The Rough Collier (21 page)

Maister Lockhart’s strictures on the two men who had compiled it were well deserved. The document was simply a list of answers, in no particular order, with few notes of who had supplied each fact. The spelling was eclectic, but the writing was clear enough. He worked his way down the page, trying to fit the short statements into some kind of narrative. Syme had not been seen since before the quarter-day; the fact of his not having been paid was noted again. None of those asked had known of any reason to kill the man, he seemed to have no quarrel with any of his fellows, the lassies liked him but he favoured none of them. One woman apparently had
aye suspicioned him
, but even the interrogators thought this was hindsight speaking. The tale about the goats occupied half the page, the fact that Murray was unknown to the Bonnington household was dismissed in one line. Sighing, Gil turned the sheet over and studied the other side. Here they had apparently turned to the question of poison, without success. It was surely a bad mushroom, it was a judgement, it was pestilence or witchcraft.
Nane here is abil to mak use
o pyshn
, had written the clerk, in simple trust.

Further questioning might uncover something, but at the moment it was plain that no strong trail led from the forester’s cottage to Bonnington. The clearest scent led back towards the Pow Burn, and all his training at the hunt told him that was what he should be following. Metaphor, he thought, and grinned as he thought once more of Pierre and his dislike of figures of speech.

He rose and shook the creases out of his hat, and made for the door, pausing again before St Giles. Are the goats your creatures? he asked the oblivious figure. You made a pet of a deer, perhaps goats appeal to you too. Their master was poisoned. Help me win justice for him, whatever sort of sinner he was. The saint made no reply, but a gleam of light lay on the white hind couched at his feet.

In the busy taproom of the inn, there was no sign of Patey, but Bessie Dickson was supervising the distribution of ale of two different strengths from a pair of large barrels by the further door. She greeted him with disapproval.

‘I’ve no notion why you should think I’ve any more time for you,’ she announced. ‘Is it still this man Murray and his horse you’re after? I’ll sit down and talk wi’ you if you’ll sweep the draff out the brewhouse for me when we’re done.’

‘I’ll not take up your time,’ he said, without answering this offer. ‘I wondered if you or any of your folk had a notion of what Murray and his friend talked about when he was in here.’

‘Talked about?’ She stared at him. She was a big woman with a broad red face; muscular forearms showed below the rolled-up sleeves of kirtle and shift, and the ends of her kerchief, knotted up on top of her head, were threatening to come untied. ‘What would they talk about? The same as any that sits in here drinking, I’ve no doubt. How they could run the world better than them that’s set in authority, what lassie’s willing for a walk round the kirkyard by night, a’things like that.’

‘You’ve never overheard them?’

‘I’ve more to do than stand about all day listening to my customers.’ Bessie pushed her rolled sleeves higher up her arms. ‘Like sweeping up that draff out there. If you’ll no do it, I’ll ha’ to find someone that will.’

‘Mistress?’ The man at the other barrel was looking at Gil. ‘Should he maybe get a word wi’ Girzie? She’s been on about what she heard all day, it might shut her mouth if someone heard her out. The twice-brewed, Annie?’ He half-turned to the spigot and drew brown ale foaming into a fat yellow-glazed jug for a maidservant in a drab homespun gown, who bobbed a curtsy in thanks. ‘There you are, lass. On your maister’s slate, is it?’

Bessie snorted.

‘Her? I’ve no wish to encourage her. She’s barely done a hand’s turn since the word came back the man was dead.’

‘What did she hear?’ Gil asked, in no great hopes. ‘Was it Murray?’

‘Aye,’ said the tapster, ‘him or the other fellow. She’s out in the yard the now, mistress, I could fetch her in.’

‘I’ll go out there,’ said Gil hastily. ‘I’ll not keep her long from her work.’

‘Hah!’ said Bessie bitterly, but did not prevent him from going out through the rear door of the taproom.

The first thing he saw as he stepped into the yard was Socrates, who looked up from his inspection of a storehouse door and hurried across to meet him, tail waving. Acknowledging the dog’s greeting, he looked about and found Patey, deep in conversation with another of the Belstane grooms. Two empty beakers were on the ground at their feet, and four of his mother’s horses stood tethered beside them.

‘The mistress is yonder, Maister Gil,’ the second man called, pulling off his bonnet. ‘The young mistress,’ he added. ‘In the kitchen yard, ayont the brewhouse, talking to some weeping lassie.’

Chapter Eleven

‘She was very glad to tell someone of it,’ said Alys in French, and urged her horse past a milestone. ‘I think the other folk at the inn were not sympathetic, though at least they told Steenie about her when he asked if anyone knew anything.’

‘And she had heard one of the two speak of mortal sin?’ said Gil. ‘When was that?’

They were making their way back from Lanark to Carluke yet again, the two Belstane grooms behind them talking about the ploughing. Familiar as Gil was with the trackways and lanes of the district, he was beginning to feel he could take this road in his sleep. It was starting to rain.

‘I couldn’t make that out,’ said Alys in apologetic tones, ‘but it was one evening when Syme and Murray were in the place together. I suppose that would be on one of Murray’s trips down to Lanark to go drinking.’ Gil nodded agreement, and whistled to the dog, who was standing up, one paw on a dyke, peering at a small flock of sheep. ‘She told me they would spend the evening talking now with the company in the place, now with one another. Do you suppose they found it hard,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘to dissemble in such a way?’

Gil turned to smile at her, recognizing the same compassion she brought to running her father’s household, and she looked seriously back at him.

‘We never had to,’ she pointed out, ‘as you said when we talked of Michael and your sister. We were always acknowledged.’

‘True. What did this Girzie hear?’

‘Ah. It seems on this occasion they were sitting in the corner by the hearth, talking with their heads together, and Girzie passed them with a tray for someone else, just as Murray said something about mortal sin.’

‘It’s hardly a surprise.’

‘So,’ Alys persisted, ‘she took her time going by them on her return to the kitchen, and heard the forester speak of slitting his throat.’

‘Oh,’ said Gil, and turned to meet her eyes again. ‘That could alter matters.’

‘Yes. I coaxed her as far as I could, but I’m not sure how much of their talk she really heard. She heard one of them say,
What’s done’s done
, and then there was something about
Tell the old beldam what I know
, but she recalled nothing more that made sense. She thinks they said also that the old woman was away.’

‘Which old woman did they mean?’ Gil contemplated this. ‘Arbella hasn’t left the coaltown this spring, so far as I’ve learned.’

‘They never mentioned a name.’ Her smile flickered. ‘A good worker, this Girzie, I should think, but rather a silly woman. She kept coming back to the idea of the forester slitting his throat. It seems she had a liking for him, and the thought of him doing such a deed has overset her. I had quite a task to persuade her that he’d done no such thing.’

‘But I wonder,’ said Gil slowly, ‘if that means we need look no further – if it was Murray or Syme supplied the poison, whether the other knew it was there or not.’

‘I think not,’ she said after a moment. ‘It would simplify matters, but –’

‘It’s too simple, isn’t it?’ he agreed, drawing his plaid up round his neck against the rain.

‘There’s no hint that they’d been recognized or suspected, no threat to separate them. No pursuit that would be a cause to take poison and be together forever.’ He recognized the influence of the romances which were Alys’s favourite reading in this pronouncement. ‘For all Girzie was so sure the forester had killed himself, she had no notion why he might have done so, and the two men you saw at Blackness gave no hint either, I think?’

‘None. And Syme’s maister was astounded to hear of it.’ Gil’s thoughts had run off at a tangent. ‘Alys, was it poison indeed? Did you test what was dried into the flask?’

‘That was why I rode down to Lanark to find you. We did, and I thought you might need to know.’ Again that serious look. ‘We rinsed both the flask and the bottle with well-water, and gave the water to two of the beasts Henry brought us. Whatever was in the bottle, it was just as it left the brewer, the ratling that drank that portion came to no harm, but the other one . . .’

‘Well?’

Alys pulled a face. ‘It died. It seemed quite normal for a while, and then began to stagger, and turned round as if it was dizzy, and then it fell over and after a time it died.’ She bit her lip, and stared into the distance. ‘I suppose, if the two men died like that, then we know it was quick, and most probably painless.’

‘We do,’ agreed Gil. ‘And we know that whatever it was, there was some in the flask. Have you or my mother any idea what it was?’

She shook her head, scattering raindrops from the brim of her hat.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Poisons are not something I – and all the ones I’ve heard about would induce purging, or vomiting, before death. And your mother has said she does not know this one either.’

‘I thought you knew everything,’ said Gil, amused and faintly relieved to find a gap in her astonishing medical knowledge. She blushed pink, and shook her head again.

‘I need a book,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know who would have such a one, except . . .’

‘Mistress Lithgo,’ Gil finished for her.

‘Except Mistress Lithgo.’ She reached out her hand, and when he took it her fingers clung to his. ‘And how can I ask her when we – Oh, Gil, how can we do this? The truth must be served, but the accidents it brings about are fearful.’

‘The truth must be served,’ he agreed, keeping a grip of her hand.

They rode up into Carluke town, and along its deep-worn main street between the two rows of cottages facing one another across it. As they passed St Andrew’s kirk at the far end of the town, Sir John Heriot popped out of his house like a figure in a child’s toy, his clerk behind him, and hurried towards them, hand out, exclaiming, ‘Maister Cunningham! In a good hour, indeed! I have great news, sir!’

‘News?’ Gil said blankly, letting go of Alys’s hand to bend down and clasp the priest’s.

‘Indeed, sir. I have a name for our man. I ken who he is.’

The clerk nodded agreement, grinning, and crossed himself energetically. Gil looked from one to the other. Beside him, Alys’s horse laid back its ears at a scavenging pig, and she tightened her reins. Steenie dismounted hastily and went to the grey’s head.

‘A name for . . .’ Gil repeated.

‘For the man out of the peat-digging. The corp in your feed-store, sir. And we must have him out of there as soon as may be, it’s no right now that I’ve discerned who he could only be.’ Above the worn and dusty black gown Sir John’s face glowed with pride and triumph. His clerk beamed and nodded again. ‘I went through the kirk records, sir, and read over all our documents, and only just now between Sext and Nones I found it! It’s clear to me that he can be no other than the parish’s own saint, the man that first brought the gospel of Christ and Our Lady in this place. Why would Carluke town’s other name be Ecclesmalesoch but to signify the kirk of the holy Malessock?’

‘What, that dusty old corp out the peat-cutting?’ said Steenie.

Gil stared at the priest in disbelief. ‘Sweet St Giles,’ he said after a moment. ‘But Sir John, you’ve no proof –’

Sir John braced himself with a complex movement of his elbows, and settled down to expound on his case, oblivious of the rain beating on his shoulders. ‘No, only consider, maister. He’s clearly been martyred for his faith, you canny deny that, by the injuries you showed to me, and one of the old tales in a roll out of the Parish Kist tells us how Malessock preached the gospel in the wilderness among the thorns.’

‘I never heard that,’ said Patey.

And if it doesn’t tell it now, thought Gil, it will by the time Sir John gets to his bed tonight.
Who koude ryme in
Englysshe proprely His martirdom? for sothe it am nat I,
is clearly not a permissible standpoint here.

‘Thorn, you see,
Thorn
, maister,’ persisted the priest. ‘It can be none other!’ He clapped his hands together like a child, smiling radiantly. ‘Oh, Maister Cunningham, I’m so joyful I could dance like King David, here in the Worn Way. Indeed! And we’ll get him out of madam your mother’s feed-store as soon as maybe and brought down here to the kirk, and lay him up properly. What a great thing for my parish, sir! To have our own founder, our own evangelist, to dwell here as patron of our kirk!’

‘They’ve nothing like it in Lanark,’ agreed the clerk, nodding again. ‘Them and their wee bit of the True Cross!’

‘Are you saying that’s your saint that Rab Simson found, Sir John?’ asked Patey. ‘Never! It’s no but a stinking bundle of rotted leather, and so Henry tellt all the folk standing in line in our stable-yard this morning.’

‘No, surely, sir,’ objected Alys, ‘he has no tonsure, no trappings of a priest –’

‘There’s no sign on him at all,’ agreed Gil.

‘Did St Roch have the trappings of a priest, madam?’ demanded Sir John eloquently, waving his hand towards the church. ‘Did Our Lady wear a nun’s garments? Besides,’ he added in a more practical tone, ‘you said yourself, maister, they’d have rotted down in the peat. We’ll get him clad as befits him soon enough. Indeed.’

‘Who’s this coming, Maister Gil?’ said Steenie, peering past the buff-coloured folds of Alys’s skirts. Gil turned in the saddle, to see a rider in Cauldhope livery approaching fast, leading a spare horse.

‘I must send to your lady mother to get all arranged,’ warbled the priest. ‘We’ll have a great procession, wi’ music and green branches, and –’

‘Sir John!’ said the newcomer urgently, reining in beside the group. Gil’s horse shied restlessly, and Socrates hurried back from his inspection of the kirkyard gate, hackles up. ‘Thanks be to Our Lady I’ve found you, maister. I’m sent for you to Davy Fleming.’

‘Oh!’ said Alys, and caught Gil’s eye.

‘To Davy?’ repeated Sir John in amazement. ‘What’s to do, Simmie? Is he in a bad way? I heard he was on his feet again.’

‘He was,’ said Gil. ‘He was up at the Pow Burn yesterday.’

‘Aye, but he sickened again yestreen after his supper,’ said Simmie. ‘And I’m seeking yourself and all, Maister Cunningham. Maister Michael said to ride on to Belstane for you, but since you’re here I’ve no need. He’s wanting a word wi’ you, and it seems to be eating at him.’

‘I will come too,’ said Alys.

‘Maister Michael wants a word?’ asked Gil.

‘Oh, I couldny say to that,’ said the man confusingly, ‘but it’s for certain Davy Fleming wants you, for I heard him say as much to the maister. Mind you,’ he added, ‘I’m no so sure myself he’s near death, for the way he shouted at Maister Michael this morning out of his bed, you never heard the like.’

‘Just let me pack up what’s needed,’ said Sir John briskly, all professional concern. ‘I’ll need to bear an intinctured wafer wi’ me, Jock, and I must borrow a horse –’

‘You’ll no need, I brought this beast in for you,’ said Simmie.

‘You’ll be wanting the new box, then,’ said the clerk to his master, with a significant look.

‘Aye, indeed!’ agreed Sir John. He grinned, and clapped his hands together. ‘A good thought, Jock! Just wait here, Simmie, and I’ll be right with you.’

Gil was shocked by the change in David Fleming, and recognized from the sudden stiffening of her back that Alys was equally dismayed. The man was huddled in the steward’s chair in the little chamber off the hall, bundled in rugs and racked by spells of shivering. The truth was self-evident of Alys’s statement that he had his death on him; overnight his plump cheeks seemed to have fallen in, his eyes were sunken, dark-ringed and feverishly bright, and there was a sheen of sweat across his brow, darkening the limp, mousy hair which clung to it.

Alys went forward and began to feel her patient’s forehead and neck with gentle fingers. He looked blankly at her, and then at Gil, then said to Michael where he stood in the doorway, ‘I want a word wi’ Maister Cunningham. It’s right urgent, sir.’

‘I’m here,’ said Gil, wondering if the man could see clearly.

‘There, now, my poor friend,’ said Sir John in sympathy. He set his leather case down on a handy stool and began unbuckling the straps which secured it. ‘We’ll ha’ a bowl and a jug of fresh well-water, maybe, Maister Michael? And I’ll need a towel and basin and all. Indeed.’

Michael nodded and turned to the door of the steward’s room. Over his directions to Simmie out in the screens passage Fleming said hoarsely, ‘This first. I’ve something I must tell you, sir.’

‘Now, now, man,’ chided Sir John. ‘What could be more urgent than your own confession and healing?’

‘You should rest,’ said Alys, ‘and gather your strength.’

‘Aye, well, I’m done for, mistress,’ said Fleming, and licked dry lips, ‘but this is important. I’ll last long enough to set this in your hands, Maister Cunningham. You’ll need to peruse this afore the quest on Thomas Murray, so you can tell the Provost all that’s needful, all the evidence against the witch. One of them or the other – or maybe they’re both in it,’ he added. ‘Aye, I wish I could ha’ seen them taken up for witchcraft and put to the test, but if that’s no God’s will for me, I must go without.’

‘Tuts, man,’ said Sir John, ‘we’ll no give up hope for you yet. We’ll see to your spiritual needs, but then I’ve a remedy to try that I’ll swear’s sovereign against all wasting diseases, and who more deserving of it than yourself?’

‘Set what in my hands?’ asked Gil. ‘Let me take it and get away, Sir David, and leave you to your spiritual duties.’

‘The rent rolls,’ said Fleming, catching at Alys’s wrist. ‘There they are on the desk waiting for your man, mistress, the rent rolls for the coal-heugh, the old one and the new one. You’ll need to read it wi’ care, maister, but it’s all in there, all you need to know, you mind I told you of it last time you were in this chamber.’

‘I hardly think Sir James would be pleased if I went off with his rent rolls,’ objected Gil.

‘Maister Michael will permit it,’ suggested Fleming. Michael, reappearing in the doorway, nodded agreement. His face was thinned by anxiety, exaggerating the curved jaw and pointed chin.

‘I could go through them too,’ said Alys.

‘No, no,’ said Fleming, condescending even in his weakness, ‘maybe you can read, lassie, but you’ve no the experience. It takes a man of law to discern these things –’