The Rough Collier

Chapter Two

The stable-yard at Belstane was not the ideal place to study a corpse, but it was probably the best they were going to get. Accompanying the Meikle brothers’ cart in at the gateway, Gil managed to dismiss most of the entourage which had followed it down from the diggings and was now swollen by the addition of his mother’s stable-hands, several women from the surrounding cottages, and all their children. They gathered outside the great wooden yett peering in and commenting loudly.

‘We’ll have him here,’ he directed over the noise, pointing to the front of the cart-shed, ‘under the pent but in the light. Henry, can you get us a pair of trestles, man, and Alys, would — ’ He looked round, and discovered her horse standing riderless by the groom’s.

‘She’s away to the house, Maister Gil,’ said Henry, taking Gil’s bridle as well. ‘Likely gone to ease herself,’ he offered. ‘Give us just a wee bittie, maister, and we’ll have your corp laid out where you want him. Is he to be washed?’

‘No, no,’ said Gil hastily. ‘I’ve no notion what water would do to him.’

‘Aye, very wise,’ said Fleming, bustling forward from the horse trough, wiping his hands on the paunch of his grey gown, ‘get Maister Cunningham his trestles, Henry, as he ordered you, very wise, maister, we’ll no risk losing the traces of the witch’s ill deed.’

The tubby priest had argued violently against freeing Beatrice Lithgo, but finally, seeing that Gil was determined and that the farm men were reluctant to press the point against the miners with their heavy mells, he had given in, swallowed his indignation, and accompanied the corpse rather possessively, passing the short journey asking effusively after Gil’s sisters in between giving loud directions to the Meikles on the management of their own cart. Gil had ignored most of his discourse, but now, hoping to avert the man’s supervision, he said politely:

‘I know you’ll not want to delay your prayers for him any longer, Sir David, whoever he is, even with neither incense nor holy water. If you stand there,’ he indicated the far end of the cart-shed, ‘you’ll be well placed.’

Much gratified, Fleming hurried to the spot, and watched with his beads over his hand while the hurdle was removed from the cart and set up on a pair of trestles. It was still draped in the felt cloak, and just as Henry removed this Alys reappeared, a sacking apron over her riding-dress and her hands full of brushes of different sizes. Socrates left his inspection of the cart-shed to wave his tail at her, sniffing at the brushes.

‘That’s a good thought!’ Gil said.

‘Some are bristle and some are hair,’ she said, colouring with pleasure. ‘This kind we use at home for dusting the panelling.’

‘A good harness-cloth would be as apt for the task, mistress,’ said Henry with humour, ‘seeing he’s all turned to leather.’

It was like Alys, Gil reflected, that after only a day or two under his mother’s roof, she was on good enough terms with the household to borrow anything she needed. He smiled at her, and bent over the corpse on its support. It was already beginning to dry out, and here and there the leathery skin was split over the long bones and joints.

‘He’ll not keep long,’ he observed. ‘We’ll have to bury him soon, named or no, or he’ll fall into dust.’

‘I suppose it is a man,’ Alys said doubtfully.

‘Look at the beard.’ Gil pushed his dog’s long nose away from the bright shock of hair.

‘His baggie’s well shrunk,’ Henry said from the other end of the hurdle, ‘but you can see it clear. He’s a man grown, right enough.’

‘His …?’ Alys began, and coloured up again as she understood. ‘I brought a cloth to cover his face,’ she added hastily. ‘I thought it would be better.’

‘I need to study his head first,’ Gil said.

Socrates, finding they were doing nothing interesting, went off about his own affairs, and the two of them worked together to brush away the drying peat which clung to the visible portions of the corpse. This provoked some comment from the near audience, which included the muttering Fleming, the Meikle brothers and Wat Paton as well as Henry and the stable-hands, but nobody offered to help. Under the dark, crumbling stuff, the dreadful face was even more gruesome to look at, but Gil studied it with care, poking with a brush handle behind the stained teeth and feeling cautiously at the nose and cheekbones.

‘As I thought,’ he said eventually in French.

‘Mm?’ said Alys.

‘For one thing,’ he pointed with the brush handle, ‘his skin’s intact over these injuries, the flattened nose and broken bones in his face. I think they’ve happened after he was buried, I suppose with the pressure of the peat over him. And for another, there’s no sign of scavenging, no insects in the peat, no beetles or maggots, as you get with fox kill or the like.’

‘So he has been buried as soon as he was dead,’ said Alys. Then, with more confidence, ‘But we knew that, surely? He must have been folded up like this before he set. But that doesn’t tell us how soon he was buried,’ she answered herself before Gil could comment, ‘and the beetles do. What about — ’ She bit her lip. ‘Flies will settle on a fresh wound. Is there any sign at his throat?’

‘I haven’t got there yet.’ Gil dislodged a caked lump of peat from behind the corpse’s small, neat ear. ‘His hair’s longer than mine. And — ’ He felt the side of the head through the damp hair. It gave under his fingers. ‘This is strange. See this?’ He prodded again. ‘My fingers leave a hollow — Sorry, sweetheart!’ he exclaimed, as she covered her mouth and turned away. He set down the brush and stepped quickly round the hurdle, to put a supporting hand under her elbow. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘I forget that you’ve never been at the hunt. Do you want to go into the house?’

‘No, no,’ she protested, but leaned gratefully against him. ‘How strange, his face and his poor shrivelled body don’t disturb me, but that — urgh!’

‘I’m sure you should go in,’ he said. ‘I find it so enthralling, that all our old huntsman taught me about the study of a kill in the forest can be applied to a dead body, that I forget myself. I can work alone, sweetheart.’

‘No, I want to help. Let me — let me go on.’

She drew away and turned back to her task, whisking crumbs of peat from the folded arms and legs of the corpse. He watched her in concern for a moment, then looked up and found Henry grinning knowingly at the far end of the hurdle. Catching Gil’s eye, the man winked, but said nothing. It was clear he thought he knew the reason for Alys’s squeamishness.

But he’s wrong, Gil thought, we know that. There was no reason yet for her to be sick, and that in itself — it was barely five months since their wedding, far too soon to be concerned, Alys kept saying. Nevertheless some of her acquaintance among the merchants’ wives of Glasgow had begun to ask arch questions, and raise eyebrows at her answer, and now here was the same attitude showing itself. He shook his head, got another knowing wink, and bent over the corpse again.

It was as if the skull had gone from inside the skin, he decided, prodding again at the leathery scalp. And beneath it — he felt carefully at the hollows his fingers had left already. Beneath it the brains had turned to something which felt very like butter. Why would that happen? And why should the skull-bones vanish and the bones of the face remain?

Abandoning these questions for later, he explored the rest of the scalp, parting the harsh bright hair and brushing flakes of peat and strands of moss away from the skin. On the crown of the head, rather to the right side, the skin was split and drawn back, and the yellowish stuff visible within the wound did resemble butter. The whole corpse smelled of the peat it so much resembled, but here it was underlaid, very faintly, by another scent like old cheese. Peering closely at the gash in the scalp, he decided that its edges were slightly thickened, as if this injury had happened before death.

‘This is not a working man,’ said Alys. He looked up, to find her studying the corpse’s hands where they were tucked against its chest. ‘See, there are no calluses on his fingers, as the collier said, and his fingernails are neatly trimmed. And his feet — ’ She gestured with the brush she was using. ‘He has no shoes on, but his feet are as soft as his hands. He has gone well shod.’

‘There’s none of the gentry missing,’ said Henry. ‘And none wi’ that hair hereabouts anyway. He’s maybe a traveller of some kind, lost on the moss, Maister Gil.’

‘We should be making notes,’ said Gil.

‘I left my tablets in our chamber,’ said Alys. He laid the cloth she had brought across the distorted face, drew his own set of tablets from his purse, and passed them over when she held out her hand.

‘Use Scots,’ he requested, ‘so I don’t have to translate if it’s needed for evidence.’

She found a clean leaf and noted her own findings, and he summarized his for her.

‘You think he has been struck on the head?’ she asked as he finished.

‘It looks very like,’ he admitted.

‘Lost on the moss and attacked,’ offered Henry, who had listened with interest.

‘And his throat cut as well,’ said Alys.

‘Someone wanted to be certain,’ said Henry.

‘No further wounds on the scalp. He’s got all his front teeth, though they’re loose in the jaw now,’ Gil noted in passing, and Alys wrote this down. ‘And his throat has been cut.’ He eased at the displaced jaw, to scrutinize the leathery recesses under it. ‘On the left side, from under the ear to the windpipe. No sign of maggots or flies.’

‘On the left only?’ said Alys, looking up.

‘From in front, maybe,’ suggested Henry doubtfully.

‘You don’t cut a man’s throat from the front,’ said Gil. ‘Not unless you want to be drenched in blood.’

‘Like a pig-killing,’ agreed Alys, nodding. ‘So it would have been a right-handed man who killed him, standing behind him?’

‘I’d say so, and the blow to the head was right-handed as well.’ Gil peered further into the hollow under the jaw, and identified something fibrous wedged in a fold of the skin. ‘What’s this?’ He poked with one finger, but could get no purchase on the strand. ‘Alys, have you a hook or a key or something about you?’

Searching in her purse in her turn, she handed him a buttonhook. Even with this it took him some time to get a purchase on what he had seen, so embedded in the flesh was it, but finally it lodged in the curve of the little implement and he was able to coax it out.

‘A cord,’ said Alys.

‘A cord,’ Gil agreed, returning the buttonhook. He took the free end in his fingers, and it came away in his grasp. ‘It’s near rotted to dust, but I think this may be what’s killed him. He’s been throttled. Here at the back of his neck where the flesh is so shrunk you can’t see any trace of it, I suppose the cord must have crumbled away, but under his jaw it had sunk so deep it was protected from the bog-waters. If his throat was slit after he was dead, the blood would drain more slowly.’

‘They were really makin’ certain,’ said Henry, much impressed. ‘That’s three ways they slain him — cracked him on the head, throttled him wi’ a rope, and slit his throat,’ he counted off on his fingers. ‘I’d no go so far to put down a horse, save he was a right brute.’

‘But when?’ Gil wondered. ‘When has this happened? Is there any tale of someone going missing on the moor?’

‘No that I mind,’ said Henry, ‘nor that I ever heard tell. You’d maybe want to ask some of the old folk,’ he added, ‘they’ve little enough to do but talk over what’s past.’

‘No need of that, surely,’ expostulated Fleming almost in Gil’s ear, and he realized that the man had ceased his prayers and had been drawing closer for some time, exclaiming indignantly at what was being said. ‘It’s the man Murray, for certain, and everything you’re saying makes it clearer what the witch has been at! Draining his blood after he was dead, and the like, Our Lady protect us from such wickedness. And what did she plan wi’ his blood, Maister Cunningham, tell me that!’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Gil politely. ‘I’ve not studied witchcraft, Sir David. It seems you have.’

‘It isny Thomas Murray, Sir David,’ said Wat Paton beyond the priest, ‘Jamesie Meikle was quite clear on it.’

‘I have to protect my flock, maister,’ protested Fleming, ignoring this. Across the stable-yard there was a disturbance, as the crowd outside the yett parted reluctantly to allow someone through. Hooves clopped on the cobbles. ‘I’ve never studied it close, I only ken what anyone kens!’

‘Aye, I’ve heard a few tales about that,’ said Henry, with humour.

‘Gil,’ said Alys, putting a hand on his sleeve. ‘Is that not Michael Douglas at the yett?’

Just inside the iron-bound leaves a slight young man was dismounting from a tired horse, a groom in blue-grey livery already afoot to take his reins. The newcomer wore the narrow blue belted gown of a student of the University of Glasgow, and untrimmed mouse-coloured hair stuck out below his scholar’s cap. Fleming hurried forward with more exclamations, brushing the peat-cutters aside and reaching his master’s youngest son just before the Belstane steward, to bow and flourish his felt hat, babbling greetings. Michael Douglas stared at him with some surprise, and as Gil joined the group the plump priest waved imperiously at the steward.

‘And here’s Alan Forrest to make you welcome, Maister Michael. Alan, bring Maister Douglas a stoup of ale, can you no see he’s thirsty?’

‘Alan can manage his duties without your advice, Sir David,’ Gil observed, as the maidservant behind the steward came forward with a tray with jug and beakers. ‘Good day to you, Michael.’

‘Good day to you, Maister Gil,’ said Michael warily in his deep voice. He accepted the ale the steward poured him with gratitude. ‘I’d no notion you were here. Madam your mother’s no ill?’ he added anxiously. ‘Or — or your sisters?’

‘No, no, Lady Egidia is well, Maister Michael,’ Fleming assured him, ‘and all the young ladies and all, by what Maister Cunningham tells me!’

‘It’s a wedding-visit,’ explained Gil, deliberately obtuse.

‘But what’s brought you out from Glasgow, Maister Michael?’ Fleming rushed on. ‘I hope it’s no bad news from Sir James?’

‘He sent Attie here to me,’ said Michael, nodding at the groom who was intent on his own beaker, ‘bade me ride out to the house about — about something, and I thought I’d call here on the way. Pay my respects to my godmother,’ he expanded. ‘And, well, anyone else that was here. Mistress Mason,’ he added, and bent the knee to Alys as she came to Gil’s side. ‘You’re looking well. Your good health.’ He raised the beaker and drank.

‘Tib’s at the convent in Haddington, Michael,’ Alys said. Ale splashed down the front of the blue gown. ‘As a guest of Sister Dorothea,’ she added hastily.

‘But you could make yourself very useful here,’ said Gil, ‘if you can spare the time.’

Michael swallowed, handed the beaker back to the maidservant, and patted drops from his chest and shoulders.

‘I don’t know that I can,’ he said ungraciously, wiping his chin. ‘I’ve only a few days’ leave, and I need to see to this matter of the old man’s. What’s to do, anyway? Is that no half the men from Thorn hiding by the cart-shed?’

‘It’s good of you to call by, godson,’ said Lady Egidia, with faint malice, ‘to brighten an old woman’s day.’

‘What old woman would that be, Mother?’ asked Gil politely, pouring wine in the little glasses set in a sparkling row on the plate-cupboard.

Her mouth twitched, but she went on: ‘And what brings you out here away from your studies? I hope you’ve permission to be out of the college.’

‘Oh, aye.’ Michael felt at the breast of his gown. ‘I’d a letter from my father, that when I showed it to the Principal he agreed I must have leave. I’ve no notion what’s worrying him, but he writes that he canny leave the court, and Jock Douglas is away at Edinburgh, and my brothers both about other business, and he’s concerned about that fool Fleming and something up at the coal-heugh.’

‘The coal-heugh again,’ said Alys, accepting wine in her turn from Gil. ‘Is that the same one where a man called Thomas Murray dwells, Michael?’

‘Aye, it is,’ he said, startled, ‘and it’s the man Murray my father wants me to speak to. It seems the winter fee’s long overdue, and he’s had a daft word from David Fleming all about witches or some such, and I’ve to sort it out.’

‘Witches,’ repeated Alys. ‘His mind seems to run on witches.’

‘Of course, the Pow Burn crosses your ground,’ said Gil, sitting down beside Alys, across the hall hearth from his mother. ‘The coal-heugh is your father’s then?’

‘Well, it’s on our land, we have the mineral rights. He gets a good fee for it.’

‘What is this about?’ demanded his mother. ‘I’d a long tale from Alan and from Nan the now about you cutting up this corp in our cart-shed, Gil — ’

‘I did no such thing!’ said Gil indignantly.

‘We simply examined the body, madame,’ Alys assured Lady Egidia, ‘to see if we could tell how he died, and how long ago it was. We cut nothing open. It would be interesting to do that,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘I wish Holy Kirk was not so set against it.’

‘What corp is this?’ asked Michael, looking at her in alarm.

‘I can say who it isn’t,’ said Gil firmly, ‘and that’s the man Murray. He seems to be missing, Michael, but it’s clear enough that’s not him in the cart-shed.’

He summarized the events at the peat-digging, while his mother and Michael listened critically, and Alys nodded agreement.

‘This is a bad business,’ said Lady Egidia when he had finished.

‘Do you know them, Mother?’ he asked.

‘I’ve had no dealings wi’ the Crombie women, save for Beattie,’ admitted Lady Egidia. ‘We get coals fetched every quarter, and I sell them ponies from time to time, but I’ve aye dealt wi’ the men for that. Beattie sells me simples for the horses when I run out. Formidable she is, but she has a reputation for a good woman, and a good healer.’

‘What, charms and spells and love-potions?’ Gil asked. ‘Half the lassies in the parish trailing up across the moor?’

‘No, dear,’ said his mother firmly. ‘I said she’s a healer. She doesn’t use charms, except the kind you say over the mortar to make the ointment more effective.’ Alys nodded at this. ‘She can heal wounds, she has a receipt for a bottle that mends broken bones once they’re set, I believe she has a wash for falling hair that sells well. No spells that I ever heard of.’

‘Dangerous, just the same,’ said Gil.

‘So it seems. Gil, you must do something about it. If that fool Fleming has taken it into his head Beattie’s a witch, there’s no knowing where it will end.’

‘This must be what’s reached my father,’ said Michael. He extracted a small wad of paper from the breast of his gown, and opened it up, fold after fold, into a single sheet. ‘He writes that he was already concerned about the winter’s fee, so he’d directed Fleming to see about it, and the man’s writ him a letter he canny understand. Why he tolerates him I canny tell, what wi’ his other habits.’ He peered at the page. ‘Mind you, I canny — ’ He stopped short, and handed the letter to Lady Egidia. ‘Can you do better than me, madam?’

‘How must an accusation of witchcraft proceed in Scotland?’ Alys asked.

‘The same as anywhere else,’ Gil answered, watching his mother’s face as she held the letter at arm’s length. ‘First, if Fleming can show that Mistress Lithgo set that body into the peat, whoever it is, or did some other ill deed by witchcraft, second if he can show that she intended to do harm by it, or third …’ He paused, trawling his memory.

‘He has to show she’s made an alliance with the Devil,’ supplied Michael, more recently taught by the same master, ‘or some other ill spirit.’ He grimaced. ‘Tommy Forsyth makes all clear, doesn’t he?’

‘Very,’ agreed Gil. ‘Any of these is enough for the charge to proceed, and whatever court it comes to must investigate. Likely the Sheriff will try it first.’

‘But can he do any of that?’ Alys said dubiously. ‘The priest, I mean.’

‘It’s easy enough,’ said Gil wryly. ‘He was hinting about evidence, and once one accusation’s made, others will surface. All it needs is one of the colliers’ wives with a grudge at the family, and the wise-woman will find herself with her skirts over her head being pricked for a witch-mark. Then it all goes before the Sheriff, with an assize, and if it’s found proven, she’ll be hanged.’

‘Hanged. I thought Sir David seemed very …’ Alys paused, reflecting on the word she wanted. ‘Vindictive. There may be some reason for his accusation. Beyond the belief that she might be a witch, I mean.’

‘James doesny make it clear,’ said Lady Egidia disapprovingly. ‘Fleming has writ me a rigmarole of witches at the Pow Burn. Go you and prevent him. Prevent him from what?’

Michael shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dear knows. Making a fool of hisself? Making a nuisance of hisself?’

‘Too late to prevent either, I should say,’ said Gil. ‘But I agree, something must be done to prevent a miscarriage of justice.’

‘If Murray’s missing,’ said Michael slowly, ‘it would account for the fee being late, and it might account for the daft message about witches. Seems to me,’ he looked at Gil, ‘the first thing to be done is find Thomas Murray.’

‘The very first thing, surely,’ Alys corrected him, ‘is go out to the Pow Burn to talk to the people there.’

‘You’ll have never seen a coal-heugh before,’ said Phemie Crombie.

‘I have not,’ said Alys. ‘It is not at all the same as a stone-quarry.’

‘Nor I,’ Gil admitted. ‘I’ve ridden past, but I’ve never looked closely.’

‘A new experience, then,’ said Phemie, and waved a disparaging hand at the view through the small, writhing panes of glass. The coalmasters’ house, a handsome structure of hall and two wings, was set back at a fastidious distance from the muddle of smaller buildings which sprawled away down the slope to the burn, embedded in dark grey mud and busy as a wasps’ nest. ‘That’s the nether coal-hill in the midst, you see. There’s three separate ingoes — ’

‘Three — what?’ said Alys.

‘The entries to the mine,’ Phemie expanded. ‘They’re a wee bit up from the low coal-hill, yonder.’ She pointed to the left. ‘Then the mine office is next the hill, where they keep the records and the tallies, and beyond that’s the smithy and the wood shop. Then away up the track there’s the hewers’ row, and the stables, and the two shaft-houses and the upper coal-hill.’

The row of cottages and the stables could hardly be seen through the glass, but Gil had noticed them as they approached; the two squat ranges were identical, except for the coal-smoke rising through the thatch of the dwellings. The house itself, on the other hand, was a well-built timber-framed edifice, the hall and wings roofed with slates, the smaller pents at either end neatly thatched. A little chapel was carefully oriented beside it. There was a windswept garden and kailyard, and the house had several more glass windows as well as this one before which they were seated, waiting for the promised refreshment. Thirsty from the ride, Gil reflected that Henry was probably already well down his first stoup in the kitchen building they had seen on the other side of the house.

‘Where does your mother have her stillroom?’ asked Alys, smiling at the girl.

‘In the pent yonder, next the chapel.’ Phemie jerked her head at the blank wall of the chamber beside them. ‘It has a door from the outside, which is how the Thorn men took her away without — ’ She scowled. ‘I’ll pay them for it, so I will.’

‘You will not,’ said her mother in the doorway.

Gil rose, scrutinizing her, and Alys moved forward with her hands out, saying, ‘How do you feel, Mistress Lithgo? That was a dreadful thing to happen.’

‘I’m well, thank you, mistress.’ Beatrice Lithgo, her appearance restored since this morning to the neatness Gil somehow felt was natural to her, came forward to embrace her guests while her daughter muttered rebelliously in the background, then seated herself on the leather-covered backstool Gil set for her, saying firmly, ‘That’ll do, Phemie.’

‘It’ll no do at all,’ Phemie retorted, ‘for if I hadny seen all and fetched the men, where would you be now?’

‘Where she is, I hope,’ said Gil. ‘Fleming had no case to argue, that was clear from the beginning. Do you deal in spells, mistress?’ he asked point-blank.

‘I do not,’ she said, equally direct. ‘Nor charms, nor tokens to procure love or hatred. I’m a healer, no more than that.’

‘I should think it was clear,’ said Phemie roundly. The door opened again behind her, to admit Joanna Brownlie with a jug and a tray of beakers. ‘My mother’s no witch, and I’ll pay that fat hypocrite for saying it!’

‘Let me understand,’ Gil said. ‘It seems there’s a man missing, this Thomas Murray, and Fleming thought he kent him in the corp. Tell me about Murray. He’s in charge here, is he?’

‘Aye,’ said Joanna softly, at the same time as mother and daughter said, ‘Not him!’

‘He’s the grieve,’ added Beatrice. ‘Promoted when my good-brother died.’

‘He was a common bearer,’ said Phemie in a savage tone which Gil could not account for. ‘No even a hewer. But since he can read and reckon, the old woman — ’

‘That will do, Phemie,’ said her mother with more emphasis, and Phemie finally became silent.

‘You promoted him?’ asked Gil neutrally, looking from one woman to another.

‘Arbella promoted him,’ agreed Joanna.

‘Is that your grandmother?’ Alys asked Phemie, who nodded ungraciously. ‘It must be difficult,’ she offered, ‘to be a household of women here on the edge of the coal-heugh.’

Gil, who had reached the same conclusion only a moment ago, admired this approach.

‘No, it’s difficult to be a household of women wi’ Arbella at the head of it.’

‘Phemie!’ said her mother. ‘You may leave us!’

Phemie flounced to her feet, long hair and blue woollen skirts swirling round her.

‘I was just going,’ she retorted, tossing the fair locks back. ‘You’ll forgive me, madam, sir.’ She curtsied briefly, and strode towards the door.

It was flung open as she reached it. She recoiled, and another, younger girl entered, and held the door open for a second figure who paused in the opening, gazing at them.

Gil never forgot his first glimpse of Arbella Weir. Slender, finely made, elegantly gowned, with some trick of the light giving her pink-and-white skin and silver-grey silk their own luminosity, she seemed for a moment lit from within. Near her all the women in the room looked gawky, even the graceful Joanna. Even Alys, he thought for a shocked moment. There was no telling her age; from the springy stance she could have been seventeen.

He scrambled to his feet and bowed, aware of Alys beside him making a deep curtsy. The woman in the doorway stepped forward into the chamber, and it became apparent that she was older than she looked at first sight. Vivid, expressive blue eyes under delicate brows held the attention, but silver-white hair showed at her temples below the fashionable French hood, and there were lines in her sweet face as she smiled at her guests.

‘Madam,’ he said, moving hastily to lead her to a seat. She leaned a little on his arm, her steps uneven, and he revised his estimate of her age again. Behind him, Phemie slipped out of the door, and the other girl came to help Joanna, who had finally begun to dispense the contents of the jug.

There was a stilted round of introductions and compliments. The refreshment was handed by the younger girl, who it seemed was Phemie’s sister Bel, a silent lumpy child of fourteen or so with dark hair and watchful blue eyes, and the smooth hands of a spinner. The beakers proved to contain buttered ale, well spiced but not strong. Gil raised his in a toast to Mistress Weir, and she bowed in reply.

‘And is it some errand,’ she prompted, her voice gentle, ‘that brings us the pleasure of your company?’

‘Maister Cunningham’s here about this morning’s disturbance,’ said Beatrice. Gil appreciated the understatement, but Arbella Weir shook her head deprecatingly

‘A bad business, maister,’ she said, and crossed herself. ‘Our Lady be praised that you were present to argue Beattie’s part. What could ha’ made Davy Fleming take such a notion into his head? He’s aye pleasant wi’ you when he’s up here, Beattie my dear.’

‘Aye, he’s civil enough to me,’ admitted Beatrice drily.

‘And have the two of you rid all this way to ask after my good-daughter?’ Arbella continued. ‘That’s a great kindness.’

‘They’re asking about Thomas as well, Mother,’ said Joanna.

Arbella raised her fine, dark brows. ‘Thomas? Why should Thomas concern you, maister? He’s well enough, I’ll warrant.’

‘If Sir David thinks the corp in the peat is your grieve,’ Alys explained, ‘which was part of his charge against Mistress Lithgo, then to prove him wrong my husband needs to find the man. I think he’s overdue?’

‘A week or two only,’ Arbella said, shaking her head. ‘He’s young. Likely he saw some new business he could do, and it’s taking time. Or maybe he went to deal wi’ the salt-boilers, as we’d discussed.’

‘It wasny time to meet the salt-boilers. He’s been gone five weeks, Mother,’ said Joanna, a hint of obstinacy in her soft voice. ‘There’s matters here for him to attend to.’

‘Is it as long as that? I’m dealing wi’ everything here, my pet,’ said Arbella. ‘He’s no need to hurry back. Never concern yourself, Joanna.’

‘What are his duties?’ asked Gil, attempting to reclaim the conversation. ‘What does that mean, to be grieve at a coal-heugh?’

‘He directs the men,’ offered Joanna. ‘He tells them where they should work, and when there should be a new shaft put in, and how much coal they need on the hill to fill the orders.’

‘He’s been a disappointment to me, I’ll admit,’ observed Arbella sadly. ‘I thought him knowledgeable, but he’s made a few mistakes since I put him in place.’

Gil caught a quirk of a smile crossing Beatrice’s face at this, but she said nothing.

‘And he deals with the customers,’ he prompted. ‘Does he deliver the coal — take the string of ponies out with the coal in baskets? I mind the collier coming to Thinacre when I was a boy, but that was from a nearer coal-heugh, down by the Avon.’

‘That would be Will Russell at Laigh Quarter,’ agreed Joanna. ‘Their round touches ours at Dalserf, but they hold to that side of the Clyde.’

‘That was one of Matthew’s agreements,’ said Arbella, and covered her eyes with a small plump hand. Joanna nodded, and crossed herself.

‘Matthew?’ asked Gil.

‘Matthew is dead,’ said Beatrice flatly. After a moment she went on, ‘He was my good-brother, and Joanna’s first man. He died near two year since, Christ assoil him, for aught I could do.’ Joanna turned her face away, and Gil thought he saw tears glittering on her eyelashes. ‘Then Joanna wedded Murray, and Arbella set him in Matthew’s place.’

‘You have not had to seek for trouble,’ said Alys in sympathy.

‘It’s a hard trade, winning coal,’ said Arbella, still behind her hand. ‘We get our livelihood from under the earth, and the earth takes lives in return.’

Beatrice and Joanna crossed themselves at this, but neither spoke.

‘So it’s you that directs matters overall, madam,’ Gil said. Arbella lowered the hand, and he felt the impact of her blue gaze as she turned it on him.

‘I was reared here, maister. It was my father cut the first pit,’ she expanded, in gentle pride of possession, ‘more than forty year ago, and brought in Adam Crombie as his grieve. I was sole heir to my father, and Adam wedded me, and he and our sons have worked the Pow Burn coal-heugh ever since.’

‘Till they died,’ said Beatrice, still in that flat tone.

‘And have you sons yourself, mistress?’ Alys asked her.

Beatrice’s expression softened. ‘Just the one living. He’s eighteen. His name’s Adam and all, though he aye gets called Raffie. He’s away at the college in Glasgow.’

‘And we’ve met Phemie, and this is Bel,’ Alys prompted. Bright colour washed over the girl’s plump face, and she bobbed a curtsy where she stood by her mother, but did not speak.

‘Bel’s a spinner,’ Joanna offered. ‘None better for her age in Lanarkshire, I dare say.’

‘I’m right fortunate in my grandchildren,’ said Arbella, with that same gentle pride in her voice. ‘My grandson is the boast of the college, and my lassies are kent for their skill for miles about.’

‘Hmf!’ said Bel’s mother, but did not contradict this.

‘So Murray has charge here under you,’ Gil persisted, ‘and he’s been gone for five weeks wi’ two of the men, and yet you never sent after him?’

Joanna opened her mouth as if to speak, but Arbella said, ‘No. I see no need for it.’

‘But are you not concerned for him?’ asked Alys.

‘No yet,’ said Arbella. ‘Time enough to worry when eight or ten weeks are past. I can direct the colliers, and oversee the hill and the tallies.’

‘Considering what happened to your own man, Mother — ’ said Joanna in her soft voice. Arbella covered her eyes again, and held up the other hand to stop the words. ‘No, I’m sorry, I ken it hurts you to mind it, but think on me, Mother! It’s my man that’s missing now, and never came home for Pace-tide!’

Gil met Alys’s eye, and she asked, ‘Was that Maister Adam Crombie? Forgive my asking — what happened to him?’

‘That was Auld Adam,’ agreed Joanna, in spite of Beatrice’s tight-lipped stare. ‘He must ha’ took ill on the road, and died and was buried afore it was known here.’

‘Oh, how sad,’ said Alys involuntarily. ‘When was that? Where did it happen?’

‘Afore I came here,’ Joanna admitted. Arbella remained silent, though her lips moved as if in prayer.

‘That would be in ’77,’ said Beatrice harshly, ‘for my laddie was just walking when the word came back, his grandsire never saw him on his feet, and Phemie was born that summer.’

‘I hope at least you have seen his grave,’ said Alys. Arbella shook her head, without lowering her hand.

‘It must have been a great shock,’ Gil remarked.

‘Aye,’ said Beatrice. Gil waited, but she added nothing.

‘So you tell me Murray and two others left here on the eighteenth of March,’ he said at length. ‘Afoot, or on horseback? Did he seem just as usual when he left? Nothing was out of the ordinary?’

‘No,’ said Joanna blankly. ‘They rode on three of the ponies as they aye do, and they left at first light, just as they aye do. Why would it be different?’

Beatrice’s mouth quirked. Observing this, Gil suggested, ‘Was he happy to go out on the road? Did he enjoy the change in his work? Or was it something he disliked doing?’

‘I think he liked getting away,’ said Joanna reluctantly.

‘Men aye like getting away,’ said Beatrice. ‘Mind that, lassie,’ she added to Alys, who smiled.

Gil decided not to comment, but said, ‘The two men that went with Murray — the man Meikle said they were sinkers. What does a sinker do?’

‘Sinks shafts,’ explained Joanna. ‘By cutting down through the rock, you see.’

‘That must be difficult,’ said Alys immediately. ‘And dangerous. What do they use to break the stone?’

‘A great spike and a hammer,’ said Joanna, taking this understanding for granted, ‘and the stook and feathers.’

‘Wedges of iron,’ Beatrice translated. ‘You drive them in wi’ the hammer, see, and the rock splits. Sometimes it’ll fly up in splinters. It’s a rare sinker that lives to be an auld man.’

Alys nodded, pulling a face, and Gil said, ‘So there’s no shaft being cut just now.’

‘We put in a new one no that long afore Yule,’ said Arbella, raising her head. ‘It serves well. So I allowed Thomas to take the two men along wi’ him, since there was no work for them the now.’

‘It was the same two lads he always took,’ supplied Joanna in her soft voice.

‘I should like to see inside the mine,’ Alys remarked thoughtfully, ‘though not in these clothes.’

‘Nor in any clothes, my dear,’ said Arbella, with her sweet smile. ‘We’d have the entire shift out for the rest of the day.’

‘My good-mother willny have a woman in the mine,’ said Beatrice, ‘and the men willny cross her.’ Her daughter Bel turned to look intently at her, but said nothing. ‘Where I’m from,’ she added, ‘on the shores of the Forth, the women work as bearers, to drag the creels of coal from the face to the stair, and then up to the hill, but here in Lanarkshire it’s all done different.’

‘So I should hope, Beattie my dear,’ said Arbella, raising those delicate eyebrows. ‘Where should the women be but seeing to the men’s dinner? I pay my colliers enough to live by, they’ve no need to set their women to work as well.’

‘Women working in the mine,’ repeated Alys in astonishment.

‘So is there,’ said Gil, still trying to keep control of the conversation, ‘any record of where Murray was going? What houses he was to call at? Is there a list, a way-sheet, a book of accounts?’

Their hostesses looked at one another.

‘I’ve no doubt of it,’ said Arbella.

‘He’d have a way-sheet,’ agreed Beatrice. ‘My man aye kept a list, and so did Matthew.’ Joanna nodded. ‘Did Thomas? Would you ken where it is?’

‘He’d take it with him,’ said Joanna in her soft voice.

‘What about the last time he went out?’ Alys prompted. ‘Is there a record from that? Or in the accounts?’ She turned to Arbella Weir. ‘Perhaps in the order the accounts were paid?’

Arbella nodded gracefully, the velvet fall of her French hood sliding over her grey silk shoulder.

‘Aye, for certain,’ she agreed. ‘Bel, my pet, would you be so good?’ The girl came shyly forward from her post at her mother’s shoulder. ‘The great account book that’s lying on my kist. Fetch it here for your granny.’

The great account book was bound in worn buff leather, and bristling with slips of paper tucked between the leaves. Bel bore it in cradled in her arms as if it was a child; her mother set up a small folding table for the volume, and Arbella turned back first the upper board and then half the heavy pages, using both hands, to find the entry she wanted.

‘The Martinmas reckoning,’ she said, and ran her finger down the page. ‘Aye, this would likely be the road he would take. It’s the same road my dear Adam aye took, I ken that.’ Alys rose and came to look over her shoulder. Arbella looked up at her, the velvet headdress framing her sweet smile. ‘You understand accounts, lassie?’

‘My father is a master mason.’ Alys drew her tablets from her purse. ‘May I make a note of these names? What a fine hand — is it your writing, madam?’

‘I was well taught,’ said Arbella. ‘I’ve had David Fleming teach my granddaughters the same, though he’s been a disappointment to me and all, and after today’s work I think I’ll not allow him to come back. It was his uncle Sir Arnold Douglas, that was chaplain to Sir James’s grandsire, taught me to read and write and reckon. Wi’ her letters and a good man, what more does a woman need in this life?’

It was apparent to Gil that several of the younger women in the room could think of answers to that, but none of them spoke.

‘We must away, afore the light goes,’ he said after a pause. ‘I think I’ve gathered enough to go on with. If you can furnish me wi’ a description of the man Murray, and the two others, I can send after him, to see if we can track him down. Then we’ll know for certain the corp in the peat is some other fellow.’

They mounted before the door, and were given a ceremonious farewell by Arbella, leaning on her granddaughter’s arm on the threshold.

‘We’ll see you again, I hope,’ she said in that gentle voice.

Joanna nodded, and Gil saw that her hands were clasped at her waist, the knuckles showing white. Behind her good-mother Beatrice studied them, and said suddenly, her eyes on Alys, ‘Aye, we’ll see you again, won’t we no?’

‘We must return,’ Alys answered, ‘if only to report what we have learned about your missing man.’

‘You’ll be back afore that,’ said Beatrice. ‘I’ll be here, lassie.’

‘You’ve no need to concern yourselves wi’ Murray,’ said Arbella. ‘It’s only for putting the lie to Davy Fleming that I’d pay any mind to the matter at all.’

‘I think we can do that,’ said Gil, and hitched his cloak closer. He gathered up his reins in one hand, bent his head and crossed himself with the other in response to Arbella’s offered blessing for the journey, and heeled his horse forward. Alys followed him, and the two grooms fell in behind as they set off up the track, past the bleak garden and over the shoulder of the hill.

Half a mile further on, out of sight of the house and the coal-workings, Gil was unsurprised to see a solitary figure standing by the side of the track waiting for them, red-and-blue plaid over her head against the pervasive wind.

‘That’s the lass from the coal-heugh,’ observed Henry.

‘It is,’ agreed Alys. ‘Good evening to you, Phemie.’

‘I must talk wi’ you,’ said Phemie, without preamble.

‘No the now, lass,’ objected Henry. ‘We want to be back on our own land afore the light goes.’

‘Aye, and I’ve to be back for my supper,’ she said scornfully. ‘I never meant the now, the owls will be flying afore long. Can one of you come back the morn’s morn?’ She looked closely at Alys, much as her mother had done. ‘You’ll be back, won’t you, mistress?’

‘I could come back in the morning,’ Alys admitted, with a glance at Gil.

‘Do that,’ said Phemie, ‘and I’ll find a way to get a word wi’ you. There’s plenty Arbella wouldny tell you, and a few things she doesny ken.’

‘That seems unlikely,’ Gil observed.

Phemie shook her head. ‘She canny be everywhere. I’ll see you the morn’s morn, mistress.’ She stepped back from the edge of the track to let them pass, and set off across the rough grass of the hillside, without looking back.

‘Well, that’s an ill-schooled lassie,’ commented the second groom as they rode on.

‘She has a lot to trouble her,’ said Alys.