Friend & Foe (26 page)

Roger felt a cold fear gripping in his bowels. ‘He will not ken I wrote that letter.’

‘Puir sad fool. Of course he will.’

‘I thought ye would approve of it.’

James allowed, ‘I might’ve done, if ye had used more subtlety. You should have asked me first.’

‘I do not think the letter ever got there,’ Roger said. ‘For naught has happened since. And Master Hew is free, an’ gangs about, an’ that.’ He said a silent prayer, sorry in his soul for the letter he had sent, and not just for himself; for deep inside his heart, he knew that he liked Hew.

‘We will hope so, then,’ his brother answered generously, ‘and give some closer thought to what we ought to do to him, when we next return. Ye must proceed with subtlety.’

‘Must we do more?’ Roger asked.

‘We have just begun.’

Roger lay still for a while. He felt his brother’s breath, gentle, at his side.

‘Will I go to hell for the things that I have done?’

‘I have telt you before,’ grumbled James. ‘You do not go to hell for the things that you have done, but because God has forsaken you. And if he has forsaken you, he did it long ago, the moment you were born. And if he has not chosen you to be in the elect, ye cannot go to heaven yet, however hard you try, and whatever good you do.’

‘Suppose, though,’ Roger said, ‘that he wants me to repent?’

‘It is too late for that. And, do not forget,’ his brother warned him, crossly, ‘this was your idea.’

‘Was it? I do not recall.’

‘Of course it was. For you were ay the clever one. Father thought so too. You were left at home, when our father died. You saw what hurt was done to him. You telt it all to me.’

‘I do not remember.’ Roger felt confused. The horror of that moment he had blotted from his mind. ‘I thought he had laid charges, foul and falsely, at our father’s door. But mebbe I was wrong. I did not understand it. I was just a bairn.’

‘You did not have it wrong.’

‘You did not tell me, then, that he had paid our fees.’

‘Aye, and out of guilt. Your fee will not be paid, when we have destroyed him. You must make that sacrifice, for our family’s sake.’

Roger was alarmed at the venom in his voice. ‘But by paying for us now, he may make amends. He may be a friend. Suppose we let him, James? He could find you out a living, when you go into the Kirk, he could pay my fees in France. I could be a doctor. Is that not enough?’

His brother answered fiercely, ‘It will never be enough.’

James had been in St Andrews when his father died. The St Leonard’s principal had told him what had happened, hurriedly and clumsily. James had felt at fault. He had made the journey home to find his mother desolate, and his brother and his sister in a parlous state. He had gone for comfort to the high kirk of St Giles, and kneeling down to prayer, had found his cheeks were wetted with a flood of heavy tears. The kirk at that time was split in several parts, one of which had served the prisoners in the tolbooth, and the vicar of that quarter caught him at his prayers.

The minister had said, ‘Courage now, my laddie, wherefore dae ye greet?’ A kindly sort of man, he had clapped him at the neck, in something in between an embracement and a slap.

‘I am sending up a prayer, for my father, who has died.’

‘What faith were ye brought up in, lad?’

James had opened up, confiding in him then, ‘The true reformit kirk. I am a student at St Andrews, at the college of St Leonard.’

‘Then ye should be ashamed. For you ken well eno’ ye cannot save his soul,’ the man had railed at him. ‘What was your father’s name?’

James had mumbled something, sorely sick and shamed.

‘Ah did not catch ye, laddie. Was he from round here?’

Their house was just a stone throw from the high kirk and the tolbooth, from the place of execution and the earl of Morton’s head. Roger had spent hours there, sitting in the gallery, drawing with a pen. Their mother burned the sketches, and he made them all again.

James had faced him, then. ‘His name was Richard Cunningham.’

‘That
man.’ The minister had spat, on the floor of his own kirk. ‘Then ye maun pray to God, that ye be not accursed, and your seed as well. For I can tell you plainly,
that
man is in hell.’

‘You cannot ken that,’ James had insisted. ‘You cannot claim to know the Lord’s will. A man may do wrang, and be saved at the last. He works in mysterious ways.’

‘Oh aye? Do not presume to preach God to the Kirk. For I have seen enough men die, to ken when one is lost to God, fated fae the first. Better that the sinner never had drawn breath, than that he should have lived to sow his foulsum seed. Now, son, wipe your tears, for there is no amending it.’

This kindly man had given James a little book of psalms, which he had taken home, and taken to his heart.

Chapter 24

High Water

Andrew Wood left Hew with little time to brood, for the next day he sent letters authorising him to act on his behalf in all inquiries pertinent to Harry Petrie’s death. Hew came in to the castle on the first of August, which was Lammas tide. His overtures were civilly if warily received. ‘Go where’er you will,’ the archbishop allowed. ‘My people and my palace are at your disposal.’ The coroner’s commission had already done its work, and Adamson was eager to appease the king. Hew was left to wander through the castle grounds. He remembered with a strack of sorrow Harry Petrie’s tour, his keenness for the stories and the secrets of the stone. Harry’s map had centred on the south east front, which seemed as good a place as any to begin. The wind was warm and light, and gentle through the colonnades, the pale sun glancing softly from the painted glass, the stench of Patrick’s fedity all but washed away.

Hew had no real sense what he was looking for. He recalled that Harry’s tour had kept him on the ground, and resolved to go upstairs, and look up in the gallery. But he began with the old fore tower on the eastern flank, which Harry had informed him was the first part to be built, and which had been prominent in Harry Petrie’s map. He climbed up to the upper floor that linked the bishop’s quarter to the first floor chapel, through a series of small doors, with one or two dead ends. The floors were built at several different levels, joined by wooden ramps or by low stone steps, to form a thoroughfare. The inner space was furnished, with a small lettrin, camp bed and chair, and in a recess on the left, which Hew
supposed was once a door, a narrow shelf of pens and books, above a wooden box. Hew pulled out this kist, but found it bare inside. It covered up another gap, reaching back beneath the floor, where his fingers closed upon a piece of cloth, which opened to reveal a pile of little stones.

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Hew wrapped up the stones and put the parcel back. As he pushed back the kist, the bishop’s clerk appeared, wrinkling up his nose to hold on to his spectacles, flaffing with his hands. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but his lordship sent me to inquire if I might be of help to you,’ the clerk said, blinking rapidly, ‘now that I have done with taking down his letters. Is there anything that you would like to know?’

‘Can you tell me who this room belongs to, sir?’

‘Well, sir, to his lordship.’ Ninian looked perplexed.

Hew rephrased the question. ‘Who stayed in it last?’

‘Well, that is hard to say. For with the coming of the king, all is disarranged. But in general, it is used by the sergeant of the guard, for he likes to keep a close watch on the bishop.’

‘Yet as I suppose,’ guessed Hew, ‘these books will not be Tam’s?’

‘The books? Ah, no, indeed. Those are some books that belong to the archbishop, that he likes to keep to hand. Psalters and such, for when he is not well enough to climb up to the library.’

Patrick had his study in the small retiring chamber on the western side, which he could access easily, without recourse to stairs. His prayer books, Hew had noticed, he kept by his bed. Why would he leave others, in the keeping of his charge? Hew took one down and opened it. A narrow strip of ribbon floated to the floor. Ninian snatched it up.

‘Sir, may I speak plain?’ He made low his voice. ‘These walls have eyes and ears, and there are guards above. There is a present danger here that I dare not disclose. For there are goings on no Christian man can bear, and I am much embittered at it, fearful for my life. As I am part to blame for Harry Petrie’s death, and sent that puir man out, my heart is full with it, and I will take that burden to the grave.’ His
clouded eyes grew damp at this affecting speech. ‘But it will ease my conscience to explain it to you now. Ah, that puir soldier, sir! The most civil man among them, in a pack of fiends! Tam Fairlie is a devil, sir.’

‘Now why do you say that?’ Hew noticed that the clerk had snaffled back the book, and slipped it on the shelf. The ribbon strip had disappeared, through some sleight of hand.

‘For if John Richan were at fault, then twas Tam that drove him to it. Turned the laddie’s mind. You did not ken, I suppose, that he put John down in the pit, the night before he fled. The same day that he died, Harry pulled him out. His puir wits must have left him, when he fired that shot.’

‘If he fired it,’ murmured Hew. ‘The shot came from the ground, and somewhere close to here.’ His thoughts had turned to Tam. If Tam had put John Richan in the pit, then it was no wonder Ninian was afeared of him. And, if that were so . . .

‘But if it was not John, then none of us is safe.’ Ninian flapped and twittered, like a frightened bird.

‘Is there something that you fear, that you do not like to tell me?’ Hew pursued him gently.

‘On my life, not here. For there are echoes carry in these hollow chambers. You would be astonished sir, the crevices and channels that deceive the unsuspecting. For one such as myself, who cannot see full well, these hollows all are filled with high attendant dangers; thankfully, I hear, and am alerted to their sounds. No Christian soul may prosper here; for all it is the bishop’s house, it is the devil’s too. May I crave your pardon, sir, and ask you one small question, praying for your patience, if you find it strange? Was there any object found on Harry’s body, that was out of place?’

At this, Hew’s ears were pricked. ‘What sort of object, sir?’ He examined Ninian closely, scrunched behind his spectacles, squeezed on like a vice.

‘A piece of clothing,’ Ninian said, which answer Hew had not expected. ‘That some soul may have kept, as a kind of charm. In short,’ for Hew was baffled now, ‘I mean to say a sock.’

‘A sock?’ repeated Hew.

‘Aye. Just so. So short, so silk, so blue.’

‘I believe not,’ Hew admitted, for his mind was on the map that they had found in Harry’s pocket. He knew nothing of a sock.

‘And such was not found on the shore, or down among the rocks.’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Then perhaps it washed away. Listen!’ Ninian froze, and Hew heard a small sound, that might have been a mouse, or the flutter of a bird, somewhere high above.

The little clerk knelt down. ‘It is not safe, for there is evil here, a dark kind of magic. They will harm me, sir, and I should not have spoken of it. There are witches here.’ Ninian’s voice was fraught with terror, shrill and highly charged.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk, where you can feel safe? My sister’s house, perhaps?’ suggested Hew.

‘I cannot let them ken that I have come to you,’ Ninian fumbled helplessly, ‘and there is no place near . . . but there may be one place, where the fearsome covenant will not dare to follow, if on hallowed ground.’

‘Then I will meet you,’ Hew suggested, ‘at the Holy Trinity.’

‘I do not dare consort with you, in a public place. Rather,’ Ninian pleaded, ‘let us meet tonight, in the grounds of the cathedral. The archbishop is invited out to supper at the priory, to discuss the king’s expenses with the earl of March. I shall slip out after dark, with a ticket of account I shall say he has forgotten, and will meet you by the gate. If Tam Fairlie is on watch, it may be after ten, for I would not have him find us for the world.’

‘Aye, if it will please you,’ Hew accorded, kindly. He had come to the conclusion that the little clerk was mad.

Hew retreated from the castle to the house of Meg and Giles, with whom he shared a quiet supper in the nether hall. The building work was finally complete, and the nether hall returned to its former light and glory, with the apothecary’s cabinet given pride of place.
Hew was taken down to see the new distillerie. The entrance had been moved from the kitchen to the trance, and a wooden stair installed. In the cellar down below there were windows to the Fisher Gait, level with the street, and a furnace at the back, vented to the yard, where Giles had made a cool house from a little shed. In a corner of the room was a wooden compost bed, for heating up the simples to the first degree, that gave the place a mellow, earthy smell. There were several pottles, vessels and alembics, wrought in varied shades of pewter, clay and glass, and a shiny cone of copper, pointed at the top. The walls and wooden floorboards had been painted white, and the walls were lined with shelves, with bottles of stilled waters, unguents and oils. The old walls and partitions had been taken out, opening up the whole of the footprint of the house.

‘The space is more than twice the size it was. Here we are, you see, below the front part of the nether hall, which was quite closed off before,’ Giles explained to Hew. ‘The floorboards are uneven here, which is a little vexing.’ He gestured to a gentle dip, where the boards appeared to sag. ‘The workmen found it hollow, when they laid the floor; we thought it very likely the first lot of builders caused it, digging out the earth, and filled it up with powder, rubble and sic stuff, and all the muck and debris that they did not care to shift. I fain would call them back, and have it levelled properly, for though it is quite safe the boards begin to give a little, which has spoiled the look. But Meg,’ he spared a fond glance to his wife, ‘was not all that keen they should begin again.’

Meg came to his side, and slipped her hand in his. ‘The works are perfect, Giles, and perfectly complete. And where there is the hollow is just right for the great pottle, which sits nicely in the bowl. Now come you both upstairs, for it is time to eat.’

They settled in the nether hall, where Canny Bett had set the table with a bright green cloth, and Meg served buttered haddocks in a mussel broth. The fish was fresh and succulent, the mussels sweet and pink. Matthew Locke was wakeful still, and settled in his father’s arms as Meg fetched bread and cheese.

‘Did I tell you,’ Giles asked, proudly, ‘he has spoken his first word?’

Hew swallowed down his scepticism, with a fine white wine.

‘That is quite remarkable. What word did he say?’

He looked upon the prodigy, who met his frank gaze stolidly, with wide, mistrusting eyes. Whatever word it was, he would not say it now.

‘Ba,’ Giles said triumphantly.

‘“Ba”?’ repeated Hew. He wondered, for a moment, if he had misheard, but a glance at infant Matthew’s fair impassive face suggested he had not. ‘And “ba” is a word in what language, precisely?’

Giles admitted, ‘That, now, is the question that has troubled me all day. I have come to the conclusion that it must be Hebrew. I tried him with a grammar of that ancient tongue, since his mother has complained when I read to him in Greek. Now the danger is that he becomes a Melvillite,’ he concluded, gloomily, ‘and I must put him straightaway to a course of Cicero, before it is too late.’

‘You cannot really think he spoke to you in Hebrew,’ Hew objected, pouring out another cup of wine.

‘On balance,’ Giles said seriously, ‘I believe he did. I have, however, one small nagging doubt. For it is faintly possible the word I heard was
bab
, in which case it was Scots, and he was speaking of himself. That is some concern; I hope he will not grow up to think himself the centre of the world.’

‘Matthew is assuredly the centre of his world, and certainly of yours.’ Meg brought in a tart of cherries on a tray, with oatcakes, cheese and bannocks and a pot of cream. ‘I have telt him,’ she confided, ‘that all babies babble, but he will not heed,’ and she helped her husband fondly to a piece of pie.

‘He is not all babbies,’ Giles said, slightly huffed. ‘He is Matthew Locke.’ He brightened at the cherries spilling on his plate, sticky, sweet and plump. ‘If and when ye must eat fruit – for Meg believes we must eat fruit, it is a country quirk of hers – then eat them red
and cooked. Matthew is the subject of a proper fit experiment. Did ye ken that James the Fourth was a linguist of some aptitude, a man of many skills? He put two infants on an island with a nurse who could not speak, to see what language they would end with as their natural tongue. And some say they spake Hebrew, though that could not have been possible. An interesting experiment, albeit deeply flawed.’

‘For certain, it was flawed,’ laughed Meg. ‘They had no mother with them.’

The hour struck ten o’clock, and Hew prepared to leave. ‘I have some pressing business that I must attend to. Though I may be out late, I am not going far.’

‘By all means,’ promised Giles. ‘But what is your business, Hew? Might it not be dangerous? Shall I come with you, or will you take Paul?’

‘There is a set of non-sequiturs,’ smiled Hew. ‘For if there was a danger in it, I would not expose you to it, and Paul would be a hindrance, rather than a help.’ Giles had pardoned Paul for his neglect of Meg, and he was once again made welcome in the house, though he would not stay long, for he had pledged his troth to the widow Bannerman, and Jonet had accepted him.

‘No, and no, and no. I am well convicted that there is no danger. Hang out a lamp at the door, for the night is a dark one.’ Hew left them to their loving quarrels and the comfort of their board, content that all was well with them, and the little house.

It was a dark night indeed, for the new moon gave no light, and the lamplight in the streets was pale and intermittent, pooling on the cobbles in a wash of grey. There were lanterns at the castle, at the taverns and the cookshops, and over doors and windowsills the smoke of yellow candles smudged into the gloom, a weak and watered light. Hew walked up by the North Street, where the lights were stronger, and away from the impenetrable darkness of the cliffs. At the old inns of the priory, where the archbishop went to supper with the earl of
March, the cloisters were well lit, for the earl had marked the passage with a row of brazen lanterns, lined against the wind with little panes of glass. The lanterns tapered out on the north side of the church. Hew entered at the furthest wall, where the walls were breached, in the shadow of the great cathedral, stripped bare of its grandeur, and its roof. He found an upturned stone, and settled down to wait.

At the castle, Ninian Scrymgeour felt in great fear for his life. He had used the bishop’s closet for the third time that evening, knotting and untangling the thin string of his belt. He found it oddly comforting to hold it in his hands. The closet felt to him the safest place, though of course the bishop had no kenning that he used it. When Tam had found him there, he had been so afeared that he had shat himself. He had not thought that Tam would foul that private place. But Tam had no respect for either man or Kirk.