Fate and Fortune

by Shirley McKay

‘Hall?’ The man looked dubious. ‘Ye perhaps mean Arbuthnot?’ he suggested.

  ‘Tis Hall, and his mark is like this, an H with the sign of the cross, inside a black-feathered bird.’ Hew sketched the mark with his fingertips on the cover of the book.

  ‘That I have never seen. Charteris, now, his mark is an H and C. You wouldna be mistaking him?’

  ‘There’s no mistake.’

  The bookseller shrugged. ‘Aye, like as no’. There’s printers come and go, I do not ken them all.’

  Hew bought the book for Nicholas. ‘This Christian Hall,’ he said aside to Giles, as he counted out the coins, ‘is something of a mystery.’ But Giles appeared distracted.

  ‘Aye, but what’s that there?’

  A crowd of college boys were clustered round a stall.

  ‘What do they there?’ Giles worried. ‘Who gave them leave to go about the fair?’

  ‘Ah, let them be!’ Hew grinned, ‘they are but boys!’

  ‘And they are my concern,’ his friend replied severely. ‘Though you may treat your own concerns more lightly, I must bear the weight of mine. Let us at least see what attracts them.’

  Hew snorted rudely. ‘I recall, that it was your idea to come out to your fair. You should start as guilty as your charges, truant as you are.’

  ‘But since I am their principal, I must be their guide,’ insisted Giles. ‘They are green and young, and ripe for their corruption. What is it they are looking at?’

  As Giles approached, the students gasped and scattered, adding weight to the suggestion of their guilt. The stallholder called out, ‘Ah, gentlemen, I doubt you must be cats that chase away my gulls.’

  ‘Then do you gull them, sir?’ Giles quizzed him sternly.

  ‘I, sir? Not at all. Come, see for yourselves.’

  He gestured to his wares, laid out across the surface of his stall, and Hew saw that what had drawn the student customers were rows of playing cards. Some were in their wrappers, tied with threads and overprinted with the manufacturer’s mark, but several packs lay open on the counter in a fan, with queen and knave and king, block printed and hand coloured, stencilled in yellow and red.

  ‘Card games, sirs,’ the seller caught Giles’ eye. ‘These I have printed myself, and are yours for a very fair price. And for a gentleman like you, sir,’ he said, winking at Hew, ‘something finer, perhaps: a game of tarock? You know it, sir? It is a game of tricks.’ He produced a pack of cards with a flourish and in a sweep of hand displayed them on the counter like a fan, for Hew to see their pictures edged with gilt. ‘Trionfii, from Italy.’

  Giles interrupted, ‘We have no wish for Tarrochi. I see now why the boys have scattered. Gaming is prohibited, of course. Follow, if you will …’ he instructed Hew, and wandered off.

  ‘A moment, aye,’ Hew answered absently. He picked up a trump card, edged in gold leaf. ‘These are very fine. This is the Traitor, some say the Hanged Man. And here is the Devil himself.’

  ‘Yes sir, Il Diavolo.’

  ‘Are you come from Italy?’

  ‘Not I. I come from Flanders, sir, and bought those on my travels. By trade I am a pressman.’

  ‘Indeed? You speak perfect Scots.’

  ‘My mother was a Scot,’ the card seller explained, ‘and I was born at the Scots house at Campvere. As a boy, I was prenticed to a printing house at Antwerp, but when the Spanish came I made my way northwest, to Middelburg. Will you take the cards, sir?’

  ‘Indeed, I think I shall.’ Hew felt for his purse. ‘Are you a Lutheran, then?’ he asked astutely.

  ‘A Calvinist, as my mother was before me. My master, a playing card maker, died after the auto-da-fé.’

  Hew stared at him. That there were horrors there, beneath the quiet tone, he had no doubt. ‘Then I am sorry for it,’ he said gently. ‘What has brought you here?’

  ‘As I say, I moved northwards to Middelburg, where I hoped to establish a press. But the costs of such a venture cannot be imagined. I found myself in debt. At length I took up my stock to Campvere, and boarded the first ship that sailed from the harbour; and, as luck would have it, it was coming here.’ The card seller looked around fearfully, dropping his voice.

  ‘Here, at least, you are free to follow your faith,’ Hew encouraged him. ‘And you need have no fear of the Spanish.’

  He had sympathy for the man’s tale, that hid behind the facts a dark sense of desperation and of loss.

  ‘When the fair is over, what will you do?’

  The card seller shrugged. ‘As my wares must show, I’m skilled in printing colours. There’s an art to laying red on black. I will find a press and beg for work. I hope to stay in Scotland, though I may go north or south.’

  ‘Then I wish you well,’ Hew pocketed his change. ‘And thank you for the cards. What is your name?’

  ‘Marten. Marten Voet.’

  ‘Aye? Well thank you, Marten, and good luck.’

  ‘What have you there?’ Giles had returned with a parcel.

  ‘A pretty thing. A game of tricks,’ Hew answered thoughtfully.

  ‘Truly? Then I’ll warrant you’re as bad as all the bairns, whose heads are turned by tricks and toys. I dare not leave you for a moment,’ snorted Giles. ‘Well, now, tis the dinner hour. I have made my purchase, and the students all are fled. Let us walk through the harbour and up the kirk heugh.’

  As they came through the seagate, they heard a voice cry, ‘Doctor Locke!’ Giles gave a groan. ‘It is the coroner,’ he muttered to Hew. ‘No doubt you will remember him. He and I have had some dealings since you left.

  ‘Sir Michael!’ he called out, pleasantly and pointedly. ‘Are you come here to the fair? We were there ourselves, but presently, and now it is the dinner hour, we go home for our dinner.’

  ‘There is no time for that,’ the coroner said cryptically. ‘The tide is coming in.’

  Giles looked a little puzzled. ‘We are not having fish,’ he offered, as a reasonable response.

  ‘Did you not receive my order, sir? I sent word to your house.’

  ‘As I said, we have been to the fair.’

  ‘No matter, you are here now. Come quickly. And you, sir,’ he looked closely at Hew, ‘you are Hew Cullan, I remember you, and have heard of you but lately. Well then, well met. You shall come too as a witness.’

  ‘What have you heard?’ Hew demanded. The coroner was not a man whose acquaintance he had hoped to make again.

  ‘The advocate Richard Cunningham informs me that you are to be his pupil at the bar. In that you are most fortunate. He is an excellent man.’

  ‘In that you are deceived, sir,’ Hew said, rather churlishly. ‘No such arrangement was made.’

  The coroner stared at his rudeness. ‘Then I am misinformed. We will not stay here to argue the point.’ He turned again to Giles. ‘The body is in a cave on the shore, betwixt the harbour and the castle, and once the tide is in, the place becomes impassable. We must go straight away.’

  ‘Then there has been a death?’

  ‘Of course there has, man! What have I been saying?’

  ‘Ah, then, no, not I,’ protested Hew. ‘I cannot help you here.’

  ‘You can, sir, and must. Pray you, bear witness. Do not refuse the Crown.’

  ‘Aye, Hew, come along,’ Giles colluded briskly, ‘for the sooner we are gone, the sooner we are done.’

  ‘Let us keep our voices low,’ the coroner advised, as they hurried through the harbour. ‘I have no wish to cause alarm. It is difficult enough to keep order at the fair.’

  ‘I understood the fair to have its own court,’ remarked Hew.

  ‘Aye, it does. It does not extend to slaughter,’ the coroner said tersely.

  Giles pursed his lips. ‘You suspect foul play?’

  ‘Tis possible the poor lass drowned. But the harbourmaster says it’s like no drowning he has seen, which is why I sought your advice. She’s a low enough wench, of no worth. I want no hue and cry.’

  ‘Then it’s a
lass?’ Hew said, moved. ‘Does anyone know who she was?’

  The coroner shrugged. ‘As I say, she is no one. Keep your voices low, we do not want a crowd. I would be obliged, sir,’ he turned again to Giles, ‘if you could hazard how and when she died, whether she were drowned, or unnaturally killed.’

  ‘Who found the body?’ wondered Giles.

  ‘One of the fishermen. They come here with their lasses, to be secret in the caves, and tease them with the danger of the tides. There’s one lad and lass that will not deal again,’ the coroner said grimly. ‘We questioned them both closely, and are well assured, they had no part in this. Now, sirs, down by the side of the pier. Be wary of the seaweed on the rocks.’

  They clambered down the wall at the far side of the harbour, hugging closely to the cliffs, for the tide had begun to come in. The rocks were clogged and brackish, wet and spongy to the touch. Hew began to sink a little as they made their way towards the castle beach. They walked across the narrow strip of shore until they came to a chasm cut into the cliff, where they saw a bare foot stretching, tangled in the weed. The girl was lying in the sand, like a restless child asleep, one arm thrown above her swollen face. She was wearing her cap still, a little adrift.

  ‘Is this how she was found?’ Giles asked.

  The coroner shook his head. ‘Her dress was found over her face, and her nether parts exposed. We lifted back her skirts. The harbourmaster says he has no knowledge of her. That implies she is a stranger here.’

  Gently, Giles lifted the arm and examined her hand. ‘A fisherlass, though. Look at her fingers,’ he muttered to Hew. ‘See how cracked and raw they are; that comes from the herrings. The sea water hardens and thickens the skin, but these little sores never heal. She is young, sixteen, I hazard, small and badly nourished for her age. And she is very poor, though I infer that she was coming to the fair, or else had been there. Though her clothes are old, they are her Sunday best. Her dress is clean.’

  ‘How did she die?’ the coroner persisted. ‘Did she drown?’

  ‘Her hair and clothes are soaked, possibly from spray. Tis possible she drowned, but I do not think it likely. I would hazard, if we cut her open, we would find no water there. Tis hard enough to see, through this discolouration, but there are bruises on her face around her mouth, the pressure of a hand, that was meant to stop her cries. Do you see this, Hew? This is the mark of his thumb. Now …’

  Carefully, he folded back her dress, and the thin thighs flopped open, willing in death. ‘She has been dead perhaps a day and night. There is no rigor here. And she is not a maid. And yet there is a little blood and bruising on the thighs, which does suggest, that she was recently a maid, or else she was taken by force. Though I cannot be sure, I conjecture that this lass was smothered: suffocated, that’s to say. And she has been raped.’

  ‘Then it’s as I feared,’ the coroner said gloomily. ‘We must hope this is a singular transgression, that will not occur again. We will leave her here till nightfall, and the next low tide, when I will have her taken to St Leonard’s kirk. There is a place there will serve as a dead house, for a day or two. If no one comes to claim her, we can bury her in private, and allow this death to go unmarked. We may be thankful she is of little worth.’

  ‘How can you say so?’ Hew asked, appalled. ‘She was a girl of sixteen!’

  ‘My concern is to prevent rumour from spreading, and from causing riot and disorder at the fair. It takes little enough to set off the mob. But my office is to make arrests, and act on the instruction of the Crown. My jurisdiction does not extend to solving crimes,’ the coroner said evenly. ‘If you would see justice done, provide the justice with a suspect, and I will be glad to make an arrest. As I recall, you did so once before.’

  ‘What does he imply,’ Hew demanded as he left, ‘because I solved one crime, am I responsible for all? There is nothing I can do.’

  ‘I am inclined to agree,’ Giles answered sadly. The likelihood is that this poor child’s killer has left in a boat. The town is filled with strangers, and unless he kills again – God willing, he will not – the lass will take his secret to the grave. I am right sorry that you had to see this, Hew. I ought not to have encouraged it. Go on ahead, and say I won’t be back for dinner. I will make her decent for the man who comes to bury her.’

  Bloodlines

  Although Hew had turned his back on St Andrews, he did not forget the dead girl. As he began his journey south, he resolved to make his way along the coast, inquiring at each port and harbour whether they had lost a lass. For someone missed and mourned her, looking out each morning on the grey unfolding sea, waiting for their loved one to come home. He did not know what he would say, if ever he found them. But he hoped to bring her back among her friends.

  Nonetheless, though Hew did not forget the girl, he was anxious to put the town behind him and forget his own responsibilities. The breath of warmer air upon the late spring frosts had left an early haar upon the water that the bluster of the sunlight threatened to blow off, promising a sky of cloudless blue. Hew was wearing fine new clothes, in deference to the capital, trunk hose and doublet made of cream embroidered silk, with a plum coloured coat beneath a matching gown. Clean linen shirts and nether hose were packed into his saddle bag, and a smaller backpack slung across one shoulder held his father’s manuscript, folded in its wrappers and sealed with sealing-wax. In a pocket was a letter to the Edinburgh goldsmith, proving his claim to Matthew Cullan’s estate.

  It was Hew’s intention to keep to the line of the shore, where the paths were well worn and less hazardous, and he was less likely to fall prey to beggars or thieves. He planned to come to Largo Bay by dusk, and to stay a night there at Strathairlie, the house of an old friend, setting out for the ferry at Kinghorn the following day. The small towns and villages along the Fife coast were safe and sheltered landing places, where he meant to rest his horse. Against all odds, and the predictions of the groom, he had chosen once again to ride Dun Scottis, a sad-coloured ambler of uncertain temperament. The dun horse had mellowed in his master’s absence, or perhaps was growing old, for a sweet bed of straw and persistent gentle exercise had calmed his wild recalcitrance into a placid stubbornness. Hew remained attached to him. Since his business held no urgency, he was content to amble on across the countryside. Therefore he allowed the horse to set the pace, and explored the cool awakening of the land and sea. The farmers pulled the plough across the fallow fields, and the crows began to gather at the turning of the earth, in anticipation of seedtime. Winter oat and barley crops, lately deep in snow, were blown like sheets of water in the wind. Some of the farmers were Matthew’s old tenants; the fields that they furrowed were Hew’s. The slow and heavy dragging of the oxen through the soil felt deeply satisfying, as the earth renewed its natural cycle, and Hew arrived in Crail contented and fulfilled, as though he had himself been labouring on the land. He paused on the Marketgate, to traffic with the blacksmith and to hear the news, while the smith hammered out a new shoe for Dun Scottis. But among the gossip and report, he heard nothing untoward. In the harbour the boats had put out to sea, and the bairns scrambled barefoot over the rocks. No one had known the dead girl.

  In Anstruther and Pittenweem, the story was the same. The horse trotted on while Hew kept his eye on the track and followed the line of the shore. They made good progress, passing by the ruined kirk of St Monan’s, so close upon the water’s brim that Hew felt certain he would trace the fisher lass, where the world came tumbling to the edges of the sea, but the minister received him with a puzzled kindness: no lass was missing from here.

  Hew hurried on through Elie and Earlsferry, and turned the corner into Largo Bay. By now, he had almost lost hope of placing the dead girl. Nonetheless, he did not take the track towards Strathairlie House but rode down to the harbour, in Seatown of Largo. Women and girls sat outside the cottages, tying hooks to lengths of cord, long lines for the white fish that lay flat on the bed of the sea. They formed a fierce and jagged
group, and Hew felt shy of approaching them. He led Dun Scottis further to the shore, where two boys came by with a barrel of mussels, collected as bait from the outcrop of rocks that lined the shallow bay. He guessed they were brothers, for both had a crop of muddled red hair. Once again, he asked the question, ‘Is there a lass gone missing from here?’ and was startled by its effect. The older boy glowered and glared, while his brother hopped excitedly from foot to foot.

  ‘Aye, sir, there is, Jess Reekie.’

  ‘Haud yer tongue,’ his brother cautioned, ineffectually. The excitement of a stranger, with fine clothes and a horse and a full fat purse, was too tempting to persuade the boy of danger, and he babbled on, ‘Big Rab Reekie’s daughter, that was sweet on Davey here.’

  The boy Davey blushed. ‘Away and piss,’ he suggested, though whether to the smaller boy, or Hew, was far from clear.

  ‘She was though,’ his brother insisted. ‘And she begged you take her to the fair.’

  ‘You shut your mouth.’

  ‘’Cept her daddie wouldna let her. Wee hoor that she was, ye’d take her richt enough, save you were feared of big Rab.’

  ‘Shut yer mouth.’

  ‘Who is Jess Reekie? Is she missing?’ Hew persisted.

  Davey shrugged. ‘And if she is, it’s nought to do wi’ me. You’re deid, son,’ he informed his brother, who continued undeterred.

  ‘That’s her mammie, Jeannie Muir, jangling with the fisherwives.’

  There was nothing for it but to broach the women, and Hew did so with a sense of trepidation. Already, they had noticed him, and paused their gossip to admire the stranger, brave and fair and dainty in his fancy coat. As he came closer, one of them called out, coarse enough to make him blush, for though he scarcely understood her, he had caught the drift. The others stood cross-armed. They did not suspect him. Death did not come over land, bonnily clad and on a dun horse. It came from the sea, and they were used to it, focused on a point beyond the waves. Therefore Hew was a welcome diversion, a toy for them to stare upon, gross and mocking in their gaze. It did not seem likely, after all, that such a fragile girl could have come from such stock, or from anyone known as Big Rab. Hew’s courage almost failed him. He did not want to have the telling of it, now the trail had come abruptly to its end. He did not want that lass to have her ending here, in these bitter-weathered women, their faces filled with scorn.