Hue and Cry

by Shirley McKay

  ‘He’s still alive,’ she answered faintly. She could barely shape the words. ‘He’s in a deep sleep now. There’s nothing that will rouse him. He has had convulsions. I think his jaw is broken. Please, may I go home?’

  For a moment Giles seemed lost for words, then he recovered briskly. ‘I’ll send Paul for Hew. I suppose he was not here? You have been alone?’

  ‘No one else was here.’

  ‘Then you gave him nothing, nothing, do you understand? Shush, I’ll take care of it now. Go down to the chapel and wait there for Hew.’

  St Leonard’s

  To Hew’s consternation, Meg slept for the whole of the following day. She had spoken barely a word on the journey from town and simply nodded when he told her of his triumph at St Leonard’s. Their father was more sanguine. ‘She’ll be well enough by nightfall, Hew, don’t fret. I did warn you she was frailer than she seems.’

  ‘Is there no physic she can take?’

  ‘She won’t be any use to you today. When you come back from town you can tell us the news. She’ll be glad enough to hear it when she wakes.’

  It was a clear dismissal. Hew felt deflated. His news had gone flat, like a bladder the schoolboys had pricked with a pin. He took his horse from the stable and prodded him grumpily back into town.

  The day dawned drizzle-grey, the mist from the sea almost palpable over the land. By the time he arrived he felt sodden and dreary, quarrelling with the stabler over the cost of leaving the horse. Nor did his mood lift in the north street, for the doctor had gone out, locking all his doors. There was no sign of Paul.

  Giles was in church, kneeling on the earthen floor of St Salvator’s chapel, mouthing out the words of private prayer. He would have liked to make confession, and afterwards to light a candle. In their place, he opened his soul before God. He asked God what to do with Nicholas. Upstairs, he had locked the door and sent Paul on an errand out of town. He trusted no one else to see the patient. Nicholas lay white-lipped and cold, without trace of a pulse. In the flame of a candle the pupils of his eyes did not dilate. Giles had been about to call the proctors to remove him. Yet after several hours the corpse was lying limp, and shallow breath fell misty on the glass. And so Giles knew he was not dead, but lying in some secret place that was neither death nor life. Meg’s poisons had bewitched him. The doctor set the bones and bound the broken face in strips of linen cloth to hold it firm. He stripped and cleansed the wound, yet still the patient did not stir. And so he prayed.

  God sent him Hew, which was not what he had hoped for. He was sitting outside in the dust of the street, damp and bedraggled. Reluctantly Giles let him in.

  ‘Your friend’s asleep.’ The doctor closed the door. ‘We’ll not disturb him now. Come dry yourself off by the fire.’

  Meg’s absence had alarmed him further. He needed her to bring the patient back to consciousness. Without food or water, Nicholas would die.

  Hew stared at him. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Aye, tis Nicholas. The illness is reaching its crisis. He suffered seizures in the night, and his jawbone has cracked. I fear he’s on the brink of death.’ It was literally true: suspended, Giles thought, neither living nor dead. He could not have explained it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hew said wretchedly. ‘Meg will be upset. Is there nothing she can do?’

  ‘No, no. I don’t say that. I should be glad if she could come tomorrow. The hours ahead are critical. His life lies in the balance, but the cleansing of the wound has cleared the corruption. The putrefaction and the fever both are gone. Even the lockjaw recedes.’

  ‘And yet you say he’s close to death? I don’t understand.’

  No more did Giles. He shook his head. ‘He’s weak and must have nourishment. But with a broken jaw . . . it may not heal. It will be hard for him to eat.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re saying. Will he live or die?’ demanded Hew. ‘If I’m going to make a case I’ll have to talk to him, Giles. Do you tell me I’m wasting my time?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Hew, I can’t say more. You must put your questions elsewhere. But at least you have time on your side, for if he lives it will be weeks before he’s fit to answer any charge. Ask your sister here to nurse him. We’ll feed him through straws. Hew – you’ll think this odd – I know she’s your sister, but tell me, how well do you know her?’

  ‘In truth, not well at all. She was a child when I last saw her. But why do you ask? Does she seem strange to you?’ Hew pursued anxiously. ‘Is she unwell?’

  ‘I expect she has her monthly courses,’ the doctor reassured him. ‘It would explain the reticence and shifting, don’t you think? There’s many a gentle lass brought to her bed when it comes.’

  ‘Truly? How vexing,’ Hew said, perplexed.

  His confusion must have flickered in his face, for Giles explained kindly: ‘She is not to be pitied the pain, for it’s a natural process. In fact we ought to envy her, for nature’s her phlebotomist. We men must bleed ourselves, you know. When you know a woman well, even your own sister, you will observe how as the month draws on she grows out of sorts, and is ever more tearful, shrill and discordant. But when the menstrual flux follows its course and the balance of her humours is restored, she returns to her sweet loving self.’

  ‘Think you, truly?’ Hew looked sceptical. ‘I must ask her.’

  ‘Well, perhaps not,’ Giles put in hurriedly. ‘They don’t always see it that way.’

  Hew decided to return to St Leonard’s. There was nothing to be learned from Giles. With the rest of his profession he excelled in the equivocal, trained in prevarication in the best of schools. What was clear was that his friend was hiding something. If Nicholas was close to death, then why had he left him alone? Nor did he in the least believe that what ailed Meg were her courses. Giles had hoped their mention would embarrass and deflect him. But whatever was the matter, it could wait.

  Gilchrist was surprised to see him back so soon: ‘Master Cullan! Have you come to join us? Term does not begin until October.’

  ‘I know it, sir. In truth, I’m anxious to begin. My father took the news of my appointment badly. I’ve come to see about a room. I wondered if perhaps you knew of someone who might share? I find that cost becomes a factor, as things stand.’

  ‘Ah. There may be. Well there may.’ But he seemed rather doubtful. ‘There’s one man, Robert Black, about to take the first-year class. His father is a goldsmith in the capital. He shared a room with the regent who left, so he may have a place. The other regents still share a bed.’

  ‘That sounds grand. When may I meet him?’

  ‘I don’t say he’ll agree. He has been content enough since Master Colp left. He claims that the solitude suits him. And then, of course, he has no need of funds.’

  Master Colp. He was testing the waters, trying out the name to see if Hew remarked upon it, watching him with narrowed eyes.

  ‘But if expense is such a grave consideration, then you might be better bedding with your students. That’s always good for discipline. Why not find your board at someone else’s cost?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I’d prefer to be among the regents. I’m not a pauper scholar. Master Colp, did you say?’ Hew echoed carefully. ‘I know him, sir. We lodged together once when we were boys.’ It was pointless to deny it. ‘And is he the one who’s sick? I’m grieved to hear it. You know, I do wonder whether I should make my peace with my father and return to the law. It’s been a long time since I had to lie with undergraduates.’

  ‘No, no, not at all,’ Gilchrist protested, ‘I will take you now to Master Black. I think you’ll like him, Hew, and he will find you very different from Colp.’

  Robert Black sat hunched at his desk. His objections had been swept aside, and Gilchrist had left him confronting the stranger. It was clear to Hew that he did not want to share.

  ‘I knew him, you know,’ Hew was saying softly.

  ‘I know. He spoke of you sometimes.’

  Hew began to walk
round the room, looking out at the view from the window, picking up inkhorns and books. ‘Those are my things,’ he knew Robert Black wanted to say to him, ‘this is my room,’ but the words did not come. Hew leafed through a quarto. ‘I recognise this grammar. Was it his?’

  ‘I haven’t packed up his things yet,’ Robert said defensively.

  ‘I can take them if you like. He’s in St Salvator’s, did you know? Listen, if you’d rather sleep here on your own I’d understand. But can you tell me what has happened? We were friends.’

  Robert shook his head. ‘Then you wouldn’t want to know.’ He looked earnestly at Hew.

  ‘I have no quarrel with you, Master Cullan, and I’ve none with Nicholas. I also once thought him a friend. I am glad to have you as a regent in the college, and I’m content to dine with you. But I’d prefer it nonetheless if you’d look for other rooms.’

  ‘Principal Gilchrist has promised me this one.’

  Robert flushed. ‘Then I shall look elsewhere myself.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that. Listen, may I call you Robert? I took my licence here six years ago. Nicholas Colp was my roommate. We were the same in age, but he was paid for by the burgh, a foundation boy. He was supposed to light the fire and make the bed, that sort of thing, you know. But in the event we were friends. I remember my father sent me a coverlet embroidered in orange and blue. We huddled under it at night, arguing our themes long after dark. I gave it to him when I left.’

  ‘He has it still,’ whispered Robert. ‘I have put it in the chest.’

  ‘Truly? Then I’ll take it to him. He’ll be glad to have it, for the evenings grow chill. But you understand what I am saying? I lived for four years with Nicholas Colp. It hasn’t put me off sharing as much as it seems to have you. But, of course,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘he hadn’t been accused of sodomie or murder at the time.’

  The regent looked stricken. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Professor Giles Locke, the provost of St Salvator’s. Another good friend. He has the care of Nicholas there. Though I prefer Giles as friend to physician. He has what I call the blustering flux. It’s a common affliction in men of his class. Equivocates – you know the sort of thing: “if he fart or piss clear divers times by the wax of the moon on a Thursday and if (but not also) he should happen to down a pint of crushed lettuce without it runs out, then he surely shall live; or else not.”’

  In spite of himself, Robert smiled. ‘You think it a jest then?’

  ‘By God, I do not,’ Hew said fiercely. ‘I would like to be told what to think, for thus far I know nothing. I’m a lawyer, or intend to be.’ For the first time he acknowledged it. ‘I have not come to chart the movements of the spheres but to find out the truth about Nicholas Colp. I hoped to make a case in his defence. And yet the case is lost before it starts, for Nicholas is sick, and no one else will talk to me. I can discover nothing, nor even if he’s likely yet to live to face the charge.’

  Robert stared down at the floor. ‘It would be better if he died.’

  ‘So everyone tells me. Tell me why you think so, Robert. Do I take it you heard him confess?’

  ‘To murder? No. And not to sodomie, it’s true. But still . . .’

  ‘But still you think him guilty? You have lived with him here in these rooms and you know in your heart he committed these crimes?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have to think it. Though I swear he was out of his mind.’

  ‘Then we have a beginning, for that’s a defence.’ Hew told him earnestly. ‘I would like you to tell me what you know. Begin with Nicholas, how you came to be friends, if you were, or what your relationship was. If it changed, tell me how. Leave nothing out. Then tell me all you can recall about the weeks before the deaths.’

  Robert proved a willing witness after all. He made his speech as though he had rehearsed it, like a student called from class to make his last responsion in the hall.

  ‘I have known him for almost two years, since first I came here to St Leonard’s to replace a Master Gray, who died of a cankerous blot. Before that I was working in Glasgow. Nicholas had shared with Angus Gray. He was looking for someone else to help him meet the cost. I had enough money to rent rooms of my own, but he seemed honest, and I liked him. He helped me prepare for the term. My students were about to begin their third year, then shortly to proceed to their examination. His were in their second year, but he’d taught the texts before. He was a conscientious teacher, working tirelessly on behalf of anyone who struggled, reading over the principles time after time. Last year he helped me take the magistrand class through their final disputations, though he had bachelors then of his own. You’ll find them ahead of their year, if you really mean to take them. We got on well enough, though he was often quiet and reflective, somewhat serious and sad. He had very little money, save what the students brought. He might have expected,’ he added ruefully, ‘to have reaped a little more at the end of this year, when his crops come to fruition. The parents are generally grateful. But I don’t think he cares for money. He thinks we favour rich men’s sons, and has complained against it. It isn’t true, of course; they still have to make their mark. But though he did not make distinctions when he taught, he has always believed St Leonard’s should remain at heart the home of the “poor scholar clerks”. That’s all but gone now. Well, so we went on, until about two months ago the principal Gilchrist asked him to tutor a boy whose father wished him to matriculate this term. His name was Alexander Strachan, the son of a merchant from Perth, lodged here with his uncle in the town. The father Gilbert’s a great friend – if that’s the word – of our man Gilchrist. He deals in all manner of spices and wines as well as fine cloths. I believe he furnished Gilchrist’s cellars both in college and at home.’

  ‘Did Nicholas know?’

  ‘Suspected it, I think. He knew that Gilchrist in effect had sold the boy a place, and sold it cheap. In the weeks before the deaths he had become convinced that the principal was hawking places out to boys without the wit to last the course. Some were underage. Alexander Strachan was himself a little off fourteen.’

  ‘And he put this to Gilchrist?’

  ‘Not directly. He became increasingly bitter and outspoken, making it known more obliquely – abstention from meetings, recalcitrant questions. Gilchrist had asked him to write a masque for his students to perform before the king and the royal commissioners next year. He has a talent, quite surprising, for that sort of thing.’

  Hew nodded. ‘I remember.’

  ‘But Nicholas threw out so many squibs and wry remarks the principal had started to have doubts, fearing he would find himself exposed before the court. He asked,’ his voice began to falter, ‘he asked me to look at the play.’

  Hew had noted his discomfort. He would return there later, probe the spot, like Giles Locke with his lancet, but for now he would set it aside. He wanted Robert’s confidence. He stood by the window, his back turned away, looking outside, and listened intently. ‘Yet Nicholas accepted the post as tutor.’

  ‘Yes, naively, at first. Or perhaps for the money; he still had to eat. Later I think he grew fond of the boy. But it was clear he did not want him to matriculate. We discussed it, because I should have had him in my class.’

  ‘Was there something in their closeness you thought odd?’

  ‘No, not then. But he did once say . . . he thought the boy had seemed distressed and he himself was troubled. He felt the family asked too much. Though he said the child worked hard. The uncle was a bully. Nicholas disliked him.’

  Hew nodded. ‘Aye, I met him. Do you know the Strachans?’

  ‘I confess, not well. My father knows them slightly, Gilbert more than Archie. Though Archie is the master of the gild of weavers, and likes to think himself a figure in the town. The daughter Tibbie, now,’ unexpectedly, he grinned, ‘is something of a strumpet. Worth going down to kirk upon the Sabbath just to see her toss her curls. Her mother Agnes Ford is a steady, sober woman, and a blacksmith’s
daughter, I believe.’

  ‘You draw their likeness well,’ encouraged Hew. ‘Now tell me what you know about Alexander’s death. Where was Nicholas? How did he seem to you? What happened in the hours and days before he died?’

  ‘On the Saturday, Nicholas went to the house to hear the boy’s lesson. He did not return to college until much later that night. I was already in bed when I heard him come in. When I got up for chapel on Sunday he was still asleep. Sometime in the afternoon, Mistress Ford came to college to report the boy had gone, but Nicholas could not be found. He turned up for the evening service, dirty and dishevelled. There was blood on his shirt. It looked as though he had slept in his clothes.’

  ‘Did you ask about the blood?’

  ‘He said he’d done it with his pocket knife. He’d been whittling driftwood, I think that’s what he said. Apparently the blade had slipped and gone in very deep. It did not seem plausible. But he was wounded, certainly.’

  As Robert seemed to falter, Hew encouraged him. ‘Go on. What happened next?’

  ‘He must have had the message, for he went on to the Strachans’. I did not see him leave. I came back to the room and read until dark. Then I fell asleep. It was almost daybreak when he returned. He was shivering, seeming distracted, and drenched to the bone. He had walked for hours on the shore through the rain. His shirt was stiff with blood. He told me that they’d found the boy dead, but said nothing more. He crept between the sheets and shivered through the dawn, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. He didn’t speak of it for days. But later I discovered it was Nicholas who found the boy. He was wrapped in some sort of cloth. He lifted out the body and held it in his arms. So the blood was Alexander’s. They found the weapon lying in the bed beside him, a shuttle from the loom. There were fragments of bone and of thread in his hair. Nicholas carried him upstairs into the house, still very calm, and helped the weaver’s wife to lay him out upon the bed. Then he walked on his own through the night. I’d like to stop now, if I may, and take a drink.’