The Royal Burgh

by Veerapen, Steven

  ‘Oh. Listen, Louisa. I’ve no wish to use you, uh, immoderately.’

  ‘But you’ve paid. You may do as you desire.’ She started to unbutton her gown.

  ‘My desire is to know a little more of you.’ Martin clasped her wrists and lowered them.

  ‘And so you may,’ she sighed, shaking his grip and crossing to the bed.

  ‘No. I mean of your mind. Tell me, would you not like to leave this dump?’

  ‘Leave? Why the hell should I leave? Where should I go? All the world’s the same.’

  ‘The world can be a hard place, I’ll give you that. Yet it’s wide, wider than that great ox Sneddon back there.’ She gave him a wan smile. It was not quite big or as warm as he had hoped for. Generally, he found that making cutting comments about people drew laughter from others, and that was a pleasant thing to get, even if doing it was questionable. ‘Is there nothing in this world you’d like to see? Outside of here?’

  ‘See?’ Her little brow wrinkled in concentration. Martin could see that the afternoon was not going how she expected it. Probably men who visited her never asked her anything much about herself, nor would she have been inclined to engage them in conversation. ‘I think,’ she said at length, ‘that perhaps I’d like to see the sea. The great ocean.’

  ‘Would you, Louisa?’

  ‘Aye. I would that. Not, like, to be adrift on it on a boat, but to see and to smell it. It’s said to be a good sight, like the Forth, but with no other side to it, no end beyond. It just goes on.’

  ‘The sea’s a great thing indeed.’

  ‘You’ve seen it?’ Interest flickered.

  ‘Indeed. I’m in the employ of Cardinal Beaton. I was with his Grace in France the summer last.’ Odd that he wanted to impress her. ‘Is that your hope, Louisa, to go abroad?’

  She shook her head, the straw shaking. ‘No, I wouldn’t like to be all adrift, as I said, sir. But I’d like to live out of a burgh, out of the stink and the toil. To live alone by the great sea, where no one talks to me or asks anything of me.’

  ‘Then one day you might.’

  ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘It’s just a lot of foolishness. I might as well hope to take dinner with the queen. You’re cruel, not a nice man, to talk about hope like this. It’s cruel sport to make a person look at what won’t ever be.’ Martin sat next to her on the bed. The hard boards of the frame could be felt through the mattress.

  ‘Then take this by reason of apology.’ Martin handed some more money over. Fear and greed played across her face.

  ‘I can’t do that. Not allowed. You’ve paid, and all monies go to Mr McGuire and Mistress Sneddon.’

  ‘Hush – take it.’

  ‘No, sir. I’ve nowhere it might be hidden. And I’m not dishonest. I’m not some lying whore.’ Reluctantly, Martin replaced the money in his purse, and the purse within his cloak. He took a deep breath. The smell in the room was not as strong as it was in the passage. Rather than cloying sweetness, he inhaled the scent of unwashed skin and old cloth.

  ‘Please, Louisa, I know you won’t take my coin, and since I don’t wish to ill-handle you, might you speak freely with me?’

  ‘As my conscious allows, sir.’

  ‘Call me Arnaud.’

  ‘That’s a strange name. It’s not Scottish.’

  ‘It’s French, as was my father.’

  ‘From across the sea.’

  ‘That’s right. Just so. You said that a Doctor McKenzie resided in this house.’

  ‘So he does, sir.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper, her eyes moving to the closed door.

  ‘And so he’s here now, in one of the rooms out there?’

  ‘Yes, sir – Arnaud.’ She mispronounced his name, stressing the syllables oddly. She began to look downwards, her hands playing with the material of her dress. She scrunched it up, then smoothed it out, then repeated the process. ‘He’s a bad man.’

  ‘How so, bad?’ He leaned in close, his face almost touching hers, but she would not meet him.

  ‘He … drinks too much. And then he comes here, full of fury.’

  ‘I wonder at that rake McGuire and his sow allowing it.’

  ‘He pays,’ she explained. ‘He has money, it’s not all gone yet. Though I hope he’ll make an end of it soon, and then he’ll be cast out. You need money here.’

  ‘What does he do, in his fury?’

  ‘He rages, mostly, against every bad thing he says has been done to him. It’s better when he’s just full of angry shouting. Then he’ll just shout himself hoarse and fall asleep. When he sobers, though, he does mischief with the girls here. He … he turns violent hands on us.’

  ‘Has he done this to you?’ Cold anger simmered in Martin’s voice. He would not tolerate any man doing violence against a defenceless young woman. Louisa shook her head.

  ‘No, sir, he’s not concerned with me. He raises his hands against the older girls when they displease him. The women, I should say, for they’re not much younger than Mistress Sneddon. They’re his special favourites. He likes … to hurt the older women.’

  Martin stood up, his legs quaking. ‘In which room lies McKenzie?’

  ‘In the first room, sir, after the hall. You’re not going to say anything, or do anything, are you?’ Her body stiffened. ‘I’ll get it if you do. I should’ve held my tongue. Please, Arnaud. Please be silent, please let him alone. I’ll do anything you want.’

  Martin stood between Louisa and the doorway, his face stricken, moved by her appeal and yet aching to smash his way into the first bedchamber, bringing the type of fear into McKenzie’s face that he must have brought into the women he abused: the type of fear that he must have brought into his sister, Christian, as he cut into her and killed her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Louisa.’ His voice was dry, rustling like an autumn leaf in a gutter. ‘I must see him.’

  ‘You liar! Cheat! Bastard!’ He pulled the door closed on her anger, shutting his eyes as he did so. He padded towards back towards the front of the building, past a door and on to the next: the one before the hall. Lust-filled eyes followed his passage, staring down from the murals and papers. Something nudged at the periphery of his consciousness. What was disturbing, he supposed, was that the painting and drawings were more than just tawdry attempts to stimulate the erotic mind. They were like obscene parodies of a religious house, or even a royal one. Holy paintings and tapestries usually fired the soul in outer rooms of monasteries and churches. He’d seen plenty of those. Great dynastic portraits cowed those approaching the presence of monarchs. These, though, were a twisted inversion. He’d been foolish to rush in. Yet he had done so and must see it through. God help me, he thought, I am thinking like old Danforth. He tried to push all thoughts from his mind.

  He put a hand on the handle of the door of McKenzie’s chamber. Again, he closed his eyes, his other hand reaching for his dirk. He did not want to pause and think, knowing he had made promises, assuring himself vaguely that he meant only to frighten and then laugh at the creature beyond the door.

  ‘What in hell’s name do you think you’re doing, you daft wee rogue?’ Marjorie Sneddon had come into the passage, one hand on a padded hip. ‘Whatever it might be, I’d advise you think on it again, lad. One whisper of strangeness here and I’ll rip off your codpiece. You’ve been too short a time to do it yourself.’

  ‘What the hell is this?’ McGuire had come into the passage behind her and stood on tiptoes to see over her shoulder. ‘He’s done wi’ the girl?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Sneddon. ‘He’s done, to be sure.’

  ‘That was quick, lad. Your misfortune. You’ll learn.’

  ‘Wheesht,’ cried a thick voice, muffled by the door. ‘You damned curs! Cannot a man sleep in his wench’s arms in peace?’ Hairs rose on the back of Martin’s neck at the sound of what could only be John McKenzie’s voice. Looking between the door and his hostess, he made an effort to recover good humour.

  ‘I haven’t the rude health of this fellow, it s
eems. But …’ He was unsure how to continue.

  ‘But us no buts.’ Sneddon silenced him with a warning look. ‘I don’t know what you’re after, boy, or what your game is, but you’ve had your time with the lass and there’s an end to it. Go away from here.’

  Defeated, Martin hung his head and stepped away from McKenzie’s door. Again the man had seemed within his reach, within the limits of a satisfying revenge, and interruption had prevented it. He pushed past Marjorie Sneddon, who flattened her back against the wall. McGuire clawed at a thin beard, his eyes passing between his madam and Martin, as though unsure what precisely he had missed.

  As he passed blinking into the dull daylight, Martin wondered if the failure of his attempts to confront John McKenzie were not some kind of intervention. God might be saving the man for some greater judgement, as Danforth had suggested. His attempts might be no more than a flea biting at rat when a great, angry lion waited patiently to pounce on it. It wouldn’t do to be the flea if that were the case.

  11

  Danforth called up, outraged and relieved, when Martin’s ashen face appeared out of the door of the stew. ‘What spirit of madness possessed you, sir, to go into such a place? Come down here at once and face me.’

  He had walked up and down the alley nonstop since Martin had disappeared, muttering curses to himself and shaking his head, looking for all the world like a madman. Several others had come into the street, looked at him oddly, and turned away, either back towards St Mary’s Wynd itself, or into Sharp’s inn. One visitor had even been dressed in the grey robes of a Franciscan monk. Startled at the sight of Danforth pacing wildly, he had turned red and hurried out of the area. Obviously, thought Danforth, he was some almoner from the Greyfriars come to give succour to the poor of the burgh. He would have welcomed speaking to the man, if only he had not been so surprised and shame-faced.

  Martin clambered down the stairs, one hand against the wall. His face betrayed nervous, excitable energy, which appeared to Danforth to be mercifully unfulfilled. ‘I’m sorry, Simon. I couldn’t stop myself. I was there, I heard his voice, he was in there, I was that close to him, Simon, I could have killed him, but –’ His voice was breathless.

  ‘And I left to wonder at what might become of you, at what trouble you might bring down upon our heads. I had to stifle the urge to kick out and smash something in my anger.’

  ‘Then,’ said Martin, his voice calming down, ‘you are a true Scotsman at last.’

  The tension drained, and Danforth’s rage blew itself out. Shaking his head in as great a display of disapproving peevishness as he could, he turned to the stable. ‘I trust that you did not molest that McKenzie? That you did nothing that will bring further disgrace upon us and … upon us?’

  ‘No, Simon. He lies in his bed still, unbroken save in spirit, I hope.’

  ‘And there might we now make an end to it? When his Grace is free, he might have some measure of interest in bringing charges against a man whom we can now avow to be guilty of crimes spiritual. Let us go home. There might yet be something left for us to eat. I confess I am hungry.’

  ‘Yes, let’s go. Let’s get out of here.’ Martin’s voice was still excitable. He needed to be talking. ‘But what a place that was.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Danforth, instantly attempting the adopt the guise of an urbane, older gentleman, uninterested in the scandalous affairs of the world because he had seen and grown bored with them long since. ‘Such knowledge as is badly come by shall do you no favours hereafter.’

  ‘That Louisa lassie, she’d take no help from me. She’s broken, defeated.’

  ‘Then more fool her.’

  ‘She hopes to live by the sea.’

  ‘Better she were in it, where maidens of her ilk are said to dwell.’

  ‘And the walls, Simon, the figures that are painted there. I can’t imagine waking each day to see stuff like that.’

  ‘As the great whoremaster, Henry of England, seeks to baptise all nations in his own false Church, so too do such stews seek to invert and pervert the decorations of true houses.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Yes, I am sure,’ said Danforth, allowing himself the pleasure of sarcasm as he stepped carefully around the mulch of the stable. Martin waited outside it.

  ‘Well, maybe not so poetic. Despite your great age, Simon, you’re not the only man in the world whose mind turns. Anyway,’ he hurried on, ‘the place was governed by a fat old woman and a crabbit old man, collecting monies as though he were just an honest tradesman. And that rat McKenzie uses violence against the women of the place: well, not Louisa, to be sure, but the elders. About the walls there are papers, Simon, showing all manner of unnatural acts, like the lustful–’

  ‘Arnaud, I do not–’

  Danforth froze.

  ‘What is it? Did I say something?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Danforth, with no trace of levity. ‘Yes, you did.’

  He replaced Woebegone’s reins on the low hitching post from which he had only just taken them. ‘What ails you?’ asked Martin. ‘You look sick, all of a sudden.’

  ‘I am, Mr Martin. It seems I must go into the Temple of Venus Erycina myself.’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘I do not wish you to. Not just yet. It is mere suspicion.’

  Danforth stomped straight through the filth and out of the stable, his face set. He made for the stairs up to the stew, taking them heavily. Martin followed. Danforth beat on the door with his forearm, pulling his cap low over his face with his left hand. Eventually his tattoo was answered by Marjorie Sneddon, her broad face thunderous.

  ‘No need, sir, no need.’ Her bulbous eyes measured up her guest. ‘You’re no’ some man of the law? This is a private home.’

  ‘I am no baillie, no burgess of the town.’ He could not bring himself to call her “mistress”. ‘Yet I would come into this place.’

  ‘You would, would you? In this house you pay first.’ She cast a disapproving eye down to his boots.

  ‘You are the owner?’

  ‘McGuire’s within.’ Danforth considered pushing past her, into the stifling heat and overpowering scent. He wondered if he would have the strength to do so, or if she might knock him from the steps with one arm. Before he could speak further, Sneddon spotted Martin, who had come up the stairs at his back.

  ‘You again? Lad, if you didn’t get the worth of your money the first time then that’s only too bad. If you come to make trouble with a friend, that’s worse. Set foot in this house again and you both pay double for proof against trouble.’

  ‘You’re turned poet,’ smiled Martin. ‘There’s a lot of that about.’ Danforth glared at him.

  ‘I say you pay again, and double, whether you took your pleasure last time or not.’

  ‘Then,’ said Danforth, ‘you must allow us passage.’ Sneddon said nothing for a few beats, weighing them up. Then she stepped backwards, beckoning them in. She stayed in the passage, just beyond the open door. As soon as Danforth’s eyes adjusted, they fell immediately upon the walls. Opposite the door to the hall, a crudely limned approximation of Priapus grinned from a wooded glade.

  ‘What is this, mistress, custom?’ McGuire’s head popped out of the doorway. ‘The wee man’s brought a friend? This is a private house, sir, belonging to my wife and myself. If you’re gentlemen of the law, we’ve nothing to say. This house is protected by a greater master and you’d be fools to meddle. If you’re come to amuse yourselves, you must pay double.’

  ‘I’ve said to them,’ said Sneddon, receiving a withering look in return.

  ‘I am here only to look upon your gallery,’ said Danforth.

  ‘Still you pay to enter this house. Christ, I should have a bloody sign painted saying that.’ McGuire’s tone would brook no argument. Grumbling under his breath, Danforth reached into his cloak, extracted his purse, and found the smallest coins he had. He had spent little since coming to Stirling, but he had no wish to let th
e whoremaster and grotesque creature he called a wife know that, and still less to profit by it. He whipped the coins into the hall, sending a cursing McGuire back inside. ‘There. Your payment in full, and all you shall have by me.’

  Marjorie Sneddon said nothing. Her bearing was proud, almost stately. As her chest rose and fell, the candlelight played upon the old, cheaply-dyed material, turning it various shades of rose. Danforth took a step towards her, but she neither flinched nor blinked. Turning to the walls, he put a finger to his lips in a speculative gesture. ‘You have had some artist here?’ The paint was faded. ‘Some long time since, I should think.’

  ‘McGuire and I set to work here, sir, long ago. What’s it to you?’

  ‘A strange manner of work.’ The images were poor, but bold, bearing little resemblance to either real humans or imaginary gods. Like the works of the poor artists of centuries before, they were flat. Sneddon said nothing. Danforth reached out to one of the papers Martin had spoken of, nailed to the wall. It showed a smiling woman, her hair covering her nakedness, reaching out to caress a naked man, like a lascivious Adam and Eve. The woman wore a little coronet.

  With a flick of his wrist, Danforth tore down the drawing. ‘Hawl, what are you all about’ Sneddon screeched, lumbering forwards. ‘Don’t you come in here and tear down our stuff.’

  ‘Such images as these are the only ones I seek,’ said Danforth, wobbling a little. The stupid oaf had made him sound like one of the schismatic men, angry at wholesome, holy pictures. ‘From where did this come? Where is its origin?’

  ‘I don’t know. The continent somewhere.’

  ‘Ah. You trade in these things?’

  ‘We might.’ Her face turned sly. ‘You’re looking to buy then, are you? No need for false outrage, sir. If you’ve money, you might trade. We’re grown people here.’

  Danforth let Adam and Eve begin a meandering journey to the carpeted floor. Sneddon’s eyes followed them, but she did not move. ‘And so you sell such trifles to men with little wit. How marvellous.’

  ‘If you think that then you’re the one wi’ little wit, sir.’