The Posy Ring

by Catherine Czerkawska

  Suddenly, just as she has ended the call and put the phone in her bag, the image of Cal Galbraith pops into her mind and she realises where she has seen him before. Not all that long ago either. How could she have forgotten? Except that she had seen him in a completely different context and back then he was dressed for winter, the encounter brief, albeit striking. She just hadn’t made the connection.

  It had been in Glasgow, well before Christmas: a grey day with a lazy wind that blew straight through you. Funds were low and she had bought far too much stock at auction, so she had chosen to do a sale that was something between an antique fair and a boot sale. The lower end of her market. Sometimes she has bought things here herself, and has even found bargains from time to time: a shapely Swedish glass vase, a piece of art pottery with a vivid blue and green glaze, a long and lovely shepherd’s plaid in black and white wool, buried in a cardboard box beneath a table. ‘Just an old tablecloth, hen,’ the dealer said, accepting a ten-pound note with alacrity, but she knew better. This was a hundred-year-old survival. Maybe even older.

  As a seller, it was very different. The wintry weather and the early rising seemed to have brought out the worst in people. The usually cheerful and friendly Glaswegians seemed surly and uncommunicative. And when the men – it was always scruffy, middle-aged men – crowded around her as she was struggling to unpack her bits and pieces, they felt stifling, faintly menacing and she was aware that her heart was racing.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, get a move on, hen!’ one of them muttered, grabbing a newspaper-wrapped package before she could stop him. It contained a teapot in the shape of a white rabbit. ‘We huvnae got all day! I’ll gie ye 50p for this!’

  She recognised him as another stallholder. She still sees him in the salerooms she frequents: a big man with a face like a ham, fingers like sausages, his belly protruding, even under his winter jacket. He seldom pays much for anything, but he likes to stand at the back and talk loudly about the ‘business’ and about the bargains he has found. He also likes to slag off his customers, whom he appears to loathe.

  She snatched the pot back from him, almost dropping it. ‘Leave that alone!’

  ‘Keep your hair on, hen!’

  That was when a man who had been standing at the back of the crowd trying to see what she had already put out edged his way to the front of the group and turned to face his fellow dealers, blocking their view of the stall.

  ‘Patience, gentlemen!’ he said.

  One of them jeered at him. ‘Get the fuck out of the way, pal!’

  That was when the newcomer’s voice changed suddenly to pure Glasgow. ‘Oh aye? Are you planning to make me, pal?’

  It should have been daft. He wasn’t exactly a muscle man. Even though he was wearing a winter jacket and was muffled in a scarf, he was whip thin, tall and spare. All the same, her first thought back then was that he looked dangerous, as though he could handle himself in a fight. Duck and dive like a boxer. There was a sort of controlled aggression about him in this situation. She thought that he would make a far better friend than an enemy, which was just as well, since he seemed to have decided to play the gentleman.

  ‘Ach, away tae fuck back to your ain stall, Jimmy Johnson,’ he said quite lazily and with a little grin. She was shocked by his language, which seemed at odds with his smart jacket, his shiny shoes. ‘We all ken fine you like to bully folk into giein ye the stuff for nuthin! Especially wee lassies!’ He looked around. ‘Is that no true?’

  Unexpectedly, there were a few nods and murmurs of agreement from the other men.

  ‘You got a stall here the day, Jimmy?’ he asked, switching from intimidating to friendly in an instant.

  ‘Aye, I have.’ Jimmy seemed reluctant to answer but couldn’t help himself.

  ‘And does Big Agnes ken you’re harassing wee lassies?’

  There were a few sniggers from the crowd. Big Agnes was Jimmy’s wife. Daisy sees her in the salerooms to this day. She plonks herself down in the front seat and stays there. It’s always Jimmy who does the bidding. Agnes is the keeper of the purse, though. She’s a formidable woman as only west of Scotland women can be. When she nips out for a fag, she leaves her hat and gloves on the seat and woe betide the unsuspecting punter who moves them.

  One of the spectators said, ‘Christ, your coat’ll be hingin on a shoogly peg if she finds out, Jimmy.’

  The rest of the men guffawed – that loud, ostentatious laughter that only men seem to indulge in.

  The bully spread his hands, backed away. ‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘I was just looking for a bargain.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ The younger man grinned. ‘I’ll be along later. Have a wee word with Agnes. See what you’ve got.’

  Daisy unwrapped a few more of her items, in a hurry to get it done now while there was a human barrier, however tenuous, between her and the more predatory dealers.

  ‘You?’ The bully looked at her saviour with thinly disguised contempt overlying a certain nervousness. There was something about the newcomer that the older man clearly found intimidating. Daisy could understand it, but couldn’t quite put her finger on why it should be the case. ‘I don’t deal in your kind of stuff.’

  ‘Naw. Nae virtuous objects for you, eh, Jimmy?’

  Jimmy looked puzzled, as well he might. But Daisy found herself smiling. Objets de vertu. Who on earth was her scathing knight in shining armour? She didn’t entirely approve of him mocking somebody else’s ignorance, but then, Jimmy was asking for it. Did he belong to one of the city auction houses? Well, he didn’t sound as though he did. Not posh enough. He sounded as though he belonged to Glasgow, with that hard edge to his voice and his gallus manner – that Glasgow word meaning bold, cheeky, flashy even – although there was something else, something softer and more foreign lurking just below the surface. She was intrigued.

  The crowd shuffled off in search of more novelties.

  Her saviour stuck his hands in his pockets and turned away.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It was very kind of you to rescue me.’

  ‘Any time! Though I expect you’d have managed. I just couldn’t resist the chance to piss him off. He’s such an arse though, isn’t he? All mouth and nae trousers. I’d best be on my way, hen. He’s right. All the good stuff goes early. Just that you don’t have to bully folk to get it!’

  He gave her a brief wave and headed off into the crowd. That was that. She had thought him attractive and she still does. Briefly, she had even fantasised about him coming back, bringing coffee and doughnuts from one of the stalls that sold supplies to hungry dealers and visitors. But of course he hadn’t come back. Why would he, she thought, when she was in shabby winter clothes, her hair scraped back, her skin pallid from the early start and a cold sore just starting on her lip. She had never seen him again until earlier today, at Auchenblae. Cal Galbraith. Antique dealer and unlikely boot sale hero.

  NINE

  1588

  The ship was a single-masted birlinn or galley, built of oak, Mateo judged, although he had seen nothing quite like it before, and wasn’t entirely sure that he trusted it to take them safely to another country, no matter how close that country might seem. It looked like a vessel from another age to his eyes. But what choice did they have? The galley was small and turned out to be highly manoeuvrable, with oars as well as sails. Her captain, Alistair McAllister, spoke Gaelic to his crew, but summoned enough of the Scots tongue, with even the odd Spanish word picked up from God knows what encounter, for the benefit of his passengers. He answered Mateo’s questions about the vessel, how she was rigged, how she sailed, and this proved reassuring, not least in that Mateo found he could understand him and make himself understood in return. It seemed that McAllister was a competent seaman with a healthy respect for the waters between Ireland and Scotland. Moreover, his crew obeyed him instantly and without demur, which spoke well of his seamanship a
nd his authority.

  ‘Few people on the island of Garbh speak anything but Gaelic,’ he warned Mateo, ‘although Ruaridh McNeill, the laird, can converse easily enough in Scots. His sons and daughters too. The laird’s wife, Bláithín McGugan, came from the isle of Islay, but she died some years ago. There’s a grown-up, unmarried daughter living at home, and another much younger daughter, Ishbel. It was her birth that caused the death of her mother.’

  ‘And the whole island is his?’

  ‘Aye. He’s their chief. There’s an older son, Kenneth, away in St Andrews for his education.’ McAllister said this with a slight sneer. ‘And another son, Malcolm. He’s been fostered with the chief of Clan Darroch, on Jura.’

  ‘Fostered?’

  ‘Aye. It’s the custom of this country. To send a son into the household of another man. McNeill has never seen fit to marry again, although it was expected. Most men do. Women too for that matter, if they’re widowed. But the elder of the two daughters is of an age where she can run the household well enough, and until she finds herself a husband, perhaps McNeill has seen no need to encumber himself with a wife. Ruaridh is one of those men who ca canny!’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Mateo didn’t understand.

  McAllister frowned. ‘He trims his sails to the prevailing winds.’ He gestured at the rigging.

  ‘Ah. I see,’ said Mateo, thinking that this was something he and his shipmates had certainly not done.

  ‘He’s a wise man. And of course he’s not without resources, having many men at his beck and call, tacksmen and tenants, and enough cattle with decent grazing so that they needn’t go hungry.’

  All of this McAllister ventured in the course of the voyage, but as they came closer to the island, he fell silent and seemed anxious only to be rid of his illicit cargo. They approached the island from the south-west but it was clear that they were heading for the more sheltered east coast of Eilean Garbh, where what McAllister called the ‘big house’ was situated.

  ‘Achadh nam Blàth is its name,’ he told them. ‘There are other good houses on the island, especially to the south, but none to match this one. It means field of flooers in the Scots tongue. But you will see few signs of any blooms there today.’

  Mateo had seen no flowers as they approached the island, although some small trees – most of them leafless now – seemed to be grouped around the house, sheltering it as far as possible from the prevailing winds. Perhaps there had been a deliberate planting. A naked hillock rose above the building to the south with a ragged, wind-ravaged copse atop, but he could not name the trees. On either side of the house, the land – what he could see of it through the encroaching mist – rose and fell, long and hilly, like some mysterious hump-backed animal. He could just make out low houses with thatched roofs, crouched in the shelter of the hills, with a drift of smoke hanging over them and over the big house too. So there might be fires and warmth. He had a sudden sharp pang of sadness that threatened to unman him. He was sick for his home. Longed to be elsewhere, where the sun shone, and the flowers bloomed all year round. What were they doing here? Why had they ever come? He gave himself a shake. This would not do. He and his ability to barter, to persuade, might be all that stood between a humiliating death for himself and Paco. And having come so far, he had best do whatever he could to save them.

  ‘What do you think will happen?’ asked Paco, at his elbow. ‘It doesn’t look like a very hospitable place, cousin.’

  ‘No. It does not. But it’s our best hope of escape. And the house seems civilized enough. Or so the captain seems to think.’

  ‘Do you have the letter from the priest? Do you have it safe, Mateo?’

  Mateo reached inside his jerkin, not for the first time. The gold was all gone. The fee had been paid before they left. McAllister had insisted on it. While they were lying low in the galley, Father Brendan had come to the harbour bringing a hastily written note on a scrap of thin paper, harvested from the beginning or end of a book. This must have been a great sacrifice, since books were just as scarce as paper in these parts. The priest had sealed it with wax and a signet bearing a crude image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They would just have to trust to his good will as far as the contents of the note were concerned.

  ‘This is by way of introduction and a brief explanation,’ Father Brendan had said when he handed them the note. ‘I am not at all certain that McNeill has any skill at reading and writing. So many of these island chieftains see fit to employ a scribe to write for them. But I’m told that the elder of the two lassies may have learned her letters from her mother before she died, so perhaps she fulfils that role. You must just trust to luck. I’ll pray for you.’

  ‘I have the letter, safe and sound,’ he said to Francisco.

  ‘You don’t think he has betrayed us, do you?’

  ‘No.’ But Mateo spoke with a confidence he did not quite feel. ‘No, I think he’s a good man. Although whether his letter will make any difference, I can’t say. He spoke nothing but the truth. We have no resources except our own wits. We must trust to luck, and hope that his prayers are answered.’

  *

  Some little while later, that is precisely what they were doing: trusting to luck and the prayers of an Irish priest. Their unexpected arrival had been noted and almost immediately, a party of burly islandmen, bristling with weapons, came hurrying down to the shore to greet them. They were wrapped in woollen plaids, their dun and grey blending with the landscape. McAllister had given him the right word for the garment that seemed to serve as a cloak, body covering and blanket all in one. For a brief moment, Mateo thought that they were about to be slain, as their companions had been slain on sight, in the west of Ireland. He saw Francisco’s face grow even paler if that were possible and found himself reaching for his dagger. But the men only surrounded them and by brusque gestures and a certain amount of jostling, encouraged them to walk towards the house. The Spaniards were in no position to object. The men were not gentle and their speed was too much for the ailing younger lad, who stumbled and fell. One of the men picked him up by the scruff of the neck, none too gently.

  ‘We’ll hae tae oxter him!’ he said, cryptically, and when Mateo only spread his hands and shrugged, he summoned the assistance of a colleague and, with hands under his elbows, more or less carried him, his feet dragging along the ground. It was humiliating, thought Mateo, but there was no other way his cousin could have finished the journey and he himself was too weak to help.

  The contrast between the chilly exterior of the house and the extreme warmth of the interior was marked. A blast of welcome heat came from an enormous fire of peat and spitting, blue-flamed driftwood at one end of a great hall. There were cooking pots and from one of them a savoury smell filtered into the room. The fireplace housed various cooking implements, including a flat black pan, from which an elderly woman was carefully removing cakes with a wooden paddle. The scent of toasted oatmeal was added to whatever was emanating from the pot. In an instant, the sickness evaporated and Mateo realised that he was ravenously hungry.

  The sudden access of heat made their heads spin, and Francisco clutched at his arm to steady himself. A tall man with long red hair, shot through with grey, rose to his feet from a heavily carved chair beside the fire and stared at them with mingled hostility and curiosity. He was dressed in a short saffron-dyed linen shirt (why are they so fond of this colour? Mateo thought) with a short jacket over it, woollen trews and hose.

  ‘Well, well, well. This is a rare occurrence on Eilean Garbh,’ he said in Scots, with a peculiarly mirthless grin, like an animal showing its teeth in threat. ‘What brings two such ragged strangers, interlowpers, unbidden and uninvited to my island?’

  Noting the stress on the word ‘my’, Mateo managed to summon a bow and brought Francisco with him, only because he was holding him so close. It struck him that he didn’t know the customs of this country at all. Any gesture the
y made might be open to misinterpretation.

  ‘Sir, I’m happy to meet you. Am I right in thinking that you are Ruaridh McNeill, Chief of Garbh?’

  ‘You have the advantage of me. You know my name. I don’t ken yours.’

  ‘We’re cousins: Mateo and Francisco de Tegueste of the town of San Cristobal de la Laguna, on the island of Tenerife.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Far south of here. A great distance. Some call them the Fortunate Isles.’

  ‘Do they indeed? Why so? They don’t seem to have been very fortunate for you, lad.’

  ‘The sun shines there all year round. There are flowers and many fruits.’ He stopped. ‘But you’re right. We should not have left. We had a long voyage and many adventures along the way.’

  ‘I imagine so. A long voyage and a very foolish misadventure, from what I hear. And what brings you to my island?’ His lips twisted in a grimace. ‘But I ken fine what brings you here.’

  ‘Sir, we have a letter. May I?’ He gestured to the breast of his jerkin, afraid that the man would think he had a weapon concealed there. Which he did. But he would rather not think of using it.

  ‘A letter?’ McNeill held out a big, gnarled hand, impatiently. ‘Let me see.’

  Mateo handed the precious missive over. ‘There was a priest. Father Brendan. He helped us. Found us passage to your island with a man called McAllister.’

  ‘Alistair? Aye. I saw his galley. He deposited you upon my shore and hightailed it out of here as fast as his oarsmen could carry him. I ken Alistair McAllister well enough. He wouldn’t do you a bad turn, although I’d wager he charged you dear for whatever favour he was persuaded to do for you.’