The Green Man

Fifteen

While I had been in the Widow Callender’s house, the sky had grown darker, and now I could see black clouds shouldering their way across the hill that rose up behind the abbey at the other end of the town. There was suddenly a sullen look to the afternoon and I noticed people pulling their caps more firmly about their ears, the itinerant street sellers beginning to look for the shelter of nearby doorways. As the last rags of sunlight disappeared, I realized yet again, if anything even more forcibly than before, how far I was from home; how alien this bleak, grey city seemed to me after the soft, rolling hills of my native west country and the small, smudged towns and villages that nestled in their folds. I was once more gripped by panic that I was trapped in some dream from which I could not awaken, and was caught for ever, like a fly in amber, unable to get free.

‘Saint Margaret,’ I prayed fervently. ‘child of Wessex, come to my aid. Saint Dunstan, Saint Patrick, assist me now.’

I kept repeating the words foolishly, and after a while meaninglessly, as I walked blindly through the Lawnmarket, oblivious of the surrounding booths with their bales of chequered cloth, bright among the paler silks and linens, and the stalls where butter and cheese were displayed, until a man barged into me with a muttered oath of annoyance and brought me to my senses. Regardless of passers-by, I stood stock still and took a deep breath.

Gradually, peace and common sense returned. I felt comforted by some inner presence as I recollected that I was not alone, but in the company of several thousand fellow Englishmen, camped in the valley below the city, at the foot of the castle rock. Moreover, my friend (if I dared to think of him as such) and patron, the Duke of Gloucester, was only quarter of a mile distant, perhaps less, in the castle itself. What possible harm could come to me while I had his protection?

And yet I could not quite suppress all uneasiness. I kept remembering the strange warnings I had received from the ‘Green Man’ that suggested I was in some kind of danger; and from there my thoughts inevitably strayed to the depictions of this weird figure in Master Sinclair’s house. Was there any connection, or was it just a coincidence, a part of the same nightmare?

I was growing morbid again. I drew a second deep breath, sent up another short prayer to my three Wessex saints and, with a sense of renewed purpose, strode forward through a maze of little alleys, described to me by Mistress Callender, into the Grassmarket.

It was a busy, thriving place which, again according to my erstwhile hostess, had been granted a royal charter five years previously to hold a weekly market, making it one of the busiest quarters of the city. But slicing through the friendlier, commercial smells of spices and fruit, vegetables and meat, together with the less exotic aromas of the open drains and cess-pits of the crowding houses, was the familiar, but gut-churning stench of rotting corpses. For the Grassmarket was also the place of execution, and the bodies of three felons, in various states of decomposition, were dangling from the gallows; never a pretty sight, but one from which, like most people, I had learned to avert my gaze with practised ease. Only the nostrils remained offended.

It had started to rain by now, not the torrential downpour promised earlier by the gathering clouds, but a steady pitter-pattering on the cobbles that washed away some of the dirt and excrement, yet not hard enough to send the scavenging wild dogs and cats scurrying for shelter.

I stopped at one of the stalls and asked for Master Buchanan’s direction. Five minutes or so later, after a good deal of shouting and gesticulating, after sorting out which particular Master Buchanan was meant, and, finally, after being spat at for the bastard Sassenach I so obviously was, I found myself knocking at the door of a solid, two-storey house near the West Port.

My summons was answered by a little maid with a soiled apron over her grey worsted dress and a general air of untidiness that suggested there was no mistress of the establishment, only a bachelor master. I had not enquired whether John Buchanan were married or no, but my guess was proved to be correct when I was at last shown into his presence by the flustered young girl who had failed to understand a word that I was saying. Only my continued shouts of ‘Master Buchanan!’ had eventually produced the desired result.

The man who rose to greet me in the front, downstairs parlour, from behind a table littered with papers, was clad in funereal black from neck to toe and wore a large and ostentatious mourning ring on one of his fingers. I judged him to be around thirty years of age, blue-eyed, with shoulder-length brown hair; good-looking without being handsome. In short, the sort of man who would be passed in the street every day of the week without exciting a great deal of notice.

‘Master Buchanan! Sir!’ I bowed, but not too low. ‘Do you speak English?’

He raised thin eyebrows. ‘Tolerably well. Are you one of our English conquerors?’ There was a slight sneer as he said it. I was so patently not someone of any great importance, but, equally obviously, I was one of the hated enemy, so what was I doing there?

I hastened to explain, making my story as brief as clarity would allow for my own sake as well as his. It was the third time I had repeated it that day. He heard me out in a frowning silence that grew more oppressive by the minute and which lasted for some thirty or so seconds after I had finished speaking.

‘So!’ he said at last. ‘My lord Albany’s back, is he? And in the company of his country’s enemies, the treacherous bastard! And if that’s not enough, he wants to prove that murdering brother-in-law of mine innocent of Aline’s killing. A secret diary you say? What sort of lying nonsense is this? A secret diary that tells of a secret lover?’ He brought his fist slamming down on the table top, making the papers jump, a few sliding over the edge on to the floor. I would have stooped to pick them up, but he yelled at me to let them alone. He was working himself up into a fine lather of rage, spittle flecking his lips. ‘Miserable cur!’ I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to me, Albany or Master Sinclair. Perhaps it was meant for all three of us. Master Buchanan didn’t pause to elucidate, raging on, ‘My poor sister never had eyes but for one man, and that was her husband. The fool adored him! Worshipped him! And don’t tell me it was mutual!’ I hadn’t been about to utter a word. ‘That … That … That dung-beetle, that piece of horse-shit, that gooseturd never adored or worshipped anyone but himself!’

He was slavering at the mouth now and I began to be afraid that he was having a fit. I pushed him gently back into his chair and looked around for a wine jug. Unable to see one, I went in search of the little maid, running her to earth in the kitchen, and told her to bring some wine and two beakers to the parlour. I realized that I was in need of some refreshment myself.

Master Buchanan was quieter now, slumped forward, one elbow resting on the table and supporting his chin. Tears were coursing down his cheeks and his whole body was racked by sobs. I suddenly felt uncomfortable; an intruder on another person’s private grief.

It did strike me, though, that his grief seemed somewhat excessive, and yet what right had I to think so? I knew little of grieving. My father had been killed when I was four years old, following a fall from the nave roof of Wells Cathedral. I had shed a few dutiful tears when my mother died, but her death had touched me no more deeply than had the subsequent death in childbed of my first wife, my daughter Elizabeth’s mother, Lillis Walker. I tried to conjure up how I would feel if something were to happen to Adela or one of the children and began to understand in some small measure the agony of loss. Perhaps I was being too severe.

The maid came in with a tarnished silver jug and beakers on an equally tarnished silver tray which she put down on the table so carelessly that some of the wine slopped over, staining one or two of the documents lying scattered around. Even this didn’t rouse Master Buchanan to a protest, so I poured and handed him a beaker of wine, at the same time adjuring him to pull himself together.

‘Your sorrow undoubtedly does you credit,’ I remarked sententiously, ‘but it won’t help to discover the truth about your sister’s death.’

‘We know the truth about my sister’s death,’ he answered in a voice harsh with suppressed anger. ‘Rab killed her.’

‘But why?’ I demanded. ‘Have you asked yourself that? Everyone seems to be of the opinion that he adored her. So why would he take a knife to her if that were true? Unless, of course, his explanation of what happened is the correct one.’

John Buchanan said something under his breath. I couldn’t quite catch the words but they sounded vicious. His fingers curled around the beaker he was holding, and I thought for a moment that he was going to throw its contents in my face, but he evidently thought better of such a gesture and swallowed the wine in three quick gulps. He replaced the empty beaker on the tray and sat up, wiping his mouth and the rest of his face on the back of his hand.

It had occurred to me, while I was watching him, to wonder if he had had an incestuous relationship with his sister. His name, after all, began with the letter J and it would explain why Aline’s lover seemed to have been invisible to both Mistress Callender and Maria Beton, and why no suspicion of infidelity had been aroused in Master Sinclair’s mind. What could be more natural than for her to be constantly in the company of her brother? It was not something that I wanted to believe. Like sodomy, incest was a sin punishable by death, but such things were not unknown, and were practised more often than many people imagined. It might also explain other things, like Aline’s reluctance to name her lover and Master Buchanan’s excessive grief.

But almost immediately, I began to feel ashamed of myself for harbouring any such thoughts. Particularly when he rounded on me with a face like thunder, almost as if he knew what I had been thinking.

‘You ask me why Rab killed my sister?’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you if you’re really serious about discovering the truth. He killed her and then cooked up this cock-and-bull story of a secret diary and secret lover because he’s the one who’s playing her false with that housekeeper of theirs. Rab wanted Aline dead, not the other way around.’

There was a moment’s sheer, astonished silence on my part before I burst out laughing.

‘Mistress Beton?’ I gasped. ‘No! No, I don’t believe it!’

And I didn’t believe it. It was not simply that Maria Beton was a plain woman and Rab Sinclair a handsome man. (Well, he would be handsome enough when he was not pinched with fear and grimed from rough handling by his prison guards.) In my time, I have encountered plenty of such mismatched couples where I would have thought it almost impossible for either the man or the woman to have chosen such an unlikely partner. But always the plainer of the two had some obvious attraction; a beautiful voice perhaps, a lovely smile, fascinating eyes or, most potent of all, an indefinable promise of giving pleasure in bed. But as far as I could tell, Maria Beton had none of those attributes. She had struck me as a peculiarly charmless woman.

John Buchanan slapped the arm of his chair.

‘You may laugh,’ he snapped, ‘but I assure you that it’s true.’

‘Do you have proof?’ I asked.

He looked uncomfortable. ‘If you mean have I seen them kissing or holding hands or giving any outward signs of affection, then I suppose the answer must be no. But once or twice when I’ve been visiting Aline, I’ve caught them whispering together in corners, and breaking off hurriedly — guiltily, more like — as soon as they’ve become aware of my presence. And not only in the house. On two occasions at least I’ve seen them from my window here, deep in conversation on the other side of the street.’

I shrugged. I could see nothing extraordinary in a man being caught conversing with his housekeeper. Indeed, it seemed a perfectly normal occurrence, and I suspected that Master Buchanan was reading more into what was an entirely acceptable situation in order to convince himself of his sister’s innocence and his brother-in-law’s guilt. I therefore decided that no advantage could be gained by pursuing this line of enquiry and abruptly changed the subject, asking, ‘When you and Mistress Sinclair returned home on Monday, after visiting your aunt, were you and she alone at any point in the house?’

I thought he would be bound to follow the drift of my questioning and avoid the trap, but he replied angrily, ‘Yes. Neither of them were there to greet her, although they knew to expect us. You might have thought that if Rab were as fond of my sister as he professed to be, and as everyone considered him, he would have been waiting to welcome her back after three days deprived of her company. But some time elapsed before he put in an appearance, and longer again before Maria Beton came in. Her excuse was that she’d been in the garden picking herbs for some new dish she was making for supper. Something of that sort. I didn’t stop to hear all of their reasons for their absence. I wanted to get home. My nag was tired after the journey and needed his stable. So I exchanged a brief word with Rab and left.’ He took a great gulp of air and tears gathered again in the corners of his eyes. ‘Not knowing,’ he added in a shaking voice, ‘that that was the last time I was to see my dear sister alive.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said mechanically, but my thoughts were otherwise occupied.

If John Buchanan and Aline Sinclair had indeed had some time alone together in the Sinclair house, could she not have passed the diary to him for safekeeping? It would have been the work of only a few minutes for her to run upstairs — so simple with that indoor staircase — unlock the cupboard and bring it down. If he was already aware of its contents for whatever reason, her lover or her confidant, he could have slipped it beneath his travelling cloak and taken it away with him. I found myself glancing around the room, half expecting to see the diary carelessly dropped in a corner or amidst the welter of papers littering the table.

I breathed deeply and told myself not to be so foolish. If what I suspected was indeed the truth, the foolishly incriminating diary had probably been destroyed by now. But then a niggling doubt raised its unwelcome head. Why would Aline suddenly have taken fright and passed her confession of intent to murder to her brother? She knew nothing of what had happened while she had been away. So what would have been the reason for her sudden panic?

‘Why are you staring around like that?’ my companion asked aggressively. ‘What are you looking for?’ I didn’t know what to answer and stood there, appearing no doubt more than a little foolish, trying to conjure up a suitable reply. But my companion, who proved to be sharper than I had given him credit for, exclaimed indignantly, ‘You’re thinking that Aline might have given the diary to me, aren’t you? That’s what those questions were about. To find out if we were alone; if Aline had time to pass the wretched thing to me?’ He jumped up from his chair, bringing his fist crashing down on the table top for a second time. (That right hand of his was taking a lot of unnecessary punishment. He would have some bruises, I reckoned, in the morning.) ‘Can’t you understand, you great ungainly Sassenach, that there never was, never has been, a diary? I’d stake my life on it! I told you! It’s something Rab’s thought up to explain his murder of my sister!’

I had to admit to myself that it was a possibility that had begun to nudge at the edges of my own mind, but as yet I could see no alternative reason for Rab Sinclair wanting to kill his wife. The one offered by Master Buchanan I dismissed. I didn’t know why — as I’ve said, I’d known some very strange matings and couplings in my life — but some deep-rooted instinct told me that, in this instance, it was not the case. And I have, to a large extent, learned to trust that instinct. So, if Master Sinclair were lying, I had yet to discover his purpose.

Nevertheless, I had a nagging feeling that I was missing a vital clue; that I had been told something of significance that I had ignored, that had not made the impact on my consciousness that it should have done. But the more I struggled to remember what it was, the more it eluded me.

‘Well, say something!’ John Buchanan barked. ‘Don’t just stand there, staring, like a stuffed duck!’

I have been called some names in my time, most of them unrepeatable, but to be likened to a duck (and a stuffed one at that) insulted me beyond measure. I opened my mouth to retaliate in kind, but instead, to my own great surprise, as well as that of my host, I heard myself ask, ‘What do you know of the Green Man?’

‘What?’ Master Buchanan was regarding me in astonishment at a question that seemed to him to be a total irrelevancy. His bewilderment was not to be wondered at. I was confused myself.

‘The Green Man,’ I repeated feebly.

‘The Green Man?’

‘Yes.’

His face suffused with colour. He was getting angrier by the minute.

‘Is this a joke?’ he demanded scathingly. ‘And if not, what does the Green Man have to do with my sister and this diary that she is supposed to have written?’

‘Nothing really. At least …’ I hesitated. The thought had come from somewhere and it suddenly occurred to me that God might be giving me a nudge. ‘It’s just … It’s just that Mistress Beton told me that the Green Man has a particular significance for the Sinclair family. The coverlet on your sister’s bed has an embroidered medallion of the Green Man as its centrepiece; a coverlet made by your great-grandmother or, possibly, great-great-grandmother Sinclair. You are related to your brother-in-law, I believe, by blood as well as marriage?’

John Buchanan had sunk back into his chair, a frown between his brows.

‘Yes,’ he admitted, still puzzled. ‘Both Aline and I are — were …’ He broke off with a choking sob that half-stifled him for a second or two, but then made an effort to pull himself together and continued, ‘I have Sinclair blood in me, yes. So, therefore, did Aline. But what’s this nonsense about the Green Man? I know his effigy, of course. It’s carved in a great many places.’

I nodded. ‘Robert Sinclair even has it carved on a beam-end in the back parlour of his house. Have you never noticed it?’

The frown deepened. ‘No, I can’t say that I have.’

‘Well it’s there.’

I decided at this point that I’d had enough of standing up and that if my host wasn’t prepared to invite me to sit down, I would find my own seat. So I hooked one leg over the edge of the table and eased my buttocks on top of the litter of papers, ignoring his indignant protest. I pushed the tray out of the way, slopping a little more of the wine in the process.

Master Buchanan furiously mopped up the mess with his sleeve, eyeing me malevolently as he did so.

Before he could say anything, however, I went on, ‘Mistress Beton also told me that the chapel at this village where your aunt lives — Roslin is it? — the chapel built forty years ago by one of your ancestors — is filled with images of the Green Man.’

‘Oh, that place!’ he said, his annoyance suddenly evaporating. He shivered. ‘It’s a very strange building. Very strange indeed. Do you know it?’

I pointed out politely that I wouldn’t be asking about it if I did.

‘I’m a stranger to Scotland,’ I said, and was about to add that that was how I hoped matters would stay; that I never wanted to come back to this cold northern land with its bleak hills, its seemingly never-ending vistas of moorland, its dark, brooding forests and the winds that blustered in from the wild North Sea. Yet even as I spoke, other pictures crowded my mind; a grassy hollow clouded with harebells and sweet-smelling thyme; the long, startled cry of a curlew as the bird beat its way skyward with a whisper and rush of wings; a breeze that silvered the heather and rippled the face of a little black tarn; and, far away in some high glen, a string of goblin figures as a herdsman took his goats and cattle to the shelter of his hut for the night, sleeping, curled for warmth, against their stinking hides. I realized then that it was a country that could come back to haunt the soul.

‘Tell me about this chapel at Roslin,’ I invited.

‘Why? What has it to do with my sister and that murdering husband of hers?’

‘I’m just curious. My lord Albany was so anxious to turn aside to visit it on our journey to Edinburgh that it excited my interest. There’s no other reason.’

John Buchanan shrugged like one humouring an idiot.

‘It was built about forty years ago,’ he said, ‘maybe not so long, by William Sinclair, last Earl of Orkney. In fact, I think I’m right in saying that it was never finished. Only the choir and part of the transepts were completed. A lot of the local inhabitants don’t like it. Won’t go near the place.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s the carvings. The place is full of them. God alone knows what stonemasons William employed, but whoever they were, they knew how to work stone. They carved it like it was butter. Mind you, some people hold that it’s all the work of the Devil. They say that many of the images aren’t even Christian. Some are pagan like the Green Man, the ancient symbol of death and rebirth, and he’s everywhere you look. My aunt reckons there must be sixty or more carvings of him in the choir alone. Swears she’s counted ’em. Mind you, I wouldn’t place too much reliance on anything she told me. She’s getting on a bit now. Wanders in her mind occasionally. I’ve also heard it said by those who claim to know about such things that some of the symbols are Judaic. Then there’s the great pillar. I’ve never seen anything like the carving on that. There’s a story about it.’

My companion was warming now to his theme, his grief for his sister’s death temporarily forgotten. If I’d achieved nothing else, I had at least done that much for him. He went on, ‘They say the master mason let his apprentice carve it. Didn’t think he’d make much of a fist of it, I suppose. Thought he’d have a laugh at the poor lad’s expense and then show him how it ought to be done. He went away for a few days, but when he came back and saw this work of art, he was so jealous that he clubbed the lad on the head with his mallet and killed him.’

‘A gruesome little tale,’ I commented. ‘What happened to the master mason?’

Once more, John Buchanan hunched his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. And in any case, it’s only a story. There are others. My aunt swears the pillar is modelled on one that supported an inner porch of King Solomon’s Temple, and that the architect of that temple, Hiram Abif, was also killed by a blow to the head. It was a kind of ritual murder, she says. A blood sacrifice, if you like, to appease the wrath of God.’

There was silence for a moment and I realized that I had strayed a long way from my reason for being there, in that house in the Grassmarket. Ask a silly question and you get nothing but a digression; a lot of information which, no matter how interesting it might be, is of no use at all. If it had been God who nudged me to ask it, then He was playing tricks; enjoying a joke at my expense. (I wouldn’t put it past Him.)

I cleared my throat and stood upright again, more papers floating to the ground as I lifted my leg clear of the table. I gave one last look around.

‘I’m sorry to have intruded on your time, Master Buchanan,’ I said reluctantly. ‘And your grief,’ I added as an afterthought.

‘If you are indeed acting on the Duke of Albany’s orders, as you say, then I understand that you had no choice. But I assure you, and you may tell the duke that I said so, there is no need to look further than my brother-in-law and his paramour, Maria Beton, for the reason for my sister’s death. All this talk of the discovery of a secret diary with its plans for Rab’s murder and details of a secret lover, is so much nonsense. Just so many lies. It’s something that the pair of them have concocted together. That diary will never be found, mark my words.’

‘And if it is?’

He made no answer, but shook his head.

There was nothing more I could usefully say or do. Aline Sinclair had had both the time and opportunity to pass the diary to her brother on Monday, the day they both returned from Roslin. But if John Buchanan had it and it was hidden somewhere in his house, there was no way I could search for it. If Albany wanted the place ransacked, he would have to arrange the matter himself.

But there was also the possibility that the diary had been destroyed. In John Buchanan’s shoes, that is what I would have done. However shocked — or not — he had been by his sister’s revelations, that would have been the sensible course to follow, even had she not been murdered. And if he had indeed been her lover, he must have been appalled to realize that she had committed her thoughts and plans to paper. I could imagine him cursing the stupidity of womankind. Perhaps, after all, this case would never be resolved. Rab Sinclair would be duly executed for his wife’s murder and my lord Albany would have to reconcile himself to losing a valued friend.

I said my farewells and left.