Hue and Cry (41 page)

‘Whisht with your horse-whitter! What of the
man
?’

‘They’re coming to the gate! And there is Master Gilchrist come to greet them.’ In his excitement, Thomas lost his grip upon the wall.

‘Steady now,’ Hew warned. ‘Perhaps you should come down.’

‘He wears a cap and cloak of gold’

‘
Real
gold?’

‘Velvet or some such, with a white ruff and cuff of fine lace. And on his cap a plume, above a crimson jewel . . . and a doublet gold and scarlet, all embroidit with gold threads. And now he is dismounting, and he takes the master’s hand . . . oh, but . . .’ the boy trailed off, confused, ‘he does not stand so grand upon the ground. Why then, his gait is strange.’

‘And
that
is quite enough,’ said Hew, extending up his hand. ‘For now you also must dismount, and be prepared to play for him. Come now, and compose yourselves.’

A table was upturned upon the lawn a represent a loom; its broken leg became the weaver’s shuttle. Blankets were stripped from the beds and conscripted as rolls of blue cloth. A counter was built from an old wooden chest, and a tub dragged across from the washhouse. As the stage was set, the players grew more nervous. The youngest bursar clung to Hew. ‘There’s a
woman
in the cloisters.’

‘Aye, she’s come to help you dress.’

The boy looked scandalised.

‘She’s my sister, Thomas,’ Hew assured him hastily.

‘Aye, sir, if you say so.’ Thomas turned pink.

‘There is a vat of pig’s blood by the door,’ Meg approached, calling
out through a mouthful of pins. I do hope it’s pig, for it came from Giles. He thought it would be useful for the dyer’s clothes and hands.’

‘What does the dyer think to that?’ asked Hew.

‘He rather likes it, oddly. Has he read his part? He thinks he’s playing some sort of soldier. Anyhow, he seemed quite pleased about the blood.’

‘A small misunderstanding,’ Hew dismissed quickly. ‘He’ll be happy enough. He’s not very bright. Did you remember the gown?’

‘Aye, and it fits nicely. Do you think it matters much that Agnes has a beard?’

Hew groaned theatrically. ‘I hoped the wretch would shave.’

‘I did suggest it, Hew. He says it took him half a year to cultivate, and he will not relinquish it. I thought he seemed a little highly strung.’

‘They all are, this morning,’ Hew replied soberly. ‘And, if they knew it, there’s cause. Look, here comes Giles. Where is this blood from?’ he hailed.

‘Don’t ask. A boy has been sick in the courtyard,’ Giles remarked briskly. ‘I gave him some peppermint water, but I fear he has spoiled the approach.’

Meg started. ‘I’ll see to him, Hew.’

‘He’s well enough now. A bit green. But you might attend to Nicholas. He’s sitting in the shade.’

‘Nicholas is here?’ Hew echoed in alarm. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’

‘I think that it’s essential,’ the doctor answered seriously, ‘that he should see the play. For nothing I can do or say appears to bring him peace. Oh, and your father is here.’

‘My father? But he has not been to town in years!’

‘Perhaps he wanted an occasion,’ Giles suggested. ‘If you should want him, you will find him over there beneath the trees. He has brought a pile of pillows, which he shares with Nicholas. I half suspect that they are making friends. But don’t suppose
he’s come to see your play. I understand he’s keen to see the king.’

Hew broke into a grin. ‘Thank you, Giles.’

‘Don’t mention it. My one regret is that we could not bring your horse. The excitement proved too much for him. He’s lying down.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Hew answered feelingly.

Giles bustled off to join the little group among the trees as Hew turned back towards the stage. The dyer, dripping gore, was chasing Thomas Burns across the lawn. Hew intercepted them. ‘Don’t daub Thomas with that filth, not yet.’ The blood flecks in the boy’s bright hair unnerved him. Duncan pulled up sulkily and wiped his hands across his coat. ‘Where’s Mercator?’ he whined. ‘He’s meant to help me with my lines.’

‘Is he not here?’ Hew started.

‘Looks like it,’ the boy said rudely.

Meg was pouring something from a vial into the tub. Hew called out to her. ‘Have you seen the merchant? Was he feeling sick?’

‘No, that was me,’ said a portly youth proudly. ‘I spewed in the cabbage bed.’ He was playing Archie Strachan.

‘I think he went into the chapel,’ Thomas ventured timidly, ‘to say a prayer.’

‘He needs one,’ snorted Duncan.

Hew felt his heart stop. ‘I will have to go and fetch him, for it’s almost time. The rest of you, stand close, and try to learn your parts. No more antic play. For any moment now, the king will walk into those rooms and will look below and see you. Be sure that you are ready. All your life, you will remember this.’

He almost ran into the chapel. As first he did not see the bursar in the darkness. The boy was kneeling on the floor. His head was bowed. Hew urged him softly. ‘Come, Sam, quickly now, it’s time. We must say our lines together, you and I, for you are Mercator, and I am Claudus. Come, now, quickly, take my hand.’

The boy did not turn, but spoke in a low voice ‘I cannot do it, sir. I cannot play the part of Mercator.’

Hew knelt in the dust beside him. ‘Of course you can,’ he told him kindly. ‘This is stage fright, nothing more.’

The bursar shook his head. ‘I cannot do it. I am the son of a groom. And Duncan Stewart is the son of a lord. And if I humiliate him in front of the king he will not forgive me. I will be a dead man, sir.’

‘The responsibility is mine, not yours,’ insisted Hew. ‘I’ll see you are not blamed.’

‘Will you, though?’ The boy looked at him tearfully. ‘I do not think so. I’m the one who has to strike the blow. There will be reprisals.’

‘But you will act the part before the king,’ Hew argued. ‘Duncan will not dare to touch you.’

‘Do you think not? And suppose the king should take his part? And suppose he does not take his part, yet on a dark night will come men to slit my throat. And what will the king do then? Suppose he cares to trace the crime, his father is a lord; my father is a groom. They will pay blood money, aye, a fine at most, and hear the king’s displeasure for a day. I am a bursar, sir, my father is proud of me. I know we are ill used, and yet I have the chance to take the laurel wreath. I am a bowman in the college team, and at the butts in June I hope to take the prize.’

‘I’m sure you will.’ Hew put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Forgive me, I should not have asked it.’

‘Are you not angry?’ The bursar looked up. ‘What will you do?’

Hew grinned at him. ‘Ah, don’t fret. I’ll think of something. Your father is a groom, you say.’

The boy nodded. ‘An under marschal for the earl of Mar,’ he answered with a hint of pride.

‘Well, when this is over, I may ask him for advice.’

With heavy heart, Hew left the church and made his way back to the lawn. Meg ran out to greet him. ‘Hurry, Hew! The king has just arrived. But where is Mercator?’

‘Not coming,’ he said flatly.

‘What? It’s stage fright. I’ll go talk to him.’

‘No, leave him be.’ He took her by the arm. ‘He’s right. I asked too much.’

‘Whatever will you do?’

‘I don’t know.’ He smiled at her bravely. ‘There is no one who can take his place, who has Latin, and the strength, and knows the part. I will just have to make something up.’

He walked with leaden footsteps to the centre of the lawn. He was dimly aware of the players behind him. Their shrill boyish voices fell still as they fled to the shadows, awaiting their parts. In the distance he saw Nicholas sitting with his father, blankets around them, under a tree. A hush descended as he looked into the cloudless sky. The birds appeared to pause their song. On the balcony above the lawn he saw the lords assembling, Gilchrist to the right, and in their midst the boy king, James. Hew’s throat began to close against the drumming of his heart. He looked up to the window and found that he was staring at the cool gaze of the king. James began to frown. In a moment he would turn his head and walk away. The moment would be gone. Somehow, Hew felt deep and found the words. He heard his own voice shaping, ‘Claudus sum.’ He had no plan of what might happen next.

And then a shadow fell across the lawn behind him, and a figure in a dark green cloak came striding at his back. The figure dropped his hat and bowed before the king, so low he swept the ground, and a warm familiar voice boomed clear out to the cloisters, ‘et ego Mercator.’ And it was Giles.

Afterwards, Hew took the lesson, for the students were about to make their final disputations and the coming of a king did not constitute a holiday. Those who had performed sat nervous in the hall. He set them to their task, but they had scarcely begun when the doors were thrown open and the party of the king was
announced, James with his cohort of servants and lords, and a flustered Master Gilchrist at the rear.

‘Is this a lecture?’ asked the king. ‘Then we shall stay to hear it.’

Hew bowed low. ‘The students are about to make their declamations.’

‘We shall hear them. What’s the theme?’

‘Self-murder, sire.’

‘Your Grace, this is the man who made the play,’ the lord said at his side.

‘I know him. What’s his name?’

‘Hew Cullan. Sire, the man’s a viper. I am most wretchedly deceived in him,’ Gilchrist interjected.

‘Truly, sir, how so?’

‘For his play, his wicked lies, his slanders of the college and myself.’

The king professed astonishment. ‘But was that
you
? I had not known. What do you say, d’Aubigny, did you recognise James Gilchrist in the play we saw?’

‘Now that you mention it,’ his friend replied dryly, ‘I perceive a likeness.’

‘Morton?’

The earl inclined his head, ‘It shall be looked into, your Grace,’ he answered stiffly.

‘Thank you. I had not observed it,’ James revealed to Gilchrist, ‘but since you have remarked it, then he must have caught a likeness, don’t you think? For ourselves, we liked the play. My lords and I have been discussing your controversies, Hew Cullan, and are entertained by them. We cannot quite agree. Perhaps you will explain them to us when your class is finished. Meanwhile, we shall hear your self-slayers. Peace, Master Gilchrist,’ and he waved the man away, ‘this interests us. We shall be better exercised in disputations than in listening to more melodies and madrigals.’

The students made their arguments, and most of them acquitted well enough, except for Sam, who had not played the part of Mercator. He stammered blindly through his speech, quite overcome
with nerves. But if the king had noticed it, he gave no sign. At last he said. ‘I wish to speak with Master Cullan. Is there a chamber close by?’

‘The masters’ room adjoining, sire.’

‘Morton, you may go with Gilchrist and examine his accounts. No, my lord, I pray,’ for the earl moved to protest, ‘Esme shall accompany us, and the rest will wait outside. Come, Master Cullan, we are private here.’

The door was closed behind them.

‘We liked the play,’ James went on, ‘though we were perplexed as to the meaning. The wickedness of the dyer we found most satisfactorily requited, and the merchant and the woman were well served, and yet we disagreed about the tutor and the boy. According to my regent Morton, their sins were the worst of all, their friendship the most inward and unnatural. But did you mean it so? For myself, and my cousin monsieur d’Aubigny, we perceived their friendship as most virtuous and pure. Morton will assert this marks out my greenness in these matters. Which of us is right?’

‘Majestie,’ Hew bowed, ‘I would suggest that youth has the advantage here, for your eyes remain unclouded by the rheum of his experience. The tutor and the boy are in the play as innocents. Sadly, it is the way of our world that we perceive corruption in the purest heart, and see wickedness where it was never meant.’

The king smiled, satisfied. ‘It’s as I thought. The earl has lived too long. Whatever is that noise?’

James was startled to his feet, and Esme to his dagger, as the chamber doors flew open to admit Duncan Stewart. Catching sight of the king, he stopped short and let out a whimper before crumpling to his knees.

‘Your Grace, I beg forgiveness.’ The boy looked close to tears, ‘I had not thought to find you here. It was Cullan I was looking for. You see how he has used me, sire.’

It was a rare sight. Duncan had changed his wet clothes, but the drubbings of the laundress and her ash and candle soaps had
had little effect on his face. He was naturally fair, and his hair now darkened to the root stood up in clumps of purple, echoed in the infant wisps of purple-tufted beard.

James suppressed a smile. ‘Aye, I do see,’ he confessed. ‘What say you, Master Cullan?’ he enquired, mock-severely. ‘You have dyed my cousin, have you not?’

‘He played the dyer’s part,’ shrugged Hew, ‘full well.’

‘Aye, that he did. But you have made him purple, and he wears it badly.’

‘Sire, will you hear me?’ Duncan cried, ‘I played the part to please you, as it pleased my masters I should play it. Why then would you ridicule me?’

‘Peace,’ the king said laughing, ‘Aye, you played your part. It pleased me well. But what is your complaint? Did your master not instruct you in the part that you were playing? That being the dyer,’ he threw back his head, ‘being the
dyer
, you should be
dyed
?’

‘He did not. When we rehearsed the play, the bath was empty.’

‘For certain,’ interrupted Hew, ‘we could not fill the bath with dye for the rehearsal. For think of it! If you had come into the dye before the play, you would be purple at the start, and being purple at the start, you know, would give the game away. But all this was explained to you.’

‘No,’ Duncan snivelled, ‘I swear to you, sire, that this was not explained. For how should I suffer myself to be
purpled
, had I known?’

‘Nor yet to please me?’ James answered softly. ‘You know, Master Cullan, the man has a point. His father, having influence in court, is likely to bend my ear on this account. I beg you then, account for this: why, for my pleasure, have you made his son violet, without his consent?’