‘He is magnificent,’ said Hew. ‘And yet he holds on by a skin. Do you think it possible that he has got away with it?’
The doctor shook his head. ‘It is hard to say. The taint of witchcraft may not ever leave him. Tis difficult to shift. And those who persecute it have long memories. Look at Alison Pearson.’
They were silent for a moment, thinking of a woman who prepared to tell the world of her travels into Faerie land in the hope to save her soul, knowing that her body would be given to the flame.
‘Colluthie will be always at his back,’ said Hew. ‘It is a long ride home.’
Though St Leonard’s College did not show up their accounts, Lord Sempill did not seem to be concerned. ‘We shall come again, when you are prepared for us,’ he said. ‘For now, we are done here.’
‘We are not done. I wish to see the boy who brought to us the bird,’ Colluthie said.
Lord Sempill said, ‘I see no need for that,’ and Wilkie at the same time answered, ‘That will not be possible.’
‘That boy,’ Colluthie said, ‘swore to us he saw this man transformed. He must now account for it.’
‘He believed it,’ Wilkie said. ‘And he meant no malice by it. Now he sees his fault. It was an honest mistake. He is, in truth, a little simple-minded.’
Colluthie leapt at him, picking at his words. ‘Simple, do you say? Yet he is a bursar at the university!’
‘Indeed. He is here by charity. And charity is the cornerstone of our institution. Your clerk may make a note of that, to put in his report,’ Wilkie suggested, with a nod to Soutar, who did not write it down.
Sempill said, ‘Quite right. No matter if the bairn believed it. You believed it too.’
‘We believed it,’ said Colluthie, ‘because the bairn telt us he had seen his lordship changing, right before his eyes.’
‘Now, then,’ Wilkie countered, ‘did he tell you so? Did he say that, precisely, in so many words?’
Colluthie hesitated. He appealed to Philip Clench.
‘The truth is,’ Philip said, ‘that none of us remembers exactly what he said. We were caught up in the strength of the moment. We were distracted.’
‘Bumbaised,’ said Sempill.
‘Indeed.’
‘Then there is no purpose in demanding of him now what it was he said, since he has retracted it. Let us proceed with the business in hand. We note, Master Wilkie, that you do not have accounts. We give you ten more days in order in prepare them. You gentlemen go on, and I will meet you at the New College. Meanwhile, nature calls.’
Sempill stayed behind, on the pretext of latrines, for a word with Wilkie. The two men, left alone, eyed one another warily, neither knowing what was on the other’s mind. In Sempill’s case, a hazy recollection, troubling and confused, had begun to filter through; on Wilkie’s side, he would prefer it to remain forgotten. ‘I do not suppose,’ Sempill said, and hesitated, ‘someone in your college found a pair of breeks?’
Wilkie fixed on him his smooth and placid face, the one he wore in kirk, to answer him impassively, ‘I do not believe so, my lord.’
Lord Sempill left St Leonard’s with a vague sense of unease. He came upon some students loitering at the gate, shuffling with some counters he believed were dice. The counters disappeared before he could be sure of it. But one of the four students he recalled by name, and he called him out. ‘Young Balfour, is it?’
Henry Balfour bowed in a way that seemed extravagant. ‘Aye. Your servant, sir.’
‘I trust you have applied yourself since we last did meet. And that your father has impressed on you the merit of hard work.’
‘He has done so, my lord.’
‘I am glad to hear it. It grieves me to think of a young promise wasted, gone to the bad, in a profligate son. I hope he was severe, and that you were not spared. And yet I see you smile. Are my hopes in vain?’
‘They are not, my lord. My father’s education is most careful and exact. Forgive the foolish face that causes you offence; it is my natural one.’
‘Do you mock me, sir?’
‘Not for the world. I take your words to heart.’
‘Well, see that you do. Go back to your books, and do not dally here.’
A friend of Henry’s whispered, ‘You have quite a face, to sport with him like that. Are you not afeart?’
‘Nevermore, of him. Someone telt me once that if a great man daunts ye, you should try to see him naked in your head. With Bumbaise, I find it conjures up quite easily.’
His friend was not so sure. ‘There is your father, still. He will clype to him.’
Henry found the dice he had hidden up his sleeve and threw them in the air. ‘For that,’ he said. ‘I have a compass. I will not go home.’
Henry Balfour consulted his regent, Robert Black, in the Latin tongue, which had been instilled in him when he was small and tractable, and which he spoke with ease, and a certain charm. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘I wanted to excel in my examination. How might it be done?’
‘With work,’ said Robert Black.
‘So had I feared. There is, I must suppose, no more convenient way?’
‘No other way at all. But, if you are prepared to put your heart in it, then I am prepared to offer you my help.’
‘Spiritus quidem promptus, caro vero infirma. The heart is not the trouble, as you see,’ Henry sighed. ‘Yet I am resolved. Hard work it must be. How will you help?’
‘I can hear your practice sometimes after hours.’
‘That is kind, indeed. But you must understand – for I would not for the world endeavour to deceive you – at this present time, I cannot pay you for it.’
‘Do you imagine,’ Robert asked him, ‘I do it for my gain?’
‘I imagine you do not. Why do you do it, then?’
And Robert found he did not have an answer to the question, so long had he mouldered there, without hope or cause. If there was a purpose in it, he had long forgotten it. He had been a regent for a dozen years, with no ambition to advance to the place of a professor, and as little interest in the outside world.
‘My father,’ Henry said, ‘may reward you handsomely, if I should succeed. Or, there again, he may not. It is hard to tell. There will be, of course, the usual gift of gloves.’
‘Gloves are, of course, always welcome,’ Robert said. At the last laureation, when seventeen of his students had passed at the black stane, he had been given seventeen pairs.
‘I should like,’ Henry said, ‘to become a magistrand, and to graduate next year, with all kinds of honour, as Master of Arts. Is that likely, do you think?’
‘Likely is a word I hesitate to say. Yet it may be possible.’
‘Possible is music to my ears. Good Master Robert, you lift up my heart. I am resolved to prove my worth, both to the college and to my father. To show that I am true in my intent, I propose to stay here pending the vacances, and spend the hours in study. I shall board with you.’
‘With me?’ Robert echoed, baffled at this turn. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘So that you can steer me to a steady course. My father would approve it. You could write to him.’
‘You presume too much. I may have made arrangements. I may depart upon a walking tour. Hew Cullan has told me of a place called Buckstanes, in Derbyshire, where people go to rest and to take the waters. Perhaps I will go there.’
This unlikely proposal failed to impress even Robert himself, and Henry said, sceptical, ‘Do you intend to go to that place?’
Robert said, ‘Probably not.’ The thought of a world beyond the college gates awoke in him the sense of a sick alarm, before he began to consider public baths. ‘But why do you wish to stay here through the summer? Do not pretend, I pray you, that it is to learn. A girl, I suppose. When is it ever not?’
‘Not just a girl. You must remember what that feeling is.’
Robert Black, no more than five and thirty, answered this aloofly. ‘Must I, indeed? Shall I tell you the last time
I was in love? At no time at all.’
Henry thought this one of the most tragic stories he had ever heard. ‘Your pardon, sir, if I have offended you. I had no right to ask.’
His petition touched a chord. Robert told him, ‘Not at all. And if I am not absent during the vacation – I think we may presume that I will not be absent – you may board with me, providing that you work. I will write to your father. When shall I tell him the arrangement will begin?’
‘At Lammas,’ Henry said, owning to it cheerfully, ‘for I have promised Mary I will take her to the fair.’
POSTSCRIPT
Visitatioun of the Colleges of Sanctandrois Anno 1588
The Second Visitatioun of the Universite of Sanctandrois, be Commissioners appointit be his Majestie 9 Maij 1588
Report of the New College
In the New College thair was na comptis perfyttit, nor copeis reddy to be schawin to the counsall, becaus, as the Maisteris allegit, Mr David Auchmutie, Iconomus, had maid nane.
Report of Sanct Leonardis
They refuse to deliver the copie of the inventor of thair evidentis upoun suspitioun, becaus thair land is not fewit.
Report of the Auld College
Imprimis, Thair na inventair of thair evidentis perfyttit. The Provest allegeand, that Mr. William Cranstoun hes ane greit part of the saidis evidentis. And that the rest was put in ane kist under the erth, and thairefter found be chance, but that the evidentis was altogidder consumed thairin.
Thair is na perfytit compt this nyne yeiris bygane.
(Extract from Report of Visitation to St Andrews University in 1588, published as Appendix to Great Britain Commission for Visiting the Universities and Colleges of Scotland: University of St Andrews. Printed by W. Clowes and Sons for H.M. Stationery Office, 1837. Curiously, Lord Sempill’s name is absent from the source. We can only suppose that the record was buried.)
BOOK III
And if thou wilt but come vnto our greene,
on Lammas day when as we haue our feast,
Thou shalt sit next vnto our summer Queene,
and thou shalt be the onely welcome guest.
MICHAEL DRAYTON, The Shepheards Garland, 1593
AUGUST 1
I
Elspet left the sweepings for the tide to take out. There were ships, three or four, coming to the fair. ‘Look out for Spaniards,’ Sliddershanks had said, and she could not help but glance across the bay, though she did not really think the fleet would come. It was just his play.
She had belonged to Sliddershanks – she looked on it like that – for almost six years now. She had been fifteen, in service to Maude Benet at the harbour inn, when they first had met. She had woken in her bed one cruel December night to find that Maude had gone, with her daftie daughter and the cat. The lass who worked beside her had not lingered long. ‘I have expectations, d’ye see?’
Elspet herself had had no expectations, no other refuge or friends. She had stayed for three days alone at the inn, and when the sailors came to drink she had telt them bluntly that the house was closed, stopping up the doors and her ears against their oaths, mindful that Maude Benet would not let them curse. She had swept the floors and scrubbed the stools and boards, and, when a mouse appeared, caught it in a trap and left the carcase out as a warning to the rest. She had made pottage and broth with the pulled roots and herbs in the kitchen, and bread from the barley and oats. She had returned to the loft, to her old sleeping place, when the sun had set and had woken again as it rose. On the fourth day, Sliddershanks had come, with a paper from the council, forcing her to open up the locks. He had told her that his name was Walter Bone – though in her head she thought of him as Sliddershanks, for he was slow and crippled in his legs – and he was now the owner of the harbour inn.
Sliddershanks had looked her up and down. ‘Whit age are ye? Ten?’
She had telt him, indignant, ‘I am not ten.’
‘No? An uncomely twattle, are ye no?’
‘A twattle?’ she had said.
‘A mimmerkin. A dwarf.’
‘I am not a dwarf.’
Maude Benet had been stern. Sometimes even sharp. But she had not called folk names. Elspet had telt him, as Maude would have done. And he had laughed at her.
‘Ye are a hichty wee quean. But ye will not do here. Ye are the wrang sort.’
She had asked him, ‘What is my sort?’
‘A pin-hippit runt. Not the sort that men like, that will bring in the drinkers. That has something to hing to, up here, and an arse.’ He had placed his hands on the offending parts, and told her in a way that was kinder than his words, ‘Flat as a board. Now if ye were a wean, the chance is ye wid sprout. But sin ye are full grown, there is little hope. What man wid want you?’
‘Oh,’ she had said. ‘What will I do, then?’
‘Have you nowhere to go? No family?’
Elspet had shaken her head. Maude and the daftie she had thought were her family. Now they had left her alone. It was not strictly true. Maude Benet had remembered, when she went to flit, that Elspet had a mammie living still at Crail. Mebbe she forgot she had a faither too, and what that father did. She would not go to them.
Sliddershanks, with his withered smile and his crooked bones, had not looked like a man who was heavy with his fists. He had looked around him, taking in the room that was swept and scrubbed, the savour of the broth and the carcase of the mouse, and he had nodded. ‘Well. Stay, if ye will. But keep out from the tap. That ploukie-facit mow of yours is sure to sour the ale.’
His name for her was Mimmerkin. And she returned his taunts. The first day she had dared to use his name of Sliddershanks he had turned to gawp at her, and she had been feart that she had gone too far. Then his crooked face had split into a smile. ‘You are an impudent quean.’
She was not bonny, he telt her. No man would want her. But he had been wrong about that.
Sliddershanks did not allow her to mix with the men. For that, he brought in the sort of lass he liked, buxom and broad-hipped. All of them, he telt her, were comelier than she. Only when the inn was full, and the heaving bosoms buckled at the strain, would he let her go out with a cup or tray. ‘The hope is that the drinkers do not spy you in the crush, foulsum as ye are. The help is you are slight enough to slip among a crowd.’
‘More help than you are, with your futless leg.’
‘I had a foot once,’ he said.
She gave him as good as she got. But sometimes in the night, when she was in her bed, she felt beneath the sheet her slender hips and thighs, the sweet bud of her breasts, and wondered if she was so foul that she could not be loved.
By day, she kept the house. And when the drinkers came she sent out broth and bannock, herrings, bread and cheese from the kitchen larder she now thought of as her own. The lassies in the front room she saw come and go, Alys and Isobel, Jonet and Em. All were of a kind, and none of them stayed long. Some went off with sailors who had come across the sea. Some of them were married. Some of them went wrong. She saw Jonet on a Sunday, stripped down to her shirt, weeping at the kirk. They had cut her hair. Not long after that, a council from the kirk had come to talk to Sliddershanks. The minister himself was there – for that was before he was taken at the plague – and Elspet had heard his censure, strenuous and stern. Sliddershanks had called her in, and she had been afraid.
‘This is Elspet Bell,’ Sliddershanks had said, ‘who has worked for me since the day I came. She lives in this house. There is nothing here that she does not ken. Ask her what she sees that is not clean or seemly.’
The four men from the kirk had seemed to be discomfited. It had seemed to Elspet that they did not like to look at her. Perhaps it was her kirtle they found unbecoming, or they were offended at the plainness of her face. Was she yet so foul, they could not meet her gaze?
The minister had cleared his throat. ‘I know Elspet well. She is a communicant of conscience in the kirk. A guid kind of girl,’ he had telt them.
Encouraged, she had looked at him. But he had not looked back. ‘I have to ask you, Elspet, if you have been privy to uncleanness in this house.’
‘I keep the house clean,’ she had said.
‘I can see that you do. That is not what I meant. Have you been attendant, while men have conversed?’
‘I do not listen, sir.’
‘I refer to converse of the carnal kind.’
And she had answered, ‘Oh. I have heard of that. But only at the kirk. I have not seen it done.’
‘You are a fine lass,’ Sliddershanks had said, once the men had left. ‘Foul in the face, but fine none the less. I have a mind to marry you.’
He had not seemed, at that moment, to intend a jest, and Elspet for her part was not displeased with him. Sliddershanks was old – forty if a day – and with his ravaged body was unlikely to live long. She, at that time, had just turned seventeen. She could see a day when she would be like Maude, hostess and proprietor of the harbour inn, and hoped for it to come. But Sliddershanks had married someone else. He had chosen for his bride the kind of lass he liked – Maggie from the inn – the plumpest and most fetching of the slutherouns. ‘She trapped him,’ the others had said, and Elspet had not understood. She had pictured Sliddershanks, clamped in Maggie’s thighs.
And that was not far from the truth. For they were not married a month when Maggie gave birth to a child, a lusty bawling boy. The infant had been given up to Elspet to look after, and she had not liked it much. It was red and round, all of it of Maggie, nought of Sliddershanks. She had not been sorry when the bairn and mother both were sent away, to escape the plague. She had not been very sorry when they died.
The plague had been bad, and a good year for her. The harbour had been closed, but she had stayed with Sliddershanks when the rest were gone. And they had come accustomed to each other’s ways. Their words were not kinder, or fonder. They had not had between them enough to eat and drink, and Elspet had grown thinner, Sliddershanks more frail; he had not spared to tell her quite how ill she looked. He grieved his wife and bairn. Yet they had been content enough to keep each other company.
1588 A Calendar of Crime Page 11