Hue and Cry (9 page)

Hew returned to the cot, his handkerchief pressed to his face. Giles had changed the splattered sheet and Nicholas looked pale and clean, resting neatly on his side. He made no movement or sound.

‘In your letter you mentioned a flesh wound. How come he’s so sick?’

‘It’s a small cut, but deep,’ explained Giles. ‘The wound has grown putrid. The poison’s corrupting his blood. You see how black it streams?’ Hew looked away quickly. ‘And there’s increasing stiffness in the limb. I am afraid it may be lockjaw. Hush now, we’ll leave him to sleep.’ He hung the soiled towel on a nail in the wall and motioned Hew out of the room. His friend took a gulp of clean air.

‘Is there nothing more that you can do?’

Giles regarded him thoughtfully. ‘There’s nothing more I am prepared to do, though I have not cast his horoscope. Like you, I rather thought I’d done enough. You could pay a surgeon to take off his leg. True, the wound’s high, but skilfully done it might help stop the spread of the poison. But don’t look to me to assist.’

Hew swallowed. ‘Could it save his life?’

‘It could. But for what? His leg will roast with the rest of him. On or off.’

‘You think he did it then? You think he killed the boy?’

The doctor shook his head. ‘It scarcely signifies. I think that it’s better to die in a clean college bed than to swing on the scaffold. Don’t you?’

‘But you’re a man of physic, Giles. You cannot choose to let him die,’ Hew pleaded.

‘God will choose,’ Giles answered patiently. ‘I’ve done what I can. I’ve poulticed and bled him to balance the humours. Hypericum to cleanse the wound, milk of white rose – it’s very expensive – and a little neat brandy to deaden the pain. He’s comfortable here.’

‘And there’s nothing more to be done?’

‘If you will, call the surgeon. They’ll hang him in parts.’

Hew searched around for an answer. ‘Might perhaps my sister nurse him?’ he suggested. ‘She has grown up on the farm, and is skilled in natural physic.’

‘Is she past fifty?’ Giles asked dryly.

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry, Hew. I don’t mean to make light of it. The college frowns on women under fifty years of age. Still, I think we can get round that, at least until the term begins. Professor Herbert has installed a wife who can’t be more than twenty-three. Though she is extremely plain, that is a mitigating factor. Your sister, though. Will she come?’

‘I’m sure of it. She’ll cook for you. She’s a grand cook, you’ll like her.’ He forced out a smile.

‘Then she must come at once.’ The doctor brightened. ‘I’d give my new plum doublet for a piece of roasted meat. Everything I’ve eaten since I came here has been boiled in mutton fat. And if Nicholas recovers, then I hope you’ll make a case for him. He has few enough friends. In the depths of his fever he calls out for the boy, no one else. He’s deeply disturbed in his mind.’

‘But he hasn’t confessed?’ Hew asked anxiously.

‘Oddly enough, he has not. But listen! Have they come for him? There’s some sort of commotion outside!’

Hew made his way to the window and drew back the shutters. ‘It’s nothing. Someone has upturned his cart, a fruitman on his way to market. It looks like some sort of . . .
Oh
!’

A cartload of apples and plums were bowling like boules down
the north street. In the midst of it all, freed from his tethers, cavorted a dun-coloured horse.

Hew returned by the shore, with the horse in disgrace at his heels. He walked in the swell of the wind; it helped him to focus his thoughts. Salt from the sea washed out the sharp taste, like a tooth turning bad, from his mouth. It was dark when he opened the gate. In the warmth of the hall, over supper of oatmeal and cheese, he told them about Nicholas. His plans for his sister were met with dismay. He could see that she was willing, for she spoke of herbs and medicines, but a glance towards her father held her back. Matthew shook his head. ‘You don’t understand what you ask, Hew. She isn’t as strong as she looks.’

‘There’s no danger she’ll fall sick, or I wouldn’t take her,’ argued Hew. ‘It’s a putrefying wound. I know she’s cleansed them often on the farm. The steward’s wife will feed you for a day or two, I’m sure. You cannot keep her here forever, sir; she’s young, she needs to see the world. I swear I’ll look after her. If you could see him you’d realise. He’s too ill to be moved.’ He tried not to remember the vomit, the stream of black blood.

‘And what of your mediciner?’

‘He’s done what he can.’

Matthew nodded. ‘I remember your friend. A sweet boy; a scholar. Tell me again of the charge.’

He sat silent for a long time quiet after Hew had told him. Finally he spoke.

‘Then as I see it, it amounts to this. He may have killed the dyer or the boy, or neither, or both. He may also, or only, be a sodomite, but if he did not kill the boy that may not signify; the Strachans will not wish to press the charge. If you are to speak for him, Hew, you must find out the truth. Take Meg if you will, but take care of her. Trust me when I say she is not as strong as she seems. But, you’re right of course. She has to go out in the world. I won’t always be here to protect her.’

‘Does she really need protection, Father? Or does she stay for your sake?’

‘Perhaps.’ His father smiled at him. ‘Your sister knows her mind. She’s determined to go with you. Consider, though, that if she saves his life, it may be to condemn him to another, crueller death.’

Hew nodded. ‘Aye, I know. Giles said the same.’

‘Then he’s a better man than medic. I should like to meet him. But if you mean to find the truth, then you must learn to open your mind and close your heart. If it does come out as sodomie . . . God love him, Hew,’ he ended quietly. ‘I saw a young boy burned alive on Castle Hill for something of the sort.’

They set off for the town at first light. Meg brought a basket of herbs, still wet, and a fresh sheep’s cheese for Giles Locke. They had broken their fast in the darkness, sharing a loaf by the side of the fire. Matthew Cullan grumbled out of bed to take his leave of them. He whispered awhile in the corner with Meg. Hew stood apart like a stranger.

‘We’ll be back before nightfall,’ Hew promised. ‘Come, Meg. It will take us an hour if we go by the cliffs. And since it looks warm, shall we walk?’

They did so, for the day broke hot and fair. At Kinkell Braes they turned off from the road and made their way towards the shore. For a while the path led them through thick swathes of thistle and thorn, where leafy fern and marram grass obscured the water’s edge. Meg filled her basket with brambles and rosehips, and as they fought their way through clumps of weed they feasted on blackberries, and were children again, forgetting their shyness, chasing through the nettles and the gorse. Presently, as they came closer to the cliffs, they saw the ragged outline of the maiden rock, and beyond it the outcrop of shoreline, black against the smoothness of the sea. A thousand seabirds flecked the rocks, from the stillness of the water to the pallid wash of cloud, forming layers of muted colours to the hills beyond. The landscape rose in strips of undulating flatness, the rocks a streak of blackness in the grey rush of the water, and the sea a streak of darkness in the whiteness of the sky. Then, as the light changed, they saw the pale arc of the bay, the curvature of windswept sand, coloured like the harvest, ripe against the perfect blue of the sea. The beach circled round to the pier, where the waters broke and scattered freely, sending spray like sleet above the harbour wall. And rising from the bay, they saw the town.

Meg caught her brother’s hand. ‘It’s beautiful, Hew!’

‘Had you not seen it before?’ he teased.

‘For sure, I never tire of it.’

Far above the harbour stretched the spires of the cathedral, its east gable window striking dark against the clouds. Behind it stood the sombre square-cut tower of St Rule, while the steeple of the town kirk and the weather vane and spire of St Salvator’s chapel flanked it in the distance, high above the north and market streets. As they approached, the darkness of the stone gave way to grey and yellow walls, echoing the warm tones of the sand.

‘The central tower has crumbled since I saw it last,’ Hew observed.

Meg nodded sadly. ‘Father will no longer come to town, for he cannot bear to see it. He says that it had weathered storms for nigh four hundred years, when in twenty the reformers stripped it to the bone. And when he was a lad, the roof was made of copper, that when the sun came slanting through the haar did wink and cast its burnished glow upon the town.’

Hew snorted, ‘Aye, the glint of gold the fat priests fleeced from pilgrims. I do not think our father ever saw its glow; that is pure stuff and sentiment. The destruction of that church is no bad thing, for it was built on falsehood, and a heap of broken bones.’

‘How could it not be bad, Hew?’ she challenged him. ‘The cathedral was our heart. And all the town that grew up in its shade, in the absence of its warmth must wither up and die.’

‘Come with me through the Sea Yett,’ he replied, ‘on to the south street, or up the harbour steps towards the Swallowgait, and I will shown you fine new houses, with lintels and forestairs, and Dutch craw-stepped gables, quarried from your dead cathedral.’

‘I have seen them, and admire them,’ she admitted. ‘Yet I fear the change.’

‘This is my father’s fault, for he has kept you cloistered far too long. The town reforms, but does not perish.’

They passed through the sea gate and turned on to the north
street, where a clutch of shrieking gulls swept round the fisher cross. ‘It’s market day,’ said Meg, wrinkling up her nose. The cobblestones were wet with slime. Hurriedly, they crossed to St Salvator’s College. Doctor Locke sat reading in his rooms, oblivious to haddie criers and their stink of fish.

‘I had not thought to see you here so soon,’ he welcomed them. ‘Mistress, I am glad to meet you. Thank you, you may go now.’ This last was to his servant, who was watching them curiously. ‘My friends will stay till dinner, so I shan’t eat in the hall. Can you bring us something different, Paul?’

‘I brought you some cheese,’ Meg ventured timidly. ‘It’s fresh from the farm.’

‘Is it?’ He sniffed at the parcel. ‘Child, you’re a saint. But you’ve come to see Nicholas. I’ve been to the chapel to pray for him, Hew. I’m afraid he grows worse. He’s too weak to countenance loss of more blood. Nonetheless, come on in.’

Hew preferred to stay outside. In deference to his sister he hovered at the far side of the door. Meg had no such qualms. She walked in at once to the bed and looked over the patient. ‘May I touch him?’ she asked, folding back the sheet.

Giles gave a cough, looking on in amusement. ‘Indeed, child, go on.’ She was feeling through the bandages for Nicholas’ thigh.

‘What are you doing?’ her brother objected.

‘Be still, will you, Hew! I’m taking his pulse.’

‘In the groin?’

‘I don’t hear him complain.’ She flushed a little under his gaze but continued to probe for stiffness in the limb. ‘It’s in spasm. It’s the lockjaw,’ she concluded at last, carefully wiping her hands on the sheet.

The doctor nodded gravely. ‘I felt it there this morning. If it spreads to the throat he will die.’

‘I’ve seen it happen so. Pray God it will not spread. But, sir,’ she seemed to hesitate, and then continued rather quickly, ‘as for the putrefaction, I have had some success with spaghnum moss
and oil of hypericum flower. I have both in my basket. I could dress the wound now if you hold the leg still?’

‘Indeed?’ The doctor stared at her. ‘I’ve a compress of hypericum applied, but no moss. A good battle salve. Where do you find it?’

‘I grow it at home for use on the farm. It will draw out the worst of the rot and you may cut the rest out with a knife. Can you hold him, Hew?’ Her brother nodded weakly. ‘Then when he comes round we’ll give him a little beef broth. If we clean out the wound you won’t have to bleed him again.’

Giles looked at her now with respect as she laid out her bottles and leaves, trimming a dense clump of moss. She took the open lancet from his hand and set the blade to glow white-hot upon the fire. ‘It must be clean.’

‘I grant you,’ he said, ‘but what of the cramps? He may die after all, in the end.’

‘I know a herb that will release the limbs from spasm,’ she dropped her voice, ‘if we use it sparingly. I tried it on my father’s mare. She suffered cruel convulsions in the spring. It started with that same raw heat and stiffness in the shank. I have the seed at home.’

‘He isn’t a horse, you would kill him for sure,’ Giles hissed at her. ‘And even if he lived, do you think the university would thank you? If it’s hemlock you give him, then they’ll have you for witchcraft. Don’t start so, girl! I’m not a fool.’

‘Why are you whispering?’ Hew called out nervously. ‘Please Meg, can’t we be done?’

‘We’re careful not to frighten him. By the way,’ Giles winked at Meg. ‘What happened to the horse?’

‘She lived. But she’s still a bit lame.’

Together they opened the wound. Hew managed it well. His sister made the dressing, gathered up the dirty rags and threw them on the fire. ‘He could do with some air. Never mind. We’ll leave the door ajar. Do you have money, Hew? If there’s a flesher in the market we’ll buy beef to make the broth. I fear it’s slow to cook,’ she smiled at Doctor Locke, who had brightened
visibly, ‘but what Nicholas can’t swallow will do well enough for you.’

Some twenty or thirty small booths and stalls had opened on the market street between the port and mercat cross. In the north street at the fisher cross the fishwives called their wares, their cries of ‘
callour herrin
’ drifting through the marketplace. By the butter tron stood troughs of milk and cheese, flanked by sacks of grain and oatmeal. Baxters cried loaves by the dozen, and fruit men sold apples and flowers. To the left of the flower stall, a rack of small songbirds shuddered in cages, while a thin clutch of poultry fowl strutted and squawked.

Meg purchased a posy to sweeten the sickroom before turning her attention to the meat. Among the stalls were several fleshers, their wooden slats and boards already clogged with blood. A calf’s head on a spike poked out its blue tongue comically, and winked a bleary bloodshot eye at Hew. Meg tugged at his sleeve. ‘The flesh is washed in brine to flush the maggots out, can you not smell it? And the meat is blawn out, full of air.’ Hew felt his gorge rise. A bowl of steaming entrails slopped onto the ground. The law did not permit full slaughter in the street, in deference to existing filth and stench, but carcasses came whole to be dismembered there, and the scattered straw and sawdust did not dissipate the stew. This waste itself was wrung and sold, for not a scrap was wasted. Blood dripped onto oatmeal to produce a pudding, or was caught in cups to flavour scalded milk.