Seaton 01 - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

by S. G. MacLean

  ‘No. She went this way.’ He was indicating the line of the burn as it went to meet the mouth of the Dee and, recovering, he pulled me after him in the direction of Shore Brae: she was headed for the harbour.

  The harbour was never silent, never at rest – it was the heart and lungs of the burgh. Whereas before our running had sent noise ricocheting into the silent hum of the night-time town, our falling steps – and those of Mary Dawson ahead of us – fell into a rhythm already gently approaching from the sea. The putrid smell of the trades was now being lost, overwhelmed, by the sheer salt and seaweed smell of the quay head. There were lanterns lit along the quayside, and the shore porters were busy at their work. A huddle of merchants deep in conference with the ship’s master was animated by the lantern light. The group looked up at our approach.

  ‘It seems you have some tardy passengers, captain. They are all out winded to get here in time.’

  Another merchant peered at us. ‘Is it not William Cargill? What are you doing here at this hour of the night, Mr Cargill? Are you making ship for the Baltic, then? Will you not be needing my bill after all?’

  William laughed and responded as casually as he could, ‘No, it is since my wife has been with child it is safer for me to walk abroad at night than to venture to my own bed. The humour that is on her brings tears the one minute and scolding the next.’

  The men laughed. William went over to the captain and drew him aside a moment for some private speech. I envied him his facility of going through the world without causing offence. The merchants went to see to the loading of their goods and I remained in the shadows, watching for a sight of Mary Dawson. William came back over to me presently. ‘The captain takes six passengers as well as his cargo tonight, in less than an hour. They sail for Danzig. He has two students, two merchants, a master mason and a woman who calls herself a widow. He says she is no widow such as he has seen before and he is certain her testimonials are forged, but her money is not and he will let her aboard without over much questioning. He says she is a young woman, of medium height, shapely, with hair the colour of burnished copper, and eyes the same shade. Is this the woman you seek?’

  I nodded slowly. ‘Her name is Mary Dawson. She and her sister are — were — whores of Banff. I would swear they were the last faces Patrick Davidson saw before he departed this world. Their occupation has been long known in Banff, but tolerated — they were discreet enough. Yet two days ago Janet Dawson was driven from the bounds at the end of the hangman’s scourge, not to return on pain of death. I saw it with my own eyes. Before the town serjeant pulled her away, she repeated to me the words she said were the last spoken on this earth by Patrick Davidson: “James and the flowers”. I am certain it was the sisters who put Patrick Davidson in my schoolroom to die, and I can make very little of Janet’s report of his last words. I must talk with Mary Dawson before she leaves these shores. I cannot believe that this and her sister’s banishment from Banff do not have their cause in the murder of the apothecary’s apprentice.’

  William took some coins from his pouch and bade me follow him. He walked to where the shore porters were and went to talk quietly to one of them, then another. It was the third man who finally showed some sign of knowing what he was being asked, and taking the coin from William motioned to us to follow him. Behind a large stack of English coals I found my quarry, cowering like a frightened dog. She tried to bolt again when she saw me, but this time I was too fast for her: I caught her by the arms and forced her back down.

  ‘Mary, you know me. Why do you run?’ Still she struggled, but I held her firm. ‘Mary, it is Alexander Seaton. You know me.’

  At length, when she realised she could not release herself from my grip, she stopped struggling. She looked directly at me through defiant, and yet fearful eyes. ‘I know you, Mr Seaton, and I know you to have goodness in you, but you have not fallen far enough in this world for me to trust you. Let me go, for you will have nothing of me.’

  ‘A few words, Mary, that is all I ask, a few words.’

  She looked suspiciously at William. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A friend, no more.’

  ‘He has not been sent after me with you?’

  I slowly loosened my grip on her arm. ‘What do you mean? Mary, I have not been sent after you. I never knew you were here until this night, not half an hour ago as you left Maisie Johnston’s house. You think I was sent here after you, to bring you back to Banff?’

  She was rubbing her arm where I had gripped her, and let out a hollow laugh. ‘Back to Banff? I will never see Banff again all the days of this life, unless it is to hang from the gibbet or be drowned at the shore. You nor anyone else to come will ever be sent to bring me back, but I fear one might be sent to see to it that I do not.’

  Now I understood her terror; it was some of that same creeping terror that had been coming over me these last hours, but in Mary Dawson it had taken such a hold that no one could reason with her, such was her certainty of some awful retribution. For what, I began to guess, but from whom I did not know. ‘Tell me what you know, Mary.’

  She shook her head fiercely, like a madwoman lost in herself.

  ‘You have nothing to fear from me. I swear before God, I am not one of them.’ I had no earthly notion who this ‘them’ might be, but my oath seemed to calm her a little, although her lips remained tightly shut. I had to try another tack. ‘There is something your sister told me …’

  Her eyes flashed up at me. ‘Janet? Where is she? Is she here in Aberdeen?’

  I put my hand out to calm her, to let her down as gently as I might. ‘No. She is not here. I do not know where she is now. I last saw her three days ago. The hangman and the town serjeant were beating her from the bounds. They drove her out to the west, on the Cullen road.’

  Mary’s eyes were still eager. ‘Then they do not have her? She is safe?’

  ‘As far as I can tell you, she is safe. I do not know where she is gone, but I know,’ I hesitated, but there was no good in keeping it from her, ‘I know she was bound never to return to Banff, on pain of death.’

  These tidings did not seem to trouble Mary as I had expected them to. She was nodding slowly, smiling to herself. ‘Then she is safe. She will go to our cousin in Strathspey. She will be safe.’

  ‘Strathspey is a long journey, over hard terrain.’

  Mary was not concerned. ‘She knows the country well. The last frosts are almost gone. She will make her way. She will be safe. May God keep her.’ I realised then that Mary Dawson had no expectation of ever seeing her sister again. She was silent in her thoughts and I let her be for a while, but I knew time was passing and that neither tide nor captain would wait, so neither could I.

  ‘What is it that drove you from Banff in such a way?’

  She looked at me curiously. ‘You truly do not know?’

  ‘How could I know? I am not privy to the magistrates’ council.’

  She almost snorted with contempt. ‘The magistrates’ council!’ And then, more softly, she said, ‘It was not the magistrates’ council, but the beggar chief that warned us to leave Banff. His warning is not to be taken lightly.’

  ‘The beggar chief? Lang Geordie? But why?’

  She answered, and I knew I had guessed the thing right. ‘The apothecary’s apprentice – I never knew his name. We found him, Janet and I, at the bottom of Water Path. He was sick, near to death. It was us who set him at your desk.’ She looked up. ‘And they say you never saw him until he was gone?’

  I sat down beside her and took off my hat. William watched at a distance. ‘I was not called until he had been found, long dead.’

  She smiled a sad smile. ‘It was a chance we took. It was a slim hope, but a hope all the same. We knew he was dying — I have seen dying men before. We had seen you pass only a few moments before, and we doubted you would be yet sleeping. We hoped you might hear him and find him, find him in time to help him.’

  ‘I heard nothing.’ For the tenth, twentieth
time I cast my mind back to that night and tried to listen again, tried to hear what I had not heard then. There was nothing, nothing but the noise of the storm, drowning out whatever else there might have been.

  ‘Neither you, nor Mistress Youngson?’

  ‘Not even she.’

  She pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. ‘Ah, well. It was not to be. It was his lot to die.’ Then she looked up sharply. ‘He was not drunk, though, Mr Seaton, whatever they might say. It was not a natural death.’

  I knew this already, and was anxious to get on. ‘He spoke to you though, did he not?’

  She showed surprise that I knew this. ‘Janet?’ I nodded. ‘Aye, he did. He babbled two or three times about “James and the flowers”. We could not make head nor tail of it, but he was very anxious about it.’

  ‘And he said nothing else?’

  ‘Nothing. His senses were beyond him by the time we got him to the schoolhouse.’

  Something in this was troubling me. ‘But how did you get beyond the pend and into the house, for I know I locked both door and gate.’

  She looked a little proud at the memory. ‘We grew up at the smiddy at Fordyce, Mr Seaton. There is not a lock or bolt we do not know how to turn. And as for getting over the gate to open it, well,’ and here there was a trace, just a trace, of the old sly smile, ‘my sister and I are famed for our agility.’

  These little mysteries were of no great consequence at this moment, though. ‘But what is this to Lang Geordie that he should tell you to run? Why, after all this time, was your sister driven from the town, and why do you flee?’

  ‘Because we were seen. And it was made known to us that we had been seen. Geordie beds down at the same house as my sister and I. The message came through him to us that we were to be gone from the town, before daybreak, or face our own fates.’

  ‘What, for helping a dying man?’

  ‘For seeing who it was that killed him. Someone was watching. They watched us and I would stake much that they had watched you before us. Someone was watching, to make sure that he would die; I would stake all that I have on it.’ All that Mary Dawson had amounted to very little, but I did not doubt the sincerity of her vow. And I, too, had been seen. But I had not yet had my warning.

  At that moment a shout went up from the captain that all who were going aboard should be aboard now or lose their passage. Mary gathered up her bundle and scrambled to her feet. I grabbed at her arm. ‘Mary, wait, who was it? Tell me who it was.’

  She pulled away from me. ‘You’ll not have it from my lips. It will not be laid at my door that anyone had it from my lips.’ She was running now towards the ship.

  ‘Mary, wait, please. How will you live?’

  ‘By my trade and by my wits. But I shall live, have no fear of that. I will never see Scotland again. Farewell, Mr Seaton. Be careful who you trust.’ I tried to go after her but the sail was already up and the anchor weighed – less than a moment from her embarkation the vessel was pulling away from the quayside. I made to leap the distance but a strong arm was pulling me back. It was William.

  ‘Leave her be, Alexander. I have seen fear in many witnesses; you will have nothing more from her.’

  We stood and watched as the ship carrying Mary Dawson from her homeland pulled away into the distance, the moonlight illuminating the white of its sails in the night. I uttered a prayer for her under my breath. ‘Amen,’ said my friend William Cargill. We turned our backs to the departing vessel and began our weary trudge homewards to William’s house.

  NINE

  The King’s College

  My sleep was fitful and filled with nightmares. Several times through the night I found myself awake, listening in the darkness to sounds of the sleeping house. Each time I slipped back into the realm of sleep only to find myself in some new place of terror, with an unseen assailant awaiting me. Always I was in chains – under the altar of a ruined church; in a vault filled with the dead, my own dead; at my desk in Banff, with the cold hands of Patrick Davidson clasped to my wrist. In each dream the terror came closer till I could almost smell the warmth of human flesh. At the last, I thought I caught a sight, a glimpse only, of the face of my assailant. When I awoke I could not tell who it had been. I did not sleep again after that, but lay in the darkness for long hours, while the town bell tolled the stages of the night. Before six, I rose and threw some water over my face. I looked out over the garden but little stirred: the animals were at their rest; the cock had not yet crowed.

  I took a spill to the still glowing embers in the hearth and lit the candle by my bedside. From the small kist at the foot of my bed I took out the letter and turned it over in my hands. It was addressed to Walter Watt, Provost of Banff, and sealed by the ring of George Jamesone. Turn it a hundred or a thousand times, yet nothing could be seen of what was written inside. This pastime of espionage was new to me, but I was certain that no great intrigues and treacheries could be drawn up in so short a time, no message of any great import given in the few lines I had seen Jamesone scribble.

  I put the letter back in the kist and threw on my outer clothing. Down in the kitchen all was warm and busy. Elizabeth was not yet up, but William was already at his breakfast and giving his instructions for the day, principally that the mistress should not be allowed to over-work and should be made to rest.

  ‘Have no fear, master, she’ll not get the better of me.’ The old manservant had due respect for his master, and love too. The mistress that had once been a kitchen maid was no match for his benign dictatorship of the house.

  When William looked up to greet me I saw at once that he had slept little better than I had. ‘I see we have been dreaming the same dreams,’ he said.

  ‘May God forbid that you or any other should have the dreams that I had last night.’ I sat down and accepted the bowl of hot porridge that the serving girl offered me. William bade the girl go see to the goats, but to his houseman he said nothing.

  ‘Have you found any answers, after the events of last night?’

  I shook my head. ‘I have questions, more questions, but few answers.’

  He broke a piece of bread from the loaf on the table and smeared some butter on it. ‘You have no idea who it might have been that the women saw as they carried Patrick Davidson to the schoolhouse?’

  ‘None. Well, no. That is a lie. I am over-laden with ideas. By the time the clock had struck four this morning there was not a soul in Banff I did not suspect.’

  William smiled. ‘Aye. For all my exhortation of you to tell her nothing of all this, I was hard put myself not to waken Elizabeth and ask her her views on the matter. For the whores to be tolerated so long and only now to be banished, forced to flee for fear of their lives, can have little to do with the nature of their profession. They must indeed have seen the murderer – and been seen by him. But who could take the risk of sending a warning message to them by a known vagrant?’

  ‘I do not know, but I suspect it may have been Lang Geordie, or one of his band, who was used to call Jaffray away to Findlater on the night of the murder.’

  ‘I think you are right,’ said William. ‘Unless it was the beggar man himself who killed the apprentice?’ He said this more in hope than expectation, and offered no argument when I disagreed with the idea.

  ‘Poison would not be Lang Geordie’s style. A knife in the back in a dark alleyway, and then being left to bleed in the gutter – that would have been Patrick Davidson’s fate at the hands of Lang Geordie or his men.’

  ‘Aye,’ said William, ‘the poison is the thing. And then the maps, and Marion Arbuthnott’s prescience of some evil to befall her father’s apprentice.’ He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if to gouge the confusion from them. ‘What sense is to be made of it all?’

  I swallowed the last spoonful of my porridge. ‘I do not know. These questions and others have been troubling me the whole night. But I mean to make sense of them, to make a start at least. You have business this morning?
’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, but I shall be here before twelve, and then we can walk up to the King’s College to take our dinner with John and Matthew before you must go to your appointment with Principal Dun.’ He paused. ‘You are still happy to meet with our friends again?’

  When William had first received my letter telling him of my plans to make this trip to Aberdeen, and asking if I might lodge with him, he had taken it as a sign that I had emerged from the great black tunnel of despair that I had hidden myself in since my disgrace. He had written back to me almost instantly, suggesting that we should seek out some old friends of our student days who were to be in the Old Town at the time of my visit. My first impulse had been to say no, I could not face it, but Jaffray had dissuaded me from being so hasty. Now the meeting no longer filled me with dread. Indeed, the thought of seeing those friends again gave me some pleasure. ‘I will be glad to see them,’ I said. ‘But as for the morning, I mean to use it to examine your uncle’s notebooks. Jaffray is sure that if the flower used to poison Patrick Davidson is to be found, it will be found there.’

  ‘Then you must use my study. The light there is the best in the house, and it is the room furthest from the kitchen, so you will have peace. What these women find to gossip and cackle about the whole day long, I do not know. I am sure old Duncan only pretends at deafness to save himself having to listen to them. Is that not right, Duncan?’

  ‘I could not tell you, master. I have the deafness in one ear,’ said the old man, with a sly smile. ‘I’ll have the girl set a fire in your study for Mr Seaton here. The room will be cold at this hour of the morning.’ And he went off in search of the kitchen girl, who was still out at the goats.