Time and Tide

by Shirley McKay

  Clare answered fearfully, ‘And what is that?’

  ‘He will say your brother George was sadly led astray, that he has been misused, and was another’s instrument, that he was gravely hurt by it, and had no understanding of the harm he caused. He will say that he has suffered, more than he deserves. And he will say it, not for kindness, but because it’s true. George will remain in college, and he will not be expelled.’

  Clare’s eyes were bright with tears. ‘You cannot know how much this means to us. But suppose that someone else saw George?’

  ‘I am persuaded, no one saw him but the students at his back, who since they were complicit are unlikely to confess. Giles Locke will amend it,’ Hew assured her.

  ‘Then I am content. For Robert says, all eyes were on the baxter, and Professor Locke, and he himself could not discern the cause of the affray. He was most vexed at it.’

  ‘Robert?’ Hew repeated with a frown.

  ‘Aye, my husband, Robert Wood. He was at the meeting there last night. We must not tell him, sir,’ Clare iterated anxiously.

  Hew brushed this aside. ‘You are the wife of Robert Wood? The brother of the coroner?’

  ‘Aye. But does it matter, sir? I thought you must have known.’

  ‘I did not know.’ Hew shook his head. Why should it matter, after all? And yet he minded bitterly. No husband in the world could leave him more dismayed than Robert Wood. A dreadful thought occurred to him. ‘Did you tell your husband Giles Locke kept a foot?’

  Clare said, ‘What? A foot?’

  ‘A human foot,’ persisted Hew. ‘You saw it in his rooms.’

  ‘Oh! I might have done. I do believe I did, for I had thought it strange. I do not understand you, sir. Did I do wrong?’

  Chapter 15

  In the Body of the Kirk

  Hew walked back to the house, where he told Giles about the boy. And Giles responded as his friend had known he would. ‘Poor, benighted bairn! We will not hand our students to the council or the coroner. Such faults as we must mend, let us amend ourselves, within our own high walls, and according to our laws. No student of St Salvator shall suffer at the market cross, so long as I am principal.’ To Hew’s relief, the doctor gave no further hint of resignation.

  ‘I shall go, now,’ Giles resolved, ‘and see if George lies waking, for the heavy load of conscience may keep a boy from rest, and hamper his recovery, that with judicious counsel, I may hope to ease. Stay, and make your breakfast here. Paul tells me that James Edie sent a loaf of bread. I know not if he meant to mock, or to appease.’

  Hew commented, ‘He sent some to the college, too. I wonder if he hopes to steal a march on Patrick Honeyman. He is a shrewd contestant if he does.’ He settled in a chair beside the fire, and presently a girl appeared with bread upon a tray, followed by the servant Paul, with a cup of ale.

  ‘Will you broach the bread, now, sir?’ Paul wondered dubiously.

  ‘Aye,’ said Hew, ‘why not?’

  ‘We dinna like to try it, till the master tastes it,’ Paul admitted.

  Hew broke off a piece. ‘It is unlike you,’ he remarked, ‘to stand on such a ceremony. If you require your master’s sanction, before you will break bread, then you have far less to you than I had supposed. I took you for a man, with a sharp mind of your own.’

  ‘As I am, sir,’ answered Paul, uncertain what was meant, and whether he should take it as a compliment or not. ‘You ken sir, that I mind my mind – my ain mind, as it is – as closely as I mind Professor Locke.’

  ‘You mind it much more closely, as I think,’ said Hew. ‘And if you listened to the doctor more, then you would eat the bread, and you would not be troubled by these fears.’ To prove his point, he buttered it.

  ‘It wants the doctor’s sanction,’ Paul persisted stubbornly. ‘And it is for that, that James Edie sends it here this morning to the house. He fears ill rumour will affect his trade.’

  It seemed to Hew it had already done so, for the girl declared emphatically, ‘I care not if he gies it free, or if he gies a shilling wi’ it, I wadna taste a crumb of it, nor let it near my mouth.’

  ‘Nor I, sir,’ muttered Paul.

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ said Hew, and took a bite. ‘The baxters have mistaken,’ he assured them through the crumbs, ‘what the doctor said. The tainted grain was rye, and in the bread from Rotterdam, and all of it was eaten on the Flemish ship. No scrap of it remains here in the town.’

  ‘So I have advised the town,’ Paul protested loftily, ‘yet they will not be told. Their minds may not be settled, till they see the doctor standing public in the marketplace, to taste and give his blessing to every baxter’s bread. There are some sixty in the gild.’

  ‘But this is plain madness,’ cried Hew.

  ‘Tis madness, sir, plainly, they fear.’

  Hew turned with a groan towards Meg, who had come at that moment for breakfast, with Matthew asleep in her arms. ‘Your servants will not eat the bread!’ he reported scornfully.

  ‘Though they may not, I will,’ she answered with a smile. She set the infant rocking in his crib, and cut herself a piece. ‘Do you still suffer from the burning in your hands?’ she asked the serving lass.

  ‘Aye, tis hot and sair, I doubt it is the fire,’ the servant whimpered.

  ‘Then you can rest in peace, for I have made a salve for it, and you will find a vat of it behind the kitchen door. Rub it twice a day into your hands, and in a week your fire will be quite cured,’ instructed Meg.

  The girl snatched up the tray. ‘Then may I go right now for it?’ she pleaded eagerly.

  ‘For certain,’ promised Meg. ‘And you may go as well, Paul, and rub it on your foot, or any other secret place, where you may have the itch, as cure and prophylactic for this present plague. If anyone should come here, complaining of the same, then give them each a cup of it, and tell them that their symptoms will be gone within the hour.’

  ‘Aye, madam,’ answered Paul. ‘I will make a stall of it, and set it in the street. Tis likely we will do a roaring trade. What think you, we should ask for it?’

  ‘You will not ask a penny, Paul,’ Meg replied severely. ‘Or you will bear the full force of the doctor’s wrath. That will keep them busy for the while,’ she said aside to Hew.

  ‘But why do you indulge them, Meg? Why did you not tell them, that there is no fire?’ he whispered in reply.

  ‘So that they may be cured,’ his sister answered simply, ‘of their sickness and their fears. Canny’s hands are red and raw from scrubbing Matthew’s sheets in hard yellow soap, to which she seems to have a peculiar antipathy. Yet if I were to tell her that, then she would not believe me, for in her heart she knows, it is the holy fire. The only way to cure her is to make a salve. The remedy is lavender, camomile and goose fat. It will soothe their skin, and do it no great harm.’

  ‘Your perspective on the matter is quite different from your husband’s,’ Hew remarked.

  ‘Aye,’ admitted Meg. ‘Giles seeks to tell the truth, yet truth itself at times is not the most efficient strategy, for it is often not what people wish to hear.’

  ‘What make you of his theory, that the source of this strange sickness was a blight upon the grain?’ Hew asked her bluntly.

  Meg took pause for thought. ‘I wonder that you ask me,’ she replied at last, ‘who have no proper learning, in medicine or the arts.’

  ‘You have knowledge of the world that takes you far beyond it,’ answered Hew. ‘And when it comes to nature, no one understands it more than you. I trust you for your wisdom, as much as I do Giles. I have lived long enough, and in those years have learned enough, to know that there is much more in the world, than all our art and learning can ever hope to show. So tell me what you think.’

  ‘I think,’ conceded Meg, ‘that Giles may well be right, and that the holy fire is caused by blight upon the grain. And yet, I do believe, that the world is not prepared for it, and will not hear or heed the value of his words. His theory is
too absolute, too radical and strange; it challenges the stuff, the staff of life itself, and he was ill-advised to put it to the town. He is resolved to let the matter rest; he will not press the case, nor write to Adam Lonicer. I fear that he has come before his time. His song is out of tune, and it will not be heard.’

  ‘Poor Giles! At least,’ reflected Hew, ‘he has no cause to blame himself, for what occurred to George.’

  ‘Aye, poor bairn. He has made contrition, in a flood of tears, and Giles had not the heart to speak severely to him, in his present state of health. He rather is inclined to blame the other boys. How is it that you saw the students urge him on, when no one else appears to know what started the affray?’

  ‘Because,’ said Hew, ‘all other eyes were fixed on Giles and Patrick Honeyman, while I had come to look among the crowd. I thought to find the killer, hidden in the gloom, that I would read his secrets written in his face, and see his guilt shown darkly, in the flare of candlelight. A vain and foolish hope.’

  ‘But do you think it likely still that he was in their midst?’ considered Meg.

  ‘I think it very likely that he was.’ In his mind, Hew saw Maude, standing on the North Street, and wondered why the thought had not occurred to him before: ‘But only,’ he gave voice to it, ‘if the killer was a man.’

  Meg echoed his confusion, ‘Oh! I had not thought of that.’

  ‘What did you make of Clare?’ Hew changed the subject, though it followed closely from the self-same train of thought. ‘She looked pale and anxious, as I think.’

  Meg was not deceived, and fixed him with a look that might cause a man to blush, had he not been accustomed to a younger sister’s scrutiny. ‘Clare appeared composed, as a loving sister should, in such grave and fearful circumstance.’ She added disapprovingly, ‘She is married, Hew.’

  ‘So I have been told, to the dreadful Robert Wood, who must be twice her age.’

  It was as well, perhaps, that Meg’s answer was eclipsed by the return of Paul, who came in with the minister, the Reverend Geoffrey Traill, from the kirk of Holy Trinity. The minister came sporting a large bruise on his cheek, and sought for ministrations, of a more worldly kind. ‘I hoped you might have an ointment to diminish it,’ he appealed to Meg.

  ‘I hope, sir, yon contusion, is no’ the haly fire,’ Paul objected wickedly.

  The minister glowered back at him. ‘It is not the holy fire, lad, as ye do well ken. I cannot let the guid folk think I have been brangling,’ he excused himself.

  ‘They ken you have been brangling, for they saw it for themselves,’ Paul pointed out. ‘They will not think the worse of you, to see it in your face.’

  ‘I may amend the swelling, but I cannot help the stain,’ Meg said apologetically.

  ‘Ah, well,’ the minister accepted with a sigh, ‘I doubted it was vanity. I will write it in my sermon, and make a bitter point of it, for so it may be better, to confront these things head on. How does Matthew Locke?’ He addressed the infant in his crib, with a sternness that suggested that he put the bairn to test. ‘Is he well and hale, and ready for his baptism?’

  ‘He is, all those,’ answered Meg. ‘I think you know my brother, who is to be his gossop?’

  ‘For certain, we have met.’ The Reverend Geoffrey Traill looked suspiciously at Hew. ‘Hew Cullan as his gossop?’ he blustered, sotte voce, ‘Do you think that’s wise?’

  ‘Why not?’ queried Meg. ‘My brother is most proper and devout.’

  ‘I do not question his devotion, yet,’ the minister gave up the act of closer confidence, glaring straight at Hew, ‘I think you will allow, that whenever there is trouble in the town, your brother is to be discovered lurking at its heart.’

  ‘I do not allow that,’ Meg replied indignantly. ‘My brother is a man of law, and he has never lurked. If he is at the heart of it, then he is not its cause.’

  ‘Yet what example is he to a bairn?’ posed the Reverend Traill.

  ‘I cannot find a better one,’ said Meg.

  ‘I pray you both,’ smiled Hew, ‘do not argue over me.’

  ‘I weel ken you are clever,’ sneered the Reverend Traill. ‘And yet with all your cleverness ye cannot yet amend this sick and heavy pestilence that penetrates our town. In truth, if I may say so, with deference, after all, to the good Professor Locke,’ he gave a nod to Meg, ‘it seems to me your learning only makes it worse; your law is ineffectual.’

  ‘It is ineffectual,’ Hew admitted, ‘when we cannot find the man who breaks it, and when his deadly sins are hidden in a crowd.’

  ‘No man can be hidden in a crowd,’ said Geoffrey Traill. ‘His sins are known, and seen, always, by God.’

  ‘Then so I hope you will advise him,’ answered Hew, ‘since he must be a member of your kirk.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘It is more than likely, since your congregation is more than half the town.’

  ‘Aye, like as not,’ the minister accepted. ‘Then I must point my mind to it and take the sixth commandment as my present theme.’

  ‘I wish to God you would,’ said Hew.

  ‘I do not like the tone in which you speak His name,’ observed the Reverend Traill.

  ‘It is heartfelt, I assure you,’ Hew returned.

  ‘In that, I do believe you,’ the minister replied, with unexpected grace. ‘For once you made me look into my heart, not liking what you saw, and when I looked inside, I found it grieved me too. And so I know your stubbornness is founded in good faith, and that for all your faults, you do not want for courage. And as I hope, you will approve my plan, to settle the dissension in the town. For though it is not subtle, it may do its work, and it will embrace the pure clear truth of God.’

  ‘In truth,’ admitted Hew, ‘any attempt to still the conflict in the town is to be commended.’

  ‘My plan,’ explained the Reverend Traill, ‘is to call for a holy communion. For the sharing of the Supper, as has always proved most popular, is our most special Sunday in the kirk. And since it is, with baptism, our only other sacrament, the people thrang and flock to it, and beg for it like bairns. And they enjoy it more than the whipping of the whore, or to see the scolding fisher wifies silenced with the branks, because it is a common thing in which they can all share. Though it may be observed,’ he reflected sadly, ‘that they reserve a certain pleasure, for thae other things as well. Now in our kirk of Holy Trinity, we celebrate Lord’s Supper maybe once or twice a year, to which they all look forward, with glad and quickened hearts. So let us have a special one, to bring them all together.’

  ‘That,’ Hew exclaimed, ‘is a pure stroke of genius!’

  ‘Though it were pride to say so,’ admitted Geoffrey Traill, ‘I take some satisfaction in the plan. Since no one may take supper while in conflict with his neighbour, it often has the force of settling small disputes. It concentrates the mind, on attending to the catechism. And I need hardly tell you, for I ken you see the point, that the body of the Lord, in which they come to share, is signified in bread.’

  ‘Genius, as I said,’ asserted Hew.

  The Reverend Traill looked gratified. ‘The inspiration, ye must ken, comes straight from God. And since the Holy Communion will take a wee while to arrange,’ he turned once more to Meg, ‘I hope you may be clean by then, and come to take the sacrament, for you will miss the baptism.’

  ‘How, then,’ Hew demanded, ‘will you miss the baptism?’

  ‘Because it is too soon,’ his sister answered sadly. ‘I have not been kirked.’

  ‘Not kirked? Tis stuff and superstition, for certain, you must come.’

  ‘It is not advised,’ the minister assured him, ‘though there is no service for it, in our book of prayer, that a woman pass abroad, before she has been kirked. And as your sister intimated, it is yet too soon.’

  ‘Then let the christening wait,’ suggested Hew.

  ‘That too, is not advised,’ the minister said tactfully. ‘An infant’s life is fine and frai
l, and like the fragile frigate, that sets out in the storm, is often overcome.’

  ‘I do not mind it, Hew,’ protested Meg. ‘It will make me happiest, if you will go with Giles.’

  ‘If that is what you wish,’ her brother answered sceptically. Another thought occurred, and he turned to Geoffrey Traill. ‘Your congregation, sir,’ he pointed out, ‘is made up from the centre of the town, while the farmlands on the south side are sequestered to St Leonard’s.’

  ‘Aye, that is so. Though some of them defer to us,’ the minister explained, ‘because the hours of service suit. And when we hold communion, people come for miles, to take their turn at supper with the Lord.’

  ‘So I have inferred. But what of Henry Cairns?’ asked Hew. ‘He seems to be a member of your kirk, although his house and mills are on the south side of the town, and on land belonging to the priory.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Henry Cairns,’ the minister grinned ruefully. ‘He comes to us, as I have heard, because he likes the crack. The crack has cost him dear, for he will have to pay out for a new communion cup. Though we have washed it out with vinegar, it proved to no avail. Mussels, if you please!’

  On Sunday, Giles took Hew and Matthew to the Holy Trinity, where Matthew was baptised into the body of the kirk. The Reverend Traill announced the new communion day, and a tremor of excitement shuddered through the crowd. Hew was impressed by the minister’s command, the tenor of his thundering, that kept the restless people captured and enthralled. And yet there was a man among them, shadowed and unmoved, a man who was a murderer, and hid his face from God; and though God saw and knew the blackness of his sins, he had still succeeded in keeping them from Hew.

  The coroner, Sir Andrew Wood, was waiting at the door. Hew had been surprised to see him in the church. He wondered how he came to worship far from home, and if he searched the upturned faces with the same intent as Hew. He did not join his brother on his family pew, but stood quiet at the back. His presence cast a shadow on the infant’s sacrament.

  ‘A happy day!’ he greeted them. ‘And a fine son, too,’ he mentioned cheerfully to Giles.