A Chorus of Innocents

by P. F. Chisholm

  “I don’t want to take you directly into Jedburgh. I could take you to the abbey,” said Young Henry. “I think there are a couple of the old monks there and the townsfolk use the church for services but you could likely stay there while I find out if the coast is clear. I wouldna like you to go riding into the town until we know who’s there and who isn’t.”

  “Pshaw!”

  “Yes,” said Carey thoughtfully, “she can hide there while you go into town and roust out Sergeant Dodd and anyone else you think will be useful and then bring her husband to her rather than the other way about.”

  “If he’ll come.”

  “If he doesn’t, that’s an admission in itself and perhaps we can start proceedings for divorce,” said Carey.

  “Divorce?” said Elizabeth, “but that needs an act of parliament?”

  “It does,” said Carey, “but it’s been done before.” And nearly, he almost added, it was done for the Queen. Nearly.

  “Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder,” said Elizabeth in an old-fashioned sort of voice.

  “My lady,” said Carey, his voice full of compressed impatience, love and fury, “if your husband treated you decently and had given you children, I wouldn’t be here. He doesn’t and he hasn’t.”

  “I promised to be a good wife to him,” said Elizabeth, “in the sight of God.”

  “Certainly,” said Young Henry unexpectedly, “and he promised to be a good husband to you, in the sight of God. I remember, I was there. Has he kept that promise?”

  Elizabeth said nothing, looked down at the ground.

  “Don’t take her by the road,” said Carey to Young Henry, “Go across country and carefully. Geordie may put watchers on the road. I’m hoping he’s assumed she’s heading for Carlisle and is on his way there now.”

  “Yes, and two murderers with him,” said Elizabeth. “Robin, I must talk to you about the killing of Minister Jamie Burn.”

  She did, quietly, and at length and told him what she thought. “Jock Tait is the man who can act as a witness at the trial, if anyone can persuade him. But Archie and Jemmy Burn did it, as far as I can tell, they did it and raped his wife as well.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because she was there and she’s a pretty woman and they like to. They nearly raped me when they came back to the manse…”

  “WHAT?”

  There was the authentic Carey roar, thought Young Henry philosophically; they probably heard that in Jedburgh itself. Elizabeth explained the part about getting hit on the head when the two came back to the manse for some reason, and how if it hadn’t been for Mr Anricks and his dag she might have been raped herself.

  Young Henry was still furious about it, but he thought Carey was even more angry. He wasn’t sure because the man was pale anyway. Carey sat on a rock with Elizabeth beside him and very seriously took her through every incident at Wendron again, including the ones with the boys. Of course, neither of them noticed that they were holding hands like children. And then he said quietly, “If those two come into the West March of England, they will never come out again.”

  Easy to say, thought Young Henry, less easy to do given the number of people who would be willing to hide them, even if you could get up some kind of hue and cry for them. Maybe he would have the chance to hang Archie and Jemmy Burn himself. That would be good.

  They arranged that Carey would wait for Dodd and Anricks at Reidswire, which was only a summer shieling but had quite a good shelter. Young Henry would take Elizabeth to the old abbey and leave her there with the few monks still clinging on in the half-burnt ruins, speak to Dodd and Anricks, assuming they were still in Jedburgh and tell them where to find Carey. The fact of Henry coming into Jedburgh alone might encourage Geordie to think she’d gone to Carlisle which would be very helpful. Henry would then bring all the Widdringtons as well as Sir Henry to her ladyship. With luck Geordie would be chasing her rumour across the Middle March by then.

  Thursday 19th October 1592

  There were five of the friars left of a full complement of twenty, and none of them were as young as they had been. In 1560 the Reformation had come to Scotland with a great ringing of bells and destroying of churches, though it hadn’t been nearly as greedy and as violent a reformation as Henry VIII’s stripping of the altars in England. The monks lost their jobs but not their lives, many of them left the cloisters with relief to try what men could do who could read and write. Some were allowed to stay in their monasteries and abbeys, cultivating the kitchen garden, looking after the sheep, just as they had before while their numbers ran down in the way of all life. No new novices came to them, until the one novice who had stayed was a man of forty-eight and they elected him abbot pro tem because Brother Constantine was now a little bit forgetful and silly and shook all the time like an aspen leaf, Brother Ignatius was crippled by rheumatism though he still tried to act as infirmerar to the townspeople when they came to him, Brother Justinian was skinny and obsessed by prayer and always in the church at odd times of day and night, and Brother Aurelius was trying to do everything else, including cook which was unfortunate because he was terrible at it.

  “Ye have tae be the abbot,” he’d insisted to Brother Ninian. “We have tae have one and it’s you. Are ye sure ye wouldna like to go and marry some woman or other now ye’re grown?”

  Abbot Ninian had smiled and answered that he was very happy where he was. Which was true, he liked things to be just so and he liked them always to be the same as the day before which was lucky because that’s how things go in an abbey.

  And so it was Lord Abbot Ninian and Brother Aurelius who received the young woman and the young man at the ruined guest house of the abbey by the main road.

  “This is Lady Widdrington,” said the man. “I am her stepson, Henry Widdrington.”

  Brother Aurelius’ round brown face grew watchful, with something else there as well. That was no surprise, thought Young Henry, the Widdringtons were well-known reivers of the East and Middle Marches, and had helped the Earl of Surrey burn the abbey a few decades before. Not all of it, luckily. Abbot Ninian also looked worried.

  “What about the…?” he asked Brother Aurelius who smiled.

  “They’ll be very well where they are. How can we help you, Mr Widdrington?”

  “My lady has had a difficult few days and would like to rest for a while here until her husband comes to collect her. No more than that.”

  Brother Aurelius squinted at the lady. She was wearing a muddy but fine velvet gown and her woollen kirtle was good as well, though old, while her boots though muddy were excellent, and her hat a little fashionable. She looked tired, though. “Well our guest house is, as you see, unusable, but she can come up tae the abbey church and sit there a while if she likes.”

  “Will that be all right, my lady?”

  “Of course, Henry, I’m not made of glass. I’d like to sit down on something that isn’t a horse for a while, though. And is there anything to eat?”

  Brother Aurelius beamed at the lady. This was what the Austin friars were for, after all, providing sustenance and shelter to weary travellers. He had a kind of kitchen built out of the ruins of the old one and he was sure there was a bit of stew in the pot there and some bread perhaps, though his latest batch had come out a little bit solid—unless their other guests had finished them.

  “I’ll go and see what we’ve got,” he said. “My Lord Abbot, perhaps you could show my lady tae the church and sit her down there.”

  The Lord Abbot ducked his head and smiled nervously. “All right, Brother Aurelius,” he said. “You won’t be too long will you?”

  “I’ll be making something delicious, ye’ll see. There might be a chicken I can catch too.” He doubted it. Their other guests had eaten the last chicken, he was sure.

  The lady went gravely with the Lord Abbot, who was wearing exactl
y the same worn black robes as everyone else, and listened as he told her about the cabbages and the roses and how the fishpond was full of fish as if she had been there before and already knew all about it, and then about how they did reformed services in the church so it would look a little strange, but not to worry about it because God was still there.

  “There are some other guests I mustn’t tell you about,” he explained carefully as they went into the huge abbey church, with its rows of round arches disappearing into darkness above. Some of them looked scorched but the roof still seemed to be on. “Brother Aurelius said I mustn’t.”

  “Oh,” said Lady Widdrington and gave him an odd look. “Are they reivers or a man like Geordie Burn?”

  The Lord Abbot shivered and shook his head; he had heard of Geordie Burn and was terrified of him or anyone like him. “No, no, my lady,” he said in his slow deliberate way. “They are friends and they are not even men and they help us with the chanting.”

  “Angels, perhaps?” she asked, with a smile.

  “A bit like angels,” he said, worried again, “but they eat a lot.”

  He showed her to the choir where there still nice wooden choirstalls to sit in and the altar was quiet with no sanctuary lamp lit. All the saints had been beheaded by enthusiastic Protestants and the paintings on the walls had been sploshed with whitewash. The reformed altar was down in the nave, a communion table, and the old altar had the usual chunk taken out of it where they had removed the superstitious old relics.

  She looked around for the candles and Bible, found the new Bible chained to its lectern but the candles were too valuable to leave out when it wasn’t a Sunday, she thought. So there was no fire there and it was bone-chillingly cold. And she was still damp from the hillside. She sighed. She would really like to sit by a fire and get completely warm.

  “Who’s that?” she asked as her eyes adjusted and saw a dark figure in a corner of the church, by the vandalised Lady chapel.

  “Oh that’s only Brother Justinian,” explained the Lord Abbot, “praying as usual.”

  “Is he?”

  “He gets the offices mixed up. We do still sing them, you know, not all of them but some of them. We always sing Vespers. Maybe ye’ll hear us.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Brother Aurelius doesn’t want you to meet our other guests, so maybe not.”

  “Hm.”

  Then the Lord Abbot went away, with an awkward bob of a bow as he went to ask Brother Aurelius what to do next.

  Elizabeth sat for a while in the huge old church, resting her back and bum, which were awakening from numbness and protesting about the treatment they’d been getting. But then it just got too cold in there, and too dark with the old friar muttering Latin in the corner, with his eyes tight shut, rocking to and fro and ignoring her completely. She got up and went through the choir and reredos, mainly in splinters though once it had been pretty with gold and paint, she thought, through the sacristy where they had a large locked chest for the candlesticks and candles and altar things, and then out into the afternoon as it turned down toward evening.

  She saw something then, just a flicker at the corner of her eye. Firmly ramming down a superstitious thrill she chased after the person, and after a sprint through a neat garden and some dodging round an apple tree, she caught a bony little boy and knew him at once.

  “Jimmy Tait,” she exclaimed, “good God, what are you doing here?”

  “Och, it’s ma Lady Widdrington, och!”

  “Why are you here?”

  Jimmy scratched and then smiled shyly. “I’m singing in the choir, just like ye said, missus, though it’s a bit small wi’ only the old men and us and…”

  “You think this is Carlisle Cathedral?”

  Jimmy frowned. “Whit else could it be? We walked for days, an awf’y long way. It’s a big town and a huge great church and there’s auld monks here though Ah think they’re Papists, but no matter, the songs is the same, only the words is different.”

  “We?”

  “Ay, missus, me and Andy and Cuddy and my lord, we walked here, starting in the night and naebody the wiser. Cuddy Trotter cannae sing better nor a corbie, but he come too to make sure Ah wis all right and maybe see if they want a kitchen boy or summat so he can finish learning Latin and be a clerk.”

  “But…but your parents?”

  Jimmy’s face clouded. “Ah told my ma I wis off tae the big church but I dinna think she believed me and me dad’s off guarding the village sheep in the third infield.”

  “Andy and Cuddy?”

  “Cuddy’s got ainly an uncle and aunt who’re good tae him but they’ll be glad he’s ’prenticed and Andy…well, Andy said his father’d likely beat him but it was worth it to get to sing every day again and learn more letters and stuff. He wants tae learn French too.”

  Elizabeth shook her head and then laughed a little. “What did the old monk say?”

  “Ay well, the one called Brother Aurelius said we could stay and help the singing and he asked the Lord Abbot, who’s a wee bit slow in the heid, and the Lord Abbot said, ‘Whitever ye want, Brother,’ and so it’s sorted.”

  “Where are the other boys?”

  “They’re in whit’s left o’ the dorter, Ah’ll show ye.”

  She followed him to what looked like a mere pile of stones and rubble at the further corner of the burned cloister, but turned out to be one end of a dormitory that still had beds in it, though old and rotten. Cuddy and Andy were playing dice for pebbles and they jumped up and looked about for an escape as she came climbing carefully up the pile of stones. There was a fair-haired boy behind them she recognised from the funeral who stood up and waited warily for her.

  They relaxed a little when they recognised her, and Cuddy said, “Whit are ye doing in Carlisle, ma’am?”

  “I might ask you the same thing, Cuddy,” she replied. “And you, Andy?”

  The boy she thought was Lord Hugh confirmed it by bowing to her so she curtseyed. He was in a cutdown brocade doublet from something wide from the reign of King Henry but his boots were from Edinburgh and he had a boy’s sword at his belt.

  “My Lord Hugh,” she said to him gravely, “what on earth are you doing here?”

  He flushed and put his old velvet cap back on. “I’m going to ’prentice to the cathedral as well.”

  “But you can’t,” she said, wishing it were not so, “you’re the heir.”

  The boy shrugged bitterly. “Then I’ve come for the adventure if they won’t have me,” he said, “I can sing, though.” And he lifted his voice and sang something Latin, his voice a warm gold against the diamond silver of Jimmy Tait’s. “There. I can sing. I don’t want to be a laird, I want to be a clerk that sings.”

  She looked at him with real pity. He couldn’t use his gift, only show it off for Court scraps.

  “My dear,” she said, “you have no choice. You have to be a laird.”

  “And go to Court?”

  “Well it’s not so bad,” she began. “You learn to be a page…”

  “With my guardian, Lord Spynie?”

  She said nothing.

  “I knew one of his pages, he was a cousin on my mother’s side. He couldnae sit down for a week after Lord Spynie picked him out, for all the pretty fat padded breeches he got,” said Lord Hughie. “Do ye think I know nothing, ma’am? D’ye think I’m an innocent like Jimmy Tait here?”

  Elizabeth could think of nothing to say and Lord Hughie turned away from her. So she sat carefully on one of the other beds and said, “Tell me.”

  The stories tallied. There had been a council of war after the funeral, with all the boys attending. A council of war was what Andy called it, in fact. Most of the boys were sad about the minister but willing to go back to being crow-scarers and shepherds all the time. Piers Dixon had a sick mum, with a cough th
at wouldn’t go away and she was terrible thin, so he’d stick by her and if she died, then he’d come on his own; the rest of his family wouldn’t mind for there were too many mouths to feed anyway. Young Jimmy had spoken up.

  “He did, missus,” said Cuddy. “It was wonderful,” Jimmy Tait blushed and hid his face in his hands, then looked up again. “He said that the minister said that God had given him his voice, for it wisnae something he had learned or made, it was purely a gift, and God gave it to him for a reason and he needed to find out what the reason was and so he’d go tae Carlisle on his own if he had to. And he knew where to get the ’prentice money too.”

  “The ’prentice money?”

  “Ay, it were the down payment on whatever it was the minister was at and Jimmy got intae the manse after the funeral on the quiet and he knew where the minister hid stuff cos he’d been poking around and found it and so…”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Och, in his study, there’s a brick in the wall that comes loose but ye canna see it if ye dinna ken it’s there and he mostly kept papers in it but when Jimmy looked again he found half of a wonderful necklace all in gold and jewels, so he did. But then he couldnae get out again for the two murderers come in and while ye was fighting them he run upstairs and hid under the bed and stayed there for he was affeared with Mr Anricks and everything and Young Henry and all and then ye found him in the morning and wis nice tae him. And we went that night.”

  “Show me the ’prentice fee, Jimmy?”

  “Ye willna take it, it’s ourn, the minister said he wad gi’ it to us to get us’ prenticed and to free Jimmy fra his father and…”

  “I will not take it.”

  Jimmy delved into the noxious depths of his breeches and pulled out a bag which he tipped out to show half of a beautiful gold woman’s necklace with sapphires and emeralds in it, in the style of seventy years before, at least ten pounds worth, probably much more. There was your explanation for why the men came back for it, if they found out about it after they had got away. She knew it at once. Perhaps Lady Hune had let slip about it when they told her the minister was dead. She heard Lord Hughie sucking in a long breath when he saw it. Then another. And another. He had gone white.