Queen & Country

by Shirley McKay

  ‘I did not believe the tale,’ his tenant said, unexpectedly, ‘about the Largo Law. And I did not believe, the devil bides there too, until I saw it for myself, for I was like that shepherd, and a greedy, reckless boy. I thought the stories were made up, by those who hoped to have the gold themselves. I knew there was a mine, for my grandfather’s grandfather saw it himself, and my grandfather gave me a piece of that gold, and there is no legend true or compelling as the one before your eyes. I will not lie to you, I wanted a part of that gold for myself, even back then, when I was a bairn. I helped my father on the land. We used to graze our sheep on the low slopes of the Law. The golden sun would shine on them, and they had yellow-tinted fells, from gazing on the grass that grew above the gold. And when I was a boy, I used to climb the Law, and look for the entrance to the ancient mine. I never found it, then.

  ‘My father bade me bide by him, and help him work the land. But I knew in my heart, I was not meant for that. When I was eighteen, I went to Wanlockheid, far awa in Galloway, where they were mining lead, and gold and silver too. I thought, the skills I learned there I could bring back home with me, to open up the seam in Largo Law. That there must be a safer way to sink a shaft; and with that kenning I might mak a fortune of my own. There were, at that time, several mines in that place, and upwards of three hundred men were employed there, crushing the stones and washing for gold. And it was there that I met with Pieter Kemp. He was working for a man called Arnold Bronckhorst, who had come fae England to open up a mine. And Bronckhorst’s mine was fu of gold.’

  ‘Bronckhorst?’ asked Hew, looking up at this. ‘Bronckhorst, the painter? Was Pieter Kemp his prentice, then?’ For that would seem to fit, if Pieter Kemp and Workman were one and the same.

  ‘Bronckhorst was a painter. He was after painter to the king, when he was a bairn, though I heard it said he had no profit from it. It was the regent Morton forced him to the place, and you cannot, as I think, make a painter paint, more than you can make a captive linnet sing. Bronckhorst had no pleasure from the place, though he did paint that king, and that Morton too, that was stiff and arrogant, until they made him swing for it, and cut him doon to size. That is what I heard, and had from Pieter Kemp, when I saw him last,’ the tenant said. ‘Pieter Kemp was not his prentice, quite. He had begun, with him, no doubt, to come up in the craft, but Bronckhorst thocht that Pieter showed no art or skill for it. Bronckhorst was a man who was particular, ye see. He liked his work, just so. And though he would let Pieter grind and wash his colours for him, cook and clean his cloths, he did not have the patience to train him to his craft, and so what Pieter kent of painting, he had taught himself, and that was not so much.’

  ‘It seems you knew him well,’ Giles said.

  ‘I did ken him well,’ the tenant agreed. ‘For he was a brave kind of bully to me, and he was a friend. And he took care of me, when I was not well, and the work was hard, and I was far from home. I was eighteen. He was, I doubt, older by five or six years and he took me under his wing. He defended me, from Bronckhorst, when on one occasion I had taken gold, to put by for myself. He swore the theft was his, and he was punished for it.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ asked Hew.

  ‘Because we were friends,’ the tenant said simply. ‘I was saving the gold, to put to the cost of working the mine, which one day, I knew would be mine. And Pieter kent that too, for I had telt him all about the gold on Largo Law. You must see, sirs, that it was not stealing from him, as Bronckhorst would have. And all of us tapped off what drops of it we could, for why else had we come, but to make our fortunes from it? The ground and streams were full of it; you might as well call theft the dipping in a burn or drinking in the air. But Bronckhorst was a jealous man, who thought the earth was his. And little did he gain from it, for when the regent Morton found him at his spoils, a peregrine abroad who pillaged Scottish crops, he took the whole in charge.’

  It seemed to Hew that gold released a greed in men, that ran through like a seam, a fault inside their bones. ‘This Pieter Kemp,’ he asked, ‘was he, like Bronckhorst, a Dutchman?’ For the painter they had known, calling himself Workman, had surely been a Scot.

  ‘His father was,’ the tenant said. ‘His mother was a Scot. And Pieter himself, he had the kind of wit, his manner and his voice, that kens to shift and slip – it was, enchanting, do you ken?’ He looked a little foolish, then, flushing at the word, but persisted stubbornly. ‘So did I think then, and now I know, I ken, enchanting is the word. I did not see it then, what menace might be meant in it.’

  ‘That,’ said Andrew Wood, ‘is how the devil works, to snare folk in his charm.’

  The tenant said, uneasily, ‘I dinna ken, but there was something in him that was likeable. A flitting kind of wit, and something that was quick, and malleable in him. I did not ken for why I was attracted to it. For I did not ken, what the man had done, to make himself like that.’

  Hew asked, ‘What had he done?’

  ‘He had made a compact, with the devil.’ The tenant faltered then, and flapped about so fearfully that it was only the threat of the fiercest retribution, from Sir Andrew Wood, and the promise of a pocket full of coins, from Hew, and the comfort of another cup full of his sugar brandy, from Professor Locke, could induce him to go on.

  ‘Then, my masters,’ he spilled out at last, trembling in his cup, ‘Master Bronckhorst flew into a rage, and beat Pieter Kemp, and dismissed him on the spot. Pieter quit that place. And after he had gone, Bronckhorst said that he had robbed him of a quantity of gold, and some of his colours, as he said, that were particular to him; and he was wrath and furious, and said the colours he had taken were the purest of their kind, and could not be replaced. And that like that man, for who can grudge a man a drop of colour for his eye, would snatch from him the air, or very earth he walks upon. But Bronckhorst seemed to think this was a heinous crime, for he swore that Pieter niver would hae joy from them, but they would serve him ill. And he said Pieter would be sorry, if ever he did dare to cross his path again. And that, I did think strange, for the colours Pieter took were but dirty clumps of rock, and could be nothing worse.’

  Hew glanced at Giles, a picture clearing in his mind, the answer to a question there. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘go on.’

  ‘Well,’ said Pieter’s friend, ‘not long after that, the king’s regent Morton found what Bronckhorst did there, and pressed him to his service, and the mine was closed. I came home to my father, then, to help him on the farm. And it irked me, to be sure, to have to come again to graze my yellow sheep, no closer to the fortune they kept underground. I had some gold put by, that I had squirrelled there, and where I could, I saved and added to that pile, thinking, one day, I wad hae enough to entice a man to try to sink a shaft with me; for, as you maun ken, gold begets gold.’

  ‘And that man,’ Hew supposed, ‘was Pieter Kemp. How did you find him again?’

  ‘Pieter Kemp found me. He came to my father’s house, four years ago, that was four years after I had seen him last; and he telt me that he had been thinking all this while, about the gold mine I had telt him was on Largo Law, and that he had a pact, with a certain friend, to excavate the mine, and that, for the friendship he had kept with me, he was well disposed to cut me into it. His friend had found the entrance to the ancient shaft, and would show us where it was, but he wanted gold for it. And he said, if I was willing to invest my gold, and whatever else I had, he would do the same, and we should have our fortunes replicated there, a hunner thousand fold.’

  ‘The upshot is,’ Sir Andrew said, ‘he gave the loun his money.’

  ‘And wherefore, should I not?’ the fearful tenant cried. ‘He was my billie, then. I trusted him. I could not know the friend, with whom he made his pact. But he telt me that the friend was jealous and suspicious, and to win his trust, we should take the money to him at the Largo Law, and to the secret place, where his excavation shortly would begin.’

  ‘Convenient,’ murmured Giles.


  ‘It was not convenient, sir,’ the man said, misunderstanding him. ‘But it was what the friend required. And when you come to know, the nature of his friend, you will understood. Pieter said that he was sorry that it had to be like that. But as proof of his faith, we must both do the same; he showed me his part of it, and I showed him mine. It was all of the gold I had kept from the mine, and all that I had saved, besides some that my father had put by him in a kist, and some rings and plate, and we took it with us climbing Largo Law, and I found it heavy, and the going hard, but his appeared quite light, and that he said was for the bargain he had made, and he was well content with it.’

  ‘Ah,’ Giles sighed. ‘No doubt.’

  ‘Well, masters, then,’ the tenant’s voice accelerated, hurtling to a precipice, as he came at last to the climax of his tale, ‘he said we must go right to the top, for there his friend would wait for us, and take us to the entrance to the mine, which could be measured only from that place they called the devil’s chair, which has seven steps, and there we should wait for him. There, tis steep, and I was glad to rest, and put down my sack. And there . . . and there . . . the devil came, and took him, sirs. And since I saw it there, I ken that he is dead.’ Abruptly, he stopped.

  Hew pressed him on, ‘What was the devil like?’

  ‘He was like a beast, louping on twa legs, with a great lolling tongue, and skin that was bright red, and horns to his head, and a thrashing tail. Oh, do not ask me masters, to remember more. He came out from the heart, the deep core of that rock, where, God is my witness, no place is to hide. And Pieter, when he saw him, fell upon his knees, and wept, “Pity, master, pity, for I paid my debt.” And he showed up the gold, but the devil did not care, for he swept poor Pieter up, and Pieter screamed a scream I never heard before, and never, as I live, would want to hear again. And it would split the ears of any mortal man, but that devil did not flinch at it, but dragged poor Pieter off.’

  ‘Where did they go? Where could they go?’ wondered Hew.

  ‘I do not ken. My heart was beating then, and when I had the courage to climb up there and look, they were gone from there. Pieter sold the devil his soul,’ the man concluded bleakly, ‘in return for the key to that gold. He thought, that with my gold, he might buy the devil off. It was not enough. For with the devil, see, it never is enough. And I was unco fearful he would come for me, and so I quit that place.’

  Hew showed to him the picture the painter’s boy had drawn. ‘Is this what you saw?’

  The farmer shrank from it. ‘Exactly so,’ he whispered. ‘That is him, to the life. And there is Pieter, too. I do not ken how anyone could make so true a likeness, and he were not there.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Hew, ‘he was.’

  The man was fortified, and mollified with gold; for all his frights and fears, his avaricious nature had not quite been cured by what had happened to his friend. But he was sent off quivering, clutching at his sack, and sending nervous glances all around his back.

  ‘And let us hope,’ said Giles, ‘he will be more cautious now where he invests his gains.’

  Sir Andrew Wood said, shakily, ‘Pray God the devil does not come again for him.’

  Both men stared at him. ‘Tell me,’ Hew enquired, ‘what you think has happened here?’

  ‘It is plain enough,’ the coroner explained, ‘that this Pieter stole the gold from him, to pay the devil back. The devil spared him then, but came for him at last, in the college hall. The dummel witnessed it.’

  ‘Dear me,’ muttered Giles, ‘if that is what you think, what hope can there be for the common man?’

  ‘What do you think, then?’ Sir Andrew put to them.

  ‘We think,’ said Hew, ‘the devil was a man dressed up.’

  The crownar shook his head, ‘No. It cannot be. For where, then, did they go, with that poor man’s gold? You heard him say there was no place to hide.’

  ‘This is true, and pertinent,’ said Hew. ‘Perhaps there was a mine, or a fissure in the rock, and Pieter Kemp had found it. Or perhaps our friend was so afeart he did not stay to see, in spite of what he says. You might take your men, and climb up there to look.’

  The crownar swore at him. ‘Never, on my life,’ he said. ‘No man, fearing God, would pull a trick like that. To dress up as the devil there, in order to deceive, would call upon himself a fury straight from Hell itself. That is a haunted place.’

  Superstition had the better of him then; and that was not so rare, for all men kenned the devil watches over gold, and that evil spirits linger in the air of country vales and hills. And who but the devil could drive a man, to such a bleak and godless end, the taking of his life?

  ‘What God-fearing soul could dare do such a thing?’

  ‘Perhaps it was a man,’ said Hew, ‘who was not troubled by a God, that he had never heard.’

  The tenant’s account made it seem more imperative still, that they should discover the dead painter’s workshop. They were in two minds whether it was safe to take the boy with them. Hew believed they should. ‘We may never ken, unless he comes to show us. And in coming to that place, he may understand that his friend is lost to him, and will not come again.’ Roger, when he heard, insisted to come too. And, conceded Giles, there was a certain sense to it. He knew as much of alchemy as any one of them, and far more than Hew. ‘If the truth of it is what we do expect, the air will be noisome,’ he warned. ‘We must all take care.’

  It was Roger who suggested they should take the plague masks, and they were at last a grim little party that came through the town, past the South Street colleges and down towards the Kinnessburn, where the painter’s boy broke free from Roger’s careful hands, and ran towards the barn, which, had they allowed, he could have shown them all the while. And there they found the relicts of the master painter’s life, and the stolen colours, which had brought about his death.

  And Hew, from his experiment at Geordie Heriot’s shop, could understand it well, without the explanations of the subtle alchemists. Bronckhorst’s red was cinnabar, a compound in the rock of mercury and sulphur, in its natural state. The painter had extracted from it its component parts, to bubble in a pot and amalgamate again, to distil into vermillion clear and pure and deep. He had used the argent vive, extracted from the cinnabar, to purify the gold he shivered into leaf, and, using like for like, to paint into his picture, mercury for Mercury, or Hermes in the Greek, god of thieves, and fugitives, shifting, sly and fleet. The painter stilled his colours, secretly, and jealously, closed inside his shop. And the mercury he stilled had crept its noxious fumes, silently, insistently, where he worked and slept. Its poison had made loose the teeth of the apprentice boy, sheltered at some distance from it; and closer, more insidious, it had worked its poison in the painter’s mind.

  The painter’s boy showed them the kist, where they found the costume that his master made for him, and coaxed him to put on, to perpetrate his fraud: the hairskin hose and tail, the make-up of red lake. The boy could not have kent, thought Hew, what it was it meant. But had the horror of it come to haunt the man? Had he tried to wipe that horror from his face? Had he felt remorse, that he had made a boy who had no kenning of the devil or the word of God, dress up in his garb? Or had the devil, in his madness, come again, for him?

  They could never know. The painter’s boy, shown to the place, understood at last, that he was quite alone. And by the kist that held his uncouth devil’s costume, he knelt down and howled.

  ‘The pity is,’ said Giles, later at St Salvator’s, ‘I think we must destroy this painting. Else the mercury in it may leach out into the air, and poison us all, gradually. Art has not assisted nature here, at all.’

  ‘That is sad,’ said Hew. ‘And I am sorry too, that the picture that the prentice made of you was ruined. Perhaps, when he is well enough, he will make another.’

  The doctor shook his head. ‘I do not think so. I never felt at ease with it. And what is a likeness, after all, but a poorer imitation of the life?�
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  ‘That is true enough.’ Hew smiled. ‘And, we still have you. Who, in your uniqueness, bear no imitations.’

  He was teasing now, but Giles continued seriously, ‘What would be the purpose of it? None, while I am here. And after I am gone, in a hundred years, in fifty years, or less, it would be no more than a pattern of a man, of some old physician, long ago forgotten. Better now, by far, to have a picture of the skull. Memento mori, Hew, for that is all we are.’

  When the painter’s boy was well enough, Hew relieved Roger of his care, and took him down to Edinburgh. Roger was aggrieved at this. ‘I have not finished with him, yet. He has more to learn.’

  Hew said, ‘He is not your pet. And you have your own work, now, to attend to.’ He felt that Roger’s influence on the painter’s boy had come quite far enough. He took with him the book of signs, and the book of sketches that the boy had done, and set the painter’s boy before him on his horse. The boy did not resist. He had given up his searching for the painter, and had lapsed into a placid, solitary quietness, allowing himself to be led, with little hope or care. The medicines that Giles had given him had washed away, perhaps, the last trace of poison that had hurt his body, but the damage to his mind was harder to expel, and difficult to mend.

  Hew took him, and the books, to Adrian Vanson’s house. ‘What is this, you bring me?’ Vanson said. ‘Have I not enough of hopeless boys?’

  The painter’s boy did seem a hopeless case. He had a hollow dint in one side of his head, and the stubble that grew back there was an odd shade to the rest. He was large and shambling, and with his poking tongue and useless muckle lugs he might have looked quite comical, but for the sad intelligence that showed behind his eyes. ‘So,’ Vanson said. ‘Another futless hulk. Break it to me, now, what this one cannot do.’