It was chance, after all, that Giles had been called out. Had he not gone out that night, then Meg perhaps would not have left the house. As it was she could not sleep but took the stub of candle up to write her letter in the darkness, several hours before the dawn. She left the letter in the crib; she knew that Giles would see it there, coming from the deathbed that had kept him up, to find a strength and comfort in his little son. She did not like to think of him, returning tired and cold, to find his warm bed empty, his beloved gone.
Though the night was dark, she dared not take the lamp, for fear of waking Canny Bett, sleeping by the fire. She waited till the night was on the brink of dawn before she ventured landward, out into the fields.
And Meg had known, of course, where she would find the boy. She knew, without words, the place that he would wait for her, that place that he had known was closest to her heart. She walked through woods and fields, the well-loved, well-worn path, that she had known and followed since she was a child. But Meg was weary now. The trouble in the town had begun to tell on her, her limbs moved slow and heavily, her head began to ache. She was thankful in the end when she came to Kenly Green, and opened up the door to the distillerie, to sink down to the floor. She saw a white light flicker in the morning wind, the colours of the sun upon the pewter pots. Meg fell to the ground, where the sunlight danced with her, picking out the rhythm of her jangling limbs.
The sunlight woke John Richan from a slough of dreams. For the first hour, he had fallen to a deep and dreamless sleep; then the dreams began. He was buried in the pit, where the heavy earth had squeezed and crushed each breath, each faint fall and flutter in his frantic breast, and where the rush of water filled his heart with thunder and his heart with blood, until the darkness had itself become a sound. He was standing on the sea tower, high and light as air, where the winds came whipping and the sea birds wept. He was fighting with the devil, over Harry’s corpse. He woke up on the floor of a magician’s workshop, where evil was distilled in glass and pewter pots. Between him and the light he saw her witch herself. The devil had possessed her, and thrawn her like a fish, a limber fair-skinned herring, writhing on the ground. John Richan drew the knife that was hanging at his belt, and crept up to her thrashing throat to cut the devil out.
Nicholas awoke to a cloudless summer day. For the first time in months, he discovered he had slept, restfully and dreamlessly, and woken up refreshed. His thoughts were light and clear. He put the final touches to his George Buchanan, translating the last epigram, of Seneca, on kings. It came in to his mind that he might like to write a prefatory verse, but he dismissed the thought as vaunting, vain and proud. Instead he wrote a line, with plain and simple modesty, inscribing it to Hew, ‘first, and dearest, friend’, content to quote as epigraph Buchanan’s closing words, which he translated into Scots: ‘This ilk I tuke in task for thee alane. Gif thou hast lyking of it, I halde me weill content.’ I undertook this task for you alone. If it meets with your approval I am satisfied.
When this was done, he went downstairs, and found he had surprised the servants and himself, by feeling well enough to take the air outside. He walked into the gardens, through the gentle breeze, and came to the distillerie, where his presence put to flight the startled Richan boy, who passed him like the wind. Nicholas found Meg, in the throes of the falling sickness, pale lips flecked with blood. He picked her up and carried her, through leaves and flowers and herbs, and brought her to the house, where his good heart gave out.
Meg woke up at last to find both Giles and Hew were sitting by her bed.
‘Nicholas was here.’
Giles took her hand in his, but found, for the first time, for all his long acquaintance with and competence in death, that he was overcome, and could not find the words. It was left to Hew to tell his sister then, how Nicholas had given back the life that he had borrowed from her, when she nursed him from the brink in Giles Locke’s turret tower. The servants said that Nicholas had brought her to the threshold, writhing like a fish, had carried her as lithe and limber as a child, no shiver of the effort of it showing in his face. A light shone in his eyes, and he stood proud and tall, before he set her down. According to the kitchen lass, who was prone to fantasy, a flight of angels came and swept him from his feet, a delusion that the kirkmen were soon to hammer out. Meg remembered nothing but the smile upon his face, which gentle light had stayed with her until she went to sleep, and softened the convulsions that ravaged through her dreams.
‘I came to find the Richan boy,’ she recalled at last. ‘To warn him, that it was not safe for him to go to Orkney. The falling ill came on, when I was at the still house.’ Through all her raft of dreams, dredged up in to memory, she found no trace of John.
‘I thought I had lost you, Meg. I thought that you were gone.’ Giles took her in her arms.
She looked at him, bewildered. ‘Why would you think that?’
Hew left them to their tears, and went down to the laich house, where the servants had laid out the body of his friend. And there he found no part of him, no fragment that was Nicholas, in that worn out place, shabby and discarded, like a suit of clothes, its owner having grown and gone, to finer, better things. He knelt down in the quiet dust and spilled his heart for Nicholas, the childhood friends that they once were, and what they had become. His heart was quiet then. He went into the garden, to the cool house and distillerie, finding life and solace in the plants and trees. In the corner of the still house, hidden in a cloth, he came upon a jar of plums, the relict of the Richan boy, the only trace and shadow he had left behind.
Nicholas, like Hew, was a true child of reform, and entitled to a resting place beneath St Leonard’s kirk, in the college chapel where they met as boys. Meg had questioned how a body could find rest, in earshot of a ranting clerk, a loud and heavy thunderer. Hew had smiled at that. ‘He cannot hear it, Meg. And the text is milder here than in the Holy Trinity.’ It did not matter now. The fragile ghost of Nicholas long since had departed him, what remained was rag and bone, and soon would fall to dust. At Meg’s request, he was buried at the far end of the kirkyard, next to Matthew Cullan, underneath the trees. Hew did not object. He understood at last what Meg had always known, that no God in his heaven could have closed his doors against those two good gentle souls, whatever were their differences; that Andrew Melville and his Kirk must bare and bow their heads. In accordance to that Kirk, to which Nicholas subscribed, no prayers or psalms were said, no choir of earthly voices sang them to their rest, but there were sparrows in the rowan, fluting high above, and far across the fields, the mellow calling of the doves, riffling through the yellow corn, came faintly on the breeze.
‘We never found the man,’ said Hew, ‘who disturbed the quiet here. We must make a search for him.’
‘We must not,’ asserted Meg. ‘For he is of no consequence. And there is nothing he could say, to hurt my heart, or harm this place.’
He looked into her face, and saw that it was true.
Chapter 23
A Wicked and a Guileful Mouth
The term drew to a close, and in the last week of July the students of St Salvator’s had gathered at the gate, preparing to depart. Meg brought flasks of ale, and fresh baked bannocks tied in cloths, for those who had no horses and were forced to go on foot. The richest brought their grooms and bearers for their bags, and set off at the gallop for their manors, halls or towers. At the new foundation, the reformers had proposed that the vacation be curtailed, to keep the sons of gentle folk from sluggardry and sloth, but, mindful of the cost, the colleges resisted this. Their livings did not stretch to further bed and board. For the poorest college bursars the vacations were a trial, though Giles helped where he could.
Hew had hired two milk-white mares for James and Roger Cunningham, who would break their journey over several evenings, and at several inns. James had joined his brother at the chapel door, where Hew dispensed instruction, letters and advice. Once the students had departed, Meg came to his si
de. ‘Who was that with Roger Cunningham?’
‘His brother James,’ said Hew. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason,’ Meg said, absently. ‘They do not look alike.’ She took her brother’s arm. ‘While we have a moment on our own’ – Giles had taken Matthew down to see the horses – ‘I would like to speak to you.’
‘Not more secrets, Meg,’ he teased, but realised in a heartbeat she had something on her mind.
‘It is a matter, rather, of discretion. I do not like to mention it to Giles, after all that happened. For I would not hurt his feelings for the world. But I cannot help but wonder what became of John. You have not heard, as I suppose, if he has been found?’
‘As I understand it, he has not been found.’
Her friend had disappeared, and left no trail behind. The fisherman at Crail was traced, and had confirmed the Richan boy had sought to buy a boat from him. But he would not confirm that they had struck the deal, or that any bond had been advanced to pay for it. In all events, the case was immaterial, for John had not turned up to lay claim to the boat, the boatman had it still.
‘The common thinking,’ Hew reported, ‘is that he has drowned, his body deep entangled at the bottom of the sea, or he is spirited away, with neither hair not sound of him. And I am sorry for it, Meg.’
‘I am sorry for it too,’ his sister sighed. ‘For then he is condemned, without a trial. I know you will not hear it, Hew, but I do not believe that John killed Harry Petrie.’
‘And why do you suppose I will not hear that?’ questioned Hew.
‘Because I had supposed you thought like all the rest.’
‘And when,’ he risked a smile at her, ‘have you known me do that? The truth is,’ he was serious now, ‘that I am not convicted of it. If John was in the tower when Harry Petrie fell, then he could not have fired the shot that struck him down. It does not want Bartie Groat’s degree of skill in geometrics to work out that the pellock did not come from up above him, but from somewhere on the ground. The sergeant of the guard was doubtless well aware of that, and yet he spoke no word of it, which must throw suspicion on his whole account. Which is not to say, of course, that John is not a suspect, but that we must find proof of where the bow was shot – I would hazard, on the south side of the place where Harry fell. No one saw John there. And since the southern aspect is in clear view of the guardhouse, that gives pause for doubt.
‘And there are other questions. How could John afford to buy himself a boat? You telt me Harry Petrie had put up the money for it. Why would he do that?’
‘From kindness, Hew,’ contended Meg. ‘The simplest and most natural reason in the world. Because he was his friend. It is no more nor less than you would do for Giles.’
So much might be true, thought Hew. For Meg, with her kind heart had known John Richan best. And Hew would buy the boat for Giles, without a second thought. But he could well afford to; Harry was a futeman in the castle guard, and could scarcely have afforded, on a futeman’s pay, to advance a loan that John could not pay back. What were Harry’s expectations, telt to Hew by Bess? Was it for the money that he had been killed? And what had it to do with the paper in his pocket, and his dealings with John Colville, the Master of Requests? These questions he kept close, and secretly from Meg, for fear that he would frighten her by mention of the map, which showed the building works in the cellar of her house.
‘Is there not a way,’ Meg pleaded, ‘you can find the truth? For rumour and report are sure to travel after him. The news of the disgrace will follow to his family, far away in Orkney, who will suffer at the shame of it.’
Hew accepted, ‘I can try. But ye maun be aware, the truth is not always what we would hope, and is sometimes not what we expect.’
‘That danger I can face,’ insisted Meg.
‘In that case,’ promised Hew, ‘I will ask the crownar, Andrew Wood, to give me leave to go into the castle, and put further questions, for I cannot think that the archbishop will be willing to agree to it unless it has the sanction of the Crown. The time is ripe, for Andrew Wood is coming here to speak with me today.’
‘Then I am content.’ Meg hesitated. ‘I did not want to say . . . but there is something more.’
‘Hm? What more is that?’ Hew already was distracted, planning the first steps of his investigation, working out the plat that he would put to Andrew Wood.
‘If I tell you something, something else apart, will you give your word, you will not act upon it?’
‘I cannot promise that, without knowing what the matter is.’
‘Then promise you will think on it, and will do nothing rash.’
‘I promise I will think on it,’ he smiled.
‘The matter then is this. It is Roger’s brother James. We have met before.’
‘Aye? And where was that?’
‘At our father’s grave.’
She had his full attention now. His sharp wits working quickly understood the truth of it, but did not want to hear. ‘He was at the interment, perhaps. For his father was one of the bearers.’
Meg shook her head. ‘It was not at the burial. James was the young man I spoke of, who telt me our father was damned. I wondered how he knew that I was mourning for my father, when he telt me he was sorry, he had lost a father too. Now I understand, and there can be no doubt of it. I recognised his face. But do not blame him, Hew. That poor, unhappy boy!’
Back in his own chamber, Hew packed up his things. His papers, clothes and books were wrapped up in a box, sent ahead by carrier, home to Kenly Green. The light green cushioned sitting chair he gave to Bartie Groat, who received it in a spirit of amazement and affray, to find himself possessed of so delicate a thing. Bartie stayed in college through the summer months, and took solitary suppers in the empty hall, from the last dregs of the barrels and the scrap bags of the grain. Once, Hew had invited him to stay at Kenly Green. Bartie had refused. He was working on a thesis on the mathematick arts, no word of which had ever made it to the page.
Ordering his room brought order to Hew’s mind, where Meg’s revelation had begun to make some sense. Though he suspected Roger, he had not suspected James; together, it became apparent how their trick had worked. James had been a presence all the while: he had been at Matthew’s grave, and in St Leonard’s kirk, and to several of Hew’s lectures, watching unobserved. He had taken classes also over at St Mary’s, had studied ancient texts, and, it now seemed clear, had penned the Hebrew verses pinned to Melville’s door, though Hew suspected it was Roger who had put them there. He had no doubt the curses had been meant for him. The boys had set a challenge – a defiance, Roger said – designed to drawn him in. They knew that he was vain enough that he could not resist. And James was at St Mary’s when the hawthorn bladders burst. At first, Hew had discounted all those at the lecture, lacking both a method and an opportunity. Now he understood that this was a mistake. Suppose that James had slipped away, to visit the latrines? In the crowded stairway, would he have been missed? Suppose he had remained there while the talk took place, and crept out to the quietness, to fire his brother’s bow, returning just as easily to drop it in the sink. Roger, Hew supposed, had left the bow before for him, when he brought the bladder in and tied it to the tree, and pinned the Hebrew psalm at Andrew Melville’s door. The green lights Andrew Melville saw perhaps were Roger too. Had James sent him back, to find the hidden bow, or had he been disturbed, in some other piece of mischief? On that occasion, it appeared, he had not wanted to be caught.
The younger brother, noticed Hew, had taken all the risks. The lecture hall was full, and it would not be hard for James to stand up on the stair and slip among the crowd as they were coming out. Who could say, for certain, whether he was there? And who could fault a man, if he had been missed, for having the misfortune to be called to the latrines? The bladder filled with blood was plainly Roger’s plat, and he had been full proud of it. His brother was the bowman, and the better shot. No wonder James was wary: please do not tell m
e he confessed to that.
The brothers bore a grudge for their father’s death, so much was apparent in what James had told to Meg. And what had Roger said to Andrew Melville’s face? ‘Ye maunna mind it, sir. It was not meant for you.’ Then Bartie had been right, the hawthorn was a snare, and all of it was done, on purpose, to catch Hew.
He wondered, to what end? For if it was to remedy, and counter his neglect of them, then they had achieved it, and all to the good, for Roger was much happier than he had been before. But that did not account for the translation of the psalm, which Hew had little doubt was intended as a threat. Was Hew the dark opponent, who had stood at Richard’s side condemning him to death? Or was it Hew himself the boys had brought to judge?
His reflections were cut short by the coming of the coroner, who walked in without knocking.
‘Are we undisturbed?’ Andrew Wood was not a man who wasted time on niceties.
‘I was,’ answered Hew.
‘What I have to say to you must not be overheard.’
‘There is no one near.’
Sir Andrew Wood did not sit down. This seemed to Hew a natural part of his intent to daze and daunt, and he would not be cowed by it. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’
‘There are two pressing matters that I must discuss with you,’ Andrew Wood replied. ‘The first concerns the death of the duke of Lennox. The king is careful to impress upon the common multitude that Lennox died a Protestant, true to his ain faith.’
Hew nodded. ‘So much I have heard, in his proclamation.’
‘The king does not believe that it will be enough to quell the people’s doubts, though it must still their tongues. He wants to put it to the test, in a court of law.’
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