A Chorus of Innocents (9 page)

Sunday 15th October 1592

Elizabeth drove a hard bargain with the brewsters of Berwick and with Mr Sixsmith the confectioner as well, and came back to Wendron with not one but two wagons of beer, albeit the second wagon was mainly mild, and a couple of pounds of marchpane.

She came back as the dusk came down on the Merse and found Lady Hume tired but triumphant with two large cakes cast in barrel hoops and proving in the kitchen of the manse, waiting to be baked. The village baker had agreed to fire his oven twice that night so long as someone else paid for the wood, which the Robsons had agreed to do after some discussion with Jock Burn and so the faggots were being fed into the oven and the flames leaping high.

The two beer wagons were greeted with cheers and cheeky orders for gallons of the double beer, and so Elizabeth instructed the drivers to bring them both into the stableyard of the manse where they only just fitted. She set all four of the Widdrington cousins to guard the beer in watches during the night.

There was one fine bullock already butchered and being colloped by the cooking fires of the Burns and several sheep on the way to the same fate. She glowered at Jock Burn who told her they had been bought and paid for from some Routledges, which was obviously a lie. Nobody ever paid the Routledges.

She found another elderly woman in the house with Lady Hume who turned out to be her tiring woman, a stout person called Kat Ridley, who beamed at Elizabeth as she came into the kitchen of the manse.

“Will ye like to see the funeral cakes go in, my lady?” she asked and Elizabeth, tired from the ride back from Berwick and from the long arguments she'd had with the four main brewsters of Berwick, suppressed a sigh and agreed she would.

They smelled good with the winey smell of dough and she helped Kat carry them over on their slates to the baker who opened his oven ceremoniously and slid them in on his long spade, to sit side by side.

“She ay had a good time wi' the kneading and the pulling,” said Kat confidentially to Elizabeth as Lady Hume watched the cakes going in with an odd expression on her face.

“Good,” said Elizabeth, wondering why Lady Hume was being spoken of as if she was a child. Lady Hume didn't seem to notice.

“She'll sleep well the night. Did ye have any trouble wi' her last night? She tellt me ye shared.”

“Ah…well she hit me with a piece of firewood.”

“Ay, she does that. She's very afeared o' reivers, poor soul.”

“And she told me a story about the King of Elfland in disguise as an English archer.”

“Ay. Ye ken, she's well enough i' the day, but nights trouble her sorely. I was afeared maself when I found she'd gone from Norwood yesterday morning and not told a soul where.”

“I see.”

“I thocht she'd gone over to Hume castle and sent a boy over there and then when he came back wi'out news of her, well, I was mithered all day, I dinna mind telling you.”

“Of course.”

“But then I heard that the minister was killt and o' course I knew where she was then and come over as fast as I could this morning. I dinna ken how she knew the minister was dead…”

“Didn't a boy come out to her?”

“Nay, I dinna think so. But o' course when she knew, she had tae come.”

“Why?”

“She's a Burn herself, Ralph o' the Coates' auntie, I think. It's family.”

“Ah. Is that why she doesn't like Poppy Burn?”

There was a kind of twitch of Kat's broad face there. “Ay, in a way,” she allowed and then closed her mouth firmly.

Shaking her head, Elizabeth saw the oven door closed up properly with bits of dough which would fall off when the cakes were likely to be baked and agreed that the baking of the funeral cakes was thirsty work and worthy of some of the beer. She brought a firkin of the mild over herself rather than allowing anybody near the beer and causing a riot.

She tried some and found it was well enough but would be sour in a couple of days, which explained the excellent price she had got it for. Never mind. If there was anything left of the beer by evening tomorrow, she would be extremely surprised.

They sat in silence for a while around the kitchen range with the door part open, the three of them, Lady Hume who was nodding off, Kat Ridley who was knitting a sock on four needles, and Elizabeth who was tired herself but couldn't go to sleep. In all the hurry and business of getting the funeral beer, she had forgotten the oddity of the killing and now it had come back to her redoubled. Also she was in no haste to go to bed since she would no doubt be sharing with Kat as well as Lady Hume.

“I'm puzzled,” she said slowly at last, on the grounds that asking was probably the simplest way of going about it, “how did Lady Hume know that the minister was dead before anyone else did?”

“Ay,” said Kat Ridley, “it's a wonder. Ah wisna there; I was taking the linen down to Goody Robson before dawn and there was a big load of it. Last time we can dry anything outside this year, I shouldn't wonder…”

Elizabeth nodded. She'd taken a cartload of linen to her washerwoman two days before Poppy arrived, shirts and shifts and caps and underbreeks, quite apart from all the sheets to the good beds and pillowcases and cloths for the dairy and the wet larder. She thought of Poppy's bloodstained shift and petticoat in the linen bag and wondered when they'd be able to launder it. She'd put it in some cold water as soon as she got home to start taking the set stains out of it.

“I left her at the needlework in the solar with a candle till the Sun rose and she was happy enough for she allus is when she's making something with her needle. Ye should see what she makes, all bright colours and strange figures, and she never uses a pattern. It's some hangings for Young Hughie's bed and she only has one more curtain to make. She has stories on them, she's a wonder for the stories.”

“Yes, she told me a story last night after she hit me with the firewood.”

“Yes. She gets confused at night. Not in daylight, but when the light goes she often thinks she's a girl again and lost in the woods with the English army after her.”

“How old is young Lord Hughie?”

“He's ten. He's a quiet boy, very well-looking. He likes reading ye ken and the minister was tutoring him twice a week for Latin too. He's clever. He said he wishes he wasn't a lord and it was the old days so he could go to university at St Andrews like the minister.”

Lord, how did that happen with Hume blood? Elizabeth wondered. “And his parents are dead?”

“Ay, poor wean. He never knew his mother, for she died to give him light, and his dad died of a quartan ague about three years ago so that was hard for him. There's an uncle at Court, but the land goes to Hughie first. The wardship is with Lord Spynie now, who thinks the world of him, he says, but her ladyship willna let the boy go to Court, not even to his uncle.”

Elizabeth nodded tactfully at this. “He's far too young,” she said. “I wouldn't send him myself.”

“The minister liked the boy and the boy liked him. I think he may come to the funeral tomorrow if Cousin William allows it.”

“Cousin William?”

“A byblow of Lord Hume of Wendron, he acts as steward and he's good at it.”

“So you left her at her needlework in the early morning to take the washing down to the washerwomen…?”

“Ay and I left it wi' them and came back after they'd started in on boiling it, down by the river, ye ken, where the water's clear, and there she was, gone. Naebody had seen her go for they were all busy except she'd taken the boy's horse.”

“What did the groom say?”

Kat looked a little uncomfortable. “Well he's no' too strong i'the head is Jimmy and he just said her ladyship had come tae him before the Sun was up, must have been as soon as I went, and he'd saddled the horse as she bade him and helped her to the saddle and then she was off. She's a good rider. She still goes hunting sometimes with Lord Hughie and Cousin William.”

“Without a woman to see to her?”

Kat shrugged. “Well there's only young Fran and Cissy and the girls in the dairy, and none o' them can ride better than a sack o'meal so I see why she didna take one, and she allus forgets what happens at night.”

For a moment Elizabeth had a strange thought of Lady Hume being the murderer and then dismissed it. How could she have handled a sword like that, to cut the man's head in two? It would explain the plate cupboard, though.

Elizabeth shook her head. Lady Hume could not have wielded a sword like that; Elizabeth couldn't herself. She was strong enough, perhaps, but it was a matter of skill that took years to grow.

Robin Carey of course, could have…She thought of him once, in the garden at Court in the Armada year, in his fine blackworked shirt and breeches and boots, showing off to her his skills with a sword, playing a veney with George Clifford, the Earl of Cumberland, and then playing tricks with his rapier like lunging through a thrown apple and slicing a hanging bread roll. Putting his head back and laughing with delight at her admiration and…

“When did she ride off to Wendron?” she asked, automatically crushing the memory because the pleasure it gave her hurt so much.

“The morning after the minister died.” said Kat.

The man's body was lying unburied in his own parlour and his wife had fled. Who had come to Lady Hume to tell her?

“Was there anyone new at the castle, anyone you didn't know?”

Kat shook her head. “Only of course I dinna ken who may have come after I left with the wagon.”

A piece of wood in the fire broke and settled with a shower of sparks and Lady Hume suddenly woke up. “Oh,” she said, looking hard at Elizabeth, “who are ye?”

“Lady Elizabeth Widdrington, ma'am. Would you like to get to bed now?”

“I'll get yer spiced wine, m'lady, will ye go up wi' her ladyship?”

“Oh Kat, there you are, I wis having the dream again.”

“Ay, but it's only a dream. Only a dream, my lady.”

“Ay but…” The old lady looked about the kitchen at the shadows. “Who's outed the light, then?”

“Ay, the Sun's gone down a while now. We'll get ye to bed…”

“I'll make the spiced wine,” said Elizabeth quietly. “You take her ladyship to bed. I don't want to get hit on the head again.”

“I've brung it in ma work bag down there, in a flask, it's a syrop wine water, all ye need to do is mix it wi' the red wine and the aqua vitae, half and half.”

“I'll manage. Do you have any?”

“I'll share with her ladyship.”

Lady Hume went upstairs to bed with Kat, holding her arm and asking querulously where the light had gone, while Elizabeth bustled about the kitchen, cleaned a goblet she found on the table. and used a chafing dish to warm the spice syrup on the hottest part of the range.

There was a man standing by the entrance, looking at her oddly. For just a second she wondered about ghosts and then she realised it was only one of the Burn cousins. She hadn't seen him before.

“Good evening,” she said to him forbiddingly, “can I help you?”

“Jock tellt me to come and see if ye needed anything. He's right happy about the beer.”

“So am I. Please thank Mr Burn and tell him I think we're well enough now.”

“I'll be guarding the door in case anyone thinks of trying it on, missus. And the beer of course.”

“Hm, yes. I already have two cousins of mine supposed to be guarding that.”

For a second he looked nonplussed. Elizabeth took the spice syrup off the heat, wiped her hands in her apron, and walked out the door ahead of the man.

“Who are you?”

“I'm Archie Burn,” he said, with a knowing grin, pulling his cap off, “yer servant, ma'am.”

“Come with me, Archie.” She walked round to the back of the stableyard where there was a gate, and found nobody there. Nearby round a corner, however, she saw a little campfire and a couple of figures who seemed to be drunk. At least one of them was singing tunelessly.

She shut her eyes and struggled for a second. She was tired, her ear was sore from last night, she had spent the entire day going to and coming from Berwick to get the beer, and now, in a village full of reivers who were no doubt at that moment advancing from all sides on the beer, the men she had asked to guard the gate were drunk and blatantly not guarding it.

Her temper snapped. She could almost hear it. She marched over to the campfire where one man was lying down and the other man was sitting giggling over some incomprehensible drunken story and she kicked him in the bollocks as hard as she could. She then turned on the other one who was trying to get to his feet and kicked him in the face so he went over again.

She lit a torch at the fire and then she went to the two precious wagons and found that the barrel she had tapped for herself and the other women had mysteriously gone missing and she thought she heard a suspicious noise as if someone was scurrying away as fast as they could from the other wagon. “Young Henry Widdrington,” she bellowed, “get out here.”

She checked all the others and found none tapped and none of the ropes loose, went back to the other wagon to find at least one other barrel loose and a third with the ropes cut.

The one she'd kicked in the face was on his feet, wambling toward her with a knife in his fist while the other one was still lying on his side nursing his cods. Which only went to prove, she thought, where men kept their brains.

Archie Burn was grinning by the gate and drew his sword as she was looking at him and the firelight went up and down the blade and made the waterings in the metal beautiful. However she was too annoyed to let him deal with Hector Widdrington, who was coming toward her with blood going down his face and a knife.

She unknotted her apron and flapped it in the air in front of him so he flinched and paused and swayed. Then she put it over his head and punched him several times somewhere so he went down again tangled up in her apron and dropped the knife since he was drunk. She picked it up and waited for him to fight free of the apron and let him see she had it. He paused and then looked around at Archie Burn and Jock Burn and Daniel Widdrington and Young Henry Widdrington, who had all come to the sound of fighting. Jock was laughing so much he had to hold onto the gate of a stall with tears of laughter rolling down his face.