Friend & Foe (11 page)

‘Then you are a lucky man, that does not hae a flock of masters baying at your back. I answer to a pack o’ them – sergeant, steward, secretar – all wear boots fair thick enough to dint a beggar’s arse, and all have different notions how things maun be done. The chain is long and tangled, and small comfort at its end; if a beggar does not jump when he hears it rattle he will feel it pull. Which is a lesson young John Richan has been finding hard to learn. Tis hardest for the beggar at the far end of the chain.’

Harry had veered off, to peer into the chasm that had opened in the floor. ‘So what work are they doing here?’ he asked.

‘They are laying conduit pipes, to take foul waters out to sea. It is a scheme of the doctor’s invention,’ Paul told him, with a spark of pride. He answered, after all, to a fine and clever man. And that, if nothing else, reflected well on him.

‘Ingenious,’ said Harry. ‘Shall we take a look?’

‘Go down there, you mean?’ Paul replied, more doubtfully. ‘Why wad we dae that?’

‘I dinna want to put you out, but my father was a builder too. He worked for the archbishop Hamilton. And I think it very likely that he built this house.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Paul marvelled. ‘Ye must tell the doctor. He will want to hear that. He will show you round.’

‘And that wad be a treat. But,’ the soldier frowned, ‘the knot is, that he is not here. And I have an apprehension, that this undermining may be somewhat hazardous. The warkmen ye have here have neither wit nor skill. They are knocking down a wall, from what I saw and heard, and knocking down a wall requires a deal of both. My fear is, if thae clubbit blunderers dinna mind their step, the hale house will come down. That is the sum of it, plain.’

‘The doctor is a clever man, and he employs an architectour, and a man of works. He would not let that happen,’ Paul asserted.

‘No’ willingly, of course. But where are they three masters now, while these great lourdans stamp and hack? Tis plain enough to see that you are left in charge. Trust me, sir, it takes but one fool wi’ a sledger an’ the hale pile tumbles down. It happened to my faither, and I would not for the world see it happen to your friends. That bonny babby too.’

‘What happened to your dad?’

‘A wall that he was taking down fell back and down on him. It took him days to die.’

‘Jesu,’ gasped Paul. ‘Then we maun evacuate. I will rouse the mistress.’

‘Peace now,’ Harry soothed, ‘there is nae need for that. We need not cause alarm, until we are assured of it. The danger is not present, while they are not knocking at it. I will tak a look, and see if it is safe. It is a thing I ken about. We learn it in our training.’

For when it came to sieges, Paul supposed. He consented, nervously. ‘I will come with you.’

‘There is no need.’

But Paul was determined that he would not be a coward, and shrink back a second time. The assurance of the household rested in his hands. When Harry climbed the ladder down into the laich house, he followed close behind.

The labourers had left a lantern hanging by the hatch. Harry took it down, and held the light aloft, to illuminate the room. There was one small window facing to the west, where the upper level rose above the ground, and a new vent for the chimney cut in the back wall. The labourers were lowering the floor, digging out a solid foot of earth. The cellar was foreshortened by a wall of stone, that heavily abridged the footprint of the house, reducing it by half, and it was this that the workmen were beginning to demolish, starting at the top. It was too dark to see into the space beyond. Harry felt his way along the stone. ‘Now there’s a thing,’ he whistled, ‘I did not expect.’

‘What’s that?’ worried Paul. ‘Is the structure hazardous?’

‘Not hazardous at all. This wall serves no purpose, and is holding nothing up. Therefore its demolition can bring nothing down with it.’

‘That’s a good thing, is it no?’

‘Good enough. But curious. Why then, build a wall?’

‘I could ask the doctor,’ Paul suggested.

‘Well, now, and ye
could
,’ Harry’s tone implied that this was not a good idea. ‘Does he like you to come down here?’

‘Well . . .’ Paul considered, ‘he has not said agin it, in sa many words.’ Yet he admitted to himself, his master had discouraged it.

‘Ask yourself the question,’ Harry went on cunningly, ‘where are the pipes?’

‘What pipes?’ echoed Paul.

‘The conduit pipes, ye said. For Doctor Locke’s experiment.’

‘Well, I suppose that he will fetch them once the floor is dug.’ Paul hesitated, thinking. ‘Well then, I suppose . . . I will not tell the doctor, then. For since there is no danger here, there is no cause to trouble him.’

‘I think that ye do right. The main thrist an’ the outcome is, our minds are set at rest. Our fear need not concern him.’ Harry hung the lantern back up on its hook. ‘The warkmen will be back soon. Shall we go up?’

Paul felt an alliance with his new-found friend, with whom he had defended and made safe the house. Recklessly, he ventured, ‘Shall we try the wine? For I may use it freely, if an’ when I like.’

This was not strictly true. Paul was a blabbermouth in drink, and whatever Giles allowed him was carefully controlled. But the new season’s wine Giles had taken to the college, and what remained in the barrels was becoming sour and old, and Giles would scarcely quibble if Paul told him it was spoiled. It was never in Paul’s mind to deceive his master, nor would he wish to steal from him, but he felt that he was somehow owed a drink of wine, to recompense his trouble and his fright over the wall. He poured a pint into a stoup and stirred it for good measure with a corner from the sugar loaf. ‘To your guid health, sir; pass your cup.’

Harry was impressed. ‘God bless ye, sir, and yours, for I will not say no.’ He did not seem to mind the sharpness of the malmsey, which caught Paul’s throat like vinegar. ‘No sound fae the loft,’ he remarked. ‘I hope the laddie Richan hasna died o’ shame . . . I doubt that he was strippit at a woman’s beck, since he was a babby nourished by his ma.’

His tone was playful, not unkind, moving Paul to ask, ‘I suppose a man like you has many a sweet lass – they seem to like a soldier.’

Harry smiled at him. ‘Many o’ them do.’

‘Can I ask your advice?’

‘Of course ye can, my son! What dae you want to ken?’

Paul drained his sour wine quickly, dregs and scum and all, and looked up from the cup. Harry was, in truth, a proper sort of friend. And that was soldiers for you. They had been together, on an operation, faced a present danger. They were friends in arms. ‘There is this woman, see. The widow Bannerman.’

‘Widows are brave,’ Harry agreed. He reached out for the jug, and poured himself another cup of wine, without waiting to be asked.
‘Ripe and rich and rare, and brimming with experience. I recommend a widow, if ye have not practised much.’

‘She has her own wee house, and a bit of land. Her husband died young, and they were not long marrit. And she has nae bairns.’

‘So much the better,’ Harry smiled.

It was not coming out quite as Paul had meant it to. It sounded like he wanted her for her house and land, and did not want the burden of another limmar’s bairns, when that wasn’t it at all. He would have loved Jonet Bannerman if she bided in a cowshed wi’ a pack of wailing weans, and opened up his arms to all her snot-nosed progeny if that was how it was. It would be simple then.

‘I took physick to her when her man was sick,’ he was trying to explain. ‘And when he died, I came again, to offer my condolences. Not because the doctor sent me, but on my own account. She thinks I am his prentice, see. She thinks I will one day have a practice of my own. She does not know I cannot read. I did not set out to deceive her.’

‘Aye? What is the matter then? She will not go to bed with you, unless she hears you read to her?’

‘Naught like that. The matter is,’ confided Paul, ‘that I want to marry her. What should I do? Will she understand it, if I tell the truth?’

‘How should I know?’ Harry shrugged, draining his draught to the dregs. He wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand. ‘A fine poison, that.’

Paul felt disappointment, cold inside his stomach, like a lump of lead. He had misjudged the soldier, laying bare his soul to him. Harry had no conscience; he was not in love, and the widow Bannerman was far beyond his ken.

‘Mebbe,’ Harry said, ‘I will see how John is doing. Tell ye what, though – d’ye ever tak a drink in the tavern in the wynd? There is a lass there that will answer to your needs, and ye can get your practice in, and forget your troubles for a while.’

‘I do not . . .’ Paul began. The place that Harry spoke of was forbidden him by Giles, since he had drunk there once too deep,
and let loose his tongue. He had tried the tap wench too, and found himself slapped back. ‘I went there once,’ he mumbled. ‘I did not find much luck with it.’

‘Ye dinna ken the ropes. The lassie at the bar is a friend of mine. She is my cousin, Bess. When you are there next, say to her that ye are mates wi’ her cousin Harry Petrie. And you shall have your drink, and what you will besides.’

‘That is awfy kind of ye,’ Paul acknowledged doubtfully, for he was not convinced that this would help with Jonet Bannerman.

Harry Petrie winked at him. ‘Courage to ye, friend. For ye are brave and fine, and halfway to a scholar. We will mak a lover of ye yet.’

Chapter 11

Between the Tides

‘No one here will force you to be stripped against your will. But it will be a help to me if you take off your shirt.’

Meg allowed her patient time to know and trust her. She felt his eyes upon her as she tidied books away and folded Matthew’s clothes, to fill the gulf of awkwardness. She was conscious of his presence, watchful, at her back. He had taken off his cap and his hair shone soft as flax, silver as the hemp, as fair as any man’s. His eyes were grey and careful, restless as the wind. He was sitting, straight and stiffly, on the great oak settle they had dragged up from the hall.

Matthew Locke was sleeping in the Cullans’ cradle, where Meg and her brother had both slept as bairns. Meg had worked the canopy and coverlet in red, with little horses, trees and flowers, in primrose, green and gold. A fine white linen cambric kept away the dust. The infant’s sleep was light and strained; his eyelids flickered warily, against a raft of dreams. His cheeks were pink and hot. His father had prescribed a pulp of hollyhock and hare brain, Meg had cooled his gums with camomile and dill, but Matthew whimpered still.

Meg searched among the few jars remaining in her almery, and found a pot of liniment. She turned back to the Richan boy. ‘This salve will help your shoulder heal. But there is not much left of it. The archers at the college had a contest for the May, and took it as a prophylactic, to protect their limbs. For they are supple, young and green, and can be overstraught. The salve is kind to muscles
that are raxed and sore. It must be rubbed in deep into the sinews of the shoulder and the back, and you will feel a heat, but it is a good heat, and there is no need to fear it. I can apply it for you; or, if you prefer, you can ask your friend. I do not think that you can manage it yourself.’

The liniment had come from the still at Kenly Green, where the marguerite and mallow and the tender violet buds were planted in the physick garden, and would now be flowering, spilling out their seeds. Giles supplied the turpentine shipped in bulk from France. Though Paul would bring a replica back from the apothecar, made up to Meg’s recipe, it would be less effective, thinner, more expensive, and would not smell so sweet.

John Richan answered her by taking off his shirt. It took him some while, and not, Meg supposed, because of his shyness; his right arm hung futless and slack by his side. He undid the wooden buttons with his left, and eased the russet sark sleeve over his sore shoulder, letting it drop to the ground. Meg picked up the shirt, and put it with his coat of liver-coloured wool. The cloth felt coarse and thick. His back was laddered black, a mass of knots and welts.

‘Canst thou no find the place?’ John’s speech was full and deep, as though each word was carried with a weight of meaning, ponderous and slow.’ ‘Where that arrow strak?’

Meg came close, and looked, but she could see no arrow wound. ‘Did some hook tear the flesh? I cannot see it, John.’

‘Tis trow-shot, that thou cannot see.’ John said thou as
thoo
, a long soft lowing lull, like a bull-calf’s bellow.

‘Trow?’

‘A elf. A fairie dart.’

He thought he had been struck by elfin shot. How else could he explain to her his sapping strength and powerlessness, the deep and deadening wound the surgeon could not find?

‘Will you let me touch you, John?’

‘And thou finds the place.’

She put her bare hands on his shoulder, felt the muscle taut and strong. John Richan did not shrink at it, but turned his cautious eyes upon her, deep and grey and serious.

‘There are many natural causes will not leave a mark, and we must look for those, where with art and patience we will come to cure them. And I do not believe the cause of this is trow-shot.’

Country folk were conscious, always, of that netherland, under water, over hills, where the faeries lived. They knew that faeries crossed on winds, through copse and thicket, dyke and stream, snatching infants from their cribs, new-born mothers in their milk, gentle sleepers in the shade of hawthorn boughs and apple trees. There were witches, too, the cause of storms at sea, of cows that failed to calf and sick or stillborn children, famine, drought and flood, when nature was unnatural, uncouth and unkind. In Orkney, where the grasping kirk had not yet closed its grip, and where both land and sea were harsh and inhospitable, it was little wonder there were tales of trolls. And who was she to say the stories were not true?

Meg had learned to harness and restrain the powers of nature, and through her art and science shape them to her will. It was simpler, sometimes, to pretend to make a spell, and blow the magic off, than it was to fight it with the force of reason. But where she could, she fought, for believing in a curse would prejudice recovery. A man might die from fear.

‘The hurt is inside,’ she explained. ‘You cannot see it like a bruise. But the shoulder has been wrenched and pulled out of its joint. What did the surgeon say?’

‘He opened up the vein, and drained the arm of blood. But the infirmity persisted.’

‘There are more tunes to a body than the surgeon kens to play. You will feel a heat now. Tell me if it hurts you.’

Meg warmed the ointment gently in her hand, and began to work it, deep into the shoulder, and the broad hard muscle of the soldier’s back, a knot of strength and sinew taut beneath his skin. With
subtle, searching fingers, she sought out the place, probing and manipulating, deep down to the bone. John let out a cry, and placed his hand on hers.

‘Is that so very sair?’

‘No, lady,’ he moaned. ‘Thou loosed the dart. The trow-shot is gone.’

His eyes were bright with gratitude, brimming with relief. Meg noticed in their grey a shard of brittle blue, subtle and reflective, changing like the sea. She lifted out her hand, feeling on its back still the gripping of his fingers, supple, fierce and strong.

‘I shall quarrel with you, John, if you persist in thinking that. I have unbent your shoulder, in such a way as you might have unbent your bow, and let the muscle slacken, as you loose the strings. Now put on your things.’

The young man flexed his hands. ‘Thou works magic, of a sort,’ he insisted as he dressed, his shoulder slipping easily underneath the shirt.

Meg had moved away, to wash and dry her hands. The laver and a towel were set out at the fireside, close to Matthew’s crib. ‘The muscles were quite ravelled, and I have unlocked them. But they will go back into thrawe. You must not be disheartened then, to find them sore and stiff. It may take some while for the strain to heal.’

‘I can come agin here?’ The soldier asked softly.

‘As often as you can, until the arm is strong.’

Matthew had begun to grizzle, fretful at her feet. He seldom slept for long. ‘You must excuse me, now. My babe is waking up.’

‘Aye? What is his name?’ John Richan crossed the room, putting on his coat.

‘He is called Matthew, after my father,’ Meg smiled.

‘Has thou no other bairn?’

‘Matthew is our first.’ It was hard to take offence at John Richan’s questions, which were artless as a child’s. ‘He is cross and peevish,’ Meg said, ‘at the hammering, and his gums are hurting him, for he is cutting teeth. He wants a little cooling water, or some poppy juice.
But there is none to hand.’ She rocked the cradle, hushed her child, but Matthew’s grizzling threatened to break out in to a howl. ‘He is not hungry yet. I should have brought the poppy water back from Kenly Green.

‘It is my brother’s house on the Kenly water, four miles south from here. I grew up on the land and learned of country matters, from my childhood nurse. There are woodlands there, and walkways lined with trees, orchards, flower and physick gardens, where I grew my herbs. And by the physick garden is a cool house and a stillerie, where my country foster mother taught me to make remedies, and waters of all kinds.’ Talking to John Richan was like talking to a child; his gaze was deep and curious.

‘Thou has na mother, then?’

‘She died when I was born.’

And in those months that followed, so Meg had been told, her father could not look at her, but left her with the nurse, until that nurse had laid her, bright-eyed changeling child, dark-haired like her mother, firmly in his arms. And he had loved her then, more deeply than the life that he had given up for her. Matthew had retired to Kenly Green when his little daughter took the falling sickness, and he had kept the nurse who found the herbs to soothe her, for Annie had a way with her, that she had taught to Meg. That part of the tale she did not tell the Richan boy.

‘The apple trees are full with blossom at this time of year, the broom and bay in bud.’ Meg stroked the infant’s cheek. ‘I am sorry, John, but I will have to lift him. If your friend is here still, call him from the kitchen. Paul will show you out.’

John said, ‘Bide a while.’ Then, to Meg’s astonishment, he knelt down by the crib, and began to rock it with his strong left hand. And as he rocked, he sang, a long, low, lilting melody that rose and fell like water flowing from the sea. The infant stilled and watched, with wide and wondering eyes. He did not want the song to end, and when it did, he mewled in protest, petulant and weak, and John Richan hushed him, stilled him with a whisht. His voice was like the
wind, blowing through the rafters, breathing out a lullaby to calm the fractious bairn.

‘Now that is magic,’ murmured Meg.

At that, for the first time, John Richan smiled. And it was like a breath of sunshine warming his pale face, that lifted up the shadows there and showed the boy within, fragile, fair and young.

‘It is a song my mother sings, to soothe the weans at home. There are a lot of us.’

There was a quiet longing in his voice. Somehow it had seemed to keep the tune, the music of the song, so that though the words were Scots they sounded rare and strange, like waking from a dream to hear a foreign tongue.

‘What language is it, John?’

‘It is the Norish speke, the Orkney Norn. It is my mother tongue.’

‘It sounds so sad.’

‘It is a song about the sea, and about the wind, and of an enchantress. It is not a sad song, but the language is sad. It weeps for its own death. My father says that we must speak the language of our masters, if we do not wish forever to be slaves. So we must speak in Scots, and the Norish will die out, and only will be heard in scraps of song and stories, flying on the wind. On dark nights – and Orkney nights are very dark and long – you will hear it whispered in the crevices and cracks, whistlin’ through the rafters, threaded into dreams. You will hear it in the flicker and the crackle of the fire, and in the ebb and flowing of the sea, and in the peat and stone and in the cliffs and braes, the weepin’ of the sea-maws and the selkies’ bark.’

Meg said, ‘You are far from home. How old are you, John Richan?’

‘I am nineteen.’

‘Then you are very young.’

‘Not where I come from. How old are you?’

‘Now that is not a question you have leave to ask.’

‘Then I repent the asking of it,’ he accepted simply. ‘But I never understand what I am not meant to ask. It is a fault in me that cannot be mended.’

‘Though they try to mend it?’

John looked down at his hands. ‘They have not given up. And while I live still, they will not give up. They think it is their duty to mak me like them; but I am different to them. They do not understand it. And that maks them afraid. It offends them when I speak. And when I do not speak, it offends them too. They fear what I am thinkin’ and my unco foren tongue. And I have tried to mend it, but the words slip out.’

‘I like the way you speak.’

‘Then thou art the first. And the first to hear the Norn. I dare not sing to them.

‘I think, mistress, you are no older than I am,’ John returned slyly.

Meg acknowledged, with a smile. ‘I am twenty-two.’

‘Now that,’ he teased, ‘is old. My mither had five babbies when she was that age, twa were in their graves; now she is four and thirty, worn down to the bone. I do not think it suits thee to be kept here in this place. Thou’s a country lass. And all this dust an’ hammering will mar thy bonny looks.’

‘Now I begin to see,’ laughed Meg, ‘why your masters venture to rein in your tongue. The hammering is temporal, I am glad to say.’

‘It is na just the hammering. But this is not the place for thee. Thou’re like me, as I think, thy heart is somewhere else.’

Meg had turned away. ‘I thank you for the song. Matthew is quite settled now. I will walk downstairs with you, and show you out myself.’

‘Art thou offended? I did not intend it. I cannot help but say such things. Thou maun take no ill by it, for thou has bonny looks, and a light in your eyes that for all the world I would not see put out. There is a loveliness in thee I have not met before.’

‘You have not offended me. But if I am to help you, then you cannot ask me those kind of questions.’

‘What questions am I asking thee?’

‘Ones about myself. And you may not remark how I appear to you. Such comment is not proper to a married woman. You are the doctor’s patient, and I am his wife.’

‘Then if a woman has a husband and she is unhappy, I am not allowed to notice it?’

Meg was shocked at this, for John’s reply came close to what she heard from Hew, in their quarrels over Clare. John was not like Hew, but guileless as a child. ‘I am not unhappy,’ she insisted.

‘But thou are not yet happy,’ answered John. ‘I think thou are not happy. Nor where thou dost belong. For that is in the garden, with the flowers and herbs. A light came in you, when you spoke of it.’

‘I am happy here. And more than this plain truth you have no right to ask. And you are not, I think, so artless and unwily that you do not know that. If you will persist with this, then we must think again about your coming back here.’

‘Now thou art cross. I did not intend it,’ the soldier said sadly. ‘I vex folk all the time. And though I am corrected for it, still I do not learn. And if I am not well, and cannot shoot my bow, then they will send me home.’

‘With a little patience, we may hope to mend you by more gentle means. I will not give up on you. But would it be a bad thing, if they sent you home?’