The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

TEN Straloch

I left Aberdeen the next day in the early afternoon. The service in the West Kirk of St Nicholas had lasted from ten until noon, and I had shared a hasty meal of broth and bread with William and Elizabeth before taking my leave of them. When I rode out from Aberdeen that afternoon it was with a new determination to be whatever it might be given to me to be. The need to free Charles from his prison was as strong as it had been from the first, not just for his sake now, though, but for my own, for I felt that I had been chosen for the task. I felt no great sorrow at leaving Aberdeen, as I had feared only two days previously that I might, and no sense of dread at the prospect of making my way back to Banff. I had not failed myself, not shamed myself or my burgh since leaving, and I had come to understand, in my few days with old friends and new acquaintances, that it was not universally expected of me that I should hang my head in shame and achieve nothing.

As I crossed the Don at the Brig o’ Balgownie, and left the two towns behind me once more, my hand went to the saddlebag and I checked the clasp once again, fearful that it might have been interfered with. My commission from Banff, the precious map, with its accompanying letter from the provost, were still there, still sealed, but now they were accompanied by not one but two other, sealed documents, whose contents remained a tantalising secret to me. There was the letter, written before my eyes, by the artist George Jamesone to the provost of Banff, and there was another, by the same hand, which had arrived by a servant at William’s door late last night, addressed to Robert Gordon of Straloch himself. Jamesone’s servant had relayed that his master very kindly asked that I might deliver this letter into the laird of Straloch’s own hand. As I had assured William, I had told the artist nothing of my business at Straloch, other than that I would bed there on my homeward journey. William was uneasy that I had said anything at all. I could scarcely refuse, but I did not like the commission.

Not only letters, but voices too, accompanied me as I left the two towns behind and took the road north-west. Voices of encouragement, voices of warning, voices of fear. As the horse, not yet wearying under its extra burden of newly bought books, trampled out the road and the spires and coastline of Aberdeen faded further into the distance until at last they disappeared, so too did the encouraging voices of Matthew Lumsden, Dr Dun and Dr Forbes recede. Their place was taken by the ever more insistent voice of caution of my friend William Cargill, and the determined terror of the departing Mary Dawson. ‘Why you, Alexander? Why your schoolroom? Why you with this commission? Have a care, Alexander.’ The horse’s hooves beat out the rhythm of William’s warnings and every so often they found a reply on the wind from Mary Dawson, ‘I will never see Banff again.’

The sky was darkening as I approached Straloch in the late afternoon, and the storm broke just as I turned into the broad sweep of the drive. Thunder and lightning ripped from overhead and I forced the horse into a gallop for the last few hundred yards. Nevertheless, I was drenched, a poor specimen of a visitor, by the time we reached the courtyard at the front of the house. A servant answered my banging on the door and called for a stable boy to take my horse. He heard my hurried commission in the front hall and then, evidently deciding I might be who I said I was, allowed me into the body of the house. A young woman emerged into the light from the darkness of the east wing, watching for the visitor to arrive. She came forward, her flowing silk skirts rustling almost in time with the rain which poured down from the gutters outside. Her hair was dark, and she did not wear it up, but long and loose, brushed back from her face to show cheekbones that looked to be the work of some master sculptor and not formed by God. Her eyes were grey crystal. She was too young to be Straloch’s wife, but a little too old, I thought, to be one of his daughters.

‘It is a messenger from Banff,’ said the servant, ‘for the master. He says he has a letter from the provost.’ The man’s bearing implied that he was not entirely convinced that what I said was the truth, but the young woman seemed satisfied and dismissed him.

‘I am sorry, sir,’ she said. ‘The laird is not in the house at this minute. He is still out, hunting. He should return within the hour, or sooner, if this storm does not pass. The mistress is resting, but will be up for dinner. Can I be of any help?’

I looked at her, unsure as to how to proceed. She had a bright and open manner, and her face spoke of intellect, yet the provost’s dire warnings were ringing in my ears, and I knew I must wait on an answer from Straloch himself. ‘I’m sorry, I am not …’

She made a gesture of awkwardness. ‘Oh, I am sorry. I have not said who I am. My name is Isabella Irvine; my aunt is the lady of this house.’ She waited.

‘I am Alexander Seaton,’ I said. ‘I have come to see the laird of Straloch on the business of the burgh of Banff. I am sorry, but I am under authority to place my commission only into the hands of Robert Gordon himself.’ Although her feet had not taken a step, she looked as if her whole body had shrunk backwards, and not at my rebuttal of her offer of help, but at the mention of my name. She recovered herself quickly enough, but that she had been shaken, and that her manner towards me was now somewhat changed, was unmistakable.

She indicated a large, high-backed chair beside the fire. ‘If you wish to wait until the laird returns, you may sit there. I will have some refreshment sent.’ Then, with little more conversation or ceremony, she excused herself and departed up the stairs and out of my sight. I took the chair with gladness and, since it appeared no one would be around to see it, I removed my boots and let my feet dry by the fire. A servant brought ale and warm bannocks. As I took my rest and my refreshment, I tried to think what might have occasioned the change in Isabella Irvine’s manner towards me. Could it really be that the mention of my very name, bad as it was in Banff but surely not notorious here, was enough to put fear or contempt into young women in lairdly houses all over the north? I did not think so. And yet it was my name that had marked the change in her, as if borne in on a cold wind from the North. I pondered it, as the rain beating down outside contended with the roar of the fire within: I knew the name Isabella Irvine, but I could not think how or from where.

I had not too long for reflection, for within the quarter-hour I could hear a commotion of horses and riders out the front, and servants started busying themselves from one room to another, crossing the hall and back again like busy ants. As the great oaken front door was opened, a whole troupe of children – at least six or seven of varying sizes – rumbled down the stairs from an upper gallery, followed by their cousin, Isabella. ‘Children, give your father a minute to get his breath. Boys! Come back in here this minute.’ Two of the smaller boys had rushed through the door as a weary huntsman had come in it, and out into the courtyard, calling for their father. They returned a moment later, utterly drenched, one in each arm of Robert Gordon of Straloch. The others rushed at him with questions about the hunt, and complaints about not being allowed out by their overzealous jailer, their cousin Isabella. Three older boys and a girl followed their father in from the hunt, the girl calling out orders behind her as to what was to be taken to the kitchens, and what hung in the stores. There was arguing and boasting about the size of the kill, and laughter about the escape of a wild pig. Only the hounds noticed me, as they contended with each other for proximity to the fire. It was once the initial excitement of the homecoming died down and Straloch had been helped from his soaking hunting coat by a servant, that Isabella Irvine announced me to her uncle. Her voice was low and her eyes filled with a quiet anger; she watched me as she talked.

The laird of Straloch turned towards where I now stood, between his dogs and with my back to his hearth. ‘Mr Seaton? You are here on business from Banff?’

‘I am, sir. I have a letter from the provost, Walter Watt, which he bids me wait for a reply to.’

He nodded and said briskly, ‘Then let us see to it in my library. Robert, give instructions to Hugh about the gutting, and see that the birds are hung. Margaret, go with your cousin and see if she cannot turn you back into a lady. I will hear over much about it from your mother if she cannot.’ The smaller children were also ushered away, and I followed the laird down into his library in the west wing of the house. It was a long, high-ceilinged room with large windows to the west, affording the best possible light. William Cargill’s small and tidy lawyer’s study bore no comparison to this workroom of the laird of Straloch. There were more books in this room than I had seen in the room of any other individual, even of Dr Forbes. From where I stood I could see books of every size, colour and description. Huge charts were spread out on tables near the windows, tables that were also piled high with books and sheaves of script. I had not much time for scanning the shelves, for the laird was a man with little time to waste.

‘You have a letter for me, then, Mr Seaton.’ I handed him first the letter from Walter Watt, without the map; Jamesone’s missive would also keep. He broke the seal and took the letter over to the window, leaving me little chance of ascertaining its contents. I watched him as he read. He had been transformed from huntsman into learned scholar by little more than the changing of the room and the light. Poorly governed locks of hair receded from a high, intelligent brow, and the fingers that held the letter were long and slim, fitted for the great cartographer that he was. His eyes were kind, tired almost. After he had read some way down the first page he glanced up at me. His mind too, like his niece’s, had some knowledge of my name. He did not pause for long though, and continued to the end without any word. When he had finished reading, he folded the pages once again and walked to his desk, placing the letter in a small wooden case that he then locked. He looked at me directly. ‘You know the contents of this letter?’

For a brief moment I considered pretending that I had no notion of what was in it, in the hope that Straloch might reveal something – what? – to me. But that was a dangerous game, and I had always come last or too late in games of strategy. ‘I have an idea of its message, but I have not read it, nor has the provost given me any detailed account of what he has written.’

Straloch nodded. ‘And the map?’ I held it out to him, but he would not take it in his hand. Rainwater was running down his sleeves and every other part of his clothing, and he would not risk damage to the document. He asked instead that I should place it on his desk next to the cachet box. ‘I take it you have no other business elsewhere tonight, Mr Seaton?’

I affirmed that I had none.

‘Good, then you are free to spend tonight here? I am much interested in this business, and the assessment of a map cannot be made in a moment. Your provost makes clear his desire that the matter should not be noised abroad, and I fear we will have no privacy at the dinner table here, but if you will stay the night we can talk at more length of the matter, and I can examine the map. You can stay?’

I had not expected an instant answer from Straloch on the map or its import, and had made no arrangements to spend the night elsewhere. I was not entirely glad, though, at the prospect of facing down the cold dislike of Isabella Irvine throughout the meal. I accepted the offer of his hospitality with something of a heavy heart.

‘My niece will have a room made up for you. My wife is still recovering from her latest childbed, and is not yet ready to take charge of the house again.’ He smiled. ‘As you will see, we have been many times blessed. I will have Isabella fetch you some dry boots, too, or you will die of a fever before the night is out, as will I if I do not go and change soon out of the rest of these sodden hunting rags.’ Our interview presently over, he opened the door and called for his niece to be fetched. Within two minutes, the girl appeared and accepted her instructions without demur, although not without registering her distaste for the task in her ice-grey eyes.

I had scarcely had time to dry myself and change my clothing before a gong in the hall below beat out the call to assemble and eat. I followed the echoing noise and the stream of people spilling from the upper floors down the great stairway and on to the dining hall of Straloch. The room was brightly lit, with candles burning in every sconce, and in two chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. Family portraits lined the panelled walls, and vases and ornaments of the finest German porcelain decorated a side table. Heavy black velvet drapes, trimmed with gold brocade, were shut against the darkness of the night. The glassware must have been the work of the finest Venetian craftsmen. I had not seen such a room since I had last set foot in Delgatie. The long refectory table was seated for twenty, the younger children having already been fed by their nurses. Robert Gordon was seated at one end of the table and his wife, indeed tired and pale, yet with a welcoming smile, at the other. At least four of the older children were there, and a gaggle of cousins, friends and kin whom I could scarcely distinguish one from the other.

There was little conversation to begin with. The hunters were all too ravenous for talk and those who had stayed at home showed little enthusiasm for conversing without them. I was seated across from Isabella Irvine. She had exchanged her day dress for a gown of deep green velvet, the sleeves shot through with silk and the wrists and bosom trimmed with the most delicate white lace. At her throat was an emerald set in gold. I looked over at her several times, in a vain attempt to remember her, to find that passage of my mind through which she had already walked; she contrived to look at me not at all. As dishes were disposed of and more brought in, the hunger was gradually sated and conversations began to rise at the table. There was talk, inevitably, of the day’s hunt, of the pursuits, the triumphs and the near misses, the prowess of the horses, the courage of the dogs and the cunning of the prey. The lady of the house could be assured that her larder was well-stocked. In time, conversation turned to talk of other hunts in other places, and then to those places themselves, and the families and peoples and history thereof. And soon, as often in such cases, there was talk of slights and offences, and scandals and outrages and foes. The laird, who had sat throughout at his meat with an air of benevolent contentment, began to look less at his ease as his sons and their cousins began to speak hotly of slanders encountered and how they should be met. He knew too well how such things must end, of the fights and the fires and the deaths and the mournings. The ballads would be no comfort to their mother once they were gone, and he counselled them to speak no more of such things in front of her. There was a lull, a pause, before other things began to be spoken of; mention was made of dissatisfactions in the South and of rumours heard in the North, but again these were quickly silenced, this time with reference to me.

‘Mr Seaton here can have no interest in these matters, I am sure; he is a man of learning, not politics. There will be politics aplenty in the town of Banff to satisfy him, no doubt, without we should force him to listen to our concerns.’ The warning had been given, and it was the laird himself who had given it: I was not one of their own, and was not to be made privy to the affairs of the Gordons. As this registered, there was an alteration in the atmosphere round the table; I recognised it well as attention shifted now to me. Robert Gordon’s wife, Catherine Irvine, came to my aid.

‘You are a schoolmaster, Mr Seaton.’

‘I am, madam. I am undermaster in the grammar school of Banff.’

‘I have heard it is a good school.’

‘I have many able pupils, and the master, Gilbert Grant, is a fine man of great learning and good discipline. He has affection and respect in the town as well as the schoolroom.’

‘Respect in the young is a rare and precious commodity,’ interjected Straloch. ‘Without it there can be no good schooling, and without that the state is in peril.’

The younger men around the table had, I saw by their faces, heard this many times before, but had the good sense not to respond.

‘And were you a scholar there yourself, Mr Seaton?’ It was the lady this time.

I did not like this narrowing in on me. ‘Yes, I had all my grammar schooling there, under Mr Grant.’

‘Well, then,’ said the lady, a sad but warm smile coming on to her face, ‘you must surely have known Archibald Hay, the heir to Delgatie.’

‘Who did not know Archie?’ It was one of Straloch’s nephews, discarding a chop and reaching for another one. ‘There was never a fight nor a feast in the North that Archie Hay was not at the heart of. Do you remember that time at Rothiemay–’

But he was interrupted by his brother, who was looking at me now with narrowed eyes. ‘But surely, are you not that fellow, the minister fellow who was always with him? Was that not you?’

I had not had the chance to answer before another joined in. ‘Why, yes. Alexander Seaton! Always at Archie’s side. Heavens! I remember that time at Slains when he lost his boots at a game of dice and you carried him on your back through the mud to his horse! That is why I thought I knew you; it was not from here at all.’ The fellow was well pleased with the memory. Others joined in with their reminiscences of Archie, but I heard little of what was said. Nothing reached me through the wall of ice now risen between me and Isabella Irvine. She had avoided my gaze throughout the meal, but now she fixed me with cold, unflinching eyes. With a rising feeling of nausea, I began to remember how I knew her name. I would have got up from the table then, pleading illness, or fatigue, or God knows what other excuse, but there was to be no retreat for me.

‘So you were the young fellow Delgatie had such hopes of, that you might calm his heir? Well, there are some colts that will not be broken: they are better left to run free. I am heart sorry for the loss of your friend, Mr Seaton. He died in a noble cause.’ The laird’s words were echoed round the table, and toasts were drunk to the memory of Archie, and to Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, and to her brother, our own king. The laird had carried on talking directly to me, about the family of Delgatie, and the tragedy of Archie’s loss to the family and to the country, and then of Katharine. ‘And why they sent that lassie away to the South, banished to that old man, I do not know. A brood of fine grandchildren near to hand would have eased their grief and their old age.’

‘Robert,’ his wife began, but he did not hear her.

‘And as for the lassie herself, to send her so far from her own friends when a good marriage could have been made hereabouts, if they had only consented to the name of Hay going into abeyance for a generation or so. Why, Isabella here was – is – her friend, but is constrained to travel for days on end on bad roads just to see her. And it is a cold harsh place she is in, is it not, Isabella?’

‘She does not complain,’ said the young woman, still gazing steadily at me.

The laird’s wife intervened before her husband could say any more. ‘My niece is not long returned from visiting Katharine Hay in the borders. They had not seen each other since Katharine’s marriage to her father’s cousin.’ She looked uncomfortable, as if she wished that could be an end to the subject, but I could not leave it there. I spoke directly to Isabella Irvine.

‘And how is she. Is she – well?’

‘She is well, sir.’

‘And happy?’

‘She is well. She does not complain. She knows her duty.’ Now she stood up. ‘Please excuse me, aunt. I would like to look in on the little ones before they go to sleep.’ Her aunt nodded and she left without further word or look to me. Gordon looked perplexed, but his wife cut him short.

‘You have an early start, Robert. Perhaps you and Mr Seaton should discuss your business before the hour is too late. You can leave the young ones here to their drinking and their storytelling; you will not be missed.’ She called for a steward to show me back through to the laird’s library, and to bring wine and fruit there for us also. She asked her husband to wait a moment as she had a matter touching the household to discuss with him. I was taken to the library alone.

The room that I had seen earlier in the fading light of day was transformed now into a cavern of flickering light and shadows. A fire roared in the great hearth and candles had been lit in the sconces, but none were yet set on the tables. A draught, a careless servant bumping into a table on which one was lit, could have destroyed in moments the work of a lifetime, for Straloch’s notes and charts covered every table. I was too cautious now about the matter of maps even to wish to look at any of them. I went over to a recess by the fire, where the light now was best, and peered at the titles on the shelves as they glowed in and out of shadow with the light. The shelf my eye lingered on was filled with histories, histories of our country and our people. Spottiswood, Boece, Buchanan and Knox I knew well, but I eased another volume from the shelf: I had heard of Robert Johnston’s work, but never come across it before. I untied the laces of the binding and opened the book; inside the cover, in a neat hand was an inscription, in Latin, ‘To my dear friend Robert Gordon, in memory of happy Paris days in the springtime of our youth, Robert Johnston.’ The book was still in my hand when the door handle turned and Straloch entered the room. I moved to put it back, but I had not tied the bindings and so was left with it, helpless, in my hands. Gordon came over and looked more closely at the volume.

‘A fine choice, Mr Seaton. You may borrow it tonight if you wish, and return it to its place here before you leave tomorrow.’

I thanked him, but declined. ‘The study of the past is something I have found little profit or comfort in.’

‘Then you have been unfortunate. Those who do not know their history do not know themselves, and therefore act for the future, as it were, like a blinkered steed.’

I passed the book to him, and he retied the bindings before returning it, carefully, to the shelf. When he turned back to face me, I could see he was about to address a subject he did not much care for. He asked me to sit and then waited for the servant to finish lighting the room before proceeding. He cleared his throat. ‘In the course of my time, in my work, and due in some measure to my position in this world, I am obliged to conduct myself with all manner of men. I believe, though perhaps not all do, that God has given it to me to do this without offence to my fellow man. You are a guest in my house, Mr Seaton, and yet I believe tonight that I have – albeit unwittingly – been a cause of discomfort to you and to others at my table.’

My heart pounded hard within me, and I felt my breathing grow deeper. I did not like the confidences of strangers, and what the essence of this was, I could guess. I wished myself anywhere else but this library.

‘I am sorry; I do not know what you speak of. I have been,’ I paused, thinking of Isabella Irvine – I was not going to claim some experience of warmth, ‘I have been treated with civility and hospitality. I can ask no more in the house of a stranger.’

‘And yet you should, in this house.’ He pushed back his chair and went to the window, looking out into the darkness. ‘My wife has told me, briefly, of your former closeness and your present estrangement from the family of Hay. She has told me what the enmity of the earl has cost you in the world. She has also told me – and I do not play with my words here – that the girl was sent from Delgatie to sever an attachment she had formed with you. This latter part she had from my niece, and I have no cause to doubt it, for she is an honest girl with no malice or thirst to slander. I suspect there has been much women’s talk between the pair over this whole business, long before you ever set foot in this house. You must excuse my niece’s coldness – and I did mark it at dinner – she has all the passionate notions of one who has not yet lived in the world. As for myself, I would never have talked on as I did had I known any of this.’

The warmth of the wine and the fire were working through me, and I felt a desire to meet the laird’s honesty with an honesty of my own. ‘The conversation gave me no discomfort that is not with me in any case. I do not like the study of history because it cannot be changed – my history cannot be changed. I do not look for your sympathy. The family of Hay deserved better at my hands.’

He shuttered the window and turned back towards me. ‘Maybe so. But there must be a limit to retribution, or our society will never prosper; our godly commonwealth will wither and die before it ever bears fruit. The laird of Delgatie can be the warmest and most loyal of friends, but he is also a very dangerous enemy. I would counsel you to be careful of such an enemy, Mr Seaton.’ There was nothing for me to say in response.

Straloch seemed pleased to have got that business – that women’s business – over with. He strode over to his desk and poured us each a drink of wine. His manner was brisk now, no longer hesitant. ‘Well, then, let us get down to the matter in hand. Your good provost writes that the map he has sent you with was found amongst the belongings of a visitor to your town, and that he would have my advice on its nature. He asks that I should speak to no one but yourself about this business.’ He took a key from a chain in his pocket and unlocked the box I had seen him put the map next to that afternoon. I experienced some little relief to be fulfilling my commission at last, and sat back to wait.

The laird opened out the sheet and took an eyeglass from his desk. He began at the top left corner and worked very slowly with the glass over the entire sheet. As he did so, I studied the arras hangings on the panelled wall behind him – a well-worked suite depicting the journey of the Egyptian Princess Scota, daughter of the Pharaoh, and progenitrix of our race, to our cold shores. The myth had been used three hundred years ago to argue the rights of our nation against the overlordship of an English king. What did Straloch think of those rights, now that the king in England was our own? I looked at my host; no word escaped him. At length he put the glass down, and sat heavily back into his chair. He looked up at me.

‘Have you seen this work, Mr Seaton?’

I affirmed that I had.

‘And what is your assessment of it?’

I had not expected this again, and had no intention this time either of making accusations against a man who was not able to answer for himself. My only course was to lie.

‘I have no assessment of it – none of any significance. It is a map, it is of the coast near Banff, and it is a tidy and detailed bit of work.’

I did not meet Straloch’s eye; I knew he did not believe me.

‘Come now, Mr Seaton, you are a man of some intelligence. This document gives rise to no curiosity, no conjecture, in your mind?’

I met his gaze now. ‘Only a fool would not be curious,’ I said. ‘I am as curious as our provost and the rest concerned in this business to know what this map signifies. As to conjecture, though, I have learnt that it is a habit best indulged in solitude.’

Straloch nodded. ‘I believe you may well be right. If more of our countrymen were of the same opinion, this would be a more peaceable land.’ He laid the map on a table near the fire, and motioned for me to join him at it. ‘But as to this map, we must deal in specifics, and I cannot believe that you have not formed any view as to why it might have been drawn. The authorities in Banff would never have sent it to me for examination had they no notion at all of what it might be used for. And you must be of their counsel, since you have been entrusted with the document itself, and with my reply – should I choose to make one.’

There might have been some hostility in the laird’s tone; I could not tell, for I did not know him well enough. I could not blame him for it: if I would not be frank with him, why should he be so with me? What did I owe to the town of Banff, or to those who had sent me on this commission, that I should lie for them? Straloch returned to the map. ‘I will tell you straightly. This is fine work, amongst the finest I have seen. Whose is it? Who is this mysterious visitor to the burgh who has such a thing in his possession?’ The provost had warned me that I was not to answer the laird’s questions, but I was a guest in the laird’s house, and the provost was not here.

‘It is the work of the provost’s nephew, apprentice to Edward Arbuthnott, apothecary of Banff.’

Straloch set down the document. The expression on his face did not allow of further dissembling. ‘Do you tell me that this map was drawn by the man lately found murdered in Banff?’ He saw my awkwardness but waved it away. ‘Do your minister and baillie really think such matters can be kept within the bounds of your burgh like a tethered cow? The whole country is alive with the news, and that the music master is in jail, suspected, all over the love of a woman. But what you bring me today is no lover’s trick. I think you fear you have the wrong man in jail, and perhaps for the wrong crime.’

‘I know that the wrong man is in jail. Charles Thom is no more capable of murder than I am, over a woman or anything else. And as to the crime – I speak for myself here, you understand, and not for those who sent me?’

He acquiesced.

‘That there has been a crime is not in doubt; that there has been a murder, is not in doubt. The reason for the murder – that is in doubt. If once that can be established, the rest should follow. But in truth,’ and here I knew I was departing completely from the commission given to me, ‘I think those in whose place I have come – the provost, baillie, minister and notary public of Banff – have forgotten there ever was a murder, so aroused are their fears by the discovery of the document before you.’

Straloch looked up and spoke slowly. ‘And are there others?’

‘There are,’ I said. ‘In sequence they cover the entire coastline from Troup Head to Cullen, and inland towards Rothiemay and Strathbogie. There are pointers southwards for Turriff, Oldmeldrum, and Aberdeen.’

Straloch straightened and regarded me directly, no longer looking at the map. ‘And so the authorities of Banff fear their burgh is to be the first staging post for an invasion force, and you have been sent to ask me whether the Marquis of Huntly intends to head the invasion in person.’ A smile played upon his lips now, but his eyes were in deadly earnest.

‘They fear a Catholic invasion. That much it would be pointless to deny, but they mean no insult to you or to your noble patron, the marquis. It is in virtue of your learning and expertise in the matter of cartography that you are consulted. We,’ and now I revealed that I was of the inner counsel, ‘thought it might be possible that Patrick Davidson was acting on commission – a legitimate scholarly commission, and we could think of no one other than yourself who might be in any way placed to know about such things.’

Straloch seemed to accept that there was some sense in this. But he knew also that I might well have worded it differently. I might have said, ‘The authorities in Banff do not trust you, and they trust your master less, but we have no choice other than to seek your advice.’ My host stood up and walked to a table on the other side of the room. It was covered in charts and sheaves of notes. ‘What you see here is the fruit – the bud, more rightly – of many years’ labour, my own and others. You have heard of Timothy Pont?’

I confessed that I had not. My ignorance seemed to surprise him, but he continued. ‘Pont spent many years involved in the mapping of our country. On his death a few years ago, the task remained uncompleted. As you know, I have long had an interest in the subject, and it is an interest shared, I am glad to say, by my son James. Our researches go further than this work of your apothecary’s apprentice – we have a great interest in genealogy, in our local history and antiquities, but our cartography is not as fine as this. This is the work of a strategist, as is evident from the detail he chooses to include. One might well suspect that an invading army could put a document such as this to much use. I am certain that no legitimate commission was issued for the doing of this work – I would have been sure to hear of it. You must believe that it is experience, and not vanity, that make me confident in this.’

‘I would not have thought otherwise,’ I said.

‘I can assure you, in consequence, that I know of no project, other than that which I myself am engaged upon, to map this part of the country. I can also assure you, and you and your masters may believe this as you wish, that there is no plot that I know of for the invasion of our country from the coastline of the firth of Moray.’

I was embarrassed to be the receiver of such an assurance from a man so learned and so worthy of respect as Robert Gordon of Straloch. My discomfort was all the greater in knowing that he knew my own history, and that I had proven myself unworthy of trust and undeserving of respect. He should never have had to make such a declaration to me. I was conscious now not only of the grandness of the room, of the hundreds of books that lined the shelves, but of the portrait of Robert Gordon himself that hung over the fireplace – Jamesone’s work, by the look of it – the smell of sandalwood, the painted mural on the far wall. This was a man of wealth, family and standing, and he had felt constrained to defend himself to me. I began to see now why I, rather than someone who mattered, had been sent here on the business of the burgh of Banff, and I did not like it. I assumed our interview was over and got up to leave, but he put out a hand to stay me. ‘Tarry a while, Mr Seaton. The hour is not yet late and I will not keep you long. I would know more of this bad business in Banff, if you are willing to tell me.’

In my head I heard again the provost’s words of warning: ‘our business here is none of his,’ but again I reasoned that the provost was not here and I was, and, with William Cargill’s admonitions still fresh in my mind, I was no longer sure that I trusted Walter Watt or any others in Banff who had sent me on this mission. ‘There is little enough to tell – little that I can understand, at any rate. What is it you wish to know?’

Straloch indicated the map. ‘Tell me about the murdered man. What was a man capable of such work as this doing apprenticed to an apothecary?’

So again, for the laird of Straloch’s benefit, I rehearsed the tale of Patrick Davidson’s childhood, his years of study at home and abroad, his return to Banff under the roof of Edward Arbuthnott and the talk of his relationship with Arbuthnott’s daughter. The laird interjected once or twice in the course of the tale with ‘a good college’, ‘a wonderful city’, ‘a wise choice’, but said little more until I got to the end of it. Laughter and music were reaching us from the dining hall; it was at once comforting and yet incongruous as an accompaniment to our conversation. When I was finished the laird got up and raked at the fire.

‘It does not make sense, Mr Seaton. No, it does not make sense.’ He leant against the mantel in thought and then turned around to look at me. ‘Why did he come back to Banff? Why? When his love of botany had been strong enough to steer him away from the study of the law, and even medicine?’

‘He came to study the apothecary’s craft,’ I said, unsure what it was about this that so bothered the laird. It was plain enough to me that Patrick Davidson had returned to the town of his childhood because his connections of influence – his uncle – were able to secure him a place to train with a good master. But this did not satisfy Straloch.

‘No,’ he said. ‘When one has a passion such as this – or a calling even – it overrides all other considerations. If advancement in the study of botany and the usage of plants was his guiding desire, he would not have come to Banff. He would have stayed on the continent of Europe, war or no, where he would have learnt much. What is there in the flora of our corner of Scotland that could engage the heart and the mind of one who already knew it from childhood? Nothing, I would wager, to what the Alps, the Pyrenees, the warm lands to the South have to offer, to say nothing of the exotic riches of the East or the undisturbed forests and swamps of the New World. No, one with a true passion for the understanding of plants would not cast all aside in order to play out his youth in the town of Banff.’

I conceded that there was some sense in what the laird reasoned, but it seemed to me that he deliberately did not mention the maps; that he was drawing me to his point instead. I held the document up. ‘You think he came to do this?’ I asked.

His voice was low and he spoke slowly, not looking at me. ‘I think he may have done,’ he said, ‘and that if he did, he was killed for it.’ His words hung in the air a moment, and then he changed his tack. ‘But tell me also, Mr Seaton; where was the body found?’

I swallowed and looked at him directly. ‘The body was found in my schoolroom, sprawled across my desk.’

He nodded, and seemed satisfied. It was as I had thought: I had been asked the question as a test of my honesty and trustworthiness. Robert Gordon had known exactly where the body of Patrick Davidson had been found. I wondered what else he knew. The singing and laughter from the dining hall was becoming louder. A voice called out ‘Gray Steel’ and the sounds of clapping and the stamping of feet was followed by the dragging noise of furniture being cleared from the floor for dancing. Straloch crossed the room and shut tight the door, which until then had been left a little ajar. ‘How did he come to be there?’

I swallowed. ‘He was brought there.’

He was watching me closely now. ‘By whom?’

I had no reason that I knew to distrust the laird of Straloch, but neither was I content to tell him all I knew. ‘For their own protection, I cannot tell you.’

‘The killer?’

I shook my head. ‘No, I am certain of that. Those who found him saw the state he was in and sought to help him. They had seen me entering the schoolhouse shortly before, and thought I would not yet have been abed, or at least asleep. They left him there. I knew nothing of it till morning. He was dead then.’

‘Why did they not call for you?’

‘They did not wish to be discovered themselves.’ I had given away too much already. Mary Dawson was out of the country, and safe now, but her sister Janet might not yet have gained a sanctuary. The laird, sensing my reluctance, did not press me further. He changed his line of questioning a little.

‘They tell me he was murdered on the night of the great storm. We were battered here for many hours, and lost some trees in the park there. On such a night there cannot have been many abroad. These Samaritans of yours, they saw no one else?’

Since he would not leave it I would lie. ‘No.’

‘And there is nothing, in your past or his, nothing in these maps, that links you in some way to Patrick Davidson or his fate?’

The sensation of fear began to creep through me, and I could feel a coldness under my skin. ‘I know of nothing.’

Straloch was grave. ‘But he was laid in your schoolroom to die. And yet it is your friend, the music schoolmaster, who lies in the tolbooth of Banff, while you walk free.’ He looked at me in silence for a moment before proceeding. ‘I fear there is some great game of evil afoot in Banff, a game that will not end at the one death. You must take great care, Mr Seaton, great care.’ We had neither of us finished our wine. I sat and sipped the warm red liquid while the laird’s words resonated in my head.

I drained my cup and stood up. ‘I must go to my bed now, I think.’

Straloch came towards me and offered me his hand. ‘I myself have an early start. I ride out tomorrow at seven. I am bound for Edinburgh. I doubt if we will meet again before I leave. As you can see, I am much surrounded by young men and in their company often, but it is not so often that I find one whose conversation is of interest to me. I hope we may meet again some day.’ We shook hands and I gave him the letter from Jamesone that I had almost forgotten, and made for the door. I had my hand on the handle when he suddenly called me. ‘The map!’ How quickly it had been forgotten in the talk of its maker’s murder. ‘I will write a line for you to take back to the provost tomorrow. I can be of little help to allay his fears. It is the finest piece of cartography I have seen, and would serve any army well, if the others you spoke of are of anything like the quality. But I tell you again, I know of no intended invasion, and if there be any, the hand of the Marquis of Huntly is not in it.’

I believed him; whether or not Baillie Buchan, the Reverend Guild and the rest would was another question. Assuring the laird I could find my way myself to my bedchamber, I took the candle he offered me and made my way back along through the west wing to the great central stairway. The sound of a raucous ballad and much laughter filled the whole ground floor of the house. How many times I had been party to such evenings, such gatherings of friends and kin, the storytelling, the music, the catches and rounds, that went on into the small hours of the night. I longed to go in, just to listen, to be one of them again, for a moment. The ballad came to an end as I stood at the foot of the stairs. And then, when the laughter and cheering had died down, a woman’s voice, clear and alone, rose in a lament. All around was silence. Isabella Irvine. I ascended the stairs.

I had reached my small chamber at the very top of the house before I remembered the boots that a servant had taken in the afternoon to dry for me. Wearily I turned and began to make my way down again. I used my knowledge of such houses to guess where the kitchens might be. I turned to the right at the foot of the stairs and knew that something had gone wrong. I looked around the great entrance hall of the house and saw nothing or no one to give cause for alarm, and yet something was not as it should be. I stood still and listened. I heard nothing. And that was it: where before there had been music, and voices singing, and laughter, now no sound came from the dining hall. Yet, I had heard no one come up the stairs after me. I followed the corridor past the dining hall towards the kitchens, and was met by the steward coming the other way. He was carrying my clothing and riding boots. I thanked him and took them from him. As I did so, a bell was rung in the dining hall and he hastened to answer it. As he stood in the open doorway I could see beyond him into the room. Straloch stood with his back to the fireplace, talking in a low but authoritative voice to his older sons and two or three of the young men who had been at table earlier. Of the women I saw nothing. The steward closed the door behind him, and in the darkening silence of the house I climbed the stairway once again and made for my bed.

Sleep was not long in coming, but it was not sound. At the top of the house though I was, I was conscious of much movement and low voices on the floors beneath me. Once, someone with a candle paused outside my door. The flicker of light seeped beneath the doorway for a moment and then withdrew. The footsteps were light and soon I could not hear them at all. And then somewhere, deep into the long night, I was brought to full wakefulness by the sounds of horses gathering in the yard below. Conscious of the patrol that had earlier passed my door, I crept from my bed and peered through a gap in the window shutters. Gradually, I prised them further open. In the light of a full moon I could see, far below me, five men on horseback: the young men to whom Straloch had been talking in the dining hall. He was not there now, but I could see Isabella Irvine, her nightclothes a startling, ghost-like white in the moonlight, bidding her cousins and their kinsmen farewell. Quietly, they set off away from the house, only picking up speed once they were far enough away not to disturb those sleeping within. Isabella watched after them until they disappeared from sight, before turning back to the house. As she did so she looked up, directly, at my window. I could not tell whether she saw me or not. I returned to my bed, the window shutters still open, and watched the night sky until the first shafts of sunlight appeared from the east.

The laird had also departed by the time I appeared in the dining hall for my breakfast. The room was a noisy babble of the younger children of the house and their nurses. Bowls of porridge with warmed milk and scones spread with sweet confits were played with, spilt, dropped for the hounds or left, all to the indignation of the nurses. I took a good meal, as I had no plan to tarry long at any of my staging posts on the road home. Just after the chapel clock struck eight, I rose from the table and returned to my room to gather my few belongings. As I descended the stairs, relief that I would soon be leaving the strange house of night-time partings turned to apprehension: Isabella Irvine stood at the bottom, watching and clearly waiting for me. I held her gaze until, at the last step, she looked away.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

She did not respond to the civility and for a moment seemed at a loss for how to proceed at all. In the end she held out a small package and a sealed letter. ‘My uncle asked that I should give you these. The letter is to be delivered to your provost; the packet is for yourself.’ I took them from her and thanked her. She merely nodded briskly and turned to walk away.

‘Wait,’ I said, touching her arm with my hand. She looked down upon it as if it were an object infected. I let it drop. ‘Please spare me a moment.’

She faced me impassively, waiting.

‘Katharine Hay,’ I began.

She sighed impatiently and made to turn again.

‘No, please,’ I persisted. ‘I only wish to know how she really fares, how life is for her … so far from home.’

Her eyes blazed at me. ‘How do you think it is for her?’ she asked. ‘He is a man of near sixty. You had as well drawn your sword and ended her misery.’

My stomach lurched. In the early days and weeks after she had gone south, my imagination had filled with images of Katharine and her husband, images that I had fought, through drink, into some sort of oblivion, and now, here they were, being thrown in my face. And how could I tell this girl that there was nothing she could say to me, no words of condemnation, that I had not already said to myself? What could I say to make her understand that whatever the depths of her revulsion, I knew they were not deep enough? I swallowed hard. The words I wished for would not come: there was little point in continuing this interview. I turned away from Isabella Irvine and walked towards the door. Perhaps, though, I could somehow reach to Katharine all the same; perhaps this was one last chance I had not expected. At the entrance portal I turned to face her again. ‘One thing more.’

Her head tilted upwards a little and her nostrils widened.

‘Yes?’

‘The next time you should see Katharine, will you tell her that I was wrong, and I am sorry; Alexander Seaton is sorry.’

She regarded me coldly. ‘I will not. You made your choice, Mr Seaton, and you must live by it, as does she.’ She bade me no farewell and was gone, vanished into the darkness of the east wing.

A light drizzle fell as I rode from Straloch. It was a house of much life, much happiness, but over which my very presence seemed to have cast a dank and dismal shadow. I might have been happy there, once, in former days, but I could not be now. I was not long in reaching the inn at New Machar, and was grateful to see there the familiar and welcoming face of William Cargill’s old manservant, Duncan, who was to travel with me as far as King Edward, to fetch Sarah Forbes. He must have left Aberdeen before dawn. He assured me he had breakfasted at the inn, and was as eager as myself to get on. In no time he had fetched from the stableyard the sturdy pony and cart William had sent him with and we were on our way.

Duncan made little conversation and that suited me well. His only comment was that he had not been out on this road since he had gone to Banff with the master to fetch back his bride, and that that had turned out well enough. The pony’s pace was steady but slow, and it was into the afternoon before we stopped at Fyvie to rest the beasts and take some refreshment. Elizabeth had packed two baskets – for us, the other for Sarah. There were chicken legs and eggs and cheese, and wheaten scones spread with marmalade, and flasks of good ale. Duncan, a fine Presbyterian, muttered at the excess, and at the numbers of the hungry such a feast would feed. I helped myself to two chicken legs and eyed the third enviously, wondering what poor soul met on the road would have that to his supper on the old fellow’s return journey. He watched accusingly as I put a second slice of apple pie to my mouth. I pretended not to notice.

We finally reached King Edward as the late afternoon light began to lose its warmth and turn a colder grey, portending dusk. Duncan had instructions from his master to take lodgings in Turriff before dark if it could be done, and not to think of attempting to finish the journey back to Aberdeen by night. Rarely can a warning have been less needful: the old man would never have been so foolish. We went first to the manse, where to my relief I found that the minister was at home. His wife offered us food, of course, but Duncan, thanking the mistress profusely, said we had dined to our fill, and that a drink of water for ourselves and the pony was all that was needed. I had changed my horse at Turriff, and was now once again on Gilbert Grant’s mount. Duncan warmed himself in a seat by the fire while I was shown through to the minister’s spartan study.

Hamish MacLennan was tall and spare and learned-looking. As we entered at his call, he was standing at the window with a small book in his hands. I recognised it, for it was an identical edition to that I and all teachers used with our children: Craig’s Shorter Catechism. His wife announced me and, nodding in my direction, he invited me to sit down.

‘I am sorry to have interrupted you in your work,’ I said.

‘I am always at my work. Here in my study, out in the parish, in the kirk, in my every solitude. My life is in my calling.’

I did not know how to respond and he saw my discomfort.

‘I meant no criticism of yourself, Mr Seaton. It is the Lord who judges all.’ He paused for a moment in contemplation of this thought, and I wondered how it was that the town of Banff had to endure the self-serving mediocrity that was the Reverend Guild while this poor country parish was so blessed in its minister. MacLennan might almost have forgotten I was there, but his wife, who had not yet left, called me back to his attention.

‘Hamish, Mr Seaton has a favour he would ask of you. For myself, I hope that you might feel able to grant it him.’ Thus having said, she left us to our business.

MacLennan smiled now, and there was warmth in his austere face. ‘I am intrigued,’ he said. ‘My wife is not a woman who asks for favours, for herself or even others. Please tell me what it is you want.’

And so I told him of Sarah Forbes. He listened without interruption, once or twice nodding as I spoke. Occasionally, he would look up sharply, and I knew on what points I would be questioned when I had finished. When I had indeed finished, he got up and stood in front of the empty fireplace. The evening was now drawing on and the room was cold, but I had met many men of such frugal habits and self-denial, and it did not surprise me that Hamish MacLennan was one of them. Now he drew a deep breath and began slowly. ‘I think, in all, what you propose is a good thing, and I will do what is in my power to have it effected, but there are one or two things I would know first.’

And so he asked me all the questions I had known he would ask. He asked first of all, although he asserted he already believed he knew what the answer was, whether I was the father of Sarah Forbes’s baby. I told him I was not, and he lingered no longer on that matter. He asked next about the character of William Cargill, and of his wife, and of the soundness of their marriage and the nature of his household. I told him of William’s respectability, of his kindness, his reliability, his firmness of purpose and his fine mind. I told him of Elizabeth’s joyfulness, her loyalty and her zeal for hard work, and of the fondness she had evoked in his own good sister-in-law and in her husband, Gilbert Grant. I asked that Duncan might be called in, to give testimony as to the nature of his master’s household. It was allowed, and I watched in wonder as these two godly men, one of great learning and the other of little, conversed without dissemblance on the topic, and with mutual respect. The minister shook the servant’s hand and asked God’s blessing on him before dismissing him. He read again the letter from William that I had brought him.

‘And they will let her take the child, too. They are indeed good people, I think, and it will go better for the child that way, much better. Sarah is strong, and God willing, if she can be got away from under her uncle’s roof, she and her child will remain so. She will manage the two bairns well enough.’ He folded the letter. ‘It was a blessing on her, the day you met her on your way to visit your friend.’

‘And on me also,’ I said.

‘How so?’

‘Because I do not remember the last time I was called to be an instrument of good and answered that call.’

He looked at me for a long moment. ‘We are all sinners, but the Lord gives it to us to do good. Like Jonah, we often flee from His presence before we will submit to answering His call, and yet the Lord does not turn His face from us for ever.’ He smoothed the front cover of the small book of catechism, still in his hand. ‘What is taught to the bairns would be well remembered by us all.’

In little more than ten minutes, Hamish MacLennan, minister of King Edward in the Presbytery of Turriff, had written a testimonial of Sarah Forbes to the kirk session of St Nicholas in Aberdeen. He testified that she claimed her present condition to be the result of a vicious and scandalous assault at the hands of her former master in Banff, and that he, Hamish MacLennan, firmly believed this to be the truth of the matter. He asserted that she had fulfilled the penance and punishment laid upon her by the kirk session of Banff, and he enclosed with his own the letter from the kirk session of Banff to that effect. He petitioned that the session of St Nicholas and magistrates of Aberdeen might raise no objection to the employment of Sarah Forbes by Mr William Cargill, lawyer in Aberdeen, as a servant in his home.

He did not seal the letter but took it open in his hand and bade me, Duncan and his wife accompany him to the croft of Sarah Forbes’s uncle. The minister’s wife refused a ride on the cart that Duncan brought now ready for the journey away from King Edward, and strode purposefully at her husband’s side. It was not long before worn footpaths gave way to rough ground, and eventually, a miserable effort at cultivation. We reached the mean dwelling at the outer edge of the parish which, I quickly understood, was all the home Sarah Forbes knew.

A dirty face, a woman’s, looked out at what passed for a window at the approaching party and hastily withdrew, pulling fast the flimsy wooden shutter. A man, small and gaunt with roving, distrustful eyes, appeared in the doorway. He offered no greeting but waited, shifting uneasily until the minister was within ten feet of the house.

‘I have done nothing, Mr MacLennan, whatever William West will tell you. I was too ill to be at the kirk yesterday in time of sermon. I could scarce stand.’

‘Nothing? Your drunken roar and brawling were heard at the manse itself on the eve of the Sabbath. But that is a matter for the session; I am here concerning your wife’s niece.’

The man yelled for the aunt, uttering harsh words about the girl. The minister’s wife favoured him with a look of scathing contempt, then turned, more gently, to the woman who had now appeared at the door. ‘Where is your niece, Anna?’

The woman came forward, past her husband, pleading. ‘She is not a bad girl, Mistress Youngson. Please, she has not gone beyond our toft in four days. She feared to go to the kirk yesterday for the shame …’ But the woman was interrupted as Sarah Forbes emerged behind her. To my confusion, I felt my heart beat faster at the sight of her. Her face had grown paler in the last few days, and there were circles of darkness beneath her eyes, but there was something in those eyes still that spoke to me. She appeared somewhat startled at seeing me, but recovered herself well enough and addressed herself to the minister. ‘I am here, Mr MacLennan. Please tell me your business.’

And he did. He told her of William Cargill and his wife Elizabeth, of their need for a servant and their coming need for a nurse. She listened to all and then looked enquiringly at me.

‘William Cargill is my friend,’ I said. ‘I have known him many years. He is a good and kind man. His wife was kitchen maid in the schoolhouse of Banff. She will be a good mistress.’ I turned to Duncan at this point and he nodded his assent. ‘And they will take the child in also. It will be a good home for you both. Will you go?’

‘I will,’ she said.

It did not take five minutes for Sarah Forbes to gather her belongings – the same bundle she had carried from Banff, only the precious shawl now added to it. Her aunt gave her hand a squeeze as she passed through that doorway for the last time, and Sarah bent a little to kiss the cheek of her dead mother’s sister. While Duncan steadied the pony, I helped Sarah Forbes up onto the cart. William’s servant looked at me suspiciously, but said nothing. Some mischief must have been in me, for just before I mounted my own horse, I whispered in his ear, ‘The bairn is not mine, you know.’

He continued to busy himself about the bridle. ‘Aye, well, it could have done worse, I dare say.’

Before she turned towards the road that would take her away from here for good, Sarah Forbes looked at me and her lips opened to mouth a silent ‘Thank you.’ The word echoed through the breeze and carried me the six miles home, to Banff.

I could feel the nearness of the sea long before I saw it, but there was something else in the air of the falling dusk too. There was fear. As I headed the brae at Doune Hill and started to descend down by the Gellymill, I saw a thick pall of smoke rising from the heart of Banff itself. I could hear nothing, nothing but the sound of God’s retiring creation around me, but the wind was changing, and soon it would bring the smell of that smoke into my very nostrils.

I was in luck that the ferry had not yet put up for the night and I would not have to spend it in the ferryman’s mean hut on the east bank of the Deveron. It was one of Paul Black’s sons who had the watch that night. I hailed him across the river and he came slowly to his feet and stood looking at me for a while before going to untie the boat. Even at this distance across the river mouth I fancied I sensed some reluctance in him to come across for me. When he finally came to the shore on the other side he did not look at me.

‘It is Martin, is it not?’

‘Aye, Mr Seaton,’ he replied in a low voice, still avoiding my eye.

‘What is the matter? What is happening in the town tonight?’

He made no reply.

‘Martin, come, you know me. Whatever they say, you need have no fear of me.’

Now he looked at me. ‘It is not you, Mr Seaton, it is … the town. Everything has gone wrong in the town. I think,’ he hesitated before continuing, ‘I think we have been damned.’

‘What has happened?’

His eyes glazed over and he seemed to look past me, at nothing. ‘Marion Arbuthnott is dead, by her own hand. Her body lies at Dr Jaffray’s.’

I spent some effort in persuading him to ferry me back to the other side. The coining I handed him once the beast and I had disembarked fell from his hand to the ground, but I could not tarry any longer over Martin Black. I mounted Gilbert Grant’s poor horse and sped him into a gallop, books and all, towards the town. Within minutes I was at Jaffray’s door. Tying the beast hastily in the stableyard I hammered on the back door, but to no avail. I ran round to the front, but was not answered there either. I pushed the door open – it was not on the bolt – and went, calling out for the doctor, to his surgical room. Ishbel came stumbling to meet me, her face streaked with tears. I pushed past her into the room. All was in disarray. Glass bottles smashed on the floor, a chair turned over and broken, instruments strewn across the work table and desk and onto the floor, and a bloodied winding sheet trailing from the table on which I knew he laid the dead. The stable boy was trying to make some order in the chaos. In the midst of it all sat the doctor, his clothing torn, an angry gash on his cheek. He stared blankly ahead of him.

My voice was hoarse. ‘Jaffray. What in the name of God has happened here?’

He shook his head and slowly looked up at me. ‘Hell has been here, Alexander. Hell has been here tonight. They have taken her, taken her poor dead body from this room, from that table, and burnt her for a witch.’ His head sank forward. Tears of utter despair rolled down his cheeks.