She let slip a sigh. ‘I am shamed now.’
‘No. You will not be. I will make certain of that.’
‘Well, if it isnae Widdershins.’ Michael was behind them at the door.
Elspet said, ‘His name is Walter Bone.’ She wished she had not said to Michael that she called him Sliddershanks. Now Sliddershanks would think she had been mocking him. That was not it, at all.
Michael grinned at him. ‘Your timing is braw, if you seek your lass. She is ready to come home.’
To Elspet he said, ‘Are you no dressed, yet? Tak off the shirt.’
Elspet blinked at him. Would he have her bare, in front of Sliddershanks? She shivered, and hugged herself close.
‘Nae mair o your piddling,’ Michael said, ‘I am late for work.’ He would have stripped it from her there and then, had Walter not been standing in his way.
Walter accused him, ‘You have defiled her.’
‘Defilit is she? Do you hear that?’ Michael said. ‘Widdershins thinks ye are foul.’
‘She never was foul, nor is she now. You have deflowered her,’ Sliddershanks said.
‘Deflowered her? There is a word. Ah, but she was ripe for it! Tell the cripple, Elspet, how much you were longing for it, thirsty as the blossom drooping for the rain. What kind of man are you, that kept her locked away, too feeble and too dry to pluck her for yourself? I brought her to the light. It was what she craved.’
Sliddershanks did not reply. Instead he looked at Elspet. ‘Is this what you want?’
She could not look at him. ‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘I wanted to be loved.’
‘You did not ken you were?’ He shook his head, heavy with the sorrow of it. ‘Well, the thing is done. And you must marry now.’
‘Marry? I will marry her, at latter Lammas time,’ Michael said. That was a time that never came. ‘Elspet understands. Ask her, she will tell you. Oh, but she was ready for it! Luscious, sweet and ripe. You should hae had her, Widdershins, while you had the chance. But you can hae her now. I opened her for you.’
Walter took the knife he carried from his belt. ‘Marry her, or die,’ he suggested simply.
‘Dinnae,’ Elspet cried.
Michael laughed at them. ‘Threaten me, auld man? Ah dinna think you could.’ As Walter came at him, he struck out with his foot, to topple him as easily as he might trip a child. Walter’s crooked bones were racked and twisted under him. He crumpled with a whimper. Michael squatted over him, grappling for the blade. He wrenched the knife from Sliddershanks, and waved it, dark with blood. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ!’ He pleaded to Elspet. ‘I didnae dae that. He did it to hi’self. You saw that, did ye no?’
Sliddershanks was clutching at his thigh. And blood was showering Michael, splattering his face. Elspet ran to Sliddershanks, pushing her hands in the place he had cut. The wound was too deep or her hands were too small, for the blood pumped out still, drowning her fingers. ‘Tie your belt round him,’ she cried.
But Michael stood gawping. ‘He came at me, Elspet, you saw.’
Walter’s eyes were closed. And Elspet felt his spirit pumping out. Her shirt was drenched with blood. Then the bleeding stopped, abrupt as it began. His eyes fluttered open. Elspet held him close.
‘Look at you,’ she said, ‘you silly, futless cripple. See now what you’ve done.’
He telt her, ‘Dinna girn. I will not hae you greet. Your face is foul enough.’
‘Is that a fact?’ she said. ‘Well, ye wad ken. For ye are such a foulsum wreck yersel.’
His eyes had closed again. And Elspet felt her heart so heavy and so sore that she could not speak. When she found the words, she turned them on Michael. ‘We have killt him,’ she said.
And Michael did not stay to see that he was dead, but fled across the fields, cowering from her grief.
(2)
The sturdy men who gathered to survey the barley rigs, Robert Lachlan’s band, were astonished at the sight of a man, naked to the waist, and showering flakes of blood, rising from the corn. It did not take them long to trap and bring him down, writhing like a fish. They traced back the trail to the bloody hut where Elspet cradled Sliddershanks. Hew was called, and came, bringing Bella Frew, to see what could be done. It was Bella who helped Elspet out of Michael’s shirt and into her own clothes, and showed to her a rough and understanding kindness Elspet had not come across since Maude, while Walter’s body, prised from her, was carried to the town. Then they made a slow procession following the corpse.
The crownar Andrew Wood was returning home when his horse was caught and halted by the messenger, who telt him that his gallows might be wanted after all. Reluctantly, he turned. A grim show was set out to greet him at the tolbooth: the corpse of Walter Bone, straddled on a board, bathed in its own blood. Michael stood shivering, cowed, naked and ashamed as Adam at the Fall. Elspet stood apart, in a solemn sadness. Nothing that was said or done appeared to reach her there.
Giles Locke was in attendance. He bore witness that Michael’s account of events was not contradicted by the facts. Nor did the facts confirm it. Facts were simply facts. And the facts, as he saw them, were that the knife had entered Walter’s thigh, and severed both the vein and the artery. It could have been by accident. It could have been intent. A sure, but unlikely, way to kill a man.
He believed, in the event of accident, there was very little that could have been done to save the victim’s life. If Michael had remained, then the pressure of his hands, with Elspet’s, could have staunched the flow. But that was not a thing a common man might ken, and Michael was not culpable if he had in mind to run off for the surgeon, as he said he did. That was yet a hopeless cause; no surgeon could have come in time. By his estimation, it took Walter Bone a little over four and a little under five minutes to bleed out, until his life was drained.
Elspet spoke at that, wondering aloud. ‘Four minutes! And no more!’ It felt to her a lifetime she had held him in her hands, while his life slipped out, and no time at all.
Sir Andrew made a note of it and dismissed the doctor. He looked upon the others with disdain. He had no interest in the life or death of Walter Bone, who had few fine friends to press the crownar to avenge him. Nor was he concerned with Michael or with Elspet, whose squalid love affair might trouble the kirk’s courts, but did not trouble his. What caught his interest more, in all of this, was Hew. Hew stood by, white-faced. And the crownar was intent on finding out his part, to hold him to account.
‘You telt me,’ he said, ‘to keep this man locked up, or evil would be done. Now he is a corpse. Perhaps you can explain to me how such things jump together as to be coincident, in this place and time.’
‘He would not be a corpse,’ Hew said, ‘if you had kept your word, and kept him under lock until the girl was found.’
Sir Andrew said, ‘My word? No word of mine, but yours. This is strange work, sir. What was it? Did you have a premonition that he would be killed? Speak, or I will take your silence for a darker kind of magic. What was in your mind?’
Hew was forced to say, for Michael’s sake if not his own, that Walter had confessed to him he meant to take a life. Therefore he corroborated Michael’s self-defence, that Walter had attacked him.
‘He slipped and fell on his ain blade. That is all I ken,’ Michael said. He looked at Hew. ‘I had no reason to expect it.’
Hew said, ‘I did not ken the life he meant was yours. I see now that it was. But I did not know it at the time.’
The crownar stared at him. ‘You heard this yesterday. And yet you did not think it worthy of report?’
‘No. I will not report a man’s intent as truth, when it is telt in confidence. Besides, if I had told you, you might have hanged him then, taking as confirmed what Marie said.’
The crownar said, ‘I should have done. But that does not excuse you, nor should it clear your conscience. If you had but spoken, these sad events would not have come about.’
‘What? If you had hanged him, he would not no
w be dead?’ Hew asked. ‘Strange reason, that.’
‘Chop logic as you will, I see your hand in this. You set yourself above the law, and fortune too. This fortune has caught up with you and Walter Bone. The law can watch and wait, and bide the time when it will catch you too. When it does, understand, I will come for you. No one hangs today. You three are free to go.’
Sir Andrew turned his back on them and left. These small lives, this death, disgusted him. His pledge to serve his king and to keep the peace had exhausted him, draining his estates, and he had grown indifferent to the part. There would come a time, he hoped not far away, when he would put the rope around his last man’s neck. If that man was Hew Cullan he would rest content. It would bring his service to a satisfying end.
Michael knelt to Hew. ‘Master, you have saved my life.’
‘I am not your master,’ answered Hew. He looked across at Elspet. ‘Do you want this man?’
Elspet answered clearly, ‘Not ever in my life. Whatever is the law, I ken it in my heart that he killed Sliddershanks. I will not have him die for it. But I can never bear to look on him again.’
Michael swore to Hew, ‘Your man, Robert Lachlan, hired me for the harvest. Wherefore I am yours, and will serve you gladly. I am strong and true.’
Hew told him, ‘Did you not hear? You are set free. You are no man of Elspet’s, and no man of mine. Give thanks for your good fortune, that though your life was sought you did not die today. Fortune smiles on you. Go freely where you will. But let it not be here, nor ever on my land. I have no place for you.’
He took Elspet home to the harbour inn, where he explained the terms of Walter’s will. Walter had left everything to her. Elspet listened quietly. ‘I can help you sell it, if you like,’ Hew said. He was surprised when she said that she would remain. She would run the inn herself, as Maude had done. She asked him if he could write a sign for her. The sign was to say that the inn would be closed from now until the day that Walter Bone was buried. On the day of his funeral, it would open again, in the afternoon, for those who were his friends to come and drink to him. From then on, they must ken that Elspet was in charge. ‘I will want a pot boy and a serving lass. Put that in the note. The boy must be strong and the lass must be clean.’
When the sign was done she fixed it to the door.
‘How many of the drinkers here can read?’ wondered Hew.
‘None of them,’ she said. ‘But letters are a thing that they will mark and fear, who do not heed my word. If a thing is written then it is the law.’
She asked him the cost of his fee. He said there was no charge. But Elspet insisted. He was Walter’s man of law; before that, he was Maude’s. Now he must be hers. She would not let him go until he had been paid, and so he earned a shilling as a writer’s clerk.
Marie left at once. ‘I wis leavin’ onyway. I never cared for Walter much. And I will not work for you. Nae offence.’
Elspet took none. She said simply, ‘Where will you go?’
‘To Falkland, wi Clem, for next Thursday’s fair. And to Dundee for Lady Day.’
Clem was the juglar, who had asked Marie to marry him. ‘Marry me, Marie.’ They had laughed at that. He said her supple fingers would be fine for sleight of hand, her pert bonny breasts would pull in the crowd. Marie thought her life with him would be an endless fair day. She would live on gingerbread, sugarloaf and plums. She would be his queen.
‘Mebbe I will see you here again at Michaelmas.’
Elspet said, ‘Mebbe you will.
Hew left her there with Joan, and what comfort she could find in the shadows of the house. He found none for himself. Before returning home, he called on Robert Black to tell him Henry Balfour was no longer under threat. ‘I made a mistake,’ he explained. ‘I thought it was Henry Walter meant to harm. But it was someone else. Henry is quite safe, and you can let him go.’
Robert was not settled by the news. ‘Safe! I wish he were. I know not how to keep him from the harm he does himself, never mind the harm the world may do to him. This morning, he avows he is determined to elope with some country lass; or if she refuse him, he will throw himself precipitate into the Spanish wars, for he does not care if he should live or die, if it be not with her, and so, and on, and on. And he is pale and faint, and weeping like a girl. He was sick, too, in his psalter, which I take for a very bad sign. I wish to God I had not taken him in charge.’
‘Why did you, then?’ asked Hew.
‘For I was vain enough to think I might have shown him, by my good example, how he should behave. I thought that he would blossom, in more gentle hands. His father is severe on him. Now I see his mind. The boy is loose and reckless, and abuses liberty. You are used to trouble, Hew, whereas I am not. You will not take him, I suppose? He is lively company.’
Hew laughed at that. ‘Aye, no doubt. I will not take him, though. Here is my advice. Tell him that to marry is all well and good, but that he should wait till he is twenty-one. He should finish his degree, so he can provide for her. For his father will no doubt deprive him of his wealth. This threat to his inheritance will help to fix his mind. First love is fierce, but does not last long. To fight it will simply add fuel to its fire. But let it run its course, and the wind may blow it out. Courage, Robert. Henry is your lot. You will make a man of him, or he a man of you, before the harvest’s done.’
(3)
Hew had no will to take on Robert’s troubles, for he had sufficient of his own. He went to look for Giles, but Giles was not at home. The house was closed and dark. He crossed over to the kirk, and on to Market Street. The market was long done. Crumpled flowers and fly-blown fruit were left to blow about the dust. The wind picked listless over all, snatching at a twist of paper or a withered leaf, and dropping it again.
The North Street, too, was still. The doors to the chapel and the college court were locked. But Hew saw a window at the top of Giles Locke’s tower, where often he had sat and looked out on the street, open to the sun. Giles was in his room. And the welcome in his smile as he caught sight of Hew helped to lift his heart.
Now the Whitsun visitors were gone, Giles had filled his shelves again with instruments and books. In the circle at the top of the spiral stair, he had placed an astrolabe, so bright and broad in girth its compass seemed to mark the centre of the world.
Hew said, ‘Still at your charts?’
‘In effect,’ said Giles, ‘the essential one is done. But I have just been told some grave, unsettling news, and I came to mark it on the map. I met a man just now who came up from the coast, who saw a lighted beacon over from Fife Ness; Spanish ships are sighted in the Firth of Forth.’
‘Can it be true? Why would they come there?’
‘Such rumours often may be underpinned by truth. Perhaps they have been driven back, by the English fleet.’
‘Or the threat of storm.’
‘Fiddle. Did I not tell ye there will be no storms? Have ye no faith in my forecasts?’
Hew replied, ‘Not much. It is a concern, if they approach our coasts. There are some here preparing to encourage and receive them.’
Giles said, enigmatically, ‘So I have been told.’
‘You are not among them, I suppose?’
The doctor looked startled, and hurt. ‘I? You cannot think that I would chance the lives that I hold dear, your own life, and Meg’s? My hope is that a man might live in peace and faith, whatever that may be, without fear or force, which comfort we had here before this present threat. You call me traitor, now? The foe that makes that rift between us has achieved his end before he ever sets a foot upon this soil.’
The passion in his words made Hew ashamed. ‘I spoke ill. Forgive me,’ he said.
‘Ill words may be forgiven, Hew, but that ye thought them, no.’
‘I never, on my life, thought any ill of you. But I am out of humour, thrawn, and ken not what to think.’
Giles did not sulk long. He looked his close friend over with a doctor’s eye. ‘Your spirit
s are thrown thwart, and your temper, too. You are pale and cross. What is the matter, Hew? Is it Walter Bone, the man who died today?’
Hew flung himself into the doctor’s gossip chair, where often in the past he had sought for resolution, spilling out the trouble on his mind. ‘I cannot help but think that it was all my fault.’
Giles belonged to a faith that believed in absolution, but Hew did not want to be absolved. He wanted to be showered with bitter words and blamed.
Giles did not indulge him in his wish. He listened to his words, before concluding reasonably and quietly, ‘You were not to blame.'
It was rare enough that Giles was unequivocal, and Hew had not expected it. ‘I foresaw the tragedy, and I should have diverted it. I tried to, Giles. Because I was mistaken, I brought the thing about. If I had not insisted Walter was locked up, he might have found the lass before she came to Michael, then Walter would have had nothing to avenge, and he would not be killed,’ he said.
The doctor shook his head. ‘You may not determine what things might have been. Walter telt you clearly his intent: he meant to kill a man. That one fact alone is clear and certain here. You moved to prevent it. But you were like a man with only half a map, who tries to steer a ship upon a different course when fortune has determined it must strike the rocks. Your action may deflect it for the while, but cannot keep it safe, for the cross winds blind you to the way ahead.’
‘Then you believe all this was written in the stars?’ asked Hew.
‘Aye, to some extent. There are other forces at work upon them too, as human will, and God’s.’
‘But is my intervention not the devil’s work? Walter came to me when he would make his will. He came to me because I was involved with all that went before at the harbour inn. I helped to make the sale. And all that went before – Elspet was the relict of it,’ Hew persisted.
‘And so you think that you were instrumental in her fate?’ Giles raised an eyebrow, sceptically, which his friend ignored.
‘She was left behind. I did not think of her.’
Lammas Page 6
