Lammas (7 page)

‘No. I will not report a man's intent as truth, when it is telt in confidence. Besides, if I had told you, you might have hanged him then, taking as confirmed what Marie said.'

The crownar said, ‘I should have done. But that does not excuse you, nor should it clear your conscience. If you had but spoken, these sad events would not have come about.'

‘What? If you had hanged him, he would not now be dead?' Hew asked. ‘Strange reason, that.'

‘Chop logic as you will, I see your hand in this. You set yourself above the law, and fortune too. This fortune has caught up with you and Walter Bone. The law can watch and wait, and bide the time when it will catch you too. When it does, understand, I will come for you. No one hangs today. You three are free to go.'

Sir Andrew turned his back on them and left. These small lives, this death, disgusted him. His pledge to serve his king and to keep the peace had exhausted him, draining his estates, and he had grown indifferent to the part. There would come a time, he hoped not far away, when he would put the rope around his last man's neck. If that man was Hew Cullan he would rest content. It would bring his service to a satisfying end.

Michael knelt to Hew. ‘Master, you have saved my life.'

‘I am not your master,' answered Hew. He looked across at Elspet. ‘Do you want this man?'

Elspet answered clearly, ‘Not ever in my life. Whatever is the law, I ken it in my heart that he killed Sliddershanks. I will not have him die for it. But I can never bear to look on him again.'

Michael swore to Hew, ‘Your man, Robert Lachlan, hired me for the harvest. Wherefore I am yours, and will serve you gladly. I am strong and true.'

Hew told him, ‘Did you not hear? You are set free. You are no man of Elspet's, and no man of mine. Give thanks for your good fortune, that though your life was sought you did not die today. Fortune smiles on you. Go freely where you will. But let it not be here, nor ever on my land. I have no place for you.'

He took Elspet home to the harbour inn, where he explained the terms of Walter's will. Walter had left everything to her. Elspet listened quietly. ‘I can help you sell it, if you like,' Hew said. He was surprised when she said that she would remain. She would run the inn herself, as Maude had done. She asked him if he could write a sign for her. The sign was to say that the inn would be closed from now until the day that Walter Bone was buried. On the day of his funeral, it would open again, in the afternoon, for those who were his friends to come and drink to him. From then on, they must ken that Elspet was in charge. ‘I will want a pot boy and a serving lass. Put that in the note. The boy must be strong and the lass must be clean.'

When the sign was done she fixed it to the door.

‘How many of the drinkers here can read?' wondered Hew.

‘None of them,' she said. ‘But letters are a thing that they will mark and fear, who do not heed my word. If a thing is written then it is the law.'

She asked him the cost of his fee. He said there was no charge. But Elspet insisted. He was Walter's man of law; before that, he was Maude's. Now he must be hers. She would not let him go until he had been paid, and so he earned a shilling as a writer's clerk.

Marie left at once. ‘I wis leavin' onyway. I never cared for Walter much. And I will not work for you. Nae offence.'

Elspet took none. She said simply, ‘Where will you go?'

‘To Falkland, wi Clem, for next Thursday's fair. And to Dundee for Lady Day.'

Clem was the juglar, who had asked Marie to marry him. ‘Marry me, Marie.' They had laughed at that. He said her supple fingers would be fine for sleight of hand, her pert bonny breasts would pull in the crowd. Marie thought her life with him would be an endless fair day. She would live on gingerbread, sugarloaf and plums. She would be his queen.

‘Mebbe I will see you here again at Michaelmas.'

Elspet said, ‘Mebbe you will.

Hew left her there with Joan, and what comfort she could find in the shadows of the house. He found none for himself. Before returning home, he called on Robert Black to tell him Henry Balfour was no longer under threat. ‘I made a mistake,' he explained. ‘I thought it was Henry Walter meant to harm. But it was someone else. Henry is quite safe, and you can let him go.'

Robert was not settled by the news. ‘Safe! I wish he were. I know not how to keep him from the harm he does himself, never mind the harm the world may do to him. This morning, he avows he is determined to elope with some country lass; or if she refuse him, he will throw himself precipitate into the Spanish wars, for he does not care if he should live or die, if it be not with her, and so, and on, and on. And he is pale and faint, and weeping like a girl. He was sick, too, in his psalter, which I take for a very bad sign. I wish to God I had not taken him in charge.'

‘Why did you, then?' asked Hew.

‘For I was vain enough to think I might have shown him, by my good example, how he should behave. I thought that he would blossom, in more gentle hands. His father is severe on him. Now I see his mind. The boy is loose and reckless, and abuses liberty. You are used to trouble, Hew, whereas I am not. You will not take him, I suppose? He is lively company.'

Hew laughed at that. ‘Aye, no doubt. I will not take him, though. Here is my advice. Tell him that to marry is all well and good, but that he should wait till he is twenty-one. He should finish his degree, so he can provide for her. For his father will no doubt deprive him of his wealth. This threat to his inheritance will help to fix his mind. First love is fierce, but does not last long. To fight it will simply add fuel to its fire. But let it run its course, and the wind may blow it out. Courage, Robert. Henry is your lot. You will make a man of him, or he a man of you, before the harvest's done.'

(3)

Hew had no will to take on Robert's troubles, for he had sufficient of his own. He went to look for Giles, but Giles was not at home. The house was closed and dark. He crossed over to the kirk, and on to Market Street. The market was long done. Crumpled flowers and fly-blown fruit were left to blow about the dust. The wind picked listless over all, snatching at a twist of paper or a withered leaf, and dropping it again.

The North Street, too, was still. The doors to the chapel and the college court were locked. But Hew saw a window at the top of Giles Locke's tower, where often he had sat and looked out on the street, open to the sun. Giles was in his room. And the welcome in his smile as he caught sight of Hew helped to lift his heart.

Now the Whitsun visitors were gone, Giles had filled his shelves again with instruments and books. In the circle at the top of the spiral stair, he had placed an astrolabe, so bright and broad in girth its compass seemed to mark the centre of the world.

Hew said, ‘Still at your charts?'

‘In effect,' said Giles, ‘the essential one is done. But I have just been told some grave, unsettling news, and I came to mark it on the map. I met a man just now who came up from the coast, who saw a lighted beacon over from Fife Ness; Spanish ships are sighted in the Firth of Forth.'

‘Can it be true? Why would they come there?'

‘Such rumours often may be underpinned by truth. Perhaps they have been driven back, by the English fleet.'

‘Or the threat of storm.'

‘Fiddle. Did I not tell ye there will be no storms? Have ye no faith in my forecasts?'

Hew replied, ‘Not much. It is a concern, if they approach our coasts. There are some here preparing to encourage and receive them.'

Giles said, enigmatically, ‘So I have been told.'

‘You are not among them, I suppose?'

The doctor looked startled, and hurt. ‘I? You cannot think that I would chance the lives that I hold dear, your own life, and Meg's? My hope is that a man might live in peace and faith, whatever that may be, without fear or force, which comfort we had here before this present threat. You call me traitor, now? The foe that makes that rift between us has achieved his end before he ever sets a foot upon this soil.'

The passion in his words made Hew ashamed. ‘I spoke ill. Forgive me,' he said.

‘Ill words may be forgiven, Hew, but that ye thought them, no.'

‘I never, on my life, thought any ill of you. But I am out of humour, thrawn, and ken not what to think.'

Giles did not sulk long. He looked his close friend over with a doctor's eye. ‘Your spirits are thrown thwart, and your temper, too. You are pale and cross. What is the matter, Hew? Is it Walter Bone, the man who died today?'

Hew flung himself into the doctor's gossip chair, where often in the past he had sought for resolution, spilling out the trouble on his mind. ‘I cannot help but think that it was all my fault.'

Giles belonged to a faith that believed in absolution, but Hew did not want to be absolved. He wanted to be showered with bitter words and blamed.

Giles did not indulge him in his wish. He listened to his words, before concluding reasonably and quietly, ‘You were not to blame.'

It was rare enough that Giles was unequivocal, and Hew had not expected it. ‘I foresaw the tragedy, and I should have diverted it. I tried to, Giles. Because I was mistaken, I brought the thing about. If I had not insisted Walter was locked up, he might have found the lass before she came to Michael, then Walter would have had nothing to avenge, and he would not be killed,' he said.

The doctor shook his head. ‘You may not determine what things might have been. Walter telt you clearly his intent: he meant to kill a man. That one fact alone is clear and certain here. You moved to prevent it. But you were like a man with only half a map, who tries to steer a ship upon a different course when fortune has determined it must strike the rocks. Your action may deflect it for the while, but cannot keep it safe, for the cross winds blind you to the way ahead.'

‘Then you believe all this was written in the stars?' asked Hew.

‘Aye, to some extent. There are other forces at work upon them too, as human will, and God's.'

‘But is my intervention not the devil's work? Walter came to me when he would make his will. He came to me because I was involved with all that went before at the harbour inn. I helped to make the sale. And all that went before – Elspet was the relict of it,' Hew persisted.

‘And so you think that you were instrumental in her fate?' Giles raised an eyebrow, sceptically, which his friend ignored.

‘She was
left behind
. I did not think of her.'

‘And you believe you should have done?' asked Giles.

‘Aye, I should have done. My actions then did shape what now becomes of her.'

‘We cannot see the future. It were pride and folly to suppose we can,' Giles said. ‘Those sorcerers who seek to ken what it is to come are damned, and see their own destruction in their crystal balls.'

‘You say that, with your charts?'

‘The charts are dispositions, Hew, and are not set in stone. They cannot tell us all that is to come, they merely tell us where the wind will blow. I may ken that certain physic suits a man at certain times and serve it to him at those times, to increase his chance. The man may yet depart upon a different course, and he may harm himself, but God alone decides if he will survive. Walter, I believe, was disposed to die. You did not have the power to turn him from that end. But I do not believe that you were fortune's instrument, nor that he was driven blindly to his fate. The proof is in his words when he came to you, ‘to make his
will
,' he said. That will was his, not yours. You served him as his man of law. Elspet too. And there is nothing in that worthy of reproach. In this, for once, I count you not to blame.'

Hew smiled at that. ‘Your kind words are welcome, though not yet deserved.'

‘Not kind, but honest, Hew. Trust me to remind you when you are at fault. But not upon this day. Today, if any day, you should set aside your quarrels with the world.'

‘Why, what is today?'

‘You do not ken?' The doctor laughed. ‘I have it on authority I do not dare to doubt – your sister's and your wife's – that this day is your birthday. Please do not deny it, for you are found out.'

‘I suppose it is,' said Hew, who kept no note of it. ‘But such days do not count, except for bairns and kings.'

‘Do not tell that to your wife, who prepares a banquet for you. Meg is with her now, and you and I expected. It is a surprise.'

‘It is,' said Hew. ‘Or was.'

‘I thought I should forewarn you, in your present state. Or you would ruin the feast, with your baleful looks.'

‘My birthday is no cause for feasting,' Hew replied.

‘Frances thinks it is. God will you do not show to her your cold ungrateful face. Calvin himself permits a man good cheer to thank the Lord for life. We are not like pharaohs, gorging to excess. The lapin that you like, in a mustard sauce, pippins in a pie, a jug of claret wine, will do well for us. The bairns have brought you honey from our bees. And I have here a gift for you that I prepared myself. It is your horoscope.'

‘My horoscope,' Hew whispered. ‘Why would you do that?'

He felt a clutch, a tremor in his heart, though he did not believe, never had believed, in horoscopes. But now he understood that Giles had worked on his, through the sultry days when he was close and secretive, he was half afraid, and fascinated too, as though his friend had cast a charm that he could not resist.

‘You looked to see my future there?' he said.

‘Not your future, Hew. That I cannot do. And would not, if I could. Rather, I have here your native disposition, according to the motions and disposal of the planets at the moment you were born. Would you like to see it?' Giles unfurled the scroll, and showed to him a paper filled with charts and scribblings he could scarcely read.

‘I know not what it means.'