The Rough Collier

Chapter Four

Gil was finding the women of Thorn a different proposition from the men.

He knew the little settlement slightly, a small fermtoun like so many others where four or five families held a piece of land and worked it in common. The houses in the midst of the four striped fields were low and long, the animals bedded at one end and the people at the other, the thatch supported by the cruck timbers which were the property of the tenant not the landlord.

When he got there the men were all out in the furthest field, visible in a morose group round a heap of stones, but he was welcomed by the women in committee. They gathered from kailyard and drying-green and seated him in state on the bench by the door of Annie Douglas’s cottage, nearest the track. A beaker of Maidie Paton’s ale, as being the best the township could produce, was put in his hand, and all the women crowded round to stare and talk and listen, their children peering round their skirts giggling. Hens wandered through and round the discussion, with a puppy trying to herd them.

‘You’ve no brought your bride to see us,’ complained Mistress Douglas. She was a big brawny woman, widow of a man called Meikle whom Gil recalled as another of his mother’s stable-hands. The two brothers with the cart must be her sons, he realized. ‘You’ll just need to come back another time and bring her. And how’s your lady mother? And your sisters? Did I hear good news o’ Lady Kate? When’s her bairn due?’

These questions and others having been addressed, Gil raised the subject which had brought him. At the mention of the corpse in the peat-cutting, there was a general chorus of disapproval and excitement.

‘The men tellt us when they came home,’ said Rab Simson’s wife, broad red hands on her bony hips. ‘What a thing to find in the peat! Killt three times over, was he no? And never a stitch on him? And you cut him up in your mother’s cart-shed, is that right?’

‘Mind your tongue, Lizzie!’ ordered another woman, very like her in build and face. ‘Or were you looking for ways to deal wi’ your Rab?’ They all laughed at this. ‘Mind you, he’d got a sore fright when he found the corp, Rab did, by the look of him.’

‘Aye, Maggie, he’d got a fright,’ said Lizzie sourly. ‘He’d need of a drink of usquebae to steady him, and then another to wash that away, and then another, till he was that steady he couldny find his way to his bed.’

‘At least he’d more sense than go and take Beattie Lithgo up for a witch,’ said Mistress Douglas, ‘the way my boys did. I skelped them for that when I heard it, I can tell you. The idea!’

‘Beattie’s a good woman,’ agreed Lizzie. ‘It was her cured my boy’s sore eyes, and your wean’s rotten ear, Maidie, you mind.’

‘She is, she’s a good woman,’ said another voice. ‘No like — ’

‘Let alone she’s more sense than bury him in our peat-digging,’ said someone else from the background. ‘If it was Thomas Murray.’

‘Aye, but it wasny,’ said the woman called Maggie. ‘Our Wat tellt me your nephew Jamesie said it wasny him, Annie.’

‘So he did, and Jamesie has more wit than my two put together,’ agreed Mistress Douglas.

‘It was Davy Fleming told them to go and get her,’ said another voice. ‘Our Adam’s no more wit than do as the clerk bid him, neither.’

‘No more did our Eck,’ said Lizzie. ‘Taking that wee fornicator’s word for it, and all.’

‘Aye, well,’ said Mistress Douglas. ‘They’ll none of them make that mistake again soon. And did ye discern yet what man it is, Maister Gil?’

Here was his opening.

‘I did not,’ he admitted. ‘It’s not Thomas Murray, you’re right about that, but it seems to me he’s been dead a long time, with the peat growing over him.’

‘Peat doesny grow!’ objected one woman, as the men had done. ‘It’s aye been!’

‘No, for there’s trees at the bottom of it,’ another reminded her. ‘From Noy’s Flood, our William says. Was this maybe a man from Noy’s time, sir?’

‘I think not so long ago as that,’ Gil said. ‘What I wondered was if he was maybe from our grandsires’ time, or a bit before. Do any of you mind any tales of a man missing on the moor?’

‘What, slain and buried wi’ no a stitch on him?’ said Maggie. ‘I never heard such a tale.’

There was a general agreement. Gil shook his head, and drained the beaker in his hand.

‘He was slain and buried in secret,’ he pointed out, wiping his mouth. ‘The tale of that would never get out. What’s more, though I agree wool and leather would last if they’d been there, he might not have been naked. If he was wearing linen shirt and breeks when he was buried, they would rot down in the peat, I would think, like the other growing stuff. Say he was robbed of his outer clothes and anything else on him, and left in a mire, nobody would know of it. Till now.’

Mistress Douglas folded brawny arms across her bosom and considered this.

‘Aye,’ she said after a moment. ‘So what you want is whether there’s any tale of a tinker or a cadger gone missing, or the like. Or maybe,’ she said slowly, ‘a man from here or further down the hill, in the auld times. For if he was buried in the digging to be secret, it must ha’ been afore we dug peat there, or whoever slain him would know he’d be found soon or late.’

Gil nodded agreement.

‘We’ve cut peats there since my grandam’s day,’ said one of the younger women.

‘What about your auld fellow, Jeanie?’ said another voice. ‘He’s sharp enough, would he mind o’ such a thing?’

The group shuffled about, and a round-faced woman in a faded blue kirtle was pushed forward and identified as Jeanie Forrest, wife to Adam Livingstone. Bobbing nervously, she admitted that her auld fellow, who claimed he was eighty-one, might well know if such a tale existed.

‘Who is he?’ Gil asked. ‘Where may I speak to him?’

He was her grandsire, William Forrest, and he had been huntsman to Sir James’s great-grandsire, and Sir James still sent a purse every hunting season, which came in right handy, seeing the old man had all of his wits but no teeth and needed a wee bit extra to his feeding.

‘He’s where he aye is, sitting in at the fire in our house,’ said another woman beside her, thinner in the face but like enough to be her sister. ‘Minding the cradle.’

‘Would ye come by our bit the now and speak wi’ him, maister?’ asked Jeanie, bobbing again.

By the time the procession reached Jeanie’s house, a shouting horde of children had preceded them, warned Maister William, who was struggling to his feet beside the peat-fire, and woken the occupant of the cradle, who was roaring in displeasure. Jeanie snatched the baby up, sat down on a bench next the door, pulling at the laces which fastened her bodice and shift, and silenced it by thrusting a brownish, thumb-length dug into its mouth. Gil found himself thinking by comparison of Alys’s slight breasts and rosy nipples, and wondered how she was progressing at the coal-heugh. He put the distraction with difficulty from his mind, and turned to Jeanie’s grandfather, a gaunt, big-framed old fellow bundled in many layers of homespun woollen, topped by a shapeless knitted cape from which his scrawny neck emerged like a lizard’s, and a woollen bonnet with a fringe of white hair sticking out below its checked band.

‘Maister William,’ Gil said, raising his hat. The old man’s face split in a toothless grin at the courtesy, and he ducked shakily in response, groping for his own bonnet. Jeanie’s sister steadied him with a practised hand under his elbow. ‘Sit down, maister, I’ll not keep you standing at your age!’

‘Eighty-two next Lanimer Day,’ announced Maister William proudly, if indistinctly. ‘I was huntsman to Sir James Douglas, that was grandsire to this Douglas, ye ken.’

‘Great-grandsire,’ corrected Jeanie’s sister. ‘Sit down, Granda, like the gentleman says. He wants to ask you about this corp in the peat-cutting.’

‘I never heard of sic a thing!’ declared the old man, subsiding into his chair. ‘Where’s my cushion, Agnes? I’ve lost my cushion.’

‘It’s here, Granda.’ Agnes rammed a lumpy pad down at his back. ‘You sit nice and talk to the gentleman now.’

‘Aye, well, I will if you let him get a word in. And you can bid all these women stay outside, I’ve no wish to be deaved wi’ a gabble of women. Have a seat, sir, just take one of they stools, if you wait for my lassies to offer it you’ll wait all day. About the corp ye found, is it? No, I never heard of a corp in a peat-cutting afore.’

This topic had to be explored quite thoroughly, along with the question of how long the old man had served the earlier Sir James and his son and grandson (‘Seventy year, if you’ll credit that, sir! Seventy year I served the family, and no a day less,’ boasted Maister William, while his granddaughter shook her head in denial behind him) and his acquaintance with the man who had been huntsman to Gil’s father (‘Oh, I mind Billy Meikle. I mind him well. I taught him. And he taught you, did he, young sir?’) but eventually the conversation was brought back to the discovery in the peat-cuttings. Jeanie’s man Adam had described the find, but not clearly.

‘He’s no a huntsman, you ken,’ said Maister William disparagingly. ‘Tellt us how he was lying, so he did, and how his face was all flat wi’ the peat, but he never said how he died.’

‘Slain three times over, our Rab said,’ declared Lizzie from the doorway. Maister William turned his shoulder on her and looked hopefully at Gil, who obediently described his findings, to exclamations of shocked interest from the listening women. The old huntsman nodded approval of his account.

‘Aye, Billy’s taught you well,’ he pronounced. ‘You’ve observed well, young sir. And were his hands and feet bound at all?’

‘No,’ said Gil positively, ‘nor marked.’

‘So it’s been a sudden death,’ said the old man acutely. ‘Maybe even taken and slain where you found him.’

‘I would say so. Certainly there’s no sign he’s been held prisoner. Assuming sign like that would last,’ he qualified.

‘Aye, very true. A good point, young sir, a good point. And you want to know if there’s ever been anyone missing in the parish.’

‘I do, sir.’

Maister William nodded. He went on nodding for some time, staring into the smoke which rose from the smouldering peats. Gil began to wonder if the old man had fallen asleep, and then realized he was counting. The women at the door were discussing the same subject, but seemed to be more interested in a lassie that had run off from Braidwood ten years since, and turned up wedded to a saddler in Rutherglen, than in the men of the parish. He sat hugging his knees, tasting the various smells of the place, peat-smoke and damp earth, the smells of the cattle-stall at the other end of the house, the savoury odour of the three-footed cauldron simmering among the peats and a sharper overtone which emanated from either Maister William or the baby, who was still sucking happily and noisily. After a while the old huntsman raised his head.

‘Five,’ he said. ‘Aye, five in my time, or that I heard folk tell of, and that takes us back to King Robert’s day, afore Thorn cut its peats on that patch. No counting my mother’s brother Dandy, but he was barely fourteen.’

‘And who were they, maister?’ Gil asked. That must be over a hundred years, he realized. His memory and knowledge go back so far. I am in the presence of history.

‘Ah. Now you’re asking.’ The old man raised gnarled fingers and began to count. ‘There was Andra Simson, that was our Rab’s grandsire’s cousin at Kilncaigow, in James Second’s time. That’s right, write it down in your wee tablets. But he wasny a red-headed man, and he was a carpenter what’s more and had the marks on his hands to show for it. Did you no say this fellow’s hands and feet were soft?’

‘What happened to him?’ Gil asked. ‘How did he disappear?’

‘Andra? He was working down in Lanark, I think it was. Aye, Lanark. Set off for Kilncaigow one night from Eppie Watson’s alehouse there and never was seen again. Never seen again,’ he repeated. ‘They found his lantern, if I recall, on Kilncaigow Muir.’

‘The road from Lanark to Kilncaigow wouldny take him up here,’ said Gil thoughtfully.

‘No, it never would.’ Maister William champed his toothless jaws and cackled suddenly. ‘No unless he’d a woman up the Pow Burn that his wife never kent of!’

‘And did he?’

‘No that I heard tell,’ said the old man regretfully. ‘Then there was Tam Davison, twenty year since. Aye, the year this Sir James’s father died.’

With a little coaxing, he recounted the details of the remaining disappearances. None of them seemed promising, all were working men who might be assumed to bear the marks of one trade or another, and he was quite certain that none was red-headed. Moreover, it seemed that the peat-cutting had been in use for most of Maister William’s lifetime. The women listened intently, nodding sagely at each of the names, but as he reached the last one Jeanie said, from where she sat nursing the baby on the bench at the wall:

‘You’ve forgot the men up at the coal-heugh, Granda.’

‘They’ve never disappeared,’ he retorted. ‘You’ll no talk to me like that, you malapert hizzy. I don’t forget a thing.’

‘There was Davy Fleming’s father, so I’ve heard. Fell down one of their nasty holes, so my da said, and never found.’

‘Aye, he was,’ objected the old man. ‘They found him a week later, I mind hearing o’t as if it was yesterday. They tracked him by the stink — ’

‘And then Mistress Weir’s man disappeared,’ she said stubbornly. ‘He went off and died and never came home.’

‘Aye, but she kent where he was buried,’ countered the old man.

‘Aye, so they say. And Beattie Lithgo’s man and all,’ she persisted. ‘Geordie says Jamesie says they never got him out to bury him decent, just closed up that bit of the working, because the roof wasny safe.’

‘Aye, and he walks,’ said someone else. ‘That’s why they’ll no work by night.’

‘Geordie’s talking nonsense, for I was at the burial,’ declared Maister William. ‘I could never walk so far now, you’ll understand, sir, but I still had my strength then. Adam Crombie the elder died away at Elsrickle, Will Fleming fell down a shaft, Adam the younger died under a roof-fall. That’s no disappearing. Any road, Beattie would never ha’ slain them and hid them in the peat, no like — she’d a great liking for her man, Beattie did. She tellt me that, one time she was here wi’ a wee pot of grease for my rheumatics. And I’ll tell you,’ a gnarled finger jabbed at Gil’s doublet, ‘whatever she’d put in it, it shifted the pains in my knees. I’m needing a bit more, Agnes, mind that, you’d best get me another wee pot.’

‘Best be quick about it, and all,’ said one of the women, ‘afore David Fleming gets his way and she’s hanged for a witch.’

‘Hah!’ said Maister William witheringly. ‘Davy Fleming, indeed! I kent his grandsire from he was the age of Jeanie’s wee one here, and he was just the same, all ower the countryside, and none of his get had the sense of a puddock. Whatever Davy’s took into his head, maister, you can wager he’s as wrong as he can be about it.’

Leaving Thorn, Gil strode down the track in the spring sunshine, deep in thought. He was still in hopes of giving the corpse from the peat-digging a name, and kin who could pray for him, but it began to seem likely he was not a local man. Perhaps down in Lanark, he thought, or eastward in Carnwath, someone might recall a tale like old Forrest’s. He could ride out that way tomorrow, and perhaps Alys would go too. The dog could come with them; he had sent him with Alys and Henry today as some protection, and it seemed strange to be out in the open without the lithe grey form loping round him.

Cheered by the idea, he made his way down the hillside, crossed the burn at its foot and climbed the other slope to pick up the way to Cauldhope. He had always felt Sir James’s dwelling was well named. It was a draughty and inconvenient tower-house at the back of Kilncaigow Hill, surrounded by considerable outbuildings, stables and barn and storehouses and a huddle of cottages like the ones at Thorn. A straggle of wind-blasted beeches made a sort of shelter to the east, but Gil had chilly memories of formal winter dining there as a boy, waiting on his parents and Michael’s and serving out congealing sauces with numb fingers while the candle flames streamed sideways. Today in the sunlight it looked more welcoming, and one of the household had obviously recognized him approaching, for Fleming was waiting at the gate, bowing obsequiously as he came up the track between the low houses.

‘Maister Gil! Come away in, come in! You’ll take a drop of ale to settle the dust? Bring that ale, Simmie, can you no see Maister Cunningham’s thirsty! And how can I help you, Maister Gil? They’re all from home, I’m sorry to tell you, Maister Michael rode out this morning, never tellt me where he — ’

‘Never worry about that,’ said Gil, accepting the ale. ‘It was yourself I wanted a word with, Sir David.’

‘Wi’ me?’ The plump priest looked alarmed, but bowed again. ‘At your service, maister. Ask away, whatever you want to know. Come in, come in out this wind, and get a seat.’

The fire in the hall had burned low, but Fleming bustled into a small chamber behind the screen, where a brazier kept the chill at bay. Two big aumbries and a rack of document-shelves stuffed with papers made the room’s purpose obvious. The man Simmie set down the tray with jug and beaker and left reluctantly, and Fleming drew the steward’s own chair forward for Gil and lifted the jug.

‘Take a seat, maister, take a seat, and ha’ some more of that ale. And what’s your business wi’ me? If it’s a matter of my maister’s affairs I might no be able to answer, you understand, I’m privy to a lot that’s in close confidence — ’

‘No, no,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll not ask you to break a confidence. It’s about yesterday’s matter. I need to know what your charge is against Beattie Lithgo, and it would help me if you could say when you last set eyes on Thomas Murray.’

‘The charge against the woman Lithgo!’ exclaimed Fleming. He drained his own beaker, and set it down on a pile of papers. ‘Is it no obvious, maister? She’s a notorious witch, widely kent for a cunning woman and dealing in charms and spells all over the countryside.’

‘This is not what I have heard,’ Gil observed. ‘Michael mentioned evidence. Do you have any, or have you heard any other say that she has done this?’

‘It’s all over the countryside,’ Fleming repeated. ‘Ask anybody. They’ll tell you.’

‘Not so far,’ said Gil. ‘All I’ve heard is that she healed this or mended that. She’s aye spoken of as a good woman.’

‘It’s no natural for a woman to do such things!’

‘Rubbish,’ said Gil irritably. ‘Any woman in charge of a household has to deal wi’ cuts and burns and treat sickness. My own mother and my wife are both herb-wise. Who else would keep the kitchen-hands safe or plaister a trodden foot in the stable-yard?’

‘She’s ill-natured, which is well known to be the attribute of a witch — ’

‘This is nonsense, man,’ said Gil, his exasperation growing. ‘By that token, Sir James himself would be a witch, and you’ll not accuse your own maister, I hope.’

‘You’ll not put words in my mouth, Maister Gil,’ said Fleming with anxious haste. ‘I never suggested any such thing, and you know it.’

‘Well, either tell me what Beatrice Lithgo has done that would warrant a charge of witchcraft, or stop spreading such things about. She could have you for slander, you know, if the charge was brought and proved false.’

‘Slander!’ repeated Fleming in dismay. ‘Are you threatening me wi’ the law, maister?’

‘No, I am not,’ said Gil crisply. ‘I am warning you. Now will you tell me what prompted your nonsense about witchcraft, or will you desist from it?’

I should not have let my temper get the better of me there, he thought guiltily Fleming swallowed hard, his expression suddenly blank, and reached out and poured himself another beaker of ale, which he drank down as if it would provide him with an answer. After a moment it appeared to do so.

‘It’s like this, Maister Cunningham,’ he said. ‘What made me suspect her was the deaths. Aye, the deaths,’ he repeated. ‘It’s all in the rent roll, which I keep.’ He nodded towards the document rack. ‘There was a death up there two year since, and one nine year since, that’s a seven-year difference, and another seven year afore that. Now what’s that if it’s no witchcraft, and the worst sort?’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Gil. ‘Are you claiming Mistress Lithgo caused all three deaths? Who were they, anyway?’ He paused, reckoning. ‘The young one — Matt — two years ago, he took ill and died, and neither his mother nor Mistress Lithgo could save him.’

‘Aye, for she’d cast a spell over him,’ Fleming asserted, nodding.

‘The one before that was an accident below ground, in the pit. How could she contrive that? Women don’t go in the pit, they tell me.’

‘They can work evil at a distance — ’

‘And the first one took ill and died miles from home. And did your own father not die up at the heugh? When was that?’

‘My father’s death, Christ assoil him,’ said Fleming, going red and crossing himself, ‘was certainly an accident, for it was long before the woman Lithgo came to the heugh. See, Maister Cunningham, I’ve a wee bookie I’ve been reading, that a friend lent to me, tells me all about witches and how to recognize them and all sorts of things they do. And in it — ’

‘What book is this?’ Gil interrupted, with a sinking heart.

‘It’s cried Malleus Maficarum,’ said Fleming proudly, ‘which means Hammer of Evil Women, ye ken — ’

‘That should be Maleficarum,’ Gil corrected. Sweet St Giles, help me, he thought, if this fool has got hold of a copy of that pernicious work, he’ll find witches under every hedge.

‘Aye, Maficarum,’ agreed Fleming. ‘Oh, the things witches gets up to, I never kent the half of it afore I read about them in this book. It’s but the second part of it, I truly wish I could get the whole of it to read!’

Thank you, St Giles! thought Gil.

‘Tell me what Mistress Lithgo has done, then,’ he prompted.

‘Have you read in this book, maister? I never kent they did more than charms and glamour, but this makes all clear, how they entice innocent maids to join their perfidious company, and take an oath of allegiance to the Devil himself, and fly from place to place by the power of demons and a wee pot of ointment — ’

‘I’ve heard of all that,’ Gil interrupted. ‘I don’t believe it, either. What I want to know is what you have seen Mistress Lithgo do yourself. Have you proof of her working witchcraft? Has she injured you, for instance?’

‘She spends her time in that lair of wickedness she calls her stillroom,’ declared Fleming, ‘times I’ve kent her even refuse to come out to hear Mass because the spells she was working needed to be watched all the time. She’s in there burning herbs and mixing poisons, wi’ charms and cantrips and curses to say over them — what could that be but witchcraft?’

‘Go on,’ said Gil.

Fleming opened and shut his mouth a few times, drank another draught of ale, and recalled something else. ‘She’s stole candles and holy water from the chapel. There’s aye less of either than I look to find, every time I’m up there, and I have the one key and Mistress Weir, the devout woman that she is, keeps the other.’

‘But not the Host?’ prompted Gil.

‘No, no,’ Fleming crossed himself at the word, ‘I bear the Body of Christ away wi’ me in a wee pyx, sooner than leave it in an unattended place.’

‘You’ve not convinced me so far,’ said Gil. ‘Can you show me anyone she has injured?’

‘There’s folk all about here been injured! Old Forrest up at Thorn, the old soul, has pains like knives in every joint, and so does Annie Douglas next door to him. What could that be but her work? And done wi’ a glance, just as it tells in the book!’

‘They seemed to feel she had helped them with the simples she gave them.’

‘Aye, no doubt, but who should undo the injury but the witch herself?’

Gil sighed. ‘Maister Fleming,’ he said firmly, ‘none of this is proof of anything at all.’

‘And she’s injured me!’

‘How?’

‘Well, she — she gave me a pot of ointment, and it never worked. It made matters worse. And she tellt me to boil well-water and drink that instead of ale, when a’body kens ale’s better for you. The very thought of drinking water!’ Fleming took another pull at his ale in agitation.

‘Did you go back when the ointment never worked?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, and she refused to help me. That was when I kent her for a witch, for she met me wi’ evil words, and I’ve heard her use the very same words wi’ Thomas Murray, and here he is dead in a peat-bank!’

‘And what words were those?’

‘I’ll not defile my mouth wi’ repeating them, maister.’

‘Then they won’t stand as evidence.’

There was another pause.

‘I clearly heard her say to the man Murray,’ said Fleming at length, ‘that if he continued in some behaviour she would make sure he regretted it.’

‘What behaviour? When was this?’

‘It was last summer, in the midst of August three weeks after the quarter-day. As to what he was up to, I have no notion, for she never said in my hearing. And when I threatened to report her to Sir James for a witch, two weeks syne,’ announced Fleming indignantly, ‘she swore I would regret it in the same tone of voice, mais-ter. And what more proof could you want?’

‘But how would he get hold of such a book?’ asked Lady Egidia. ‘He’s no university man, is he? Can he even read?’

‘It seems so,’ said Gil.

Across the hearth Michael swallowed down the mouthful of bread and meat he was chewing and said, ‘No, he’s no Master of Arts, but he can read Latin, for old Sir Arnold taught him. That’s how he got his post, see, he’s Arnold’s sister’s son, he was left fatherless and Arnold saw to his training, and my father thought the world of Arnold.’

‘Aye, and quite right. He was a good man and a good priest,’ said Lady Egidia.

‘Which is more than the nephew,’ said Michael roundly.

They were seated in one of the chambers off the hall at Belstane, where Lady Egidia had summoned her godson as soon as he arrived from his tour of the collier’s round. He had admitted to being ravenously hungry, having missed both the midday meal and supper, but his consumption was slowing now he had half cleared the platter.

Beside Gil on the settle Alys leaned forward and said, ‘Does he run after the maidservants, Michael?’

Michael, chewing again, nodded and rolled his eyes.

‘He’d bairned three afore St John’s Eve last year,’ he divulged, as soon as he could speak. ‘And there was at least two the year afore that. There’s been less trouble since then, by what my father tells me,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s getting so decent women willny hire to us, so Jock the steward says. And there’s the amount of ale he gets through, I noticed it at Yule. He’s no often drunk, I’ll give him that, but he’s a drouth on him like a tinker. And he aye smells of those candied pears like my mother used to make, and willny admit it. Why can I smell them on your breath, says my father, and Fleming swears he was never near such a thing. He must have a secret store of the stuff.’

‘But where did the book come from?’ persisted Lady Egidia.

‘He was at Linlithgow wi’ my father the last time,’ Michael offered, eyeing the final wedge of bread and cold meat. ‘When the court was there, you ken. It’s possible someone there would have such a thing to lend him.’

‘Malleus Maleficarum,’ said Alys thoughtfully. ‘The hammer of women who do evil. I’ve never seen the book.’

‘I have,’ said Gil, grimacing. ‘A copy came my way in Paris. It’s written by a Dominican who was an inquisitor in Austria or somewhere of the sort, and became obsessed by witchcraft as a particular heresy. The word in Paris was that the bishop of the place put a stop to his witch-hunting, because of his methods, and he went away and wrote this book in retaliation. It’s all allegation and anecdote, richt pungitive with wordis odious. You can hear the man frothing at the mouth on every page.’

‘It sounds unpleasant,’ said Lady Egidia.

‘It is.’

‘Can you or your father not take the book from Fleming?’

Michael shook his head. ‘He’ll not listen to me, madam. I’ll write to my father, and hope he does something, but, well, seems to me the damage is done.’

‘You are right,’ agreed Alys, tucking her hand into Gil’s. ‘The ideas are loose in his head now.’

‘At least we know where they came from,’ said Gil. ‘Michael, for pity’s sake, eat that. You must be starved of hunger. Did you learn anything the day?’

‘No,’ said Michael indistinctly as Lady Egidia rose and went out into the hall. ‘Not a lot,’ he qualified, swallowing. ‘I started at the near end, wi’ Lockhart at the Lee. Their steward was from home, but I got a word wi’ the under-steward who looked up the accounts for me, and it seems the coal was paid the same day Murray set out from the Pow Burn. As you’d expect,’ he added. ‘That would be the eighteenth of March, as I recall. One night’s hospitality writ down at the same time. Then he went on to Waygateshaw, I suppose on the nineteenth, they paid him and he collected a couple more fees while he was there, and rode off on the twentieth for Jerviswood, his two men wi’ him.’

‘So far, so good,’ said Gil. ‘These are all close at hand,’ he added to Alys, who nodded.

‘Aye. Well, after Jerviswood,’ Michael went on, ‘the next on the list is Lanark town, two houses. I decided I’d not go into Lanark yet, but went on to pick up the trail at Ravenstruther. Their steward looked up the accounts and said they lay there on the …’ He paused, reflecting. ‘Aye. The twenty-third and — fourth of March. Likely Lanark was more attractive, that they’d stayed longer there in between. I turned for home then, since it was well through the afternoon and I didny fancy my chances pressing on to Carnwath and getting back before dark.’

‘And all was as usual?’ Gil asked. Michael shrugged. Instead of his narrow scholar’s gown, today he was wearing a handsome doublet of soft tawny leather, faced with green velvet at the cuffs and neck, the sleeves and throat of his shirt embroidered in green and tawny thread to match. He seemed five years older and far better looking; Gil suddenly saw what might have attracted his youngest sister.

‘This was four or five weeks ago,’ he was saying. ‘I asked, but nobody minded aught that was out of the ordinary.’

‘Just Murray and his two men,’ said Alys. Michael nodded, and half rose as Lady Egidia returned.

‘Sit still,’ she said, crossing the chamber to her own chair. ‘Alan will bring more food in a little space. This has been good work, godson, even if you learned nothing. Tomorrow you can go on to the next houses on the list.’

Michael went scarlet with what might have been gratification, and Gil sat back, stretching out his legs.

‘So all was well for a good week after they set out,’ he summarized. ‘And meantime, I’m no nearer finding a name to the corp, nor learning just why Fleming brought such a charge against Mistress Lithgo. What about your day, sweetheart?’

‘I found out more than that, I think,’ said Alys diffidently. Alan Forrest entered, with a fresh platter of bread and cheese and a bowl of rather withered apples, which he set on the table by Michael’s elbow. ‘Though none of it may be to the point. Did you say Fleming admitted to having consulted Mistress Lithgo?’

‘Under pressure.’

‘Ah. Only under pressure. That is interesting. He did not say why?’

‘No,’ Gil admitted, ‘though he mentioned ointment which didn’t work. No reason why he should, I suppose, though it might have been more corroboration if he’d told me what way the ointment didn’t work.’

‘Yes,’ said Alys. ‘Phemie told me she had seen him slipping into her mother’s stillroom after they all thought he had left for the day. But Mistress Lithgo never mentioned it today when I spoke to her, nor yesterday when it might have helped her cause.’

‘Ah!’ echoed Lady Egidia. The steward paused in the doorway, half-watching the company. ‘You think …’

Alys exchanged a very woman-to-woman glance with her across Gil.

‘It seems possible,’ she agreed. ‘Some problem he might not wish discussed. She is a good woman, and a good healer, I think she would be discreet as a matter of course.’

‘Oh, she would. I wonder what it is? I suppose it could be anything he keeps under his hose. A carbuncle on his hinder end, emerods, trouble with his water. Alan, what are you waiting there for?’ demanded his mistress. ‘Have you aught to add to this?’

‘Aye, well,’ admitted the steward, grinning sheepishly. ‘In a manner o’ speaking. It’s Davy Fleming ye’re discussing, madam, is it?’

‘You ken very well it is,’ she said tartly. ‘What’s the word, then? Have you something Maister Gil should hear?’

‘I’m no just certain. For all you’re saying Beattie Lithgo can be discreet, mistress, I think there’s some word going about among the lassies — the young lassies. The way they laugh when his name’s mentioned, there’s something they’re no telling the men.’

Another of those significant glances passed, and both women nodded triumphantly. Gil, catching up with their thought, looked from his mother to his wife, and objected: ‘Michael’s just told us he’s putting it well about — what, three lassies last summer, two the year afore — that doesn’t sound like what you’re suggesting.’

‘But none since then,’ said Alys.

‘What is it you’re suggesting?’ Michael asked blankly. The steward grinned again, and made an inelegant gesture. Michael went scarlet. ‘Oh! D’you mean he canny get — like some kind of retribution? A judgement on him?’

‘It might be,’ agreed Alys, ‘though I have never heard of it happening so appositely.’ Gil looked down at the top of her head where she leaned against his shoulder, wondering yet again at her capacity to surprise him.

‘I have,’ said Lady Egidia. She paused, considering her household. ‘The lassies would tell me what the joke is, but I’d have to press them to it likely. They’re by far more like to share it wi’ you, Alys. Would you care to have a try at one or two of them?’

‘I should be honoured,’ said Alys.

‘Alan will furnish you wi’ likely names. And did you learn anything more at the coal-heugh?’

Alys nodded, her head shifting against Gil’s shoulder, and put up a hand to straighten her French hood.

‘Much of it was shadows,’ she qualified. ‘Nuances. The man Murray was much disliked — I think all of the women had some reason to wish him ill — but the most interesting was that Joanna is to have her first husband’s share of the inheritance. A half share in the business.’

‘Is she, now!’ said Gil.

‘Is that right?’ said Alan, still hovering in the doorway. ‘I kent the auld — Mistress Weir was daft for her, but I never heard that.’

‘Alan, you may as well be seated,’ said his mistress resignedly, ‘and tell us what you know about the folk at the coal-heugh and all.’

‘Well, it’s maybe no that much,’ said Alan, seating himself primly on the nearest stool. ‘They keep theirsels to theirsels up there.’

This proved to be the case. Few facts emerged, but a picture of a community viewed with suspicion, known to be violent, said to be feckless. The heugh was thought to be haunted, possibly by Mistress Lithgo’s husband, which Alan thought must be right, for else why would the colliers not work at night? Mistress Lithgo herself was well known and well liked, her daughters regarded warily — ‘They’re bonnie lassies, but nobody kens how they’ll be placed,’ said Alan. Gil recognized the reference to the girls’ dowries.

‘And the old woman?’ he prompted. ‘What’s said of her?’

‘Little enough,’ returned Alan. ‘I think it’s well kent who’s in charge up there, whatever man’s collecting the fee for the coals. Likely nobody wishes to offend her.’

‘Nobody wishes to offend me,’ said Lady Egidia, ‘and there’s plenty said about me by what I hear.’

I’ll wager there is, thought Gil, hiding a grin.

‘Aye, well,’ said Alan awkwardly.

‘Maister Forrest!’ Hasty feet sounded on the tiled floor of the hall, and the steward turned his head. The kitchen-boy appeared in the doorway, puffing in excitement. ‘Maister Forrest, you’re called for,’ he said, ducking and touching his wide bonnet as he spoke. ‘It’s someone at the yett. They’re saying it’s him from the coal-heugh.’

‘From the — who is it?’ demanded Gil. ‘The man Murray?’

The boy stared at him open-mouthed. He was probably ten or twelve, clad in an oversize homespun doublet and wrinkled hose, the general effect with his broad sagging bonnet very like one of the mushrooms that appeared in the horse-pastures in the dawn.

‘Who is it at the yett, Nicol?’ repeated Alan Forrest. ‘And uncover afore your mistress, you daft laddie.’

Nicol dragged off the bonnet, revealing a shaggy fairish thatch, and ducked again.

‘I never seen them, Maister Forrest,’ he said in alarm. ‘Just they’re saying it’s a man from the coal-heugh.’