Friend & Foe

by Shirley McKay

  Help came, at last, by night, and from a longed-for source that Alison had not expected, had hardly dared to hope for, in the long dark days. Tam, who first had brought her here, whose sweet face smelt of wood and smoke, came to let her out. The sentry on the tower was lying sound asleep, for Tam had slipped a potion in his evening drink. He would find a rough awakening at the changing of the guard. The loss of Harry Petrie and the Richan boy had left the section short, and Patrick filled the gaps with lubbers from the street, hiring by the hour, to help keep the watch. The man on guard tonight had not been hard to dupe, already in his cups when he took up his post.

  Tam had helped her out, shivering and blinking, to the moonlit square. He locked the door behind her. ‘Dinna mak a sound.’

  He stilled her cries with looks, and with his own thick hand, clamped across her mouth. ‘Still, ye silly wench, and ye would be free.’

  She wriggled in his grasp, like a captured bird, beating her shrill wings against his soldier’s back. At the ladder to the sea he unclasped her mouth a moment, to unlock the gate, and her shrieking had aroused the bishop in his bed, had it not been for the wind, and the black thrust of his fist, to shut her up again, that left her on her knees, weeping as she clung to him.

  ‘For God’s ain pity, Tam, do not cast me down there.’

  ‘Listen,’ he closed his hard fingers tight round her mouth, and turned her face to his.

  ‘You have two hours, till the tide comes in; by then you must have found your way around the cliff, and tak your carcase clear, and where ye gang from there then God alone may ken, but make it far from here.’

  Her eyes were wide and wild. ‘Ye want me to climb down there?’

  ‘If you will save your life.’

  But I cannot, Tam, ah, do not make me. It is the place where that soldier laddie fell, that sweet bonny red-haired soldier. Tis cauld, Tam, and dark, an’ I cannot climb.’ Alison clung to him.

  Tam shook her off. ‘I can put you back right where I found ye, or I can leave ye here, to fend fer yerself, an’ ye can find your ain way out, then God speed and good luck to you.’

  ‘Where is Patrick, Tam? Why does he not come?’ The physick wifie wept.

  ‘Ye dae not get it, do you? Twas Patrick did accuse ye, and cried ye for a witch. Cauld are ye, now? Then bide where ye are, and let the fire tak ye, and ye may be warm enough then.’

  She understood at last, and climbed onto the first rung of the ladder, cowering close into the jagged stone. Her face was wet with tears. ‘I cannot dae it, Tam. Ye maun help me back.’

  But Tam had locked the gate, and gone into the night.

  The rough tongue of the wind lapped and leapt at Alison, lifting up her skirts. She clung to the hard iron of the ladder, unable to climb further either up or down, until her fingers stiffened, bone white in the darkness. Inch by inch she shifted, edging her way down, pressed into the shadow of the jagged cliffs. At her back she heard the water, flowing still and smooth. Her sobs were carried seaward, borne on taunting winds, like wicked boys that nipped her, snatching at her clothes.

  The witch was noticed at the harbour, clinging to the rocks, ship-wracked and sea-green, rising from the waves. She was witnessed, briefly, passing through Boarhills. From there, she disappeared.

  Patrick was called out at dawn, to an unpleasant scene. The sentinel was doubled up, spewing in the courtyard, opening up his belly to the scornful wind. ‘Something that I ate.’

  ‘He was drunken fu,’ Tam Fairlie grumbled. ‘I doubt the lusty beggar took his flagon tae the watch. He will be sorry o’ it now, an’ the deal the sorrier if I had the charge of him. For even the Richan boy wis better than this trash.’ He felt, in truth, an absent fondness for the hapless John.

  Patrick stepped a little sideways, upstream of the spray. ‘He is a hireling?’

  ‘Aye, sir, an’ God kens, no man of mine. This is the trouble when ye put your trust to outlanders. Have I not always said it?’

  ‘Ceaselessly, Tam,’ Patrick groaned. ‘When he has done with vomiting, send the beggar home. Dismiss him, without pay. But all is well, I hope? That is, with the witch?’

  ‘She is quiet,’ Tam admitted, ‘that is no like her. I think it were well that we did look in to her.’

  ‘You will look in to her,’ Patrick corrected, loath still to come up too close.

  ‘She is confined now, and no cause to fear her,’ Tam assured him.

  ‘Wha spake about fearing her? Naught is to fear but the sight and the stench of her. Damn it, man, open the door!’

  But when Patrick saw inside, he felt sore afraid, and sickened in his heart. There was nothing in the room but the little ring of objects – stones and flowers and shells – that the physick wife had used to make her magic spell, and a feather from the bird, on which she must have flown.

  When Tam Fairlie came at last to lie down in his bunk, he found his little daughter curled up fast asleep, and wrapped in her fist he saw something blue. He shook the bairn awake. ‘Up, now, slugabed.’

  ‘Daddie.’ She clasped her thin arms tight round his neck but still did not open her palm. He lifted her up, and into his lap, and opened her fingers out, counting each one. ‘What have you there?’

  She poked out her tongue at him. ‘Mine.’

  ‘It is not yours. Where did ye find it?’

  She giggled at him then. ‘It was in a hole, where the wee man kept his things, the wee man with the spectacles, that wis the bishop’s clerk. He thocht it was a soldier took it, an’ he threw a stane at him.’

  ‘And how wad ye ken that?’

  ‘I saw him,’ she said simply. ‘I wis in the gallery.’ She snatched out at his fingers. ‘Daddie! Gie it back!’

  He held it out of reach. ‘And you have kept it, all that time?’

  ‘I thought that I might give it to the lady in the sea-tower,’ she admitted, candidly, ‘but it is awfy bonny though. I thought that she would like it, though, for she is awfy sad.’

  ‘You saw that lady too?’

  ‘I heared her greitin through the wall. I gave her things, for she was sad.’

  He smiled at her. ‘She liked the things.’

  ‘And is she not sad, now?’

  ‘She is not there now. And that is a good thing. For here is no place for her.’ Tam felt the child’s breath, hot on his neck, the warm, sticky grasp of her hands. ‘Do you mind I telt ye once, that your mother has a sister, that lives far away? Tomorrow, I will take you there. She will have you stay with her.’

  The little girl said fiercely, ‘I will never stay with her. I will stay with you.’

  ‘You will stay,’ said Tam, ‘wherever you are put. I cannot keep you here with me. Tis no place for a lass.’

  Chapter 26

  Friend and Foe

  September came, and Paul and Jonet Bannerman were married at the kirk of Holy Trinity. Hew gave Paul a brand new coat of sea-grey coloured silk, and lent his home at Kenly Green to hold the wedding feast, out of sight and censure of the spiteful kirk. Meg came early in the day to dress the house with coloured ribbons, sweetmeats, fruits and flowers. The miller’s son had sent a piglet, and the smoke of roasting pig flesh, on a bed of early pippins, spiralled through the tower.

  When all the wine was drunk and all the songs were sung, when Paul and Jonet Bannerman departed for the little house where they would spend their married life, and Meg lay down with Matthew, falling into sleep, Giles discovered Hew, sitting by the embers of an early autumn fire.

  ‘You are quiet there.’

  ‘I was thinking,’ answered Hew, ‘what kind of horrors work their wrack upon a poor man’s mind, that he should turn the world askew, distorting what is true and kind, as though he saw life thrawn and twisted, through the devil’s optic glass.’

  ‘You mean Ninian, I suppose?’

  ‘Aye, Ninian,’ Hew agreed, though it was James and Roger Cunningham he had had in mind.

  Giles settled down beside him in a high backed chair. ‘I have given
it some thought. Ninian was suffering a foul sort of affliction. He took his pleasures inwardly, spying on the bishop and the physick wife, which, as I suppose, excited and revolted him. He was both stirred up and repulsed by the feelings it provoked. It was almost as if that fedity of Patrick’s seeped into the stone, corrupting all it touched. Ninian’s own weak will could prove no match for it. It fanned and fuelled his lust.’

  ‘Andrew Melville is enraged,’ reported Hew, ‘that Patrick has escaped the sanctions of the Kirk, though it is common kenning he is an adulterer, who consorted with a witch, and allowed her to escape. He is out of reach, under the king’s protection, and survives unscathed.’

  ‘Not quite unscathed,’ said Giles, ‘since Alison escaped. The king has put the castle back into the keeping of the provost, to secure it for the town, and Patrick and his crew are out upon the street.’

  Hew raised a smile at that. ‘Tam Fairlie too, I hope?’

  ‘Tam Fairlie too,’ Giles assured him. ‘He was Patrick’s man.’ He had watched the little party trundling from the gate, from the window of his house, with a certain satisfaction.

  ‘Then my heart is glad at it,’ said Hew. ‘Although he saved my life. Ninian telt me Tam put John Richan in the pit, and that Harry pulled him out, on the morning that he died. And though that may have been another lie and subterfuge, put out by the clerk, it has the ring of truth to it, and is the kind of cruelty I can well believe of Tam. And, if that were true, what terrors then were wrought in that poor boy’s mind, when he made his escape?’

  Giles tutted. ‘Keep that close from Meg. I believe it too. For it explains a fact that I had not accounted for. The skin was stripped back raw from Harry Petrie’s hands, as though he had been grappling hard to grasp the rock, though he was dead already when he fell.’

  Hew was silent then, to think of Harry Petrie falling from the cliff, and the frightened Richan boy, who had dragged the body safely from the sea, in service to his friend.

  ‘Ninian,’ Giles observed, ‘was well placed to look in upon an unsuspecting world, pretending all the while that he could not see. His case is interesting. I read a story once, in the Flowers of English History, about a young queen of the May who rode naked through a town. A man peeping out at her, with low and lewd intent, was blinded at the sight. A cautionary tale and a curious parallel, to Ninian’s own delinquishment, patterned in reverse. Perhaps, when I have time, I will write a pamphlet on it. Ninian hid his secret even from himself, and was prepared to kill, to spare it coming out.

  ‘His pleasures were embodied in the charms he kept – the ribbon that you found, and the witch’s sock – which were emblematic too, of his sense of guilt. If Harry took the sock, then he would have to kill him, according to the reasoning of that sad disordered mind. Harry found him out, and blackmailed him, perhaps, accounting for the money he had promised for the boat.’

  Hew was not so sure. ‘Ninian was a poor clerk, and had none to give. And I do not believe that Harry blackmailed him. Though Ninian seemed to think that Harry had the sock, it was never found. I think that Ninian saw him searching in the tower, where Harry made his map, and mistook his purpose there. Which begs the question, what was he looking for?’

  Giles admitted, ‘Ah, I had forgotten that,’ and his face fell a little.

  ‘Put it from your mind,’ encouraged Hew. ‘You never saw the map, nor ken of its existence.’

  ‘I am touched at your concern for me, Hew. But it is hard to put it from my mind, when it shows the workings in my house. Have you no further light on what it means?’

  ‘Harry had a passion for the stories of the stone, and must have known of secrets there, that went back many years. Then you do not suppose . . .’ Hew saw the lines of worry etched in Giles’ face and broke off with a sigh. ‘It does not matter now. For Harry took his secret with him to the grave. Whatever was his purpose, only Master Colville knows, and since Colville is imprisoned, and in peril of his life, I do not think it likely he will choose to tell us.’

  When all the guests had gone, Hew found himself bereft. He mourned the loss of Nicholas, whose life and breath were patiently distilled within each quiet measure of the stone, consoling in his father’s death, and wondered how so light a trace could leave behind so sound a gulf of absence in the house, so deep a draught of emptiness. He mourned the loss of Clare. And there was nothing here that could quicken his sad heart, or move his restless spirit to a new excitement, the adventure that it craved, or hold it fast with love. Meg and Giles and Matthew Locke had forged a solid band that would not, at his parting, threaten to unlock, and would still be as strong for him, whenever he returned. Hew resolved to go abroad; to Flanders or to France, to travel through the world, as a free adventurer. His spirit stirred and lifted at the thought. He would stay in town until the start of term, to see what he could do for James and Roger Cunningham. And though he faced that prospect with a heavy heart, he would not shrink from it. Then he would resign, and give his place in college up to Bartie Groat, so that Bartie’s future would be safe assured, when the reformation made its cruellest cuts.

  The serving lass supplied the last part to his plan, coming from the garden with a basket full of plums. ‘There is sic an abundance of fruit, I cannot start to think what we will do with it. The kitchen wants direction, from the hand of Mistress Meg. Do you not think, sir, that her coming here breathes life into the house? Her little babby, too. Without her, it will wallow to a bitter wind. Or the fruits will all be wasted, gross and overblown.’

  Hew agreed with her. He spent a solemn afternoon with his man of law, his steward and his factor, who looked after the estate. And, when they were done, the whole estate at Kenly Green, the house and all its lands, belonged to Meg.

  ‘We will not tell her right away, but will stay upon a time, when she cannot well refuse,’ decided Hew. He slept that night content, and quiet in his mind.

  The next morning, Hew was woken by a loud and frantic hammering. The house was full of men, and the coroner among them. He knew, before they asked, what it was they looked for, and he offered up the book with Harry Petrie’s map. ‘This is what you want. Now please go away, and do not alarm my servants.’

  Sir Andrew took his time. He opened up the little book, Buchanan’s Latin verses.

  ‘You are fond of George Buchanan,’ he remarked.

  ‘I admire his Latin. He was master here, when I first came to St Leonard’s. He left in my first year, to be tutor to the king.’

  ‘The king himself does not recall those years with fondness.’

  ‘Yet,’ suggested Hew, ‘he has the learning now to appreciate the verse. Buchanan was a forbidding scholar to a first-year student; to a little boy of four, he was doubtless a ferocious one. When the king is older, he will look on him more kindly.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ It might have been a careless conversation, with an acquaintance passing on the corner of a street, were it not for Andrew’s men, who were tearing down his books, and the weeping of Hew’s servants, herded in the hall. The coroner retrieved the map, and nodded, satisfied.

  ‘There is no call,’ he called in his men, ‘for this destruction, none at all, and if one of you will break a glass or cause affray to ony servant as he gangs downstairs, then he will make amends for it. One of you maun bid the groom to saddle up a horse, for Master Hew will ride with us, when he and I are done here. Something more dependable, than that stubborn dun horse he has chosen to affect. It is time that hobbie is put out to grass.’

  ‘They will not harm Dun Scottis?’ Hew was moved to ask.

  Sir Andrew smiled at him. ‘Why would they do that?’

  On the way to town, the charge was put to Hew. Master John Colville, entered into ward, had for the last few weeks been caught up in a fever, and too ill to speak. Now he had recovered, he had made his plea. He had sworn to the justice clerk that Hew Cullan of St Andrews, had brought to him a map, and had tried to sell it to him. The map marked the entrance to an ancient shaft that ran
below the castle from the doctor’s house. Hew Cullan meant to use this trance to undermine the king, and restore him to the captors he had lately fled. Colville, so he said, repenting of his fault, had refused to take a part in it. Had he not been unwell, he would have spoken up at once. He was speaking of it now, as proof of his devotion and loyalty to the Crown.

  ‘It was Colville’s map, and Colville’s plat and crime,’ protested Hew.

  ‘So much you might say. And so I might believe, if the map had been with Colville, and was not with you.’

  Then Hew understood. When Colville found he could not have the map, he had made sure that it stayed safe with Hew, and made Hew his security.

  ‘His name is on the paper.’

  ‘Where he will say you wrote it.’

  ‘I found the map,’ protested Hew, ‘on Harry Petrie’s body.’

  Andrew stopped his horse, and turned to stare at him. ‘Did you? Did you, Hew? Then I am surprised that you did not mention that. For did I not ask you, expressly, to come to me with aught ye heard of Colville? Anything at all.’

  Then Hew was lost for words. For he could not reply without exposing Giles, and he began to see that things did not look well for him. They came to Giles’ house, where more of Andrew’s men already had begun to open up the floors. If they found no shaft, then the whole account would be called back into question. If they found a shaft, then Hew would straightaway be taken into ward. The charge would be of treason; so much was assured.