Richard grinned. ‘You are the most contentious boy. As always, you lack judgement, and will not be told. You want good sense, and discipline, and more appropriate friends.’
* * *
It was a relief to leave the town, and come into the west port, where Hew was expected for dinner at the inn. He was surprised to find his sister sitting on her own, red-eyed, in the taproom.
‘Where is Giles?’ queried Hew.
‘He has gone for a walk in the fields.’ Meg blew her nose. ‘And gave no hint or warning when he might return. I hoped that coming here to town … that we might make a holiday. And yet he spends his days in conference with Doctor Dow. He seems distant and distracted.’
‘I’ll talk to him,’ Hew promised, moved by her distress. He hurried out into the fields but saw no sign of Giles. There was no one else in sight. Hew walked on a little, pulling at the grasses on the way, until he came across a courtyard of dilapidated buildings, leading to an ancient barn. There he heard a noise, a deep and throaty rasping. Curious, he opened the barn door. A little to his right, neatly folded on the floor, he found the doctor’s coat and hat, on top of which were placed a pair of shoes. The gasping came again, a low and mournful moan, and as he peered into the darkness of the barn he saw a sight that chilled him to the bowel. Hanging from the rafters by a rope, naked in his shirt tails with his face tight and purple, hung the heavy carcass of Giles Locke. Hew did not take pause to stop and think, but launched himself wildly at the body, catching hold of the legs, that swung two or three feet from the ground. The combined effect of this precipitation, and of Giles’ colluding weight, caused the rope to break, and the two of them fell tumbling to the ground.
‘Oh my dear friend, surely nothing is quite bad enough to risk damnation. And besides, have you thought about Meg!’ Hew cried. At the same time, Giles sat up and spluttered, ‘God save us, Hew, have you gone mad?’
‘I, mad? I am not the one who tried to take his own life, against the laws of nature and of God!’ remonstrated Hew.
Giles burst out laughing. ‘Oh my poor dear fool! Look at the rope! Was it round my neck?’
Hew looked at the rope ends, frayed in the straw, and had to concede it was not.
‘Whatever were you doing, then?’
‘An exercise,’ Giles answered, just a touch defensively. ‘That much any one with half an eye can see.’
‘An exercise?’ echoed Hew, incredulous.
‘As prescribed in the book, of health for magistrates.’ Giles stood up heavily and retrieved his clothes, extracting a small volume from the pile. ‘Such are part of my regimen for healthful exercise. “Tie and make fast a strong rope to some beam or post, and through the same rope put a good big wooden cudgel … and taking hold with your hands at both ends of the cudgel, lift up your body so that your feet touch not the ground and move your legs to and fro hanging still by your hands.” It is designed, as you may well see, to draw down the humours.’
‘Dear God,’ muttered Hew, shaking his head.
They were disturbed, at that moment, by the farmer, who was standing in the doorway, with a pitchfork in his hand. ‘What do you think you are doing there? Ah, I see the way of it, ye filthie sodomites …’
Hew scrambled to his feet. ‘I have another exercise to recommend to you,’ he murmured to his friend.
Giles put on his coat. ‘Aye, and what is that?’ he queried pleasantly.
‘Running!’
They took refuge, giving way to tears of laughter, in Bessie Brewster’s kitchen. After several stoups of ale, as Giles recovered his colour and his breath, Hew demanded, ‘Well, then, what is this about?’
Giles darkened again. ‘It is a little delicate,’ he answered miserably.
‘Giles, we have long been friends.’
‘Aye, that’s true enough.’ Giles took another swig of ale and sighed. ‘You promise not to laugh?’
‘In truth, no,’ Hew admitted cheerfully, ‘though I promise not to taunt you with it.’
‘Then that must suffice,’ Giles accepted gloomily. ‘The truth is that your sister Meg … her falling sickness for a while grew out of hand, and we could not control the fits. I feared it was the marriage brought it on, when she was used to be more calm and constant.’
‘She is recovered now, though?’ Hew asked anxiously.
‘Aye, with medicines, we have come to manage it. As you see, she is quite well. But the matter is this. Since her sickness, I have found myself unable … to … to converse with her.’
Hew stared at him. ‘Then the marriage is not consummated?’
‘At first it was,’ admitted Giles. ‘In truth, her sickness is no bar to it; only I have formed a fear … a pressing fear, of harming her. Since your father’s illness and our separation … since the coming of the grandgore, resolution fails. I find myself … inhibited. It is a fear, in part, that I may cause her hurt. And then there is the risk – the real risk, you must see – that she may fall with child, and that may pose a risk to her, that I cannot calculate. And to lose her – let me say, I cannot contemplate it. Together with these fears, I daily come across more cases of the pox.’
‘Surely, though, you’re not afraid of that,’ protested Hew.
‘Not for ourselves,’ admitted Giles. ‘Yet in my mind it sullies and pollutes the act, and in my heart I see her fragile and so pure I know not how to broach her. In truth, I cannot broach her, and I fail. Or else I fear to fail.’
‘I understand. It is this wretched sickness has polluted reason, and perverts good sense. Do you still desire her?’
‘More than ever, aye,’ Giles answered wretchedly. ‘It is for that reason I have taken up this course of manly exercise.’
‘To strengthen your … resolve?’
‘To distract from it. To channel all those energies, and frustrations, I would spend on her.’
Hew shook his head. ‘You need to tell her, Giles,’ he told him gently.
‘How could I? She is pure and good, and can have no notion of such things.’
‘I think you are mistaken, in her expectations. Giles, you are a man of much experience.’
‘I know it. It has never failed before.’
‘Yet you are shy and blushing like the greenest boy. Meg is your wife.’
‘That may be the trouble,’ Giles conceded gloomily.
Hew felt at a loss. ‘Well, I can say no more. This will not resolve unless you talk to her.’
‘Of what? Of her sickness? Of childbirth? Of grandgore? The marital act? You must see how hopeless that is! I am resigned to circumvent it in this way rather than distress her by approaching it.’
‘She is distressed, as it is, by your circumvention,’ Hew pointed out. ‘She thinks you do not care for her. And so it’s clear your strategy has failed.’
‘That is the rub,’ admitted Giles. ‘The closer I become to her, the more I do desire her; thus, the more I want her, the more I am determined to avoid her.’
‘Then the solution is simple enough. Do not avoid her. Give in to the desire,’ Hew advised.
‘But the greater the desire, the more my inhibition. I am closed in a circle that I cannot break.’
The Borough Muir
Later that same week, Hew and Richard were at work together in their chambers when a messenger arrived with a letter for Hew. It was delivered first to Richard, who broke the seal, observing dryly, ‘It seems you have a client.’
Hew looked up from his desk. ‘Truly? Yet I am not qualified.’
‘For this case, in particular, I fear that may be true. Yet the client asks for you by name, and is most emphatic. It is Lady Catherine Douglas.’
‘Catherine!’ Hew felt his heart leap. ‘Is it about her poems?’
‘Your question proves my point; you are not qualified to cope with her. Though I concede, it may be about the poems,’ Richard answered with a smile, ‘I do not think that likely. She claims she wishes to consult you on a personal matter. She wants you at her house, at fiv
e o’clock this afternoon. Her house is on the Canongate. Do not be late.
‘It is a pity,’ he reflected, ‘for I have to go to Craigmillar this afternoon, to see Sir David Preston. I meant to take you with me. You would like his tower house. It is rare and grand. He has made a fish pond in the shape of letter P.’ Since Richard was in a particularly good humour, it was far from clear whether he was being serious. ‘It is very likely I shall stay for supper; I shall have to leave you here,’ he went on. ‘No matter, then, another time. Since these people are too grand to come to us, we must go to them. Yet it may prove diverting for us both.’ He peered out of the window. ‘Do you think it looks like rain?’
‘It is a little dark,’ admitted Hew.
‘I fear it. I shall set out now, before the storm. I wish you every fortune with your conquest.’ Richard bowed.
Though Richard left behind a pile of case notes, Hew could not settle to the work. He yawned and fidgeted, stretched his legs and wandered round the room, playing with the ink and quills. He took a stack of textbooks from the shelves and put them back again. The clerk began to irk him with the scratching of his pen. He considered, and dismissed, a visit to the printing house: it felt like infidelity. The afternoon dragged on. Presently, it began to rain; he watched the water puddle darkly in the close, and became more restless at the greyness of the sky, that made the day seem later than it was. He had no cause to go back home and change, for he wore a brand new suit that the tailor had made ready just the day before. It would be ruined, he realised gloomily. At last he judged it almost five, and set off to the Canongate. It was raining heavily, and by the time he arrived he was soaked.
Catherine’s house was at the bottom of the street, close to the abbey of Holyrood house, a tall land with a garden, and fine windows cased and glazed. As he shook the water from his boots, Hew rapped at the door. The servant took a while to answer, calling out at last, ‘Lady Catherine is unwell.’
Hew felt the rush of disappointment. ‘Then I’ll call another time, and wish her well,’ he answered miserably.
‘Nay, not at all, sir. I’m to take your cloak and show you in. She insisted on it, sir. Go now, it is the door there by the right. I’ll set your things here by the fire to dry. Tis a damp enough night of it now.’
It was, Hew conceded wryly, a damp enough night; his green cloak hung a sodden black, and reeking like the dun ewe’s pelt, his cap wrung limp and shapeless. He allowed himself to be relieved of them, and knocked on Catherine’s door.
‘Is it you, Hew? Come then, I have wanted you.’ Her voice came oddly raw, as if she had a cold. Inside, the room was ablaze. A great fire raged upon the hearth, beneath the flaring of a dozen candles. The furnishings and drapes were coloured red. The board was set with scarlet cloth, upon which stood a jug of claret, burnished in the flame. The chamber was private and enclosed, and there was little else to catch the light, except the stand bed boxed in red, its crimson curtains drawn. Perhaps from the fire, or the effect of the furniture, Hew felt himself perspiring, his wet breeches awkwardly starting to steam.
‘Pull aside the curtain, do. It is hot in here. And I want see you, Hew!’ Lady Catherine croaked.
He did so, folding the fabric back to the post, and gazed at her.
‘Sit by me on the bed. I swear, you are blushing.’
‘It’s warm in here.’ Hew looked away.
She lay there on her pillows, naked to the hips, where modesty, or fickleness, had draped a sheet. Her hands were linked behind her head, a pose designed to tilt and tip her breasts, which winked at him becomingly, beneath her tumbling curls. She was laughing at him.
‘Then you must take off your coat,’ she counselled.
‘I heard that you were indisposed. Did you expect the surgeon?’ he retorted dryly. Nonetheless, he had undone the buttons on his coat. With slow deliberation, and his back to her, he folded it and placed it on the floor.
‘I expected you. Poor Hew! I fear that I have shocked you!’
‘You wanted to consult me, on a legal matter. Then perhaps you wish to make your will?’ he answered gravely.
‘Ah, you’re so dry!’ Lazily, she shifted in the bed. Still he did not turn.
‘I think it is the scholar’s life. It desiccates you,’ Catherine teased. ‘Is it true, they sprinkle herbs among the college oats, to shrivel up the ardour of the rampant boy, that all his longings turn to dust, and he is good for nothing but the kirk? The pity of it! All those years!’
‘I know not. I have always eaten out.’
He turned to face her then, damp in his silk hose and shirt, and sat upon the corner of the bed, looking down at her.
‘Be careful!’ Catherine taunted him. ‘Lest looking at a woman turns your wits!’
‘Against that risk,’ he informed her seriously, ‘I have made a plan.’
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
He had gathered back her hair, exposing her shoulders and neck. With delicate fingers he circled her throat, tracing a line to her breast.
‘Cartography,’ he teased. ‘Tis what we scholars do when we are come upon new worlds. Surely you have heard of it? We are intent on mapping them. Now then,’ he frowned a little, studiously, at the crescent scar he fingered on her breast, ‘what might we call these? A pair of earthly dunnocks or twin celestial spheres?’
‘Impudence!’ She slapped him, sinking back at once to submit to exploration. Hew continued with his survey. Presently he said, ‘In order to complete the map, I must fold back the counterpane. This piece of cloth is an impediment.’
‘Is it, though? To what?’
‘Excavations,’ he said solemnly.
‘Ah, I think not! It’s your turn!’
Nimbly, she slipped out from under him and pushed him back upon the pillows where she sat astride, triumphant, unbuttoning his britches and shirt. Laughing, he allowed her access.
‘I see virgin lands!’ Catherine cried in triumph.
‘You are mistaken, alas. That is a well-trodden path.’
‘Whisht will you, insolent boy! Or I will mark it out for you!’ She trailed her fingers down his chest. ‘Aye, these are forests … oh!’
Finding out the place, she whispered to him softly, ‘Here be dragons, though …’
At that moment, which was not the most convenient place to pause, there came a sharp rap on the door. The servant had returned, and gazed at Hew with a look of bored contempt that plainly stated he was not the first sad loun laid bare in Catherine’s bed. ‘There’s a woman down below that wants you. And she will not be deterred, sir,’ she declared, her tone implying this was usual too. ‘It is the printer, Christian Hall,’ she added carelessly.
Hew was already dressing, fumbling with his strings, as Catherine lay back in the sheets. She said a little ruefully, ‘Tis plain to see where your allegiance lies.’
‘You are mistaken,’ mumbled Hew, his shirt above his head. ‘It is not like that. There must be something wrong, else Christian would not come here. I’ll be back.’
‘Aye, aye,’ she was laughing at him, more amused than cross, ‘though you may fool yourself, I am less easily deceived. Go, play the printer’s prentis, if you will.’
He ignored her, already at the door, and took the turret stairs two at a time until he reached the hall, where Christian stood waiting. Twin spots of colour marked her pale cheeks when she saw him, his coat still half-unbuttoned and his shirt untucked.
‘My doublet was soaked,’ he muttered, and felt himself blush.
‘Of course,’ she said bleakly. ‘Forgive me, I disturb you. I ought not to have come. Richard’s servant told me you were here on business.’
He caught at her sleeve. ‘What is it? Something’s wrong.’
Christian hesitated, on the edge of tears. ‘You will think it foolish. Only William and the maid have not returned. She went out on the muir, after all I told her.’
Is that all, he found himself thinking, and bit back the words. He felt angry with
her, not for intruding, but for the confusion she had wrought in him. He knew it was unreasonable. ‘Is it not likely,’ he forced himself to say calmly, ‘that they have taken shelter from the rain?’
‘That is what everyone says. But with all that has happened … these strange events … I cannot help but fear some evil has afflicted them,’ she answered miserably. And he knew, to his shame as he stood in his unbuttoned coat, that it was fear for William that had brought her there, and only fear for William, desperation that drove out all proper feeling, that could make her bear to stand there in the face of his delinquency.
‘Phillip is making lanterns to take out upon the moor, to make a search before it grows dark. We hoped you might make up the party,’ Christian whispered.
It was all but dark already, in the wrenching wind and rain. ‘For sure … but in a moment … I must fetch my cloak.’
She shook her head; she had already given up. ‘The party is about to leave. I must go ahead. But if you are engaged—’
‘You cannot think it! I will come.’ He watched her leave, hopeless and silent a moment, and then returned upstairs to Catherine. He felt relieved to see her dressed, in a shirt of sorts, and perched upon a stool, combing out her hair, that fell in thick red curls upon the linen of her shift.
‘I have to go.’
‘Of course you do. Printer’s boy,’ she taunted him.
‘You are mistaken, madam,’ he said stiffly. ‘I do not answer to Christian. But her child has gone missing, on the borough muir. A search party has been raised. I have promised to join it.’
‘Is that so?’ She made her eyes wide. ‘Her little child? He is so very small, the muir so very large. And is he there alone?’
‘He went there with his nursemaid,’ he informed her shortly. Her questions had begun to annoy him; still, he felt attracted to her. Coming close to gather up his clothes, he could smell the perfume on her hair.
‘Then no doubt the nurse has sought for shelter, and will stay there till the rain has passed,’ she answered quietly. ‘There is an ancient chapel on the muir; I expect you’ll find them there. It’s madness to attempt a search tonight.’
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