Fire & Faith

by Steven Veerapen

  Furay shrugged. ‘I’ve telt you before, sir. My wife’s affairs were her own. If she took other men intae her bed, I’d no foreknowledge of it, nor of the men with whom she made free.’

  ‘You are a liar, sir.’ Colour rose in Furay. ‘You said, if you cast back your mind, that you “cannot live without her”. In my ignorance, I heard only the mournful wailing of a man who had lost his wife. I might almost have pitied you for it. Yet I think now there was some other construction to your words, and so I am glad that I did not.’ Danforth waved his arm around the denuded room. ‘You are become a poorer man, all of a sudden. Has some great disaster befallen the spice trade? I think not. You spoke the other day of fleeing the burgh in your poorer life. I think, sir, that you have lost your source of wealth: your wife. You sold that poor creature, sir.’

  ‘Poor creature! She was a bawd, as you admit!’

  ‘She was a woman who knew no other life and found a husband who offered her none. You are the bawd, sir; you are the vile creature, not she.’

  ‘Hold your fucking tongue, or I’ll do it for you.’

  ‘No, Mr Furay. Not until I have at the truth. You spent some evenings out of her bed not because you had some Christian hatred of her business, but because you opened that bed to men who might creep in after dark, use your wife and leave you money for the privilege. You will tell me who these men are.’

  ‘I’ll tell you nothin’. Ye’re involved now in a matter greater than yourself, you fool. Have a care how you proceed.’

  ‘You threaten me, Mr Furay? You threaten a man of a prince of the Church?’

  ‘Threaten – ha! I’ve no need to threaten you. You’re alone here, is that no’ so? Aye, I can see by your face it’s true. My wife,’ he said, pronouncing the word sarcastically, ‘entertained a great many gentlemen, none of them wantin’ their names cast about.’

  ‘And one such may have killed her.’

  ‘Aye, mebbe. And thereby deprived me of my living. And so, sir, you know that I am innocent. I wished the creature alive, not dead.’

  ‘You are truly a foul man.’ Danforth felt itchy beneath his clothing, embarrassed, excited and angry all at once. The whole thing was obscene, absurd. Here he was, talking to a man whose wife cuckolded him with his own foreknowledge and to the betterment of his own purse. Somewhere beyond these walls was a familiar world of order, and this madness was no part of it. It was undignified. It was grubby.

  ‘I’ve had a gutful of your insults, sir. They dinnae touch me. Get out of my house.’

  Danforth turned on his heel. Were it not for his disgust at the act of spitting, he would have done so. If only he could have wrung answers from Furay by violence. As he passed through the front door, not bothering to close it, and descended to the street, he felt doubly alone.

  Every great man was now a suspect, every man who might have gained entry to the bedchamber of a woman whose trade was whoredom for men of status. Again, he wished for Martin’s advice; the young man, impulsive and upset as he was, knew something of these people. That damned coin, buried in a ruin, was the only clue. It was no longer the property of Madeline Furay, used to pay off a blackmailer, but might well be something that a fellow had attempted to use as payment to her. If John McKenzie had been the manufacturer of such coins, then his guilt must be considered. Martin would like that.

  The book was not as he had believed – it was not just an expression of Madeleine Furay’s defiant nature, but a tool of her trade. Even if it had been taken to spite her previous employers, it had continued as a toy for encouraging amorous lusts when she fell back into her old, accursed business.

  Danforth wondered at the course of her life. He would have no answers from her husband – that much was obvious. Had she run away truly hoping for something better, and found herself unequipped for anything but the base life of a used and degraded woman? She had seemed so proud, so desperately haughty. Her life had been a succession of abuses. Small wonder she had dreamed of better things. God would forgive. His son had always forgiven women fallen on such a cruel and wicked business.

  Looking up and down the Hiegait, Danforth crossed back to the inn. There he found McTavish, at his usual obsessive cleaning. ‘Ho, sir, I see you’re quite recovered?’ The bald man still had rings of dark under his eyes.

  ‘Oh, aye, sir, quite well, quite well indeed. It’s an honour to have you here, sir.’ An honour to receive payment, thought Danforth.

  ‘You played host to Walter Furay, Mr McTavish, on many occasions.’

  ‘That’s true, sir.’ McTavish’s shoulders hunched and squirmed.

  ‘Did you know his wife?’

  ‘Know her? Yes indeed, sir. A gracious lady. Such a terrible shame.’

  ‘Did you know anything of her trade?’ McTavish hand paused, a rag that had been making little circles on the bar frozen in place.

  ‘Trade? Her husband traded in spices, I fancy.’

  ‘I speak of her trade, not that of her husband.’

  ‘I know of no trade, sir, none at all. The lady was a goodwife.’

  Mistress Scott appeared out of the back and assumed a position beside her husband. She was smiling her unpleasant smile. ‘Is there trouble, Mr Danforth? Do you require anything of us?’

  ‘Only answers, mistress. Regarding the life of the late Madeleine Furay.’

  ‘I am sure we know nothing of her, save that we passed her in church. A very religious lady, she was. Most given to her devotions.’ Danforth detected a nasty undertone in the woman’s voice, but he did not press it.

  ‘Then it is a comfort to know that her soul resides in the arms of the Lord.’ He bowed his head slightly to them and took the stairs up to his room. A jug of ale had been left for him, alongside a pewter mug, and he poured some out. He still had to sip at drinks, and swallow food in the tiniest morsels, but his scorched throat was easing.

  Mr McTavish had lodged Walter Furay and might well have crossed the Hiegait himself knowing that the woman’s husband was from home. Danforth thought back. McTavish had also been wandering up from the direction of St Mary’s Wynd on market day. He swallowed another minute dribble of ale, and then stepped back out into the hall and downstairs. He would have to tread carefully.

  ‘Might I speak privately with you, Mr McTavish?’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’

  ‘It is a delicate matter.’

  ‘I’m here to serve you, sir, as I’ve served all the great men who visit the castle.’

  ‘Now I am free of my friends, sir, I am in want of company.’

  ‘You might take dinner or supper with me and my wife, sir; it would be an honour.’

  ‘You misunderstand me, sir.’ Danforth breathed deeply, attempting an expansive, worldly look. ‘I have want of closer company, of some willing young lady. You must have had such demands before, from your great men of the castle.’

  McTavish stared at him for a few seconds, unblinking, as though deciding what to say. Then he broke into a smile. ‘I follow, sir, oh, I follow.’ He chanced a look to his left, where the door to the back rooms lay. His whisper dropped to an even lower register. ‘There are places, sir, where you might yet find a woman, although it shall have to be the lowliest type, I’m afraid. Things aren’t what they were, sir, but I can speak for the good quality of the creatures.’

  ‘You can speak for this place?’

  ‘Aye, sir. I’m a man, for all that.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘A little vennel, off St Mary’s Wynd. You follow the Hiegait down, and turn left on the wynd, and then take the alley to the right. You’ll know it by the hearts on the shutters, sir.’

  ‘Have you known of this place long?’

  ‘It has been there many years, sir.’ McTavish’s eyes began to widen, as though realising that the questioning had taken on the form of an interrogation rather than an honest request. ‘Some time, at any rate. Well, you know where to find it, if you wish some company. You must still pay for your lodging here if you spend t
he night abroad, though, sir.’ His humming started up, the mask of the unctuous, innocent innkeeper falling back into place.

  ‘I thank you for your recommendation, Mr McTavish,’ said Danforth. ‘Perhaps not tonight, though.’

  He returned upstairs and lay back on his bed. Briefly he considered going out again. He might question the baillies, if they could be found. He must also intrude upon John McKenzie’s old physician’s shop – or his alchemist’s shop, as it might also have served. He let his mind run. He could see Walter Furay crossing to the inn, possibly to the same bed, and McTavish making the return journey. Perhaps that was Furay’s ‘credit’ – that McTavish had part of the profits. The man was certainly not the weak and diffident creature he pretended to be, but that did not make him a killer.

  He decided to doze on it. Instead he spent the afternoon wondering how much progress Martin and Alison were making in their journey to the south east. Martin’s house in Edinburgh was a small place, scarcely more than two rooms with an outside kitchen and pantry. Well, if anyone could make a home of it, Alison and her small household could. They must by now be in Linlithgow, where the queen and the queen dowager were in residence. They would likely hear news of the Cardinal there. It was strange to think that the world rumbled on. The Regent Arran would now be sending out his close writings, those letters commanding the clergy, commons and nobility to attend the parliament he was summoning. Little Queen Mary would be mewling and shaking her little fists, quite unaware of the men summoned to discuss her country’s future. And here he was, lying again on a strange bed, trying to discover who had done murder.

  Danforth rejected the possibility of going out again that evening. In the dark, someone might be watching the inn and waiting for him. Scotland’s cities were notorious for their stabbings, for their secretive violent interludes, for the unseen thrusts of dirks and daggers in dark alleys. They could be almost as bad as the worst parts of London. Somewhere out there, at least one enemy lay in wait. In asking Martin to escort his mother to the capital, he had not given thought to that other feeling that accompanies solitude: fear.

  18

  Danforth walked purposefully down to John McKenzie’s former premises the following morning. He found the door ajar. He cast no furtive glances about the Hiegait, but pushed it open and went in.

  Little had changed inside. Still the place carried the coppery stench of blood, but now it seemed to Danforth not the aroma of years of bleedings, but the smell of alchemical experiments. The heavy, empty crucible was no longer a receptacle for bodily fluids, but a cauldron for the mixing of strange potions and mysterious elements. He kicked at it, and then looked around the rest of the room. Something caught his eye, some slight alteration. The wall sconces, little more than blackened metal grates fixed to the walls, were empty. On his previous visit, they had held half-burnt torches.

  McKenzie, it seemed, was the man who had set ablaze the Martin home. Though it was not absolute proof, it would be enough to have the man taken in, to have him dragged from his bawdy house lodgings and thrown in the Tolbooth.

  Yet something still niggled.

  Danforth stepped out of the shop and back into the light. He could intrude upon McKenzie immediately, arresting him in the Provost’s name and dragging him from the stew where he was likely bedded, amongst his whore and catamites, or else he could wait. Martin had sought McKenzie for months. It seemed almost cruel to take him when the boy was from home, and at Danforth’s suggestion. He might wait and discover what else remained to be found.

  He walked around the market cross for a while, ate from the cheese-seller’s, and asked around for news. There was very little. The great fire was likely to dominate discussion in Stirling for some time, and so Danforth found himself giving more information than he received. Yes, the fire had been fierce. No, he lied with alacrity, he had no idea of the cause. No, he did not know when Mistress Geddes and the Martin household would return, or if they would. The only useful information he did receive was the address of the Provost. He set off.

  The Provost’s house was set apart, on the upper Hiegait, closer to the Holy Rude than the others. It was large – a ground floor surmounted by three further storeys and a lead roof. The windows were glazed too, a rare thing; but it was not the good, clear glass that one might purchase from Europe, but the warped and mottled, dark stuff fashioned by an indifferent glazier. Looking through it would distort what lay on the other side, or else reflect a twisted and crooked version of the person looking in. As the house stood on a rise, there were no stairs up to the front door. He knocked, and a tall butler answered.

  ‘Good day to you, sir. I am Mr Danforth, secretary to the Lord Cardinal. Pray admit me, for I would have words with your master.’ The butler cast a doubtful look at Danforth’s breeches and hose. ‘I lately lodged with the Martin household, and bring news of the great fire, which consumed the greater part of my wardrobe.’ Mollified, the butler stood back, opening the door.

  He led Danforth through a narrow passage and into a doorway on the right. About the wooden walls were tapestries – not the great things that decorated palaces, but small, colourful hangings imported from the continent. Through the doorway was a spacious hall, thick brown carpets spread generously on the floors. Provost Cunningham was sitting in a carved oak chair by a roaring fire, an old woman on a settle beside him. She rose as Danforth entered, and he bowed to her.

  ‘Mr Danforth,’ said Cunningham, standing up himself. His silver whiskers caught the light of the fire. ‘Mistress, leave us.’ The old woman – his wife – bustled out, her eyes cast demurely downwards.

  ‘A fine woman, that,’ said Cunningham. ‘Knows her place and does not meddle in men’s affairs. What news, sir?’

  ‘I come, Provost, to speak of another lady and her remarkable affairs.’

  ‘A lady? Mistress Geddes? I understand she has been spirited off by her boy. Well, if she can no longer pay for that ruined great house, then it is for the best.’

  ‘Not she, sir, but her late friend, Madeleine Furay.’

  ‘Oh. You have discovered her killer?’

  ‘Perhaps. If her killer is the same fellow who turned torches upon Mistress Geddes’ home.’

  ‘You have found the man?’ Cunningham’s eyes widened. ‘Then let us have him pay for his crimes forthwith.’

  ‘Peace, sir. First, I must tell you what I know of Mistress Furay.’ Cunningham eyed him warily. ‘By my faith, sir, it has come to me that the woman was but a whore.’ Danforth hoped for some surprise, for some gasping look of horror – but he did not really expect it. Instead, the Provost sat down heavily. ‘I see that this great news is no shock to you, sir.’

  ‘Please sit down, Mr Danforth.’ He did so, taking the Provost’s wife’s seat. It was still warm. The Provost had become an old man himself. Danforth was reminded suddenly of how Alison had seemed to age rapidly after the loss of her house.

  ‘I see by your face that you did know of this terrible business, Master Provost. Why did you keep it from me, from my colleague? This might help us discover the woman’s murderer.’

  ‘Peace, Danforth. I had heard it rumoured. This is but a small town. If the wife of a burgess turns whore, do you think it does not reach my ears?’ A touch of his old arrogance returned as be sank back onto his chair. ‘The lady was said to be a notorious whore, the men who visited her paying much for the naughty pleasure of taking a burgess’s wife in sin.’

  ‘Did her husband force such a life upon her, sir?’

  ‘I cannot say. The strange antics of a married pair are not my concern.’

  ‘Yet the reputation of this burgh is your concern.’

  ‘And I have kept it pure. The lady was … discreet. She did not flaunt her business. However it was conducted, it was not common knowledge, discoursed and descanted upon by all.’

  Danforth was disgusted. ‘Did you know, sir, that she resided in the burgh as a child, where she was raised in sin in a common stew?’

  �
��I did not,’ said Cunningham, raising an eyebrow. ‘Her past is not my concern.’

  ‘Again, sir, this bawdy house stood in your burgh, and stands there still. I have been inside it.’ Danforth instantly regretted his rash choice of words. ‘In the course of my investigation, you understand,’ he stammered. He felt he had lost his advantage in the unintended admission.

  ‘Mr Danforth, all towns have bawdy houses. We are fortunate, indeed, that ours is kept separate, and its filthy denizens do not intrude upon the better part of us.’

  ‘Yet it may be that one did.’

  ‘Your meaning, sir?’

  ‘Only this – that it be possible that the creature who slew Mistress Furay was someone connected with her past.’ Danforth floated the idea hoping that it would appeal to the Provost. It worked.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, nodding. ‘I can see how that might be so. It is more likely, indeed, that some vile brute from her younger years set about her than some man of quality who was yet given to carnal weakness. I think you have the measure of it, sir.’

  ‘And yet,’ Danforth continued, ‘for the better conduct of my search, I must know of any names that were whispered in connection with the lady’s late activities.’

  Once again, the Provost drew himself up in imperious indignation. ‘Sir, I have no knowledge of any names. You must find your murderer in the gutter from which he sprang.’ Danforth’s face turned thunderous, his patience worn away.

  ‘Master Provost, if you refuse me intelligence that might find this killer, then you are like unto those gutter-creatures whom you rail against. They shall protect one another in their own mean way as you shall protect yours in the upper Hiegait. You are all of you thwarting right justice!’

  ‘I am justice,’ said Cunningham, his eyes flashing. He gripped the arms of his little throne, his knuckles turning white. ‘In this town, I am justice.’

  ‘And yet there is a greater justice that lies above you.’

  ‘You appeal to religion, sir?’ Cunningham managed a wry look.