Friend & Foe

by Shirley McKay

  ‘But some of them were brought since to a clearer light. The ministers of the kirk will not spare my years, but where they see small faults they put them to the light of a cold and public scrutiny, and punish my offences with the bitterest of words. They scourge my frailties openly before a mocking crowd. They show no shame or pity for the person of their king, and they are not kind. They hurt me, sir, and I am humiliated, when a word in private, or a gentle look, might better serve their purpose and achieve their end. In such a heavy climate I require a friend.’ The king laid bare his heart.

  ‘I understand, your Grace. For I too have been harried by that same monopoly. They hound a sick man cruelly, almost to his grave.

  ‘They did beset me all around

  ‘With words of hateful spite

  ‘Without all cause of my desert

  ‘Against me they did fight.’

  Patrick sang out from the psalm.

  James approved. ‘You speak truth, sir, and wise and good words. For once I had a friend, a good sweet honest friend, who converted from a Catholick to the one true Christian faith, for love of truth and love of me, and no more loving honest friend could a man desire to see, while he was alive; and now that he is dead, they persist in telling lies, that he reverted to his faith, and put up but a paper show, to wind his pleasures close to me.’

  ‘Does your Highness refer to Monsieur D’Aubigny?’ Patrick dared to ask.

  ‘Aye, sir, Esme Stuart, lately duke of Lennox.’

  Adamson nodded. ‘Aye, it is true, he has been much maligned. With a little pressure, we may yet amend that. I can make a sermon of it.’

  ‘I had hoped you might.’

  James looked young and vulnerable, and Patrick groping for some thread, some small scrap of grace, was astonished to discover his own cheeks were wet with tears. ‘In the town, tis rumoured . . . I fear that ye may hear . . .’

  ‘I have heard the rumours.’ James was thinking still of the duke of Lennox, and did not see the bishop falling to his knees.

  ‘Sire, I have been foolish. I have not been very well.’

  The weight on Patrick’s shoulders had begun to lift. He could sense, almost smell, the chance of redemption here. Without daring to believe it quite, he felt that there was hope. ‘And in my sickness, have resorted to desperate remedies. I bought medicines from a woman who had a reputation for some skill in mixing herbs. I swear I had no kenning that she was a witch.’

  The words were said, at last. And Patrick felt the burden lifting from his heart. Whatever happened now, he would come into his grave with a quiet conscience. He laid bare his soul before his Lord and king.

  James took a step back. His voice teetered high in his nervousness. ‘A witch? There is a witch, here?’

  ‘Not near here, your Grace,’ the archbishop assured him. ‘My guard has disarmed her and driven her out, when we saw what a viper she was. I have severed all contact with her, and my men are under orders to arrest her on sight, if she should dare approach us. She can pose no danger to your Grace. Yet am I persuaded that she has fed me poisons that prolonged my sickness, and made me beholden to her. I have been under her spell. By God’s will, and my prayers, I have repelled her. But it has sapped all of my strength.’

  ‘Good God,’ whispered James. ‘What did she do to you?’

  ‘Vile things, with such torments that I am ashamed to speak of to your Grace, that would dismay and terrify your guid sweet tender heart. God opened up my eyes to her, and strengthened me against her; I have cast her off, and prostrate myself before ye, and plead your Highness mercy where I am at fault, and where my weakness has allowed this evil to take grip upon my foolish heart.’

  ‘Let God be thanked that ye have fought her off. This is a grave fault, Patrick, and a horrible one. You know what you must do?’

  ‘I am apprised of it, your Grace. I will denounce the witch to the kirk session, that she may be brought to trial, and dealt with in the proper manner; I will freely confess, and atone for my fault, for that I was deceived in her. I will not rest until this filth is cleansed.’

  ‘Do that, and ye may find comfort in your brethren, since your repentance is so abject, and her guilt so great. God love you, Patrick, ye have had a close escape, so dreadful that I marvel at it. We must cut this evil out, radically and utterly.’

  ‘I am afeared, Sire, that my enemies will seek to cast me down, and use this weakness to repel me.’

  ‘Then we will not let them. Deliver up this witch, and no harm shall come to you, for evil doth consort to make fools of honest men. We shall find a mission for you, far off from this place.’

  ‘Your Highness is most gracious, consummate and kind.’ Patrick knelt at James’ feet; and moved to kiss his hand. The king drew back, appalled. ‘Foul man, do not touch me! Thou art cursed and sick. Until the witch is dead, I would not have thee near.’

  Patrick gave his chambers up to house the king’s front guard, and moved into the quarters of his clerk, Ninian Scrymgeour, which were small and cramped. Ninian was a comfort to him, performing countless acts of unmarked care and kindness, filling in for servants who were called up by the king. He washed the bishop’s feet and emptied out his pot. The chamberlain strove hard to keep the castle fed and watered, the horses, dogs, and kitchen boys, and all the vaunting lords. Tam Fairlie found weapons and beds for the soldiers, quartered the best of them next to his own. He kept the Richan boy apart and on the watch, where he judged he did less harm. The bairn went her own way; she did not care for strange men sleeping in her gallery, and sulked for half a week; she was not impressed at the coming of a king. Once, she helped herself to a little silver ring she found lying at the bedside of a drunken lord, and Tam had to take measures, much to his regret. He took the jewel away from her, and locked his daughter in. His anger found its mark, pitiless and sure, upon the Richan boy.

  John Richan kept the watch. He did not look down upon the inner court, thrang with men and horses, brewers, cooks and dogs, where several of the followers had set up makeshift camps. A constant stream of hawkers passed the entrance port, with crabs and lobsters, candied fruits, books and cards and gaming dice. Beyond them came a darker force, louring in the distance, the threat of coming storm. They sent him high aloft, to walk along the battlements, far above the town. He saw the carts come rumbling past the city walls, the steeple of St Salvator, the rows of cobbled streets and crisscross of the rigs; he heard the strike of clocks, the trundle of the hucksters’ carts and peal of chapel bells. And drowning out all else, he heard the flood and flux, the pounding of the sea, that blasted at the stone, a constant, sharp artillery, echoing like drums. He saw the selkies cruising, grey heads shy and bobbing, weaving through the ships, the skidding white foam horses leaping in the waves, and heard the song of mermaids basking on the rocks. Through light and darkness, wind and storm, through endless night and cloudless day, John Richan kept the watch.

  Chapter 19

  Home Truths

  Giles Locke was out at night, called out to a patient who was close to death, suspected of a pestilence. Giles had put the pestilence, and the man, to rest. Returning to the small house on the cliff, he felt a watchful tremor through the quiet streets. The hostelries were full, and though the inns were closed and barred against the night, the muffled sounds of drinkers drifted up from cellars, and the cracks between the shutters spilled out yellow candlelight, in thin, suspicious streaks. There were guards on every corner, and it took some time to navigate through the wynds and vennels back to his own house. Meg had left a rush light burning by the bed.

  ‘Is all quiet, out?’ Her voice came reassuring through the midnight air. He kissed her upturned face. ‘I did not mean to wake you.’ He brought home a coolness, dewy and damp, the scent of the night. Light drops of water had speckled his beard.

  ‘I was not asleep. Your hair is wet,’ she said.

  ‘It has started to rain.’ He took off his coat. ‘And all is quiet, now. There are soldiers on the North Street
, by the fisher cross. I thought they were not going to let me pass, but they knew me, I think. They were Andrew Wood’s men.’

  Giles had moved away to rest his gaze on Matthew, sleeping in the box crib by his mother’s bed. So often he redressed the heaviness of death, coming home at night to look upon his son. He felt his heart well up, a life force pink and sweet, in the small face of his child.

  ‘He has been good today. He is more contented now the works have stopped.’

  The builders had set down their tools, in deference to the king, who would not suffer strangers at the castle gate. His frantic fits and frets had put the town on watch with him.

  ‘The town is taut and strained, like a kind of coil, that is about to spring.’ Giles yawned, taking off his shoes. He stripped down to his shirt and climbed between the sheets.

  Meg asked, ‘Will there be trouble, do you think?’

  ‘I think it is averted now. The king has sent letters to the university, the provost and the kirk, in which he has affirmed his own free will and liberty. Gowrie and his enterprisers are dismissed from court. Tomorrow, as I think, James will leave for Falkland, and our little town can breathe again in peace.’

  Giles blew out the lamp, and felt beneath the sheets his wife’s familiar hand. ‘Sir Andrew Wood was at the college today, looking for Hew. He did not tell me what the business was. Which is not such a good thing, I think.’

  ‘Did you send him on to Kenly Green?’

  ‘He said that he would come again; he apprehended no great haste.’

  ‘And I suppose his brother sends no word of Clare? I have not seen her in a while,’ reflected Meg.

  The doctor shifted slightly, turning in the bed. ‘I should, perhaps, have mentioned . . .’

  ‘Mentioned what?’

  ‘With the coming of the king, it had slipped my mind. I heard that Clare was at the college. I suppose she talked to Hew. He has not spoken of it, but is quiet since, and he has kept away since the king imposed the curfew. I fear that he has taken it to heart.’

  ‘We should have told him, Giles.’

  ‘You know that was not possible. She came to us in confidence. And you know your brother. He will not be telt.’

  Meg sighed, ‘Even so. You do not think that Hew could be the father of her child?’

  ‘I have not liked to ask him,’ Giles admitted. ‘I would like to say that I do not believe that he could be as reckless, or as stubborn, or as wilful, or as foolish, but the truth is that I have no doubt he can be all those things, and will follow his own heart without caring for the consequence. But if it is his child, you may be certain that he will not walk away, and leave it in the care of a man like Robert Wood. Therefore we must hope that it is not, and that his brooding quietness does not foretell a storm. I meant to ask you, Meg. Do you still see the Richan boy? The bowman from the castle. How does he go on?’

  He did not see her colour in the darkness of the bed.

  ‘He comes to see me still. But he has had no leave, while the king was here. When the court has parted, he will come again.’

  ‘Still?’ The doctor frowned. ‘I had not thought the course would take so long. His shoulder should be well by now. Perhaps I ought to look at it.’

  ‘It would be well by now, if the sergeant at the castle did not make him work so hard. He has no chance to rest.’

  ‘Then I shall have to write a letter to the bishop.’

  ‘I think,’ said Meg, ‘the truth is, he is desolate, and he likes to come. He is very young, and very far from home. He comes from a wild and strange place, and life there can be perilous, but it is a natural kind of harshness, built of earth and stone and wind and sea and rain, that brings a powerful freedom with it rather than constrains.’

  ‘You must be careful, Meg,’ the doctor said. ‘Else he will grow too fond of you.’

  ‘Ah, do not be daft.’

  ‘Or you too fond of him.’

  Meg let her head rest gently on his solid chest, and listened to his heartbeat, warming in the darkness that filled the little bed. ‘Must the workmen come again?’

  Giles was weary now, and drifting off to sleep. ‘The works have been a trial to you. But they are almost done. And it will all be worth it in the end.’

  The king returned to Falkland then, free to come and go at will, and left the town in peace. For Meg, the blessings that this brought were tempered by the building work which started up again. No sooner had the royal court made tracks along the Swallow Gait than chaos was restored; the labourers returned and pressed on with the hammering. The noise resounded through Meg’s head, and she felt faint and nauseous, symptoms of the falling sickness to which she was prone. When at last the workmen broke to wash away the morning’s dust, she lay down to rest. Canny Bett took Matthew out to take the air – a bright warm summer sea breeze blown in from the east. Giles was at the college still, and Paul had disappeared in quest of Jonet Bannerman. Meg closed out the sunlight, sinking in her bed, and drifted at the edges of a fitful sleep. The echo of the hammering sounded in her dreams. She woke up with a start, to find it still reverberating outside in the street. She opened up the shutters, shrinking from the glare, to see John Richan down below, rapping at the door. His voice cut through like glass, urgent and intent. ‘Mistress, let me in.’

  ‘I am on my own . . .’ She went down, nonetheless, and opened up the door to him. Her head was pounding still.

  ‘I know that. I saw them go out.’

  Had he been watching her, then?

  ‘Aye, but not like that. I am the guard at the gate. And if Tam Fairlie sees me here, he will have my skin. Please, mistress, let me come up. There is something I must say.’

  ‘Come up for a moment. It cannot be long.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he swore, ‘it cannot. I will be missed.’

  He came into the house, and followed her upstairs, where he stood by the window, looking at the street, and she saw the light glance through the half-open shutters, grazing the white crafted bone of his cheeks, the ash-coloured drift of his hair. His eyes were bright and agitated.

  ‘A maun flee awa.’ His words were a jummil of English and Norn, and Meg found it hard to make sense of the flux, of the great flood of feeling that welled up behind it, and to separate the force of that feeling from her own, perplexed at the sadness he awoke in her. She had missed his visits, more than she had known. And she had not supposed he would not come again.

  He could bear it there no longer. He was going home to Orkney. It was not, she must be sure, a wanton act of cowardice. He would not for the world that she should think it that. But he did not trust himself. ‘I will kill him if I stay. I will slit Tam Fairlie’s throat. I will thrist into his breast, and squeeze out that black stone he keeps there for a heart. He awakes in me a kind of murderous rage, that makes me like the worst of them, and I am not their like. I will not be like them.’

  He told her he had begged his passage from a fisherman from Crail. The man had brought lobsters to the castle for the king, and had promised John a boat. Harry Petrie had put up the wherewithal to pay for it.

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because he is my friend.’

  It seemed to Meg a hopeless scheme, childlike in ambitious scale and in the simple act of faith John Richan had invested in it. She could not see how a fishing boat could sail from Crail to Orkney, or what sum of money it would cost to requisition it.

  ‘The earl will pay for all. He will pay the fisherman, and Harry, for the boat. For I will bring a fish, hanging on my hook. I will bring him news. What grander, better catch, than the coming of a king?’

  John Richan seemed to slip into a dream, already in that boat, sailing with the selkies, bobbing in the waves. Meg felt sad and fearful for his state of mind.

  His news would be long cold by the time he came to Orkney, through the barrage and the storm and the stotter of the sea, his journey would be fraught and his coming there unwelcome. She could not convince him. Finally she tried,
‘I wish that you would stay a while, and think on it, consider; we will miss you John. I do not think, in truth, that we can do without you. How will Matthew sleep, without his lullabies?’

  He turned from the window to face her, wild and impatient, no more than a boy. The sun lit his face and made his hair bright.

  ‘Come with me, Meg. There is room in the boat too, for you and the bairn.’

  A deep cold fear came snatching then, a sudden draught of dread. ‘Now I know,’ she forced a smile, ‘you are not thinking straight. It is the keeping of the watch, John, the coming of the king. It has upset us all, and set us all at odds. Things will settle now the king has gone. Your arm has all but healed, and if Tam Fairlie makes life hard, I will ask my husband to speak with the archbishop.’

  John shook his head. ‘I know my mind.‘

  ‘This is nought but foolishness, and I will hear no more. You must leave here now. I will keep your secret, and will wish you well.’

  ‘Ye maunna answer now,’ he said.

  ‘You have my answer, John.’

  ‘The boat will leave at Saturday. And I will wait for you, all the night before. I will lie at the place that is closest to your heart, and will stay there until dawn.’

  He said no more, but left her there, returning to the watch.

  Tam Fairlie waited at the gate. He found he had no urge to raise his voice or fist; the Richan boy did not stare back at him but looked down at his shoes, blushing like a lass. He understood for once that he was in the wrong, and Tam felt almost sorry for him.

  ‘Soldier, ye have left your place.’

  ‘I went across the street, on an errand to the doctor’s house.’

  ‘And what errand wad that be? Was it for the bishop, son? Mebbe twas the king? I cannae hear ye, son.’

  ‘It was none of those.’

  ‘Mebbe, though, ye thoct, the precincts were secure enough, now that the king was gone; that there was no sic need to keep a careful watch.’

  Tam offered an excuse that another man might seize, and be thankful to submit to his sergeant’s friendly discipline, but not the Richan boy. The Richan boy maun stand and argue always. ‘I did not desert my post,’ he insisted stubbornly. ‘I could see the gate still, from the doctor’s house. I wad hae returned to it, if anyone had come.’