Tasters 6

Let us look now at a painting entitled Saint Mary Magdalene at the Foot of the Cross (plate 20), painted by Botticelli in about 1500. Here the desolate figure of Mary Magdalen clings to the foot of the cross on which Jesus hangs. On the right is a figure of an angel gripping a fox, which he holds upside down by the tail. Dark storm clouds in the painting are being driven away, and from the nimbus in the upper left corner, where God the Father is pictured blessing the scene, angels are descending from the sky, each bearing a shield of white with a tilted red X emblazoned on it. It almost seems as if Botticelli delighted in finding new ways of including the red X in his paintings!

In this painting, it appears as though the angels with the red crosses are dispelling the darkness that enshrouds the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalen. The fox is a Gnostic symbol for pious fraud. Popular stories and pictures from the Middle Ages often depict a fox in a monk's robe going slyly about his business of deceiving and exploiting the people. For them, the clergymen of the Roman Church were "foxes".

He smiled as little as a man might. 'I would be shriven.'

Beltran stood up. 'Wait!' Alexander said. 'I'll ask you to do something for me. When I am dead, have them take the heart out of my body, and carry it for me to Balantrodoch.'

'Alexander, I will try, but the infidel is everywhere now. Is this place far?'

Alexander wheezed; it was a laugh. 'Balantrodoch is in Scotland, Beltran, in Scotland. It is where I came into the Order. It is a small house in a bend of the River Esk. You can fish trouts there. Will you carry my heart there?'

'I may not live, Alexander.'

'I am telling you, you will. At least, you will not die here. Thibaud will see to that.'

'Thibaud?'

'Thibaud. He has his eye on you for something. I know Thibaud.'

The place from which the faded eyes saw him sped further and further back as if the living part of him was drawing off into the distance. 'Will you take the heart?'

Beltran took each of Alexander's hands in his own; they were quite weightless. 'Yes, I will take it there. God's mercy on you, Alexander.' He kissed the white brow and went to find the Chaplain.

'What was she doing?'

'She was working a spell - a spell for a storm, or so Otter told me. He heard the words.'

'But what kind of spell?'

'A spell against a man on a boat. A spell with a wee doll. How did it go? He remembered it, but I don't. It began something like :

I mak the heid, I mak the han,

I mak the feet, I hae the man.

I pit the man into the wave

then something about his grave. We saw the storm come up, go down.'

'A worker of witchcraft, then?'

'Aye, but like the weather itself, she was neither good nor evil, foul nor fair, but both, as it were, coming and going.'

'You cannot put a name to her? Not even the name of her kind?'

'I can, but I would rather not. When you leave Black Isle and cross over to Nigg, ask for the Witch of Balintore. She will tell you what you need to know.'

'This was not her?'

'Oh no, nothing like her. The Witch is - like you, my lady, but old now, very old.'