Fire & Faith

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘It does, sir. No more than my due. I’ve kept up his estate as best I could whilst he, I can only think, made his own life elsewhere. I don’t know what he might have earned in the last two years, nor where it might be, for he will no’ speak. I had thought if we could regain his speech, I might discover it. But if that is no’ to be, then I would have only what the law says I might have.’

  ‘Then I am sure that if Kennedy predeceases you, he would wish you to be provided for as far as the law allows.’ She smiled at him. ‘And free, I suspect, to be your own mistress once again, to recover the debts owed to your estate and marry again, if you list.’

  ‘I believe so, sir. My life these two years past has been one of miseries, every day hearin’ gossips in the burgh make merry with my name. I’ve thought myself beyond all hope, and prayed God might just take me.’

  ‘Now, none of that kind of talk. You should pay no heed to tongues better suited to bridles than to prayer.’

  ‘Still I would put an end to it and begin anew.’ He felt a stab of pity for her. How many people, he wondered, suffered in misery, scratching their way through life, constantly under the attack of malicious tongues? ‘Mr Danforth, you’re a well trusted and important gentleman: a great man of state. Would you bear witness to this will, and assert that it’s all right and proper? Your word will carry weight. Mine will no’, no’ to any notary livin’ in this burgh where I’m a figure of raillery.’

  ‘I am no lawyer, mistress,’ he protested. ‘Not even a scrivener.’

  ‘I want no lawyer. I have neither time nor money for men at law.’

  He looked at her for a moment, at the sad, eager face, and then he gave a brief nod. ‘I will do what I can do within the confines of the law.’ Her smile broadened and for one terrible moment Danforth thought that she might kiss him. Instead, she gave him a strange little curtsey before making for the door, turning briefly to say, ‘I forgot; your shirts are cleaned and dried. Forgive me, but I attended to them the other night and then Tam ... well ... There’s still a wee bit of blood on your cuff, pink now, though. Nearly away. Be sure and eat your broth, sir.’

  A short time later Martin knocked on the door and entered. He looked tired, but his smile was full of genuine pleasure when he saw Danforth had woken. He sat himself down on the desk, knocking the stumpy nub of candle on its side. They both watched as it rolled along the desk and fell to the floor with a muted thud. Martin held up the palms of his hands in a sham of innocence.

  ‘Must you wreak havoc wherever you tread?’ asked Danforth.

  ‘I fear so. My maman tells me that as a child I was a little whirlwind of destruction. At that age you, mon ami, were likely reading Livy the Roman and being a terror of another kind. What’s this?’ He nudged the bowl of cold broth with a foot.

  ‘Broth. With the compliments of our hostess.’

  Martin whistled. ‘As like to broth, I think, as Mistress Clacher is to Queen Marie. I thought for a moment there that you had taken to pissing in a bowl. With such offerings I do not wonder at your present condition. You’re recovered?’ The frivolity drained from his face at the question, to be replaced with concern. Danforth was touched, despite his irritation.

  ‘I am. Though I know not from what I have recovered.’ Martin gave him a measuring look, his head cocked to one side like a curious sparrow.

  ‘It was a mystery to me. At first I suspected poison, sir. I thought that our murderer had tired of your prying and turned to some covert means of hushing you. There are, I hear, poisons that can be spread around doorways, sickening the first person who passes through them. But of course that’s a whole lot of foolishness. A poison must be eaten, or drunk. I know it was not what you drank, for I had more of it. And there I landed on your illness, sir. For you so seldom eat. And therein lies the cause of your case. You have been starving yourself, Mr Danforth, and for some time. You see, I’ve learned a little of your trade – I watched and I thought.’

  ‘Do not be a fool,’ said Danforth, but a blush was creeping into his cheeks. He had not intentionally starved himself; he had neither taken to asceticism nor tried to show God his penitence by refusing meals. But still he had only picked at food since coming to Paisley. Perhaps he had done so for a lot longer, and been unconscious of it.

  ‘Ah, I see that you know it to be true, sir. I’ll take you in hand henceforth.’

  ‘Yet,’ chanced Danforth, his mind turning, ‘there must be some meaning in it. Yes – God in His wisdom must have brought me to this pass for a reason; there must be something He wished me to think upon in my weakness.’

  ‘Now, Mr Danforth, you speak like a foolish old cunning woman, like the kind who said Queen Marie’s sons would live and reign forever, after looking at entrails. There’s no great mystery here, if you ask me. You’re weakened only by not giving your body nourishment. There is no need to search further. Not every event, not everything, has the hand of God in it: follow Master Erasmus, not Luther, sir.’

  ‘And you say you have no learning.’ Danforth smiled.

  ‘I say I have none of your classics. Yet I’ve got ears to listen, and the Cardinal has a tongue that seldom rests. God leaves us free to make our choices as we wish – and I would that you should choose to eat. Already I’ve been plying you with food, though I can attest to its low quality.’ He lowered his voice and gave a wink. ‘Old Caldwell’s become your partisan, sir. Her husband’s dying – even now he is tied to that bed like a hog, poor old whoreson, hissing and puking like a madman. I fancy she might like you for a husband. Though I think,’ he said, ‘you might do better elsewhere.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Danforth. ‘Not for your saucy jests – I can do without those – but for your care. I confess I have been an idiot. So concerned have I been with worldly matters and ... and those of my own making, that I have not had a care for myself.’

  ‘My pleasure, sir. You might thank me also for keeping that bloody apothecary from you. Mistress Caldwell would have had him up here, wrapping you in a winding sheet. I would have none of him or his medicines.’

  ‘And it seems you were right. I am quite well, my strength restored. His Grace has not yet summoned us?’

  ‘There’s no word.’

  ‘You have spoken to the Prior then?’

  ‘No, but enquired at the Abbey. Usual bruits. The king is here, there, and everywhere. The Cardinal is said to be chasing him. How true, who can say?’

  ‘Hmm. You spoke of our murderer. Mistress Caldwell says the body is Brody’s. Is it so?’

  ‘I fear so, though I’ve not seen it. Didn’t fancy it. It is what is said about the burgh, though.’

  ‘Have they buried it?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Martin, smiling again. ‘I know you a thing too well. After I and that great ox had carried you up here and saw you abed, I took myself to the Tolbooth. Friend Semple was eager that Brody be taken quickly to some spot and buried, but I had a mind that you would wish to look upon the corpse. What is it you said? It might “tell us something”. And so I told him to keep it where Kate Brody had lain. He wasn’t happy.’

  ‘I can imagine. However did you convince the fellow?’

  ‘Oh, French charm, such as I exercised on the Archbishop’s secretary in Glasgow. Pattison joined him and he also tasted it, and now neither of them shall soon forget us or our master. The cold weather also pleaded for me. Whatever’s left of Brody should have remained somewhat ... fresh.’

  ‘Then thankful I am for it.’

  ‘When do you wish to see the body?’

  ‘At once – as soon as possible. It has lain there for over some days now, and the cold can only do so much. If I leave it too long there might be little it can tell us.’

  Martin drew an aggrieved breath, clutching at his coat. ‘Toil, sir? I should think you would wish to rest now until the next Sabbath, so far gone are you in sloth. I think your illness and weakness of mind might linger.’ Danforth frowned as deeply as he could manage.

  ‘My g
ood humour and gratitude can only be pushed so far, you young rakehell. Have you any other news?’

  ‘Of the monks, only the usual: their prices are too high, or so it’s complained.’ He yawned. ‘Otherwise the people of the burgh enjoyed their market day on Monday all the more, knowing that the battle against England is lost. You’d have thought they perceived the Apocalypse the way they filled the market cross. Oh,’ he said, as though suddenly remembering. ‘As I returned from St Nicholas one morning ...’ His forehead wrinkled. ‘What is this? Wednesday. Sunday morning. I ran into that Mistress Darroch. You recall we saw her clucking with Clacher when the news of Solway Moss came?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Well, this will shock you.’ Danforth leaned forward. ‘The woman is back to hating the old termagant – she reckons her to be a proud thing, and spiteful with it.’

  ‘She is not wrong,’ sighed Danforth. He had hoped for something useful. Martin’s sarcasm was astute – when gossipy people made uneasy alliances, they were the more likely to despise and distrust one another.

  ‘There’s more besides. You know Mistress Darroch’s son that went up to the university at Glasgow? Well, she now fears talk against the Church. She thought it wise to turn informer.’ Danforth winced at the word. Informers were the minions of the world’s Cromwells. Martin was still talking. ‘... to impress upon me as a Cardinal’s man that none of her ilk would involve themselves in what the firebrands say or do. The universities are all turning into gardens for raising up Lutherans, to hear yon woman talk, but her Jamie, of course, is no part of it. He’s to be Saint Jamie of Paisley, to hear her speak.’

  ‘A mother wolf protecting her cub. Little strange in that. Unless she fears he has raided the chickens. Did she mention the Cardinal, or any speeches or writings against him at the university?’

  ‘No, but I didn’t want to stop her tongue by trying to guide it. What are your thoughts, sir? The ramblings of a worried maman or something more?’

  ‘I cannot say for the moment, Martin, but when we return to Glasgow we shall know more, I hope. Go and attire yourself. You shall come with me to the Tolbooth, and this time you will not duck the unpleasant task.’ This subdued Martin a little, and he nodded silently before returning to his own room. Danforth put his head in his hands as he waited for him. It would now be easy to turn his back on the Brody slattern and her useless father, to let them lie in whatever dubious peace they might have found. But he knew he could not. His conscience would not allow it.

  The pain and the fear are too much for me, and I know that I want strength.

  I commend myself to you, Jesus, that you will hear my prayer

  went into his book. Under it, he added ‘This month of November, 1542, I was saved from death by a friend by God. This month the Church was attacked. Pray hear us, and save us, O Lord.’

  He braced himself for the sight and smell of another corpse, for another image that would burn itself into his mind and come at him frequently, no matter how much he tried to focus his thoughts elsewhere. Every body he had ever seen lodged somewhere within him, none content to remain locked in their coffins or wrapped in their shrouds. Sometimes he wished there might be some markers for the common dead, some stout tombs that held them all. Casting them into unmarked graves until they rotted, and then moving the bones to charnel houses when the churchyard became full, seemed almost to leave them unsatisfied, vengeful. It came to him in his fonder moments that these were the real ghosts. There was no need to see spirits walking the earth, intruding upon the living with mournful wails, demanding redress. No, the true ghosts were simply the memories of those that the living could neither release nor expunge. Man created his own spirits and invited them to haunt him.

  When Martin returned, he was still in a grave humour, and Danforth almost laughed at the pun as it formed in his mind. Instead he clapped him on the arm and in silence they left the inn, ignoring the guttural wails of Kennedy, and set off down the High Street to the Tolbooth, where the third corpse in a week waited for them with a cold, necrotic welcome.

  18

  To Danforth and Martin’s surprise, Logan the gaoler was back keeping office in the Tolbooth’s grimy, open courtroom. He was not, however, full of the same fire and insolence. Danforth wondered how many errors the man had made, how many men had escaped his custody, and how futile would be the baillies’ condemnation of him. It was an ugly, thankless job. He retained it, likely, for that reason alone. Martin could not resist a smile at the man’s evident unhappiness.

  ‘The Cardinal’s men,’ he said when they entered. His voice was flat.

  ‘The same,’ said Danforth.

  ‘I understand ye’ve been unwell, sir. I trust ye’re recovered.’

  ‘I would not be here otherwise.’ He could not muster a smile for the man, even for the sake of cordiality. Rather he felt his skin crawling. Logan reminded him of a side of bacon, his cheeks perpetually rosy and his eyes mean and narrow.

  ‘To be sure, sir, to be sure. What news o’ the world? Has the Cardinal made his peace wi’ the king? Or the queen had her wean yet?’

  ‘We have brought no news of that. We are here to see the corpse.’

  Something of Logan’s former insolence returned, the ruddy features under their ginger whiskers changing. ‘Ye’ll find him a thing quieter than last he wiz,’ he leered. ‘An’ even fouler smelling, if it be possible. Even the curious, the vulgar, have stopped comin’ hence to gaze on the face o’ a murderer. Well, it’s his own fault for runnin’. Dross like him have an animal cunnin’. It returned when he sobered, but little good it did him. The baillies are no’ happy, sir, neither of them. Yer man there gave them a stack o’ abuse, I hear.’ Martin beamed.

  ‘Mr Martin is not “my man”. He is the Cardinal’s man, and thus an officer of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal.’

  Abashed, Logan threw up his hands. ‘I meant no offence, gentlemen. It’s the baillies as say they’re no’ happy, and would have ye out o’ the burgh. It’s proud they are o’ their authority, and jealous o’ it. They dinnae want the corpse o’ a murderer bringin’ disease and infection here. I think,’ he added, a doleful expression taking over, ‘that’s why they have me here again – that I might be closer to the foul wreckage as punishment for not beatin’ the bastard until he feared liberty worse than his comin’ punishment. Though it’s no ma fault – I’ve told them till I’m blue in the face that this place is no fast prison. Written out report after report beggin’ them to make it secure. They’re needin’ a new one built. Well, you know where he lies.’ Already Logan was opening the door to the courtyard. The noise of the cross’s ever-present crowd filtered over the fence. Just over the fence men and women were going about the daily business of living, death the furthest thing from their minds. ‘Ye’ll no’ find him as hard to look at as yon other yin,’ Logan winked.

  Danforth and Martin took the familiar path to the old barn, both ignoring the gallows, slick and wet. Some geese were waddling around the yard, uninterested in them. When they reached the door, Danforth said, ‘I would have you come in here, Arnaud. It is not as the baillies do to that brute Logan, not to punish you, but to educate you. This body will look ... somewhat different from the poor wretch in the great drain.’

  ‘I understand, sir. To be honest, I’d rather look upon the corpse than spend any time in the company of that fat guts in the Tolbooth.’ He attempted a smile, but could not manage it.

  ‘Life is full of strange novelties, Mr Martin, strange sights, most of them unpleasant. Expect nothing, and you will be surprised by nothing.’

  The sun’s rays broke through a quilt of clouds as Danforth opened the doors, and they stepped into the room.

  Brody had not been done the service of being covered with a sheet. That dignity was lost to him, although no baaing sheep intruded on his sleep. Instead he lay facing upwards, his eyes open and staring in terror, frost glistening on his beard. Danforth crossed the room and looked downwards, Martin following. He was
surprised at how whole the man looked. No violence had been visited on him. If he had been murdered, it had been done without the crazed hatred that had ended his daughter’s life.

  ‘Look here, Martin,’ said Danforth, speaking slowly and taking only the shallowest breaths, ‘he is not beaten. No rocks have torn him.’ Martin, ashen-faced, nodded. His hands were over his mouth and nose. Catching the shifting colour on his colleague’s face, Danforth asked, gently, ‘if you cannot stand it you can open the door for a breath of air.’ Martin only shook his head.

  Danforth turned the man’s head on its side. A little water poured out from between the blue lips. He pressed hard on the chest, and it became a spurt. His eyes then narrowed at the sight of blotchy marks on the back and sides of his neck and shoulders. The marks of his trip through the river and the Common were upon him: twigs and sticks of straw were stuck about his upper half, but no open wounds. Danforth turned to the hands, opening them up. Thankfully Brody had been dead long enough that they gave easily, entreating him to find out what had happened. The nails were broken, but they might always have been. Some dried blood stood out under them. Other scratches criss-crossed the palms. Brody, it seemed, had struggled as he drowned.

  Danforth continued his examination, occasionally gesturing for Martin to lean in closer. There was little else to be divined. Brody’s boots were surprisingly clean and unscathed, his hose only as ragged as they had been when he was arrested. When finished, Danforth nodded to Martin and gestured towards the door.

  Back outside, they sucked in lungfuls of cold air, appreciating even the faint smell of animal waste. The sun, having promised much, had retreated, and a stiff wind was picking up. ‘Mon dieu,’ whistled Martin, ‘but it is strange to see a man lying dead, and he accused of being a murderer himself.’

  ‘It is never pleasant.’

  ‘Did it speak to you, sir? Did it tell you something of the man’s end?’