Friend & Foe (13 page)

Hew assured him, ‘I do not mind it if you want to fish for trout, but you must take good care to throw the small fry back, else stocks will be depleted for next year.’ He had given up the mill as a gift to Matthew Locke, but kept a careful interest in it, on the child’s behalf; this stretch of water too, and all the trout that lived in it, now belonged to him.

‘I mind you, and I ken that, but I wasna fishing trout,’ the boy insisted. His breeks were sopping wet, and told a different tale. His mother, Hew supposed, would put him right on that.

‘What were you doing, then?’

John Kintor opened up his palm, ‘Finding stones for shot.’

‘Ah, is that a fact?’ Hew’s interest was aroused.

‘The best are in the burn; the water makes them smooth.’ The boy showed up the stones. And they were not unlike the pebbles Hew had found beneath the hawthorn tree. ‘What will you shoot with them?’ he asked.

‘Craws that peck the seed, and rooks upon the wing,’ the boy admitted, warily. ‘I dinna kill the dows.’

‘Then you must be a clever shot, to catch a rook in flight.’

‘My brother is a better one. But I am not so bad. Last night, I killed a rat that crept into the mill. My brother put its carcase out upon a stick, as warning to the other rats. Would you like to see it?’

‘Another time,’ said Hew. ‘But may I see your sling?’

‘Tis nothing but a common one. I made it for myself. But I can show you how to work it, if you will.’ The boy pulled up his shirt, and unhooked a plait of hemp, which to all appearances was holding up his breeks, with a toggle knot and loop to secure it at the ends.

‘Ye can mak it out o’ wool, which is softer on your hands, but it will not last so long, but ye maunna use a rope, for that will stretch. In the middle is a pocket, where you put the stone. Then you fold the cord like this, an’ your finger in the loop, and then you let it go.’ John brought up his arm, spinning up the sling, and in one sudden rapid movement he released the stone, which followed through the air in a graceful arc, landing in a tree. ‘Now you have a try.’

Hew took up the sling, and attempted several shots, but for all his play at tennis and his practice at the butts he could not get the hang of it. He succeeded, at the last, in launching up the stone, but mastered no control of where it came to ground.

John Kintor pulled a face. ‘The trick is in the aim. That wis no’ so bad, for a full grown man, for it is better suited as a weapon for a boy, and if ye did not learn it then, ye may never learn to have the simple knack of it. No man that was strong and powerful ever had a shepherd’s sling, nor any cause to use one. Keep it, if you like. For I can mak another,’ he conceded generously. ‘They are not hard to craft.’

‘That is very kind of you. You may have been a help to me, on business of the Crown,’ Hew said with a wink.

The boy’s eyes opened wide. ‘Am I then your man?’

‘You are indeed,’ said Hew. ‘And you shall have a penny, for your service to the king.’

John Kintor shook his head. ‘You may have it freely, sir, for that you were kind to me, in giving me a pig. That pig has had some babbies, sir. And I have no idea how that could come about.’

‘I think, before she came to you, she lay down with the boar.’ Hew smiled.

‘Aye, so my brother says. But I have seen the bullocks swyfing in the fields. And whitever they were doing there, it was not lying down.’

The boy ran off, bare-legged, pulling up his breeks, while Hew rolled up the sling and tucked it in a pocket. He looked forward to more practice with it at St Mary’s college.

Chapter 13

Old Haunts

Andrew Melville was angry. It was not the white hot fury which was fired up quickly, and as quickly quenched, but a wrathful smouldering, deeper and more damaging, that threatened to ignite at any time. Prayer did not cool it. He was angry first with Hew, who had brought about the watch, and who, if he intended to expose the college weaknesses, had done so in the cruellest manner possible. He was angry also with his two disciples, Auchinleck and Snell, whose pell-mell ministrations on his own behalf had shaken and appalled him. Dod repented bitterly, and he had abased himself, unmanly and unmannerly, that offered little hope and provoked as little pity for him, calling for contempt. No word that Andrew spoke could lessen Dod’s guilt, nor press on him more forcefully the full stent of his shame, and so he had said none, but left Dod to his torment, grovelling before God. Colin Snell, more practically, he sent off with a bristle brush, to scrub out the latrines. Still, and for the most part, Andrew Melville’s anger was directed at himself. He knew, without God’s hinting at it, that the fault was his.

He had carried the boy back to St Leonard’s himself, hammered on the door, insisting that the principal be roused. Roger had drifted in and out of consciousness, sorely drubbed and dazed, but had recovered well enough to respond to questioning. To Andrew’s great relief, he was not maimed or killed, and none of the effluvium had flowed into his mouth. Andrew had expected there would be recriminations. He knew they were deserved. For there was little friendship to be found betwixt the colleges. When St Leonard’s had
been mentioned, Andrew’s heart had sunk. The St Leonard’s principal had been steadily opposed to the reforming of his syllabus, to teaching Aristotle in the ancient Greek, and had come round only recently, reluctantly, and cautiously. If it was not the syllabus, then it was the doves. Bitter words were spoken, bitter insults thrown, over several months. Now there was a truce, of sorts, though it was not an easy one. St Mary’s men had almost killed a young St Leonard’s lad, and Melville had expected fully to account for that; their conduct had been shameful, he could not defend it. Since they were his disciples, their fault must be his. To his great astonishment, the St Leonard’s principal had come down on his side. Roger had disgraced his college, and must be expelled. Melville had capitulated, pleading Roger’s case. What was a little muck, between two fellow colleges? Roger had explained that he had done it as a challenge – a
defiance
, he had said, which was something like a dare – and Melville could discern no malice in the boy. He had played no part in the attack upon the hawthorn tree, for he had been in class, safely at St Leonard’s, when the bladders burst. In which case, Andrew argued, he was undeserving of so harsh a punishment that would blight his progress through his later life. In further mitigation, the boy had lost his father. Andrew had been orphaned at an early age. And he himself had met with such a warmth and kindness he would not see a bright bairn broken in the bud.

The St Leonard’s principal had Roger put to bed, and promised to look into it. But in the morning, he sent word to Andrew Melville that the boy must be expelled, without plea or remedy, that he was a menace and a viper in their midst. Andrew had returned to him, raging at him then. He had spoken bitter words that he now was sorry for, accused him of conspiracy, of covering his tracks. And the St Leonard’s principal had kept his head throughout. He answered, cool and calm, that there were certain matters he would not disclose. And he would say no more, but for one scrap of information that knocked Andrew back, ending all his clamour at the college door. Melville had the message sent to Hew at Kenly Green.
He was confident that Hew would understand its meaning, and was further troubled to be called up from his prayers. He felt that he had earned a quiet hour with God.

‘I wonder at you, sir, that you should show your face. Your place is at St Leonard’s. There is nothing for you here.’

‘I do not understand.’ Hew had gleaned a little from the porter at the gate. A first year student from St Leonard’s had broken in to the college, and attempted an assault on Master Andro’s house. Two stalwarts of the kirk had caught him at his game, and brought him to a justice many had approved, though the guid Master Andro had not. He was fair as sour and stomachat as when he had the flux, though it was the stalwarts that were in the shit house.

‘Was it vengeance for your sister? I should tell you, I have questioned Dod Auchinleck, and he has sworn it was not him she spoke with at your father’s grave. You have exposed his faults, and made plain his frailty. He is brought low to his bed, and is a broken man. I knew that you had wit, sir. I did not think that you were cruel. And to use the boy! The poor fools might have killed him, Hew!’

‘Honour me, and say, sir, what part I had to play in this?’ Hew responded, baffled.

‘That student did not work alone. Someone set him on.’

‘And you think that
I
did that? Why would you think that?’

Andrew Melville sighed. ‘Must I spell it out? For he is Roger Cunningham, the son of Richard Cunningham, your master at the bar. And, as I am told, he is in your charge.’

It had taken Hew some while to impress on Andrew Melville that he had no part in this. And when he had convinced him, he had not convinced himself; he was guilty of a kind of art and part, a fatal dereliction, if of nothing more. It was now two years since he had been a lodger at the house of Richard Cunningham, under his instruction at the bar. Richard had inducted Hew into the justice court, and given him what he required to practise as an advocate, a twist in fate that ultimately cost the man his life. No court in earth
or heaven blamed Hew for his death, but deep in his own conscience, he accused himself. He had not practised since.

Hew had taken on the care of Richard’s children, James and Roger Cunningham, and their sister, Grace. But he had not seen them in a while. Roger, he remembered as a dark and subtle boy, clever and resourceful, who liked to play at chess. Grace was sweet and bairnlie; no doubt that had changed. James had been already entered at St Leonard’s, and they had not met. Hew paid their board and scolage, settled their accounts, but left his interest there. He knew that he was guilty of a grave neglect.

The provost of St Leonard’s plainly thought so too, for he regarded Hew with a cold and careful scrutiny, and would not hear his plea. Hew knew him as a quiet, conscientious man, who spoke thoughtful, gentle sermons at the college chapel, Hew’s own parish kirk. Compared with Andrew Melville, he was mild as milk, which made his lack of mercy all the more extreme. ‘That boy has no conscience. He must be removed.’ What monster, wondered Hew, could he expect to find? And if there was a fault, a damage or a flaw, what part of it was his? He dredged up a memory, hollow in his mind, of a young boy brooding, darkly, on a stair.

Roger was kept under guard, in his college room. But Hew did not turn off towards the students’ lodging house that looked out on the gardens on the south side of the court. The college of St Leonard’s, its chapel, hall and schools, were as familiar to him as the beat of his own heart. He knew each pane of glass and stone, each broken slate and branch of tree, where Roger had climbed out, the fields and woods beyond. St Leonard’s was another world and one which was a home to Hew, for he had grown up to a man behind its gentle walls. The college was set back, secluded from the street, and entered through a passageway between the building where the masters lived – known as the stone trance – and the quiet church. To the stone trance Hew turned now, returning to the rooms of the regent Robert Black, where he had spent a term, and taught in place of Nicholas. Robert Black, he knew, would tell to
him the truth, and everything he kent of James and Roger Cunningham would soon be known to Hew. Old habits failed to die; Robert would hold out on him, but not for very long.

Robert Black did not seem pleased. He was sitting by the window at his writing desk, the window and the desk that overlooked the square, and though three years had passed since Hew had been there last, little there had changed. They fell back to the places they had left unfilled, as though a door had closed, and opened up again, and stripped the air of quietness, infused it with regret.

Black excused himself. ‘I was going out.’

‘You do not look,’ objected Hew, ‘to be going out.’

Robert closed his book. ‘I have to read the lecture.’

‘Not for half an hour.’ The lecture hours, of course, were printed on Hew’s mind, pressed upon his conscience, both as man and boy. The inkpot was still full, and the ink was fresh. A new pen had been sharpened to a point. Hew blew a puff of powder clean across the page. ‘This looks like a beginning, rather than an end. Are you making verses?’

‘It is private, Hew. Not that I expect you to respect the word.’

Hew said, ‘I am hurt. Is this how you acknowledge an old friend?’ Robert was a goldsmith’s son, cynical and unambitious, warily resigned. He was good at heart, but liked a quiet life. A quiet life was not in prospect while Hew was around.

‘I will take a drink with you, or sup with you, and argue on philosophy. I will hire a horse, and ride to Kenly Green if you will quit the college, now, and leave me here at peace.’

‘You are, of course, most welcome there,’ Hew smiled. ‘But why are you so careful I should quit the college? Have you had forewarning not to speak with me?’

‘What warning would I need?’ Robert rounded bitterly. ‘Your coming is a marker of a rare kind of revenge, that will bring a trail of devils shrieking through our doors. It makes my poor heart quake, to see you at the college; you are never here, but there is trouble in your wake.’

There had been no trouble since the fall of the old principal, no sodomy or scaffery, and no suspicious deaths. The petty squalls and squabbles that took place between the colleges had melded to a commonplace, too trifling to report.

‘Perhaps it is the trouble brings me. Have you thought of that?’

‘
You
are the trouble, Hew.’

Hew walked back to the window, and looked down upon the square. St Leonard’s was the college, still, to which he felt the most attached. And he felt no great will to feel into its pond, and prise apart the limpets clinging to its rocks. He answered with a sigh. ‘Tell me what you ken of James and Roger Cunningham, and I will leave you peaceful here, and never come again.’

‘That is quickly accomplished. Nothing at all. They are not in my class.’

‘Then you had not heard, for instance, that they have been expelled?’

‘Roger has,’ corrected Robert. It did not take him long to realise his mistake. ‘I will tell you what I heard, if I can have your word on it, that you will go away.’ He accepted the defeat. ‘And it will be quite clear to you than none of this must reach the ears of Andrew Melville, if you have any conscience, Hew, or feeling for the boy.’

Hew settled on the bed, where he once had slept.

‘This is hearsay, Hew, which you will understand,’ Robert Black began, ‘and I cannot – dare not – answer to the truth of it. But Roger was expelled because he is involved in strange unnatural practices, and not, you may be sure, because he chose to skitter Andrew Melville’s door. There are several in the college here would tip their caps to that.’

‘What practices?’ asked Hew.

‘I will come to that. But first I will relate some facts of his history – a history with which ye might be well acquainted, had you spent more time at home among the colleges and less time in the lowlands, chasing after windmills. Roger is a quent, unkindly kind of boy. When he began last year, we lodged him with a friend, a sickly,
sallow lad, who fell in a decline and had to be sent home. The two lads had been close, and had had some falling out. The other students claimed that Roger put a curse on him.’

‘Such slandering is vile, and a pernicious force. The master is at fault, that did not put a stop to it,’ Hew said with a scowl.

‘I do not dispute that,’ Robert sighed. ‘And, in truth, we tried. But you yourself well know how hard it is to quell a rumour that has taken root. The provost and the regents tried to help his cause, but the students in the college still refuse to sit with him. He sleeps and eats alone, and has no companion but his brother James.’

‘Dear God,’ muttered Hew. ‘And for this the boy is blamed, when he should be pitied.’

‘He does not want your pity, Hew. The pity is, he does not help himself. He might be more gentle, passive, quiet, meek. But he is not those things. It pleases him to startle and to terrorise his colleagues. He plays up to the part that they have writ for him, and seems to like the power it gives him over them. His assault on Andrew Melville was a part of that same ordinance, by which he seeks the notice and suspicion of his friends. Tis hard to understand.’

‘Nothing you have said disposes me to think that he is justly used, or treated with the pity that his case deserves.’

‘You do not know him, Hew.’

‘But I have known him once. And nor, in truth, do you.’

Robert hesitated. ‘You must be aware that he is not the child that once you thought you knew. There is an air about him, which discomfits and disquiets. His interests are significant, singular, and solitary. When they brought him here last night, he was taken to his room, where bare upon the board he had left out his materials, the substance of his craft.’

‘What craft is that?’ asked Hew. But in his heart, he knew; the boy that he once knew had shown an interest in anatomy.

‘The matter was the body of a cat, with the eyes and entrails drawn, and the body nicely carved. From the matter, ye may seek to know his craft.’

‘He has an interest,’ Hew defended, ‘in the natural world.’

‘Is that correct?’ Robert smiled. ‘I do confess, I know no world where such an interest is considered
natural
. You, I am aware, are wont to move at will in darker worlds than mine. Yet I think that even you are like to understand why our provost has expelled him, and why he will not let the cause be telt to Andrew Melville; for the sake of both the college and the boy himself, he would not have him taken for a witch.’