The Rough Collier (4 page)

‘Tib’s at the convent in Haddington, Michael,’ Alys said. Ale splashed down the front of the blue gown. ‘As a guest of Sister Dorothea,’ she added hastily.

‘But you could make yourself very useful here,’ said Gil, ‘if you can spare the time.’

Michael swallowed, handed the beaker back to the maidservant, and patted drops from his chest and shoulders.

‘I don’t know that I can,’ he said ungraciously, wiping his chin. ‘I’ve only a few days’ leave, and I need to see to this matter of the old man’s. What’s to do, anyway? Is that no half the men from Thorn hiding by the cart-shed?’

‘It’s good of you to call by, godson,’ said Lady Egidia, with faint malice, ‘to brighten an old woman’s day.’

‘What old woman would that be, Mother?’ asked Gil politely, pouring wine in the little glasses set in a sparkling row on the plate-cupboard.

Her mouth twitched, but she went on: ‘And what brings you out here away from your studies? I hope you’ve permission to be out of the college.’

‘Oh, aye.’ Michael felt at the breast of his gown. ‘I’d a letter from my father, that when I showed it to the Principal he agreed I must have leave. I’ve no notion what’s worrying him, but he writes that he canny leave the court, and Jock Douglas is away at Edinburgh, and my brothers both about other business, and he’s concerned about that fool Fleming and something up at the coal-heugh.’

‘The coal-heugh again,’ said Alys, accepting wine in her turn from Gil. ‘Is that the same one where a man called Thomas Murray dwells, Michael?’

‘Aye, it is,’ he said, startled, ‘and it’s the man Murray my father wants me to speak to. It seems the winter fee’s long overdue, and he’s had a daft word from David Fleming all about witches or some such, and I’ve to sort it out.’

‘Witches,’ repeated Alys. ‘His mind seems to run on witches.’

‘Of course, the Pow Burn crosses your ground,’ said Gil, sitting down beside Alys, across the hall hearth from his mother. ‘The coal-heugh is your father’s then?’

‘Well, it’s on our land, we have the mineral rights. He gets a good fee for it.’

‘What is this about?’ demanded his mother. ‘I’d a long tale from Alan and from Nan the now about you cutting up this corp in our cart-shed, Gil –’

‘I did no such thing!’ said Gil indignantly.

‘We simply examined the body, madame,’ Alys assured Lady Egidia, ‘to see if we could tell how he died, and how long ago it was. We cut nothing open. It would be interesting to do that,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘I wish Holy Kirk was not so set against it.’

‘What corp is this?’ asked Michael, looking at her in alarm.

‘I can say who it isn’t,’ said Gil firmly, ‘and that’s the man Murray. He seems to be missing, Michael, but it’s clear enough that’s not him in the cart-shed.’

He summarized the events at the peat-digging, while his mother and Michael listened critically, and Alys nodded agreement.

‘This is a bad business,’ said Lady Egidia when he had finished.

‘Do you know them, Mother?’ he asked.

‘I’ve had no dealings wi’ the Crombie women, save for Beattie,’ admitted Lady Egidia. ‘We get coals fetched every quarter, and I sell them ponies from time to time, but I’ve aye dealt wi’ the men for that. Beattie sells me simples for the horses when I run out. Formidable she is, but she has a reputation for a good woman, and a good healer.’

‘What, charms and spells and love-potions?’ Gil asked. ‘Half the lassies in the parish trailing up across the moor?’

‘No, dear,’ said his mother firmly. ‘I said she’s a healer. She doesn’t use charms, except the kind you say over the mortar to make the ointment more effective.’ Alys nodded at this. ‘She can heal wounds, she has a receipt for a bottle that mends broken bones once they’re set, I believe she has a wash for falling hair that sells well. No spells that I ever heard of.’

‘Dangerous, just the same,’ said Gil.

‘So it seems. Gil, you must do something about it. If that fool Fleming has taken it into his head Beattie’s a witch, there’s no knowing where it will end.’

‘This must be what’s reached my father,’ said Michael. He extracted a small wad of paper from the breast of his gown, and opened it up, fold after fold, into a single sheet. ‘He writes that he was already concerned about the winter’s fee, so he’d directed Fleming to see about it, and the man’s writ him a letter he canny understand. Why he tolerates him I canny tell, what wi’ his other habits.’ He peered at the page. ‘Mind you, I canny –’ He stopped short, and handed the letter to Lady Egidia. ‘Can you do better than me, madam?’

‘How must an accusation of witchcraft proceed in Scotland?’ Alys asked.

‘The same as anywhere else,’ Gil answered, watching his mother’s face as she held the letter at arm’s length. ‘First, if Fleming can show that Mistress Lithgo set that body into the peat, whoever it is, or did some other ill deed by witchcraft, second if he can show that she intended to do harm by it, or third . . .’ He paused, trawling his memory.

‘He has to show she’s made an alliance with the Devil,’ supplied Michael, more recently taught by the same master, ‘or some other ill spirit.’ He grimaced. ‘Tommy Forsyth makes all clear, doesn’t he?’

‘Very,’ agreed Gil. ‘Any of these is enough for the charge to proceed, and whatever court it comes to must investigate. Likely the Sheriff will try it first.’

‘But can he do any of that?’ Alys said dubiously. ‘The priest, I mean.’

‘It’s easy enough,’ said Gil wryly. ‘He was hinting about evidence, and once one accusation’s made, others will surface. All it needs is one of the colliers’ wives with a grudge at the family, and the wise-woman will find herself with her skirts over her head being pricked for a witch-mark. Then it all goes before the Sheriff, with an assize, and if it’s found proven, she’ll be hanged.’

‘Hanged. I thought Sir David seemed very . . .’ Alys paused, reflecting on the word she wanted. ‘Vindictive. There may be some reason for his accusation. Beyond the belief that she might be a witch, I mean.’

‘James doesny make it clear,’ said Lady Egidia disapprovingly. ‘
Fleming has writ me a rigmarole of witches at the
Pow Burn. Go you and prevent him.
Prevent him from what?’

Michael shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dear knows. Making a fool of hisself? Making a nuisance of hisself?’

‘Too late to prevent either, I should say,’ said Gil. ‘But I agree, something must be done to prevent a miscarriage of justice.’

‘If Murray’s missing,’ said Michael slowly, ‘it would account for the fee being late, and it might account for the daft message about witches. Seems to me,’ he looked at Gil, ‘the first thing to be done is find Thomas Murray.’

‘The very first thing, surely,’ Alys corrected him, ‘is go out to the Pow Burn to talk to the people there.’

‘You’ll have never seen a coal-heugh before,’ said Phemie Crombie.

‘I have not,’ said Alys. ‘It is not at all the same as a stone-quarry.’

‘Nor I,’ Gil admitted. ‘I’ve ridden past, but I’ve never looked closely.’

‘A new experience, then,’ said Phemie, and waved a disparaging hand at the view through the small, writhing panes of glass. The coalmasters’ house, a handsome structure of hall and two wings, was set back at a fastidious distance from the muddle of smaller buildings which sprawled away down the slope to the burn, embedded in dark grey mud and busy as a wasps’ nest. ‘That’s the nether coal-hill in the midst, you see. There’s three separate ingoes –’

‘Three – what?’ said Alys.

‘The entries to the mine,’ Phemie expanded. ‘They’re a wee bit up from the low coal-hill, yonder.’ She pointed to the left. ‘Then the mine office is next the hill, where they keep the records and the tallies, and beyond that’s the smithy and the wood shop. Then away up the track there’s the hewers’ row, and the stables, and the two shaft-houses and the upper coal-hill.’

The row of cottages and the stables could hardly be seen through the glass, but Gil had noticed them as they approached; the two squat ranges were identical, except for the coal-smoke rising through the thatch of the dwellings. The house itself, on the other hand, was a well-built timber-framed edifice, the hall and wings roofed with slates, the smaller pents at either end neatly thatched. A little chapel was carefully oriented beside it. There was a windswept garden and kailyard, and the house had several more glass windows as well as this one before which they were seated, waiting for the promised refreshment. Thirsty from the ride, Gil reflected that Henry was probably already well down his first stoup in the kitchen building they had seen on the other side of the house.

‘Where does your mother have her stillroom?’ asked Alys, smiling at the girl.

‘In the pent yonder, next the chapel.’ Phemie jerked her head at the blank wall of the chamber beside them. ‘It has a door from the outside, which is how the Thorn men took her away without –’ She scowled. ‘I’ll pay them for it, so I will.’

‘You will not,’ said her mother in the doorway.

Gil rose, scrutinizing her, and Alys moved forward with her hands out, saying, ‘How do you feel, Mistress Lithgo? That was a dreadful thing to happen.’

‘I’m well, thank you, mistress.’ Beatrice Lithgo, her appearance restored since this morning to the neatness Gil somehow felt was natural to her, came forward to embrace her guests while her daughter muttered rebelliously in the background, then seated herself on the leather-covered backstool Gil set for her, saying firmly, ‘That’ll do, Phemie.’

‘It’ll no do at all,’ Phemie retorted, ‘for if I hadny seen all and fetched the men, where would you be now?’

‘Where she is, I hope,’ said Gil. ‘Fleming had no case to argue, that was clear from the beginning. Do you deal in spells, mistress?’ he asked point-blank.

‘I do not,’ she said, equally direct. ‘Nor charms, nor tokens to procure love or hatred. I’m a healer, no more than that.’

‘I should think it was clear,’ said Phemie roundly. The door opened again behind her, to admit Joanna Brownlie with a jug and a tray of beakers. ‘My mother’s no witch, and I’ll pay that fat hypocrite for saying it!’

‘Let me understand,’ Gil said. ‘It seems there’s a man missing, this Thomas Murray, and Fleming thought he kent him in the corp. Tell me about Murray. He’s in charge here, is he?’

‘Aye,’ said Joanna softly, at the same time as mother and daughter said, ‘Not him!’

‘He’s the grieve,’ added Beatrice. ‘Promoted when my good-brother died.’

‘He was a common bearer,’ said Phemie in a savage tone which Gil could not account for. ‘No even a hewer. But since he can read and reckon, the old woman –’

‘That will do, Phemie,’ said her mother with more emphasis, and Phemie finally became silent.

‘You promoted him?’ asked Gil neutrally, looking from one woman to another.

‘Arbella promoted him,’ agreed Joanna.

‘Is that your grandmother?’ Alys asked Phemie, who nodded ungraciously. ‘It must be difficult,’ she offered, ‘to be a household of women here on the edge of the coal-heugh.’

Gil, who had reached the same conclusion only a moment ago, admired this approach.

‘No, it’s difficult to be a household of women wi’ Arbella at the head of it.’

‘
Phemie!
’ said her mother. ‘You may leave us!’

Phemie flounced to her feet, long hair and blue woollen skirts swirling round her.

‘I was just going,’ she retorted, tossing the fair locks back. ‘You’ll forgive me, madam, sir.’ She curtsied briefly, and strode towards the door.

It was flung open as she reached it. She recoiled, and another, younger girl entered, and held the door open for a second figure who paused in the opening, gazing at them.

Gil never forgot his first glimpse of Arbella Weir. Slender, finely made, elegantly gowned, with some trick of the light giving her pink-and-white skin and silver-grey silk their own luminosity, she seemed for a moment lit from within. Near her all the women in the room looked gawky, even the graceful Joanna. Even Alys, he thought for a shocked moment. There was no telling her age; from the springy stance she could have been seventeen.

He scrambled to his feet and bowed, aware of Alys beside him making a deep curtsy. The woman in the doorway stepped forward into the chamber, and it became apparent that she was older than she looked at first sight. Vivid, expressive blue eyes under delicate brows held the attention, but silver-white hair showed at her temples below the fashionable French hood, and there were lines in her sweet face as she smiled at her guests.

‘Madam,’ he said, moving hastily to lead her to a seat. She leaned a little on his arm, her steps uneven, and he revised his estimate of her age again. Behind him, Phemie slipped out of the door, and the other girl came to help Joanna, who had finally begun to dispense the contents of the jug.

There was a stilted round of introductions and compliments. The refreshment was handed by the younger girl, who it seemed was Phemie’s sister Bel, a silent lumpy child of fourteen or so with dark hair and watchful blue eyes, and the smooth hands of a spinner. The beakers proved to contain buttered ale, well spiced but not strong. Gil raised his in a toast to Mistress Weir, and she bowed in reply.

‘And is it some errand,’ she prompted, her voice gentle, ‘that brings us the pleasure of your company?’

‘Maister Cunningham’s here about this morning’s disturbance,’ said Beatrice. Gil appreciated the understatement, but Arbella Weir shook her head deprecatingly.

‘A bad business, maister,’ she said, and crossed herself. ‘Our Lady be praised that you were present to argue Beattie’s part. What could ha’ made Davy Fleming take such a notion into his head? He’s aye pleasant wi’ you when he’s up here, Beattie my dear.’

‘Aye, he’s civil enough to me,’ admitted Beatrice drily.

‘And have the two of you rid all this way to ask after my good-daughter?’ Arbella continued. ‘That’s a great kindness.’

‘They’re asking about Thomas as well, Mother,’ said Joanna.

Arbella raised her fine, dark brows. ‘Thomas? Why should Thomas concern you, maister? He’s well enough, I’ll warrant.’

‘If Sir David thinks the corp in the peat is your grieve,’ Alys explained, ‘which was part of his charge against Mistress Lithgo, then to prove him wrong my husband needs to find the man. I think he’s overdue?’