A Chorus of Innocents (25 page)

“Thank you, Jimmy. Put it away again.”

He put it back, tied the straps round himself again. There was no reason to think such a dirty little boy with bare hard feet would have such a treasure.

Elizabeth sat in thought for a moment. “All right,” she said, “I'm going to talk to Brother Aurelius. You stay here.”

“Well we need tae go tae the church soon for Vespers, will ye hear us? It's no' very good yet, but it's shaping,” said Andy.

“Of course I'll hear you. First I must speak to the brothers.”

***

Lord Hughie followed her down the rocks that had been the stairs and made a great production about helping her, which she allowed. “Ma'am, my lady,” he said with his voice trembling, “May I speak to you?”

They sat on a bench in the herb garden.

“I know that collar.”

“Yes, it's your grandmother's.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me about it.”

“She…how did the minister come by it?”

Elizabeth was silent a moment. He must have some idea. “I think your grandam offered it to him if he would try and kill Lord Spynie for her.”

He nodded. “But she's daft in the heid with her faery forts and all.”

“She may be less daft than she seems. And she's also a determined woman and she doesn't want you to go to Court with Lord Spynie either.”

“She knows?”

“Of course she knows. I know. Everybody knows.”

“Well, why doesn't anybody stop him?”

“He's rich and powerful and he has the favour of the King.”

Hughie went silent a while. “So my grandam gave that to the minister so he'd go and kill Spynie, half before, half after. And he tried and he failed?”

“Yes.” The boy deserved honesty, appalling though it was.

“And Spynie found out who it was, somehow, and sent two men that had been in the Netherlands so they wouldn't be known, to kill him?”

She nodded. Though now she came to think about it, how exactly did Spynie find out precisely who had made the attempt against him if they hadn't caught him to torture him?

“And they did it.”

“Yes.”

“So I caused the minister's death?”

“No, my lord, he caused his own death. He should have told your grandam no, despite her being his great aunt. What was he doing, trying to kill Lord Spynie in cold blood and him a man of the cloth? He should have said, “No” and trusted in God.”

“At least he tried!” shouted the boy. “At least he tried something!”

“You can think it's all your fault if you like, my lord,” she said to him brutally. “It wasn't. It was Jamie Burn's pride and anger. It's very hard for a man to leave the fighting trade if he's good at it and I honour him for trying. But in the end, he decided to kill a man, he failed, and he was killed in revenge. Those who live by the sword shall die by it. All he had to do was delay things for two or three years and Spynie wouldn't be interested.”

“Ma'am, you're wrong. If it wasn't me; it would be some other boy. Killing Spynie is the right thing to do.”

And he turned away and left her.

She found Brother Aurelius happily stirring food in a large iron pot and humming a part of a Magnificat, while three large heavy-looking loaves waited on the bit of board he was using for a table.

“I've spoken to your other guests—Jimmy, Cuddy, Andy and Lord Hugh,” she said without preamble.

Brother Aurelius stopped stirring, then started again in the other direction. “Ah,” he said.

“Did you tell them this was Carlisle Cathedral or did they…?”

“So that's where they thought they were. No, ma'am, we didnae lie tae them. They arrived at night and asked could they 'prentice to the church here and we couldnae turn them away, could we? Four young boys like that? So we took them in and fed them and at Matins this morning after breakfast, they showed us what they could do, though it was reformed psalms. Brother Justinian taught them some Latin psalms after, and the
Salve Regina
, the first time he's been interested in anything but prayer for years. We had a kind of sung Mass, too, with English psalms and I officiated which was, strictly speaking, illegal—but you could say it was reformed too with the English….It was beautiful, you know.”

“I'm sure it was. I'm looking forward to Vespers.”

“I suppose you'll be taking them back to their families now.”

“One of them, yes. I'd rather take the others to Carlisle, where they originally wanted to go.”

“Ah,” said Brother Aurelian, stirring the stew with nameless lumps of gristle floating in it. “Well it was lovely to have them here, even if it was for such a short time.” He smiled at her. “Would you help me lay the table in the refectory? Our supper is quite simple, as you see.”

Elizabeth found the wooden bowls and spoons and also the refectory which had burned quite badly but still had half a roof. She even found a couple of candles which might help as the Sun went down.

All the monks came, even Brother Constantine came, smiling, and all of him trembling as if he were in an invisible wind. “God bless us,” he said, “and especially the new novices.” He smiled on the four boys at the end of the table, three of whom smiled shyly back. Lord Hughie was staring into space. Brother Justinian was reading an old worn prayer book; Brother Ignatius was a spry old man with terrible red knuckles like walnuts and a hobble that looked painful. The Lord Abbot Ninian intoned a very long grace in Latin, and Brother Aurelius served everybody except Justinian with stew, and Justinian with a double helping of bread. Brother Ignatius started talking to Elizabeth about the diseases he found were coming to him, as if he already knew her.

Elizabeth was starving but found the stew surprisingly inedible and the bread so solid and rocklike it was all she could do to chew it. She copied the other brothers and dipped it into the watery stew and got enough down to stop her belly protesting. The boys put their heads down and ate every scrap of stew and bread, so she gave Jimmy her remains, saying she wasn't very hungry after all.

They went to the church then, led by Lord Abbot Ninian, and Brother Aurelius brought a sanctuary lamp from somewhere and they lit the two candles from it. Then they sang Vespers.

It was like no Vespers or Evensong she had ever heard. The Latin chants came out in plainsong, sung expertly by all five of the brothers, and around and above them wound the singing of the boys, mainly alleluias. Then the boys sang two psalms and the monks intoned the closing prayer. Was it heretical?

Elizabeth suddenly had a picture in her mind of the young strong Jesus with the older Jewish woman behind Him with her arms folded, both of them smiling at her. She understood something then, although she wasn't sure how. That whenever Jesus spoke to a woman, it was, in a way, His mother He was speaking to, as happens with most young men, and so Mary was far more important than she had thought. For one of the things that had thrilled her about the Gospels was the respect with which Our Lord spoke to women, as if they were full people, not foolish half-men who needed ruling. Not always, and He was positively rude to His mother at the Marriage Feast at Cana—unless He was joking. Also nowhere in the Gospels did it say that Jesus laughed, although He wept twice. And yet Elizabeth was sure she could hear laughter in some of what He said. And it stood to reason He must have laughed sometimes, perhaps when He got drunk at the marriage feast on the wine He had made from water? Perhaps that was blasphemy to think that Jesus Christ could have got drunk at a party, but why shouldn't He? And on His own wine too? Why should He always have been serious or sorrowful or angry—if He was a man as well as God, He laughed too. And what kind of music did He like, she wondered; was His voice good? Surely it was? You didn't hear anything about that either, though surely Jews had ballads and worksongs like everybody else?

Jimmy was singing a Latin hymn from before she was born.
Salve Regina
it began and his voice went up effortlessly into the darkness of the burnt roof and lit it up with sound. She sat there, bathing in the boy's glorious voice, until it ended and everyone gave a little sigh.

They came out to find the cloisters and main courtyard full of men in jacks and helmets.

The boys fled back into the church immediately, but the brothers came forward slowly in a body, led, she noticed, by Brother Aurelius not the Lord Abbot Ninian, who was well back.

It didn't matter. She knew this particular collection of toughs and walked forward calmly to where Young Henry and his Uncle Thomas were dismounting. Henry had her jennet on a leading rein, though the saddle was still a man's. She sighed a little; a side saddle was so comfortable and her bum was bruised from all the riding she had done that morning.

“Now then, Mr Widdrington,” she said formally to her husband's eldest son. “Where is Sir Henry?”

“Ay, well,” said Young Henry, “he's in Jedburgh right enough but he willna see ye right away.”

Elizabeth considered this. It was one of Sir Henry's nasty tricks, to make you wait for your punishment so your imagination could work and you would get nervous. Quite obvious and quite contemptible.

“I don't know that I can ride anymore since you helped me escape from the Burns,” she said in a voice pitched to reach everyone in the crowd of men. “Perhaps I'll stay here with the monks.”

There was a stir in the crowd of men and hobbies and one man came shoving forward. She recognised Jock Tait, in an old worn jack that may have been his grandfather's from the pattern and a leather cap on his head. You could see he needed a new helmet.

“Missus, d'ye ken where my son Jimmy has gone?”

She didn't answer that. “Why?”

“He's missing fra home. He went wi' three other boys.”

“Maybe they were making for Carlisle Cathedral,” she said carefully. “You know Minister Burn had a plan to take them there and 'prentice them as singers at the cathedral.”

He dismounted and came toward her and she could smell that he had been drinking. “Ay, and I asked ten pounds English from him, ma wife told ye.”

“Yes,” she said coldly, “how is your wife?”

His eyes slid from hers and he answered in a baffled angry voice, “Ah didna ken he meant it, I wis joking.”

“Were you?”

“Well I wisna. But…”

“Mr Tait, your second son is a skinny dirty little boy that has probably never eaten enough in his life. Why do you care what he does? Surely if he goes to Carlisle Cathedral as a singer, he'll be fed and it'll cost you nothing.”

Were those actual tears in the man's eyes or the effect of Henry's torch? “I'll miss his singing, so I will. I didna ken how good he was.”

“Why not? Did you never listen to him until the minister's funeral?”

“Nay, I didna ken. But Carlisle's a long way…”

Good God, did the man love his son in some way? Really?

“Mr Tait, a voice like Jimmy's only comes occasionally. Carlisle is the best place for him, they'll teach him to use it and they'll teach him to read music and Latin and…why don't you want him to go?”

“I want him to go but not alone on the road to Carlisle, it's a long way.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I want tae go with him to Carlisle and make sure he gets there, missus, naething mair, I swear to ye. Did ye think I'd stop him? Ay, I've given him a thick ear now and again but this…he's ainly seven but he's taken a man's step here and I wish he would ha' asked me…”

“Would you have said yes?”

“Ay, o' course.” Perhaps he was lying, but did that matter? Perhaps he was looking ahead now. “Ah wanted to go to Carlisle Cathedral maself when I wis a wean but wi' my grandfather and uncle hangit before I wis born and my father allus riding to fetch us in food, I had to stay at hame and watch the sheep and the goats and the little 'uns.”

Elizabeth looked at the man, he wasn't drunk so much as he had taken a drink and it had loosened his tongue. Was it possible he was telling the truth?

She didn't have to decide what to do because a small bony creature came running across the courtyard and flung himself at his father, who fumbled in shock, nearly dropped him and then lifted him up.

“Whit are ye doing here, Jimmy?”

“Ah,” said Brother Aurelius with a bland smile, “the boys arrived here last night, very weary and we have given them shelter although unfortunately we are not Carlisle Cathedral.”

Jock Tait looked at him and then at Elizabeth and then at Jimmy. “Is that right, Jimmy?”

“Ay, we thought it wis, but it isn't?”

Jock laughed. “Nay, it's Jeddart Abbey!”

“Oh. Is Carlisle further, for we walked an awf'y long way.”

“Ay, nay doubt ye did for yer tracks went round on yourself twice.”

“Oh. Will ye take me to Carlisle then, Dad? Wi' my lord and Andy and Cuddy?”

“Ay, Ah will.”

Jimmy had screwed his face up with a very cynical expression on it. “Ay, and ye willnae fool me and take me back hame and gi' me the leathering o'my life?”

There was a pause and then Jock answered, “No, I willna.” Then he swallowed.

“And will ye tell who wis the men that killt the minister so he couldna take us hisself?”

“Now?”

“Ay,” said Jimmy, still with that old man's expression on his face. Jock looked at his son as if he was seeing him for the first time. Then he nodded slowly.

“Mr Widdrington…”

“Ay?”

“I've a mind to lay a complaint as a witness agin Archie and Jemmy Burn, for the killing of Minister James Burn, their cousin.”

“If we can find a procurator fiscal at this hour, will ye make a witness statement?”

“Ay, that I will. I had Jimmy looking after their horses while they did the murder and then he took two of their horses down to the Border to trade with a merchant I know, to put ye off the track. I know them well from riding wi' them, Burns and Taits is usually friends. I didna ken they were after the minister. I thought it was some ither man o' the village. I never thought they'd be after killing their ain cousin like that—not even Kerrs would do it.”