Hue and Cry (11 page)

In the closet room of Giles Locke’s tower Meg Cullan was opening her eyes. At first she forgot where she was, until she turned to see Nicholas, stretched at her side. She lifted his hand. It was limp. Gently she arranged his limbs into a semblance of repose. The rigor had gone. His face hung grey and slack, lightly flecked with blood. She was changing the sheet when the doctor returned. He went at once to tend to Nicholas, feeling for a pulse, examining his eyes. At last he turned to Meg. ‘Oh, my dear child! What have you done?’

‘He’s still alive,’ she answered faintly. She could barely shape the words. ‘He’s in a deep sleep now. There’s nothing that will rouse him. He has had convulsions. I think his jaw is broken. Please, may I go home?’

For a moment Giles seemed lost for words, then he recovered briskly. ‘I’ll send Paul for Hew. I suppose he was not here? You have been alone?’

‘No one else was here.’

‘Then you gave him nothing,
nothing
, do you understand? Shush, I’ll take care of it now. Go down to the chapel and wait there for Hew.’

To Hew’s consternation, Meg slept for the whole of the following day. She had spoken barely a word on the journey from town and simply nodded when he told her of his triumph at St Leonard’s. Their father was more sanguine. ‘She’ll be well enough by nightfall, Hew, don’t fret. I did warn you she was frailer than she seems.’

‘Is there no physic she can take?’

‘She won’t be any use to you today. When you come back from town you can tell us the news. She’ll be glad enough to hear it when she wakes.’

It was a clear dismissal. Hew felt deflated. His news had gone flat, like a bladder the schoolboys had pricked with a pin. He took his horse from the stable and prodded him grumpily back into town.

The day dawned drizzle-grey, the mist from the sea almost palpable over the land. By the time he arrived he felt sodden and dreary, quarrelling with the stabler over the cost of leaving the horse. Nor did his mood lift in the north street, for the doctor had gone out, locking all his doors. There was no sign of Paul.

Giles was in church, kneeling on the earthen floor of St Salvator’s chapel, mouthing out the words of private prayer. He would have liked to make confession, and afterwards to light a candle. In their place, he opened his soul before God. He asked God what to do with Nicholas. Upstairs, he had locked the door and sent Paul on an errand out of town. He trusted no one else to see the patient. Nicholas lay white-lipped and cold, without trace of a pulse. In the flame of a candle the pupils of his eyes did not dilate. Giles had been about to call the proctors to remove him. Yet after several hours the corpse was lying limp, and shallow breath fell misty on
the glass. And so Giles knew he was not dead, but lying in some secret place that was neither death nor life. Meg’s poisons had bewitched him. The doctor set the bones and bound the broken face in strips of linen cloth to hold it firm. He stripped and cleansed the wound, yet still the patient did not stir. And so he prayed.

God sent him Hew, which was not what he had hoped for. He was sitting outside in the dust of the street, damp and bedraggled. Reluctantly Giles let him in.

‘Your friend’s asleep.’ The doctor closed the door. ‘We’ll not disturb him now. Come dry yourself off by the fire.’

Meg’s absence had alarmed him further. He needed her to bring the patient back to consciousness. Without food or water, Nicholas would die.

Hew stared at him. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Aye, tis Nicholas. The illness is reaching its crisis. He suffered seizures in the night, and his jawbone has cracked. I fear he’s on the brink of death.’ It was literally true:
suspended
, Giles thought, neither living nor dead. He could not have explained it.

‘I’m sorry,’ Hew said wretchedly. ‘Meg will be upset. Is there nothing she can do?’

‘No, no. I don’t say that. I should be glad if she could come tomorrow. The hours ahead are critical. His life lies in the balance, but the cleansing of the wound has cleared the corruption. The putrefaction and the fever both are gone. Even the lockjaw recedes.’

‘And yet you say he’s close to death? I don’t understand.’

No more did Giles. He shook his head. ‘He’s weak and must have nourishment. But with a broken jaw . . . it may not heal. It will be hard for him to eat.’

‘I don’t know what you’re saying. Will he live or die?’ demanded Hew. ‘If I’m going to make a case I’ll have to talk to him, Giles. Do you tell me I’m wasting my time?’

‘I’m sorry, Hew, I can’t say more. You must put your questions elsewhere. But at least you have time on your side, for if he lives
it will be weeks before he’s fit to answer any charge. Ask your sister here to nurse him. We’ll feed him through straws. Hew – you’ll think this odd – I know she’s your sister, but tell me, how well do you know her?’

‘In truth, not well at all. She was a child when I last saw her. But why do you ask? Does she seem strange to you?’ Hew pursued anxiously. ‘Is she unwell?’

‘I expect she has her monthly courses,’ the doctor reassured him. ‘It would explain the reticence and shifting, don’t you think? There’s many a gentle lass brought to her bed when it comes.’

‘Truly? How vexing,’ Hew said, perplexed.

His confusion must have flickered in his face, for Giles explained kindly: ‘She is not to be pitied the pain, for it’s a natural process. In fact we ought to envy her, for nature’s her phlebotomist. We men must bleed ourselves, you know. When you know a woman well, even your own sister, you will observe how as the month draws on she grows out of sorts, and is ever more tearful, shrill and discordant. But when the menstrual flux follows its course and the balance of her humours is restored, she returns to her sweet loving self.’

‘Think you, truly?’ Hew looked sceptical. ‘I must ask her.’

‘Well, perhaps not,’ Giles put in hurriedly. ‘They don’t always see it that way.’

Hew decided to return to St Leonard’s. There was nothing to be learned from Giles. With the rest of his profession he excelled in the equivocal, trained in prevarication in the best of schools. What was clear was that his friend was hiding something. If Nicholas was close to death, then why had he left him alone? Nor did he in the least believe that what ailed Meg were her courses. Giles had hoped their mention would embarrass and deflect him. But whatever was the matter, it could wait.

Gilchrist was surprised to see him back so soon: ‘Master Cullan! Have you come to join us? Term does not begin until October.’

‘I know it, sir. In truth, I’m anxious to begin. My father took
the news of my appointment badly. I’ve come to see about a room. I wondered if perhaps you knew of someone who might share? I find that cost becomes a factor, as things stand.’

‘Ah. There may be. Well there may.’ But he seemed rather doubtful. ‘There’s one man, Robert Black, about to take the first-year class. His father is a goldsmith in the capital. He shared a room with the regent who left, so he may have a place. The other regents still share a bed.’

‘That sounds grand. When may I meet him?’

‘I don’t say he’ll agree. He has been content enough since Master Colp left. He claims that the solitude suits him. And then, of course, he has no need of funds.’

Master Colp
. He was testing the waters, trying out the name to see if Hew remarked upon it, watching him with narrowed eyes.

‘But if expense is such a grave consideration, then you might be better bedding with your students. That’s always good for discipline. Why not find your board at someone else’s cost?’

‘Perhaps. But I’d prefer to be among the regents. I’m not a pauper scholar. Master Colp, did you say?’ Hew echoed carefully. ‘I know him, sir. We lodged together once when we were boys.’ It was pointless to deny it. ‘And is he the one who’s sick? I’m grieved to hear it. You know, I do wonder whether I should make my peace with my father and return to the law. It’s been a long time since I had to lie with undergraduates.’

‘No, no, not at all,’ Gilchrist protested, ‘I will take you now to Master Black. I think you’ll like him, Hew, and he will find you very different from Colp.’

Robert Black sat hunched at his desk. His objections had been swept aside, and Gilchrist had left him confronting the stranger. It was clear to Hew that he did not want to share.

‘I knew him, you know,’ Hew was saying softly.

‘I know. He spoke of you sometimes.’

Hew began to walk round the room, looking out at the view from the window, picking up inkhorns and books. ‘Those are
my things,’ he knew Robert Black wanted to say to him, ‘this is my room,’ but the words did not come. Hew leafed through a quarto. ‘I recognise this grammar. Was it his?’

‘I haven’t packed up his things yet,’ Robert said defensively.

‘I can take them if you like. He’s in St Salvator’s, did you know? Listen, if you’d rather sleep here on your own I’d understand. But can you tell me what has happened? We were friends.’

Robert shook his head. ‘Then you wouldn’t want to know.’ He looked earnestly at Hew.

‘I have no quarrel with you, Master Cullan, and I’ve none with Nicholas. I also once thought him a friend. I am glad to have you as a regent in the college, and I’m content to dine with you. But I’d prefer it nonetheless if you’d look for other rooms.’

‘Principal Gilchrist has promised me this one.’

Robert flushed. ‘Then I shall look elsewhere myself.’

‘You don’t have to do that. Listen, may I call you Robert? I took my licence here six years ago. Nicholas Colp was my roommate. We were the same in age, but he was paid for by the burgh, a foundation boy. He was supposed to light the fire and make the bed, that sort of thing, you know. But in the event we were friends. I remember my father sent me a coverlet embroidered in orange and blue. We huddled under it at night, arguing our themes long after dark. I gave it to him when I left.’

‘He has it still,’ whispered Robert. ‘I have put it in the chest.’

‘Truly? Then I’ll take it to him. He’ll be glad to have it, for the evenings grow chill. But you understand what I am saying? I lived for four years with Nicholas Colp. It hasn’t put me off sharing as much as it seems to have you. But, of course,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘he hadn’t been accused of sodomie or murder at the time.’

The regent looked stricken. ‘Who told you?’

‘Professor Giles Locke, the provost of St Salvator’s. Another good friend. He has the care of Nicholas there. Though I prefer Giles as friend to physician. He has what I call the blustering flux. It’s a common affliction in men of his class. Equivocates – you
know the sort of thing: “if he fart or piss clear divers times by the wax of the moon on a Thursday and
if
(but not also) he should happen to down a pint of crushed lettuce without it runs out, then he surely shall live; or else not.”’

In spite of himself, Robert smiled. ‘You think it a jest then?’

‘By God, I do not,’ Hew said fiercely. ‘I would like to be told what to think, for thus far I know nothing. I’m a lawyer, or intend to be.’ For the first time he acknowledged it. ‘I have not come to chart the movements of the spheres but to find out the truth about Nicholas Colp. I hoped to make a case in his defence. And yet the case is lost before it starts, for Nicholas is sick, and no one else will talk to me. I can discover nothing, nor even if he’s likely yet to live to face the charge.’

Robert stared down at the floor. ‘It would be better if he died.’

‘So everyone tells me. Tell me why
you
think so, Robert. Do I take it you heard him confess?’

‘To murder? No. And not to sodomie, it’s true. But still . . .’

‘But still you think him guilty? You have lived with him here in these rooms and you know in your heart he committed these crimes?’

‘I’m sorry, but I have to think it. Though I swear he was out of his mind.’

‘Then we have a beginning, for that’s a defence.’ Hew told him earnestly. ‘I would like you to tell me what you know. Begin with Nicholas, how you came to be friends, if you were, or what your relationship was. If it changed, tell me how. Leave nothing out. Then tell me all you can recall about the weeks before the deaths.’

Robert proved a willing witness after all. He made his speech as though he had rehearsed it, like a student called from class to make his last responsion in the hall.

‘I have known him for almost two years, since first I came here to St Leonard’s to replace a Master Gray, who died of a cankerous blot. Before that I was working in Glasgow. Nicholas had shared with Angus Gray. He was looking for someone else
to help him meet the cost. I had enough money to rent rooms of my own, but he seemed honest, and I liked him. He helped me prepare for the term. My students were about to begin their third year, then shortly to proceed to their examination. His were in their second year, but he’d taught the texts before. He was a conscientious teacher, working tirelessly on behalf of anyone who struggled, reading over the principles time after time. Last year he helped me take the magistrand class through their final disputations, though he had bachelors then of his own. You’ll find them ahead of their year, if you really mean to take them. We got on well enough, though he was often quiet and reflective, somewhat serious and sad. He had very little money, save what the students brought. He might have expected,’ he added ruefully, ‘to have reaped a little more at the end of this year, when his crops come to fruition. The parents are generally grateful. But I don’t think he cares for money. He thinks we favour rich men’s sons, and has complained against it. It isn’t true, of course; they still have to make their mark. But though he did not make distinctions when he taught, he has always believed St Leonard’s should remain at heart the home of the “poor scholar clerks”. That’s all but gone now. Well, so we went on, until about two months ago the principal Gilchrist asked him to tutor a boy whose father wished him to matriculate this term. His name was Alexander Strachan, the son of a merchant from Perth, lodged here with his uncle in the town. The father Gilbert’s a great friend – if that’s the word – of our man Gilchrist. He deals in all manner of spices and wines as well as fine cloths. I believe he furnished Gilchrist’s cellars both in college and at home.’