Hue and Cry (13 page)

‘My brothers. James is at the burn, but Will’s out the back with the pots.’ She gestured to the house. ‘You can go through there if you like, or round by the side. And if you wanted to make water,’ she suddenly brightened, ‘we’ll all turn our backs for a penny. Else the little ones say things and stare.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind if I’m ever caught short.’

Hew went by the side, turning his face from the barrel of lye which caught at his breath, scalding his throat as he passed. His eyes watered still as he came to the green at the back of the house.

‘Good day to you, sir.’ Will Dyer stepped aside from the pot and looked at Hew suspiciously. He held a crumbled block of purple litmus in his hands. Since his father’s death he had found himself wary of strangers, though this one wheezed and spluttered too conspicuously to pose a serious threat. ‘Can I help?’

‘I hope so.’ Hew had recovered his breath. He fingered strands of wool in variegated shades of violet drying on their frames. ‘What extraordinary depth of colour! Will it last?’

‘It’s likely to fade a bit,’ Will admitted. ‘But it’s a foreign dyestuff I’m improving, litmus mixed with woad and cochineal. We’re working on the set. It’s the mordant makes you splutter. It catches in the throat. Was it purples you were wanting?’

‘Saffron. I’ve a dozen old shirts I’d like to have dipped. I’ve just
returned home from abroad, and I find the French fashions too fine for my current employment. My name is Hew Cullan. I’m about to start as regent in the college of St Leonard, but the townsfolk seem to take me for some foreign merchant and charge me to fit. I find I can’t afford to keep the colour of my cloth.’

Will laughed. ‘We’re a bit behind on the leines. I’ve been busy with this. But I’ll have a pot of saffron ready by the middle of next week if you would like to bring them then. How long were you in France, sir? I’d like to go myself to see the dyes. There’s merchants come to market but you cannot trust their wares.’

‘Five or six years, more or less. They’ve very fine silks. Ice greens and blues. There’s a salmon-pink shot watered silk in fashion with the gentry now. I’ve seen nothing like it here.’

‘Indeed? I don’t suppose you know how they make it?’

‘I fear not. But I never saw purples as vibrant as this.’

‘Think you not?’ Will was pleased. ‘It doesn’t go well in the town. It’s no Alexander Blue.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s a sick enough jest, Master Cullan, forgive me. The wound’s a bit raw. You may know my father was recently drowned in a vat of dark purple; it wasn’t this one, but more of a puce. We won’t make it again. But folk prefer the blue.’ He waved at the pot. ‘It’s named for a poor murdered lad who died in a shop in the town. His body was wrapped in some cloth of a similar shade. Since then we cannot make enough of it, for dresses, drapes and shawls.’

‘How singular. But my condolences for your loss. The little lass told me her father had drowned.’

‘She thinks it was an accident.’ Will looked at him shrewdly. ‘But if you’re from the college you’ll have heard of the charge against Master Colp.’

‘Forgive me, I had heard that he was indicted for murder, but I didn’t know of the connection or I might never have come. I hope it doesn’t cause offence? Please accept our deep regret and sadness for your loss.’

‘I thank you, but there’s no offence. I’ll gladly dye your shirts. And in truth, I do not believe that Colp did it. In fact I’m sure he did not.’

‘Truly? I thought they had caught him red-hand?’

‘Quite the reverse. It was I who found him. Colp was lying sick and insensible by the front step. I thought he was dead. He could not have finished a mouse in a trap, the state he was in.’

‘They say that madmen have great strength,’ suggested Hew, ‘even in adversity. Supposing he was mad?’

‘Even allowing for that, he still could not have done it. I don’t believe he even saw my father.’ Will held out his hands. They were crusted with lichen and livid with dye. ‘Call this red-hand, if you will. My father was struck on the back of the head, and then tipped,
while he lived
, into the great pot of dye. The grass is still spattered with purple. The killer must be marked on his hands and his clothes. Look at these nails, sir. It never comes off. But when I turned over Nicholas Colp, I found not a mark or a spot.’

Hew returned through the house in search of the children, reflecting on what Will had said. He found them still outside, building walls of mud and stone to make a babies’ castle in the yard. Stooping to admire it, he felt into his pockets for a pile of shiny pennies which he laid out on the ramparts one by one. ‘There’s a penny for you all, and there’ll be sixpence for your sister who looks after you. It’s Jennie, is it not? You’re a good girl to mind them, and the littlest so fretful. You might fetch her some milk. It will be better for her teeth than sucket candie don’t you think? But I expect you’d like some ribbons or a gingerbread horse from the fair?’

She nodded and solemnly stretched out her hand. He held back a moment. ‘There’s a thing I would like you to help me with. Do you always play here?’

‘Aye, or down by the burn.’

‘Can you remember, Jennie, if you played here on the day your father died? Did anyone come by the house?’

She shook her head. ‘We were down at the stream with Mother,
all of us, helping. Except for the boys. They’d gone into town to do work for the weaver. Only Father was here. That’s why no one came to help him when he fell. There was no one but the man.’

‘What man?’

‘The one that was ill. Will said he must have come after. He found him close to where you’re standing, by the door. But I never saw him come. You can’t see to the house, where we were.’

‘And no one passed by on the road?’

‘I think I saw a lass, coming up from the fields to the town. She didn’t want us. She’s not from the kirk, so I don’t know her name. But maybe it wasn’t that day.’

She thought she might tell him the truth, but of course she could not. For there had been a man, a fine one at that, dressed in a long dark-green cloak, like the pelt of a mole and muffling his face, and gloves and a matching green hat.

She had left her mother and the bairns at the burn and come back to the house to make use of the pot. For so they were always supposed to, every last drop to be saved for the lye. She had hung on as always as long as she could, hoping to cheat necessity, knowing always that necessity would beat her in the end. But as she ran clutching her skirts towards the house and its familiar smells, something inside her gave way. She had lifted her dress as high as her head and crouching down by the wall in the lavender bed, had voided her stream wet and warm into the spiky sweetness of the earth. Instead of the stoor and the stench she smelled flowers. She was free. Then she had heard a discreet little cough, a snort of laughter right behind her. And pulling down her skirts in her confusion, dabbing at the dampness that appeared to spot her dress, she had seen him smiling at her, stroking the hairs of a darkened-red beard.

‘A thousand pardons, little lass. It seems you and I had similar intentions, though I’d thought to use your father’s barrel in a more conventional mode. But perhaps there’s no one home, that you disport yourself in front of it?’

She whispered, blushing, ‘Father’s out the back; there’s no one in the house.’

‘Indeed? Well unlike you I prefer to be private. It’s a place I’m ashamed to be seen. Here’s a shilling. If you run off now as fast as you can and let me loosen off in peace, child, and don’t tell your friends and family I came by, I’ll make up your father’s losses in the bucket and I won’t tell your mother I saw you bare-arsed.’

He laughed aloud as she fled, not even peeping backwards through the trees to watch him fetch his thing out by the pot. She had the shilling still, sewn in a little pocket in her dress, close and warming next to her heart.

Hew was looking at her. ‘And the little ones saw nothing? No? I thank you. Here’s sixpence for the lye.’

‘What lie? I have not lied to you, sir, you have no cause to say it. I’ll tell my da … my brothers!’ To her dismay she could not stop the tears. He knelt by her side in concern.

‘Hush, child, there, I don’t mean to doubt you. I meant instead the lye for the cloth … a bawbee for the jakes. I find I have no call at present to make water. Here, take a shilling, don’t cry.’

Why indeed should she lie, he was wondering. What might she know? And who was the lass she had spied on the road?

Jennie dried her eyes. Maybe she would run away, and make a better life. She knew ways to make a shilling now, and more than one. This man had paid as much for tears as the other had for silence. Or had that been for showing off her arse? She wasn’t sure. She knew it did not matter. She could give it all, her secrets, silence, tears and lies, to please a man who dandled her. Who else would love her now her da was gone?

Hew returned to Kenly Water as the mists began to fall, reining his horse through the haar to the track. He felt Dun Scottis tense beneath him, quivering hot, picking reluctantly over the stones. The rubble path dissolved into the landscape, flowing loose as water from the shoreline to the sky. At last they saw the yellow smudge of lamplight bleeding through the edges of the fog. The windows of the tower house flared with candles, row upon row, spiking the mist with the scent of their smoke. Hew dismounted gratefully and walked the last yards to the gate, where Meg ran up to greet him, crying out, unshod with streaming hair and wanton as a wean expecting toys. He held her at arm’s length, perplexed at this wildness, chilled and remote in the lap of the fog. But Meg was ablaze, aflame in the candlelight, kissing him, prattling off questions, pulling him in to the warmth of the fire.

‘The haar came so thick we were feart you were lost, Hew. You’re late! Come then, your cloak! Leave the horse for the groom. What’s the news? I’ve physic prepared for your friend.’

In response he felt heavy and dull, having little to tell but the bare scraps and rags of the day. At length the bright flush of her chatter fell away. She fetched them slabs of beef and sippet wine. They ate and drank in quietness, curled by the edge of the fire. Matthew too was dour and silent. He frowned a little, looking at the pages of a book, until his daughter stretched out on the hearthrug like a cat, declaring that she was worn to a shade and was off to her bed. Hew downed his cup and followed her, his footsteps trailing hers upon the stairs.

In the dark folds of his father’s house he slept like a child, in a blue Flanders coverlet patterned with leaves. Still he felt cold, even here, the dense feather mattress drawn closed from the
draughts, thick pleats of yellow velvet sewn with white and scarlet flowers. Against the pitter of the moths he dreamt of violet-puddled shrouds. He saw Nicholas lying, a flower in his mouth, a dark fragrant bloom of bright blood. He knelt down to touch it. It burst like a poppyhead spilling its seed, streaming black blood to his hands. Nicholas screamed. Hew dreamt the sound had woken him, but still the dream went on. He heard the voice again and woke at last to find himself still cloaked within the choking drapes and fabrics of the bed. Agape in the blackness, he wrenched at the air. The drapes fell apart and the shadows reformed, shaping the windows, the closet, the door, the pallor and the coolness of the stone. For a while he lay watchful, allowing the fear to subside. Sleep did not come. He rose and lit a candle, feeling for the floor. In the depths of the hallway the lamplight still burned. He opened the door to find Matthew awake, stirring a pot by the fire. The old man turned to smile at him, ghostly in the flame.

‘Come away with you, Hew. I heard you cry out. I’ve a posset on the boil. You’ll sit here awhile, will you not?’

Hew pulled up a gossip-chair, shaking his head. He felt raw to the bone.

‘A little wine. I thank you, no. I confess to you, sir, I’m sick to the stomach tonight.’

‘As you will then, some wine. A little talk perhaps, as physic for the soul. I’ll set the pot here on the hearthstone. See, it thickens nicely. In an hour or so we’ll sup it, for you’ll likely change your mind.’

They sat in silence while he stirred, Hew thinking, ‘If he sups it through his beard without a spoon I’m like to spew into the flames, God help us both.’ It looked like vomit, freshly brewed. He took the goblet of wine in his hands and cradled it close. His father was watching him keenly, nurturing the fire.

‘You’re shivering, child. Won’t you go back to your bed?’

Hew smiled, for he felt like a child, frightened from sleep by his dreams.

‘It isn’t the cold, only thoughts. And wild dreams that woke me.
I’ll drink a cup to chase the ghosts before I go. Do you remember, Father, how we used to beat them from the bed?’

‘Your mother’s face when once we brought the drapes down was enough to fright them all. I doubt they ever dared come back again.’

There was silence, a crack of sharp flame, and then Matthew said gently, ‘Have you come to the truth of it then?’

Briefly, Hew recounted the events of the day. His father stirred and listened all the while. At length he left the posset on the hearth.

‘Not Colp who killed the dyer. Nor the son, who does the dyeing now the dyer’s dead. A pretty pun. Then could it be the wife perhaps? She does well enough without the man.’

‘The woman’s with child. It could scarcely be her.’

‘She would not be the first. Consider it hamesucken then . . .’

‘I had not considered it.’

‘To come like a friend, but with evil intent,’ Matthew glanced around, ‘even here, to the home, where a man is most unguarded and lax.’ He glowered into the posset pot suspiciously. Hew felt the dampness of the fog beneath his shirt. ‘Hamesucken,’ he objected, ‘is a worse charge still.’

‘True, a little worse,’ Matthew acknowledged. ‘But I believe we may acquit your friend of it. Now, let’s suppose that someone with a grudge despatched the dyer. Meanwhile Nicholas comes by to beg a pinch of saffron for his shirts, when falling faint with fever, and the
smell
…’

Hew smiled and shook his head. ‘You were lost to the law. You plead the case so plausibly I almost could believe it – aye, I do believe it – if it wasn’t for the letters and the poem. It is the
boy
. The dyer counts nothing in this. But for the boy, I cannot find a plea, another explanation, but that Nicholas was guilty of his death. I’m not sure I can speak for him. The penalties are cruel. Perhaps it would be better if he died.’ His voice had dropped low. Matthew leant close.