Hue and Cry (42 page)

‘I know not, sire. It baffles me,’ said Hew. For it is written in his script, as clear as day, that on the one performance he is dipped into the dye, and he has read the script, and must have seen it there. Moreover, he was asked by myself and by the regent Robert
Black and by our very principal if he had read the script and understood it, and his reply was most emphatically, he had.’

‘Is this true, then?’ asked the king.

‘I would swear to you, sire, I did not,’ the purple face blustered. ‘It was not in the script.’

‘That is easily proven. Bring me a copy.’

The script was found and brought, with Duncan Stewart’s name to it, and given to the king, who chuckled as he read.

‘Aye, it says here, plain enough. I think you have not read this, or you had not understood.’

‘I doubt that may be true,’ said Hew regretfully, ‘for he is a feeble scholar. We feared the part would tax him. He assured us it would not.’

‘I see the whole,’ the king said solemnly. ‘Come now, Duncan Stewart, I find no cause for complaint. I know you did not learn your part, since you spoke it most indifferently. Your grammar and your diction both were vile. You are, it is plain, a poor sort of scholar. But in our eyes you are redeemed somewhat, for you have made us smile, less competent a scholar than a clown. I regret your loss at court while you wax puce. Tell me, Master Cullan, lest his father make enquiries, shall this colour last?’

‘Happily, with scrubbing, twill grow paler by the day. It is the curse of purple dyes, I’m told, to lose their colour with the sun. Within the month he’ll fade to plunkett blue.’

‘Well then,’ smiled the king, ‘there’s no cause to be despondent. You may lock yourself away about your studies. That, by all accounts, will profit well. And when you come to take your laurel wreath, the shades shall scarcely clash. To plunkett blue? Oh, Duncan, go, or I shall split with laughing. You stand so dismal in your woad. Besides, it is the king’s hue you disport so, and I find myself misliking that you wear the shade so flippantly. Take care lest you offend us. Leave us now!’

And waving him away, he laughed until he wept. ‘But did you see his face? I could have plucked him like a plum! Did you not
see
him, my lord?’

He changed his tone abruptly.

‘Who are you, Master Cullan, who so openly come mocking at the college in your play? You make enemies today of powerful men. Do you dare presume on our protection?’

‘I make no presumption,’ Hew swallowed. ‘The fact is, your Grace, that the play has its root in a history, the truth of which was hidden so deep I saw no other way to make it see the light of day. The people you have seen within the play are real. The merchant and the weaver’s wife are fugitive from justice.’

‘What then? Was
all
of it true? Not the dyeing of the dyer?’

‘Aye, even that.’

‘That’s better still! But what about the tutor and the boy?’

‘That is the worst of it. The tutor is suspected for the murder of the boy. He has been gravely ill these past few months. He is my friend.’

‘Then you made your play to reflect the true facts, as you saw them?’

‘They are the true facts. I have proof of them. You should know, sire, that the corruption in the college is true also. This regent, the tutor you see in the play, has been persecuted because he did not countenance these deceptions.’

‘I see. Then you would have me do what, precisely?’

‘I confess, I do not know. I have tried to make the
controversiae
, to set out the rights and the wrongs of the case. But the case is not clear. I do not know where the blame lies. There are several crimes, and three people here accused of capital offences. Are they guilty of them? Should they hang?’

‘Well,’ the king considered, ‘I should think their guilt is clear. The dyer killed the boy, and that is murder. Then the father kills the dyer. And blood for blood, we may forgive.’

‘In law, it is no crime to kill a man for killing, or to kill the killer of a son,’ conceded Hew. ‘But the dyer had not been indicted for the killing of the boy, and the merchant had no cause to have suspected him. He killed him for his threat of blackmail. So it was a crime.’

‘I take the point. But nonetheless, because the dyer killed his son, although he did not know it, then I think that I might pardon him the killing of the dyer,’

‘Your majestie is gracious.’

‘. . . And yet we may not pardon him the converse with his brother’s wife, which is, I think, the greater indiscretion. That’s adultery and incest too, within his brother’s house, which he must answer for.’

‘As you say, your Grace. I have pondered this awhile, and I believe that he has answered to a higher court than this, for his collusion with his brother’s wife has cost his son.’

‘And you think that this atones for it? From what I have seen in your play, he did not think much of his son.’

‘You are mistaken, sire. I am assured he prized his son beyond the world. He was the world. And because he was so precious, he had the highest expectations, which the boy could not fulfil. But now without his boy, his world is nothing. He was a rich man. His life and his wealth fall away.’

‘You are persuasive. Well then, I may pardon him. But the wife I shall not pardon. She must hang. For incest and adultery, and for the murder of her husband,’ the king declared triumphantly.

‘In her defence,’ insisted Hew, ‘she did not mean to kill him.’

‘So she
says
,’ the king replied. ‘She fed him poisons, though.’

‘She gave him herbs she was persuaded would provoke him into bed with her. She had been raped. She was with child. What should she do?’

‘So you put it in your play. I don’t believe it. She killed him for her lover. Doubtless she bewitched her lover, teased him into bed with her and forced him to kill the dyer with her spells. Persuaded would provoke him! How was she persuaded? Who persuaded her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hew lied uneasily. ‘She claimed a cunning woman offered her the herbs, but likely she invented her. Your majestie is sharp.’

‘Aye, like as not. For sure, she is a witch, and if she had them
from a woman, both of them are witches, Hew, and both of them shall hang. She shall be made to tell.’

‘She has fled, sire, with her lover, far across the seas.’

‘Has she? Oh.’ The king looked disappointed. ‘Then we banish her. Well, we have solved your puzzles. What will you do now? I cannot think that you are welcome in your college.’

‘No. But I came there by an accident. My training’s in the law.’

‘I’m not sure you have the mind for it,’ the king declared. ‘You are too intricate. No matter. I’ll remember you, Hew Cullan.’

‘I thank you. Majestie, there is the matter of my friend.’

‘Your friend? Of course, the tutor. I should like to talk with him.’

This was unexpected, and James saw Hew’s hesitation.

‘This irks me now. You say he’s sick? Tis not contagious?’

‘No, sire, not at all.’

‘Well, then. Take me there.’

‘You need not stay,’ the king advised his retinue. ‘Peace, it is a sick man; he can hardly hurt us. Wait here by the door. You too, Hew Cullan.’

He looked at Nicholas. The room was fresh with scented flowers, a sad and sweet tincture of petals and candlewax. A handkerchief, peppered with blood, lay on the bed.

‘I pray you, don’t get up,’ the king remarked.

‘I cannot, sire.’ The walk back from the priory had exhausted him.

‘I see.’ Restlessly, he walked round the chamber, fingering a candlestick, leafing through a book.

Nicholas stirred painfully. ‘Will you sit, your Grace?’

‘I thank you, no.’

Nicholas gave in to a spurt of coughing and fumbled for the handkerchief.

The king returned to walking, and observed him coolly as he shrank back on the bed. At last he said, ‘According to your friends, you will not live. And yet the manner of your death may yet be eased. You are accused of crimes, of sodomies, unnatural lusts. Do you deny them?’

Nicholas said nothing.

‘I see you do not answer. Would you have me pardon you?’ the boy asked earnestly.

‘And it please you, your Grace.’

‘And it please
me
? Does it please you? Will you not reply?’

Nicholas inclined his head.

His majesty sighed. ‘Will you not talk to me, Nicholas Colp?’

‘And it please you, sire. What would you have me say?’

‘I saw a play this afternoon. It showed a tutor and a boy. Are you that tutor?’

‘I believe I was.’

‘Then talk with me a little, I would know your secrets. I see how you are broken, and your linen black with blood. I see you catch your breath. You cannot stand. This harm you have done to yourself. I do not think the rack could hurt you more. You need not be afraid of me.’

‘I am not afraid.’

The boy was walking once again. It seemed that he could not be still. For Nicholas, it cost him all his strength to lift his head and whisper it.

The king contended still, ‘You are regent in the college of St Leonard?’

‘Once, I was.’

‘Tutor to a murdered boy?’

‘Aye, once.’

‘Tell me about this boy. What was he like?’

‘He was a lad about your age, and almost like yourself.’

‘Ah,’ the king corrected gently. ‘We think not.’

‘What would you hear?’ His eyes had closed. ‘That he was fair, and younger than his years, with milk-white skin and auburn hair, and slender as a girl. That he was like a child, and wept at trials that were too cruel for him, for he was green and artless like a child, and should have been at play.’

‘Then not like us at all,’ observed the king.

‘No, sire, as you say.’

‘He formed a passion for you, I believe.’

‘For I was kind to him.’

‘And you did have more inward thoughts? You loved him?’ James moved closer to the bed.

‘Aye, perhaps.’

‘You admit as much to me?’

‘I kissed his head. With that kiss, I sent him home to die.’

‘I saw the kiss;’ the boy said softly, ‘your friend showed it in his play. It was a gentle kiss.’

‘I do not ask your pardon, sire.’

‘I see that you do not. I pray you find your peace, I cannot help you more. But I counsel you, ask yourself this, were it better he had died
without
the kiss?’

Nicholas opened his eyes. ‘I do not know,’ he whispered.

‘
Ask
it,’ urged the king. ‘For I myself, I do confess, am thankful for the kiss. He did not die unloved.’

‘He is recalcitrant, and not at all subjective. He is a hard man to absolve.’

Hew and Giles exchanged a glance. ‘Your Grace, he is not well. His wits . . .’

The king ignored them. ‘He does not want my pardon. Nonetheless, I am resolved to pardon him, not for himself, who is beyond redemption, but to thank you for your play, which has amused us well. He will not be brought to trial. I believe he has been misused by his college. St Leonard’s shall provide a pension that may make him comfortable while he remains alive. You will arrange it, Doctor Locke? St Leonard’s lacks a principal. My lords have found discrepancies in Gilchrist’s accounts and have removed him from his post. You may know, Master Cullan, that my counsellors last year denounced the regent system here as open to corruption. Still it is in place. This must be changed.’

Giles and Hew sat on the harbour wall, sharing mutton pastries in a cloth. Giles licked the crumbs from his fingertips, shooing off the gulls. ‘When we find a house, we must have an oven.’

‘Aye, then, you must.’ Hew answered earnestly, ‘Did Meg bake these?’

‘Aye, can’t you tell? The cookshop never baked a crust so light. And spices, Hew!’

‘There’s other things you like her for, I hope.’

‘I love her. In truth, I am amazed she does consent to be my wife.’

‘Truly, though?’ her brother teased.

‘Truly. Why not?’

‘You do not doubt? Equivocate? You do not
wonder
, Giles?’

‘It is not controversial, Hew.’ His friend looked hurt. ‘I wonder you can’t grasp it. It’s the oldest theme.’

‘Peace, I’m teasing you. I’m glad you are to be my brother.’

‘Brother? Now I reconsider, for I had not thought of that.’

Playfully, Hew jolted him, and the last piece of pie-crust fell to the gulls.

‘Confound it!’ Giles cursed. Mournfully, he shook the crumbs from the cloth. ‘It can’t be helped. Now, I must return to college. I am late for class.’

‘Then you have not resigned the post,’ Hew observed as they approached the castle.

Giles shook his head. ‘I am persuaded to remain there, for another year at least. There will be changes made. I mean to build a practice, all the same, with Meg. We’ll share the work. And yet . . . you never know,’ he gave a wink, ‘perhaps I’ll be an actor, after all.’

‘Aye,’ Hew grinned. ‘Perhaps you should. It still amazes me that you could play the part. You have the poet’s knack to rhyme extempore.’

‘I knew the thread,’ Giles answered modestly. ‘And speak Latin well enough. And for the rest, it was but strength, to dip the dyer in. I do confess I quite enjoyed it.’

‘I never did say thank you,’ Hew said seriously.

‘You never needed to.’ Giles cleared his throat. ‘And what of you? You do not mean to play the regent all your life?’

Hew was silent a moment. He watched a group of students jostle up the hill and turn into the college gates. It was the first fair day of June, and most had spent the dinner hour delinquent on the sands. Presently, he spoke. ‘I fear I lack the patience. I am not like Nicholas. I intend to depart at the end of the year. In truth, I’m undecided, though I may return to France.’

‘Your father hoped you might continue in the law,’ Giles ventured cautiously.

Hew laughed. ‘I see you have already won his confidence. I detest the law. The law is capricious, contrary and cruel.’

‘And yet you did resolve the case,’ persisted Giles.

‘And could not prove it by the law. If we must resort to kings, it is a tyrant justice after all.’

‘Perhaps,’ his friend said shrewdly, ‘the more you know the law, the better it will serve you. For you have the wit to turn it to your ends.’