Chapter 11
Between the Tides
‘No one here will force you to be stripped against your will. But it will be a help to me if you take off your shirt.’
Meg allowed her patient time to know and trust her. She felt his eyes upon her as she tidied books away and folded Matthew’s clothes, to fill the gulf of awkwardness. She was conscious of his presence, watchful, at her back. He had taken off his cap and his hair shone soft as flax, silver as the hemp, as fair as any man’s. His eyes were grey and careful, restless as the wind. He was sitting, straight and stiffly, on the great oak settle they had dragged up from the hall.
Matthew Locke was sleeping in the Cullans’ cradle, where Meg and her brother had both slept as bairns. Meg had worked the canopy and coverlet in red, with little horses, trees and flowers, in primrose, green and gold. A fine white linen cambric kept away the dust. The infant’s sleep was light and strained; his eyelids flickered warily, against a raft of dreams. His cheeks were pink and hot. His father had prescribed a pulp of hollyhock and hare brain, Meg had cooled his gums with camomile and dill, but Matthew whimpered still.
Meg searched among the few jars remaining in her almery, and found a pot of liniment. She turned back to the Richan boy. ‘This salve will help your shoulder heal. But there is not much left of it. The archers at the college had a contest for the May, and took it as a prophylactic, to protect their limbs. For they are supple, young and green, and can be overstraught. The salve is kind to muscles that are raxed and sore. It must be rubbed in deep into the sinews of the shoulder and the back, and you will feel a heat, but it is a good heat, and there is no need to fear it. I can apply it for you; or, if you prefer, you can ask your friend. I do not think that you can manage it yourself.’
The liniment had come from the still at Kenly Green, where the marguerite and mallow and the tender violet buds were planted in the physick garden, and would now be flowering, spilling out their seeds. Giles supplied the turpentine shipped in bulk from France. Though Paul would bring a replica back from the apothecar, made up to Meg’s recipe, it would be less effective, thinner, more expensive, and would not smell so sweet.
John Richan answered her by taking off his shirt. It took him some while, and not, Meg supposed, because of his shyness; his right arm hung futless and slack by his side. He undid the wooden buttons with his left, and eased the russet sark sleeve over his sore shoulder, letting it drop to the ground. Meg picked up the shirt, and put it with his coat of liver-coloured wool. The cloth felt coarse and thick. His back was laddered black, a mass of knots and welts.
‘Canst thou no find the place?’ John’s speech was full and deep, as though each word was carried with a weight of meaning, ponderous and slow.’ ‘Where that arrow strak?’
Meg came close, and looked, but she could see no arrow wound. ‘Did some hook tear the flesh? I cannot see it, John.’
‘Tis trow-shot, that thou cannot see.’ John said thou as thoo, a long soft lowing lull, like a bull-calf’s bellow.
‘Trow?’
‘A elf. A fairie dart.’
He thought he had been struck by elfin shot. How else could he explain to her his sapping strength and powerlessness, the deep and deadening wound the surgeon could not find?
‘Will you let me touch you, John?’
‘And thou finds the place.’
She put her bare hands on his shoulder, felt the muscle taut and strong. John Richan did not shrink at it, but turned his cautious eyes upon her, deep and grey and serious.
‘There are many natural causes will not leave a mark, and we must look for those, where with art and patience we will come to cure them. And I do not believe the cause of this is trow-shot.’
Country folk were conscious, always, of that netherland, under water, over hills, where the faeries lived. They knew that faeries crossed on winds, through copse and thicket, dyke and stream, snatching infants from their cribs, new-born mothers in their milk, gentle sleepers in the shade of hawthorn boughs and apple trees. There were witches, too, the cause of storms at sea, of cows that failed to calf and sick or stillborn children, famine, drought and flood, when nature was unnatural, uncouth and unkind. In Orkney, where the grasping kirk had not yet closed its grip, and where both land and sea were harsh and inhospitable, it was little wonder there were tales of trolls. And who was she to say the stories were not true?
Meg had learned to harness and restrain the powers of nature, and through her art and science shape them to her will. It was simpler, sometimes, to pretend to make a spell, and blow the magic off, than it was to fight it with the force of reason. But where she could, she fought, for believing in a curse would prejudice recovery. A man might die from fear.
‘The hurt is inside,’ she explained. ‘You cannot see it like a bruise. But the shoulder has been wrenched and pulled out of its joint. What did the surgeon say?’
‘He opened up the vein, and drained the arm of blood. But the infirmity persisted.’
‘There are more tunes to a body than the surgeon kens to play. You will feel a heat now. Tell me if it hurts you.’
Meg warmed the ointment gently in her hand, and began to work it, deep into the shoulder, and the broad hard muscle of the soldier’s back, a knot of strength and sinew taut beneath his skin. With subtle, searching fingers, she sought out the place, probing and manipulating, deep down to the bone. John let out a cry, and placed his hand on hers.
‘Is that so very sair?’
‘No, lady,’ he moaned. ‘Thou loosed the dart. The trow-shot is gone.’
His eyes were bright with gratitude, brimming with relief. Meg noticed in their grey a shard of brittle blue, subtle and reflective, changing like the sea. She lifted out her hand, feeling on its back still the gripping of his fingers, supple, fierce and strong.
‘I shall quarrel with you, John, if you persist in thinking that. I have unbent your shoulder, in such a way as you might have unbent your bow, and let the muscle slacken, as you loose the strings. Now put on your things.’
The young man flexed his hands. ‘Thou works magic, of a sort,’ he insisted as he dressed, his shoulder slipping easily underneath the shirt.
Meg had moved away, to wash and dry her hands. The laver and a towel were set out at the fireside, close to Matthew’s crib. ‘The muscles were quite ravelled, and I have unlocked them. But they will go back into thrawe. You must not be disheartened then, to find them sore and stiff. It may take some while for the strain to heal.’
‘I can come agin here?’ The soldier asked softly.
‘As often as you can, until the arm is strong.’
Matthew had begun to grizzle, fretful at her feet. He seldom slept for long. ‘You must excuse me, now. My babe is waking up.’
‘Aye? What is his name?’ John Richan crossed the room, putting on his coat.
‘He is called Matthew, after my father,’ Meg smiled.
‘Has thou no other bairn?’
‘Matthew is our first.’ It was hard to take offence at John Richan’s questions, which were artless as a child’s. ‘He is cross and peevish,’ Meg said, ‘at the hammering, and his gums are hurting him, for he is cutting teeth. He wants a little cooling water, or some poppy juice. But there is none to hand.’ She rocked the cradle, hushed her child, but Matthew’s grizzling threatened to break out in to a howl. ‘He is not hungry yet. I should have brought the poppy water back from Kenly Green.
‘It is my brother’s house on the Kenly water, four miles south from here. I grew up on the land and learned of country matters, from my childhood nurse. There are woodlands there, and walkways lined with trees, orchards, flower and physick gardens, where I grew my herbs. And by the physick garden is a cool house and a stillerie, where my country foster mother taught me to make remedies, and waters of all kinds.’ Talking to John Richan was like talking to a child; his gaze was deep and curious.
‘Thou has na mother, then?’
‘She died when I was born.’
And in those months that followed, so Meg had been told, her father could not look at her, but left her with the nurse, until that nurse had laid her, bright-eyed changeling child, dark-haired like her mother, firmly in his arms. And he had loved her then, more deeply than the life that he had given up for her. Matthew had retired to Kenly Green when his little daughter took the falling sickness, and he had kept the nurse who found the herbs to soothe her, for Annie had a way with her, that she had taught to Meg. That part of the tale she did not tell the Richan boy.
‘The apple trees are full with blossom at this time of year, the broom and bay in bud.’ Meg stroked the infant’s cheek. ‘I am sorry, John, but I will have to lift him. If your friend is here still, call him from the kitchen. Paul will show you out.’
John said, ‘Bide a while.’ Then, to Meg’s astonishment, he knelt down by the crib, and began to rock it with his strong left hand. And as he rocked, he sang, a long, low, lilting melody that rose and fell like water flowing from the sea. The infant stilled and watched, with wide and wondering eyes. He did not want the song to end, and when it did, he mewled in protest, petulant and weak, and John Richan hushed him, stilled him with a whisht. His voice was like the wind, blowing through the rafters, breathing out a lullaby to calm the fractious bairn.
‘Now that is magic,’ murmured Meg.
At that, for the first time, John Richan smiled. And it was like a breath of sunshine warming his pale face, that lifted up the shadows there and showed the boy within, fragile, fair and young.
‘It is a song my mother sings, to soothe the weans at home. There are a lot of us.’
There was a quiet longing in his voice. Somehow it had seemed to keep the tune, the music of the song, so that though the words were Scots they sounded rare and strange, like waking from a dream to hear a foreign tongue.
‘What language is it, John?’
‘It is the Norish speke, the Orkney Norn. It is my mother tongue.’
‘It sounds so sad.’
‘It is a song about the sea, and about the wind, and of an enchantress. It is not a sad song, but the language is sad. It weeps for its own death. My father says that we must speak the language of our masters, if we do not wish forever to be slaves. So we must speak in Scots, and the Norish will die out, and only will be heard in scraps of song and stories, flying on the wind. On dark nights – and Orkney nights are very dark and long – you will hear it whispered in the crevices and cracks, whistlin’ through the rafters, threaded into dreams. You will hear it in the flicker and the crackle of the fire, and in the ebb and flowing of the sea, and in the peat and stone and in the cliffs and braes, the weepin’ of the sea-maws and the selkies’ bark.’
Meg said, ‘You are far from home. How old are you, John Richan?’
‘I am nineteen.’
‘Then you are very young.’
‘Not where I come from. How old are you?’
‘Now that is not a question you have leave to ask.’
‘Then I repent the asking of it,’ he accepted simply. ‘But I never understand what I am not meant to ask. It is a fault in me that cannot be mended.’
‘Though they try to mend it?’
John looked down at his hands. ‘They have not given up. And while I live still, they will not give up. They think it is their duty to mak me like them; but I am different to them. They do not understand it. And that maks them afraid. It offends them when I speak. And when I do not speak, it offends them too. They fear what I am thinkin’ and my unco foren tongue. And I have tried to mend it, but the words slip out.’
‘I like the way you speak.’
‘Then thou art the first. And the first to hear the Norn. I dare not sing to them.
‘I think, mistress, you are no older than I am,’ John returned slyly.
Meg acknowledged, with a smile. ‘I am twenty-two.’
‘Now that,’ he teased, ‘is old. My mither had five babbies when she was that age, twa were in their graves; now she is four and thirty, worn down to the bone. I do not think it suits thee to be kept here in this place. Thou’s a country lass. And all this dust an’ hammering will mar thy bonny looks.’
‘Now I begin to see,’ laughed Meg, ‘why your masters venture to rein in your tongue. The hammering is temporal, I am glad to say.’
‘It is na just the hammering. But this is not the place for thee. Thou’re like me, as I think, thy heart is somewhere else.’
Meg had turned away. ‘I thank you for the song. Matthew is quite settled now. I will walk downstairs with you, and show you out myself.’
‘Art thou offended? I did not intend it. I cannot help but say such things. Thou maun take no ill by it, for thou has bonny looks, and a light in your eyes that for all the world I would not see put out. There is a loveliness in thee I have not met before.’
‘You have not offended me. But if I am to help you, then you cannot ask me those kind of questions.’
‘What questions am I asking thee?’
‘Ones about myself. And you may not remark how I appear to you. Such comment is not proper to a married woman. You are the doctor’s patient, and I am his wife.’
‘Then if a woman has a husband and she is unhappy, I am not allowed to notice it?’
Meg was shocked at this, for John’s reply came close to what she heard from Hew, in their quarrels over Clare. John was not like Hew, but guileless as a child. ‘I am not unhappy,’ she insisted.
‘But thou are not yet happy,’ answered John. ‘I think thou are not happy. Nor where thou dost belong. For that is in the garden, with the flowers and herbs. A light came in you, when you spoke of it.’
‘I am happy here. And more than this plain truth you have no right to ask. And you are not, I think, so artless and unwily that you do not know that. If you will persist with this, then we must think again about your coming back here.’
‘Now thou art cross. I did not intend it,’ the soldier said sadly. ‘I vex folk all the time. And though I am corrected for it, still I do not learn. And if I am not well, and cannot shoot my bow, then they will send me home.’
‘With a little patience, we may hope to mend you by more gentle means. I will not give up on you. But would it be a bad thing, if they sent you home?’
With the strain upon his shoulder and the welts upon his back, it was plain the archer’s life was not a happy one.
‘It would be the worst thing in the world. It would do dishonour to my father, for he sent me here, to learn to be a man. My father is a servant to Lord Robert, earl of Orkney, who is half an uncle to the present king, and the earl himself it was that put me to the bishop here. It would shame him too, if they sent me back. And I might die for shame.’
‘What kind of man is your father?’ wondered Meg. She thought about her husband, and his hopes for Matthew, and of her own father, and his hopes for Hew. Hew had gone his own way, believing to the last that his father was displeased with him. She did not doubt that Matthew Locke would go his way too. Would Giles be disappointed, then? Or would he learn to moderate his fierce pride in his son?
John Richan shrugged. ‘I cannot tell you that. For the best part o’ his life, he has been in thrall to that dark and errant lord, and I do not ken his mind; but that he does what Robert says. Sin he serves sic a master, no one likes him much. And here, they do not like me much, because they think I am his spy.’
‘And are you?’
John was silent for a moment, toying with the buttons on his liver-coloured coat. ‘Perhaps,’ he said at last. ‘But servants do not always tell their masters what they know. Indeed, I think they often do not do so. And if I telt him everything I saw, I do not think his lordship would believe me.’
‘Can he be a master worthy of your trust?’
A smile played upon John’s lips. ‘He is worth no man’s trust. He is a black-hearted loun. It was a dark day for Orkney, when Lord Robert came to rule. We are all of us there in his thrall. For thou maun understand, he lives between the tides.’
Meg frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘That place on the shore that lies betwixt the high and low water marks. It is the devil’s land, for no living man can bide there. But Robert earl of Orkney would take it off his hands. At council, no man kens what side the earl is on, whether he is of the party of the earl of Gowrie, or of Lennox and the king. The truth is, Robert earl of Orkney is on no side but his own. Do you understand? He shifts upon the tides. He sends out spies like fishermen, to dabble in the burn; the small fry they hook up he sets by for the bait, in hopes of catching somewhat bigger fish. I cannot go back with no fish on my hook. It were better, after all, that I lay dead and withered by the fairy dart.’
Meg felt for the young archer, lost and out of place as a selkie on the land, who had come up for the sun and had been strippit of its skin, forced to live its days in a borrowed human shape. ‘Then you must come again, until you are cured. I have no doubt that you will make a full recovery, with exercise, and rest.’
‘I have no want of exercise, and little hope of rest. The sergeant here will work me to the bone.’
‘Is there no work,’ she asked, ‘that does not hurt your shoulder?’
A raw smile crossed the soldier’s face. ‘Aye. There is keeping the watch.’
Chapter 12
The Draucht-Raker
In the beginning was the word. The New College of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built upon the site of the ancient pedagogy, where two staunch scholars of the faith, Dod Auchinleck and Colin Snell, kept watch one moonlit night, crouching in the shadows of the chapel of St John. Their faces, pressed in hollows that had once held panes of glass, peered out pale as ghosts. The sky was overcast, the grey moon skulking shiftily, leaving Dod and Colin quaking in the gloom.
In principio erat verbum. Dod had not wanted to come. It was Hew Cullan’s fault, for he had put the night watch into Melville’s mind, and Andrew Melville looked for someone he could trust, and why would he look further than his own disciples, students of the college, stalwarts of the kirk? Dod had waited back, and let the others stand up first. He hoped the devil might be captured early on. But that had not worked out.
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