The Rough Collier

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘No, no,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll not ask you to break a confidence. It’s about yesterday’s matter. I need to know what your charge is against Beattie Lithgo, and it would help me if you could say when you last set eyes on Thomas Murray.’

  ‘The charge against the woman Lithgo!’ exclaimed Fleming. He drained his own beaker, and set it down on a pile of papers. ‘Is it no obvious, maister? She’s a notorious witch, widely kent for a cunning woman and dealing in charms and spells all over the countryside.’

  ‘This is not what I have heard,’ Gil observed. ‘Michael mentioned evidence. Do you have any, or have you heard any other say that she has done this?’

  ‘It’s all over the countryside,’ Fleming repeated. ‘Ask anybody. They’ll tell you.’

  ‘Not so far,’ said Gil. ‘All I’ve heard is that she healed this or mended that. She’s aye spoken of as a good woman.’

  ‘It’s no natural for a woman to do such things!’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Gil irritably. ‘Any woman in charge of a household has to deal wi’ cuts and burns and treat sickness. My own mother and my wife are both herb-wise. Who else would keep the kitchen-hands safe or plaister a trodden foot in the stable-yard?’

  ‘She’s ill-natured, which is well known to be the attribute of a witch –’

  ‘This is nonsense, man,’ said Gil, his exasperation growing. ‘By that token, Sir James himself would be a witch, and you’ll not accuse your own maister, I hope.’

  ‘You’ll not put words in my mouth, Maister Gil,’ said Fleming with anxious haste. ‘I never suggested any such thing, and you know it.’

  ‘Well, either tell me what Beatrice Lithgo has done that would warrant a charge of witchcraft, or stop spreading such things about. She could have you for slander, you know, if the charge was brought and proved false.’

  ‘Slander!’ repeated Fleming in dismay. ‘Are you threatening me wi’ the law, maister?’

  ‘No, I am not,’ said Gil crisply. ‘I am warning you. Now will you tell me what prompted your nonsense about witchcraft, or will you desist from it?’

  I should not have let my temper get the better of me there, he thought guiltily. Fleming swallowed hard, his expression suddenly blank, and reached out and poured himself another beaker of ale, which he drank down as if it would provide him with an answer. After a moment it appeared to do so.

  ‘It’s like this, Maister Cunningham,’ he said. ‘What made me suspect her was the deaths. Aye, the deaths,’ he repeated. ‘It’s all in the rent roll, which I keep.’ He nodded towards the document rack. ‘There was a death up there two year since, and one nine year since, that’s a seven-year difference, and another seven year afore that. Now what’s that if it’s no witchcraft, and the worst sort?’

  ‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Gil. ‘Are you claiming Mistress Lithgo caused all three deaths? Who were they, anyway?’ He paused, reckoning. ‘The young one – Matt – two years ago, he took ill and died, and neither his mother nor Mistress Lithgo could save him.’

  ‘Aye, for she’d cast a spell over him,’ Fleming asserted, nodding.

  ‘The one before that was an accident below ground, in the pit. How could she contrive that? Women don’t go in the pit, they tell me.’

  ‘They can work evil at a distance –’

  ‘And the first one took ill and died miles from home. And did your own father not die up at the heugh? When was that?’

  ‘My father’s death, Christ assoil him,’ said Fleming, going red and crossing himself, ‘was certainly an accident, for it was long before the woman Lithgo came to the heugh. See, Maister Cunningham, I’ve a wee bookie I’ve been reading, that a friend lent to me, tells me all about witches and how to recognize them and all sorts of things they do. And in it –’

  ‘What book is this?’ Gil interrupted, with a sinking heart.

  ‘It’s cried Malleus Maficarum,’ said Fleming proudly, ‘which means Hammer of Evil Women, ye ken –’

  ‘That should be Maleficarum,’ Gil corrected. Sweet St Giles, help me, he thought, if this fool has got hold of a copy of that pernicious work, he’ll find witches under every hedge.

  ‘Aye, Maficarum,’ agreed Fleming. ‘Oh, the things witches gets up to, I never kent the half of it afore I read about them in this book. It’s but the second part of it, I truly wish I could get the whole of it to read!’

  Thank you, St Giles! thought Gil.

  ‘Tell me what Mistress Lithgo has done, then,’ he prompted.

  ‘Have you read in this book, maister? I never kent they did more than charms and glamour, but this makes all clear, how they entice innocent maids to join their perfidious company, and take an oath of allegiance to the Devil himself, and fly from place to place by the power of demons and a wee pot of ointment –’

  ‘I’ve heard of all that,’ Gil interrupted. ‘I don’t believe it, either. What I want to know is what you have seen Mistress Lithgo do yourself. Have you proof of her working witchcraft? Has she injured you, for instance?’

  ‘She spends her time in that lair of wickedness she calls her stillroom,’ declared Fleming, ‘times I’ve kent her even refuse to come out to hear Mass because the spells she was working needed to be watched all the time. She’s in there burning herbs and mixing poisons, wi’ charms and cantrips and curses to say over them – what could that be but witchcraft?’

  ‘Go on,’ said Gil.

  Fleming opened and shut his mouth a few times, drank another draught of ale, and recalled something else. ‘She’s stole candles and holy water from the chapel. There’s aye less of either than I look to find, every time I’m up there, and I have the one key and Mistress Weir, the devout woman that she is, keeps the other.’

  ‘But not the Host?’ prompted Gil.

  ‘No, no,’ Fleming crossed himself at the word, ‘I bear the Body of Christ away wi’ me in a wee pyx, sooner than leave it in an unattended place.’

  ‘You’ve not convinced me so far,’ said Gil. ‘Can you show me anyone she has injured?’

  ‘There’s folk all about here been injured! Old Forrest up at Thorn, the old soul, has pains like knives in every joint, and so does Annie Douglas next door to him. What could that be but her work? And done wi’ a glance, just as it tells in the book!’

  ‘They seemed to feel she had helped them with the simples she gave them.’

  ‘Aye, no doubt, but who should undo the injury but the witch herself?’

  Gil sighed. ‘Maister Fleming,’ he said firmly, ‘none of this is proof of anything at all.’

  ‘And she’s injured me!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, she – she gave me a pot of ointment, and it never worked. It made matters worse. And she tellt me to boil well-water and drink that instead of ale, when a’body kens ale’s better for you. The very thought of drinking water!’ Fleming took another pull at his ale in agitation.

  ‘Did you go back when the ointment never worked?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Aye, and she refused to help me. That was when I kent her for a witch, for she met me wi’ evil words, and I’ve heard her use the very same words wi’ Thomas Murray, and here he is dead in a peat-bank!’

  ‘And what words were those?’

  ‘I’ll not defile my mouth wi’ repeating them, maister.’

  ‘Then they won’t stand as evidence.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘I clearly heard her say to the man Murray,’ said Fleming at length, ‘that if he continued in some behaviour she would make sure he regretted it.’

  ‘What behaviour? When was this?’

  ‘It was last summer, in the midst of August three weeks after the quarter-day. As to what he was up to, I have no notion, for she never said in my hearing. And when I threatened to report her to Sir James for a witch, two weeks syne,’ announced Fleming indignantly, ‘she swore I would regret it in the same tone of voice, maister. And what more proof could you want?’

  ‘But how would he get hold of such a book?’ asked
Lady Egidia. ‘He’s no university man, is he? Can he even read?’

  ‘It seems so,’ said Gil.

  Across the hearth Michael swallowed down the mouthful of bread and meat he was chewing and said, ‘No, he’s no Master of Arts, but he can read Latin, for old Sir Arnold taught him. That’s how he got his post, see, he’s Arnold’s sister’s son, he was left fatherless and Arnold saw to his training, and my father thought the world of Arnold.’

  ‘Aye, and quite right. He was a good man and a good priest,’ said Lady Egidia.

  ‘Which is more than the nephew,’ said Michael roundly.

  They were seated in one of the chambers off the hall at Belstane, where Lady Egidia had summoned her godson as soon as he arrived from his tour of the collier’s round. He had admitted to being ravenously hungry, having missed both the midday meal and supper, but his consumption was slowing now he had half cleared the platter.

  Beside Gil on the settle Alys leaned forward and said, ‘Does he run after the maidservants, Michael?’

  Michael, chewing again, nodded and rolled his eyes.

  ‘He’d bairned three afore St John’s Eve last year,’ he divulged, as soon as he could speak. ‘And there was at least two the year afore that. There’s been less trouble since then, by what my father tells me,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s getting so decent women willny hire to us, so Jock the steward says. And there’s the amount of ale he gets through, I noticed it at Yule. He’s no often drunk, I’ll give him that, but he’s a drouth on him like a tinker. And he aye smells of those candied pears like my mother used to make, and willny admit it. Why can I smell them on your breath, says my father, and Fleming swears he was never near such a thing. He must have a secret store of the stuff.’

  ‘But where did the book come from?’ persisted Lady Egidia.

  ‘He was at Linlithgow wi’ my father the last time,’ Michael offered, eyeing the final wedge of bread and cold meat. ‘When the court was there, you ken. It’s possible someone there would have such a thing to lend him.’

  ‘Malleus Maleficarum,’ said Alys thoughtfully. ‘The hammer of women who do evil. I’ve never seen the book.’

  ‘I have,’ said Gil, grimacing. ‘A copy came my way in Paris. It’s written by a Dominican who was an inquisitor in Austria or somewhere of the sort, and became obsessed by witchcraft as a particular heresy. The word in Paris was that the bishop of the place put a stop to his witch-hunting, because of his methods, and he went away and wrote this book in retaliation. It’s all allegation and anecdote, richt pungitive with wordis odious. You can hear the man frothing at the mouth on every page.’

  ‘It sounds unpleasant,’ said Lady Egidia.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Can you or your father not take the book from Fleming?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘He’ll not listen to me, madam. I’ll write to my father, and hope he does something, but, well, seems to me the damage is done.’

  ‘You are right,’ agreed Alys, tucking her hand into Gil’s. ‘The ideas are loose in his head now.’

  ‘At least we know where they came from,’ said Gil. ‘Michael, for pity’s sake, eat that. You must be starved of hunger. Did you learn anything the day?’

  ‘No,’ said Michael indistinctly as Lady Egidia rose and went out into the hall. ‘Not a lot,’ he qualified, swallowing. ‘I started at the near end, wi’ Lockhart at the Lee. Their steward was from home, but I got a word wi’ the under-steward who looked up the accounts for me, and it seems the coal was paid the same day Murray set out from the Pow Burn. As you’d expect,’ he added. ‘That would be the eighteenth of March, as I recall. One night’s hospitality writ down at the same time. Then he went on to Waygateshaw, I suppose on the nineteenth, they paid him and he collected a couple more fees while he was there, and rode off on the twentieth for Jerviswood, his two men wi’ him.’

  ‘So far, so good,’ said Gil. ‘These are all close at hand,’ he added to Alys, who nodded.

  ‘Aye. Well, after Jerviswood,’ Michael went on, ‘the next on the list is Lanark town, two houses. I decided I’d not go into Lanark yet, but went on to pick up the trail at Ravenstruther. Their steward looked up the accounts and said they lay there on the . . .’ He paused, reflecting. ‘Aye. The twenty-third and -fourth of March. Likely Lanark was more attractive, that they’d stayed longer there in between. I turned for home then, since it was well through the afternoon and I didny fancy my chances pressing on to Carnwath and getting back before dark.’

  ‘And all was as usual?’ Gil asked. Michael shrugged. Instead of his narrow scholar’s gown, today he was wearing a handsome doublet of soft tawny leather, faced with green velvet at the cuffs and neck, the sleeves and throat of his shirt embroidered in green and tawny thread to match. He seemed five years older and far better looking; Gil suddenly saw what might have attracted his youngest sister.

  ‘This was four or five weeks ago,’ he was saying. ‘I asked, but nobody minded aught that was out of the ordinary.’

  ‘Just Murray and his two men,’ said Alys. Michael nodded, and half rose as Lady Egidia returned.

  ‘Sit still,’ she said, crossing the chamber to her own chair. ‘Alan will bring more food in a little space. This has been good work, godson, even if you learned nothing. Tomorrow you can go on to the next houses on the list.’

  Michael went scarlet with what might have been gratification, and Gil sat back, stretching out his legs.

  ‘So all was well for a good week after they set out,’ he summarized. ‘And meantime, I’m no nearer finding a name to the corp, nor learning just why Fleming brought such a charge against Mistress Lithgo. What about your day, sweetheart?’

  ‘I found out more than that, I think,’ said Alys diffidently. Alan Forrest entered, with a fresh platter of bread and cheese and a bowl of rather withered apples, which he set on the table by Michael’s elbow. ‘Though none of it may be to the point. Did you say Fleming admitted to having consulted Mistress Lithgo?’

  ‘Under pressure.’

  ‘Ah. Only under pressure. That is interesting. He did not say why?’

  ‘No,’ Gil admitted, ‘though he mentioned ointment which didn’t work. No reason why he should, I suppose, though it might have been more corroboration if he’d told me what way the ointment didn’t work.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alys. ‘Phemie told me she had seen him slipping into her mother’s stillroom after they all thought he had left for the day. But Mistress Lithgo never mentioned it today when I spoke to her, nor yesterday when it might have helped her cause.’

  ‘Ah!’ echoed Lady Egidia. The steward paused in the doorway, half-watching the company. ‘You think . . .’

  Alys exchanged a very woman-to-woman glance with her across Gil.

  ‘It seems possible,’ she agreed. ‘Some problem he might not wish discussed. She is a good woman, and a good healer, I think she would be discreet as a matter of course.’

  ‘Oh, she would. I wonder what it is? I suppose it could be anything he keeps under his hose. A carbuncle on his hinder end, emerods, trouble with his water. Alan, what are you waiting there for?’ demanded his mistress. ‘Have you aught to add to this?’

  ‘Aye, well,’ admitted the steward, grinning sheepishly. ‘In a manner o’ speaking. It’s Davy Fleming ye’re discussing, madam, is it?’

  ‘You ken very well it is,’ she said tartly. ‘What’s the word, then? Have you something Maister Gil should hear?’

  ‘I’m no just certain. For all you’re saying Beattie Lithgo can be discreet, mistress, I think there’s some word going about among the lassies – the young lassies. The way they laugh when his name’s mentioned, there’s something they’re no telling the men.’

  Another of those significant glances passed, and both women nodded triumphantly. Gil, catching up with their thought, looked from his mother to his wife, and objected: ‘Michael’s just told us he’s putting it well about – what, three lassies last summer, two the year afore – that doesn’t sound like w
hat you’re suggesting.’

  ‘But none since then,’ said Alys.

  ‘What is it you’re suggesting?’ Michael asked blankly. The steward grinned again, and made an inelegant gesture. Michael went scarlet. ‘Oh! D’you mean he canny get – like some kind of retribution? A judgement on him?’

  ‘It might be,’ agreed Alys, ‘though I have never heard of it happening so appositely.’ Gil looked down at the top of her head where she leaned against his shoulder, wondering yet again at her capacity to surprise him.

  ‘I have,’ said Lady Egidia. She paused, considering her household. ‘The lassies would tell me what the joke is, but I’d have to press them to it likely. They’re by far more like to share it wi’ you, Alys. Would you care to have a try at one or two of them?’

  ‘I should be honoured,’ said Alys.

  ‘Alan will furnish you wi’ likely names. And did you learn anything more at the coal-heugh?’

  Alys nodded, her head shifting against Gil’s shoulder, and put up a hand to straighten her French hood.

  ‘Much of it was shadows,’ she qualified. ‘Nuances. The man Murray was much disliked – I think all of the women had some reason to wish him ill – but the most interesting was that Joanna is to have her first husband’s share of the inheritance. A half share in the business.’

  ‘Is she, now!’ said Gil.

  ‘Is that right?’ said Alan, still hovering in the doorway. ‘I kent the auld – Mistress Weir was daft for her, but I never heard that.’

  ‘Alan, you may as well be seated,’ said his mistress resignedly, ‘and tell us what you know about the folk at the coal-heugh and all.’

  ‘Well, it’s maybe no that much,’ said Alan, seating himself primly on the nearest stool. ‘They keep theirsels to theirsels up there.’

  This proved to be the case. Few facts emerged, but a picture of a community viewed with suspicion, known to be violent, said to be feckless. The heugh was thought to be haunted, possibly by Mistress Lithgo’s husband, which Alan thought must be right, for else why would the colliers not work at night? Mistress Lithgo herself was well known and well liked, her daughters regarded warily – ‘They’re bonnie lassies, but nobody kens how they’ll be placed,’ said Alan. Gil recognized the reference to the girls’ dowries.