by Pat McIntosh
Sir Simon Watt, priest of Dalserf, a small wiry man bundled in a worn budge gown, was delighted to receive a bonnie young lady as a visitor. He said so, a number of times, while he bustled about the low-ceilinged chamber above the porch, setting a stool for Alys, calling down to one of the old women in the church for ale from the best brewster in the place, locating a box of sweetmeats someone had given him last Yule. Finally he sat down opposite her, and surveyed her appreciatively with sharp grey eyes.
‘And what can we do for you in Dalserf, madam? I take it you’re no after pastoral counsel, seeing Jackie Heriot’s a deal closer to Belstane than we are. You’ve never crossed the Clyde just to view our wee kirk?’
‘No,’ admitted Alys, ‘though it is a pretty kirk, and so well tended. It is mostly old work, I think? But the pulpit is new.’
‘Aye, and Our Lady on the wall by the chancel arch.’ Sir Simon’s lean face split in a grin like Socrates’. ‘The good women about the place were right put out when she was painted fresh,’ he confided, offering the sweetmeats. ‘They had to explain all their petitions to her again, they said, for she looked so different she must certainly be a different person.’
‘But of course!’ said Alys, sharing his amusement.
‘And is it no Belstane where the man’s been raised up out of the peat-digging, all uncorrupted? What’s this I hear about him doing miracles?’
‘Many people have come to view him, and now to make their petitions before him. I think Sir John is hopeful,’ said Alys cautiously, ‘but we have seen no miracles.’
‘Well, the word’s all across my parish the day, and there’s a many folk crossed the Clyde seeking some benison or other. Though what Leezie Lockhart’s looking for, and her past fifty and never wedded, is more than I can jalouse, and so I told her when she was through the place this noon bound for the crossing.’
‘My groom said the ferry was more busy than usual,’ said Alys. ‘I hope they are not disappointed. The body seems to us a man like any other, slain long since and buried there. He’s hardly uncorrupted, rather he’s tanned with the peat like old leather, and he will fall into dust if we do not bury him soon.’
‘Aye,’ said Sir Simon, nodding sagely. He lifted a march-pane cherry from the box, and bit into it. ‘I can see how that would be. Well, I canny prevent my flock running after such a thing, and if one or two finds peace of mind by it, well and good, it’s a grace. So how can I help you, madam?’
Alys set her beaker down and folded her hands in her lap.
‘I am a friend of Joanna Brownlie,’ she said. ‘I think you know her, and you’ll know she has not to seek for her troubles.’
‘Aye, I do. But I heard she’d taken a second husband. Is that not succeeding –?’
‘That’s the man who is missing from the coal-heugh. And now he is dead.’
‘Never!’ The priest crossed himself with the hand that held the cherry, and muttered briefly in Latin. They both said Amen, and he continued, bright-eyed, ‘I’d heard about that, but I never knew it was Joanna’s man, the poor lassie. Been gone for months, is that right?’
‘Five weeks,’ said Alys precisely. ‘Since the morrow of St Patrick’s day. And found dead only yesterday, though we think – my husband thinks,’ she corrected scrupulously; she might still be annoyed with Gil but she would give him all credit, ‘he has been dead since before Lady Day.’ She smiled earnestly and the priest nodded again. ‘Joanna needs the support of her kin, good though the folk at the coal-heugh are to her, and I hoped you might have some clearer idea than she does herself about where her brothers are.’
‘Her brothers!’ Sir Simon sat back, looking at her in some dismay. ‘She’ll get no support from them. Still, I suppose they should be given the chance. You never can tell, wi’ kin.’
‘They are not close, then?’
‘Oh, they’re not close. Never were. I suppose it’s no wonder, two great laddies wi’ the farm work to see to would take it ill out that their mother made such a pet of the wee thing, but they never took to her, as bonnie as she was, and then they both left home no long after I came to the benefice, and got set up for themselves.’
‘Yes, I think Joanna was a late bairn. They would already be well grown when she was born. Mistress Lockhart must have missed her sons when they left,’ said Alys, and got a sharp look at her use of the surname.
‘She’d the lassie still at home. Told me once she’d always wanted a lassie to raise.’
‘But then she died before Joanna was grown. Like my mother,’ added Alys.
‘It comes to many of us,’ said Sir Simon in compassion. ‘Aye, Marion died, poor woman, and grievous hard she found it to leave her daughter. Could hardly go to her rest, the poor soul, till she had her man swear in front of me that he’d cherish Joanna as his own ewe lamb.’ He sighed, and shook his head. ‘That’s a deathbed I’ll recall my life long. The lassie weeping, and her father sat by the pillow like a stone statue, and the two brothers summoned from their homes the one leaning on either bedpost,’ he gestured with one hand and then the other, ‘watching their mother as she failed. Cherish her, she kept repeating, as your own ewe lamb. Swear it, Will, she said. One of the sons said, What need of him swearing, he’s aye been doted on the wench, and the other said, Swear it, father, and get this over. But you’ve no need of hearing this, madam. What was it you were asking me? Where would the brothers have got to?’
‘Yes. Yes, I hoped you might know more than Joanna.’ Alys brought her thoughts to bear on the question. ‘I’d heard they might be in Lesmahagow, but then –’
‘Oh, no, they’ve both left there and all. One of them moved on a while back, I mind that, for he was nearly too late in returning when their father reached his end.’
‘I wonder where they went,’ said Alys hopefully.
‘Ayrshire,’ said Sir Simon with confidence. ‘Sorn way. I’m from thereabouts myself, you understand, lassie, so it stuck in my mind when I heard. But where the other one – Glasgow? Ru’glen?’
‘No matter,’ said Alys without truth. ‘What was it Maister Brownlie died of? I heard he took ill not long after Joanna’s first husband died.’
‘He did,’ agreed Sir Simon, nodding. ‘Poor soul, he’d a bad time of it. Two month of a wasting illness, wi’ cramps to his belly and his legs, and pains in his wame to make him cry out. I visited often. He was wandering in his mind at the last,’ he added, ‘talking of owls on the bed-foot, and trying to make Joanna swear to have a care to Mistress Weir the same way he’d sworn to her mother, but he made a good end none the less, and made his confession and died at peace.’
‘Our Lady be praised for that,’ said Alys, and Sir Simon said Amen. ‘What did they treat him with? It sounds like a sorry case.’
‘Oh, there was a fellow over from the coal-heugh almost day by day wi’ one receipt or another, a simple, a decoction, a tincture. Auld Mistress Weir and the other good-daughter both are herb-wise, maybe you’ve noticed that, and they kept sending anything they thought might ease him a wee bittie. But nothing helped.’ The priest smiled ruefully. ‘They all make me feel worse, Will said to me one time.’
‘Poor man,’ said Alys. ‘At least he saw all his children established in the world before he died. Rutherglen, you said?’
‘Or Cambuslang. Or maybe it was Glasgow right enough.’ Sir Simon lifted the box of sweetmeats and held it out to her. ‘There’s a strange thing, I’ve only the now thought of it. That was Hob that moved away down the Clyde, to Ru’glen or Glasgow, and I’ve heard them say the reason why he moved was, the place he had in Lesmahagow was full of owls.’
‘Owls?’ Alys repeated, since this seemed to be expected.
‘Aye, owls. The story goes that they sat on the roof-tree and screeched all night, and stole the seed-corn out the meal kist, and he couldny take it longer and left the place. And there was his father as he lay dying talking of owls at the bed-foot, where, let me tell you, there was never an owl when I was there, poor soul.’<
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‘How extraordinary!’ said Alys. Do owls eat grain? she wondered. I thought they caught the mice and rats who would eat it. ‘Are there a lot of owls in Lesmahagow?’
‘I was never there,’ admitted Sir Simon.
‘And both the sons came back to the burial,’ said Alys.
‘Aye, and the displenishing, which is what brings most folk back to the old home,’ said Sir Simon drily. ‘It’s seldom an edifying sight, the family after the funeral.’
‘I hope the Brownlie funeral was harmonious.’
‘No,’ said Sir Simon. ‘I wouldny say it was.’ He shook his head, contemplating the past, and took another sweetmeat. ‘I wouldny say it was,’ he repeated.
‘Did they disagree over the will?’
Another of those sharp looks.
‘Aye, though it was clear enough. I scribed and witnessed it. All the outside gear to the sons, to divide equably atween my sons Thomas and Robert Brownlie, and the inside gear to our dear Joanna that was born in the year of 1470.’
‘How odd,’ said Alys. ‘What a strange way to put it. As if there was another Joanna.’
‘I thought that myself,’ agreed Sir Simon, ‘but there was never no more than the one lassie in the household. But that was the way Will dictated it, and he’d no be shifted. Poor man,’ he sighed, ‘he doted on the lassie, even though – Then the coin in his kist was to be split three ways after payment of his debts and a gift to the kirk. Straightforward, you’d think.’ Alys nodded. ‘Aye, you’d think, and you’d be wrong. What must they do but argue about what was inside gear, and discover a sum owing to Tammas that must be settled afore the coin was split. In the end, I’d say, Joanna got little more than half what was her due.’
‘It’s a strange thing, human nature,’ said Alys. ‘A great sum or a small one, neither is easy to share out.’
‘Aye. Mind, she was still left to the good. A saving man, Will Brownlie, and did well from the property he held.’ Sir Simon considered Alys. ‘Is there aught else I can tell you, lassie? I’d aye a fondness for Joanna Brownlie myself, I’d be glad to help her in her difficulties.’
‘They all made him feel worse,’ repeated Lady Egidia. ‘In what way, do you suppose?’
‘I never asked,’ said Alys with regret. ‘He is a clever man, but I think with no medical knowledge. He might not have been able to tell me. But I think he found something odd about the man’s deathbed, from the way he spoke.’
‘Yes.’ Lady Egidia stroked her cat thoughtfully. ‘I like that hood better on you, with the narrow braid,’ she observed. ‘It becomes you more than the other one. You have good taste, my dear.’
From a woman presently clad in a patched kirtle and a loose budge gown of her late husband’s this did not seem to be much of a compliment, but Alys had seen her mother-in-law dressed en grande tenue and took it at its proper valuation. Aware of her cheeks burning, she answered lightly, ‘But of course. I chose Gil.’
‘And he is making you happy?’
‘He is,’ Alys said, resolutely not biting her lip. Of course, the inquisition had to come, and a well-bred woman like this one would conduct it neither too early nor too late in the visit, and certainly in Gil’s absence.
‘You don’t seem certain.’ Lady Egidia raised one eyebrow, in an expression Alys had seen in Gil. Socrates, sprawled before the hearth, raised his head and stared at the hall door. ‘Have you quarrelled? I heard your voices last night.’
What else did she hear? wondered Alys in alarm, her cheeks flaming again. ‘No, no,’ she said hastily. ‘Gil had a dream that woke him, and we talked a while.’
‘And then lay down again.’ There was no hint of innuendo in the tone. ‘So was it today you quarrelled?’
‘We haven’t –’ Alys began, and the eyebrow rose again. ‘It’s a disagreement only. Nothing important – well, it is important, but not –’ She caught herself up, took a deep breath, and explained briefly: ‘He suspects all of the Crombie women, that is he suspects any one out of all of them, and I do not.’
‘It seems to me he must be right – it must be one of them is the bludy tung undir a fair presence. Do you have good reason for excluding any of them?’
‘I think so.’
Lady Egidia considered her for a moment, then smiled.
‘He’ll apologize,’ she said. ‘But don’t let him always be the one to apologize. Even when he’s wrong.’
‘I know,’ said Alys, answering more than the smile. Her mother-in-law stretched out a hand to her, over the sleeping cat, and was clearly about to speak when Socrates scrambled to his feet and they heard Alan Forrest’s voice on the stairs.
‘Mistress? It’s Jackie Heriot here, about the corp in the feed-store. Will you see him?’
‘Aye, send him up, Alan,’ said Lady Egidia resignedly in Scots, and scooped the cat up. ‘Come away in, Sir John. You’ll stay to supper?’
‘St Malessock,’ Sir John corrected, sweeping over the threshold. ‘Our martyred St Malessock, that brought the gospel to these parts and was cruelly slain for his faith.’ He seemed to have gained in stature since the morning, Alys noticed, rising with her mother-in-law and bending the knee for his blessing. The ownership of a new and possibly important relic had done much for his self-esteem. ‘I never meant to put your household out, madam,’ he demurred, when the invitation was repeated. ‘But it would be right welcome. Indeed. I’ve been up the Pow Burn wi’ pastoral comfort and a Mass for them in their grief, and thought I’d come by this way to enquire when it would suit you to have us fetch our saint away, with a great procession and music and all.’
‘Aye, St Malessock.’ Lady Egidia sat down again, and the cat settled itself ostentatiously on her knee, glaring at Alys. ‘I heard about that. Has he cured Davy Fleming?’
‘Oh, too soon to say, too soon to say. We left the poor soul asleep, did we no, mistress,’ he said with a nod at Alys, ‘which at the least will do him some good, and if he can fast as I bade him and ask the saint’s help, then I’ve great hopes. Great hopes,’ he repeated, stroking Socrates’ head.
‘And how are they all up at the coaltown?’ asked Lady Egidia.
Sir John shook his head compassionately. ‘All at sixes and sevens, madam. The young widow – Mistress Brownlie – is overcome in her grief, and Mistress Weir is quite ill wi’ concern for her.’ Alys had difficulty in recognizing this picture. ‘I said a Mass for them, though we had to make do with household candles to light it, the rats had eaten away all the ones in the box, even the wicks, indeed. Strange to think that the cause of their sadness is the source of our rejoicing, is it no? And tell me, mistress,’ he turned to Alys. Trying to work out the logic of his last statement, she was taken by surprise. ‘I think you were there when our saint came up out of the peat? Did you not see any portents? Was there no sign, no lights in the sky or flames hovering over his brow, nothing like that?’
‘Nothing,’ she said firmly, wishing Gil was present to share the moment. Sir John looked so cast down at this that she felt impelled to add, ‘But I was not there when he was discovered, sir. When Maister Cunningham and I arrived he was already taken out of his burial-place and laid on a hurdle. You should ask the men of Thorn, who found him.’
‘Thorn,’ he said reflectively. ‘Aye. Well, I can ask.’
‘Best ask them separately,’ said Lady Egidia on a sardonic note, ‘if you want to get at any sort of truth there.’
‘Oh, they would not lie to their priest,’ Sir John responded, shocked.
‘And the other folk at the coaltown?’ pursued Lady Egidia. ‘Mistress Lithgo and her daughters, young Crombie himself, how are they? I hardly think Crombie will be grieved for his grieve,’ she pronounced, savouring the play on words, ‘but the man was part of the household, so I’ve heard, and it stirs up the melancholy humours when death comes under your roof.’
‘Indeed,’ agreed Sir John, crossing himself. ‘As you say, madam, young Crombie’s hardly touched by it, save that he must be at the q
uest in Lanark the morn’s morn. They were to ride out shortly after I came away, and lie in Lanark town tonight. The old lady was to go and all, though I tried to persuade her against it.’
‘Mistress Weir?’ exclaimed Alys involuntarily. Both of them looked at her, and she was annoyed to find herself blushing. ‘But can she travel so far?’
‘That was my concern, though I think her stronger then she looks. And spryer,’ the priest added. ‘These old women are often – indeed.’
‘Indeed,’ said Lady Egidia in the same sardonic tone as before.
‘As for Mistress Lithgo and the two lassies, I scarcely saw them. The younger lassie was attending on her grandam, though I did wonder – and the older one and her mother were that busy about their stillroom, mixing and pouring this and that.’ Alys glanced sharply at her mother-in-law and found her own sudden anxiety mirrored in the older woman’s face. ‘But I talked a while with Mistress Brownlie, brought her to a knowledge of God’s goodness and grace, comforted her I hope. Indeed.’ He crossed himself.
‘I’m sure you were a comfort,’ said Lady Egidia, sounding sincere.
‘What were you going to say of Bel?’ Alys asked. ‘The younger lassie,’ she added, as he looked blankly at her.
‘Oh, the younger one. No, I wondered if she wished – och, it’s a daft notion, poor lassie, she canny speak her needs, only that she knelt afore me as if she would ha’ made some confession. But her grandam called her and told her not to take up my time. Certainly it takes a time to confess the poor lass. I’m sure Mistress Weir was right. Indeed.’ He wound down as if his string had run out, and crossed himself again.
‘I am sure you are right,’ said Alys soothingly. Lady Egidia looked at her, but did not speak. ‘Sir John, had you any acquaintance with the dead man – with Thomas Murray?’