by Pat McIntosh
‘Elsrickle, I think,’ said Alys confidently, ‘from the tone in which Mistress Weir read out the name. Where is that?’
‘It’s a fair way from the Pow Burn,’ observed Michael. ‘It’s in Walston parish, the far end of the county. That way.’ He nodded vaguely south-east.
‘It was sadder yet what happened to the younger son,’ Lady Egidia said. ‘If I mind right, he came home maybe two years back with a new young wife on his crupper, having met and married her incontinent at some place where he’d taken a load of coals. That alone would ha’ been the speak of the parish for weeks, but then he took sick and was dead within the quarter, for all Beattie could do.’
‘Oh!’ said Alys in distress. ‘Is that Joanna? Oh, poor soul!’
‘Beatrice mentioned something of the sort,’ said Gil.
‘I mind that too,’ said Michael surprisingly. ‘The old man mentioned it in his letters. He’d found her somewhere by Ashgill, the other side of the Clyde.’
‘That isn’t on the list, is it?’ Gil asked Alys.
She shook her head. ‘They said their round stayed on this side of the river. How far is Elsrickle? Is it near there?’
‘No. Ashgill’s to the west, just across the river in Cadzow parish, Elsrickle is fourteen or fifteen miles east of here. The High House beyond Elsrickle,’ said Gil, helping Alys to some of the cold pie, ‘which I mind is one of the places on the list, must be the furthest away from the coal-heugh. There are ten names altogether, and they told us Murray would stop a night and a day at each, to gather the fees from the surrounding customers, and then ride on to the next.’
‘Maybe two weeks’ travelling, then,’ said Michael, ‘allowing for delays.’
Gil nodded. ‘And he’s been gone more than five weeks.’
‘You think he’s run off?’ asked Michael.
Gil looked at him across the table. ‘That or something else. He might have stayed somewhere to draw up some extra business agreement, as Mistress Weir suggested,’ he counted off, tapping his fingers on the linen cloth, ‘he might have fallen ill or died suddenly, like the grandsire, though I would have thought word would have got back to the coal-heugh by now. He might have gone to the saltpans at Blackness and been held up there, or he might have decided to take the money he had collected and run to England or the Low Countries. Or I suppose it might be another reason altogether. Whither trow this man ha’ the way take? He could be anywhere.’
‘Surely not England!’ said Lady Egidia.
‘But what about the two other men?’ Alys reminded him.
‘That’s one of the puzzling things,’ agreed Gil.
‘One?’ said his mother.
‘His wife is young and lovely,’ said Alys.
Gil pulled a face. ‘Too sweet a mouthful for me. But yes, you’d think he’d be drawn home to a bed with Joanna in it. And there’s the way all those women see him differently. The old woman seems disappointed with him, Joanna’s his wife and speaks accordingly, but I think Beatrice dislikes him and the daughter who spoke to us was venomous.’
‘Maybe the daughter thought he should ha’ wed her,’ suggested Michael sourly.
‘Aye, that might be it. And what about you?’ Gil raised his eyebrows at the younger man. ‘What did you get from Fleming when you rode him over to Cauldhope? Has he any true information against Mistress Lithgo?’
Michael shrugged. ‘None that I can make out,’ he admitted. ‘He croaked on about having evidence, and how she’s infamous as a witch, and how many folk resort to the coal-heugh to get healing from her, and he wouldny hear of this corp being any other than the man Murray. I asked him what was this evidence, what he’d seen or heard for himself that was proof of witchcraft, but he never answered me other than to say she’d quarrelled wi’ the man. He’s a fool, I wish my father had never set him in place.’
‘So how will you begin, dear?’ asked Lady Egidia, before Gil could speak. He looked at Alys, and she smiled back and squeezed his hand briefly under the table.
‘Someone has to go out and ask each household when they last saw Thomas Murray,’ he said. ‘And while they’re about it, ask each one if there has ever been anything . . .’ He paused. ‘Unusual. Aye. Anything unusual about the man or his dealings.’
‘An easy enough task,’ said Lady Egidia. ‘Michael, you may as well do that since you’re here.’
‘Me?’ said Michael, his voice rising to a squeak. ‘I mean – why me? Why should –?’
‘I’m sure you’d like to be a help,’ Lady Egidia informed him.
‘But I – I mean, I have to get back to the college. There’s my – I’ve to deal wi’ Davy Fleming. I canny go riding all over Lanarkshire,’ Michael protested, looking round him in faint panic. Gil caught his eye, aware of a degree of sympathy which surprised him.
‘It would speed your matter, in fact,’ he pointed out, ‘since the sooner we find the man the sooner we’ll convince that fool Fleming, and it would come better from you as your father’s son, riding round asking other folk’s stewards when they paid the bill to his coal-grieve, than from me. Then I can send to the salt-pan, and take the time to ask about here and all, see if there are any old tales of someone going missing, try to find another name for our corp. He must have a name, after all, poor devil.’
‘You’ll get more than you bargain for,’ his mother observed, ‘if you’re going to encourage all the old gossips and their tales. So that’s settled, Michael. Get a note of what questions Gil wants you to ask, and the list of the houses you must call at, before you go home the night, and you can make an early start in the morning.’ Michael nodded, and mumbled something ungracious which might have been assent, and she turned to Alys. ‘And what about you, my dear?’
‘I am bidden back to the coal-heugh,’ Alys admitted.
Lady Egidia’s gaze sharpened, but all she said was, ‘Then you’d best borrow Henry again.’
‘Double-distilled is better for burns,’ said Beatrice Lithgo, ‘and triple is better yet.’
Alys nodded. ‘I keep a small flask of the triple-distilled beside the kitchen salt,’ she agreed. She put the stoneware jar of lavender-water back in its place, and gazed round the crowded stillroom shelves. The sight appealed deeply to her; she would have liked to open and look into every one of the jars and bottles and leather sacks. ‘You are well stocked, mistress. And well informed. Socrates, heel!’ she added.
‘I learned a lot from Arbella,’ admitted Beatrice as the dog reluctantly left the barrel which had attracted him. ‘She was good in her day. You need someone handy wi’ the simples about a coal-heugh.’
‘My father is a stonemason,’ said Alys, ‘and I know stone-cutting and quarry-work, a little. I should like to learn about hewing coal, how it differs.’
‘You want Arbella for that,’ said Beatrice. ‘Or Joanna. She’s got it all at her finger-ends already. My man never liked to have much to do wi’ the pit, Our Lady succour him, and my father was a salt-boiler. I can tell you all about that, but no so much about coal.’
‘I have never seen a salt-pan. I should like to learn about that too,’ said Alys, with truth. ‘Your man was the elder son, mistress? When did he die?’
Beatrice’s face softened, and she gazed through a glass jar of preserved berries into some distant scene.
‘He was the elder son,’ she agreed. ‘His father’s heir, and no so like either Arbella or Auld Adam, either in looks or in temper, though he’d his father’s grey eyes. My Bel, poor lassie, will have a look of him when she loses her fat.’
‘You are saying he was less interested in the business?’ Alys prompted. ‘That must have been difficult.’
‘Oh, it was. You saw Arbella, when you rode in here the day, down in the tally-house inspecting the records and making up the note of what each man had sent up to the hill yesterday?’ Alys nodded. ‘Adam never cared for that. A great burden he found it, and even more he disliked directing the men at their work. He hated going into the pit. Music, he liked, and books, and talk
ing learning with old Sir Arnold. He’d planned to sell the heugh, or at least his share in it, and move down to Linlithgow. He quarrelled wi’ Arbella over that. But then he died. In the pit, in a roof-fall, nine year since. It was his day-mind in March, just after Thomas rode off on the round,’ she added. Both women crossed themselves, and Beatrice turned resolutely to the shelf beside her. ‘Do you ever use this? I find it good for skin troubles.’
‘And Joanna’s man was the younger son,’ said Alys, taking the little jar and sniffing the contents. The dog looked up at her, his nose twitching. ‘Yes, indeed, I use this often.’ She sniffed again. ‘Is that rosemary in it as well? A good thought, I must try that. He died not long after they married, I think?’
‘He brought her home in May, two year ago,’ said Beatrice sadly, ‘and fell ill within the week, a wasting illness where his skin was dry and cracked on the hands and feet, his hair fell, the flesh melted off him. He couldny stomach a thing. Nothing helped. His breath smelled of garlic, and I couldny balance it out.’
‘I never heard of such an ailment!’ said Alys in dismay. ‘Could it have been poison?’
‘I thought that myself, but who would have poisoned him? We were all fond of Matt, he was a bonnie lad and a good maister, better than his brother, though I say it. No, I think it was some sickness, or maybe bad food or some wild plant got into the kailyard, for two of the colliers’ bairns had died of something similar no a week afore he brought Joanna home. Their mother did say they’d been drinking at one of the wells on the hillside, but there was a great smell of wild garlic about them.’
‘What a strange thing,’ said Alys.
‘Aye, strange it was. I tried all the remedies I could think of, and so did Arbella, but he was shriven and shrouded afore Lammas. Joanna, poor lass, truly mourned him, for all he’d courted her no more than a day or two and wed her out of hand.’
‘And then she took Murray.’
‘And then she took Murray,’ agreed Beatrice.
Alys watched her face carefully, but it gave nothing away. After a moment she said, ‘Does he beat her?’
The other woman’s gaze snapped to meet hers, and she smiled bitterly.
‘My, but you’re quick, lassie. No, not with his fists, but he uses his tongue. Sharp, sarcastic, making her out to be a fool. She’ll not complain, nor tell Arbella, but I’ve heard him.’
‘And no sign of that when he courted her, I suppose.’
‘Deed, no.’ Again the bitter smile. ‘Near a year she mourned Matthew, and the men were round her like wasps round a windfall, as bonnie as she is. I thought myself she favoured the lad Meikle, and it aye seemed to me Murray had eyes elsewhere, though that would never have –’ She broke off. ‘But in the end she took Murray, and wed him a year since in July, wi’ Arbella’s blessing, and by Martinmas he was treating her like a scullery-lass.’
‘And was he coal-grieve already when they married?’
‘Oh, yes. It was Matthew raised him to grieve under him, then when he died Arbella put Murray in Matt’s place. He was a sinker afore that, and worked as a bearer the way some of them do when they areny cutting a shaft. Matt called him a natural pitman, said he had a great understanding of the coal and where it goes under the ground. As Matt himself did, I think.’
‘A bearer – that is the man who carries the coals away,’ Alys prompted. Beatrice nodded. ‘The hewer is a craftsman, and the bearer is his labourer, am I right? I should like to see more of this – without offending Mistress Weir,’ she added hastily, before Beatrice could speak. ‘Maybe someone could show me how it all happens.’
‘I’ll get Phemie to walk you up the hill,’ Beatrice offered.
‘I should like that, if she has the time,’ Alys said ingenuously. ‘Tell me, mistress, what do you think has come to Murray?’
Beatrice shrugged, and rearranged two yellow-glazed pipkins on the bench at her side.
‘I’ve no notion. The day they left he mounted up at the door and bade farewell, just as he aye does, never said aught to us about where he was going or who he would meet, nor about when to expect him back, but that’s nothing unusual. The two lads wi’ him were cheery enough, but Jamesie Meikle tells me both had tellt the folk they lodge wi’ that they’d no idea how long they’d be away. Whether Murray said aught to Joanna in private I don’t know, but I’d ha’ thought she’d ha’ brought it out by now if he did.’
Alys nodded in agreement. ‘If he had decided to run off,’ she said, ‘for whatever cause, where would he go, do you think? Where is he from originally?’
‘Fife, somewhere,’ said Beatrice, with a vagueness to which Alys gave no credence. ‘He’s a trick of calling folk neebor the way they do over that way. He’d likely cross the Forth if he’d no cause to come back here. That’s never him in the peat-digging.’
‘No, I agree.’
‘What’s come to him – the man from the digging? Will he get a decent burial?’
‘He will,’ Alys assured her. ‘The Belstane carpenter was to make a coffin for him today. My – my husband would like to give him a name before he’s buried, if we can. And maybe find who killed him.’
‘No easy task. I’d say he’s been there a while.’
‘And the man Fleming.’ Beatrice looked away at the words, and shivered. Yes, thought Alys, you were more afraid yesterday than you showed us. ‘Why would he have such a spite for you?’ she said aloud. ‘There was venom there.’
‘I’ve never a notion,’ said Beatrice firmly.
‘Oh, he’d consulted my mother,’ said Phemie. She peered into the furthest of the shaft-houses, a squat structure walled with hurdles and thatched with heather, merely intended to keep the worst of the weather off man and pony working it. The winding-gear was silent astride the dark maw of the shaft, the long beam with its dangling harness propped on the heading-bar. ‘I noticed him slinking into the stillroom by twilight, when we thought he’d gone home. It’s no so easy to get out here to the coaltown unseen,’ she added.
‘Maister Fleming had consulted your mother?’ Alys repeated, standing cautiously in the doorway with a tight grasp of Socrates’ collar. ‘When was that?’
Phemie walked forward and kicked the timber frame of the winding-gear. Her wooden sole made a loud thump which resonated in the hollow of the shaft, vanished downward and returned to them mixed with the tap and clatter of metal tools. Were there voices too? Alys wondered. I am being fanciful, she told herself firmly. In the shadows over her head something made a ruffling sound, like feathers. She drew the dog closer to her knee, and he put his head up to look at her.
‘A month ago, maybe,’ Phemie said. ‘Aye, that would be right, about Lady Day. I don’t know what it was about,’ she admitted, ‘I stayed within sight, and made sure he kent I was there, but I never got close enough to hear. He went away wi’ a wee jar of ointment, and a paper of pills, I could tell that by what was lying to be washed when I went into the stillroom.’
‘You assist your mother?’ Alys realized.
The girl nodded. ‘I’ve helped her mix simples since I could walk,’ she said, with some pride.
‘And Bel? Does she help too, or is she always at her spinning?’
Phemie looked curiously at Alys, but answered civilly enough. ‘Bel’s aye wi’ our grandam. Times she sits and spins while the old – old lady rests, times she helps her wi’ the accounts, times she fetches greenstuff for her off the hillside.’
‘Off the hillside?’ Alys repeated in surprise.
‘Aye. Water from this or that spring, herbs from some burnside for Arbella or my mother. The old woman’s none so spry on her feet now, but time was she could find any plant you could name in the parish, so my mother says, and she can still tell my sister where to seek them.’ She peered into the cavity beside her, then lifted a piece of dull black stone from the floor, and dropped it down the shaft. There was a long silence, then a distant rattle and thud, and an angry shout. Phemie grinned. ‘That’ll learn somebody no to stand u
nder the shaft.’
‘How deep is it?’ So there were voices, thought Alys.
‘Fifteen fathom.’
‘Fifteen – that is seven-and-twenty ells,’ Alys calculated, and opened her eyes wide. ‘I had no idea you could go so deep.’
‘There’s deeper.’
‘But does the roof not fall down?’
‘No if the stoops are wide enough.’ Phemie stepped out of the hut, and Alys followed her with relief, away from the winding-gear and the black gaping maw of the shaft. ‘Look.’ She bent, lifted another flake of stone, and drew a square in the gritty mud underfoot. ‘That’s a pillar. We call it a stoop.’ She drew another square a little distance from the first. ‘That’s another. And another. And between the stoops are what we call the rooms. Each hewer works in a room by his lone, wi’ a bearer to carry the coal away as he howks it out. The deeper the coal gets, the bigger the stoops and the narrower the rooms has to be.’
‘To hold the roof up,’ Alys nodded. ‘I see. So there must be a point where it is not worth hewing any deeper.’
‘Aye,’ said Phemie, looking up with grudging admiration. ‘Because you canny take out enough coal to justify the work. That was what happened to my da. Arbella made him go into the pit, and someone had took out too much coal and the roof came down while he was viewing it.’ Alys made a small sympathetic sound, and Phemie shrugged. ‘I was seven, I can scarce mind him,’ she said dismissively, and went on, ‘And that was where Arbella and Thomas wonderful Murray couldny agree.’
She looked round her, and Alys did likewise. They were well above the house here, high enough to look down at the thatched roofs of stables and dwellings. Children played in the trampled space between the two rows, and a group of women were eyeing them covertly from the door of one cottage. Fifty yards away the winding-gear creaked loudly inside the next shaft-house, and an elderly man was pushing a small rumbling cart back and forward along a wooden roadway, adding huge shining black blocks to the upper coal-hill. Further uphill yet, a row of tethered ponies munched at the tussocky grass, ignoring all distractions.