‘I quite agree.’
‘Well, then, stay?’ she tempted, setting down the comb.
He swallowed. ‘Though, dearly, I would like to, I cannot.’
‘As you will. You should know though, that if you go now, the offer will not come again.’
‘What!’ he demanded. ‘You would turn me away, because I helped to look for Christian’s child?’
‘Aye, because of that,’ she answered oddly.
There was no time for argument; in any case, he scarcely took her seriously. He kissed her on the cheek, a mere formality, and took his leave.
The rain had not ceased in its intensity; the whole of the high street was grey, the mud track beginning to puddle, running down the slabs in streaks like beggars’ tears. Hew’s cloak and hat, already sodden, gave up all vestige of shape. It was madness, certainly, to venture on the moor in such weather, and yet Hew met the party at the printer’s shop already setting out, with a sombre urgency that made him feel ashamed. Giles and Meg were there; Meg had her arms around Christian, holding her back. ‘We must wait here, in case they return. Where have you been, Hew?’ his sister demanded, and he blushed afresh beneath her glare.
‘Go to, go to, no time to lose,’ Giles put in briskly. He was wearing a fisherman’s jerkin, and a pair of wool breeks stiff with tanning, with waxed boots ballooned to the thigh, topped with a cope of oiled cloth, his wardrobe never ceasing to surprise. In his hand he carried one of Phillip Ramsey’s lanterns, mounted on a stick, a cone of waxed paper, shielding a candle. It gave off little light, already faltering in the wind, and its flimsiness appeared to underline the hopeless nature of their expedition. Nonetheless, there was a certain sturdy comfort seeing Giles there in his raincloths, and Hew was about to ally himself with his party when Phillip appeared, and shot him a murderous look.
‘We will split up,’ he announced. ‘The physician goes with Walter to the wester hie gate … and you, no you don’t,’ he took Hew’s elbow grimly, ‘you will come with me, and search the east side by the gibbet.’
‘Why on earth there?’ Hew asked nervously. Phillip stood brooding and angry, and he wondered for a moment whether he was mad. He glanced across at Giles, who appeared not to have noticed, busily adjusting an enormous hat which Meg tied to the buttons of his cloak with bonnet strings.
‘You were at the house of Catherine Douglas?’ Phillip demanded.
‘And if I was?’ retorted Hew.
Phillip glowered at him. ‘At another time, and in another place, I should strike you down. For now, I should be grateful to you.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘You really don’t know? Then you’re more of a fool than I thought.’
Phillip was deranged, decided Hew. He had given up the warmth of Catherine’s bed to spend the evening with a madman, traipsing in the mud upon the borough muir, doomed to make his search among the sodden corpses, where the wild dogs gathered, howling out the storm. Gloomily, he followed, with the flicker of the lanterns in the wind no brighter than the prick of fireflies dying out, and tried not to think of Catherine in her linen shift, combing out her hair before the fire.
Though it was early still, the skies were thick with cloud. They lost sight of the path as they made their way deeper onto the moor. Phillip stumbled in the darkness, crying, ‘Sweet Christ Jesus, help me! I have lost the light!’
‘What is it, do you fear the dark?’ Hew called out dryly. ‘A solace, too, if Christian heard you curse.’
Phillip screamed, ‘God’s light! Where is the light!’
‘What have you found?’ Hew swung round with the lantern, lighting Phillip’s face.
She was not long dead. For Hew could smell the blood still, a thin metallic stream that seeped into the earth, sweet and sticky at her throat. It was smeared and sticky too on Phillip’s face, like a bairn’s face gorged on sweetmeats. And in horror he was scrubbing it, furious with blades of grass, scraping clean until it bled. He had fallen across her, deep in her belly, where she was torn to show her innards, spilling from the pale white flesh.
She was not long dead. For Hew had seen her that same morning, setting out, her scrubbed and cheerful face pinched pink to hide the pock marks, smiling, round and foolish, when the birds were singing, and the sky was blue. Had he spoken to her, then? Or spoken to the child? ‘I saw her but this morning, surely, she cannot be dead,’ he whispered idiotically. ‘I saw her only yesterday; then she can not be dead.’
She was not long dead. Yet already the land had begun to claim her. The rain had smudged her face, and muddied her like tears, knitting her drab hair into the greasy earth. It puddled in the places she had spilled, the grass lank and dark with her blood.
‘Jesu, I fell into her,’ Phillip was sobbing, wiping his mouth.
Into her cavernous flesh, sticky and soft. Alison was not long dead, yet the land had already reclaimed her, carrion for sodden earth, seeping through the ground.
Hew took out his handkerchief and handed it to Phillip, who continued scrubbing at his face until all trace was gone.
‘I can taste her,’ he moaned.
‘You imagine it.’ Hew moved a little further back, as Phillip called out fearfully. ‘Do not go! Where are you going?’ He remained upon his knees.
‘Hush. To find the light.’ Hew found the lantern where Phillip had dropped it, all too close to Alison, and lit the candle from his own. He gave the lamp to Phillip. ‘Stand up. Hold it high, and shout. We must alert the rest.’
‘Stay!’ Phillip called out desperately, ‘Pray, do not go!’
‘Stand up and hold it high,’ Hew ordered, not without compassion. He began to edge away, methodically to search the fence at its perimeter, and with his boot to kick aside the clumps of moss and leaves, searching, with a calm cold dread, for the body of the child.
A world appeared to pass before they saw the lights, and heard the others come towards them, tiny pricks of firelight answering their cries. And then, in a moment, it seemed Giles was there, assuming grim and clear command, and his vast oiled cape was pressed into service – perhaps one always meant for it – and made a dry shroud for Alison’s corpse. And Giles could lift her gently, like a sleeping child, and rest her in its folds, and though he frowned a little, he did not remark the blood that stained his coat and hands. And he tucked back her hair, and brushed away the crumbs, and covered up her nakedness, that went beyond the flesh into the spilling of her bowels.
‘You must take her to the house of Doctor Laurence Dow, at the Cowgate,’ he instructed. ‘And he will take the course of action proper to his office.’
‘Was it the dogs?’ Phillip demanded suddenly. ‘Was it the dogs, did that to her.’
Giles regarded him curiously. ‘A little brandy, I think,’ he said after a moment, ‘would serve the case well.’
‘I can taste her in my mouth,’ Phillip told him desperately.
Giles tutted. ‘Brandy, as I said.’ He walked off in search of Hew, who was poking at the damp earth with a stick.
‘We must take the lassie back now to the town. Tomorrow, we shall mount a proper search. But now it’s growing dark, the clouds obscure the moon.’
Hew rounded on him. ‘Suppose he is alive! We cannot leave him here!’
Giles answered patiently. ‘The muir is five miles square; you cannot find him on your own, and in the dark.’
‘Then fetch men with torches. Light fires! Call out the watch! Wake up the town! We cannot go back.’
The doctor sighed. ‘It shall be done. You will not want for reinforcements. I must go now, with the body. Truth will out, post mortem.’
Hew strode over to Phillip, who stood shivering, miserable and drenched, and seized him by the throat. ‘How did you know where to find her?’ he cried hysterically.
Phillip crumpled, sobbing, to his knees. ‘I swear, I did not know. I took you to the gibbet for I meant to frighten you.’
Giles came between them, taking hold of Hew and shaking him. �
��Who does this help?’ he asked him quietly. ‘It is not Phillip. Let him go.’
The Bairn’s Part
It was Richard, in the end, who persuaded Hew to leave the muir, arriving with the watch. Hew never found out who had called them, whether it was Giles, or his good friend Doctor Dow, who had sufficient presence to arouse the soldiers and recruit them in the search for a missing printer’s child. The muir became a blaze of light, and Richard took Hew by the arm. ‘Come home with me. For it is almost night, and the gates will soon be locked. There is nothing more that we can do tonight.’
Hew obeyed him numbly. Drenched with rain and cold, he had lost all feeling. He allowed his friend to take him home. By the fireside, it was Richard who brought towels and called for possets, and for brandy-wine: ‘You have had a shock.’ Hew could not stop shivering. And it was Richard who sat with him all the night, when Eleanor had gone to bed, to keep the fire alight and listen to the horror of his tale.
At last, the rain had stopped, and a wary, bloodshot dawn began to streak across the sky, watery and tentative. Richard opened up the shutters to the gallery. ‘It’s almost light.’
‘I must go back,’ Hew murmured.
‘In an hour or two. It can do no good when you have not slept. The soldiers will pick up the search. Rest awhile, Hew, it will help. If there is news, I will wake you.’
‘William was my father’s grandson, and my flesh and blood,’ Hew cried. ‘I cannot leave him on the muir.’
‘I understand,’ Richard sighed. He returned to the window, looking out upon the street. Already, a small handcart rumbled through the marketplace. Across the square, doors and shutters opened; someone emptied water down into the close.
‘I think you must prepare yourself to face the worst,’ Richard told him gently.
‘There are outlaws and Egyptians in the forests on the muir. I am very much afraid that they have killed the nurse to take the child.’
Hew shook his head. ‘That is a nursery tale, to frighten bairns,’ he answered fiercely. ‘I do not believe the gypsies steal our children. Why should they?’
‘Why would they not,’ asked Richard, sadly, ‘when we take theirs? The imps you saw on Dysart Muir were tinklars’ bairns, the lot of them.’
But the soldiers had flushed out the woods, setting light to ramshackle houses, and had driven out the gypsies from the muir. Hew was sickened to see families forced into the glare, routed from their homes. The muir was cleared of outlaws, and the prisons filled, without news of William. The little boy was lost without a trace. Hew returned, several times a day, to Christian’s printing house, and yet he could not bring himself to speak to her. She remained upstairs, in the care of Meg, while Hew hung about the workshop, quarrelling with Phillip. Walter printed notices about the missing child, and they posted them in every tavern, shop and kirk within the boundaries of the town, to no effect. On the third day, Hew said desperately to Richard, ‘I think that I may venture further south, in hope of hearing news.’
Richard sighed. ‘Why not? In truth, you are no use to me, in your present mood. And though there is small hope, the air will do you good. You may take my horse,’ he added generously.
Richard’s courser was a light red roan, of calm and gentle temperament. Hew took the easter hie gate, to Dalkeith, passing by the gibbet where they had found the corpse. In sunshine and a brisk light wind, the place had lost its terror, though the creaking gibbet and the circling crows were eerie still. Riding south, Hew felt the air clear a little as he left behind the oppression of the town. He was running, he was too aware, from Christian, for he could not face the anguish of her grief. The last time they had spoken was at Catherine’s house; his dereliction haunted him. It helped to have a purpose, to be riding out with leaflets, looking for the child, to pursue inquiries, anywhere but here. It helped to ride eastwards, in the open air. He knew, however, he was running away. Unless he found her child, he could not bear to look on Christian’s face.
Three miles south east of the town, Hew arrived at Craigmillar, the family seat of the Prestons. Sir David was at home and received Hew kindly, coming out to meet him in the gardens of a castle that overlooked the town on every side from the summit of its tower. There was indeed a fishpond, Hew noticed sadly, that shaped the letter P. Sir David was magnanimous. ‘I knew your father,’ he professed, ‘when we kept a house in town. My father was the provost, and knew Matthew well. And now you are prenticed to the lawman Richard Cunningham. Well, well, he has done work for us. Eleanor, his wife, is our distant cousin. You are welcome here.’
These credentials well established, Sir David took Hew into the tower house to show him the view. From the top of the tower, he could see the whole, from the castle on its rock to the park at Holyrood, the hollows and high crags and hills, and beyond to Leith, and across the estuary. Below him, laid out like a counterpane, he saw the borough muir, its wildness interspersed with little lands and settlements between the clumps of trees. Somewhere among them, he thought with a pang, must be William.
Sir David was staring at him. ‘I fear the height up here has made you giddy,’ he said sympathetically. ‘On some, it has that effect. A grand enough view, is it not?’
‘Beyond compare,’ Hew assured him. ‘And yet it brings a heavy sadness. I am looking for a bairn who was lost upon the muir, and I cannot help but think he must be buried in those trees. If I look hard enough, and long enough, I might find him. Yet I do not want to find him in his grave.’ He felt himself grow hot, and rubbed his face.
‘You are faint,’ Sir David said perceptively, ‘and must sit down and drink. Tell me about your lost bairn. The muir is no place for children. By the burgh loch, or the king’s park, may be safe enough. Beyond, I would not walk myself without a guard.’
‘The boy was lost by the gibbet, on the easter road.’
‘By the gibbet! Why would he be there?’ the laird exclaimed.
‘He went walking with his nurse, whose body was found murdered on that spot.’
Hew handed him a leaflet. ‘Can you show this paper, and explain its contents, to your people and your friends?’
‘For sure.’ Sir David glanced at the letter and furrowed his brow. ‘What age is the child?’
‘A little more than two, and less than three.’
‘Then I do wonder …’ Preston went on thoughtfully. ‘A day or so ago, I heard a tale … It may be nothing, though. Have you left this notice at the parish kirk at Liberton?’
‘No, not yet,’ admitted Hew. ‘Tell me, is there news?’
Preston shook his head. ‘I cannot say. From what I heard, I recommend you try Kirk Liberton. Ask for John Davidson, the minister there. He is an interesting man.’
‘That is not the John Davidson that was regent at St Andrews, and that was expelled for his contentious verses?’ wondered Hew.
‘The very same,’ Sir David smiled. ‘He has been, to some degree, rehabilitated, though he remains a thorn in the monarch’s side. Ask him what he knows of this.’
‘I thank you, sir. Is there something you suspect? Can you not give a hint of it?’ Hew demanded eagerly.
The laird shook his head. ‘I would not raise false hopes. But I wish you fortune in your search. When you return to town there is a service you can do for me, and I should be obliged to you. Ask Richard Cunningham to call on us. I have waited on him for the last three days.’
‘Has he not been to see you?’ queried Hew, surprised.
‘Not unless he came when I was out,’ Preston answered dryly. ‘We expected him at supper. It is a matter of some moment, which must shortly be attended to. Pray you, do remind him. He will understand.’
‘I am training for the bar, if you wanted some advice,’ Hew ventured.
‘Thank you. That is kind. But this is a personal matter. Richard will attend to it,’ Preston answered vaguely. ‘Godspeed, then. I will see you on your way.’
Hew took the next path west towards Kirk Liberton. The old church here was crumbl
ed and worn, for the parish was a poor one, yet the minister received him with a gentle grace. John Davidson had turned a little grey, and grown a little thinner than the regent Hew remembered; nonetheless, his eyes were bright and keen. Hew introduced himself. ‘I know you from St Leonard’s; you were regent there while I was still a student.’
‘Cut short, I fear,’ the minister said sadly. ‘It was always my deepest regret that I was forced to leave my place, and abandon my scholars halfway through their course. By the look of it, you have done well. What did you say your name was? Ah, now I remember you! A subtle and ingenious boy, well-disposed to argument. Perhaps, in truth,’ he twinkled, ‘a little too disposed. You had, I think, a somewhat serious friend.’
‘Nicholas Colp,’ supplied Hew.
‘Aye, Nicholas. Is he now ordained? He was well fitted to the kirk.’
‘I fear not. Fortune did not treat him kindly. We are friends, still, nonetheless.’
‘Friendship is a blessing,’ Davidson observed. ‘As for fortune, that may turn against us. You, I think, were never destined for the church, nor ever apt to prove a good disciple. Yet you had courage, and some wit. To what end have you put them?’
‘I am training for the law.’
‘Ah, the law,’ the minister said scornfully.
‘Though I am not quite convinced of it,’ admitted Hew.
‘There is hope for you yet, then,’ Davidson approved. ‘If I could give you some advice, it should be to be true to yourself; it may cause you anguish, in the piercing glare of day, but in the small hours of the night, there is a deeper comfort that will come to you. We are not put in this world for our ease.’
‘You say that, yet you fled to England,’ Hew objected recklessly, ‘at the whiff of danger.’
Davidson looked startled a moment, and then broke into a smile. ‘Aye, so I did,’ he conceded gently. ‘You always were a most contentious boy. And what you say is true enough. It felt like dereliction, and my heart was set against it, lest it hurt the courage of my friends. But my friends counselled me to ask God what I should do, and so I did. I knelt there for a long time praying, where at length God told me that he wanted me to flee.’
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