‘That is a solace,’ called Christian severely, coming into the room, ‘and worse, in front of Lady Catherine Douglas. Phillip, I’m surprised at you.’
Phillip swore again.
Christian glared at him, and turned to Catherine. ‘Please forgive our want of manners,’ she said quickly. ‘Have you met Master Cullan?’
‘The scholar? Aye, I have. And he is warm and moist, that signifies good humour. The typesetter is dull and dry. Your hands are rough,’ Catherine complained to Phillip, wrinkling up her nose.
‘Madam, they are rough because I work with them,’ Phillip answered shortly. ‘I have to handle letter, that is rinsed in lye.’
‘Truly?’ Catherine mocked. ‘How loathsome!’
‘It really is not fair to tease him,’ interjected Hew, ‘when he has work to do.’
‘Then I am rebuked.’
For Phillip’s sake, Hew took his leave. ‘I see I am disturbing you. I will retire to work upon my script,’ he offered gallantly.
‘Are you a makar, then?’ persisted Catherine.
‘Sadly, no. It is my father’s book, a treatise on the law.’
‘How very dull.’
‘It is, to speak truth, unremittingly dull. We are now come to the second chapter, which deals, in inexorable detail, with the laws of reset.’
‘There are times,’ reflected Catherine, serious for once, ‘when it may serve us well to know the law, and times indeed, when even justice cannot help us. Nonetheless, if I require a lawman, I shall send for you.’
Hew bowed again. ‘I shall be at your service. And, in the meantime, leave you to decide your lady’s fate. May I put in a word for a moment’s happiness?’
‘You may not. You really are impertinent.’ Catherine tossed her head. But she did not seem displeased.
‘Catherine is a tease,’ Christian said to Hew in the collating room. ‘You must not mind her.’
‘I do not mind her in the least,’ he assured her. ‘Is she by any chance related to James Douglas, earl of Morton?’
‘I know not? Why do you ask?’
‘It was what she said about the law. There is a darkness there below the jest. And Morton, who was once above the law, who was himself the law, now stands accused, and helpless in its face.’
‘Doubtless, the earl has blood on his hands,’ Christian considered.
‘Doubtless he has, but doubtless also he is blameless of the charge that will prove his downfall.’
‘Aye, perhaps. But Catherine’s bitterness has quite another source. Her husband died at court, in another woman’s arms, and for a while she could not bear to show her face. If she seems hard and mocking, then it is an act, to cover up her hurt.’
‘You seem to know a great deal about her,’ Hew remarked.
‘For certain, we are printers, and the world brings us its news. Catherine’s poems, in some sad sense, are an answer to a world that treats her badly. She has joined a little group of makars that amuse the king, and some of them have had their verses printed, for their private use, or gifts to friends. Because I am a woman, she has brought her poems to me, and trusts me to protect them from the crowd. They satirise the minor players of the court, such as her husband, and are often cruel and savage in exposing indiscretions. However, they amuse the king, which is why she is allowed to circulate them to her friends.’
‘A pity she should be so bitter. She is so very beautiful,’ reflected Hew.
‘Do you think so?’ Christian looked sceptical. ‘But she is very old, I’d hazard, almost thirty. Her looks will not last long.’
Female friendship, Hew reflected, only went so far.
* * *
When next he met his sister Meg, Hew felt ill at ease. He could not discuss their father’s indiscretions. Like a closet door, the subject hung between them, for Meg could read him well, and was sensitive to mood. His sister, in her turn, was not herself. He found her sad and strained, as he had left her in St Andrews, and the change of place and air did nothing to provoke a change of mood. She was grieving, still, at their father’s death, and she had not resolved her differences with Giles. There was a distance still between them that it troubled Hew to see, and Giles left her often to her own devices while he was in conference with his good friend Doctor Dow. With some reservations, Hew brought her to meet Christian, and he was not reassured to see how well they liked each other. They could have been sisters, he concluded bitterly. Though they were not alike – Meg was dark like the raven, while Christian was fair – there was a close affinity between them that confirmed his deepest fears. And there was worse to come, for it turned out they had known each other once as children. Matthew had taken Meg to play at Carlton crags. ‘Then I must have met your father!’ Christian cried, in innocence, ‘and I never knew it, Hew! How strange!’ Hew felt lost for words, and looked away. He turned his attentions more openly to Catherine, for whom Meg had formed a consummate dislike. She thought Catherine artful, proud and haughty, and complained as much to Hew. To which her brother said merely, ‘Things may not be as they seem.’
Catherine was a clear distraction, and a welcome one for Hew. In honesty, he admitted to himself that it was not just her company he relished but the friction that she caused within the printing house. Phillip did not approve of her. He resented her dry mockery, her hauteur and her wealth, and he disliked the vicious candour of her poems. Catherine became a lure, and Hew began to plan his visits to coincide with hers. Catherine let it slip that she was growing fond of him. She hoped their friendship would not finish with the printing of her poems. Hew assured her it would not.
He came to chapel suppers still, though, for Christian’s sake, he often stayed away. It saddened him to watch her sitting by the fire, stitching ribbons to the sleeves of William’s frocks, unaware that she was Matthew’s child. And William was a Cullan through and through. Invariably, the ribbons were torn off in his adventures with the nursemaid on the muir. The small boy charged around the shop, and had to be restrained from tumbling in the press. Once, he pulled the drawers that lay in the correcting stone, and scattered Phillip’s flourishes and blocks. When Phillip retrieved him, and turned him upside down, by way of a distraction, an apple core came tumbling from his smock. Christian picked it up and frowned. ‘What’s this?’
‘Pippin,’ William said obligingly. He took the pippin from his mother and began to gnaw on it.
‘He’s teething,’ Alison said defensively.
‘Aye, for sure. Who gave him it?’ Christian asked quietly. ‘Was it the fruitman again?’
William said, ‘It was Davie,’ and Alison blushed.
‘And who is Davie?’ queried Christian.
‘Alison’s friend,’ the little boy answered. ‘He walks with us on the muir.’
The nurse flushed deeper and stuttered, ‘It is a man we met. There is no harm in it.’
‘Alison has a sweetheart,’ Michael sniggered. Phillip glared at him.
Alison looked stricken, and Hew felt sorry for her. She was a foolish, gentle girl, whose face, though never handsome, had been scabbed by pox. She had caught the smallpox nursing William Hall, while Christian and her infant had been kept away. Her chances of a sweetheart, in her present state, seemed poor enough.
Christian said quietly, ‘Alison, I do not want you to take William on the muir again.’
The girl looked up and bit her lip, mutinous behind the threatening tears. ‘The air by the park is good for the bairn.’
‘Understand me, Alison; you are not to take him there. And I will not have him given things by strangers, as I told you once before.’
Reluctantly, Alison nodded. Christian said nothing more, but took the apple core from William and threw it on the fire.
Later, as Hew said goodnight to Christian at the door, he asked, ‘Is it so very wrong for the child to have an apple? I know my brother Giles is set against them, but I’m sure a pippin never did me any harm.’
Christian shook her head. ‘It is not the a
pple, Hew. I do not like them talking to strangers.’
‘Can it really hurt that Alison has found a friend?’
‘What friend?’ Christian challenged. ‘She is so very trusting, that I fear she is misused. Alison is poor and simple, and she does not understand the ways of men. How likely is it that this man will want to marry her?’
‘Not very,’ Hew admitted. ‘But everyone may have a little happiness, don’t you think?’
‘I used to think so. Now, I’m not so sure. But perhaps you’re right; I am too hard on her. I cannot always bind her to my will. The truth is,’ Christian sighed, ‘I am afraid. And though I know that fear has blinded reason, still I feel the need to keep them safe.’
Unconsciously, Hew took her hand. ‘What is it you are so afraid of?’ he asked gently.
Christian whispered, ‘Someone has been coming here at night.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Odd things have been happening. When I open the shop in the morning, things have been moved. Small things that are not significant. Yet taken together, they begin to look strange.’
‘What sort of things?’ Hew probed
‘We have lost the proofs to Catherine’s poems. It does not really matter; they have been corrected. Phillip left them lying on the stone. In the morning, they were gone.’
‘The proofs were waste,’ Hew reasoned. ‘Why should it matter, then, if someone threw them out?’
‘It matters,’ Christian answered seriously, ‘that no one did.’
‘Then is it not quite possible that Catherine took the poems herself?’
‘More than likely,’ she agreed. ‘That is my hope. Catherine looked over the proof copy, and made the corrections with Phillip. The trouble is, I dare not ask her, for I dare not let her know that we have lost her poems. When she brought them to us, she gave us her absolute trust.
‘In the wrong hands,’ Christian went on, ‘they could do us incalculable harm. It is forbidden to print ballads, verses and the like without a licence. Catherine’s poems are for private circulation, and are not intended for the common eye. We are printing them without a name, and without our mark, which is itself a crime. Therefore we must be careful that we leave no trace. Phillip will check the count,’ she broke into a smile, albeit a little weak. ‘He says Walter has nine and a half fingers – the half he lost eight years ago when he first used a press – and therefore we are fortunate that he can count to ten. Beyond that is beyond him, and beyond our hopes.’
‘Aye, that sounds like Phillip. Nonetheless, he may be right. Perhaps it was Walter who threw out the proofs?’
‘I do not think so, Hew. Also, there was ink spilled on the floor, where the day before there was no ink, I’m sure of it.’
‘Well … as you say, they are small things. And you are busy here. It is not hard for things to be misplaced. It is hard to say, how these things in themselves might constitute a mischief,’ Hew said reasonably.
‘But suppose that someone came here in the dark, to look for Catherine’s poems, and spilled the ink, not seeing it?’
Hew laughed. ‘Were there footprints in the ink?’
‘Do not mock me. I am serious.’
‘And seriously, I apprehend your fears. But I do think these are trivial matters. In a busy printer’s shop, there may be many accidents. I think it very likely Catherine took the proofs. It is the sort of thing that she would do. As for the ink, I expect Michael spilt it, and did not care to own up to it,’ Hew reassured her.
‘No, do not blame Michael. I will not have him become the common whipping boy. In my heart, I knew he did not bring the corbie. I ought not to have allowed the men to punish him.’
‘The shop is locked,’ Hew pointed out, ‘therefore it is hard to see how anyone could come here in the night. Who sleeps above? Walter and Phillip?’
Christian shook her head. ‘Walter has a wife; they live at Pocketclief. And Phillip rents a room across the street. Only Alison and William sleep upstairs with me. But I have asked Phillip to remain here to keep watch, for the next night or two. He does not seem to mind too much.’
‘Aye, for sure,’ muttered Hew. Christian frowned at him. ‘He is a good man, Hew. And though he has not said so, I think his lodging house is somewhat mean and low. He takes no one there, and on Sundays is reluctant to go home.’
‘He is paid well enough, for the setting of my book,’ Hew remarked.
Christian gave a drawn-out look, under which he grew a little hot. ‘The terms were fair. Phillip is saving to buy his own press.’
‘I suppose you still trust him?’ he wondered.
Christian said quietly, ‘Aye, with my life.’
Blackfriars Wynd
Hew did not return to Christian’s shop for several days, for he was watching Richard in the courtroom. He amused himself in trying to predict who Richard would object to from the jury. In several cases, he was wrong; then he became more subtle and more accurate. Richard was a careful tutor, who shared his inner thoughts as frankly as his influence. As Hew began to learn, he found, to his confusion, that the law appealed to him. He wanted to ask questions and put arguments, to counter with objections on his own. Richard had to quell him with a look when he became too vocal in the court. In the morning, they shared breakfast on the wooden gallery, and discussed the case. Richard nurtured and encouraged Hew, allowing him expression of his thoughts, pointing out the flaws with amused and gentle patience, teasing out the subtleties. And Hew became drawn in to Richard’s inner world.
On the third day of the trial, as they left for court, they were met by Meg and Giles coming up the stair.
‘How sad you look, in black,’ his sister smiled. ‘It suits you, Hew. I never thought to see you look so serious.’
‘Hew is growing up,’ the doctor diagnosed. ‘That may be no bad thing.’
‘Do not confuse me with my coat,’ Hew countered. ‘When I am myself, I prefer the gooseturd green.’
Giles slipped his arm around Hew’s shoulder. ‘I am in conference this morning, with my good friend Doctor Dow, while Meg is come to spend the day with Eleanor,’ he murmured. ‘I thought that you and I could dine together, after our exertions. I have found a little place.’
‘Why don’t we all dine here?’ suggested Richard generously. ‘Doctor Dow would be most welcome.’
‘Doctor Dow is shy of company,’ Giles excused him quickly. ‘And I hoped to speak with Hew upon a private matter. Therefore, though I mark the kindness, I regret we must decline.’
Richard shrugged. ‘Another time.’
‘I do not quite believe in your good friend Doctor Dow,’ teased Hew. ‘Since I have never met him.’
‘Nor have I,’ Meg interjected pointedly. ‘For all there is, as I am told, a gudewife Doctor Dow, that accompanies him. In truth, I sometimes wonder whether they exist.’
‘But that is preposterous!’ Giles exclaimed. ‘Of course there is a mistress Doctor Dow! And no one who has met his wife could ever be in doubt of her existence.’
‘That is my point,’ Meg said archly, ‘that I have not met her.’
‘Aye well, another time,’ Giles muttered vaguely. ‘This morning we have business, very dull and bloody.’
‘Dull and bloody?’ Richard queried. ‘Surely, never both?’
‘In my profession, sad to say, almost always both. Doctor Dow has made a study of the grandgore. And this morning, he proposes that we make a new experiment, upon a patient he has staying in his house. The remedy is somewhat rigorous, alas.’
‘Poor man,’ Meg said compassionately. ‘Then I may bring some comfort to him.’
Giles looked helpless for a moment.
‘I think it may not suit you, Meg,’ her brother rescued hurriedly.
‘You are quite wrong,’ insisted Meg. ‘You know I am not squeamish when it comes to physic. You are the one of us faintest of heart.’
‘And as I recall,’ Giles countered cunningly, ‘you were the one that wanted me to have
that private talk with Hew.’
‘Aye, very well,’ Meg gave in reluctantly. ‘You must tell me how it turns out.’ It was not clear to what they referred, and Hew felt a little unnerved.
‘I know a brave little brewster called Bessie, on Blackfriars wynd, who bakes a rare pie, and who is a little muddled about fish days,’ the doctor confided, ‘Meet me at the high school a little after twelve.’
The trial was done by noon, and Hew met Giles as arranged, at the dinner hour. He waited at the foot of Blackfriars wynd, where it met the Cowgate, close to the town school. There were no signs for taverner or cookshop, and he was surprised when Giles appeared and led him to a kitchen on the corner of the street.
In the centre of the kitchen stood a wooden barrel, laid out like a table with a cloth and set for two, with trenchers, cups and spoons, so close between the fireplace and the brewing vat that Hew could taste the liquor from the mash. The air was thick and heady with the smell of toasted malt. After a morning’s concentration in the court house, he began to feel a little sleepy.
‘Bessie is the brewster for the kirk, and since the session do not stint themselves, you may be assured that is a mark of quality,’ Giles explained. ‘Moreover, she sells herbs and spices, some of which, in truth, have been proscribed. Her physic brings some comfort to our patients on the Cowgate. And for a place to talk, there is none more close or private. We may be assured of her discretion.’
‘Is the business private, then?’ Hew asked, a little alarmed.
Giles coughed discreetly. ‘Rather, I may say, a little delicate. Now, are you hungry? Bessie has an oven here for drying out the grain, and has ventured into coffin crusts, by way of a sideline. The flavour of the malt imparts a curious savour to the pasties that is quite beyond compare.’
Bessie had arrived, with a frothing pitcher and a glistening slab of pastry on a plate.
Giles took out his pocket knife and wiped it on the table cloth. Hew’s stomach gave a lurch. He did not care to hazard what had soiled the blade.
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