Crucible (12 page)

*

The heat was building and there was no trace of wind. He had often cursed the wind, the wind that went through you in this corner of Scotland as it did in no other. It would find its way through every layer of clothing, every wrapping a man might have, to travel through him and on to its next victim, but today, how glad he would have been to feel a current of air, fresh, cold, cleansing, on his face. Today, though, there was none of it.

He looked out to the sea, hazy under the heavy heat of the sky, to what he had known once but could no longer see. How had it come to this? When had the turning been taken that had left him with blood on his hands, the turning that had led to the murder of Robert Sim? Had it been here, a matter of a few days ago, as he had looked in the librarian’s face, in his eyes, and seen the answer to his question before it had been asked? No, for Robert Sim had not been the author of his own Fate.

When then? Where? Far from here, far to the south, standing in the cold stone hallway of a tower house, a letter in the bag at his feet, hearing of the death of a father and a grandfather?

No, not then. He must go further back. Back across that sea and years ago, long before he had known the name of Robert Sim, to two young men at a crossroads, far from home. Two young men, companions together through years of study in Germany, in France, in the Low Countries, returning at last to the place of their birth, to settle to the lives and affairs of men.

‘One last adventure, one last place to see; so few of our countrymen have been there – and none that I know of,’ his companion had said, as he looked at the road leading further to the flat lands and marshes of the north.

His eyes had been on the other road, the road for Rotterdam, and the ship that would take them home at last. But as ever, his companion had won the day, and they had turned for the northwest, and the road the signpost told them would take them to the town of Franeker.

Then, perhaps, yes it had been then. But if not then, before that and before that and before that, to the beginning of time, when God had decreed that he was to be of the damned. For that one thing he knew above all else: he was damned for all eternity.

TWELVE
The Storm Breaks

My scholars had never been so silent. They sat, dumbstruck, some of them not even lifting their pens and others letting them drop after the first few words, as I tore through the texts before me and gave the commentary of my life: nothing I had ever thought or felt about the authors whose work I had in my hands went unsaid, and where I thought them in error, blind or foolish I vented bile. When the bell sounded that would release my students to their breakfast, not a one amongst them moved.

I looked at them and had had enough. ‘Go!’ I shouted, and then more quietly, as I tied the strings on my notes, ‘just go.’

I myself could not face the other regents, the professors or even the principal. I had no stomach for food or drink anyway, and so did not leave the lecture hall. I lay my head on the desk and wished for peace. After a little time, John Strachan, who had been taking the class in my absence, appeared in the doorway.

‘Are you alright, Alexander?’

‘What? Yes, yes, I am fine,’ I said, raising my head and running a hand through hair that had not been combed since the previous morning.

He looked unsure, but proceeded cautiously into the room. Evidently, some of the students had been talking to him, and warning him what he would find.

‘Are you not going to breakfast?’

‘No, I am not hungry.’

Still he lingered, and I managed to muster some semblance of decency under his concerned gaze.

‘Is there something you need of me, John?’ I asked.

‘It is only that the porter is looking for you. William Cargill’s servant is at the gate and wishes to speak to you.’

‘Duncan? What could Duncan want with me?’ And then I knew it. Sarah. He had been her quiet champion since the day he’d met her. He had come to talk for Sarah, who would not come to the college herself.

My voice, when it came, was hoarse. ‘I cannot see him.’

Strachan looked at me. ‘Alexander, he is an old man. It is no small thing for him to come here …’

I pressed the backs of my hands to my eyes then lifted my head once more. ‘I know that. I know it. And it is no small thing for me to say I cannot see him. Now please John, just leave me, and go.’

With no option, John Strachan went, and my thoughts for the next ten minutes until the return of my scholars were even more miserable than they had been before.

It was my misfortune and that of my class that the rest
of the morning was to be given over to Ethics. The anger was out of me, and I could only mumble desultorily on the subject until I could decently set the students to debate amongst themselves upon it. How they conducted themselves for the next hour-and-a-half, I could not tell, noticing only when the last of them to leave the room told me that the bell had gone for the mid-day meal.

By now I had begun to feel sick, my stomach empty and my throat parched. I pulled myself up and, remembering to take my notes and books with me, headed down towards the college buttery, where I begged a loaf of bread and some cheese from the cook’s boy, and took a jug of wine from the cellar before retreating with my meal to what was now my sanctuary: the library.

I passed by my accustomed seat, and Robert Sim’s desk. I had tried, last night, in an effort to shut out the images that were crowding my mind, to search the register for the names of those other than Robert himself who might have taken an interest in the
Fama
of the Rosicrucians. I had burned the candle to its base but had found no one. And now, in the light of the day that showed up every speck of dust, every scuff on the floorboards, every knot in the wood of the place surrounding me, I could pretend no longer. Everywhere, I saw Sarah with Andrew Carmichael. I took myself to a darkened corner, where the shelves of the north wall met those of the east, and slumped down with my gown pulled around me, brought the jug to my lips and began to drink. The wine was sour in my gullet
and burned my stomach, but I thought if I took enough of it I would not notice. I tore a hunk of the bread but could not swallow it. I curled up on the floor and prayed for sleep.

And I did sleep. A deep sleep, a sleep that filled the cavern of my exhaustion. Once or twice, a noise of knocking, a voice, my name, penetrated somewhere through that wall of sleep, but not far enough to wake me. But then, it must have been hours later, a hammering, louder and louder, and a shouting of my name I could not ignore. It was William Cargill’s voice. At length, I came to and stumbled towards the door, fumbled with the lock until I had it turned and opened the door to him. With him was Dr Dun, the principal.

What they saw when they looked at me told in their faces.

I saw the relief flood William’s face. ‘Alexander,’ was all he said.

The principal shut his eyes a moment. ‘Thanks be to God. We had feared you dead.’ Then he turned to William. ‘I will leave you now. See that you take him home, and that he rests.’

We waited until Dr Dun had made his way back down the outer stairs. William looked at me and shook his head. ‘Am I to be let in, or shall we have it out here, on the stair head? For I swear to you, man, I am not leaving this place until I know what madness has taken hold of you.’

I dropped my hand from the door and walked back into
the library, leaving him to follow me, which he did. He sat against the edge of Robert’s desk and I went over to my sleeping place and picked up the jug of wine. I offered it to him and he gave a curt ‘no’.

‘Are you going to tell me what this is about, Alexander?’

‘You had better ask my wife.’

‘Your wife? You can speak to me of your wife? Sarah was at our door, with your two children under her arms before five this morning. She had not slept the whole night, and was scarcely fit to speak by the time we got her inside. It took long enough to convince her – although I was hardly sure myself – that you had not been murdered. I went to the college myself, but the porter was under orders from the principal to let no one in before breakfast. All the fellow was able to tell me was that he had seen you come into the college last night, like a man that had seen the dead, that you had spoken to no one and that he had not seen you leave. How do you think Sarah took that news, after what happened to Robert Sim? And I had to leave them, because I had business with Thomas Burnett of Leys out at Crathes – I am just this minute back. And what do I hear the moment I enter my chambers? That Duncan – Duncan who is hard put to walk the length of the backland of my house these days – came up to the college asking to see you and was turned away.’ His face, sweating though he was in the heat, was now white with rage. He breathed heavily, twice, and spoke very slowly. ‘What is this about, Alexander?’

I was not sure that I could form the words. ‘It is about … Sarah. And Andrew Carmichael.’

‘Ach!’ He turned away in impatience. ‘Not this again. How many ways do you need to be told? There is nothing …’

‘I saw them, William.’

‘What?’

‘I saw them together. Yesterday. At the Snow Kirk.’

‘The Snow Kirk? But why …’

‘I had just come up the Spital Hill and was about to go down to the Old Town when I saw them come round from the back of the kirkyard. You will say I was mistaken, but I know I was not. Oh, God, William, his hands were on my wife.’

And then I couldn’t get the words from my throat, I couldn’t see him any more; everything was blurred and hazy before my eyes, and William was across the room and had me by the shoulders.

‘Alexander, this cannot be what you think it is. There must be some good reason for it.’

‘What? I watched them there, I saw how he looked at her as she walked away, and I swear to you, William, I wanted to kill him. If I could have moved, made one foot go in front of the other I believe I would have killed him.’

‘But you did not. Did he see you? Did either of them see you?’

‘No. I went down behind a wall until they went their ways. Then I stayed there, for hours, just sat. Eventually,
I came back down here. I didn’t know where else to go.’

I ran a hand through my hair, only too conscious now of the sight I was presenting to my friend. ‘And the children, they have not been alarmed?’

‘You are in the college so much, I don’t think they would have noticed anything amiss, had it not been for Sarah’s distraction. Zander knows there is something wrong, and Deirdre has been asking for you.’

‘I should have thought of the children.’

‘Come back, come back with me, and see them now. The rest can be dealt with later.’

So I left the library and the college with him, but I did not go down to William’s house. Instead I went to my own, to wash myself and change my shirt and shave my face. I had not quite finished that last when I heard the sound of Zander’s feet in the close and soon he was bursting through the door, filled with questions. I told him I had been engaged on secret work of great importance for Dr Dun, and that I was sworn to reveal the details to no one. He was delighted and impressed. And after him came Sarah, with Deirdre in her arms. I took my daughter and held her to me, but I could look only at my wife. And I truly looked at her. The sun had bronzed her arms and neck and scattered tiny freckles across her skin. I wanted to undo Carmichael’s touch, to erase from my mind the memory of his fingers on her face. But I found I could not speak, still less make a move towards her.

‘Alexander,’ she said. ‘Where have you been?’

I put Deirdre down and told her to go and look for her brother.

‘Have you not spoken to William?’

‘He told me he found you in the library, that you had been in the college all night. What were you doing? Why did you not come home? Or send me a message?’

‘A message?’ A voice in my head, a warning voice, was telling me to go no further. ‘How could I send you a message when I did not know where I should find you?’

On her face was a look of utter incomprehension, and the beginnings of some anger.

‘Where
you
should find
me
? Where you, who can slip from our bed yesterday morning without a word, and not return, until forced to, by William Cargill, tonight, again without a word, without a thought for us, should find
me
? Where else would you find me but here, looking after your children, or with Elizabeth? Where else?’

‘At the Snow Kirk, Sarah; I would find you at the Snow Kirk.’

Everything stopped. I could see, all movement in her seemed to cease, aside from a panic that darted through her eyes.

She put out a hand to me. ‘Alexander …’

I shook it off.

‘Alexander, please, listen to me.’

I stopped at the door, taking down my light hide jacket from the nail where it hung there. ‘Listen to you? Dear
God, Sarah, I cannot look at you.’ I let the door swing shut behind me as I left.

My footsteps took me to Maisie Johnston’s house, to the parlour where I had so often sat and drank with my friend Archie Hay in our long-gone student days. I had rarely gone there since then, and since my marriage, not at all. It was not a place a respectable man should be seen, and for a college regent to be found there would bode very ill indeed. I ordered English beer, and then asked for
uisge bheatha
, the whisky distilled in Speyside and the mountain glens to the west. Maisie denied that she had it.

‘Come, Maisie, you had it ten years ago, why not now? If Archie Hay was sitting here before you, would you tell him you did not have it?’

‘If Archie Hay was sitting here, I would commend my soul to God and leave Archie to the Devil, for he has been dead nigh on eight years, and can have no honest business with me. But Archie Hay was not a college regent.’

‘My silver is as good as his.’

She smiled at last. ‘Alexander Seaton, you never had any silver.’ She opened a small cupboard and drew something from the barrel in there. She brought the glass of golden liquid over to the far corner in which I sat. ‘Have that for free and go home to your wife.’