A Chorus of Innocents

by P. F. Chisholm

  It had been a delightful evening, a pleasant interlude and afterwards she had realised that she loved the man because she dreamed a lewd dream of him and woke flushed and excited in the cold early morning with Sir Henry snoring beside her. In the dregs of the dream, Robin had kissed her gently and then faded as she realised they were both mother-naked.

  Eight years gone. Eight years. Jesu.

  She sat up carefully and rubbed her face, carefully felt the side of her head that still had bandages on it. It hurt but not too badly and her legs and crotch hurt, too, but she was used to bruises. She really wanted to get back to Poppy and find out what was going on there but she felt she couldn’t leave while the killers of Jamie were at large and coming into the manse. What if they came when Poppy was there or tracked her down to Widdrington?

  She found a mug of ale put beside the bed, sniffed it and found it had laudanum in it, which she didn’t like. She got up and reached under the bed for the jordan and her hand brushed homespun wool and a bony leg. She pulled back with a cry and backed off, found a rushlight holder and grabbed it as the nearest thing to a weapon.

  There was a squawk from under the bed as well and a head poked out from under, a thin little face with swollen red eyes.

  “Jimmy Tait!” she snapped. “What the devil are you doing under my bed?”

  “I’m sorry, missus, I’m sorry…” sniffled Jimmy, “I wanted to get awa’ from the minister’s ghost and ye said ye hadn’t seen him and I thocht ye might be safer…”

  She put the rushlight holder down and clasped her hand over her heart which was drumming like a maying drum.

  “Jesu,” she said, sitting down on the bed and fighting a wall of dizziness that came out of nowhere, “when did you get in there?”

  “Och, last night, I crep’ up the stairs last night.”

  “When?”

  There was panic on the bony face. “I didna do naught, missus, I didna, I only crep’ up the stairs while ye were busy in the kitchen…”

  “While Mr Anricks was treating my head?”

  “Ay.”

  “And what were you doing here last night anyway? Why weren’t you at home in bed?”

  For an answer the child started a steady ugly snivelling, with a great deal of snot.

  The dizziness had passed again and Elizabeth advanced on the boy where he sat like a little frog by the bed with his face in his hands. She picked him up, feeling his cold hands and feet which were bare of his brother’s clogs again. He weighed hardly anything, nothing like the sturdy lads that Young Henry and Roger had been when they were a similar age.

  God knew what kind of passengers he had in his clothes, but there was no help for it; she had to know what was wrong with him. She wrapped the deer hide round the boy and gave him her ale with the laudanum in it.

  “Are you hungry, Jimmy?” she asked and he nodded. “Can ye bide there a while and I’ll get you something to eat.” He nodded again but the tears kept coming.

  She pulled her velvet gown on again over her shift and went down in her bare feet as she had no slippers. The house seemed empty, no sign of Kat or Lady Hume either. Perhaps they had gone back to the castle. Looking out the windows the village had gone back to its sleepy emptiness with most of the men busy with plowing or up in the hills with the stock, some of the women working in their gardens or in their houses.

  In the kitchen she found the remains of the calf—really fit only for soup—and about half a roast sheep. She cut some collops off, found the range fire had been allowed to go out, and went back upstairs with a trencher of wood and a stale pennyloaf.

  She had to go back for seconds about ten minutes later as Jimmy wolfed his way steadily through the food and drank the ale. Elizabeth had found a half barrel of mild ale that hadn’t gone off yet and tapped it for herself.

  At last Jimmy stopped chewing and gulping and burped.

  “Thank ’ee missus,” he said. “Ah’ll be going now…”

  “There’s no hurry, Jimmy,” she said, “unless your father’s waiting for you?” A firm shake of the head. “Well then, bide here and keep me company.”

  She got back in the bed with her gown on, and pulled the sheets and blankets round her.

  “I’ve decided to go back to Berwick tomorrow not today,” she explained to Jimmy. “My head’s still sore and I keep feeling dizzy. So I’m staying in bed today but it’s lonely.” It wasn’t; she liked being on her own and she could have gone down and borrowed a book as well and risked being found reading it.

  “Will I sing to ye, missus? Me mam likes it.”

  “Yes please, Jimmy. Can you sing me a ballad?”

  He could. He opened his mouth unselfconsciously and sang her all of Tam Lin with both the tunes—quite an achievement for a lad of his age—and then a couple of the psalms. His voice was high, sweet and as true as a bell, silver to Robin’s bronze, now she thought of it. Robin too had a marvellous voice but she thought this boy’s voice was better. It was so pure she felt a thrill down her back at it, that something as clean and clear could exist in the fallen world.

  “My dear,” she said, “that’s wonderful. You have a gift from God there.”

  He ducked his head awkwardly. “Thank ’ee missus.”

  “I expect the minister liked it too?”

  “Ay,” piped the boy. “He said the same, a gift from God too. His eyes were watering, I remember.”

  They may well have done, Elizabeth thought, at finding something so beautiful and fragile in the ugly mud and blood of the Borders.

  “Are ye truly no’ afeared of the minister’s ghost?”

  “No,” she said, “I’m not. He was a good man in his life, wasn’t he?”

  “Ay, missus, he was. He gave me food sometimes like you, he gave me a bun once and he taught me to read singing as well as letters, said my voice might get me into Carlisle Cathedral choir if I worked hard.”

  “Now did he?”

  “Ay missus, he did. He wanted me to grow a little and then he said he might take me there hisself if my father was agreeable and ’prentice me to the choir. Is it true they do that, missus? That ye can get your living by singing?”

  “Yes, it is. What a splendid idea!” Elizabeth’s mind was instantly onto the possible solution to Jimmy Tait. Could she take him to Carlisle herself and perhaps meet Robin…? No, she couldn’t. It was a lovely idea but Sir Henry would instantly see through it and give her another beating. That no longer worried her the way it had, though she was afraid of it, of course. But in fact to do something like that would be dishonourable. And what would be the point of her torturing herself by getting nearer to Robin when she couldn’t have him?

  She sighed. In any case, she could surely find someone to take the lad to Carlisle, Young Henry for example. There was no need to go herself.

  Suddenly the child had jacknifed over and was crying again. “That’s why…that’s why…” he was saying, “…that’s why I’m so sad, missus…He…he…”

  She stroked his nitty hair and let him cry.

  “Listen to me, Jimmy, the minister was a good man, wasn’t he? Would he ever have done you any harm while he was alive?” She waited until she got a watery shake of the head. “Well then, why do you think he would harm you when he was dead, even if he hadn’t already gone to Judgement?”

  For answer she got more tears and finally she understood something.

  “Did you do something you think might make him angry?” she asked. “Did you, Jimmy?”

  His thin face had snot teeming down it as well as tears and dirt but she saw the tiny nod.

  “What was it?”

  The voice was almost too small to hear. She thought it was something about horses.

  “Whose horses did you guard?”

  “Them!” cried Jimmy, “The murderers. Ah wis set to it by my father, and I didna thin
k any harm to it, he said they wis just coming to ask the minister nicely for something and I stayed by the horses in the wood and after a bit they come back and they gave me a Scotch shilling for the work and rode off and I didna ken till the next day what they’d done. I didna ken.”

  “Did you know the men? Had you ever seen them before?”

  “Nay missus, they wis strangers, naebody fra the village nor the castle. I never seen ’em in my life and they wis muffled up too.”

  “How did they sound? Were they Scots?”

  “I dinna ken. They didna say much. Mebbe not.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Och they wis big and the older one had some grey in his beard and the younger one smiled at me and that’s all I can tell ye, missus. I often look after strangers’ horses for me dad.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Ay. Or pack ponies.”

  Smuggling probably, thought Elizabeth.

  “Do you think you might know them again if you saw them?”

  “Ay missus, I think so.” He started crying again, “If I hadnae looked after their horses…Och, the minister wad still be here and we’d be learning us oor lessons and…”

  “Now Jimmy, I want you to stop thinking that way.” Elizabeth paused “You didn’t know when you looked after their horses that they were going to kill the minister, did you?”

  “No, missus. Ah thocht it was just business, ye ken.”

  “Quite so. You couldn’t have known that they were going to do anything of the sort and even if you had known, what could you have done about it?”

  “I could ha’ shouted, or run ahead and warned him? He didna wear a sword but I heard tell fra my dad he was a bonny fighter once the day.”

  “Of course you could, if you’d known. If you’d known you’d have done that, wouldn’t you?”

  “O’ course I would and got my friends to come and they’d have all come running and we could have stood between the minister and the murderers and…”

  “And probably Jimmy, they’d have knocked you aside and done it anyway. You’d have done that if you’d known what they were about but you didn’t know. So it isn’t your fault at all. It’s the fault of the men that did the killing.”

  “Mebbe I could have guessed?”

  “How? How could you have guessed? Did they say anything like, now we’re going to kill Minister Burn by chopping his head in two?”

  “No. They wis arguing about somebody called Bessie and whether her steak and kidney pie or her chicken pie was the best.”

  “There you are. How could you have guessed from that?” Though it was interesting and backed up the idea they had come from the West March.

  He was staring at the rucked up deerskin. “No, I couldn’t.”

  “Ye could not.”

  “But mebbe his ghost will come after me anyway.”

  Elizabeth paused a moment to think and took a deep breath. What she was saying was probably heresy, but she needed to stop the child crying. He was a witness, she needed him able to think and speak. “If there are ghosts then they’re the spirit of the dead person, aren’t they?”

  He clutched the deerskin round himself tighter and nodded. He had deep circles round his eyes as well, poor lad.

  “And do you know what a spirit is?” He shook his head. “A spirit is the soul of the person, the deepest part, the part that goes to God. Yes?” A small nod. “Now is your soul better or worse than the rest of you?”

  “It’s better, I think, missus.”

  “I think so, too. So even if the minister had been a bad man and full of sin, his soul would be the best part of him. But he was a good man with no more sin than most of us so his soul will be better still, yes?” Another tiny nod. “So his soul would never hurt you, Jimmy nor even frighten you. He’s gone to God anyway.”

  “I dreamed of him.”

  Elizabeth tried not to sigh. “What did you dream?”

  “I don’t know. I just saw him in my dream and tried to run away.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “I couldn’t hear it so I ran. And then I got stuck in a bog in the middle of the study.”

  “Well Jimmy, perhaps he was trying to tell you it was all right and he wasn’t angry? Did you think of that?” A tiny shake of the head. “Perhaps if he comes back he’ll just say, ‘Jimmy, I loved yer singing at my funeral. Thanks lad.’ Do you think?”

  At last a tiny smile. “Mebbe.”

  “Can you think of anything else they said, no matter how little? Can ye tell me from the start, what happened.”

  “Well I wis milking the goats because I was late home from the minister and they were making a noise and carrying on and I was milking them and my dad sent Young Jock to me to say he had a job for me and Young Jock would finish the goats. So I run to my dad and he says I’m to go to the steward’s copse and I’d find some horses there and I’m tae look after them till their owners come, which was two business friends of his and I done it before and so I…”

  “Why were you late home?”

  “Och, me and Archie were watching some slugs to see if they turn into birds but they didna and so we stamped on them. So I went to the copse and there were four nice horses there, wi’ different brands on ’em, two one brand, two the other. I gave ’em some horse nuts my dad sent with me and gave ’em all a rub down and then I waited wi’ them. And then the men come back and one was older, I remember that, didn’t know them, I’d never seen ’em before in my life…”

  “Would ye know them if you saw them again?”

  Jimmy nodded slowly, his black circled eyes enormous. “Ay,” he said, “that’d help the minister to rest, wouldn’t it? If he saw the murderers hang?”

  “I’m certain it would,” said Elizabeth, still heretical.

  “So they wis arguing about Bessie and which pie wis better and one was laughing and saying the little wifey wad remember him too and the other one…”

  “Which was that? Who said that about Mrs Burn?”

  “The younger one, with black hair, and the older one said, ay, ye were lucky again,”

  “Again!”

  “Ay, and then they said they’d be going and the younger one giv me a Scotch shilling…”

  “Did you keep it?”

  “No, I gave it to me dad and he said it was forged but he might get someone to take it.”

  “And the men went away?”

  “Ay, and I took the Graham horses all the way South to where they told me. Nice horses they were too, though one had thrown a shoe.”

  “The men asked you to do that?”

  “Ay, the older one, he said, the shilling is for you to take the horses down to the Border and not tell anyone, so I took ’em nearly all the way and give ’em to a horse trader named Tully.”

  “One was grey and one was chestnut?”

  “Ay missus, how did ye know?”

  “I know those horses. They’d been ridden hard too?”

  “Ay, and the hobbies wis fresh. So I took them all that way and come back and I got me bread and milk for the evening late and went to sleep with Young Jock and in the morning…” Jimmy shook his head and tears started leaking again. “In the morning Andy Hume came running to tell us the minister was killt and…and I didn’t know what to do or nothing, missus, it was terrible, worse than when the Widdringtons raided the infield and took our four mares and a gelding. Andy said, they’ve killt him, they took the top of his heid off.”

  “How did you know it was the strangers?”

  “We saw them go in, didn’t we? We saw them and never tried to stop them. I saw them too, when I come out of school and they went in and they was talking when they went.”

  “How did the minister seem? Was he laughing, pleased to see them?”

  “Not exactly, more serious
and stern but he knew ’em.”

  “What did they say?”

  “The minister said, I’m not going out again. Spiny can wait.”

  “‘I’m not going out again.’” Are you sure he said that?”

  “Ay, I’m no’ ganging out again, Spiny can wait. Then they was in the house and I didna think nothing of it.”

  She took him through the tale again and it came out pretty much the same and there was the name she knew, or might know.

  “Is there any reiver around here called Spiny?”

  Jimmy frowned and thought. “Not that I know of, missus. I did wonder but it might be someone fra foreign parts like the West March or England.”

  “Or Edinburgh?”

  “Maybe.”

  That name made it something different from a Border matter, that made it a Court matter. The Earl of Spynie was King James’ current favourite and a bad man to cross for all his youth, although he was starting to lose his beauty already, and with it, his hold over the king. She had known him when he was plain Alexander Lindsay, laird of Crawford too, and hadn’t liked him then for all his pretty ways and charming smiles.

  What had Jamie Burn done for Lord Spynie? Or to Lord Spynie? If Spynie had had Jamie killed, it accounted for the way of it and for the fact that the men had had money to spend on horses and hadn’t been interested in the contents of the plate cupboard.

  And Jock Tait had known the men, had he? He might not have known what they planned, but he knew them. Jimmy was useless as a witness but Jock Tait was ideal, an adult male who hated the minister.

  The problem was how to get hold of him and find out the names from him. Oh, and persuade him to be a witness.

  Monday 16th October 1592

  Dodd was irritable. He had been looking for a tooth-drawer all morning, had found it was true that Mr Lugg didn’t do teeth, had heard tell of a tooth-drawer in Scotland but the man was called Johnstone and he didn’t like to risk it. He had heard from two sources, the undertaker and Thomas the Merchant, that there was someone lately over on the East March and one said the man’s name was Ricker and the other that he was called Henry. It wasn’t enough to go on, but the swelling on the Courtier’s jaw was getting worse. He had wrapped a scarf round his face against the cold and he was looking distinctly peaky. And he was drunk as well.