Martinmas

by Shirley McKay

  James Melville was now the minister at Kilrennie, near Anstruther. Colin had walked all the way there on foot. He had expected James to be pleased to see him, and had been received cordially enough. Arriving at dinnertime, he was asked to stay. At dinner, he had telt him what he had in mind. James Melville had not seemed as keen as Colin was. He had stated that there were no Jesuits in Fife. ‘My uncle Andro would have found them, else.’

  Then he had demanded the source of his intelligence. Colin had shown him the documents of evidence, the end of his researches for the last two years. A thousand letters of inquiry had been sent, under different names, and the results had been compiled into a spider’s web. He had begun with the heirs of ancient papist families, meticulously tracing all their known associates, and plotting all the names on to a charter of deceit that mapped across the land.

  James had been jealous of the truth he had discovered. Therefore he had warned, ‘Here you have the names of people who have made no secret of their faith, and who, in spite of it, hold favour with the King. That is not to say they harbour Jesuit priests. It is a far cry from that, and what you will accuse them of. You maun beware the wrath of powerful men.’

  Colin had insisted, ‘I am no feart.’ He understood precisely why James was opposed to it. His uncle had been despatched, on his return from exile, to hunt for Jesuits up north, where he had found none. He had cried it vain, a wasting of his time, that kept him from the college and his proper ministry. How galling for him, if Colin had uncovered what was hidden in plain sight. He could not smell the midden under his own nose.

  James would not have it, though. He had protested, ‘This priest hunt is not fitting at this time.’

  ‘It is precisely fitting at this time. The Kirk was crying out for it, fearful at the prospect of a foreign threat. More treacherous by far is the threat within.’

  ‘Aye, but that was then. Since God has made his feeling plain, and sent the storms to rage against the Spanish ships, they know their cause is lost. Now is time to show the temper of our Kirk, merciful and generous, magnanimous in victory, proving to the world what God himself has shown, that we are better than they.’

  A woman’s kind of argument, Colin Snell had thought. He had made a man’s: ‘Our Kirk must not be gentle where there is a threat. Ye ken that yourself. Were you not troubled with witches, the now? Did you show mercy to them?’

  That had blown out his bluster. ‘Who telt ye that?’ James had said.

  ‘It came to me as part of the whole intelligence, which you would dispute. Do you deny it, then? Were there no witches here?’

  It was Dod had written to him of the witch at Anstruther. But it did no harm for James to think he had a host of spies. The mention of the witch had vexed him, that was plain to see. Yet he could not deny he had a part in it.

  ‘A witch and a priest are two different things,’ was all that he could say.

  ‘But neither,’ Colin told him, ‘can be wanted here.’

  James had suggested that Colin show his document to Andrew at the college. ‘He is best placed to examine the proofs. If he thinks that you have found compelling evidence, he will put it before the General Assembly.’

  That was the last thing Colin meant to do. He would not have Andrew Melville take the credit for his work. When he discovered his first priest, he would bring him to the Kirk, who would make him talk. Under torments, he would tell the secrets of them all. Colin would be hailed as the saviour of the land, and be assured of a living there for life.

  And so he had pretended, ‘I will think on it,’ tucking up the papers out of James’s scrutiny. Now he regretted showing him the list.

  James Melville had repeated, ‘There are no Jesuits here.’

  ‘That is what you think.’ Colin had perhaps been too earnest in his passions, for he had noticed Melville flinch. ‘For that is what they want you to think. They are here, among us, hidden in plain sight. I ken it for a fact, that there is one that bides at the house of Ann Balfour at the Poffle of Strathkinness. And I mean to catch him in the act.’

  ‘My advice to you is, do not pursue this on your own.’ James had eaten hardly any of his fish. He had seemed to lose his appetite. Now that Colin thought of it, it was a mean enough dinner that his guidwife had provided them, and he was not surprised.

  He had urged, ‘Come with me, then.’

  James had said, ‘I should. But the Poffle of Strathkinness is too far away. I am needed here.’

  ‘To deal with the witches.’

  Colin had intended to express his sympathy, but James had not liked that. He had not liked it at all. He had made a comment that was quite unkind: ‘Some men are not called to go into the Kirk.’

  Colin had asked him, ‘What d’ye mean?’

  James had not answered the question. Instead, he had said, ‘I always thought you competent in the Latin tongue. You went to tutor boys. How did that turn out?’

  It was early in the morning of the first day of November, when Colin Snell set out to snare his priest. He had been preparing for a month, hampered by the weather and the torment in his tooth, susceptible to sudden blasts of cold. The date – Allhallowday – was auspicious, he supposed, dawning to the vapour of a sluggish wind, a sky pretending to a poor attempt at day. It did not look like rain.

  Colin wrapped a scarf around his face. He wore upon his head a little velvet cap, like the one the doctors wore, which had cost him more than all his other clothes. He thought it lent an air of authority and scholarship, crowned by the scarf ends tied across the top, protecting his sore tooth. His shirt was the woollen one that James had given him, for going to the Crowes. Over it he wore his old college gown, tattered now and darned, which he had gathered up and tucked into his hose, to keep the ragged edges from trailing in the mud. The hose were grey and riddled, sagging at the knees. Only his shoes were relatively new; already he had worn through several leather soles. He carried in his left hand a long shepherd’s staff, which had assisted him on several of his walks. Sometimes he was troubled with a plague of bairns. A sharp swipe of the cudgel was enough to see them off. ‘Dinnae fash, auld man.’ Of all the insults flung at him, it was auld that stung. He was twenty-three. But they were naught but flies, buzzing round the cross.

  A battered leather scrip was flung across one shoulder. In it was his bible, and a length of rope. The bible was a satisfying burden on his back. It made his shoulder ache. The bairns who mocked were fooled by his lopsided gait. He was lean and strong.

  The rope was to restrain the priest, if he put up a fight. Colin would have liked something more substantial, shackles or a chain, but the blacksmith’s fee had proved to be prohibitive. His pocket knife was tucked safely in his belt. A priest, though he was slippery, was unlikely to be armed, and Colin could make use of anything to hand. God would provide. But the first and most essential weapon in his armoury was that of surprise.

  Ann Balfour’s house was three miles from St Andrews, lying to the west, and another mile from the closest farm. In summer, it was hidden from the road by trees, its presence hinted vaguely by the wisp of smoke. Now the fields were bare, and the wind had stripped the trees of leaves, it was mantled still in holly, thistle clumps and thorns, so that Colin breaking through found his calves streaked red with blood and bramble juice. A tree branch snapped back, snatching at his scarf, and scratched him on the cheek. Smarting, he fought free and fell upon the cottage rising from the gloom. The door stood wide open, almost as though he had been expected there. Yet he saw no sign of life.

  He left the door ajar, to let in the light, while he looked around. Inside, he found a panelled hall, furnished with a settle and a bed, with some kind of carpet on the walls. There were shutters on the windows, which Colin tried to open, finding that the hinges had been rusted fast, as though no one had opened them for years. On the wall were the stubs of candles, recently burnt out. The wax that puddled in the cups smelt of mutton fat. He prised a candle out, and teasing up the wick, lit it from a fl
int. It took him several strikes before it was alight. Blowing on his fingers, which the sparks had burnt, he held the stump in front of him, and leapt to see a shadow in the corner of the room become a sombre figure in a high-backed chair. When his heartbeat settled and he dared approach, he saw it was Ann Balfour, apparently asleep. Her face was covered with a veil of gauze, and her hands were clasped white against the lap, voluminous and dark, of her satin gown. It was the hands that captured him, before he had the chance to look up to her face. They were slender hands, the fingers long and delicate. The nails were clean and trimmed. But the skin was parched and crumpled, each blue vein pinched out.

  Ann Balfour spoke. ‘Who are you?’ she said.

  Because he had supposed she was asleep, he could not help but jump at it. Her voice was tight and quivering, an auld body’s voice, distant and superior, cool in a way that irritated him. She was never meant to have the upper hand.

  ‘I am Colin Snell, come from the Kirk.’ He tried to make the words full of weight and matter, inspiring her to dread.

  ‘Thank the Lord for that. I thought you were a ghost.’ Ann Balfour did not seem the slightest bit afraid.

  She was nearly blind, Colin Snell had heard. He came a little closer, holding up the candle to her face. She did not flinch from it. He saw sunken features, hollowed out with age. An aquiline nose. An old woman’s whisker, white on her chin, standing proud. Her eyes, which did not see, were penetrating still, washed out to a crystalline blue. She seemed to look through him.

  ‘The kirk of Holy Trinity?’ she asked. ‘I had not heard there was a new incumbent.’

  ‘The College of St Mary,’ he was forced to say.

  ‘I did not ken there was a chapel there.’

  Colin Snell was vexed that she had caught him out. Blustering, he told her, ‘The Kirk kens that you are harbouring a priest. I have been sent here to apprehend him.’

  The words should have filled her with terror and dismay. She should be whimpering, falling to her knees. He scarcely could believe it when he heard her laugh; a rasping, creaking sound. ‘The Kirk is misinformed.’

  ‘If the priest is here,’ he telt her, ‘I will flush him out.’

  He knew the priest was there. He could smell him in the air. The scent of incense drifted from the candles, which had been blown out. He sniffed experimentally.

  ‘Camphor,’ she said. ‘It is for the moths. The tapestries are full of them.’

  He knew then that the priest was concealed behind the arras. It was plain as day. He took up his staff with a cry, and began to flounder round the room, flailing at the tapestries, which fell down from the walls, scattering their dust, and clouds of moths flew out, landing on his face.

  Ann Balfour said, ‘Dear me. Why would ye do that?’

  When the streaming in his eyes had stopped, he returned to her, brandishing the staff. He hoped she found it menacing.

  Plainly, she did not. ‘You have cut your cheek. Let me.’ She reached out to him with a pocket handkerchief, doused in some peculiar kind of scent. Her hand touched his face, and Colin jumped back with a jolt. The brush of her fingers, papery dry, kindled the flame in his tooth. Moaning, he cradled his cheek.

  ‘What is the matter? Poor man.’

  He could not speak for the pain. When the words came, they were clumsy and thick. ‘Tell me where he is.’

  Ann Balfour gazed at him. ‘I do not understand you. There is no one lives here but the servant Adam Cole, and his wife Grizelda. No one else at all.’ She put a curious emphasis upon the final phrase, seeming to amuse her.

  He saw there was a tray of breakfast by her side. The breakfast was untouched. The servants must have left it there.

  ‘Where are the servants now?’ he asked.

  ‘If they are not about, then I cannot say. Perhaps they have gone out to the farm.’

  The door was left wide open. But the farm at the Poffle was a mile away. ‘And left you alone?’ Colin said.

  ‘They are good servants. They will not have gone far. Besides, they are old. They cannot go far.’

  He told her that he meant to search the house. ‘It will be the worse for you, if you not confess to something that I find. Better own it now.’

  She declined the chance, with a gracious bowing of her head. ‘I do not recommend you go into the loft. The boards are rotten there.’

  He told her to stay put. ‘Do not quit this place.’

  Ann Balfour smiled. ‘Where would I go?’ She closed her eyes again and clasped her hands. He thought he saw a movement in her lips, though he heard no words. He looked around again, and noticed that the bed was stripped.

  ‘Why do you not sleep in your bed?’ he asked her. She was laughing at him, he was sure of it.

  ‘Bless you,’ she said. ‘I do not sleep.’

  He supposed he had found her at her papish prayers, and grimaced in disgust. He had a will to hurt her. She was old and frail, and it would be no more than the bending of a twig. But the moment was not now. It would come.

  The house was not grand, and would not take long to search. The chamber where she kept had a single room behind it, serving as the kitchen and the nether hall, where the servants slept in a curtained crevice, set into the wall. Here Colin poked and prodded with his stick, but found no one underneath. The kitchen fire was cold; the ashes had been dampened down sometime in the night, and had not been kindled that day. Where were the servants, then? Had they left the house before the sun was up? A pat of primrose butter and a pot of cheese were covered with a cloth. Ale in a barrel was frothy and wholesome. He drew off a cup. There were oats in a sack, sufficient to make cakes, and haddies that were blistered to a honeyed black, hanging from a rack, yet the griddle pan was cold. There were plums and pippins, and a bowl of milk. Yesterday’s bread, in a crock. In the larder he found more things to eat. A clutch of small wild birds, plucked of their feathers, packed in a dish like hatchlings in a nest. The carcase of a hare. An extravagant pie, adorned with fruits and leaves moulded from the paste.

  He returned to the hall to look in on Ann Balfour.

  ‘Your servants have not gone out for provisions. You are well supplied.’

  She took a moment to answer. He did not care if he disturbed her at her prayers, or if she was asleep. Eventually she said, ‘Did I say they had?’

  ‘There is food for you. Why do you not eat?’ For some reason that he could not fathom, the untouched tray offended him. It was not rational to accuse her. That he understood. And yet he felt a viciousness that spurred his questions on.

  ‘I find,’ Ann Balfour said, ‘I have little appetite.’

  ‘Then who is all the food for?’ The house was full of food. The servants must intend to be away some while. Where, then, had they gone? Surely she must know.

  ‘That is for the guests,’ she said.

  ‘What guests?’ The door was left open, so that anyone who passed could easily walk in. But no one would pass. The house was not on the way to anywhere at all.

  ‘There are always guests, at a time like this. You are a guest, and hungry, I think. You are most welcome to eat.’

  He recognized at once that he was ravenously hungry, astonished that he had not noticed it before. A man who did God’s service needed proper sustenance; well then, he would take the woman at her word. He returned to the kitchen and piled a plate with cheese, haddies and some pickle he had found in a jar, slathering some butter on a slab of bread. Vengeful, he carved deep into the piecrust, scooping out the meat to mash up to a jelly in the corner of his mouth. He had eaten little for the last few days, tormented by the raging in his tooth. Now, God was kind; the red volcano slept. Colin had his fill, and more; and when he looked upon the carnage he had left, the pastry coffin torn and pillaged of its flesh, the loaf smeared with butter and the butter strewn with crumbs, and remembered his excess had been visible to God, he felt a little sick. He must not lose sight of the reason he had come. He would make amends by discovering the priest.

&nbs
p; Priests of the Catholic Church were well kent to indulge themselves. If the pie had been intended for the Jesuit priest, then it was likely that the priest was gross in size and slothful, and could not run far. Colin had no doubt that he was hiding in the loft. Perhaps at this moment, he was peering down, bleating out his rosary, fumbling at the beads, quivering with rage and indignant at the pie; the short work Colin made of it he would make of him.

  Ascending to the loft, Colin reappraised this rosy view of things. The entrance to the loft, and the ladder which led up to it, had not been constructed to admit of corpulence. Any priest who hid there was of the wiry kind. He himself was lean. Yet with his staff in his left hand, and a candle in his right, and the rope and the bible banging on his back, he struggled to climb up. He needed the candle to illuminate the rafters, and the staff to subdue whatever lived up there. Colin’s dread of rats equalled the revulsion he felt for Catholic priests.

  The hole at the top was a squeeze. Colin set his candle down on a board in front of him, hauling himself up. The light was a drop in the pooling darkness, and Colin stretched his staff before him as a probe, prodding into chasms where the candle did not reach. This is how it must feel to be blind, he told himself, pleased at the conceit. God wanted him to see, to ken what that was like. The floorboards below were spongy to his feet; he could feel them sag. About that, at least, Ann Balfour had not lied.

  He proceeded cautiously, stooping where he felt the rafters at his head. Once, he lost his footing, and fell into a pile of something soft. He wrestled for a moment, fighting his way out of what appeared to be a bundle of old clothes. Like the tapestries below, they were full of moths, and a woollen shawl fell to nothing in his hands. He satisfied himself that there was no place here to hide. Disheartened, he climbed down, missing his footing at the bottom of the steps, and landing with a thud. He felt a little flustered, certain that Ann Balfour must have heard the bump. He was followed to the ground by a cloud of dust, and brushing himself off, he found he had a cobweb caught up in his cap.