The Rough Collier (17 page)

‘It needs a light of some sort,’ he said. ‘That’s Murray in at the wall, right enough, is it no? You can see the red hair still clinging to . . . to . . .’

‘Yes,’ agreed Gil. ‘I think that’s our man, right enough.’ He came to stand beside Michael and looked at the bed, the back of his hand to his nose.

Over a month had passed since the two bodies there were warm and live; what the rats, the insects, the fox and time itself had left, tattered and shrunken flesh and naked bones, was still recognizable as human, but little more than that. Two skulls with a little skin still attached, the eye sockets dark and empty, stared into the shadows. As Michael had said, one was identifiable by the hanks of red hair still attached to the taut yellow scalp, though neither Joanna nor anyone else would recognize the face. Two sets of shoulder-bones, two ribcages were tilted inwards as if the lovers had been talking, or as if, Gil thought with another surge of pity, they had realized what was happening and turned to each other for reassurance in the last moments. A linen sheet was under them, and another was drawn over them nearly to waist level, both stained beyond redemption. Brownish skin and drying sinews clung over the joints, keeping the limbs articulated, and though the rats had made off with the fingers and part of the hand, one could still make out the tenderness in the gesture with which the red-haired corpse had laid one arm over the broad shoulders of his bedfellow.

‘But this one,’ said Michael. ‘This is a man and all. The hair’s shorter than mine, look at those shoulders. It’s got no paps. It’s a man!’ He turned to Gil in astonishment and horror. ‘It’s two men. Maister Gil, is that his leman? The forester?’

‘I think it must be,’ agreed Gil.

‘You mean we’ve gone through all this for a pair of kything kitterel –’ He broke off, still staring at Gil over the wadded handkerchief. ‘And him a married man, too!’

‘Every one of us deserves time for amendment of life,’ said Gil, noting this reaction with interest. So there’s still innocence abroad, he thought. Or did I simply learn far more in Paris than I was sent for? ‘Not to mention,’ he added, ‘that we need to work out what happened here. How do you read it, Michael?’

‘Some things there’s no amending,’ said Michael. He drew back from the bed, and gazed round again. ‘They’ve died in the same moment,’ he hazarded, ‘or near it.’

‘We canny tell that,’ said Gil. ‘Near it, I’ll allow.’

‘And which of them was the catamite?’ wondered Michael. ‘A collier and a forester – how could either one of them . . .?’

‘No way to tell,’ said Gil.

‘Perhaps they took it in turns,’ speculated Michael with distaste.

It was, Gil felt, a matter for the priests to worry about; there was no way to guess from the way the bodies were disposed which man had played the woman’s part, endangering his immortal soul and inviting the opprobrium which few would apply to his partner. His concern was more practical: how had the two men died?

‘Start at the beginning. Did you have time to discern aught outside, afore I dragged you in here?’

Michael paused to consider. ‘The forester’s cart’s standing there. Likely he came home from his day’s work to find this one here.’

‘So I thought,’ agreed Gil. ‘His knives are lying out there in his scrip, rusting with the rain where he dropped them.’

Michael shut his eyes, apparently to visualize something the better.

‘He came home, and his nancy was here waiting for him. They came into the house, and had a meal. They went into the bed – where’s their clothes?’ he asked, opening his eyes.

‘Yonder by the bed-foot, all in the one tangle.’ Gil nodded at the shadows. ‘I think the goats have been at them. You know the way they’ll eat linen.’

‘St Peter’s bones! Where are the brutes, anyway? I canny abide goats, the way they leer at you.’

As if on a cue, small hooves clipped on the cobbles and the leader of the little flock peered in at the open door. Michael waved his arms and shouted, and the creature gave him a look of ineffable contempt, turned and pattered away. Her companions followed her, the kid bleating anxiously for its mother.

‘Then what?’ prompted Gil.

Michael, recalled to his task, clamped his handkerchief over his nose, closed his eyes again, and offered indistinctly, ‘Then they died. Both together, or one after the other, as you please.’

‘
O lusty gallands gay
,’ Gil quoted, ‘
full laichly thus sall ly
thy lusty heid
. But why? Why would two grown men fall dead in an afternoon?’

‘Afternoon?’

‘I’d say they bedded well before nightfall,’ Gil observed. ‘If it was near dark Syme would have seen to his beasts, surely, milked the goats and shut the hens in, rather than have to rise and fetch them in later.’

‘I see what you mean.’ Michael opened his eyes and looked longingly at the door. ‘Can we go outside? I canny breathe in here. You must have a right strong stomach, Maister Gil.’

‘We’ll stand by the doorway. There’s still things to learn here. Can you jalouse why two men should meet their end in the one moment?’

‘A judgement on their unnatural ways.’

‘What, to
caus all men fra wicket vycis fle
. Aye, possibly, but I’m no so sure it works like that,’ Gil said wryly. ‘Come on, you’re an educated man, and you learned the hunt the same as I did. What can you see, or not see?’

‘Was it maybe some sickness? Christ aid, it’s foul enough in here now to infect the Host of Scotland. I hope we’re no dead by morning ourselves.’

‘Do you see sign of sickness? Has either man’s belly been afflicted, would you say? The jordan’s there below the bed,’ he pointed into the shadows, ‘but it hadny been used.’

‘No, there’s no sign, but the rats might have got the traces.’

‘If one of them sickened first, the other would have got him to bed. I see only that they bedded together. I think when they went into the bed they were hale.’

‘It’s a judgement, then, like I said.’

‘Think, Michael. Two men, hale when they ate their supper, both dead or too far gone to rise afore it was dark. What does that suggest to you?’

‘If it’s no a judgement from Heaven, is it poison?’

‘So I think.’ Gil relaxed. ‘I think they were poisoned.’

‘Poisoned.’ Michael gazed round the sparse, shadowy interior of the cottage, as if looking for a culprit. ‘Who by, then? Was it deliberate, or was the supper bad? Is there any ill going about that would slay two men in that time? Or was it maybe a pact atween them two?’

‘What, a pact to die together? I’ll admit I never thought of that.’ Gil frowned, staring into the shadows beyond the bed. ‘If it was, it was a sudden idea, for Murray gave no sign at the coaltown or to the two sinkers that he’d not return from this trip. I suppose it could have been solely Syme’s doing, a way to keep his leman with him for ever.’

‘What a wickedness!’ said Michael through the handkerchief. ‘Though I’d believe anything of such an unnatural –’

‘Wickedness? More than the sin it involves?’

‘It’s selfish. It’s thinking more of yourself than your leman. Would you slay Alys – Mistress Mason – if you couldny dwell wi’ her as you wished?’

‘No,’ admitted Gil, ‘and I take nor would you. But the circumstances are different. I’ve no notion what I’d do if I’d stood in Murray’s place, or Syme’s.’

‘Mine are no so different,’ said Michael quietly. ‘Nobody’s like to be disgusted that Tib and I love one another, but we’re kept apart by our families, wi’ no great hopes of reunion. Just the same, I’d never look for her to die wi’ me, like folk in a silly romance.’

Gil paused for a moment to take in this statement, and gripped the younger man’s shoulder with a sympathetic hand. Michael threw him a startled, hesitant smile from behind the handkerchief, and Gil in some embarrassment returned to the subject at issue.

‘Whether it was a pact or no, we need to determine what slew them. Then we might learn whose doing it was. Can you see aught to the purpose?’

They both surveyed the scene before them. Outside the men gossiped uneasily beyond the gurgling burn, the crows croaked in the treetops, a goat bleated. Here in the shadows nothing stirred, but something seemed to nudge at Gil’s mind, a movement just out of sight, a whisper just below hearing. What was it telling him?

‘There’s the dead rats,’ Michael said suddenly. ‘What slew that pair of kitterels maybe slew the rats as well. Could that be it?’

‘The rats.’ Yes, that was it. Gil stepped carefully round the cold peats on the hearth and looked down at the scatter of little bones. There were two, no, three rat skulls, a powder of tiny teeth, some tatters of skin. ‘And the flask. I admit the flask has been worrying me. It’s a thing out of place.’

‘I’ve heard you say that sort of thing afore,’ observed Michael. ‘You think it was poison in the flask that slew the rats? Or maybe in that wee jug, where the bones are? Why is it on the floor, anyway?’

‘Circumstantial,’ said Gil, ‘but persuasive.’ Michael blinked at the long words. ‘Aye, it looks very much as if flask and bottle fell over, the bottle rolled on to the floor, and the rats drank whatever spilled. But was it that they died of, and which was it in, flask or bottle? Or was it something in the food on the table?’

‘Is there a way to find out?’ Michael asked.

Gil shrugged. ‘Prayer,’ he offered. The younger man grunted, with what Gil felt to be a healthy show of scepticism. ‘And questioning folk, I suppose. Alys might know something to the purpose.’

‘Does she know everything?’ asked Michael, in genuine enquiry.

Gil smiled, but said only, ‘The flask must be the one Murray was given just before he left the Pow Burn.’

‘I wondered about that. It’s a valuable thing for either of these two to have owned. Who gave him it? What was in it?’

‘Mistress Weir, according to Joanna.’ Gil gazed down at the object. ‘There was cordial in it, to drink her health on her birthday, so Joanna told my wife.’

‘St Peter’s bones! So what was really in it, do you suppose? Was it the old woman who poisoned them, then?’

‘Or Joanna, who must have handled the thing, or young Bel when she brought it to Joanna, or even her sister, or certainly her grandam – it could have been any of the folk up there save young Crombie, who was in Glasgow at the time. Or, I suppose, anyone who knew the flask was there, at the places they called on the way, or at Juggling Nick’s.’

Michael whistled.

‘All the folk at the heugh had reason enough, by what we’ve learned so far,’ he admitted. ‘Could it have been a conspiracy, then? All of them plotting together?’

‘It could. There are many possibilities.’

‘Or maybe someone at Nick’s was jealous. What do you suppose they used?’

‘I’ve no notion what it was, or what it was in either.’ Gil stirred the small bones with his toe. ‘And I hope Alys can help me, for we can hardly ask the likeliest to know hereabouts.’

Michael made a questioning noise. Gil bent to lift flask and bottle, and sniffed cautiously at each. The bottle had clearly held usquebae, but on the flask there was a faint smell of old grape spirits, a bitter whiff of something like his mother’s cough syrup, a herbal smell. Had Alys mentioned elderberries? He reached for the stopper of the flask where it lay on the table, flakes of wax still clinging to it, and stowed all three items in his purse with care.

‘Mistress Lithgo, that everyone calls a good woman,’ he said as he fastened the strings, ‘is as likely as any of them to have done it, and if she didny, she likely supplied the stuff.’

Chapter Nine

The Hamiltons’ steward at Bonnington, a Hamilton himself, was quite unable to take it all in.

‘Two dead, you say?’ he repeated anxiously, as if the number might have changed since they first told him. ‘And lying as long amid the wild beasts – dreadful, dreadful. I canny credit it. You’ll take another stoup of this ale, sirs, it’s good to clear the throat and settle an uneasy wame.’ He poured generously, and Michael leaned forward to take his. He was still a pearly greenish colour, and had hardly spoken since they left the forester’s cottage and its dismal lodgers.

‘Two dead,’ Gil confirmed.

John Hamilton shook his head. ‘And to learn such a thing of Andro, the bonnie lad, the good worker he’s aye been. Oh, maister, it’s hard to credit, so it is. And taking a collier lad for his catamite and all – dreadful, dreadful! Are ye certain it’s Andro?’

‘It seems most likely,’ said Gil. ‘The body’s well past knowing, as you’ll imagine, but the height and the colour of the hair are right and it’s hard to see who else it might be, in the man’s own house. When did you see him last?’

‘Likely at the quarter-day,’ said Hamilton, shaking his head again, ‘I canny think. For such a thing to happen on our land, and me not know it! But he’s aye been a fellow that kept himsel away from the house,’ he added. ‘Good at his work, he is, for all he’s no from hereabouts. Came to us from Ayrshire, he did. So what wi’ having no kin in the neighbourhood, and the way his work takes him all across the place, you’ll understand, maister, we seldom set eyes on him, and times we lend him out to other landholders forbye. Sir James your father was asking me afore he went to Stirling, Maister Michael, about getting a laddie taught his craft by working wi’ Andro. And he’s aye preferred to go home to his own roof-tree and get his own supper, rather than come up to eat wi’ the household.’

‘Well, it’s a good couple of mile from here to the cottage, which is reason enough for that,’ said Gil. ‘So you think you saw him at the quarter-day. That would be just over four weeks since. Did he collect his quarter’s fee? What was it?’

‘A wee bit coin and a sack of meal,’ supplied the steward promptly. ‘I can check the accounts, maister, if you’d wish it. I still canny credit this. Such a bonnie lad, all the lassies about the house has a notion to him. And poisoned, ye said? Was it an accident? A bad mushroom, maybe? These workers on the land often have a liking for mushrooms, the unchancy things, and it would be a judgement on the two of them –’

‘I don’t know,’ said Gil. ‘The rats and the beasts had cleared the cooking-pot and never suffered from it, though it’s a good thought, Maister Hamilton. I’d say it’s been a deliberate poisoning, and in something they drank, though it’s possible it was meant for the other man rather than Syme.’

‘For the collier? Oh, what a wickedness!’ Hamilton crossed himself. ‘Who would do such a thing, to slay a man in that way and never care who else it took wi’ him?’

Gil nodded, and took another pull at his ale. ‘A wicked deed, maister. Can you tell me if the forester had enemies? Any of the lassies feel slighted, or their men maybe jealous?’

‘What, you think it was my household? Why would anyone here wish to slay the collier? He doesny come to this house, we get our coals across the river in Cadzow parish, from my maister’s own coal-heugh.’

‘I agree, if it was meant for the collier, it’s no more likely to be anyone here than elsewhere,’ agreed Gil in placating tones, ‘but if it was meant for Syme, it could well have been one of your household.’

‘Oh.’ Hamilton threw him an uncertain look, and peered into the ale-jug. ‘I’ve no a notion. I wouldny say any of our folk would poison a man. They’re no saints,’ he qualified, ‘we get squabbles and fists thrown and hair-pullings same as any household ye ever kent, but to procure poison and minister it in secret like that, well, I wouldny say so, maister.’ He set the jug back on the table before him, where it clunked emptily. ‘Now, I’ve bidden the men get a couple hurdles and a bolt of canvas, and lay them on the big cart, but how we get that down to the forester’s house is more than I can tell. We’ll maybe need to use his own handcart to bring him out. And then I suppose the Provost or the Sheriff will want to call a quest on them and raise the hue and cry, and all. Oh, my, what a thing to happen on my maister’s lands!’

‘It might be wiser to coffin them afore you move them,’ said Gil doubtfully. ‘If you’ve the stomach for it, you’d best come down yourself and look at the state they’re in.’

‘Oh, I’ll do that, sir.’ Hamilton rose. ‘Syme’s our man whatever his sins, I’ll see to his needs.’

‘And the accounts,’ Gil prompted. ‘Maybe you could check those afore we leave, make certain of whether Syme collected his fee at the quarter.’

‘Oh, aye, indeed!’ The steward bustled to the door of his chamber and opened it. ‘Will! Where’s Will Thomson? Send to him I want the last quarter’s account.’

Someone answered distantly, and he plunged out into the next chamber with a brief word of apology. Michael finished his beaker of ale and said, ‘Will you need me back at the cottage?’

‘We left two of your men there,’ Gil reminded him. ‘No need to enter the place. Or you could ride into Lanark for me and get a word with the Provost. I think my mother said Archie Hamilton the Sheriff was away just now, so it goes rightly to the Provost as his depute.’

‘I’ll do that, and wait for you at Juggling Nick’s. I’d as soon not go back to the forester’s place. The whole clearing was fit to turn your wame,’ Michael admitted. ‘What wi’ that great owl sitting in the yew tree watching the house. I was near enough taking a stone to it, save that my head was whirling by the time we came away.’ He paused, and grimaced resignedly. ‘Then I’ll need to get up to the Pow Burn, to break it to them. I take it you’d wish to be present?’

‘I do,’ agreed Gil, once more aware of being favourably impressed by his sister’s seducer. ‘I have things to ask them.’

Maister Hamilton hurried back into the chamber, a stout black-gowned clerk following him with a leather-bound roll of parchment open in his hands.

‘Here’s a thing, Maister Cunningham!’ the steward exclaimed. ‘Syme never came for his fee at Lady Day. Will here has it all writ down clear as day, he can show you in a moment.’

‘All writ down,’ confirmed his clerk in a squeaky voice. ‘All but four of the outside men had their fee on the itself, and the remaining three we paid out on the Tuesday following, when maister steward here came back from Edinburgh. But Andro Syme’s never been up to the house.’ He ran his finger down the lines of crabbed writing. ‘And to tell truth, sir, it had slipped my mind, or I’d ha’ been out to his place to mind him o’t myself. It makes the accounts untidy, you’ll understand, sir, when a man’s fee gets left lying like that.’

‘It does,’ agreed Gil. ‘But in this case I think we’ll have to forgive Syme. I think he was dead afore Lady Day.’ Both the Bonnington men stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘The last time the other fellow was seen alive was March twentieth. I think they were both dead by sunset that day.’

‘They were no further help at Juggling Nick’s?’ said Michael.

‘Only in the negative,’ said Gil. ‘So far as Bessie or any other could recall, Murray was just as usual the last time they saw him. He left his horse and said nothing to the stableman or anyone else that suggested he wouldn’t be back for it in a week as usual.’

‘That’s much what she said to me when I first tracked the beast there,’ agreed Michael. He looked about him, and turned his horse off the road on to a narrow stony track. Gil followed, and the two Cauldhope men at their backs clattered after them. ‘This will take us to the Pow Burn. Maister Lockhart the Provost was no great help either. I had to be firm about it being murder before he’d agree to call a quest. Seemed to feel it was either Bonnington’s problem or Carluke’s, and none of his.’

Gil grunted. They rode in silence for a while, the pee-wits calling above them, a lark’s song carrying in shreds on the wind. Gil found himself thinking of the way Beatrice Lithgo had appeared over the flank of this same hillside among the cottars of Thorn, her hands bound, cap askew, bearing herself with dignity and composure. And there were the other Crombie women: Joanna, sweet and lovely, troubled and fearful; Phemie full of angry intelligence, her sister overflowing with words she could not speak. And Arbella Weir, as dignified as her daughter-in-law, her transcendent pride in the coal-heugh glowing in her blue eyes. One of these, most likely, had poisoned Thomas Murray. But why?

‘I still don’t see why he was killed,’ said Michael suddenly. Gil recalled himself to his surroundings, and made a questioning sound. ‘Murray,’ Michael qualified unnecessarily. ‘He was good at his trade, he brought money in to the coal-heugh, he was no worse a husband than many you hear about, he –’

‘He quarrelled with Mistress Weir,’ Gil pointed out. ‘He was difficult to work with, kept himself superior to the men. Joanna feared his sharp tongue, it seems he’s free with his hands among the women, he had slighted Phemie and made fun of the younger one.’

‘Are those reasons to kill someone?’

‘I’m learning,’ Gil said, ‘that people will kill for very strange reasons.’

‘But does anyone gain by his death?’ Michael persisted. ‘I’ve felt angry enough to slay someone if I’d only had a knife in my hand, who hasny? But cold poison, ministered in secret like this, that’s a different matter altogether, and you’d surely need to be sure of a great gain to plan and carry out such a thing. Or was it vengeance? Did his wife – Joanna – did she guess what he was?’

‘Those are things I’ll have to find out.’ Gil nodded at the muddle of buildings coming into view over the flank of the hill. ‘I’ve learned a lot about the coal-heugh folk and their business, I may already have the answer in my hand, but I’ll have to ask more questions before I can be sure.’

‘They’ve seen us,’ said Michael after a moment.

‘They have,’ Gil agreed, studying the group of women gathering at the near corner of the house by the stillroom pent. He had picked out Alys immediately, in her light-coloured riding-dress. Beside her Beatrice Lithgo and her elder daughter were easily identified; Joanna’s white apron was conspicuous, the household servants were just joining them from the outlying kitchen building. The kitchen must be empty, he thought. I hope the supper doesn’t burn.

‘This will be difficult,’ Michael said grimly.

‘I think they know already,’ said Gil. ‘Alys must have said something.’

Under the gaze of many eyes, they rode down the track to the house, and dismounted. Michael handed his reins to one of his men, stepped forward, removed his hat, swallowed once, and said, ‘Is Crombie no here?’

‘He rode out to Forth this morning,’ said Beatrice Lithgo. ‘He’s no back yet. Have you aught to tell us, Maister Michael?’

Michael nodded. ‘Mistress Brownlie?’ he said. Round the corner of the house Jamesie Meikle appeared at a run, then checked on the edge of the group and stood tensely, his gaze fixed on Joanna, who floated forward almost as if she was sleepwalking.

‘What is it?’ she said, on a gasp. ‘What do you have to tell me?’

‘Mistress Brownlie, I believe we’ve found your husband,’ said Michael awkwardly.

She stared at him, all the colour leaving her face. ‘Is he – is he –?’

‘I believe Thomas Murray is dead,’ he said, more gently. ‘We’ve found the corp of a red-haired man, dead since about the quarter-day.’

She made a little whimpering noise, and put her hands up as if to push the words away. Gil looked beyond her and caught Alys’s eye; they both started towards her, but it was Jamesie Meikle’s arms which were just in time to receive her slender form as she wilted and fell, boneless as a hank of wool.

‘You wee fool!’ he spat at Michael. ‘To break it that way!’ He gathered her up, and swung away from them towards the exclaiming women.

‘Aye, bring her in the house, Jamesie,’ said Beatrice Lithgo from among the group. ‘You’ll come within, maisters, I hope,’ she added with her usual faint irony, and turned to lead the way round the corner of the building. Alys touched Gil’s hand, gave him a quick smile, and hurried after the others. Phemie, left behind, looked from Gil to Michael.

‘Is he really dead?’ she demanded. ‘You’re sure of it?’

‘As sure as you can be of a five-week-old corp,’ said Gil.

‘His clothes? His knife? What about his hand?’ She demonstrated the shortened fingers.

‘All the evidence we’ve got suggests it’s Thomas Murray.’

She drew a deep breath, and stared at the sky, her eyes glittering.

‘I’m glad,’ she declared. ‘I’m right glad of it!’

‘Might we go in the house, as your mother bade us?’

Phemie turned that suspiciously bright stare on him.

‘Oh – I suppose,’ she said grudgingly after a moment. ‘Come round to the door. And your men, and the horses.’

Within Joanna’s own apartment there was disorder and confusion. Joanna herself was laid on the bed, Jamesie Meikle standing grimly by her pillow. Beatrice was bent over her, and Alys was directing several women who ran to and fro exclaiming, their wooden-soled shoes clattering on the floorboards. As Gil entered behind Phemie, two of the younger maidservants began a ritual-sounding wailing in a corner. Phemie dealt with this sharply, ordering them to move the cushioned bench from the bed-foot to the window and then be off to the kitchen, to fetch some refreshment for the guests and see to the two Cauldhope men.

‘You might as well be seated, maisters,’ she said, pointing to the bench. ‘There’ll be nobody but me to talk to you till Joanna’s back in her right mind, seeing my dear brother’s no returned from whatever mischief he’s got up to.’

‘I’ll be happy to talk to you,’ said Gil, while Michael stared anxiously at Joanna. ‘But where is your grandmother?’

‘Resting, most like,’ said Phemie indifferently. ‘She rests a lot now. She’s spent a lot of time sleeping this past week. Bel’s set by her wi’ her spinning, I’ve no doubt.’ She sat down, looking from one to the other of them. ‘Is he really dead? Where? How? What happened? And why,’ she added, the idea obviously only now occurring to her, ‘has it taken this long to find him, if he’s near five week dead? He must ha’ been well hid.’