‘I spend a lot of time, in the fields and by the shore. I found the garden door, at the college of St Mary’s. It is left unlocked at night, for the coming of the night man, to dig out the latrines.’
‘You do not shy from muck,’ Hew concluded, grimly. ‘That will serve you well, if you have to end your days as a gong-fermer’s servant.’
Roger was unmoved by this. ‘Muck is like flesh; it is what we are made of. It is a natural thing. I saw the port was open, and that gave me the idea.’
‘I do not think you understand the damage you have caused.’
‘To Master Melville’s house?’
‘Not there. If that was your intention it was sadly flawed. Do you think he cares a whistle for one spot of your manure? That you can dint a heart like his, with a stinking clod of shit? He is a braver man than you, and a better one at that.’ Hew wanted to provoke the boy into a show of feeling, and he dispensed with gentleness.
‘I ken that,’ Roger said. ‘I meant him no ill will. I am sorry that I smeared the kind face of his house, but it could not be helped.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Master Andro’s house has two sides; the proud side, that looks out onto the street, and the kind side, that looks in.
‘And I am sorry that I had to put the muck upon the kind side, but there was no jeopardy in coming from the street. I did not want the collegers to see how it was done. I told them muck would come on Andro Melville’s house. I wanted them to think that I could make it happen. They were all of them afeared, of the bleeding hawthorn tree.’
‘Did you make that happen, too?’ Hew was sure he had.
Roger stared down at his hands. ‘How could I do that? I was not there.’
‘Then you were not afeared, to pass the bleeding tree, alone, and in the dark?’
‘I was not afeared. I do not believe their tales of magic spells. My interest is in physick and in natural philosophy.’
Hew retorted, dryly, ‘So much have I heard.’ He undid the pocket that was hanging from his belt, uncurled the shepherd’s sling and placed it on the bed. If he had expected Roger to react to it, some flicker of alarm to show in the boy’s face, then he was disappointed. The boy regarded it with little curiosity. ‘What is that for?’
‘It is a shepherd’s sling. I had it from the miller’s son, whose mill is on my land. I think it was used in the trick with the hawthorn,’ Hew explained.
‘What kind of trick was that?’
‘Someone tied a bladder to the branches, filled with blood, and burst it with a stone.’
A smile crossed Roger’s face. ‘How did you find out?’
‘With the help of Doctor Locke, it was not hard to discern.’
‘That was clever, then.’
It was not clear whether Roger was admiring Hew’s powers of deduction or the trick itself, but Hew felt certain he knew more than he was willing to admit. Before he could examine further, they were interrupted by a light knock on the door, and an older boy appeared, of seventeen or so, carrying a jacket and a pair of shoes. ‘They said your coat was spoiled. I brought you one of mine. I beg your pardon, sir,’ he said to Hew in Latin, ‘but they told me you were here. You cannot know how glad I am to see you. I have pleaded for his place here, but to no avail. Is there any way that you can help him?’
Roger introduced him. ‘This is my brother James. He is vexed with me for annoying Master Andro. He hoped that he might go into the kirk, and thinks that Master Andro will not take him now.’
‘Hush your foolish tongue,’ hissed James. ‘Put on the coat and shoes.’
‘I do not want your cast-offs,’ Roger said.
‘You should have thought of that before you dabbled in the shit – I am so sorry, sir, but he has no conception of the trouble he is in – you must put on the clothes, and go with Master Hew.’
‘Why would I go with him?’
The brother shook his head, helplessly and hopelessly. ‘Can you excuse him, sir? I scarcely dare to ask it, when you have done so much for us, but for our mother’s sake . . .’
‘What has he done for us?’ interrupted Roger, who clearly knew his Latin just as well as James.
‘Why, paid our fees and such.’
‘But I did not know that! Why did you not tell me?’
For some reason, noted Hew, Roger seemed roused up by this, or interested, at least. He thought that agitated was perhaps too strong a word.
‘For I supposed you knew . . . Roger, what is that?’ The boy had picked up the string, which Hew had left on his bed, and ran it through his hands.
‘It is a shepherd’s sling. Master Hew thinks it was used in the bleeding of the hawthorn tree.’
Hew thought he detected the flicker of a smile.
‘Please tell me,’ James begged softly, ‘you have not confessed to that!’
Roger shook his head. Hew answered in his place. ‘Is there any reason why he should?’
‘It would be like him, after all. He thinks it is a game.’
‘I understand you, perfectly,’ said Roger from the bed.
His brother hesitated. ‘And it please you, sir, may we talk outside?’
‘This is all my fault,’ James confided, once the door was closed.
‘Tell me,’ Hew suggested. He saw a straight young man, with an earnest, open face, worry for his brother clear etched in his frown. Where Roger was slender and small, and dark, as his father had been, James was broad-shouldered, fair like his mother, and half a head taller than Hew.
‘I have not been the brother he deserves . . .’
The story tumbled out as James revealed his qualms, reverting into Scots. ‘In his first term he had a bedfellow who contracted a wasting sickness, and had to quit the college. He was a good friend to Roger, and Roger missed him sorely. He is not a bad boy and he badly wants a friend, whatever he will tell you; he is full of braggery. I have not been a friend to him. Some of the scholars here were cruel enough to say that Roger put a spell on him, and so had caused his sickness – as to the truth of that you may consult Professor Locke, for he looked to that boy, and he will tell you plainly that it was not so. That boy was sick and frail before he ever came here.’
‘I did not for a moment,’ Hew assured him, ‘think it so.’
‘I should have stepped in then, and put a stop to it. The truth is, I did not. I thought him weak and strange, and I felt quite ashamed, to have such a brother, that was queer and quent, and I was feared his queerness would reflect on me. And so I let him be, and woefully neglected him, ignoring those who taunted him. Do you understand me, sir?’
Hew believed he did. The brother’s raft of guilt was mirrored in his own.
‘So he began to play up to their taunts, and answer to their tyranny by making them afeared of him. And I have no doubt, he wanted them to think he was behind the hawthorn tree, and that was why he went to Andrew Melville’s house, for he had telt the scholars here that filth came after blood, so that they would think that he had special powers. The silly, wretched bairn! He has no idea what harm he may have done.’
‘He did not, I suppose, predict the bloody tree?’ Hew felt certain still that Roger had a part in this.
‘How could he have done? For he knew nothing of it, nothing in advance of it – I know, sir, that you wanted none of us to speak of it but rumour flew out like wildfire after we returned. Roger heard it then, along with all the rest.’
‘You were at the lecture,’ Hew observed.
‘I was sir, and I saw the hawthorn.’ James confessed. ‘I did not speak to Roger of it. He needs little fuel to fire his silly games.’
‘Then you acted properly. How did you imagine that the trick was done?’
‘I did not imagine it. I had no idea. But I saw you take the samples, and I did believe that you would find it out. I know that you are practised, and clever, at these things. I did not for a moment think that it was magic. And as Master Andro tells us, miracles have ceased.’
&
nbsp; ‘Then you are more sensible and rational than your friends.’ Hew stood thoughtful for a moment. ‘Is it true what Roger says, that you have a mind to go into the Kirk?’
‘I have been thinking of it. But I do not suppose that it will happen now.’
‘I do not see why not, if that is what you wish. Andrew will not fault you for your brother’s sin. He is not the kind of man. And I could speak to him about it, if you wish. But would you not prefer to go into the law?’
‘I do not think so, sir. I came, last year, to some of your lectures,’ James confided, shyly. ‘The de legibus, and the Justinian.’
‘Then it is no wonder you were turned from law,’ Hew smiled at this, ‘in favour of the kirk.’
‘By no means so. I found them interesting, and inspired with a strong, intellectual and inquiring spirit. But I am not so subtle, sir. Roger is the clever one.’
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Hew, ‘Roger’s natural instincts lie elsewhere. Did you know he kept a dead cat in his room?’
James had looked away before Hew could decipher the expression on his face. His voice was low and fearful. ‘You must understand, it is not what you may think. He likes to cut things up. But I had no idea that he pursued his interest here. How can I persuade you that he means no harm by it?’
‘You do not have to,’ Hew assured him, ‘for I understand it perfectly. Roger wants good counsel, and a guiding hand. And I can see a future for him, though it is not here.’
‘You think that there is hope for him? Then I cannot tell you, sir, how grateful we must be to you.’ James knelt down, to Hew’s great shame, and kissed the master’s hand.
‘Ah, do not!’ Hew cried. ‘Ye maunna thank me, James. I would be a friend to you. I owed your father that. But tell me one thing more. Your brother may have hit his head. Does he always seem so strange?’
‘How strange, sir?’ asked James. ‘He is difficult and curious, as he was before. He is a vexing boy.’
‘He told me he does not recall his father. Could that be the case? Was it so before?’
A shadow passed across the scholar’s face. His answer, when it came, was guarded and reserved. ‘I have no idea. It is not something that we like to talk about. Here, or at home.’
Hew caught a glimpse into the loss that haunted both the boys.
Roger was still sitting, quiet on his bed. ‘What did my brother say about me?’
‘He said you could not possibly have been behind the hawthorn trick,’ Hew reported cheerfully, ‘for you are not clever enough.’
Roger said, ‘Ha,’ declining to rise to this. ‘What happens now?’
‘Shoes on, and coat on, and quick, if you please. You are my charge, and are coming with me. And I will have that,’ Hew held out his hand for the sling.
‘I think you are wrong about that,’ Roger said, giving it up. ‘It is the wrong kind of weapon to burst a ball of blood. You should ask your miller’s son if he has a pellock bow, a bow for little stones.’
He followed at Hew’s back, meek as any child, until they were about to leave the college grounds, where they met the principal coming from the kirk, who would have passed them by, with a curt nod of the head, had not Roger spoken to him, ‘Vale, professor.’
‘Vale,’ the master muttered.
‘May I not have your blessing, sir, since I am to leave?’
‘What? Ah yes, indeed. God go with you, child.’ The provost cleared his throat.
‘And may I have my cat?’
The principal forgot himself, and roared at him in Scots. ‘Pernicious, monstrous boy! Your cat, as ye design it, is buried in the midding-sted, where sic filth belongs.’
‘You did not ought to do that, sir.’
‘Whist, now,’ cautioned Hew. He placed a hand, restraining, onto Roger’s shoulder and felt his slight frame stiffen in his brother’s coat.
‘You do well to hark to him,’ the principal advised. ‘Submit to his correction, with a willing heart. God go with you both. Know that I will pray for you, with little lasting hope.’
‘You do not understand, sir,’ Roger pleased earnestly, ‘I did not kill that cat.’
‘Poor benighted loun. Puir hapless, silly child. If you could only see, it would be better if you had.’
Roger grasped Hew’s hand, his bluff front all but gone. ‘Why does he say that?’ His voice, unbroken, childlike, sounded very small.
‘Because,’ suggested Hew, ‘it is not uncommon for a boy to kill a cat, with an arrow or a stone; it is another thing entirely for a boy to cut one up.’
Roger looked bewildered. ‘I would not kill a cat. I find things that are dead, and open up the carcases, to find out how they died. I found the cat at the harbour, and it had a stone in its belly. If they had not taken it away, I could have shown it to you. I do not believe that it is possible to be a good physician, without some kenning of anatomy.’
‘I know an honest man that will not disagree with you,’ Hew answered with a sigh. ‘But he is an exception, proof against the rule. You are disadvantaged, in the first, for the fact that you are no physician, but a first year undergraduate, who has been expelled from his studies in philosophy. And in the second, there have been physicians also tried and burned, for practising black arts.’
Roger stared at him, as understanding dawned. ‘They take me for a witch!’
‘I am afraid they do.’
‘Then what is to become of me? Will I go to hell?’
‘Not if I can help it, and you do as you are told.’
It was a mark of Giles Locke’s kindness, and of his respect for Hew, that he did not dismiss the patient to the brute hands of the surgeon, but sat him straight away upon a little chamber stool, to wash with his own sponge the bruised and bloodied cheeks.
‘Dear me. What stuff is this?’
‘Merda, Professor,’ Roger said, in Latin, anxious to impress, though Hew had warned him earnestly that he must hold his tongue.
‘Murder?’ Giles winked at him, ‘Surely, I hope, not.’
‘Quod est . . . what is . . . done.’ Roger said, confused.
‘Or else, what is dung?’
Roger flushed a little, ‘Mihi ignosce, magister.’ Hew noted that the boy possessed a literal turn of mind, that clever as it was, did not respond to puns.
Giles assured him, ‘libenter.’
‘A student,’ he inferred, in an aside to Hew. ‘I seem to know the face, though I do not think he can be one of ours.’
‘He is Roger Cunningham, Richard’s son,’ said Hew.
‘Ah.’ Giles knew Richard’s history, as it pertained to Hew, and let discretion veil the questions in his mind. ‘Well then, Roger Cunningham, we have met before. I did not recognise you under your disguise. I came once to your house, though you may not remember it.’
To Hew’s surprise, it seemed that Roger did. ‘You talked about the ripples, and the bloody flux.’
‘Just so,’ murmured Giles. ‘A pedantic schoolboy, with a whim to study physick. And now you are full grown, and a student at St Leonard’s.’
‘Non, Professor, vere . . .’ Roger glanced at Hew.
Giles misunderstood the cause of his confusion. ‘And you prefer it, speak Scots. We are not formal in our dealings with the sick. For sorrow is a thing that may be better expedited when expressed in the vernacular. What think you, Master Hew?’
‘Beyond a doubt,’ Hew smiled. ‘Roger has been in the wars. He won his bloody nose from Andrew Melville’s bully boys, the stalwarts of our kirk. They are a little over zealous in interpreting the text.’
Giles Locke frowned at this. ‘Did Andro set them on? Then I will have a word with him.’
‘In some respects,’ admitted Hew, ‘I set them on myself, with no thought to the consequence. And Roger here has borne the sorry brunt of it. But lest you think him shamefully and over harshly used, I ought perhaps to say he was not blameless in the matter.’
The doctor understood that caution was required, for he asked no furthe
r questions as he cleaned the patient’s face, but kept the boy engaged in a cheerful line of chatter, to distract from the discomfort that he must have felt. Roger did not flinch, but let his eyes dart slyly round the doctor’s room. ‘What are all those things in jars?’
‘Organs,’ answered Giles, ‘that were altered with disease, misshapen or malformed. There is a kind of beauty born of their deformity, do you not agree?’
Peculiar to Roger, it appeared he did. Hew had never taken to the pickled parts in pots, though through a close exposure he had grown more used to them. ‘What happened to the pupa you were keeping in this box?’
‘It hatched out to a moth. Pity was,’ the doctor said, ‘it flew full force into the candle flame; that brief flight was its last. Which I suppose must prove a lesson to us all.’ The lesson, in some way, seemed pointed straight at Hew.
Roger overcame his shyness, and his promise to keep quiet. ‘May I ask a question, sir? The word about the college is you keep a human foot here, flayed back to its layers.’
‘Not that, again,’ groaned Hew.
The doctor pursed his lips. ‘Indeed, I kept one once, for purpose anatomical. I do not keep it now.’
‘What happened to it, then?’
‘It caused a deal of trouble I did not care to repeat.’
‘Hear. And be forewarned,’ Hew grumbled in the background.
‘And it was not preserved as well as I had liked.’
‘I should have liked to see it.’ Roger sighed.
‘You and several dozen of your snot-nosed peers. That was part of the problem,’ Giles complained.
‘But I am not their peer. They have no proper interest in the sphere of science, but come to gawp and snigger. I am not like them.’
The doctor paused a moment. ‘Ah, is that a fact? Wait a second there.’ He opened up the closet where he kept things that were precious and selected a large notebook from the row upon the shelf. ‘Would you like to look, then, at the drawings I have made?’
Roger was enthralled. He opened up the notebook with a careful sort of reverence, his eyes lit up afresh at every passing page. Hew smiled to himself. The two were kindred spirits. Each had found a friend.
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