Lammas (5 page)

‘Marie is outside. The spelairs are starting a show. They are playing on the pier, and bring with them a crowd. All of them want drink.'

‘Where is Sliddershanks?'

‘Walter is resting. His banes are sair, he says. Manners, sirs, and mind! I only hae one pair o' hands.'

Elspet fought her way through the drinkers and looked out. She saw Marie weave herself in and out of the crowd, carrying a tray. Closer to the inn, folk were sitting down, with hogsheads and cags for tables and chairs. Others had begun to gather on the front and the north end of the quay, leading to the pier. The pier was wrought of timber, lined with slabs of stone, weather-blown and rickety. At its far end, she saw the Egyptian boy making fast his rope, a slender figure braced against the sea and sky. Across the bay an outcrop shaped the harbour basin, filling with the tide. The second tumbler, kneeling on this outcrop, pulled taut and anchored deep the other end of the cord. Surely, Elspet thought, they do not mean to cross the water. She went back into the house.

She was not afraid to go into his sleeping-place. Sliddershanks had been her master long enough for that. The sleeping-place was dark. ‘Are you not well, then?' she said.

His voice, when it came, sounded queer in the darkness. ‘I have taken physic. It will be better soon.'

‘The house is full. And there are folk outside. A show on the pier. There is music,' she said. ‘Can you hear?'

The strains of the fiddle and the flute, the piper and the drum, persisted, even here. ‘I hear it,' he said. A catch to his voice, like a sob.

‘Folk want to drink. Marie and Joan cannot serve them all. I will help them,' she said.

‘Ye
maunna.
' His voice was insistent and hard now. ‘You shall stay back. The willow will work soon, and I will come up. Till then, they maun shift as they can.'

Elspet said, ‘Sleep for a while.' She felt a little pity for him still. The secret she was keeping made her kind. She could hear the music on the quay; the gladness in her heart quickened at the beat. Puir crippled Sliddershanks could never learn to dance.

‘Do as I say. Tell them,' he said.

Elspet said, ‘I will.'

She went back to the house, where Joan had placed a row of trays upon the bar for Marie to take out. Elspet took a tray, and went among the crowd. Between them they fulfilled the demand for drink, while Marie took the money in a leather pouch she wore beneath her skirt. The tumblers were performing on the quay. The rope walk, the finale of their show, they promised to perform when their hat was filled. The drinkers jeered and roared, but gradually, and grudgingly, the money was amassed, won by the tumble and turn of the delicate, muscular boys. The fiddler was playing their tune. The music was swaying the crowd.

A young man called to Elspet, ‘Mistress maiden, pardon, may I have more wine?'

‘It looks to me,' she telt him, ‘you have had enough.'

He looked like a nobleman's son, one not accustomed to holding his drink. A bonny doe-eyed boy, tearful in his cups. She wondered what had brought him to the harbour inn. Not as she supposed the tumblers on the quay, for he had his back to them.

‘Ah, dinna be like that,' he said. ‘I am thirsty still.'

‘Wait there, then.' He was drinking good white wine, the most expensive kind, and Sliddershanks would want to have the sale. She filled another flask, from the coolness of the cellar, and brought it back to him.

‘Drink with me.'

‘I cannae do that, I am working,' she said.

‘Sit with me, then. Tell me what to dae for a broken heart. For a lassie as lovely as you has broken a few hearts, I doubt.'

She laughed at his charm. The boy was quite fu', and ought to go home. Where were his friends?

Elspet glanced around. Marie was working the crowd, in the way that she did, a squeeze and a kiss and a slap. Her apron was fat with her purse. And all of her clients had drinks. She caught Elspet looking and winked. Elspet sat down. Her legs had grown tired, yet her heart brimmed with gladness and kindness. ‘Just for a moment,' she said.

She recognised his face; he was the lad who had clashed with Michael at the butts. He was lucky Michael was not here among the crowd. Michael was a man, and could hold his drink. He would have made mince of this boy.

The thought of Michael made her strong and proud. She asked the boy, ‘Where is your lass?'

He stared at her, mournful. ‘She left me.'

‘Why did she do that?'

‘Because I will not marry her.'

‘Do you not love her?'

‘I love her,' he said, ‘with all of my heart. You cannot fathom how much.'

She felt that she could. ‘Marry her, then.'

‘Marry her, aye. It is not as simple as that.'

The piper struck a tune.

‘Dance with me,' the boy said.

‘I cannot.'

‘I will teach you. I once saw a justice dancing naked in a court. Do you believe that?'

‘I believe you saw it in a dream.'

The young man stood up, finding his balance and dancing a jig, folding his limbs at her feet in an extravagant courtesy, making her laugh. ‘Jackanapes.'

‘Ah, mistress cruelty, be kind.'

‘Why won't you marry her, then?' Elspet asked.

‘I cannot.'

‘Why can't you?'

The question seemed to sober him, or else he did not to wish to take the matter further, for he turned his back. ‘Why are those people crowding at the pier?'

‘The tumblers are going to walk across on ropes.'

‘That is not so hard, with the basin filled with water. More hazardous to walk above the rocks.'

‘It is harder than you think. The distance is quite far. And though the water here looks still, they walk close to the tide, and the current as it turns may catch and drag them out.'

‘Piffle. For a fellow who has poise, as a fencer or a dancer, it is easily done. I could do it myself.'

‘I'd like to see you try it,' Elspet said.

‘Well then, you shall. Send a man for Mary. She shall see it too.'

The young man took off, with unexpected speed, making for the pier. Elspet cried, ‘Wait! Dinna be daft. What are ye thinking of, now?'

She followed as well as she could, forcing her way through the crowd. She did not have to fear, for he had not travelled far when his stomach failed him. His limbs had buckled too, and he sat down on a stone. ‘I dinna feel well.'

Elspet said, ‘Sit there, you loun, and drink in the air.' She left him to feel sorry for himself, following the line to the far end of the pier. The balladeer was singing
Quhy sowld not Allane
honorit be?
‘Quhen he wes yung and cled in greene, haifand his air abowt his een.' Surely, Elspet thought, that is Michael's song.

The crowd was urgent now. The young Egyptian boy had taken off his shirt, and his feet were bare. He wore a kind of hose, tight against the skin, with no flap or fold for the wind to catch, knotted round the waist with a piece of string. He was sweating, just a little, from his tumbles on the quay. Or maybe it was fear. The drummer had begun to rap upon his drum, a beat for the boy at the bending of a knee, a beat for the boy at the flexing of his feet.

Marie stood listening to the piper on the quay. Her foot began to tap. She wondered if a lad would ask her for a dance, a handsome one like Elspet had. She shook out her skirts and began to sway, hands upon her hips, provocative and plump. She felt a blaze of happiness.

The tumblers had finished their somersaults, and bowing in submission to the crowd, prepared to make their rope walk. The older boy was kneeling on the outcrop, testing the tautness of the rope. His younger brother went into the inn, and came out with a sack. The crowd swarmed behind him to the pier. Marie preferred to watch from the safety of the shore. The pier was old and worn, and would not bear the weight of all those bodies in a storm. The tide was at its peak, and swelled upon it fiercely, clamouring to reach the pool of limpid water sheltered in its bowl. And Marie had lived by the sea long enough to ken the full fetch of its waves.

Elspet's young man was caught up in the crowd carried to the pier, and Elspet came too, calling after him. Marie smiled and waved at her, but she did not wave back. Bold piece she was, chasing him like that, for all the world but Walter Bone to see. The strumpet held her own worth higher than the rest.

Marie shifted place, to feel a sudden absence, a hollow want of weight somewhere in her skirt. Her happiness evaporated to a sick dismay. She could not find her purse. She felt beneath her apron, her kirtle and her shirt, and scrabbled in the folds to find her dread was justified; her pocket was no longer fastened at her waist, the cord that held it cut. She looked around her blindly through the crowd. She could not recall when she had it last, when she had last felt the warmth of its weight, as comfortable and close as a body part. Was it the drinker who had squeezed past her, the one who called to her for a sly kiss, the one who had pulled her to sit on his knee? Was there not one who had plucked at her sleeve, tipping the tray and slopping out ale? Were the afternoon's takings spilled with the drink? She was afraid of what Walter would say. He had never been a violent kind of man. He would not raise his hand to her. But his tongue was cruel. He could rain on words, just as sore as stripes. Maybe for her carelessness she would lose her place. Maybe he would keep her, at his beck and call, in a bitter servitude until the debt was paid. Marie was not sure which would be the worse. Elspet all the while would remain his pet, queening over her. Marie would be spit, for cleaning Elspet's shoes.

She felt something at her back, and spun round to find her friend, the juglar from the fair. He tipped his hat to her. ‘Is it too late for a drink, before the rope walk starts? I dinna want for you to miss the show.'

She stared at him, blank for a moment, before she stuttered, ‘Oh. Joan is at the house. She will gie you one.'

‘Then I will hae to ask Joan. The pity is,' he smiled at her, ‘she isnae as bonny as you.'

She liked the juglar still. He had merry eyes. But she was too upset to stop to flirt with him.

‘I would fetch it for ye, gladly. But there is something I must look for, somewhere in the crowd. Please excuse me, sir.' She tried to squeeze past him.

‘Something you have lost? Mebbe tis this.' To Marie's amazement, he held out her purse. She snatched at it, dazed in relief. ‘How did you?'

‘I saw the piker who cut it frae your shirt, and trailed him through the crowd.'

‘Thank ye, sir, thank ye. I cannot thank you enough.' Marie looked around. ‘Where is the piker now? Will they clip his lugs, and put him in the jougs?' There was a court, just for the fair, that made short shrift of a thief. She would find a cabbage that was rotten for to throw at him, a cabbage or a neep. But she hoped Walter Bone would not hear what he had done.

The juglar told her, ‘He is far from here, crowing at his luck. He will be quite baffled when he finds his spoils have gone.'

‘But does he not ken he is caught?' Marie said. ‘How can that be?'

‘Pardon,' said the juglar, ‘but there is a wasp, crawling on your cap. If you stand quite still, I will flick it off, for I should not like you to be stung.' Marie felt his hand brush against her cheek, the lightness of a breeze, and shivered with an unexpected pleasure at his touch.

‘There. All peril past. You are now quite safe, and can dry your tears.' He handed her a handkerchief.

And if she was ashamed to find her eyes were wet with them, her neb running too, for she was overcome with fear and gratitude, these feelings were eclipsed by a new astonishment. The handkerchief was hers. And there was her name, still in the corner, where her wee sister had worked it, for Marie to take when she found her first place. She knew that the thief had not snatched it with the purse, for she had found it safe in the place she kept it, tucked between her breasts.

‘How did you get that?' she whispered. ‘I never felt.' Her gown was tight, her breasts were full. It could not have been lifted, so close to her skin.

‘It is done by distraction,' he said. ‘You were thinking of a wasp, whether it would sting. You felt my hand,' Marie blushed at that, ‘only in the place where you were expecting it.'

‘And that is how you robbed the piker of my purse?'

‘It is not theft to deprive a thief. It is sleight of hand. I think you are not pleased. Would you rather that the thief wis hanged?' he teased.

Marie shook her head. She whispered, ‘I do not want my master to ken.'

‘We will not tell him, then. Tis well you have it safe. I see him coming now.'

The juglar had a knack to know when there was danger, to catch it on the wind. Now she saw him too, coming from the inn. His sore leg dragged a little as he crossed the quay. She became afraid that somehow Walter knew, that he saw the cords were cut, underneath her shirt. She clutched at the purse. But he barely looked at her. ‘Where is Elspet?' he said. ‘She isnae is the house,' a queer, rasping tremor in his voice.

‘Oh,' Marie said, ‘she is on the pier. She went there wi a laddie she was dancing with. The tumblers are for putting on a show.'

Walter Bone had such a dark and glowering look, Marie was relieved it was not meant for her. ‘I will swing for that limmar,' he said. She felt at his back a glad prick of spite as he hobbled off. Let Elspet be troubled for once.

The juglar took her hand. ‘I will stand by you, while you watch the show. No one will come near.'

He helped her to hide the pocket underneath her skirt, and showed her a way that she could loop the cord, so that she could catch it if ever it was pulled. Then he stood close at her side, and the weight of the purse resting in her lap, and the weight of his hand resting on her hip, made her feel wanted and safe.

The tumbler on the pier had stripped down to his hose. Each piece of clothing he took off was greeted by a rolling of the drum, and a rumble in the crowd, grumbling at the boy to hurry himself up. The boy took his time. He opened up his sack. Inside were two metal balls that looked like cannon shot. The juglar told Marie that the balls were weights. The boy would hold one in each hand, as he walked the rope, and they would keep him straight, like the balance of a scale.