The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

EIGHT Much Business in Town

And thus I had slept through the early morning bells. I opened the window shutters and looked out. Elizabeth was in the backhand, gathering eggs from her chickens and trying, with little success, to keep the pig from trampling on the vegetable patch. She was much too small and slight for such a task, and soon the old manservant was out in the yard, bidding his mistress leave off such work, before the master should hear of it. She smiled at the chastisement and returned to her eggs.

I washed and dressed quickly, but William was long gone by the time I descended to the warmth of the kitchen. Elizabeth’s eyes were full of kindness – I saw William had told her my story – but she masked it as she could. William was a fortunate man. He had loved Elizabeth from the day he met her. He, a scholar, the son of a schoolmaster, she, a kitchen maid, the daughter of a cooper burgess. They had been promised to each other six years, while he completed his course in philosophy at the Marischal College in New Aberdeen and through all his absence at Leiden in the study of law. Neither had strayed. They had married within three months of his return from the Netherlands and now, as he had told me last night, she was carrying his child.

She regarded me with a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘You slept well, I trust, Mr Seaton. Or is this the accustomed hour of rising for the burgesses of Banff? I had heard of your slovenly ways in those parts, but would scarce have credited them.’

I laughed in return. ‘Mistress, it is the unaccustomed luxury of your linen kist that kept me at my slumbers. We simple fisher folk know but coarse blankets and howling gales in our desolate dwellings. I dreamt I had fallen amongst the luxuries of Babylon, and was loath to extricate myself from their embrace.’

Elizabeth wagged an admonishing finger at me. ‘Mistress Youngson shall know of this loose talk, and then we will see how coarse are the blankets she will find you.’ It had been in the kitchen of the old schoolhouse in Banff that William had first met the girl who would become his wife.

She bade me sit down at the table and ladled steaming porridge into a bowl before me. ‘And then you will have eggs. My hens give the finest eggs in all the town. I sing to them.’

I made to protest that the porridge would do me fine enough, and she had better need of the eggs herself. She would not hear of it. ‘You need restoring. You have got so thin and gaunt, Alexander. Please, let me care for you a little. To see you better will do me more good than all the eggs in Scotland.’

Humbled, I did not know how to respond. The kindness in her was almost more than I could face. She saw my discomfort and made light. ‘Besides, if I consume many more eggs, my child will be born with feathers.’ She chattered on about what a fat wife she would be to William, who made her eat while she was not lying down and lie down while she did not eat. But I knew how worried he was. She had always been a pale girl, and slight, and while her pregnancy had brought a joy to her eyes, her cheeks were faded and those eyes tired. The weariness of her body, with five months of her burden yet to carry, was already evident. I thought of my friend, who had all of the promises life could afford a man in his hand, and prayed God that, if He still listened to me, He would not take them from him.

With a full stomach and a warmth of heart I had not felt in a long time, I set out on my morning’s business. My first call would be at the bookseller’s. David Melville’s shop on the Castlegate had been to me a place of greater delight than all the taverns of Aberdeen, and light though my purse now was, I set off along the street with the anticipation of a child on a holiday morning. The day was sunny and already warm. I decided to take the shorter route to the Castlegate, and avoid the noxious smells of the crafts already rising from the direction of the Netherkirkgate and Putachieside, where the tanners and dyers had been at their work several hours now. I glanced to my left at St Nicholas kirk. It rose, magnificent, dominating the skyline of the town. I had aspired, in the quiet, honest moments when ambition overtook calling, to a pulpit in that kirk. The building had been sectioned into two to allow a more fitting form of worship, now we had severed ourselves from the blandishments of Rome. But I would never preach in either kirk, East or West, now. I passed by a cobbler’s shop; through the open shutter I could see him working at the last, a fine piece of leather turning and moving in his hands. I coveted that leather – my feet were sore and my shoes almost beyond the power of the cobblers of Banff to mend again. I had meant to buy new boots, but the money to pay for them and much else was now in the greedy hand of Sarah Forbes’s uncle in King Edward. Perhaps, before I left town, I would try one of the cheaper cobblers who worked beside the tanners near Putachieside, at the Green.

At the Castlegate, I found the door of David Melville’s bookshop open. I could smell the piles of new books and the rows of well-bound older ones before I was fully in the shop. The bookseller had his back to me, a piece of paper in his hand as he checked a row of Latin grammars on the shelf. Affixed to the inside of the shop door were lists of books for the use of the town’s schools, which all clustered around the back of St Nicholas Kirk on the Schoolhill. I ran my eye down the list for the grammar school. Editions of Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, better and newer editions than Gilbert Grant knew of or I could afford. Melville finished counting off his catechisms and turned to greet me with a furrowed brow and then a broad smile. ‘Well, if it is not Mr Seaton. I have been expecting you these last few days. You said you would be here before the end of March.’

I shook his hand. ‘We have been much busied at the grammar school. The presbytery and council make their visitation at the end of April, and Mr Grant is determined that they will have no cause for fault-finding on this occasion.’

The bookseller gave a weary sigh. ‘The presbytery and council will always find fault. That is what they are for. But they will have little cause for complaint over your books. I have here the Cicero you wanted, and the Buchanan, and this Greek grammar.’

Melville tied up my books, then turned a page in his ledger to check the rest of my order. He went to the back wall of the shop, stacked from floor to ceiling with Bibles, and ran his finger along the shelf until he found what he was looking for. He carefully eased out a book bound in soft red leather, almost twice the size of those near it. ‘Here it is. Your good Master, Mr Gilbert Grant, asked me many months ago to find him a Bible printed large enough for his failing eyesight. And I think I have found it. I scoured the country,’ then he smiled, a little sheepish. ‘Well, at least I sent to Edinburgh, and here it is.’ I looked at the imposing volume he held out to me, the print large enough for my friend to read indeed, although I suspected every word of it was already imprinted on the old man’s heart. The bookseller was proud to have managed what he had been asked, but I was a little discomfited.

‘Mr Grant made no mention–’

Melville held up a conciliatory hand. ‘It was many months ago he asked me. He can send payment down from Banff with another courier, once he has the book in his hand. Now, for Dr Jaffray.’ I looked at the mounting pile of books on the counter and began to pity the horse that would carry me home. The bookseller went to another shelf and selected two medical textbooks which he brought over and untied for my examination. I paid Melville what he was owed for the doctor’s books and my own, and sadly declined to look at the most recent works of theology he had from Antwerp. Similarly, I shook my head to the offer of the latest tracts and pamphlets to have landed in Aberdeen from the Low Countries and the North of England. Arguments over the correct form of worship, of kneeling in kirk, of vestments and prayer books were of little interest to me now, although I did not judge it wise to confide that to the bookseller. He pointed to the ceiling above him, to where Raban, the burgh printer, plied his trade.

‘Raban is near worn out with the thing. Dr Forbes and Dr Baron and the other ministers do not let their pens lie idle on the matter. And I fear there will be much more of it to be heard yet. Anyhow, if I cannot tempt you to join in the pamphlet war, perhaps there is something more pleasant I can show you, if you do not have it already.’ From a shelf behind him he passed me a slim volume in quarto, printed here by Raban only three years ago. Poetical recreations of Mr Alexander Craig of Rosecraig. I thought of Charles Thom in the darkness and squalor of the tolbooth in Banff. What good might it do him to have the volume of Craig in his hand, summoning images of clear rivers, and freedom and love to his mind? The price of the volume was reasonable. My boots could be mended one more time. I arranged with the bookseller for the delivery of my purchases to William Cargill’s house.

It was only midday, and I was not to meet with Principal Dun at the university until tomorrow. I had one more errand to perform and then the day would be mine to fill as I wished until William returned from his business. I had a letter from the provost in my pocket. It was addressed to George Jamesone, artist, New Aberdeen. I did not need to ask for directions to Jamesone’s house. It was on the Schoolhill, not five minutes from Cargill’s place on the Upperkirkgate. I retraced my route of the morning and in a short time was presenting myself at the street door of the artist’s imposing house.

I knocked loudly on the door and waited. A pretty face appeared in the turret window two floors above me and then disappeared back into the darkness. I was still looking up when the door in front of me was opened inwards and a stern-faced old man asked me my business. He eyed me with some suspicion – I was not dressed in the usual manner of one who had business with his master, and he did not know me. He said he would fetch the mistress, and made to close the door.

‘Willie Park, will you let the gentleman in. Do you not know Mr Seaton?’

Willie looked me in the eye, and that thoroughly. ‘Indeed I do not. No more does the master, either, I’ll tell you that.’

‘Oh, Willie, away and fetch some wine.’

Willie went shuffling away, grumbling that it was changed days in this house, and what need had the master for a wife?

‘And do you not know me, Alexander?’

My eyes were only slowly becoming accustomed to the dimmer light of the interior. The pretty face that had looked down on me from the turret now emerged, still smiling, from the stairway in front of me. The young woman held in her arms a bundle of swaddling from which emanated a mewling sound. She came right to me and stood, beaming, almost as tall as myself, and glowing with happiness and pride at her bundle.

‘I am sorry I do not … and yet …’ and yet something tugged at a memory in my head. A forgotten recess, unlocked by that smile. I looked into the woman’s face and saw the face of a twelve-year-old girl, six or seven years ago, running with her brothers around the garden of the Hays’ town house, throwing chestnuts at myself and Archie until, roaring, we got up to chase them. ‘Isabel? Little Isabel Tosh?’

She nodded triumphantly. ‘The very same. How are you, Mr Seaton? I am pleased to have you in our home. I had heard you were not … I had not heard of you here in Aberdeen for a long time.’

‘No, I have been away a good while. So you are mistress here? You have married George Jamesone.’

‘I have, and I have borne him a son, the first of many, pray God.’

‘May you always be blessed. I am glad to see you.’

‘You remember the gay times with the Hays? Those were good days. Before this awful German war robbed them of their light. And you of your friend. I was as sorry for Archie’s loss as I would be for my own brother. He had such a heart, such a life in him.’ She paused in reflection a moment. ‘And you have business with George. Well, come away in. I will take you to him, and then I’ll get to the cellar myself. The wine will have turned before Willie ever brings it.’

She led me up the turnpike stair, chattering away and pointing out features of the house. On the third landing she knocked on a door and went before me into the room. I waited a moment until she reappeared and told me her husband would be glad to see me.

I had never met George Jamesone before, but I had known the painter well by sight in the latter days of my divinity studies in Aberdeen. From his time at Antwerp he dressed very much in the Dutch fashion, and affected a broad-brimmed black hat at all times – I now saw that the rumour that he wore it even while he painted was true. He greeted me with a wave of the hand as he finished some detail of the portrait he was working on, indicating that I should take a seat. I looked around me and settled for a stool by the door – I knew from my father that no craftsman likes to be disturbed in the middle of a piece of work. The room was remarkably large and airy, suffused with a northern light through the great window overlooking the long garden at the back of the house, and beyond that a stretch of woodland to the loch. Jamesone worked near the window, on a large canvas depicting a noblewoman and her two young daughters. I recognised her from gatherings at Delgatie – Anne Erskine, Countess of Rothes. He had her likeness well. Around the room were the tools and props of his trade, several I had no notion of the use of. In a small antechamber to my left I could discern pots, tubs, glass jars of myriad colours. Stacked to the right of the door were frames and parts of frames of various sizes, most black but some gilt, awaiting the fruit of the painter’s labours. There were other canvases too, some mere line drawings, others near completion.

Eventually Jamesone left off his work. Still with his back to me he stretched his arms wide and yawned, and then removed and hung up the smock he had been wearing. He turned and afforded me a broad smile. I liked him instantly – it was a smile of genuine fellowship in a face alive with humour and intelligence. ‘Mr Seaton, I am glad to see you. As you know, we have never met, but my wife tells me you are friends of old. Come, sit here by the window – you will be more comfortable and I can better see your face – I have an interest in faces.’ Had I not already known that he had travelled to learn his trade, his manners and way of speech would have given him away. He did not have the air of a man who had spent all his years within the confines of one society.

I did as he asked and moved to a seat near the window. He continued to move about the room, cleaning and tidying his brushes and paints and cloths. The old manservant came in with a tray of wine and a dish of nuts and raisins, which he set down grudgingly before me at his master’s request. ‘Now, Mr Seaton, you have business with me.’

I brought the letter from the pouch at my side. ‘Not I, but Walter Watt, provost of Banff.’ I held out the letter.

Jamesone took the letter that I held out to him. ‘So Watt has had himself made provost now, has he? Well, I cannot own myself surprised. He sat for me several years ago – he and his wife. He was a man who would not wait long on destiny, I think.’

I adjudged it better not to add my thoughts to those of the artist. He left that subject, and turned his attention to the letter, whose seal he had now broken.

‘Your provost wishes me to come to Banff once more to paint him and his family.’ He looked up. ‘I am glad they have had children. I think their lack was a great sadness to his wife.’

‘It is not the same wife. The first died some years ago.’

‘I am sorry to hear it. There was a great beauty and kindness in her. She should have been better blessed.’ He sighed. ‘But the provost has little notion of the press of patrons on me in these days. Those I paint now usually come to sit for me here. But I was glad enough of his business once and should not scorn him now. Besides, it would be interesting to paint the same face once again, and see how the years have marked it.’ He gestured towards the work he had just been engaged upon. ‘I am to travel with this portrait to Rothes at the end of the month. I will return home by way of Banff and see the provost and his family then. I cannot promise him that I can do any more than a sketch of them there – I think it likely they must come sit for me here. You can pass on this message for me?’

I assented, although I did not anticipate with any great pleasure telling the provost of Banff that, risen in the world though he was, he was of less consequence to George Jamesone than once he had been. The painter and I talked for a while of Banff and the country around and people he knew there. He avoided mention of Delgatie, and I suspected news of my disgrace had reached to Aberdeen and to the ears of those who hardly knew me. But here was a man who did not hold it to my account. He had travelled in the world and, as he told me, ‘A painter sees many things in the lives of men that others do not see.’

‘I am not sure of your meaning,’ I said.

He moved across the room to stand beside his canvas of the Countess of Rothes. ‘What do you see here?’

I scanned the portrait for a moment but could divine no great secret in it. ‘I see Anne Erskine and her two daughters.’

He quizzed me. ‘Is that all you see?’

I looked again and shrugged. ‘Well, no. I see a window, some heavy, rich draperies, a table, some artefacts. There is a box on the table with a necklace hanging out of it. There are some portraits on the wall behind the countess, and there is a chess board with some pieces on the table.’ He continued to eye me expectantly. I lifted my hands in resignation. ‘I am sorry. That is it.’

He smiled and took a clean brush in his hand and used it as a pointer. ‘You look, but you do not properly see. You see the Countess of Rothes and her two daughters. Yes. You see a window – is it simply for light? I am not a painter of windows. Look again – the arms of the family are stained in the glass – there is nobility there. And should you doubt it, regard the portraits behind her – there is lineage, too. The jewel box on the table; has she been careless, and not put things in their place before the painter should arrive? I think not. There is wealth, opulence in the world displayed for all to see. And the chess board – again untidy. A game shortly played by the countess and her children – why no doll, nor rattle nor spinning top? Because these are no childish games this woman and her children play – theirs is a game of strategy; these are girls of good wit and learning. Yet there remains one feature you have not mentioned.’ I looked again. The painter studied me as I did his picture.

‘The cherries?’

He nodded. ‘Indeed, the cherries. Did you think they were just an affectation of colour, a painter’s indulgence?’

I had to confess that I had not thought much about them at all – they were simply there, as fruit often is in such portraits.

‘You see a portrait of the Countess of Rothes and her daughters, no sons – for there are none. The fortunes of the family may rest with these two little girls. So see displayed their lineage, their nobility, their wit, their learning and their wealth. But more than all that, one thing is required of them – fertility. And look, look again, Mr Seaton. See how fertile, see how ripe they will be.’ He turned away and walked back to the window, where he stood looking out at his wooded garden and its delicate blossoms.

I said nothing, being now a little discomfited by the picture. He turned round and indicated a set of shelves behind me and, as I cast my eye over them, several things that had puzzled me on first entering the room now made a little more sense. He came across to me and picked up the human skull that grinned horribly from the bottom shelf. ‘I am not, as you know, a medical man. I have no interest in this skull other than its use to me in the depiction of death, the certainty of death. These shells you see here were, indeed, gathered on a happy walk along the shore on a summer’s day with my wife, and are to me a memento of things pleasant, but in a painting they would become the symbols of wealth. If you look at these books here, you will see by their titles that they are of no great consequence. Those books of true interest to me are downstairs, in my library. These books here are again mere props, but they have been used many, many times to symbolise the learning of some of my illustrious sitters.’

I began to understand. ‘And this lute?’

He picked up the instrument that had been left leaning against a chair. ‘The lute – as many musical instruments – is a symbol of human love, even lust.’

‘So that is why you have not had the broken string mended, because it is never played?’

‘No, I wish that that were the case. Not all affairs between men and women are as happy as the union by which I am blessed. The broken string is for disharmony.’ He was silent a moment and then smiled and said briskly, ‘So now you are an expert, Mr Seaton. When you look, you will see.’

‘I wonder. I doubt if I will ever see what is truly there.’

‘I think you speak of more than paintings.’

‘Perhaps.’

He replaced the lute by the wall. ‘For all my draughtsman’s tricks I am no expert on the nature of men. I think there is perhaps more of a story to be told in their faces, if I could but unlock it. That is why I am of a mind to take this commission from your provost, to see what story the lines in his face will tell me of his life since I painted him last.’

I laughed a little. I did not want to be drawn too far into this line of conversation. ‘I think you might have better luck were you to study the fine cut of his clothing, the size of his house, the number of his adherents.’

The painter was not convinced. ‘Such things might tell me much about his fortunes these last few years, but it is his face that will tell me of the man.’ He regarded me for a moment, his head tilted slightly to the side. ‘I think there are things your face can tell me.’

Vanity overtook me and I was aware of a strong need in myself to know what others saw when they looked upon me.

‘What things?’

He motioned me to come closer to him and I sat before him at the window seat. ‘I know from my wife that you are a schoolteacher, an undermaster in a burgh grammar school. There is intensity, earnestness in your eyes, yet you say little. I think – though I may be wrong – that you are a man of great learning. If so, you seem too old for your current station in life. What age are you? Thirty-four, thirty-five?’

‘I am in my twenty-seventh year.’

He nodded, biting his upper lip. ‘Then you are younger than you look. And you are not of Banffshire stock – too tall and spare of build, although the gauntness, I think, comes from self-neglect and not nature; and your eyes … they have a quality in their grey – almost green, in this light – that is not found hereabouts. And your hair is too dark – like an islander, or some of the Irish. Am I close to the truth or have I covered myself in folly?’

‘I am of Banffshire stock, for my father and his father and back for many generations hale from that part of the country, but my mother was an Irishwoman, of native Irish lineage. You are right also in that I am too old to be an undermaster in a school – I had hoped to do other things with my learning, but that was not to be my fate, and–’

He shrugged. ‘And you do not wish to speak of it to a man who but twenty minutes ago was a stranger.’ The painter saw more than he would own. I waited another five minutes while he penned a reply to the provost, then took my leave of him. As I was about to descend the stair he said, ‘Mr Seaton. I hope to see you again in Banff. If you would permit it, I would gladly paint your likeness – as a study. Yours is not a blank canvas.’

I had planned to spend the afternoon studying more closely the list I had got from David Melville, the bookseller, of books he was commanded by the council to supply to the grammar school. I did not want the scholars of Banff to be disadvantaged in their trial for a bursary. My mistake, once back at William’s house, was to lay myself down on my bed to work, rather than sitting at the table. I was soon asleep. I was awoken in the late afternoon by a familiar voice in my ear.

‘Oh, Alexander, Alexander, make haste; you are late for the lecture.’ I jumped out of bed, scattering books and papers around me as I did so, and it took me near a full minute to understand it was now 1626, and not 1618, and that I was no longer a student in the King’s College, in peril of the ire of my professors. As I came, with little dignity, to my feet, I was greeted by the broad smile of William Cargill. ‘You have grown lazy in your old age, Alexander. You were never one for backsliding. Do you teach your scholars in the afternoon at all – or do you have them plump your pillows instead?’

I stooped to pick up the fallen papers. ‘In the mornings I teach them their grammar and to fear God; in the afternoons I teach them to mistrust lawyers with soft linen.’

He laughed and sat down on the crumpled bed. Then he looked at me in seriousness. ‘You are a man exhausted, Alexander. Must you really return to Banff so soon? Can you not stay here with us a while longer? We can make you well – give you food, rest and friendship.’

I avoided his searching gaze and busied myself with tying the strings on my book covers. ‘You are kind, William, but I do not starve in Banff, and a man, even a fallen man, must work. And,’ I looked up at him now, ‘there is also friendship there, different from ours, I suppose, but it sustains me.’

‘I do not pretend to be a Jaffray, Alexander. I know he has kept you where you might have fallen further – he has been a rock to you. But you are a young man still, and he no longer young, and you need to look at the world again with the eyes of a young man, I think. There are other pathways ahead of you; there are still choices for you to make.’

‘My choices have proved poor ones, and the arrogance and folly with which I disported myself as a young man have brought me great shame. I must accept the judgement on me.’

‘That day is not in this world. There is life yet in this world, and it is not condemned by God.’

I gripped his hand. ‘I do not know how to find it, William. It is not here, not yet, if it is to be at all. I must be penitent and, you know me for no papist, but I must do my penance as it has been given to me. Besides,’ I said, wishing to draw the subject to a close now and for all, ‘if I am not in Banff in four days’ time, the provost will have me slung in chains in the tolbooth.’

William took me to be in jest at first, but gradually I made him understand that I was not. I had told him nothing of the murderous business of Banff, or the commission to Straloch that I carried in my pocket. I had not even asked him yet for his uncle’s notebooks – having told him nothing of the cause of my request. But I told him all now – I told him of Charles Thom and Marion Arbuthnott, and of the blow Charles’s infatuation had been dealt by the return of the provost’s nephew. I held nothing back – not my own shame at ignoring, wilfully mishearing the pleas of the dying man in the storm, nor the grotesque sight that greeted me at my desk the next morning. I told him of the firm belief of Jaffray and the apothecary Arbuthnott as to the manner of the poisoning that procured Patrick Davidson’s death, and William promised me immediately that I should have the notebooks or any other thing I wished of his uncle’s to take back to the doctor in Banff. And I told him of the speed with which the finger of accusation had been pointed at Charles, on the basis of little but innuendo and gossip. William listened to all without interruption. ‘And when does the sheriff sit?’ he asked.

‘A week from tomorrow. There is but a week to save Charles from a dance on the Gallow Hill.’

William looked at me hesitantly. ‘You are not suspected yourself, though?’

‘No, thank God, it appears I am not.’

William was troubled, his lawyer’s mind not satisfied. ‘It is odd though, is it not, when it was your schoolroom Davidson was found in?’

I considered. In my determination to be the means of releasing Charles from the tolbooth, the question had not entered my head. I thought on it now. I had no motive, of course, but in a town such as Banff one could always be found. I had no knowledge of poisons – but then Charles Thom had no knowledge of poisons either. I felt a kind of dread begin to seep through me, and my mind go blank in a sudden white wave of fear, as though I was trapped in a room without window or door. For one who claimed to value his life so little, I found myself confronted with the terror of death.

‘William, I do not know why I am not suspected. Had you been there, would you have suspected me?’

He looked at me straight, unflinching. ‘We have been friends many years, and I would swear on my life that you would kill no man in cold blood, but had I been there, and had I not known you as I do, I would not have discounted you.’

‘But William, I never knew him. What reason could I have for killing the apothecary’s apprentice?’

His answer offered little by way of comfort. ‘Whoever killed Patrick Davidson had a reason that has not yet been guessed at.’ The bell of St Nicholas Kirk tolled five times. The silence that followed was broken by the sound of Elizabeth’s voice calling to us from below.

‘Are you both asleep up there? Is there no one in this house to do work but me? William, you have two letters to write before the post leaves for Edinburgh tonight, and I told Bella Watson you would be in her parlour ready to sup by six. William, are you there?’

My friend called to his wife that he would be down in a minute. ‘Alexander, I must go and see to these letters. But we must talk more this evening. Elizabeth has arranged for us, just you and I, to go out for our dinner. She worries that I am too much at my work or by her side, and that I see nothing of my friends. You do not mind going to Bella Watson’s?’

‘Not at all,’ I smiled. ‘She always kept a good table.’

Little over an hour later we were seated by a fine fire, supping Bella Watson’s ale, which William declared to be the best to be had in Aberdeen, and waiting for the girl to bring us our dinners from the kitchen. It would be a good meal, for Bella cooked as well as she brewed. I had little stomach for eating or drinking, though. We were fortunate that no one else had yet come into the small back parlour, and we had peace to talk, without prying eyes or sharp ears. Bella’s daughter brought in a platter of two perfect, full-grown crabs, fresh from the pot, where they had so recently died their scalding death. There was no dressing, no adornment, just the two conquered beasts of the seabed, ferocious-looking still in all their armour. William leaned over towards the one nearest him and broke off a large claw. ‘Have you thought more on what we were talking about this afternoon?’

I took a claw myself. ‘I have thought of nothing else.’

‘And can you think of any reason yet why they have not turned an accusing finger on you?’

‘I can think of nothing. And it is all the stranger because I have few friends in Banff and am not well trusted.’

‘And yet you walk free, unaccused. Is Charles misliked in the burgh? Does he have enemies?’

‘Who could be an enemy to Charles? You know him well, William; what is there to mislike in him? He is a loyal friend and would, I imagine, be a foe of little consequence, so little effort would he make. He shields his contempt for the session and the burgh fathers well. He offends no man, trespasses on no man’s rights, is not a greedy or harsh schoolmaster and calls little attention to himself. He does not seek out much company, is not always looking for friends – those that do him do him well enough. Of course, he is morose and difficult to draw out, and yet, when you can get beyond that, there is a warmth and humour in him that draws your heart to him. He has more friends than enemies, if he would but lift his head to look.’

William smiled sadly. ‘A hard thing to do from his present position.’

I remembered Charles as I had last seen him, chained in the tolbooth, and the plaintive Gaelic air he had sung as I’d left. ‘I saw him only on the first day of his imprisonment. It will be the worse for him now, and I do not know how his spirits can be lifted.’

William drew off another claw from the platter. ‘There can be but one way, I think. With yourself and Jaffray working in his favour, he need not be lost. But, Alexander, if Charles has no enemies, I think you must have friends, whether you know it or not.’

This, too, I had wondered about in the last hour. ‘I have no friend in the minister – Robert Guild is a small, self-seeking man, of poor wit and little godliness.’

‘A dangerous enemy.’

‘Enemy or friend, he is not a man to put trust in. And then the baillie – I think the baillie and all his retainers would gladly see me hounded from the town, if not hanging from the Gallow Hill. I sometimes fear he might be playing some game of cat and mouse with me.’

‘How so?’

‘He it was who invited me into the debate about the maps, for he knew I had knowledge of them. He openly admitted he knew of my letters from Archie. At the tolbooth too, when I went to visit Charles Thom, I felt the baillie had been waiting for me. I think he wants something of me. And he watches me.’

‘Were you seen, do you think, the night you passed Davidson, the night of his death?’

‘By none but the town whores, if even by them. Certainly not by the baillie or session clerk, if they were abroad at that hour, for they would have had me for it by now.’

‘And are there others you do not trust?’

I laughed. ‘William, how many hours have we got? There is not one man on the kirk session, save Gilbert Grant himself, who would not forget themselves and dance a devilish jig to see me fall further in the eyes of God and man. My mother’s alien ways and airs, my friendship with one so far above me as Archie Hay, and the enmity, at his death, of my own father have all seen to that, to say nothing of what I once had the pretension to aspire to.’

‘And for friends – I mean amongst those in power?’

‘I believe I have a friend in Thomas Stewart, our burgh advocate.’

William nodded, pleased. ‘Then you are fortunate – I know him well. He is a just man. But go on.’

‘I think it may be that Walter Watt, the provost, at least wishes me no ill. He has spoken up for me before the baillie and the minister, though he has few illusions about me, as he took pains to make clear. He it is who has entrusted me with this commission.’ I took the map from my pocket and passed it over the table to him. He wiped his hands on the cloth the girl had brought us, and opened the package. He carefully unfolded the paper and smoothed out the map. He studied it silently for a few moments and then looked up. ‘Whose work is this?’

‘It is the work of Patrick Davidson.’

His brow furrowed. ‘But you tell me he was an apothecary – indeed an apprentice.’

‘He was. But he also, it would appear, had an interest in the drawing of maps. This is but one of several – the rest are under lock and key in the tolbooth of Banff.’

William’s thoughts moved quickly to the point. ‘And the magistrates suspect espionage?’ I nodded, and he passed the map back to me, not liking the feel of it now. I folded it back into its package and returned it to my pocket. ‘What is your commission?’ asked William.

‘I am to take it to Robert Gordon of Straloch and ask for his assessment of it. It may well be that it is simply the fruit of an innocent pastime.’

‘Let us hope so. But Alexander, you have shown this to no one else in Aberdeen?’

I snorted. ‘If it were known that I had shown it even to you I would be rotting in irons in Banff by morning.’

‘Aye, but in truth, Alexander, when you were at Jamesone’s today, you told him nothing of this?’

I could not comprehend the direction of his anxiety. ‘Nothing. Nothing of any connection with it. But why Jamesone?’

He swallowed a draught of his wine and poured himself and me some more. ‘What do you know of George Jamesone?’

I shrugged. ‘About as much as I do of any painter – no, that is not right; I know a little more of him from today. I had been aware that he painted many of our foremost countrymen hereabouts. Many of the nobility and some of the more middling sort. I would not wager against him painting yourself and Elizabeth and your brood one day.’

‘May God grant that it might be.’ He waited then for me to say more.

‘I know also that he is married to Isabel Tosh, whom I am astonished to find grown up and out of the habit of hurling missiles at young men of good quality, and that she has borne him a son. He lives in a fine house and is an interesting companion and a student of the nature of men.’

William pushed the platter away from him and leant forward, his elbows on the table. ‘You know that he studied mainly in Edinburgh, but spent some time also at Antwerp?’

‘Yes, but many of our countrymen continue to travel and study in the Spanish Netherlands. Is it to be imputed to them all as a crime?’

‘Of course not. But while at Antwerp he studied at the studio of Pieter Paul Rubens. You have heard of Rubens?’

‘Art is not much talked of in Banff, but yes, in my days here, even I heard of Rubens.’

‘But you will not know – indeed why would you? – of Rubens’ diplomatic activities. When I am in Edinburgh on business, I am often in company at the dinner tables of the advocates with the wealthy merchants of Leith. They have a better knowledge of the doings of folk in the Low Countries and the Baltic than they do of ours here. Rubens is well known as an agent of Madrid – nothing passes in Antwerp but he posts his own account of it to his masters. It is no secret. But more also, he is in the pay of the Medicis – the dowager of France. Little intrigue passes between the exalted heads of Romism that Rubens does not know of; little occurs in the Netherlands that he is not able to inform his Spanish masters of.’

Less than a week ago I would have thought my friend lost to the puffed-up gossips of our capital and its sea port. What relevance could such nonsense have for the burgesses of Banff, for Charles Thom, for myself? But the death of Patrick Davidson and the discovery of his practice of cartography had changed that. ‘Is Jamesone suspected for a Spanish spy?’

William shook his head. ‘No, he is not – at least I have never heard rumour of such a thing and,’ here he smiled, a little shamefaced, ‘there are few rumours that pass me by.’

‘But do you think it is possible?’

‘I think many things are possible, and that most men have their price. Jamesone moves freely in the circles of the great and the powerful. But as he is a painter, he provokes little jealousy or suspicion. In fact, I would be hard put to think of an occupation better fitted to the business of espionage. But no, on balance, I do not think it likely he is a traitor.’ He rang the bell for the girl to come and take the carcass of crab away, and bring us our meat. I could see he was still troubled. After the girl had gone he did not immediately touch the food, but returned to our conversation. ‘But what were you doing there, Alexander? What business did you have with him?’

I felt my mouth go a little dry. ‘I had a letter to deliver to him from the provost of Banff.’

‘Did you see the contents of the letter?’

I shook my head. ‘He, Jamesone, told me what the gist of it was, but no, I did not read it myself. It was – he said – to do with a commission to paint the provost’s family. I have in my room in your house the artist’s reply.’

I thought I saw my friend flinch, but only for a moment. ‘You have not read this letter?’

‘It is sealed.’

He pushed his fingers to his temples in thought. ‘Then you must deliver it. You must go to Straloch as soon as you are able and fulfil your commission there, and then you must return to Banff, deliver this letter and hope to keep yourself from the provost’s further notice.’ At that moment I felt I would gladly never have seen the provost, or the town of Banff again. But duties and promises called me back there, and there I would go. We resolved that I would leave Aberdeen a day early, as soon as the Sunday sermon was over. The laird of Straloch would forgive my Sabbath intrusion when he learnt the purport of my business.

We talked late, and when we finally left Bella Watson’s house it was with little greater ambition than to lie down and rest our heads as soon as we might. As we walked we kept our voices low and kept ourselves to the main arteries of the town – all manner of creatures might wait in the darkness of vennels and winding lanes for unsuspecting night travellers. The near-full moon carved out the houses looming over the Castlegate, but gave us less guidance on the narrower, more winding streets, whose tenements tottered three storeys above us. Shadows lurked under forestairs and beyond pends. A snarling dog drew its owner to a window and was silenced with a curse as we passed. We kept as far as we could to the middle of the street to avoid the muck and ordure in the gutters. As we turned onto the Flourmill Lane, some movement at an upper storey caught William’s eye and he put his hand on my arm to stay me. I followed the direction of his gaze and saw a flicker of light at the top of the backland stairway of a house I knew well – Maisie Johnston’s, forever in my mind as the place where Archie and I had had that last evening together. A crook in the wall obscured us from view, and we were able to watch the dumb-show at the top of the stairs. It was Maisie herself, and although her face was obscured by a shawl, the other was certainly a young woman. Maisie was casting her eye about her, and speaking to the younger woman in low but urgent tones. William whispered to me, ‘This is not like Maisie. She takes a great care not to draw attention to her establishment, and to avoid the wrath of the session.’

‘But everyone knows what manner of house Maisie’s is.’

‘Everyone knows, but Maisie does not flaunt it. She does not give room to vagrants to ply their trade. Her girls are never to be found abroad at night, and that is the way Maisie and the council and the session like it.’

Maisie gave one final sweep of the street with her eyes, then handed the young woman a pouch before embracing her briefly and ushering her down the stair. As the young woman took her leave, her shawl slipped a little and I had to stop myself from calling out. The pend gate opened and I was face to face with Mary Dawson. ‘Mary,’ I began. The girl opened her mouth as if to reply, but her momentary recognition had been replaced by a look of sheer terror. Almost losing her bundle, and with her shawl now trailing behind her, she pushed past me and ran. William had a hold of my arm and it was several seconds before I was able to shake him off.

‘Alexander, for the love of God – the woman is a whore. Is she known to you?’

I gasped a brief reply and then made after her, with William soon at my heels. I could not see initially where Mary had gone, but the sound of her running feet on the cobbles directed me to a vennel behind the lane and towards the kirkyard. Two or three times I almost stumbled, being less accustomed to this night running than was Mary, who had often had to take to her heels to avoid being caught in the performance of her nocturnal trade. William caught up with me as I reached the kirkyard. ‘I will explain later,’ I told him breathlessly, ‘but I must talk to this woman.’ I scanned the jutting slabs that gave memory to generations of indwellers past and long dead, and the mounds and humps of earth where the poor lay scarcely noted, but could see nothing of Mary Dawson. Bats swooped and whirled from the steeple of the church and amongst the trees in the kirkyard. An owl hooted and I imagined I could feel and hear every scuttling thing about my feet. She could have been hiding anywhere amongst the graves, for I was sure she could not have left without being seen. I gambled and started to make for the kirk itself. As I did so I caught sight of a swift movement out of the corner of my eye and then saw Mary Dawson running out towards the Netherkirkgate, as if all the creatures in Hell were after her. I checked my path and ran after her, William still with me, although comprehending no more than he had at the start of my pursuit. Mary was clearly no stranger to Aberdeen, for she knew the lanes and vennels of the town better than I myself could remember. From the Netherkirkgate she headed down west of St Katharine’s Hill by Putachieside towards the Green. The smell of the tanners’ and the litsters’ work still hung in the night air, although they had long since gone to their weary beds. I almost lost her at the Green, a cat having darted out from behind a midden, nearly sending me into the Putachie Burn. As I righted myself I could see no sign of her, but a movement ahead had me starting off again in the direction of the ruined Carmelite friary. William, bent double with so much running after such a dinner, grabbed at my cloak, gasping.

‘No. She went this way.’ He was indicating the line of the burn as it went to meet the mouth of the Dee and, recovering, he pulled me after him in the direction of Shore Brae: she was headed for the harbour.

The harbour was never silent, never at rest – it was the heart and lungs of the burgh. Whereas before our running had sent noise ricocheting into the silent hum of the night-time town, our falling steps – and those of Mary Dawson ahead of us – fell into a rhythm already gently approaching from the sea. The putrid smell of the trades was now being lost, overwhelmed, by the sheer salt and seaweed smell of the quay head. There were lanterns lit along the quayside, and the shore porters were busy at their work. A huddle of merchants deep in conference with the ship’s master was animated by the lantern light. The group looked up at our approach.

‘It seems you have some tardy passengers, captain. They are all out winded to get here in time.’

Another merchant peered at us. ‘Is it not William Cargill? What are you doing here at this hour of the night, Mr Cargill? Are you making ship for the Baltic, then? Will you not be needing my bill after all?’

William laughed and responded as casually as he could, ‘No, it is since my wife has been with child it is safer for me to walk abroad at night than to venture to my own bed. The humour that is on her brings tears the one minute and scolding the next.’

The men laughed. William went over to the captain and drew him aside a moment for some private speech. I envied him his facility of going through the world without causing offence. The merchants went to see to the loading of their goods and I remained in the shadows, watching for a sight of Mary Dawson. William came back over to me presently. ‘The captain takes six passengers as well as his cargo tonight, in less than an hour. They sail for Danzig. He has two students, two merchants, a master mason and a woman who calls herself a widow. He says she is no widow such as he has seen before and he is certain her testimonials are forged, but her money is not and he will let her aboard without over much questioning. He says she is a young woman, of medium height, shapely, with hair the colour of burnished copper, and eyes the same shade. Is this the woman you seek?’

I nodded slowly. ‘Her name is Mary Dawson. She and her sister are – were – whores of Banff. I would swear they were the last faces Patrick Davidson saw before he departed this world. Their occupation has been long known in Banff, but tolerated – they were discreet enough. Yet two days ago Janet Dawson was driven from the bounds at the end of the hangman’s scourge, not to return on pain of death. I saw it with my own eyes. Before the town serjeant pulled her away, she repeated to me the words she said were the last spoken on this earth by Patrick Davidson: “James and the flowers”. I am certain it was the sisters who put Patrick Davidson in my schoolroom to die, and I can make very little of Janet’s report of his last words. I must talk with Mary Dawson before she leaves these shores. I cannot believe that this and her sister’s banishment from Banff do not have their cause in the murder of the apothecary’s apprentice.’

William took some coins from his pouch and bade me follow him. He walked to where the shore porters were and went to talk quietly to one of them, then another. It was the third man who finally showed some sign of knowing what he was being asked, and taking the coin from William motioned to us to follow him. Behind a large stack of English coals I found my quarry, cowering like a frightened dog. She tried to bolt again when she saw me, but this time I was too fast for her: I caught her by the arms and forced her back down.

‘Mary, you know me. Why do you run?’ Still she struggled, but I held her firm. ‘Mary, it is Alexander Seaton. You know me.’

At length, when she realised she could not release herself from my grip, she stopped struggling. She looked directly at me through defiant, and yet fearful eyes. ‘I know you, Mr Seaton, and I know you to have goodness in you, but you have not fallen far enough in this world for me to trust you. Let me go, for you will have nothing of me.’

‘A few words, Mary, that is all I ask, a few words.’

She looked suspiciously at William. ‘Who is he?’

‘A friend, no more.’

‘He has not been sent after me with you?’

I slowly loosened my grip on her arm. ‘What do you mean? Mary, I have not been sent after you. I never knew you were here until this night, not half an hour ago as you left Maisie Johnston’s house. You think I was sent here after you, to bring you back to Banff?’

She was rubbing her arm where I had gripped her, and let out a hollow laugh. ‘Back to Banff? I will never see Banff again all the days of this life, unless it is to hang from the gibbet or be drowned at the shore. You nor anyone else to come will ever be sent to bring me back, but I fear one might be sent to see to it that I do not.’

Now I understood her terror; it was some of that same creeping terror that had been coming over me these last hours, but in Mary Dawson it had taken such a hold that no one could reason with her, such was her certainty of some awful retribution. For what, I began to guess, but from whom I did not know. ‘Tell me what you know, Mary.’

She shook her head fiercely, like a madwoman lost in herself.

‘You have nothing to fear from me. I swear before God, I am not one of them.’ I had no earthly notion who this ‘them’ might be, but my oath seemed to calm her a little, although her lips remained tightly shut. I had to try another tack. ‘There is something your sister told me …’

Her eyes flashed up at me. ‘Janet? Where is she? Is she here in Aberdeen?’

I put my hand out to calm her, to let her down as gently as I might. ‘No. She is not here. I do not know where she is now. I last saw her three days ago. The hangman and the town serjeant were beating her from the bounds. They drove her out to the west, on the Cullen road.’

Mary’s eyes were still eager. ‘Then they do not have her? She is safe?’

‘As far as I can tell you, she is safe. I do not know where she is gone, but I know,’ I hesitated, but there was no good in keeping it from her, ‘I know she was bound never to return to Banff, on pain of death.’

These tidings did not seem to trouble Mary as I had expected them to. She was nodding slowly, smiling to herself. ‘Then she is safe. She will go to our cousin in Strathspey. She will be safe.’

‘Strathspey is a long journey, over hard terrain.’

Mary was not concerned. ‘She knows the country well. The last frosts are almost gone. She will make her way. She will be safe. May God keep her.’ I realised then that Mary Dawson had no expectation of ever seeing her sister again. She was silent in her thoughts and I let her be for a while, but I knew time was passing and that neither tide nor captain would wait, so neither could I.

‘What is it that drove you from Banff in such a way?’

She looked at me curiously. ‘You truly do not know?’

‘How could I know? I am not privy to the magistrates’ council.’

She almost snorted with contempt. ‘The magistrates’ council!’ And then, more softly, she said, ‘It was not the magistrates’ council, but the beggar chief that warned us to leave Banff. His warning is not to be taken lightly.’

‘The beggar chief? Lang Geordie? But why?’

She answered, and I knew I had guessed the thing right. ‘The apothecary’s apprentice – I never knew his name. We found him, Janet and I, at the bottom of Water Path. He was sick, near to death. It was us who set him at your desk.’ She looked up. ‘And they say you never saw him until he was gone?’

I sat down beside her and took off my hat. William watched at a distance. ‘I was not called until he had been found, long dead.’

She smiled a sad smile. ‘It was a chance we took. It was a slim hope, but a hope all the same. We knew he was dying – I have seen dying men before. We had seen you pass only a few moments before, and we doubted you would be yet sleeping. We hoped you might hear him and find him, find him in time to help him.’

‘I heard nothing.’ For the tenth, twentieth time I cast my mind back to that night and tried to listen again, tried to hear what I had not heard then. There was nothing, nothing but the noise of the storm, drowning out whatever else there might have been.

‘Neither you, nor Mistress Youngson?’

‘Not even she.’

She pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. ‘Ah, well. It was not to be. It was his lot to die.’ Then she looked up sharply. ‘He was not drunk, though, Mr Seaton, whatever they might say. It was not a natural death.’

I knew this already, and was anxious to get on. ‘He spoke to you though, did he not?’

She showed surprise that I knew this. ‘Janet?’ I nodded. ‘Aye, he did. He babbled two or three times about “James and the flowers”. We could not make head nor tail of it, but he was very anxious about it.’

‘And he said nothing else?’

‘Nothing. His senses were beyond him by the time we got him to the schoolhouse.’

Something in this was troubling me. ‘But how did you get beyond the pend and into the house, for I know I locked both door and gate.’

She looked a little proud at the memory. ‘We grew up at the smiddy at Fordyce, Mr Seaton. There is not a lock or bolt we do not know how to turn. And as for getting over the gate to open it, well,’ and here there was a trace, just a trace, of the old sly smile, ‘my sister and I are famed for our agility.’

These little mysteries were of no great consequence at this moment, though. ‘But what is this to Lang Geordie that he should tell you to run? Why, after all this time, was your sister driven from the town, and why do you flee?’

‘Because we were seen. And it was made known to us that we had been seen. Geordie beds down at the same house as my sister and I. The message came through him to us that we were to be gone from the town, before daybreak, or face our own fates.’

‘What, for helping a dying man?’

‘For seeing who it was that killed him. Someone was watching. They watched us and I would stake much that they had watched you before us. Someone was watching, to make sure that he would die; I would stake all that I have on it.’ All that Mary Dawson had amounted to very little, but I did not doubt the sincerity of her vow. And I, too, had been seen. But I had not yet had my warning.

At that moment a shout went up from the captain that all who were going aboard should be aboard now or lose their passage. Mary gathered up her bundle and scrambled to her feet. I grabbed at her arm. ‘Mary, wait, who was it? Tell me who it was.’

She pulled away from me. ‘You’ll not have it from my lips. It will not be laid at my door that anyone had it from my lips.’ She was running now towards the ship.

‘Mary, wait, please. How will you live?’

‘By my trade and by my wits. But I shall live, have no fear of that. I will never see Scotland again. Farewell, Mr Seaton. Be careful who you trust.’ I tried to go after her but the sail was already up and the anchor weighed – less than a moment from her embarkation the vessel was pulling away from the quayside. I made to leap the distance but a strong arm was pulling me back. It was William.

‘Leave her be, Alexander. I have seen fear in many witnesses; you will have nothing more from her.’

We stood and watched as the ship carrying Mary Dawson from her homeland pulled away into the distance, the moonlight illuminating the white of its sails in the night. I uttered a prayer for her under my breath. ‘Amen,’ said my friend William Cargill. We turned our backs to the departing vessel and began our weary trudge homewards to William’s house.