Friend & Foe

by Shirley McKay

  At the small house on the cliff, the men had lifted up the slabs, and were sifting through the earth of the floor to Meg’s distillerie. Giles and Meg stood watching them, white-faced. Hew spoke up at once, before Giles had time to think. ‘I found a map of this place on the corpus of the soldier, Harry Petrie. And I have sworn, of course, that you were not aware of its existence.’

  Meg looked at her husband. ‘Giles . . .’

  But Hew had made it certain Giles could not protest, in drowning out the truth of the defence his friend could make for him; nothing he said now was like to be believed. And Hew had little hope the shaft would not be there. There had been a tunnel; Harry was aware of it. It was the secret in the stone. He had been being looking for the entrance on the castle side. It was somewhere by the fore tower, somewhere by the fosse. He was looking still to find it on the day he died.

  Andrew murmured, ‘Close, I think.’ A surveyor was brought in, to make the house secure. He lay down on the floor, which had opened up a crack. ‘Go softly now, and bring the light.’ He squinted through the gap. ‘Aye, there is a shaft. I cannot say how deep, nor how far it goes. There is rubble in the hole, and a mass of heavy rock. The tunnel has been filled. It looks like ancient works. I heard a story once, that a mine was built to undermine the castle, following the siege when Cardinal Beaton died. But that was long ago, and I did not believe it.’

  Hew remembered Harry’s tale of the killing of the cardinal, the hanging of his carcase like a pennant from the tower. The siege and mine that followed he had crucially left out. He looked into the hole, and felt Sir Andrew’s hand as it closed upon his shoulder. ‘We will dig down deep. But you, my friend, will not be here to see.’

  Once Hew was placed in ward, Sir Andrew rode to Perth, where he met the king. James was fretful still, and moved around his court, fearful to be captured if he stayed still for long, subjecting all around to his habitual restlessness, no sooner off the boat than packing up again. He brought with him a long and weary trail of dogs and cooks and furniture that followed him uphill. He had, Andrew saw, a high colour to his face, marking a mood of precarious excitement. He was laughing, as Wood entered, with the earl of Arran, but did not seem to take much pleasure at the jest.

  As the coroner approached him, James dismissed the earl. ‘Later.’

  For a moment, Arran looked as though he would object, before he took his leave, with a light kiss to the air, and a slight bend of the knee. He caught Sir Andrew’s eye, with a slanting insolence, that clearly spoke, ‘No secrets, sir. For all that you reveal to him, he will tell to me.’

  James was shrewd enough to wait until the door was closed. ‘Well?’

  ‘There is a mine shaft, Sire. It is not new, but part of an old plat to break in to the castle.’

  James shuddered. Since he had report of Colville’s confession, he was thrown once again in a perpetual fear, that he was undermined. ‘Then we were deceived, most hideously and treacherously, in the man Hew Cullan.’

  ‘So it would appear. He had asked to speak with you, Sire.’

  ‘Speak with me?’ The king’s voice rose shrill, ‘I will not hear him Andrew, do you hear? I will not listen to his smooth persuasive words, allow him to deceive me with his serpent tongue. Let him go to his trial. He is a traitor, a defender of traitors, never to be trusted, never to be heard. To think I had entrusted him with Esme’s heart! No matter,’ he retracted, ‘for I am persuaded that was not a good idea. Arran thinks the people would be like to laugh at it.’

  The coroner smiled grimly. ‘On this occasion, Highness, Arran may be right.’

  ‘The archbishop made a sermon on it, and the people laughed at him. In truth, I do not think that Patrick Adamson is a good vicar in Christ. I have sent him away, for a cure. Yet,’ reflected James, ‘he telt one idea of his, that we may commend. Hew Cullan has a good plot of land, that belonged to the archbishopric. When he has been broken, Adamson shall have it back, and offer up its profits to the Crown.’

  The king was playing, all the while, with a bauble in his hand, a marble or a stone, for he was ay a fidgeter. He loosed his hand, and let it slip. It fell on to the ground, and Andrew picked it up.

  ‘Keep it,’ the king said. ‘It is irksome to me.’

  The stone in Andrew’s hand turned out to be a ruby. ‘It is a pretty thing.’ Andrew had the measure of the king. He knew when to ask, and when to hold his peace. He stood and waited now, and in a moment James’ passion broke out.

  ‘It is a reproach to me. I will not be reproached.’

  Sir Andrew waited still.

  ‘There was lately here an Englishman called Walsingham, that is the queen’s own secretary. A whining, carping man, that sought to tell me how I ought to keep my court, and how to wear my crown, and I telt him – you may be sure, sir, that I telt him, that I am the king, and that it is my crown, and I will not be spoken to by blustering old men.’ The king became less certain now. ‘And I will not be spoken to by queens.’

  Sir Andrew said no word to this. And in the silence that ensued, the king’s colour darkened, and he bit his lip.

  ‘I had put by for him, respecting his commission, a ruby in a ring. Now the earl of Arran has telt me, that seeing my displeasure at the talks with Walsingham, he took it for a jest to seize upon the ring, taking out the ruby, and replacing it with glass. Which is a fine jest, but in my heart, I own, I cannot think it politick.’

  ‘Suppose,’ suggested Wood, ‘I took this stone to Walsingham, and put the matter right again?’

  ‘Aye? Would you do that?’ The king accepted eagerly. ‘I think that would be best. You are a good friend, Andrew, and have ever been, for you are quick to see and understand our mind. You will find that man staying at an inn, somewhere in the town. You cannot miss the inn,’ a brief smile crossed his face, mocking and incredulous. ‘His car will be outside; he came here in a coach.’

  The inn, as James predicted, was not hard to find. In the yard outside, where most men kept their horses, Andrew found a coach that had caused a blockage filling the whole street. It was not the coach itself, nor the English footmen who were left to guard it, that had blocked the road, but the massing crowds who had come to marvel at it, the little boys who leapt at it, and plagued the guards with stones. It took the coroner some long while to work his passage past. For all that, as he passed, he paused to steal a look at it, its wrought-iron wheels and shaft, and polished shanks and roof. The windows were obscured, with heavy velvet cloths.

  Sir Andrew Wood gave his name and found himself admitted to a private chamber, where he came at last to see Sir Francis Walsingham, a man with whom he had had detailed correspondence, going back some while, yet whom, until this moment, he had never met. He saw a sallow, sunken face, a frail man in his early 50s, sick, beyond a doubt, but by no means in his dotage, of a keen intelligence, shrewd and sharp in mind.

  Walsingham said, ‘What do you want? You have courage, coming here.’

  Andrew placed the ruby on the board in front of him.

  ‘And what is this? A change of heart?’ the Englishman inquired.

  ‘I think, rather, it is a mark of the king’s trust in me.’

  Walsingham nodded. ‘Keep it that way. Was there aught else?’

  ‘A favour I would ask. For the man Hew Cullan.’

  ‘Ah, now that’s a pity,’ Walsingham replied, ‘for the qualities which have led that young man into this parlous position, are precisely those qualities which did recommend him to us. We should well have liked to bring him to our cause, since we have lost Colville, and most likely Fowler.’

  ‘Hew is the perfect replacement for Fowler,’ Andrew argued. ‘Since his father was a Catholick he can move among them and he will not be suspected. He has lived in France. And since his faith is strong, there will no danger he will be corrupted.’

  ‘Aye, his faith is strong. But he is stubborn, as I think, and as you say, he will not be corrupted, so I think he will not turn for me. Besides, it is no mat
ter now, for he cannot be freed from his predicament without hurt to Colville. For the service he has done I must attend to that. We will support Colville’s account, and entreat with the king to secure his release. And, if we do that, we cannot sue for Cullan.’

  ‘As I understand,’ Sir Andrew nodded, at the answer he expected. ‘Yet suppose that it were possible to secure them both?’

  He explained his plan. The secretary’s eyes narrowed as he heard, and then grew wide with disbelief. ‘A frantic plan is that. It is preposterous. And it will not work. Tell me, what worth is this young man to you, that you should take such trouble with him?’

  ‘It is a complex family matter,’ Andrew said.

  Walsingham accepted, ‘That I understand. We are all of us bound in such ties. My daughter Frances lately has been married. It is, I am aware, an advantageous match, and yet I have my doubts on it. We all of us are bound up in our children’s fortunes, and must help them where we can. They are our weakness, and also our strength. Very well, sir, let me think on it. I will send word. I will leave on the 15th, and will not stay that day, for any living man. Here, take this stone, for I have no use for it. I will, of course, commend your kindness to the king.’

  Sir Andrew took up the ruby up and slipped it in his pocket. He would give it to Elizabeth. Or, perhaps, to Clare.

  In Andrew Melville’s house at St Mary’s college, a council of war was in progress. Melville had unlocked the door securing his apartments from St Mary’s wynd, on the western side, and the small band of conspirators had entered, one by one, secret from the porter at the gate. The conspirators made up an unexpected company: the phlegmatic Bartie Groat, the cowardly Robert Black, Melville and Giles Locke, who no one had supposed would set aside their differences to share a common ground. The common cause was Hew.

  Melville, true to form, had drawn the line at Meg. His principles would not admit a woman in the house, whatever was at stake. But he had intimated kindly and civilly to Giles that he was willing to console Meg on the prospects for Hew’s soul, if the outcome of the trial was not as they would like, and Giles was civil in his answer: he did not think that would help. They could not meet, of course, in the small house in the cliff, which was in the process of a thorough excavation, and it was too far to walk to Kenly Green.

  The four men were resolved to march upon the justice court, demand to see the king. For all their wit and courage, and their faith and hope, their four sharp minds combined, most poignant and most searching in the Christian world, could think of no defence they could apply to Hew.

  Hew would have been amused, and touched, to see his friends unite for him. But at the present moment, he was not dismayed. He was kept in the whitewashed cell, where Alison had slept, and provided with lights, writing things and books, a pillow and a blanket for his bed. These courtesies, he knew, were thanks to Andrew Wood; his gratitude to Wood did not extend to trust, but he was thankful, nonetheless, for he would not have liked to have languished in the pit. The solitude and quietness allowed him to reflect. When Andrew Wood returned, he was prepared for him.

  The coroner brought papers with him in a leather case. He came straight to the point. ‘I have made inquiries. Your story of John Colville is borne out. He dealt with Harry Petrie, and the map was made for him.’

  ‘Then Colville has confessed to this?’ asked Hew.

  ‘He has not confessed, and I think he is not likely to. The map is his insurance,’ Wood explained.

  So much Hew had understood, and worked out for himself. ‘But since he has confirmed this, you can inform the king.’

  ‘It is not as simple as that.’

  Hew answered Andrew quietly. ‘I thought that might be so.’ In the hours that he had spent waiting in the cell, he had realised that the map had never been intended as a threat against the king, for Harry Petrie had begun it many weeks before the king had thought of coming there, when first he saw the works in Giles’ house.

  ‘Who was Colville working for?’

  Against the western tower the sea began to swell. Hew had grown accustomed to the rush of tides, that battled and withdrew. Sometimes, in the night, he was woken by a force that drowned and muffled thought, and sometimes by the lull of a still and deathly quietness. Now, he felt the thunder quicken in his heart.

  ‘He was working,’ Andrew said, ‘for a man called Francis Walsingham,’ a candour in his voice he had seldom shown before. ‘An Englishman. Colville sent reports, on divers different things. Harry spied for Colville in the castle, reporting on the bishop, Patrick Adamson, and some dealings that he had with the earl of Orkney.’

  Hew shook his head. ‘John Richan thought that Harry was his friend,’ he concluded sadly.

  ‘Aye? Perhaps he was. Do not suppose, Hew, that these matters are not clouded by affairs of friendship, love. By matters of the heart. For often those things are the very things behind them, are the moving force. Until ye know the cause, ye shall not judge. For whatever reason, Harry made the map to send to Walsingham. Harry was himself, I think, the force behind it, and the English had no cause, particular, for wanting it, but Harry had a passion for the secret of the stone, and Colville saw no harm in letting him pursue it. In truth, the harm was caused by the bishop’s clerk; the map came to light at a delicate time, and Colville had no choice but to protect himself.’

  ‘And all this, you will tell the king?’ Hew suggested, drily.

  ‘You know that I will not.’

  ‘I asked you once,’ said Hew, ‘whose man you were. You would not tell me then. Will you not tell me now?’

  The coroner replied, ‘You may recall I told you then, that you were being watched. It was Walsingham that watched you. He followed your adventures when you were in Ghent and he is well disposed to bring you to his cause. He can save you, Hew.’

  ‘And what would make you think,’ Hew responded coldly, ‘I would choose to deal with him? I never was, nor chose to be your man, and I will not become an English spy. I will take my chance, and tell the king the truth.’

  Andrew Wood said quietly, ‘I do not think you will, for two reasons. For the first, I am all you have here to protect your family. I have telt the king that they have had no part in this. But it will not be hard to sow that seed of doubt. Indeed, I am persuaded that it has been sown. And for the second,’ he reached in the case he carried at his side, ‘you are Colville’s insurance. This, sir, is mine. It was taken from your house at the time of your arrest. There were witnesses enough that you may not deny it. Perhaps you will remember it?’

  Hew recognised at once the paper in his hand. It was Nicholas’ translation of the George Buchanan, his diatribe against the tyranny of kings.

  ‘This is a work that the king detests. He is very tenderly at present, when it comes to works that claim that a king should be constrained; he has had it banned. You, sir, have had it translated from a language that contained it to the provenance of scholars to one that will disseminate it to the common multitude. That, beyond a doubt, is an act of treason.’

  ‘It was nothing meant . . . a task for a sick friend.’

  Sir Andrew read aloud, ‘ “This I have done, for thee alone.” Those words are enough to see you safely hanged. And so you see, my friend, you have little choice.’

  Hew insisted hoarsely, ‘I will take my chance, and see you at my trial.’

  ‘Then you are a fool, and I leave you to your prayers. Perhaps, you ought to ken,’ was Andrew’s parting shot, ‘that the wily Patrick Adamson has laid claim to your house, and after you are dead, he will have his hands on it. What sir? Smile at that?’

  ‘It is the witch’s curse. But Patrick will have none of it. I have no house or land. I gave it all to Meg.’

  ‘Ah, you have been clever then. Though you must be aware,’ the crownar pointed out, ‘your foresight will be taken as a mark of guilt.’

  He closed the door on Hew, and left him to the trouble of a restless sleep, where presently he woke, and found his darkest fears, that we
re not for his life, but for Giles and Meg.

  At night, Hew was taken from the castle on the cliff by a band of the king’s men. He was strapped to a horse and his hands were tied behind, and carried in a convoy on his way to trial. The roads were quiet then, the skies were dull and dark, and the horses walked on for three or four hours until Hew’s arms and legs were numbed, and he had lost all sense of how far they had come. The devil struck at Dysart Moor. Hew recognised that place, bleak enough in daylight, where the moor hung close its heavy pall of smoke. The horses knew it too, pricking with their hooves at the hot wallowed ground where the coal pits smouldered, spilling out their dust. A little in the distance Hew saw pale green shadows, moving in the trees, the children of the coal pits working through the night. What difference to their world was this outer shroud of darkness, but a cooler earth beneath their blistered feet? The lights came closer then, like little candle moths, and then they were unleashed, not children of the pit, but devils that from hell ascended, hot and fierce and furious, and Hew smelt blood and heat and heard the clash of steel, a horse that reared and screamed, and tasted earth and blood. Hands were laid upon him, and his carcase lifted, dragged through gorse and shrub, until the hot earth split and something warm and sticky poured into his throat, the belly fire and fleume that came from hell itself.

  He was in a sack. The sack was full of stones, and was bowling down a hill. The stones would break his bones. He wanted it to stop. He did not want it to stop. At the bottom of the hill was something worse.

  He was on a hurdle, on his way to execution. Each trundle of the hurdle rattled at his teeth. Soon, it would stop.

  It would never stop.

  He was in Hell.

  Dimly, through the blanket, he heard someone speak. A whining English voice, that came out with a long list of complaints, that rattled with the motion of the cart. The complaints were loud and querulous.