Candlemas (5 page)

Hew burst out laughing then. ‘I will tell Professor Locke to bear that in mind when he puts you to the rack. I do not think, Johannes, it will come to that. But it grieves me you were vexed by it, and on my account. I hope the candlemaker did not rob you blind?'

‘He did the best he could, to inflate the price. And when I told him I could pay no more, he claimed the difference to him as a debt, and made me put my name into a book.'

‘What kind of book?'

‘A fat one. Into which he entered those who owed him debts, and the interest paid. Of both, I will affirm, a great deal had accrued. The interest was extortionate, beyond the rate of law, and should the same conditions have applied to me, I should not have agreed to them. For my part, it was several shillings, owing on account. My feeling is, he let the debts start small, and slowly reeled them in. For that, my father said, is how the thing is done. Not that he takes part in such shameful practices. Yet he is a man of business, and he must be wise to them.'

‘Most excellent Johannes! And you saw this book?'

‘He let me see it, freely. Because I am a stranger here, he did not believe I had the wit to read. It may surprise you, sir, to learn, since we share our converse in the Latin tongue, I am not so fluent when it comes to Scots.'

Hew suppressed a smile. ‘I should not have known. But was he not aware you were a student here?'

‘I did not reveal it, and he did not ask. More pertinent than that, I am my father's son. And nothing holds my interest more than other men's accounts.'

‘You are, beyond a doubt, a paragon of virtue. Can you now remember where he kept his book?'

‘He kept it locked away. But I recall the place.'

Hew leapt up at once. ‘Go, fetch your coat. We are going out.'

‘Out?' Johannes stared at him. ‘I cannot go out, sir. The philosophy class is about to begin.'

‘Johannes,' Hew insisted, ‘you can miss your class. You have quite flagrantly stayed out past the curfew, compounding the fault by breaking through the gate; you are determined to be stubborn in the face of correction, and you cannot be redeemed. Set conscience aside, for your case is hopeless. Besides, you have a debt a pay.' Since his tone was too cheerful to occasion much dismay, Johannes went bewildered to find his hat and cloak. He was not so much disturbed. For he would have gone with Hew to the far end of the earth.

The candlemaker's boy was working in the yard, rinding the tallow in a massive pot. He scooped out the refuse rising to the top – ‘that is the crackling, d'ye see?' – working with a wit and will he had not shown before. The candlemaker's wife, standing at the counter, presented to the world the fair face of the shop. She had set out her chandlery in a fine display: rows of dipped candles, hanging up in pairs, soaps, oils and unguents, rush lights and spills. ‘New tallow candles, two shillings the pound. What will you buy?' A pair of candle-snuffers, gilded and ornate, was given pride of place, and Hew could not help but covet them for Frances.

‘Bonny, are they not?' said the candlemaker's wife. ‘And the scissor blade so keen, for snipping through a wick. Would you like to try them, sir?'

‘By all means,' said Hew. ‘But first I have a young man here, come to pay his debts. He owed your late husband – how much was it, Johannes?'

‘Seven shillings and sixpence,' Johannes confided.

‘And here is a ten shilling piece. You make keep the change.'

‘That is very honest of you, sir.' The guid wife's action proved how faithless were her words, as she tested out the mettle of the coin against her teeth. ‘Not many folk, in truth, would honour such a debt, and I am much obliged to you.'

‘Now, by your leave, we shall strike it from the book.'

‘What book is that?' It was plain that the secret had been hidden from the wife. And the candlemaker's boy, called in from the yard, could throw no further light on it.

‘If I may?' Johannes said. He came inside the shop, and began to clear the counter of its wares.

‘Whatever do you do, sirs?' the candle-wife protested. Johannes did not falter, but turned the counter down, and opened up a panel in its outer edge. ‘It is hollow inside.' He slipped in his hand, and pulled out a book.

‘Well, fancy that,' said the candlemaker's wife. ‘All that was his must now be mine.'

Hew had his hand on it. ‘I think you will find it belongs to the Crown. Unless you are prepared to pay the price for usury.' He opened up the book. And though both wife and boy strained to see it too, their efforts were in vain, for they could not read.

The book was filled with names, and dates, that went back years. One name in particular, seeming to recur, came to Hew's attention, for it last appeared on the same page as Johannes. ‘Who is David Doig?'

‘That man wis a thorn in my husband's side. A thorn in his flesh, and a flesher,' said the wife. ‘The fleshers are no more than renegats and thieves. The lot of them are rogues.'

The prentice boy explained. ‘The fleshers' and the candlemakers' work is closely linked. The law is, that the flesher cannot sell his tallow, but that he has it show it to the candlemaker first, and he must offer it to him, at the lowest price. That is a law that the fleshers try to cheat.'

‘Your master has written that David Doig was to bring him a bucket of fresh tallow on Candlemas Eve,' Hew remarked aloud. And tallow was not all, he noted privately.

‘Aye, that wis right. There was a big row about it. My master had heard that Davy had some dead sheep – that is not common at the Candlemas – and he demanded fat from him, such as was his due.'

‘Yet it is not marked off.'

‘It widna be marked off. For when Davy brought it, it was full o trash. He had made the weight up, with a' kinds of filth. My master telt him plain, to tak the stuff away, and he would rue it hard, if he did not bring fresh. And Davy swore at him, that he could go to hell for it.'

‘There was tallow in the shop, the morning that we found him,' Hew pointed out. ‘Sitting in a pail, there by the board.'

‘Aye, sir, so there was, ye mind me of it now. He must have repented of it, and come back again, while I did my rounds. I took it to the yard, where it did belong.' Eck screwed up his face. ‘I cannot tell you rightly when I saw it first.'

‘There was no pail,' said Johannes, ‘when I came at nine o'clock.'

Hew asked, ‘Are you sure?' He felt in his bones a shiver of excitement.

‘I am quite certain. He made me stand and watch him while he did his work. And I have, sir, as you know, a retentive sort of mind.'

‘God bless you, sweet Johannes,' Hew said with a cry, astonishing the student with the present of a kiss.

Once Johannes was returned to the safety of the college, Hew made his way to the surgeon's house, where he insisted he must speak to Sam. ‘It makes no matter if he will not speak to me. But I would be heard.'

The surgeon came at last, to hear what he supposed would be an indictment; no man looked more miserable who went to face his doom. Hew, in his excitement, had a strong desire to shake him.

‘I will put a case to you. You may find it fantastical, but listen, if you will.'

And as he told the surgeon what was in his mind, he saw the storm clouds lift, and his face transform. ‘Do you mean to say,' Sam cried, ‘that I am not to blame?'

‘I warn you now,' said Hew, ‘it will be hard to prove.'

‘It does not matter, if I know in my heart, that I am not to blame; I did not kill that man.'

‘Will you tell me now,' Hew asked, ‘what hold he had on you? For you were not in debt to him. I did not find your name recorded in his book.'

The surgeon hesitated. ‘It was money, all the same. Well, I will tell you. It is a matter which gives me no pride. The business of embalming. It has lately been adopted by the candlemaker's wife. She is very good at it. By tradition it is done by the wax-makers; that was their downfall in the plague. But in many places it is bread and butter to the barber-surgeon. I have felt the loss. You see, I have a wife, and a new-born bairn. I have – though Roger is an asset I do not deny – an expensive and demanding prentice boy, who must have new knives, and the sharpest saw. I do not grudge him that. But there is a balance to be made. And the candlemaker, acting out of greed, has taken from the pockets of the other trades – the fleshers and apothecars – with his pots of grease, his unguents, soaps and spice – and forces those in debt to buy their wares from him; the money that he makes is the money that he lends. He cares not where he deals. Did you ken that he was beadle once, in the parish kirk? He lost that place, for selling Catholics candles for the Mass.

‘So when he came to me, and begged me to let blood, I for once could bargain at the better end. At first, I refused. I telt him of the facts. But he implored and wept, his headaches were so bad he could not do his work, and nothing else, he telt me, could assuage the pain of it, but I would let his blood. He forswore the danger of it. And so I made a bargain with him. I would go to his house, and open the vein, and he would be sure to rest, and not exert himself. And in return, he would see that a half of the corpses he was offered for embalming would be sent my way. I did not take Roger, for I did not want the boy to be tainted with bad practice, but I can assure you, I took every care and skill with the phlebotomy. If he had rested on the second day he would have been well. And I swear to God, I did not mean to cut so deep.'

‘I don't believe you did.' It was, considered Hew, a grim little tale, and one that did small credit to the surgeon. ‘Why do you suppose he went against your word? Why was he convinced phlebotomy
would help him?' For, as any fool who had an almanack must know, it was no time of year to be letting blood.

‘He said it was phlebotomy had cured his pain before. But it was more than that. He had once consulted with a very fine physician, and had paid that man to draw his horoscope. He was told that he had a superfluity of blood, and a sanguine disposition, that had to be assuaged. He had a full repletion, and a red choking surplus, bulging at each vein. So much he had had from the great man's mouth. What would a barber-surgeon know? But I swear to you, I never did imagine it would bleed him to his death.'

Hew had one last visit to make, before he put the case to Giles. On this occasion, he allowed Roger to accompany him, though he warned him he must wait outside. Roger objected to this. ‘I know that man. I bought blood from him. And a lamb's bladder once.'

‘Aye, you are two of a kind. Stand out of earshot, but where you can see.'

‘Why should I not hear? It was I provoked you to investigation.'

‘You provoked me, certainly. He will not speak as freely, if he thinks you hear. Conversely, he is less likely to stick his knife into me, if he thinks you will see it. Comfort yourself. If he does, you will have the pleasure of observing it.'

‘What comfort is that, if I do not have the pleasure of hearing you squeal?'

The flesher was outside his shop, butchering a pig. Roger wandered off a yard or so, where the gutter had been stopped to stem the flow of blood. He squatted like a child before a rock pool full of crabs, and began to poke about in the debris with a stick. The flesher scowled at Hew. ‘Is that your boy?' he asked. ‘Uncouth kind, he is. Likes to cut things up.'

‘He is not my boy, mercifully,' Hew retorted pleasantly. ‘He is prentice to a surgeon, where his love for cutting stands him in good stead. Sadly, the surgeon is suspected of killing a candlemaker, and Roger is therefore at a loose end. That is not a place where it is good for him to be.'

‘Is that so,' the flesher said, returning to his pig.

‘It seems late in the year, for the slaughter of a pig. It will soon be Lent,' Hew observed.

‘It is a private pig, that met a sudden end.'

‘I am sorry to hear it. I hope it did not belong to the miller's boy.'

‘What?'

‘The miller's boy keeps pigs. I hope it is not one of his. Some people disdain to eat pork. I am not one of them.'

‘I ken no miller's boy. The pig is not for sale.'

‘A pity, then.' Hew stood in silence a moment, to watch the butcher slide his knife into the carcase at his side. He removed from the wam a large slab of fat, and slapped it on a board.

‘Is that tallow for candles?' Hew asked.

‘You do not get tallow from pigs. That is lard.'

‘What is the difference, then?'

‘Lard is soft.' The flesher muttered, ‘Not unlike yerself.'

‘Then what kind of flesh has the best fat for candles?'

‘Sheep fat is best. Cow, at a pinch. Why do you ask about candles?'

‘But it must be hard to find that at this time of year. No flock will be slaughtered, when it's near to Lent. There would not be time for the flesh to hang.'

The flesher straightened up again. ‘Are you asking me, to sell you meat in Lent?'

‘I suppose I might be. But I had always thought that very hard to get.'

‘Then you have never looked for it in the proper places. Whatever you may hear, there is always flesh in Lent, though the markets may be closed for it. You only have to ask.'

‘Well, bless me,' Hew exclaimed, ‘but I did not know that.'

‘It seems to me – your pardon, sir – that you do not ken much.'

‘I fear you may be right. I lead a sheltered life. I am a scholar at the university.'

‘Then that explains it, sir. The scholars at the college never get much meat, for fear it heats their blood.'

‘One thing that I ken,' Hew said unexpectedly, ‘is that animals were butchered on the eve of Candlemas, for you took a pail of tallow to the candlemaker's shop. Was it cow, or sheep?'

‘How would you know that?' The flesher turned, suspiciously.

‘Because you left it there. And you mark your pails, as the farmer marks his sheep, to distinguish you from any other fleshers in the town. You need not answer, though. I know that it was sheep.' So much Hew had learned from the candlemaker's boy.