over his shoulders, stepped back from the wheel. The crowd, awestruck, parted to make way for him as he carried her away from the wheel to the mill yard and dropped her, like a sodden sack, facedown on the cobbles.
Mrs. Wheatley had a stable rug to wrap around her as Alinor heaved and vomited dirty water, and heaved again and again, choking and fighting for her breath.
“So she’s not a witch.” Sir William climbed down from the mill platform to stand over the retching woman. He addressed his tenants in his most magisterial tones. “She survived the ordeal. As to the theft: I rule that she borrowed Mrs. Miller’s savings, planning to return them, leaving her tokens as a promise. This she will do and I will guarantee it. Mrs. Reekie is proven innocent of witchcraft. We have tested her with a fair ordeal and she is no witch.”
“Amen,” they said, as devout as before they had been frightened.
“What about the baby?” Mrs. Miller demanded. “She’s certainly a whore.”
“Church court,” Sir William ruled swiftly. “Next Sunday.”
The sound of a cart distracted everyone. It was the Stoney cart with Alys on the box, her brother, Rob, beside her, Ned in the back. Alys drove the cart into the yard, to where her mother was lying, bundled on the cobbles, wrapped in the horse rug, streaming with water, surrounded by neighbors who would not touch her. Alys passed the reins to Rob, jumped down from the box, and stormed past Sir William as if he was a nobody. She knelt at her mother’s side and raised her up. Alinor could not stand, but Mr. Miller took one arm and Alys took the other. Nobody else moved. Together, they dragged her, still choking and retching up green water, across to the waiting cart where Ned reached out for her, and loaded her, like a beached fish, into the back, lying her on her side so she could spew out water.
“Mrs. Reekie is cleared of witchcraft,” Sir William declared loudly. “She is innocent.”
Alys looked at him and at James with her blue eyes blazing with rage. “Agreed,” she said through her teeth, and then she clicked to the horse and they went out of the yard.
