1588 A Calendar of Crime

by Shirley McKay

‘Ah, mistress cruelty, be kind.’

  ‘Why won’t you marry her, then?’ Elspet asked.

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Why can’t you?’

  The question seemed to sober him, or else he did not to wish to take the matter further, for he turned his back. ‘Why are those people crowding at the pier?’

  ‘The tumblers are going to walk across on ropes.’

  ‘That is not so hard, with the basin filled with water. More hazardous to walk above the rocks.’

  ‘It is harder than you think. The distance is quite far. And though the water here looks still, they walk close to the tide, and the current as it turns may catch and drag them out.’

  ‘Piffle. For a fellow who has poise, as a fencer or a dancer, it is easily done. I could do it myself.’

  ‘I’d like to see you try it,’ Elspet said.

  ‘Well then, you shall. Send a man for Mary. She shall see it too.’

  The young man took off, with unexpected speed, making for the pier. Elspet cried, ‘Wait! Dinna be daft. What are ye thinking of, now?’

  She followed as well as she could, forcing her way through the crowd. She did not have to fear, for he had not travelled far when his stomach failed him. His limbs had buckled too, and he sat down on a stone. ‘I dinna feel well.’

  Elspet said, ‘Sit there, you loun, and drink in the air.’ She left him to feel sorry for himself, following the line to the far end of the pier. The balladeer was singing Quhy sowld not Allane honorit be? ‘Quhen he wes yung and cled in greene, haifand his air abowt his een.’ Surely, Elspet thought, that is Michael’s song.

  The crowd was urgent now. The young Egyptian boy had taken off his shirt, and his feet were bare. He wore a kind of hose, tight against the skin, with no flap or fold for the wind to catch, knotted round the waist with a piece of string. He was sweating, just a little, from his tumbles on the quay. Or maybe it was fear. The drummer had begun to rap upon his drum, a beat for the boy at the bending of a knee, a beat for the boy at the flexing of his feet.

  Marie stood listening to the piper on the quay. Her foot began to tap. She wondered if a lad would ask her for a dance, a handsome one like Elspet had. She shook out her skirts and began to sway, hands upon her hips, provocative and plump. She felt a blaze of happiness.

  The tumblers had finished their somersaults, and bowing in submission to the crowd, prepared to make their rope walk. The older boy was kneeling on the outcrop, testing the tautness of the rope. His younger brother went into the inn, and came out with a sack. The crowd swarmed behind him to the pier. Marie preferred to watch from the safety of the shore. The pier was old and worn, and would not bear the weight of all those bodies in a storm. The tide was at its peak, and swelled upon it fiercely, clamouring to reach the pool of limpid water sheltered in its bowl. And Marie had lived by the sea long enough to ken the full fetch of its waves.

  Elspet’s young man was caught up in the crowd carried to the pier, and Elspet came too, calling after him. Marie smiled and waved at her, but she did not wave back. Bold piece she was, chasing him like that, for all the world but Walter Bone to see. The strumpet held her own worth higher than the rest.

  Marie shifted place, to feel a sudden absence, a hollow want of weight somewhere in her skirt. Her happiness evaporated to a sick dismay. She could not find her purse. She felt beneath her apron, her kirtle and her shirt, and scrabbled in the folds to find her dread was justified; her pocket was no longer fastened at her waist, the cord that held it cut. She looked around her blindly through the crowd. She could not recall when she had it last, when she had last felt the warmth of its weight, as comfortable and close as a body part. Was it the drinker who had squeezed past her, the one who called to her for a sly kiss, the one who had pulled her to sit on his knee? Was there not one who had plucked at her sleeve, tipping the tray and slopping out ale? Were the afternoon’s takings spilled with the drink? She was afraid of what Walter would say. He had never been a violent kind of man. He would not raise his hand to her. But his tongue was cruel. He could rain on words, just as sore as stripes. Maybe for her carelessness she would lose her place. Maybe he would keep her, at his beck and call, in a bitter servitude until the debt was paid. Marie was not sure which would be the worse. Elspet all the while would remain his pet, queening over her. Marie would be spit, for cleaning Elspet’s shoes.

  She felt something at her back, and spun round to find her friend, the juglar from the fair. He tipped his hat to her. ‘Is it too late for a drink, before the rope walk starts? I dinna want for you to miss the show.’

  She stared at him, blank for a moment, before she stuttered, ‘Oh. Joan is at the house. She will gie you one.’

  ‘Then I will hae to ask Joan. The pity is,’ he smiled at her, ‘she isnae as bonny as you.’

  She liked the juglar still. He had merry eyes. But she was too upset to stop to flirt with him.

  ‘I would fetch it for ye, gladly. But there is something I must look for, somewhere in the crowd. Please excuse me, sir.’ She tried to squeeze past him.

  ‘Something you have lost? Mebbe tis this.’ To Marie’s amazement, he held out her purse. She snatched at it, dazed in relief. ‘How did you?’

  ‘I saw the piker who cut it frae your shirt, and trailed him through the crowd.’

  ‘Thank ye, sir, thank ye. I cannot thank you enough.’ Marie looked around. ‘Where is the piker now? Will they clip his lugs, and put him in the jougs?’ There was a court, just for the fair, that made short shrift of a thief. She would find a cabbage that was rotten for to throw at him, a cabbage or a neep. But she hoped Walter Bone would not hear what he had done.

  The juglar told her, ‘He is far from here, crowing at his luck. He will be quite baffled when he finds his spoils have gone.’

  ‘But does he not ken he is caught?’ Marie said. ‘How can that be?’

  ‘Pardon,’ said the juglar, ‘but there is a wasp, crawling on your cap. If you stand quite still, I will flick it off, for I should not like you to be stung.’ Marie felt his hand brush against her cheek, the lightness of a breeze, and shivered with an unexpected pleasure at his touch.

  ‘There. All peril past. You are now quite safe, and can dry your tears.’ He handed her a handkerchief.

  And if she was ashamed to find her eyes were wet with them, her neb running too, for she was overcome with fear and gratitude, these feelings were eclipsed by a new astonishment. The handkerchief was hers. And there was her name, still in the corner, where her wee sister had worked it, for Marie to take when she found her first place. She knew that the thief had not snatched it with the purse, for she had found it safe in the place she kept it, tucked between her breasts.

  ‘How did you get that?’ she whispered. ‘I never felt.’ Her gown was tight, her breasts were full. It could not have been lifted, so close to her skin.

  ‘It is done by distraction,’ he said. ‘You were thinking of a wasp, whether it would sting. You felt my hand,’ Marie blushed at that, ‘only in the place where you were expecting it.’

  ‘And that is how you robbed the piker of my purse?’

  ‘It is not theft to deprive a thief. It is sleight of hand. I think you are not pleased. Would you rather that the thief wis hanged?’ he teased.

  Marie shook her head. She whispered, ‘I do not want my master to ken.’

  ‘We will not tell him, then. Tis well you have it safe. I see him coming now.’

  The juglar had a knack to know when there was danger, to catch it on the wind. Now she saw him too, coming from the inn. His sore leg dragged a little as he crossed the quay. She became afraid that somehow Walter knew, that he saw the cords were cut, underneath her shirt. She clutched at the purse. But he barely looked at her. ‘Where is Elspet?’ he said. ‘She isnae is the house,’ a queer, rasping tremor in his voice.

  ‘Oh,’ Marie said, ‘she is on the pier. She went there wi a laddie she was dancing with. The tumblers are for putting on a show.’

  Walter Bo
ne had such a dark and glowering look, Marie was relieved it was not meant for her. ‘I will swing for that limmar,’ he said. She felt at his back a glad prick of spite as he hobbled off. Let Elspet be troubled for once.

  The juglar took her hand. ‘I will stand by you, while you watch the show. No one will come near.’

  He helped her to hide the pocket underneath her skirt, and showed her a way that she could loop the cord, so that she could catch it if ever it was pulled. Then he stood close at her side, and the weight of the purse resting in her lap, and the weight of his hand resting on her hip, made her feel wanted and safe.

  The tumbler on the pier had stripped down to his hose. Each piece of clothing he took off was greeted by a rolling of the drum, and a rumble in the crowd, grumbling at the boy to hurry himself up. The boy took his time. He opened up his sack. Inside were two metal balls that looked like cannon shot. The juglar told Marie that the balls were weights. The boy would hold one in each hand, as he walked the rope, and they would keep him straight, like the balance of a scale.

  ‘What if he should drop one?’ Marie said.

  ‘Then he will fall in, and the crowd will roar. They will stamp and jeer, and like it all the more.’

  Marie thought it likely that was true. Most people watching would prefer it if he fell. The juglar sounded sad, and Marie wondered if he was feeling sorry for the boy. But when she asked him, he telt her he was not. He believed that the show would outshine his own, which he was hoping to perform in the inn that night.

  ‘The one with the egg and the bat?’ Marie asked.

  He telt her that he thought the bat had died. That was no matter, for he had another trick. But he could not do it without help.

  Marie said, ‘What help?’

  ‘The help of a lass who has the kind of face to keep a man transfixed. A sonsie face like yours.’

  Marie was flattered then. ‘What is the trick?’ she asked.

  ‘A disappearing one.’

  Her eyes opened wide. ‘What will you disappear?’

  ‘Anything you like. Any kind of thing can be made to disappear. The trick is distraction,’ he replied.

  Elspet stepped back. She could no longer bear to look at the boy’s face, caught in concentration, in a clasp so powerful that it frightened her. The boy’s face turned to stone, still and sculpted, strange. He listened to the wind. He did not hear the crowd.

  Elspet had drifted to the far side of the pier, where the water rose and broke upon the rocks, showering her with spray. She looked on a sun that was sultry and dark, heavy with heat, in an indigo sky. The rush of the water had drowned out the crowd; the rush of the crowd had drowned out the drum; the beat of the drum had drowned out the sea, lulled to a hush as the rattle came quick, tight on its surface like sweet Lammas rain. Elspet looking back to hear the drumroll’s rush saw the boy step out, taut above a pool so dark and smooth and still it seemed to hold its breath. Elspet turned again, and Sliddershanks was there. His face was grained and grey, desolate with grief. The rushing of the water took away his words, and cast them to the wind.

  VII

  Andrew Wood, the crownar and sheriff for Fife, held no jurisdiction at the fair. He had come to town to collect the rents for his brother’s mill, and was at the tolbooth on that day by chance. So when a witness came to report a crime he referred the matter to the powder court. The bailies, when they heard the case, referred it back to him. According to the witness’s account, a woman had been thrown from the pier, in full view of her friends, a slaughter with intent, which was his concern, and no concern of theirs.

  A death at a fair was a rare and grave thing, and unlawful killing counted with the worst. Fairs took place on ancient soil, on what had once been sacred days, and blood spilled there could tarnish and corrupt the spirit of the fair itself. Such superstitions, never now expressed, none the less were felt, and the bailies did their best to distance these events. The woman had been taken by the sea, therefore her destruction had not happened in the town.

  Sir Andrew gave the order for the building of a gallows in the market place, before the sun went down. The penalty for slaughter was plain and unequivocal. But when he came to the harbour to make his arrest, he found that the report did not reflect the facts. The case was far from clear.

  In the first place, there was no sign of a corpse. The person in question had gone missing from the fair. Sir Andrew made a last attempt to refer the matter back to the powder court, but with no success: the witnesses were certain that the lass was dead. The witnesses, he found, were nothing of the sort. The girl had fallen from the pier, they said, but none of them could swear they saw her fall. Her body had been taken by the tide, but none of them had seen it swept away; the tide had turned before they thought to search. They showed a plaid, found on the rocks. No one could confirm it was the missing girl’s.

  ‘There is nothing, then, to prove that she was pushed, or even that she fell,’ he pointed out.

  As witness to the fact, they brought to him a slattern, racked with sighs and sobs, and a student so drunk that he could hardly stand. The student had danced with the missing lass. He was on the pier, and she ran after him. There he had passed out. He had not seen her since.

  The girl had more to say, though none of it coherent, in between her wails. Elspet was her friend. She was very dear to her. They had worked together at the harbour inn. Their master was a man called Walter Bone. Elspet had a sweetheart, and Walter had found out. He had flown into a rage, and said that he would kill her.

  ‘What were his words?’ Andrew Wood said, for the words made a difference to the fact.

  ‘He would swing for the limmar, he said.’

  ‘By which he meant that he would kill Elspet?’

  ‘I didna understand him at the time,’ Marie said, ‘but he went to do it all the same. He went to push her aff the pier.’

  ‘And did you see him do it?’ Andrew asked her patiently. He was a patient man. His patience in the past had been a shrewd relentlessness, tenacious in pursuit until he got his man. Now it was resigned; he was weary of a post he was close to giving up, called forever back to attend to one last crime. This might be the last man he would have to hang. He would not be sorry if it was.

  ‘Ah didna see him,’ Marie said. ‘But she wis on the pier, and he went rinning efter, and ainly he com back.’ She blurted out the rest.

  The tumblers had been walking on a rope across the water, and everyone had watched. When the walk was done, they came back to the inn, where there was going to be a magic show.

  The magician who intended to put on the show stood by Marie’s side. He offered her the comfort of a string of coloured handkerchiefs, on which to blow her nose. The crownar took an urgent and immediate dislike to him. He belonged to a class of man Sir Andrew had no wish to see about the town, or any town in Fife. On any other day, when there was no fair, he would have him whipped. He was no more than a beggar and a thief. What was a juglar, but a common trickster? What was a trickster, but he ought to hang? No word of his, or this foolish girl’s, had any scrap of worth.

  Marie said that she had looked for Elspet at the inn. She had not found her there. But she had found Walter Bone, in the lassies’ sleeping chamber, sitting on the bed that she and Elspet shared. When she tried to speak with him, he was wild and strange. Then she had seen the ribands in his hand, that Elspet had been wearing at her breast. That was when she screamed.

  To illustrate the point, she began to scream again. ‘Mak the wench whisht, or I will,’ Andrew warned, and the juglar took the lassie in his filthy clasp. Sir Andrew turned, disgusted, to examine Walter Bone.

  Walter had the ribbons still, the single piece of evidence with any substance to it. He said that the girl had given them to him.

  ‘And why would she do that?’

  ‘I dinna ken,’ Walter said.

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘I have nae idea.’

  The crownar scratched his head. He was still undeci
ded what he should do next when he saw Robert Lachlan coming through the mill port, with Hew Cullan by his side. Robert Lachlan he disliked intensely. His feelings for Hew were a good deal more ambivalent. Hew was an expert in resolving mysteries, and rooting out the source of anomalies like these. Yet while he was adept in solving certain problems, he caused as many problems as he solved. His involvement was not likely to simplify the case. Therefore Andrew’s welcome to him was at best lukewarm.

  ‘This man is my client,’ Hew told him.

  ‘Your client,’ the crownar said. ‘Why does that not surprise me? You may speak to him here, in my hearing. I will not wait while you play with words, nor would I have you put an answer in his mind that was not founded there.’

  This was not what Hew had hoped for. But Robert had primed him with the essential facts, and he asked Walter straight, ‘Have you hurt the lass? Did you kill her, or anyone else?’

  ‘I did not,’ Walter said.

  ‘Then,’ Hew said to the crownar, ‘I urge you to take him into ward, and keep him under guard until the girl is found.’

  Sir Andrew Wood had not expected such a straight response. ‘You believe him guilty, then?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Hew. ‘I am convinced he is telling the truth. He has committed no crime.’

  ‘He has committed no crime. Yet you would have me lock him up. This man is your lawyer, sir. How do you like that?’ Sir Andrew put to Walter, who replied simply, ‘I did no wrong.’

  Hew urged the crownar, ‘You ken me. Then trust me. I cannot tell you more, for it is a matter of the closest confidence. Evil will be done if you do not lock him up.’

  ‘Will I hang him too, an it please your grace?’

  ‘That is the conclusion I am trying to avoid.’

  ‘Aye, very well. Let the bailies take him.’ Sir Andrew had grown tired of the game. He returned to Henry Balfour. ‘This student too, who was on the pier. The hussy says she saw him with the lass. Therefore I must count him also for a suspect, if a crime is done. Which is far from clear.’

  ‘By no means,’ said Hew, intervening quickly. ‘This is Lord Balfour’s son.’ He knew Henry from his efforts in the public examinations, where he had presented several days before. ‘He cannot be allowed to influence your witness. Much more will be gained be keeping them apart. And since he is too drunk to speak with reason now, I will take him home.’