Beggars Banquet

The Serpent’s Back

This was, mind you, back in 1793 or ’94. Edinburgh was a better place then. Nothing ever happens here now, but back then… back then everything was happening.

Back then a caddie was indispensable if you happened to be visiting the town. If you wanted someone found, if a message needed delivering, if you wanted a bed for the night, fresh oysters, a shirtmaker or the local hoor, you came to a caddie. And if the claret got the better of you, a caddie would see you safely home.

See, the town wasn’t safe, Lord no. The streets were mean. The high-falutin’ were leaving the old town and crossing the Nor’ Loch to the New. They lived in Princes Street and George Street, or did until they could no longer stand the stench. The old loch was an open sewer by that time, and the old town not much better.

I was called Cullender, Cully to my friends. No one knew my first name. They need only say ‘Cullender’, and they’d be pointed in my direction. That was how it was with young Master Gisborne. He had newly arrived by coach from London, and feared he’d never sit down again…

‘Are you Cullender? My good friend Mr Wilks told me to ask for you.’

‘Wilks?’

‘He was here for some weeks. A medical student.’

I nodded. ‘I recall the young gentleman particularly,’ I lied.

‘I shall require a clean room, nothing too fancy, my pockets aren’t bottomless.’

‘How long will you be staying, master?’

He looked around. ‘I’m not sure. I’m considering a career in medicine. If I like the faculty, I may enrol.’

And he fingered the edges of his coat. It was a pale blue coat with bright silver buttons. Like Master Gisborne it was overdone and didn’t quite fit together. His face was fat like a whelp’s, but his physique was lean and his eyes shone. His skin had suffered neither disease nor malnourishment. He was, I suppose, a fine enough specimen, but I’d seen fine specimens before. Many of them stayed, seduced by Edinburgh. I saw them daily in the pungent howffs, or slouching through the narrow closes, heads bowed. None of them looked so fresh these days. Had they been eels, the fishwives would have tossed them in a bucket and sold them to only the most gullible.

The most gullible, of course, being those newly arrived in the city.

Master Gisborne would need looking after. He was haughty on the surface, cocksure, but I knew he was troubled, wondering how long he could sustain the act of worldliness. He had money, but not in limitless supply. His parents would be professional folk, not gentry. Some denizens would gull him before supper. Me? I was undecided.

I picked up his trunk. ‘Shall I call a chair?’ He frowned. ‘The streets here are too narrow and steep for coaches, haven’t you noticed? Know why they’re narrow?’ I sidled up to him. ‘There’s a serpent buried beneath.’ He looked ill at ease, so I laughed. ‘Just a story, master. We use chairmen instead of horses. Good strong Highland stock.’

I knew he had already walked a good way in search of me, hauling his trunk with him. He was tired, but counting his money too.

‘Let’s walk,’ he decided, ‘and you can acquaint me with the town.’

‘The town, master,’ I said, ‘will acquaint you with itself.’

We got him settled in at Lucky Seaton’s. Lucky had been a hoor herself at one time, then had been turned to the Moderate movement and now ran a Christian rooming house.

‘We know all about medical students, don’t we, Cully?’ she said, while Gisborne took the measure of his room. ‘The worst sinners in Christendom.’

She patted Master Gisborne on his plump cheek, and I led him back down the treacherous stairwell.

‘What did she mean?’ he asked me.

‘Visit a few howffs, and you’ll find out,’ I told him. ‘The medical students are the most notorious group of topers in the city, if you discount the lawyers, judges, poets, boatmen, and Lords this-and-that.’

‘What’s a howff?’

I led him directly into one.

There was a general fug in what passed for the air. Pipes were being smoked furiously, and there were no windows to open, so the stale fumes lay heavy at eye level. I could hear laughter and swearing and the shrieks of women, but it was like peering through a haar. I saw one-legged Jack, balancing a wench on his good knee. Two lawyers sat at the next table along, heads close together. A poet of minor repute scribbled away as he sat slumped on the floor. And all around there was wine, wine in jugs and bumpers and bottles, its sour smell vying with that of tobacco.

But the most noise came from a big round table in the furthest corner, where beneath flickering lamplight a meeting of the Monthly Club was underway. I led Gisborne to the table, having promised him that Edinburgh would acquaint itself with him. Five gentlemen sat round the table. One recognised me immediately.

‘Dear old Cully! What news from the world above?’

‘No news, sir.’

‘None better than that!’

‘What’s the meeting this month, sirs?’

‘The Hot Air Club, Cully.’ The speaker made a toast of the words. ‘We are celebrating the tenth anniversary of Mr Tytler’s fight by montgolfier over this very city.’

This had to be toasted again, while I explained to Master Gisborne that the Monthly Club changed its name regularly in order to have something to celebrate.

‘I see you’ve brought fresh blood, Cully.’

‘Mr Gisborne,’ I said, ‘is newly arrived from London and hopes to study medicine.’

‘I hope he will, too, if he intends to practise.’

There was laughter, and replenishing of glasses.

‘This gentleman,’ I informed my master, ‘is Mr Walter Scott. Mr Scott is an advocate.’

‘Not today,’ said another of the group. ‘Today he’s Colonel Grogg!’

More laughter. Gisborne was asked what he would drink.

‘A glass of port,’ my hapless charge replied.

The table went quiet. Scott was smiling with half his mouth only.

‘Port is not much drunk in these parts. It reminds some people of the Union. Some people would rather drink whisky and toast their Jacobite “King O’er the Water”.’ Someone at the table actually did this, not heeding the tone of Scott’s voice. ‘But we’re one nation now,’ Scott continued. That man did like to make a speech. ‘And if you’ll drink some claret with us, we may yet be reconciled.’

The drinker who’d toasted Bonnie Prince Charlie, another lawyer whose name was Urquhart, now turned to Gisborne with his usual complaint to Englishmen. ‘“Rule Britannia”,’ he said, ‘was written by a Scot. John Bull was invented by a Scot!’

He slumped back, having to his mind made his point. Master Gisborne looked like he had tumbled into Bedlam.

‘Now now,’ Scott calmed. ‘We’re here to celebrate montgolfiers.’ He handed Gisborne a stemless glass filled to the brim. ‘And new arrivals. But you’ve come to a dangerous place, sir.’

‘How so?’ my master enquired.

‘Sedition is rife.’ Scott paused. ‘As is murder. How many is it now, Cully?’

‘Three this past fortnight.’ I recited the names. ‘Dr Benson, MacStay the coffin-maker, and a wretch called Howison.’

‘All stabbed,’ Scott informed Gisborne. ‘Imagine, murdering a coffin-maker! It’s like trying to murder Death himself!’

As was wont to happen, the Monthly Club shifted to another howff to partake of a prix fixe dinner, and thence to another where Scott would drink champagne and lead a discussion of ‘the chest’.

The chest in question had been found when the Castle’s crown room was opened during a search for some documents. The crown room had been opened, according to the advocate, by special warrant under the royal sign manual. No one had authority to break open the chest. The crown room was locked again, and the chest still inside. At the time of the union with England the royal regalia of Scotland had disappeared. It was Scott’s contention that this regalia – crown, sceptre and sword – lay in the chest.

Gisborne listened in fascination. Somewhere along the route he had misplaced his sense of economy. He would pay for the champagne. He would pay for dinner. A brothel was being discussed as the next destination… Luckily, Scott was taking an interest in him, so that Gisborne’s pockets were still fairly full, though his wits be empty.

I sat apart, conversing with the exiled Comte d’Artois, who had fled France at the outset of revolution. He retained the habit of stroking his neck for luck, his good fortune being that it still connected his head to his trunk. He had reason to feel nervous. Prompted by events in France, sedition was in the air. There had been riots, and now the ringleaders were being tried.

We were discussing Deacon Brodie, hanged six years before for a series of housebreakings. Brodie, a cabinet-maker and locksmith, had robbed the very premises to which he’d fitted locks. Respectable by day, he’d been nefarious by night. To the Comte (who knew about such matters) this was merely ‘the human condition’.

I noticed suddenly that I was seated in shadow. A man stood over me. He had full thick lips, a meaty stew of a nose, and eyebrows which met at the central divide the way warring forces sometimes will.

‘Cullender?’

I shook my head and turned away.

‘You’re Cullender,’ he said. ‘This is for you.’ He slapped his paw on to the table, then turned and pushed back through the throng. A piece of paper, neatly folded, sat on the wood where his hand had been. I unfolded it and read.

Outside the Tolbooth, quarter before midnight.

The note was unsigned. I handed it to the Comte.

‘You will go?’

It was already past eleven. ‘I’ll let one more drink decide.’

The Tolbooth was the city jail where Brodie himself had spent his final days, singing airs from The Beggar’s Opera. The night was like pitch, nobody having bothered to light their lamps, and a haar rolled through from the direction of Leith.

In the darkness, I had trodden in something I did not care to study, and was scraping my shoe clean on the Tolbooth’s cornerstone when I heard a voice close by.

‘Cullender?’

A woman’s voice; even held to a whisper I knew it for that. The lady herself was dressed top to toe in black, her face deep inside the hood of a cloak.

‘I’m Cullender.’

‘I’m told you perform services.’

‘I’m no minister, lady.’

Maybe she smiled. A small bag appeared and I took it, weighing the coins inside.

‘There’s a book circulating in the town,’ said my new mistress. ‘I am keen to obtain it.’

‘We have several fine booksellers in the Luckenbooths…’

‘You are glib, sir.’

‘And you are mysterious.’

‘Then I’ll be plain. I know of only one copy of this book, a private printing. It is called Ranger’s Second Impartial List…’

‘ Of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh.’

‘You know it. Have you seen it?’

‘It’s not meant for the likes of me.’

‘I would like to see this book.’

‘You want me to find it?’

‘It’s said you know everyone in the city.’

‘Everyone that matters.’

‘Then you can locate it?’

‘It’s possible.’ I examined my shoes. ‘But first I’d need to know a little more…’

When I looked up again, she was gone.

At The Cross, the caddies were speaking quietly with the chairmen. We caddies had organised ourselves into a company, boasting written standards and a Magistrate of Caddies in charge of all. We regarded ourselves superior to the chairmen, mere brawny Highland migrants.

But my best friend and most trusted ally, Mr Mack, was a chairman. He was not, however, at The Cross. Work was nearly over for the night. The last taverns were throwing out the last soused customers. Only the brothels and cockpits were still active. Not able to locate Mr Mack, I turned instead to a fellow caddie, an old hand called Dryden.

‘Mr Dryden,’ I said, all businesslike, ‘I require your services, the fee to be agreed between us.’

Dryden, as ever, was willing. I knew he would work through the night. He was known to the various brothel-keepers, and could ask his questions discreetly, as I might have done myself had the lady’s fee not been sufficient to turn me employer.

Me, I headed home, climbing the lonely stairs to my attic quarters and a cold mattress. I found sleep the way a pickpocket finds his gull.

Which is to say, easily.

Next morning, Dryden was dead.

A young caddie called Colin came to tell me. We repaired to the Nor’ Loch where the body still lay, face down in the slime. The Town Guard – ‘Town Rats’ behind their backs – fingered their Lochaber axes, straightened their tall cocked hats, and tried to look important. One of their number, a red-faced individual named Fairlie, asked if we knew the victim.

‘Dryden,’ I said. ‘He was a caddie.’

‘He’s been run through with a dagger,’ Fairlie delighted in telling me. ‘Just like those other three.’

But I wasn’t so sure about that…

I went to a quiet howff, a drink steadying my humour. Dryden, I surmised, had been killed in such a way as to make him appear another victim of the city’s stabber. I knew though that in all likelihood he had been killed because of the questions he’d been asking… questions I’d sent him to ask. Was I safe myself? Had Dryden revealed anything to his killer? And what was it about my mistress’s mission that made it so deadly dangerous?

As I was thus musing, young Gisborne entered the bar on fragile legs.

‘Did I have anything to drink last evening?’ he asked, holding his head.

‘Master, you drank like it was your last day alive.’

Our hostess was already replenishing my wine jug. ‘Kill or cure,’ I said, pouring two glasses.

Gisborne could see I was worried, and asked the nature of the problem. I was grateful to tell him. Any listener would have sufficed. Mind, I held back some. This knowledge was proving dangerous, so I made no mention of the lady and her book. I jumped from the messenger to my words with Dryden.

‘The thing to do then,’ my young master said, ‘is to track backwards. Locate the messenger.’

I thought back to the previous evening. About the time the messenger had been arriving, the lawyer Urquhart had been taking his leave of the Monthly Club.

‘We’ll talk to Urquhart,’ I said. ‘At this hour he’ll be in his chambers. Follow me.’

Gisborne followed me out of the howff and across the street directly into another. There, in a booth, papers before him and a bottle of wine beside them, sat Urquhart.

‘I’m pleased to see you,’ the lawyer announced. His eyes were bloodshot, his nose like a stoned cherry. His breath I avoided altogether. Aged somewhere in his thirties, Urquhart was a seasoned dissolute. He would have us take a bumper with him.

‘Sir,’ I began, ‘do you recall leaving the company last night?’

‘Of course. I’m only sorry I’d to leave so early. An assignation, you understand.’ We shared a smile at this. ‘Tell me, Gisborne, to which house of ill fame did the gang repair?’

‘I don’t recollect,’ Gisborne admitted.

Urquhart enjoyed this. ‘Then tell me, did you awake in a bed or the gutter?’

‘In neither, Mr Urquhart. I awoke on the kitchen floor of a house I did not know.’

While Urquhart relished this, I asked if he’d taken a chair from the tavern last night.

‘Of course. A friend of yours was front-runner.’

‘Mr Mack?’ Urquhart nodded. ‘You didn’t happen to see a grotesque, sir?’ I described the messenger to him. Urquhart shook his head.

‘I heard a caddie was murdered last night,’ Urquhart said. ‘We all know the Town Rats can’t be expected to bring anyone to justice.’ He leaned towards me confidentially. ‘Are you looking for justice, Cully?’

‘I don’t know what I’m looking for, sir.’

Which was a lie. For now, I was looking for Mr Mack.

I left Gisborne with Urquhart, and found Mack at The Cross.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I saw that fellow going in. A big fat-lipped sort with eyebrows that met in the middle.’

‘Had you seen him before?’

Mack nodded. ‘But not here, over the loch.’

‘The new town?’ Mack nodded. ‘Then show me where.’ Mack and his fellow chairman carried me down the steep slope towards the building site. Yes, building site, for though Princes Street and George Street were finished, yet more streets were being artfully constructed. Just now, the builders were busy on what would be called Charlotte Square. We took the simpler route, down past Trinity Hospital and the College Kirk, then along Princes Street itself. There were plans to turn the Nor’ Loch into either a canal or formal gardens, but for the moment it was a dumping ground. I avoided looking at it, and tried not to think of poor Dryden. Joining the loch to the old town sat The Mound, an apt name for a treacherous heap of new town rubble.

‘All change, eh, Cully?’ Mr Mack called to me. ‘Soon there’ll be no business in the old town for the likes of you and me.’

He had a point. The nobility had already deserted the old town. Their grand lands now housed wheelwrights and hosiers and schoolmasters. They all lived in the new town now, at a general distance from the milling rabble. So here the foundations were being laid, not for the new town alone, but for the death of the old.

We passed into George Street and the sedan chair was brought to rest. ‘It was here I saw him,’ Mr Mack said. ‘He was marching up the street like he owned the place.’

I got out of the chair and rubbed my bruised posterior. Mr Mack’s companions had already spotted another likely fare. I waved them off. I must needs talk to my mistress, and that meant finding her servant. So I sat on a step and watched the workcarts grinding past overloaded with rocks and rubble. The day passed pleasantly enough.

Perhaps two hours had gone by when I saw him. I couldn’t be sure which house he emerged from; he was some way along the street. I tucked myself behind some railings and watched him head down towards Princes Street. I followed at a canny distance.

He was clumsy, his gait gangling, and I followed him with ease. He climbed back up to the old town and made for the Luckenbooths. Here he entered a bookshop, causing me to pause.

The shop belonged to a Mr Whitewood, who fancied himself not only bookseller, but poet and author also. I entered the premises quietly, and could hear Whitewood’s raised voice. He was towards the back of his shop, reciting to a fawning audience of other soi-distant writers and people to whom books were mere fashion.

The servant was pushing his way to the front of the small gathering. Whitewood stood on a low unsteady podium, and read with a white handkerchief in one hand, which he waved for dramatic effect. He needed all the help he could get. I dealt daily with the ‘improvers’, the self-termed ‘literati’. I’ll tell you now what an improver is, he’s an imp who roves. I’d seen them dragging their carcasses through the gutter, and waylaying hoors, and scrapping with the tourists.

The servant had reached the podium, and the bookseller had seen him. Without pausing mid-stanza, Whitewood passed the wretch a note. It was done in an instant, and the servant turned back towards the door. I slipped outside and hid myself, watching the servant head as if towards the courts.

I followed him into the courthouse. I followed him into one particular court… and there was brought up short.

Lord Braxfield, the Hanging Judge, was deciding a case. He sat in his wig at his muckle bench and dipped oatcakes into his claret, sucking loudly on the biscuits as he glared at the accused. There were three of them, and I knew they were charged with sedition, being leaders of a popular convention for parliamentary reform. At this time, only thirty or so people in Edinburgh had the right to vote for the Member of Parliament. These three sad creatures had wanted to change that, and a lot more besides.

I glanced at the jury – doubtless hand-picked by Braxfield himself. The accused would be whipped and sent to Botany Bay. The public gallery was restless. There were guards between the populace and the bench. The servant was nodded through by one of the guards and handed Whitewood’s note to Braxfield. Then he turned quickly and left by another door. I was set to follow when the Hanging Judge noticed me.

‘Cullender, approach the bench!’

I bit my lip, but knew better than to defy Braxfield, even if it meant losing my quarry. The guards let me through. I forbore to look at the accused as I passed them.

‘Yes, my lord?’

Braxfield nibbled another of his infernal biscuits. He looked like he’d drunk well, too. ‘Cullender,’ he said, ‘you’re one of the least honest and civil men in this town, am I correct?’

‘I have competitors, my lord.’

He guffawed, spitting crumbs from his wet lips. ‘But tell me this, would you have a man live who committed treason?’

I swallowed, aware of three pairs of eyes behind me. ‘I might ask myself about his motives, my lord.’

Braxfield leaned over the bench. He was unquestionably ugly, eyes black as night. In his seventies, he grew increasingly eccentric. He was what passed for the law in this city. ‘Then it’s as well I’m wearing this wig and not you!’ he screeched. He wagged a finger, the nail of which was sore in need of a trim. ‘You’ll see Australia one day, my friend if you’re not careful. Now be gone, I’ve some justice to dispense.’

It had been a long time since Braxfield and ‘justice’ had been even loosely acquainted.

Outside, the servant was long gone. Cursing my luck and the law courts both, I headed down to the Canongate.

I engaged Mr Mack’s services regarding my lady’s book, warning him to be extra vigilant and telling him of Dryden’s demise. He suggested going to the authorities, then realised what he was saying. The law was as effectual as a scented handkerchief against the pox, and we both knew it.

I sat in a howff and ate a dish of oysters. Having been to look at the university, Master Gisborne joined me.

‘It’ll be fine when it’s finished,’ was his opinion.

I supped the last of the juice and put down the platter. ‘Remember I told you about the serpent, master?’

His eyes were red-rimmed, face puffy with excess. He nodded.

‘Well,’ I continued thoughtfully, ‘perhaps it’s not so far beneath the surface as I thought. You need only scratch and you’ll see it. Remember that, even in your cups.’

He looked puzzled, but nodded again. Then he seemed to remember something and reached into his leather bag. He handed me a wrapped parcel.

‘Cully, can you keep this somewhere safe?’

‘What is it?’

‘Just hold it for me a day or so. Will you do that?’

I nodded and placed the parcel at my feet. Gisborne looked mightily relieved. Then the howff door swung inwards and Urquhart and others appeared, taking Gisborne off with them. I finished my wine and made my way back to my room.

Halfway there, I met the tailor whose family lived two floors below me.

‘Cully,’ he said, ‘men are looking for you.’

‘What sort of men?’

‘The sort you wouldn’t have find you. They’re standing guard on the stairwell and won’t shift.’

‘Thanks for the warning.’

He held my arm. ‘Cully, business is slow. If you could persuade some of your clients of the quality of my cloth…?’

‘Depend on it.’ I went back up the brae to The Cross and found Mr Mack.

‘Here,’ I said, handing him the parcel. ‘Keep this for me.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m not sure. I think I may have stepped in something even less savoury than I thought. Any news of the List?’

Mack shook his head. He looked worried when I left him; not for himself, but for me.

I kept heading uphill, towards the Castle itself. Beneath Castle Hill lay the catacombs where the town’s denizens used to hide when the place was being sacked. And where the lowest of Edinburgh’s wretches still dwelt. I would be safe there, so I made my way into the tunnels and out of the light, averting my face where possible from each interested, unfriendly gaze.

The man I sought sat slouched against one of the curving walls, hands on his knees. He could sit like that for hours, brooding. He was a giant, and there were stories to equal his size. It was said he’d been a seditionary, a rabble-rouser, both pirate and smuggler. He had almost certainly killed men, but these days he lay low. His name was Ormond.

He watched me sit opposite him, his gaze unblinking.

‘You’re in trouble,’ he said at last.

‘Would I be here otherwise? I need somewhere to sleep for tonight.’

He nodded slowly. ‘That’s all any of us needs. You’ll be safe here, Cullender.’

And I was.

But next morning I was roused early by Ormond shaking me.

‘Men outside,’ he hissed. ‘Looking for you.’

I rubbed my eyes. ‘Is there another exit?’

Ormond shook his head. ‘If you went any deeper into this maze, you could lose yourself for ever. These burrows run as far as the Canongate.’

‘How many men?’ I was standing up now, fully awake.

‘Four.’

I held out my hand. ‘Give me a dagger, I’ll deal with them.’ I meant it too. I was aching and irritable and tired of running. But Ormond shook his head.

‘I’ve a better plan,’ he said.

He led me back through the tunnel towards its entrance. The tunnel grew more populous as we neared the outside world. I could hear my pursuers ahead, examining faces, snarling as each one proved false. Then Ormond filled his lungs.

‘The price of corn’s to be raised!’ he bellowed. ‘New taxes! New laws! Everyone to The Cross!’

Voices were raised in anger, and people clambered to their feet. Ormond was raising a mob. The Edinburgh mob was a wondrous thing. It could run riot through the streets, and then melt back into the shadows. There’d been the Porteous riots, anti-Catholic riots, price-rise riots, and pro-Revolution riots. Each time, the vast majority escaped arrest. A mob could be raised in a minute, and could disperse in another. Even Braxfield feared the mob.

Ormond was bellowing in front of me. As for me, I was merely another of the wretches. I passed the men who’d been seeking me. They stood dumbfounded in the midst of the spectacle. As soon as the crowd reached the Lawn-market, I peeled off with a wave of thanks to Ormond, slipped into an alley and was alone again.

But not for long. Down past the Luckenbooths I saw the servant again, and this time he would not evade me. Down towards Princes Street he went, down Geordie Boyd’s footpath, a footpath that would soon be wide enough for carriages. He crossed Princes Street and headed up to George Street. There at last I saw him descend some steps and enter a house by its servants’ door. I stopped a sedan chair. Both chairmen knew me through Mr Mack.

‘That house there?’ one of them said in answer to my question. ‘It used to belong to Lord Thorpe before he left for London. A bookseller bought it from him.’

‘A Mr Whitewood?’ I asked blithely. The chairman nodded. ‘I admit I don’t know that gentleman well. Is he married?’

‘Married aye, but you wouldn’t know it. She’s seldom seen, is she, Donald?’

‘Rarely, very rarely,’ the second chairman agreed.

‘Why’s that? Has she the pox or something?’

They laughed at the imputation. ‘How would we know a thing like that?’

I laughed too, and bid them thanks and farewell. Then I approached the front door of the house and knocked a good solid knock.

The servant, when he opened the door, was liveried. He looked at me in astonishment.

‘Tell your mistress I wish to speak with her,’ I said sharply.

He appeared in two minds at least, but I sidestepped him and found myself in a fine entrance hall.

‘Wait in here,’ the servant growled, closing the front door and opening another. ‘I’ll ask my lady if she’ll deign to see you.’

I toured the drawing-room. It was like walking around an exhibition, though in truth the only exhibition I’d ever toured was of Bedlam on a Sunday afternoon, and then only to look for a friend of mine.

The door opened and the lady of the house swept in. She had powdered her cheeks heavily to disguise the redness there – either embarrassment or anger. Her eyes avoided mine, which gave me opportunity to study her. She was in her mid twenties, not short, and with a pleasing figure. Her lips were full and red, her eyes hard but to my mind seductive. She was a catch, but when she spoke her voice was rough-hewn, and I wondered at her history.

‘What do you want?’

‘What do you think I want?’

She picked up a pretty statuette. ‘Are we acquainted?’

‘I believe so. We met outside the Tolbooth.’

She attempted a disbelieving laugh. ‘Indeed? It’s a place I’ve never been.’

‘You would not care to see its innards, lady, yet you may if you continue in this manner.’

No amount of powder could have hidden her colouring. ‘How dare you come here!’

‘My life is in danger, lady.’

This quieted her. ‘Why? What have you done?’

‘Nothing save what you asked of me.’

‘Have you found the book?’

‘Not yet, and I’ve a mind to hand you back your money.’

She saw what I was getting at, and looked aghast. ‘But if you’re in danger… I swear it cannot be to do with me!’

‘No? A man has died already.’

‘Mr Cullender, it’s only a book! It’s nothing anyone would kill for.’

I almost believed her. ‘Why do you want it?’

She turned away. ‘That is not your concern.’

‘My chief concern is my neck, lady. I’ll save it at any cost.’

‘I repeat, you are in no danger from seeking that book. If you think your life in peril, there must needs be some other cause.’ She stared at me as she spoke, and the damnation of it was that I believed her. I believed that Dryden’s death, Braxfield’s threat, the men chasing me, that none of it had anything to do with her. She saw the change in me, and smiled a radiant smile, a smile that took me with it.

‘Now get out,’ she said. And with that she left the room and began to climb the stairs. Her servant was waiting for me by the front door, holding it open in readiness.

My head was full of puzzles. All I knew with certainty was that I was sick of hiding. I headed back to the old town with a plan in my mind as half-baked as the scrapings the baker tossed out to the homeless.

I toured the town gossips, starting with the fishwives. Then I headed to The Cross and whispered in the ears of selected caddies and chairmen. Then it was into the howffs and dining establishments, and I was glad to wash my hard work down with a glass or two of wine.

My story broadcast, I repaired to my lodgings and lay on the straw mattress. There were no men waiting for me on the stairwell. I believe I even slept a little. It was dark when I next looked out of the skylight. The story I’d spread was that I knew who’d killed Dryden, and was merely biding my time before alerting the Town Rats. Would anyone fall for the ploy? I wasn’t sure. I fell to a doze again, but opened my eyes on hearing noises on the stair.

The steps to my attic were rotten and had to be managed adroitly. My visitor – a lone man, I surmised – was doing his best. I sat up on the mattress and watched the door begin to open. In deep shadow, a figure entered my room, closing the door after it with some finality.

‘Good evening, Cully.’

I swallowed drily. ‘So the stories were true then, Deacon Brodie?’

‘True enough,’ he said, coming closer. His face was almost unrecognisable, much older, more careworn, and he wore no wig, no marks of a gentleman. He carried a slender dagger in his right hand.

‘I cheated the gibbet, Cully,’ he said with his old pride.

‘But I was there, I saw you drop.’

‘And you saw my men cut me down and haul me away.’ He grinned with what teeth were left in his head. ‘A wooden collar saved my throat, Cully. I devised it myself.’

I recalled the red silk he’d worn ostentatiously around his throat. A scarf from a female admirer, the story went. It would have hidden just such a device.

‘You’ve been in hiding a long time,’ I said. The dagger was inches from me.

‘I fled Edinburgh, Cully. I’ve been away these past five and a half years.’

‘What brought you back?’ I couldn’t take my eyes off the dagger.

‘Aye,’ Brodie said, seeing what was in my mind. ‘The doctor who pronounced me dead and the coffin-maker who was supposed to have buried me. I couldn’t have witnesses alive… not now.’

‘And the others, Dryden and the wretch Howison?’

‘Both recognised me, curse them. Then you started to snoop around, and couldn’t be found.’

‘But why? Why are you back?’

The dagger was touching my throat now. I’d backed myself into a corner of the bed. There was nowhere to go. ‘I was tempted back, Cully. A temptation I could not resist. The crown jewels.’

‘What?’

His voice was a feverish whisper. ‘The chest in the crown room. I will have its contents, my last and greatest theft.’

‘Alone? Impossible.’

‘But I’m not alone. I have powerful allies.’ He smiled. ‘Braxfield for one. He believes the theft of the jewels will spark a Scots revolution. But you know this already, Cully. You were seen watching Braxfield. You were seen in Whitewood’s shop.’

‘Whitewood’s part of it too?’

‘You know he is, romantic fool that he is.’ The point of the dagger broke my skin. I could feel blood trickle down my throat. If I spoke again, they would be my last words. I felt like laughing. Brodie was so wrong in his surmisings. Everything was wrong. A sudden noise on the stair turned Brodie’s head. My own dagger was hidden beneath my thigh. I grabbed it with one hand, my other hand wrestling with Brodie’s blade.

When Gisborne opened the door, what he saw sobered him immediately.

Brodie freed himself and turned to confront the young Englishman, dagger ready, but not ready enough. Gisborne had no hesitation in running him through. Brodie stood there frozen, then keeled over, his head hitting the boards with a dull dead sound.

Gisborne was the statue now. He stared at the spreading blood.

I got to my feet quickly. ‘Where did you get the blade?’ I asked, amazed.

Gisborne swallowed. ‘I bought it new today, heeding your advice.’

‘You saved my life, young master.’ I stared down at Brodie’s corpse. ‘But why are you here?’

Gisborne came to his senses. ‘I heard you were looking for a book.’

‘I was. What of it?’ We were both staring at Brodie.

‘Only to tell you that I am in possession of it. Or I was. The lawyer Urquhart gave it to me. He said I would doubtless find it useful… Who was this man?’

I ignored the question and glared at him. ‘ You have the book?’

He shook his head. ‘I daren’t keep it in my room for fear my landlady might find it.’

I blinked. ‘That parcel?’ Gisborne nodded. I felt a fool, a dumb fool. But there was Brodie’s corpse to dispose of. I could see little advantage in reporting this, his second demise, to the authorities. Questions would be asked of Master Gisborne, and a young Englishman might not always receive a fair hearing, especially with Braxfield at the bench. God no, the body must be disposed of quietly.

And I knew just the spot.

Mr Mack helped us lug the guts down to the new town, propping Brodie in the sedan chair. The slumped corpse resembled nothing so much as a sleeping drunk.

In Charlotte Square we found some fresh foundations and buried the remains of Deacon Brodie within. We were all three in a sweat by the time we’d finished. I sat myself down on a large stone and wiped my brow.

‘Well, friends,’ I said, ‘it is only right and proper.’

‘What is?’ Gisborne asked, breathing heavily.

‘The old town has its serpent, and now the new town does too.’ I watched Gisborne put his jacket back on. It was the blue coat with silver buttons. There was blood on it, and dirt besides.

‘I know a tailor,’ I began, ‘might make something fresh for an excellent price…’

Next morning, washed and crisply dressed, I returned to my lady’s house. I waved the parcel under the servant’s nose and he hurried upstairs.

My lady was down promptly, but gave me no heed. She had eyes only for the book. Book? It was little more than a ragged pamphlet, its pages well-thumbed, scribbled margin-alia commenting on this or that entry or adding a fresh one. I handed her the tome.

‘The entry you seek is towards the back,’ I told her. She looked startled. ‘You are, I suppose, the Masked Lady referred to therein? A lady for daylight assignations only, and always masked, speaking in a whisper?’

Her cheeks were crimson as she tore at the book, scattering its shreddings.

‘Better have the floor swept,’ I told her. ‘You wouldn’t want Mr Whitewood to find any trace. That was your reason all along, was it not? He is a known philanderer. It was only a matter of time before he got to read of the Masked Lady, and became intrigued to meet her.’

Her head was held high, like she was examining the room’s cornices.

‘I’m not ashamed,’ she said.

‘Nor should you be.’

She saw I was mocking her. ‘I am a prisoner here, with no more life than a doll.’

‘So you take revenge in your own particular manner? I understand, lady, but you must understand this. Two men died because of you. Not directly, but that matters not to them. Only one deserved to die. For the other…’ I jangled the bag of money she’d given me that first night. ‘These coins will buy him a burial.’

Then I bade her good day and left the whole shining new town behind me, with its noises of construction and busyness. Let them build all the mighty edifices they would; they could not erase the stain. They could not erase the real town, the old town, the town I knew so intimately. I returned to the howff where Gisborne and Mack awaited me.

‘I’ve decided,’ the young master said, ‘to study law rather than medicine, Cully.’ He poured me a drink. ‘Edinburgh needs another lawyer, don’t you think?’

The image of Braxfield came unasked into my mind. ‘Like it needs another plague, master.’

But I raised my glass to him anyway.