Hue and Cry (25 page)

‘Where did you learn this?’ wondered Agnes. ‘Are you a midwife, Meg?’

Meg shook her head. ‘It is a family receipt. My country nurse taught me.’

Agnes nodded thoughtfully. She glanced at Lucy, who lying on the bed quite like a dying actor, closed her eyes. Meg thought her buttock and belly swell spoiled the effect, plump as the pillows she slumped on. Agnes gave a snort. For a moment she said nothing, but briskly attended the fire. ‘My father was a blacksmith,’ she resumed. ‘He sometimes dealt with horses that were lame, or had the colic. He was said to have the touch. But his lore was not passed on. I never learnt it.’

‘Tis the pity,’ Meg said simply.

‘Aye.’ They talked on a little, politely, while Lucy closed her eyes and appeared to fall asleep. Agnes looked at Meg and murmured, ‘What herbs do you prescribe for Janet?’

‘Shepherd’s purse, yarrow, and mistletoe to slow the effusion of blood. And then a purgative to cleanse. Physicians think that spilling blood restores the humours. I have never found it so.’

‘Well then, there are limits, I suppose,’ suggested Agnes. ‘What you say intrigues me. What do you prescribe for Lucy, who grows out of her humours and sick in the carrying of her child? I swear she was not quite so petulant before. The same medicines, then, that close off the terms?’

‘No, no, that would not do for her. For Lucy, we must lift her spirits without danger to her babe. I confess, she is too easily aroused. I recommend her rest, and more diversion, air and exercise.
Nettle broth, rose syrup, camomile and lettuce waters; not so many sugarplums.’

Agnes laughed. ‘She may not thank you, then. It’s sound enough advice. I wonder . . . .’ She had come quite close to Meg, passing her a cup of frothing milk, ‘if I might ask you your opinion on a private matter?’

‘If I can give it, then I should be glad to,’ Meg said cautiously, ‘though an apothecar, perhaps . . . ?’

Agnes shook her head. ‘I have consulted one. He did not help.’

‘Are you melancholy?’

‘Melancholy, aye, but tis a matter of the womb. Since Tibbie, I have not been blessed with child. It is a great trial to Archie, who for many years has sought a son. Lately,’ she paused, ‘this failing has become the more bitter, with the death of our nephew and the disgrace of our prentice, Tom Begbie. Now, more than ever, Archie feels his disappointment. I would like to give him the son he deserves to inherit the business. Some years back, Archie consulted his physician, who explained that the lack of a child was the result of blackened vapours in my womb. The womb had unseated itself and, restless, had stopped its course. He gave me a receipt to help provoke the menses. I don’t know what it was. It tasted foul.’

‘But did it work?’

‘It seemed to, for a while. The courses were restored but they were still irregular. Yet I did not fall with child. Archie took me back to the physician, but he so misliked that man’s conclusion, he would not allow me to consult with him again. I never did discover what made up the remedy.’

‘What were his conclusions?’ wondered Meg.

Agnes flushed. ‘He hinted it was lack of carnal conversation that most often caused the stopping of a healthy women’s terms. He proved it with the horoscope, wherein he showed my husband cold and dry.’

‘He said as much?’

‘As much as Archie understood he had maligned his manhood.
My husband was enraged, and he said, twas my black vapours did pollute his seed, denying him his right and proper heir.’

‘And still you want his child?’ Meg asked her doubtfully.

‘Exceedingly.’ She looked at Meg. ‘Can you tell me the herbs I might use, to restore my monthly courses?’

‘Well,’ Meg said gently, ‘Have you considered, after all these years, they may have
run
their course?’

‘I have considered it,’ admitted Agnes, But in spite of what you say, if bloods are gathered there, and blackened in the womb, then it were curative, surely, to unloose them?’

‘You may be right, I do not know,’ said Meg, uncertain. ‘After all those years?’

‘They have not
altogether
stopped,’ Agnes explained. ‘Occasionally, they do recur. I know that I grow old. This may be our last chance to have a child.’

‘You might consult another man of physic.’

‘Archie would not have it. And I cannot pay.’

‘Well,’ conceded Meg at last, ‘there are herbs effective in bringing on the courses, but they may be prejudicial to the planting of a child. For the three or four months that you take them, you should not conceive.’

‘At present,’ answered Agnes eagerly, ‘a month or three or four may prove of scarce account.’

‘I understand. Well then, when the pattern of the courses has come regular for several months, you must stop taking the herbs, and try for the child.’

‘I pray you,
what
do you prescribe?’

Meg considered. ‘There is pennyroyal, but that is not native to these parts, and unless you buy it from the apothecary, I know not where you may find it. You can boil up the leaves of sage and saxifrage and drink the liquor, but the usefulness is limited. If it were myself, I should try wild carrot seed.’

‘Carrot?’ Agnes looked sceptical.

‘Wild carrot, which grows here in abundance. The roots are too pungent to eat, but the seeds are fragrant in a broth or stew.
Boiled in wine, you may drink them to bring down your menses. And afterwards, when your terms run true and you are potent to conceive, you can use the same to salt your husband’s meat. It will strengthen his seed and provoke his lusts, and so the seed shall serve you twice in your design.’

‘I know the plant, and where it grows. It does not seed,’ said Agnes, hopelessly. ‘I cannot buy it from the shop, without my husband’s ken.’

‘Well . . .’ Meg hesitated, ‘If you like, I can give you some.’ She produced a small pocket from inside her sleeve. ‘I carry a little for my own use
in extremis
. It has several applications. Here, there is not much. You make take it all.’

‘I thank you, can you spare it?’ Agnes took it eagerly. ‘Shall I take it now?’

‘If you like. I have more at home.’

Agnes set a cup of wine to warm upon the fire. ‘When will it work?’

‘If the courses are ready to flow, perhaps in a day or two. But be prepared, the time may not yet be propitious for the taking it.’

‘The better to begin at once. Forgive me, I have waited so long, I must seem impatient. I hardly can believe that we have come to this at last.’

She swallowed down the draught and pulled a face.

‘Tis a remedy only,’ cautioned Meg. ‘It may not effect a cure.’

‘It will cure me, I’m assured of it. I thank you, Meg. Your cousin stirs, I doubt.’ Her tone had changed abruptly.

‘Aye, she does, and I must take her home.’

Without her prophylactic settling in her pocket, Meg felt vulnerable. An inauspicious cloud was falling, and she did not see clearly. As quickly as was possible, they made polite farewells. Lucy Linn, restored from sleep, professed an appetite.

‘You’ll want to have your supper, then,’ concluded Agnes, firmly. She made no further mention of the cakes.

On the first Thursday of the Martinmas term, a clutch of impoverished supplicants aged between fourteen and twenty gathered in the long hall of St Leonard’s to compete for places at the university. The college was quiet, for most of the scholars had not yet returned. The boys clustered anxiously, thinking in Latin, praying in Scots, and made their way forward in silence. Hew watched them from the window of the regents’ room. Behind him, Robert Black sat reading at the desk. When the last boy turned the corner and the courtyard gates were closed, and the last of the fallen leaves caught in the wind of their footsteps had settled again, Hew turned to him: ‘Are you not coming?’

Robert yawned, stretching his legs. ‘I rather thought not. I have a little work I’d like to finish here before the class convenes.’

‘But you are responsible for the first-year class. How can you ignore the elections?’

‘If there was an election, I should be glad to take my part in it. But I’m afraid you are ignorant still of the way things are done here. There will be no bursaries awarded in the hall today.’

‘The auld and new colleges have filled up their quotas,’ argued Hew, ‘but I have seen our statutes. We allow for twelve, of which only two are taken. By my reckoning, that leaves another ten.’

Robert smiled gravely. He closed his book, drawing out the piece of parchment he had used to mark the page. ‘Do you see this paper? It is the first-year class list. The principal gave it to me yesterday, the thirty-six intrants already subscribed. There will be no bursars, because the class is full.’

‘How can the class be filled before the examinations have taken place?’ objected Hew.

‘I see you have not fully understood our master’s method. Look,
this
is the boy,’ Robert pointed to the name, ‘who takes the place of Alexander Strachan. The principal has taken pains to welcome him.’

Hew looked at the paper. ‘The name meaning nothing to me.’

‘Ah. It does to me. He is the son of an earl, about sixteen years of age. He was lately a student of Glasgow University where a friend of mine is regent. The lad enrolled last year, when it pleased him not to linger in the kirk or lecture hall, but rather while his time away with whores. He spent and drank heavily, brawled in the taverns and flourished his sword in the street. He was finally called to account for forcing a lass from the town. My friend wrote that the girl had been cut on the breast and the face. The lad’s excuse was that she liked it so. His father bought her off. The university was not so easily appeased and the boy was required to submit to college discipline by his regent, whom he violently misliked. To show his remorse, he broke the man’s nose. Whereupon the regent referred the matter to his principal, who required the offender to fall upon his knees and beg forgiveness in the presence of the full assembly of the college hall.’

‘And did he?’ Hew inquired.

‘Reluctantly, on pain of public flogging and of excommunication from the college and the kirk. He also offered, under similar caution, a purse of gold coin, which the regent refused. However he forgave the hurt, absolving him of sin, on the promise of confession, and a proper true remorse. And this wilful proud boy made the promise, as black as he was in his heart. On the following Sunday as the regent came from kirk he was intercepted by his lordship and his friends, and attacked with knives and clubs. It was only through the passing of some soldiers, who happened to be quartered in the town, that the regent escaped with his life.’

‘Then were no charges brought?’

‘It was settled by the father, who paid bloodwite to the college and the Crown, and promised a pension to the regent for his lifetime. Unhappily, at least for us, the boy was dismissed from the faculty.’

‘An unhappy end indeed,’ reflected Hew. ‘Can Gilchrist be aware of this?’

‘Assuredly. Which is why he has no places for those poor but worthy striplings in the hall. But to look on the bright side, have you not noticed that our college has a brand new set of plate?’

Hew shook his head in disbelief. ‘I cannot think you are content to collude in this, Robert. Come, in your conscience, you cannot make light of it.’

Robert Black sighed. ‘I am here for a lifetime, and the jest has long gone cold. Peace, I will come to the show. I bid you, though, don’t ask for courage too.’

Giles Locke was already in the lecture room, looking through the list of candidates. He was sitting in the large oak chair that belonged to the principal. This was inauspicious, and Robert Black began to wish he had not come. Hew looked over at the huddle of boys waiting by the door. He saw few witnesses. There were one or two schoolmasterly types, the minister from Holy Trinity, to whom Hew raised his cap, and between eighteen and twenty-four scholars in varying degrees of abject misery. He had begun to count them when the doors opened to admit James Gilchrist, followed by a young man with an armful of papers and books. Gilchrist scraped his feet furiously, sniffing the air. ‘A horse has got loose, polluting the courtyard. Pray someone see to it.’ Hew stifled a groan. Politely, and shrewdly perhaps, the physician stood up from the chair. The principal frowned.

‘I had not thought to see you here, Doctor Locke. Perhaps you have not had my letter?’

Giles replied pleasantly, ‘I did receive your letter, thank you, but I disregarded it. As I understand, it is incumbent on me to be present on occasions such as this, and to cast my vote. I’m anxious, you know, to play my full part.’

‘That is your prerogative, of course,’ the principal said stiffly. ‘My concern was to allow you more time to complete your dissections before the rigours of the term had taken hold.’

‘You are kind. But I’m afraid you have a misconception of my work here. I’m not licensed to perform dissections in my college rooms, though I confess I find the inference diverting. My anatomies, sadly, are bound to the page.’

‘Indeed,’ said Gilchrist enigmatically, ‘then I am misinformed. I can’t insist upon your going . . . .’

‘Quite,’ inserted Giles.

‘. . . but since you stay, I must insist upon the chair. This is my college. Master Cullan,’ he had turned to Hew, ‘have you met Duncan Stewart? He is one of your magistrands, you know, and we expect great things of him at the end of the year, do we not, Duncan? Master Cullan is your regent, who replaces Master Colp.’

The young man set down his papers and extended a cool hand. ‘I’m glad to meet you, Master Cullan. I hope we may be friends.’

Taken aback at the ease of his manner, Hew nonetheless accepted his hand. ‘I fear I may prove a poor enough second for Nicholas Colp.’

Duncan laughed rudely. ‘Then it’s clear you don’t know him.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ He kept his voice light, and Duncan failed to catch the menace in his tone.

‘You can have little in common. For he was a whelp, sir, a low and ungentle man.’

‘No, no,’ Gilchrist intervened. He did not like the way the conversation was turning, nor the look he saw upon Hew’s face. ‘Come, Duncan, you forget yourself. You will not begin on good terms with Master Cullan here if you malign your last regent. He cannot know your purpose, nor the cause.’