‘For Robert’s sake I think it as well that this matter is laid to rest with him. Would it not be better that it should die on the gallows with Matthew Jack?’
I could scarcely believe what he was saying to me. ‘You, of all people, should advocate that?’
‘You have matters to attend to at home, Alexander. And if you persist in this investigation you may find yourself with fewer friends than you began with. Many good men have things they would wish to be kept private.’ He left me and went to join John Innes and Andrew Carmichael who were seating themselves at a bench at the other end of the table.
Jaffray, who had not overheard our conversation, turned to me after William passed him. ‘What is the matter with our young lawyer friend?’
‘I do not know,’ I said quietly. ‘I think perhaps he is hungry.’
‘And indeed, he has my sympathy. Come,’ he called to the company in general, ‘let us set to this board before good Mistress Watson takes offence.’
The landlady laughed and began to shear slices of lamb off the roasting carcass to be set on platters on the table. I said the grace, and after the chorus of murmured ‘amens’ dishes of bread, beans and vegetables began to be passed from hand to hand and slabs of the roasted meat, its juices collected in a pan with Bella’s own famed concoction of herbs, were speared on to plates. After the initial general pangs of hunger had been satisfied, the doctor banged a knife against his pewter goblet.
And then Jaffray stood up and spoke, as I had heard him do so many times before, in other years, for other boys, of his pride in the new graduate’s achievements, the worthiness of the boy’s family, the wonders of the grammar school of Banff, of his affection for the young man before him and of his great hopes for his future. He finished, as ever, with the admonition, ‘and never forget your friends.’
When the doctor had finished, John Ogston, candlemaker of Banff, stood to give as eloquent a speech of thanks to James Jaffray as I had ever heard a man of little learning give. When it was over, Jaffray, who had been looking at his plate throughout, smiled and said a quiet ‘Thank you, John,’ before asking if the fiddler had fallen asleep that we were so forced to entertain ourselves.
‘He is right, you know,’ I said.
‘Who is right?’
‘John Ogston. Were it not for you, his son, however bright and gifted he might be, would be spending his days amongst the stench and grease of a tallow shed in Banff.’
‘I know it,’ Jaffray conceded eventually, ‘and it is wrong, it is very wrong. Poverty has bound so many young men of great gifts hand and foot, and the commonwealth is the poorer because of it.’
Andrew Carmichael overheard our conversation. ‘I saw an emblem once, painted on the ceiling of Sir George Bruce’s house at Culross. It showed a man with one hand that was winged and reaching for the heavens, while the other was bound to a stone. The stone that bound him to the ground was poverty. It was written underneath that poverty hindered the advancement of the most able minds.’ His voice dropped. ‘It affected me greatly.’
I looked around the table; few amongst my companions, regardless of their gifts, would have attained to their present position in life had it not been for the goodness of others. I would myself never have progressed from the grammar school of Banff, or indeed my father’s smiddy, to the King’s College had it not been for the munificence of the laird of Delgatie; William Cargill and John Innes had both won bursaries to see them through studies they could otherwise never have aspired to. I thought of Richard Middleton, who owed his education to the foresight and determination of a kirk minister in Lanarkshire. In fact, only Andrew Carmichael had had the cushion of family wealth to give comfort to his years of study. His father might have been a stonemason, as he had told me, but I knew from examples all around me that gifted craftsmen could become wealthy men.
At the other end of the table, John Innes was discussing the contents of the theses they had defended with the two boys; he was happy, animated, and I thanked God that his dark days seemed to be behind him. But then their conversation turned to physics, to metaphysics and, at last, to alchemy.
‘The college itself is a crucible,’ said William, turning to me. ‘It has changed those two boys, I daresay, as it changed us.’
‘If the college is a crucible, it is but a preparation for the furnace of the world. Should we all sit down at table here together in ten years’ time, I think we would find those boys much altered.’
‘Perhaps, but not to each other. Friendship does not alter, does it?’
‘Not to us,’ I said.
And so we drank to that. And, conscious of others around the table, to new friends and, finally, to friends no longer here. Paul Ogston, rose to his feet and toasted the memory of his departed friends, those two lost boys who had set out with him on the road of scholarship but been gathered to their maker before its end.
‘It was well done,’ said Jaffray. ‘And the dedication at the beginning of the disputation did those boys great honour. It will be a comfort to their parents that they are not forgotten.’
‘But their names will live only in memory and then one day that, too, will be gone.’
Jaffray shook his head. ‘You are wrong. Do you not remember what Melville the bookseller said – no doubt to distract my attention from the faulty map he was selling me?’
‘What did he say?’
‘That the printer was near run off his feet up the stairs, with the new fashion for printing these theses for posterity, and that the boys were never away from his door with new ideas for the dedications. The names and memory of those dead boys will live on long after those who knew them have gone, for as long as any have an interest in reading the theses of the Marischal College.’
‘Which will be few enough,’ said William. ‘It is not a thing that I would choose to pore over in my leisure.’
‘You were ever an active scholar,’ said John Innes, ‘but for a man of more contemplative disposition they might afford an hour or two’s diversion.’
‘A man like you, John,’ said William, ‘or like Robert, whose name we his friends should not forget either.’
And as the company toasted the memory of our murdered friend, I sat frozen, unable to take my eyes from the image in my head, the image of Robert as I had last seen him alive, the library catalogue in front of him and the box of gifted books lately arrived from Holland at his feet. Someone was trying to talk to me, saying my name, but all I could hear was Malcolm Urquhart, when I had tracked him down to Crathes, recounting to me his last interview with the librarian: ‘I was angry that he wouldn’t even put down the old set of theses he was reading to listen to me properly.’
‘Alexander, are you all right?’ It was Jaffray.
‘What? Yes, yes, I am fine. But I have to go.’
‘You are white as a sheet, boy. Sit back down a minute.’
‘I cannot, Doctor. I must go. It is Franeker. The theses. Nicholas Black was at Franeker.’
The doctor narrowed his eyes. ‘What? Alexander, you are rambling. Who is this Nicholas Black?’
‘There is no time,’ I said, throwing off the hand he had laid on my arm. ‘Ask William; I must go.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Return to the Library
The library was much the same as I had left it, a dead place housing the books of dead men. It was a place of shadows and would remain so for three months, until students and masters returned to the college after the vacation, new students and new masters, some of whom would not know the name of Robert Sim. And one day, all that would be left would be a memory of a story, a tale, perhaps true, of a librarian who had been murdered here and the man who had killed him, the reason long forgotten, locked up in the pages of a book rarely opened.
Dust floated on beams of light from the windows and gathered on table tops polished smooth by thirty years of use. My every footstep in a place used to silence echoed in the sombre room, disturbing the rest of all those who had gone quietly throug
h this place before me. A childish fear, a wish not to be left alone, made me leave the door to the outer stairway open a little. I dragged the chest of benefacted books from its hidden corner to the space beside Robert’s desk and sat down. My hand trembled slightly as I drew the key from my belt and turned it one more time in the lock. As I pulled the lid back, I felt it jar against something beneath the desk: the box of mathematical instruments, also from Dr Gerald Duncan’s benefaction, that had lain uncatalogued and unregarded since the day of Robert’s death. I began to push the box further beneath the table with my foot, disturbing an astrolabe lying precariously on the top; it rolled noisily to the floor, and I made no attempt to pick it up again, transfixed as I was by something else I saw amongst the rules, set squares, compasses and sets of Napier’s bones: a case such as Jaffray used – a case such as any physician might carry. I left off the books for a moment and stooped to open it up. The catch had already been broken and the inventory, old and yellowed, written in the hand of a man who had owned and gifted it, was partially torn, and yet I knew already that one item would be missing from that box. I ran my eye down the list of instruments and soon came upon the entry ‘scalpels – 4’. Already I held in my hand, carefully, the scalpels from the physician’s case: there were three of them. I did not know where the other was now – whether in the principal’s room in another part of this college, or some safe in the chambers of the court or tolbooth, but I knew for certain that I had seen it and where it had been – cast aside in a dank corner of the library close, beneath the steps, after having been plunged in to the neck of Robert Sim. It had not been brought into the library by Robert’s killer with the intention of being used as it had ultimately been used, but grabbed in haste by a man seized by some murderous madness. We had all, for some time, been misled by the nature of the weapon that had killed Robert, and amongst those unconvinced by the guilt of Matthew Jack, there were those still who believed that only a physician could have access to such an instrument. For a time, I myself had been such a one, and had harboured suspicions that would have done me no credit amongst my friends should they have become known. I knew from experience that it might not have taken too many more like me for the accusation of, and possibly retribution for, this deed to have been heaped upon an innocent man.
But there was no time for such reflection; innocent men need not fear the subversion of justice should Dr Duncan’s chest hold the secret I believed it to hold. Once again I lifted out the books Robert had examined on the day of his death, conscious now of my failings, the failings of the vain scholar in the face of the diligent librarian and true lover of books and what they contained. I had seen titles, flicked through pages and made my own assumptions, and Robert had not. Today, I would do as he had done, I would do what it was that he had done that had cost him his life.
What I sought must be, I knew, somewhere near the bottom of the chest, disregarded as insignificant; at the top were the volumes I had considered to be of the greater importance. There, at the very top, was Ubbo Emmius’ History of the Frisians. I was about to cast it aside when a thought occurred to me, a flash of curiosity, and I opened it, rifling through the pages until I found a map. I almost laughed: Jaffray had been right. I should have expected it, and yet I had dismissed the certainties of my friend as the ramblings of an old man. But Jaffray was not yet old, and he did not ramble; I had long understood that and yet I had chosen to forget it. I would apologise to him later. I laid the Emmius down and lifted out the works beneath it – works of geography, of natural history and of alchemy. I had allowed myself to be distracted for so long by the notion of the quest for Hermetic knowledge as it had been pursued in all its forms by the players in this tragedy that I had forgotten what is at the heart of all tragedy. I had sought to connect the workings and beliefs of stonemasons to the dabbling of theologians, mathematicians, physicians in their secret societies, to understand their fascination with symbols, the lessons of paintings, with myth, and I had failed to see what was ever before me, day in, day out in the streets and houses of this burgh, in the open spaces and darkened rooms, in the crowded market and lonely cell – the tragedy of fallen man. I had thought to divert myself at some later point, when all of this was over, in the company of the Greek dramatists, but I had done better to turn to them first, and see there laid bare the flaws of humanity. I came to the bottom of the chest at last, and with trembling hand lifted out the small, slight volume that I had so quickly judged to be of no significance.
I hesitated for a moment, only a moment, fearful of what I might find. Theses Philosophicae Adolescentes Magisterii Candidati, in Academia Franekeria, die tres Julii, Anno 1622. The graduation theses of Franeker University for the year 1622. I swallowed, and opened the book. On the fly leaf was a quote from Cicero in a letter to Brutus, and underneath, the printer’s date and mark. On the following page was the dedication which I had so thoughtlessly passed over the previous time I had held this book in my hands. I did so again now, but only for as long as it took me to scan the list of names of magisterial candidates at the end of it. And there it was, as I had known it would be, a little over halfway down the list: Nicolus Niger – Nicholas Black.
None of the other names meant anything to me – I should not have expected them to – and I turned now to the dedication. It was so simple, and Robert, who had been so precise and had taken time over everything he did, must have seen it within moments. The dedication had not been overly lengthy, and it had followed much the form of those I had listened to earlier in the day in the Grayfriars’ Kirk. Honoured first had been the teachers of the class, the learned professors who had brought them to this stage. Then had come fulsome thanks to the States of Friesland who had inaugurated the university, the town of Franeker, and the benefactors who had made possible such a magnificent education. All conventional, and telling me very little. But then came what I had been looking for. The names of friends, classmates, greatly loved and much mourned, whom God had seen fit to gather to Him in the flower of their youth. There were two boys, Frisians both, from the island of Terschelling, who had drowned in a storm while returning to their studies after the summer vacation of their third year. I had not time to grieve their loss, for the third name was that I sought. And there it was, as it could only have been. A wealthy young Scot, matriculated at Franeker in his final year alongside his friend and fellow countryman with whom he had travelled from Germany where they had studied together at various academies and universities. While Nicholas Black, the much-pitied friend, had lived to see his graduation day, the other, higher-born and universally loved, had not. Taken by a fever in the chill and damp of the Frisian winter, he had finally succumbed in the early days of spring, his friend having nursed him three months. The loss and the sympathy were keenly felt, as genuine as I had seen in such a dedication, and I could have felt them too, would have felt them, had I not been lost in confusion, a momentary lack of comprehension, as Robert must have been, when I read the name of the man who had died. And into that confusion came a sound that almost stopped my breath, a creak on the stairs, the clicking shut of the door. I waited, unmoving, as a shadow passed over the book where it lay open on the desk before me. There could be no doubt, the confusion was gone and now I understood. I lifted my head slowly.
TWENTY-SIX
The History of Nicholas Black
Andrew Carmichael turned the key in the lock and walked towards me. ‘I thought I would find you here, Alexander.’ He indicated the book. ‘You found it. I searched high and low, on every shelf, in every drawer. I thought he had given it to Rachel, perhaps. I had even begun to hope … I should not have done.’
‘It was never on a shelf.’ I nodded towards the corner where the library strong-box had been hidden amongst items for repair and other debris.
‘Oh.’ And then, ‘It is such a small thing. May I look at it? I never saw it printed.’
I handed him the volume and he went with it to a window in the west wall, where the light was best. He
said nothing as he turned the pages I had just turned, but a smile began to form on his lips as he read. He closed the book when he came to the end of the dedication and looked out of the window, as if he could see there the faces of the boys whose names were contained between the covers. It was almost as if he had forgotten I was there.
‘Who was Andrew Carmichael?’ I asked eventually.
He looked down, composing himself, his thoughts, before he answered me. ‘Andrew Carmichael was my friend, the only true friend I have allowed myself to have.’ I waited, while he chose where to begin. ‘I grew up in the town of Lanark, where my father was a stonemason, as you know. Andrew’s family was also from Lanarkshire – they held land at Skirling, near the town of Biggar. We did not know each other in those days. They were not wildly rich or influential, but they were wealthy enough and, as I understood, well-enough liked by their neighbours and tenants. Andrew’s father had proved to be a disappointment to his own father; he had shown no interest in farming the family estates, and preferred the attractions of the lawyer’s life in Edinburgh and then, when Edinburgh got to know his failings – for he was not a good or dependable lawyer – Glasgow.’ He paused. ‘I do not malign a man I never met, but I had this from Andrew himself, you understand. At any rate, Andrew’s father married into a family of whom the old man in Skirling did not approve, and in time, as was inevitable, was cut off by his father. But the old man was not cruel, he was even wise, perhaps, and when Andrew was born he began to make some provision for the grandson that he knew he might never see. It was this provision, this foresight, that allowed Andrew to study for a spell at Glasgow, and then to go abroad, to Breslau, where I first met him. As fellow countrymen, we soon fell into the same company and, despite our differences in temperament and station, became close friends. I was the more serious scholar of we two, he had the greater appetite to see the world. More than an appetite – an unquenchable thirst.’ He smiled. ‘You know the type?’
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