‘Eleanor will be pleased to take her,’ offered Richard, ‘while you are engaged with Doctor Dow.’
‘And she shall come to the print shop and meet Christian,’ suggested Hew.
Giles looked a little doubtful. ‘The printer? Is that a likely place for her?’
‘Aye, for certain. Christian is most gentle and refined. Meg will like her very much.’
‘Then your printer is a woman!’ Giles exclaimed, amused. ‘Ah, we should have guessed it! Christian is a woman’s name, for sure. Though you and I, who lived abroad, might be excused for not remembering it.’
‘I confess, that it never occurred to me,’ admitted Hew. ‘Christian is a widow, and has qualities that will endear her to Meg.’
‘Then Christian is your little bird. A match for Doctor Dow, I doubt.’
‘What do you mean?’ Hew frowned.
‘The corbie and the doo – the raven and the dove,’ Giles explained.
‘Whisht, no, he won’t like that!’ Richard put in, laughing, ‘for he wants the little printer to himself.’
‘Then I begin to understand,’ the doctor winked at Richard, ‘why he has not come home.’
‘There is no way of warning him, and no way of restraining him. Trust me, I have tried,’ Richard grimaced.
‘This is most utter piffle!’ Hew protested.
‘I think I know your Doctor Dow,’ Richard turned to Giles. ‘Is he not our visitor?’
‘He is indeed,’ Giles agreed, ‘A most accomplished man.’
‘What do you mean, your visitor?’ asked Hew.
‘The visitor is appointed by the burgh council to investigate suspicious deaths,’ Richard elucidated, ‘due to infectious sickness or foul play. Doctor Dow has given evidence, once or twice, in cases of suspected slaughter, poison, and the like. He was called to Elspet Barr, when she was found dead on the turnpike. It was fortunate for us, perhaps, he was not called in court. He is a fair practitioner, remarkably good at his task.’
‘We could do with the position in St Andrews,’ Giles reflected.
Hew looked up, startled. ‘The girl on the beach!’ he exclaimed. ‘What happened to her, Giles? But how could I have forgotten her?’
‘That is not so very strange,’ Giles assuredly him kindly, ‘given all that has happened to you since. To come so close to drowning has a purgative effect upon the wits. Not to mention – for we will not deign to mention – the time that you spent stinking in the gaol. There is nothing like a little degradation to refine one’s point of view.’
‘You are saying that I thought too much about myself?’
‘I’m saying it is natural you forgot the girl.’
‘You will excuse me,’ interrupted Richard, ‘for I do not follow this. Who is the girl on the beach?’
Hew replied bleakly, ‘A dead lass was found on the shore at St Andrews, two or three days before I rode south. Giles and I were made to see her by the coroner. She had been smothered and raped. I found out her name,’ he added, to Giles, ‘she was Jess Reekie of Largo.’
Giles nodded. ‘Her mother came, too late. The poor lass was already in the ground.’
Hew fell silent, staring at the fire. Richard placed a hand upon his young friend’s shoulder, saying with compassion, ‘This mattered to you, Hew. And yet you never said. You keep your secrets close.’
‘It mattered that she had a name. I could not give her justice,’ Hew said quietly. ‘For Jess, and for people like her, the law does not serve.’
‘The way things are, that may be so,’ Richard confirmed. ‘Yet we have a young king, and the world is changing. So the law will change. Pursue the law, and you may find your justice after all. How else will you discover it? An eye for an eye? In revenge?’ He turned away abruptly. He was clearly moved. ‘Gentlemen, you must excuse me. I have left some papers in my chamber, that I wished to read tonight. I shall wish you goodnight, Doctor Locke. If there is any assistance you require while you are here, pray don’t hesitate to ask. I should be glad to show you the town.’
‘That is most kind,’ Giles enthused. ‘I have a whim to play a game of caich. Perhaps you could direct me to a court?’
‘But certainly. I should be delighted to play with you myself.’
‘Giles does not play,’ Hew qualified quickly. Richard looked perplexed.
‘I am in the early stages, of beginning to begin to play the game,’ Giles contradicted, ‘and am keen to learn. Perhaps we might play doubles, with your bright boy Roger making up the four?’
Richard laughed sardonically. ‘That is not a good idea. Though Roger is a quick and subtle boy, at any kind of sport he is curiously inept. In truth, were his mother not above suspicion, there are times I should wonder that he is my son.’
Giles looked a little thoughtful. Later, he remarked to Hew, ‘That was a cruel thing that Richard said about his son. If I were a father, then I cannot think I would express myself so pointedly.’
‘They have a strange relationship,’ reflected Hew. ‘Though Roger’s mother tells me they are close, I confess, I see no sign of it. Richard goads his son, who seems to spark the worst in him. But Roger is a difficult boy.’
Early the next morning, Hew called upon the goldsmith, George Urquhart, with the letters Giles had brought. Unlocking Urquhart’s secrets, Richard had explained, called for subtle questioning. ‘He is as close as any man I’ve met,’ he confided, ‘and if he came as witness to the court I would not care to see him on the other side.’ He insisted on accompanying Hew, as curator of his interests and affairs. And Hew, as it turned out, was well advised to have brought along a friend. Urquhart kept his shop in the heart of the luckenbooths, adjacent to the kirk or stinking stile. In appearance, it was little different from the other shops, apart from the windows, which were fitted with iron bars. Inside, there was a vaulted chamber, stifling in the close heat of the forge, where Urquhart welcomed customers. The young King James himself, so Richard claimed, was sometimes to be found there, perched upon a stool, drinking sack with George Urquhart on some private business of his own. Beyond this entrance cell, that held the goldsmith’s tools of trade, it was supposed he kept enough in gold to make secure the commonwealth. But this was supposition, for no stranger ever passed there; James himself had never glimpsed what lay within those vaults. Whatever streams of fortune Urquhart dammed and banked there, he released, by strict appointment, in disappointing drips.
Urquhart himself was equally impenetrable. Each evening on the stroke of eight, he closed his shop and made his way along the stinking stile, sidestepping the muck that lined the street. The crowds would part to let him pass. And though he let his shop keys jangle from his belt, no one dared to cross him as he sauntered to the Cowgate where he kept his house. The crames ran with thieves, like a garden full of weeds, and once a dead body had been found slumped in the stile, doubled in a puddle of its own congealing blood. Yet Urquhart walked untroubled, without a second glance, or the slightest qualm or quickening of his step.
This goldsmith now subjected Hew to careful scrutiny before he would admit him to the shop. ‘Matthew Cullan’s heir, you say? And yet I do not know you,’ he remarked.
‘You know me,’ said Richard firmly.
‘Aye, for certain,’ Urquhart said at last. ‘You had best come in.’
‘I know you, Master Cunningham,’ he said cunningly to Richard, ‘as a connoisseur of rings. I have a pair of diamonds you may care to look at while you’re here.’
‘When our business is concluded,’ Richard winked at Hew. ‘For the present, I am here with Master Cullan.’
Urquhart motioned them to sit upon the stools, in the fierce heat of his fire, while he looked upon the letters, leaving them to sweat. He examined Hew’s documents though a diamond cutter’s eyeglass, for any mark of swindle, forgery or theft.
Hew grew impatient, and was about to speak, when Richard hushed him with a smile. ‘George will not be rushed.’
‘Quite right.’ Urquhart looked
at them astutely. ‘Master Cunningham here knows, as well as most, the danger of false letters.’
‘It is a risk I meet,’ the advocate observed, ‘from time to time, in my profession. Yet it is less common, than you may suppose.’
‘In my profession, I assure you,’ Urquhart answered smoothly, ‘false letters are more common, than you may suppose. Never, ever, underestimate the threat of forgery.’ He folded up the letters, returning them to Hew. ‘I know your lawman in St Andrews, and I am convinced that this is his hand. I will accept that you are Matthew Cullan’s heir. A gentle and an honest man, I have not seen him for some years. I am sorry to hear of his death.’
He turned towards a cupboard in the wall, and returned to pour three thimblefuls of sack, as carefully as cups of molten gold.
‘Gentlemen,’ he stated as they drank his toast, ‘I am at your service, for whatever service you require.’
‘I understand my father had deposits here,’ said Hew.
‘He left a little gold secured within my vaults. If you wish to have it you must make an appointment with my servant, at a more convenient time. Meanwhile, I can advance you monies on account, if you so wish.’
‘Master Cullan will have monies on account,’ Richard put in quickly. ‘For which, since you hold his capital, there will be no charge.’
‘That goes without saying,’ Urquhart replied. He unlocked a box and took out a small purse of gold. ‘This may do you for the while. Was there something else?’
‘I understand I have inherited a printing press, run by Christian Hall. Can you explain the terms?’ asked Hew.
‘Indeed, I remember the transaction,’ Urquhart nodded. ‘The documents are in my deed box. He rummaged awhile at the back of the room, and returned with a paper. ‘Aye, here it is. You are misinformed, however, for you have no interest in the press. It belongs, out and out, to Christian Hall. It was your father’s gift to her, upon her marriage.’
Hew exchanged glances with Richard, who frowned and shook his head.
‘But Christian said her husband borrowed money from my father,’ Hew exclaimed. ‘I do not understand.’
Urquhart coughed discreetly. ‘Christian Hall …’ he looked at the paper again, ‘was the daughter of a woman called Ann Ballantyne, who made her living as a seamstress.
‘Your father has supported her from childhood. William Hall was Christian’s tutor. He was engaged, by Matthew, to teach her to read and write. When her mother died, and William married her, your father gave William the money to set up a printing press, but the stipulation was that it belonged to Christian, not to him. William Hall was her curator, Christian being under age. And William was a good man, as I understand. She took his name,’ he added delicately, ‘because she had no other. Sadly, two or three years ago, her husband died of smallpox. She took on the business, unaware it was already hers. That was your father’s wish; my part in this was simply to oversee the transaction.’
‘Does it say who her father was?’ Richard interrupted.
Urquhart looked at him coldly a moment, as though he did not care for his tone. Hew was too confused to speak.
‘I regret,’ Urquhart answered stiffly, ‘that the father’s name is not recorded here. However, Ann Ballantyne lived with her daughter in a cottage at the north back of the Canongate, beneath the Calton crags.’ He turned once more to Hew. ‘The cottage is presently vacant, since the last tenant has left. I welcome your instructions on disposing of it; I can find another tenant, or it can be sold.’
Hew found his voice at last. ‘And what is that to me?’ he answered hoarsely.
‘Did I not say? The house belonged to your father. I’m sorry if this information has unsettled you,’ Urquhart concluded, folding up the paper. ‘Let me know what you decide about the property.’
‘Did you know about this?’ Hew turned to Richard as they left.
Richard wrestled for a moment with his conscience. Then he said, ‘I’m ashamed to say, that I suspected something of the sort. I knew that Matthew had a friend that he visited at Calton crags. But he did not confide in me. I swear to you, I had no notion that there was a child.’
‘Christian is twenty-two. Then this was while my mother was alive.’
‘I’m afraid it must have been,’ Richard agreed reluctantly. ‘I am so very sorry, Hew. I know you do not wish to hear this.’
‘Why sorry? What is to regret?’ Hew answered wretchedly. ‘In every way, in every sense, my father was not the man I thought he was.’
Richard looked distressed. ‘What will you do? Will you go home?’
‘Go home! You were so keen to have me here, to learn my father’s trade!’ exclaimed Hew bitterly.
‘But by your own admission, you were not well-suited to it. And with this new impediment … It can only cause you grief.’
‘I see no reason to abandon Christian now,’ objected Hew. ‘The least that I can do, is to make good Matthew’s debt.’
Richard shook his head. ‘I cannot think that wise, when you have feelings for her,’ he said gently.
‘What feelings?’ Hew said savagely. ‘I concede it possible, that I felt a connection with her; that is no surprise, since we are connected. I assure you, that I have no feelings that are not proper between friends.’
Richard shook his head. ‘I can read you too well, and know that nothing I can say will change your mind. But I beg you, reconsider. You are troubled and confused.’
‘I thank you, Richard, and I know that you mean well. But I have nothing to go home for. Christian has done nothing wrong and, beyond a doubt, she has a deeper claim on me than I supposed. Therefore, I will stay, and see her through her troubles now. It is surely less than she deserves.’
‘Then I applaud your courage, though I count it foolishness. What will you tell her? The truth?’
‘I will tell her nothing. Keep this secret. Do not tell a soul.’
‘Of that, you are assured. I pray to God you both may not be hurt by this,’ Richard answered grimly.
Hew stared at him. ‘How should this hurt us?’
‘That much is clear. You have fallen in love.’
Catherine
Richard’s fears for Hew were proved unfounded. For the next time he came to the printing house, he found another woman to distract him, dressed in widow’s weeds. The veil and feathered gown of blue-black silk gave her from behind the semblance of a crow. But when she turned, he saw the sculptured beauty of her face, perfectly composed, the pale, translucent skin of the natural redhead, full dark lips and solemn eyes, quizzical and searching. The sharp folds of her skirts were studded with a thousand beads, that shivered as she moved and caught the light, and the thick coif of hair curled beneath her cap was bound with black silk ribbon dressed with pearls. ‘Shall I read it once again?’ she was asking Phillip, in a voice fraught with mischief.
‘Aye, once through.’ Phillip had already set the type, and Hew watched him run his thumb across the rows of letter, pressing down or prising out a character out of line, while the stranger spoke in lilting tones. ‘It is called simply Song.
‘In the place he drew for me
My lord’s bright pencil turned to dust
The fruits that clustered on the tree
In this garden left in trust
Rosy pippins by the pound
Fleshy peaches plump and round
Ripe plums drooping to the ground
Wracked and ruined by his lust.’
‘That is a pretty song,’ said Hew.
The widow started, for a moment discomposed. ‘Gentlemen do not eavesdrop. I did not see you there.’
Phillip sighed. ‘This is Hew Cullan, a student of the law. Pray, do not mind him. He is often here, and is a friend of Christian’s.
‘Lady Catherine Douglas,’ he observed to Hew.
Hew bowed to Catherine. ‘It seemed more polite to listen than to interrupt. I am sorry if I startled you. Please go on.’
The lady Catherine had recovered her
composure. She replied disdainfully, ‘I do not care to read in front of strangers.’
‘Then that is a pity,’ Hew said gravely. ‘I should like to know what happens in the end.’
‘The lady is deceived by her true love, and everything he touches turns to dust. She pines away and dies for him. He is the very essence of your sex.’
‘If that is so, then I will abjure it straight away, and beg to be a girl,’ Hew answered solemnly. ‘And, yet, I would protest, her peaches are not yet so fully blown that she may not share them with another.’
Catherine stared at him. ‘You are impertinent.’
‘Not at all. I merely state, there is a way your song might have a happy ending. Not all men are so treacherous.’
Aye, perhaps,’ conceded Catherine. ‘But a good song should be sad, don’t you think?’
‘A sad song should be sad. But a good song should make the heart soar.’
‘Are we done with the quibbling?’ asked Phillip. ‘Because, if we are, I should like to have the second verse, before Walter falls asleep in the press.’
‘Aye, in a moment,’ Catherine said absently. She had let the paper fall.
‘So you are you a student of the law?’ she inquired of Hew. ‘Then should I be afraid?’ She looked at him through eyes that promised laughter, with the smallest creasing of the corners of the mouth.
Hew made another bow. ‘Aye, madam, you should be afraid.’
Phillip spluttered, ‘Very likely!’
‘You do not look like a scholar,’ Catherine observed. ‘A student of the law must be very dry and dull.’
‘I confess it,’ Hew said smiling, ‘dry as dust.’
‘Let me see.’ She took up Hew’s hand and pulled off his glove.
‘These fingers are quite moist and soft, not all at dry,’ she observed. ‘I think you are a gentleman, though you do not behave like one.’
‘A moist hand in a man is no good thing,’ muttered Phillip.
‘Do you think not?’ demanded Catherine, ‘then let me see your hands,’ and she grasped the compositor by the hand, so sudden that he dropped his composing stick, cursing in annoyance.
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