Hue and Cry (7 page)

He was working now on a great vat of purple, stirring up the embers of the fire. This was a delicate shade; based on violet orchil. He was afraid a little lye left in the yarn might turn it crimson or a spot of oil would stain it dirty blue. He ought to have left it to Will, but for once he was working alone. He had sent both his sons to help at the Strachans’ shop, for it was well to keep in there. With Tom in the gaol he hoped for a place for his younger boy James. His wife and bairns were by the river, scraping grease from sheepskin, laying out fleeces to dry in the sun. They would be gone for several hours, the baby asleep by their side in her crib. Far off he heard the laughter of his favourite daughter Jennie as she danced on the stones. The afternoon was clear. The pelts should be dry before dawn.

He picked up a stick to stir the dark depths of the pot. Though the waters looked black the hooked strand of yarn that emerged was a deep speckled plum. He draped a little on a frame to test for fastness to the light. The deepest shades fled from the glare of the sun. There was room in the pot for more yarn. He had a stack in the cottage, newly spun, from tawny grey sheep that should take the shade well. Collecting it, he thought he heard steps and called out, but there was no reply. Perhaps the children played outside the house, or a passer-by felt the need to make use of the piss pot. It had happened once or twice. They did not like to be disturbed. He shrugged and returned to his work. The liquor had begun to cool. It was time to stoke up the fire. Lifting the yarn, he knelt over the pot. The waters lay still, like blackberry wine, lichens crusting round the edge.

The crust was the last thing he saw before the blow fell. He staggered forwards, falling, flailing in the vat. As he opened his mouth to cry out, the lye stripped the voice from his throat. Purple dye streamed through his lungs.

The killer stepped aside and wiped his fingers on his cloak.
A pity, he had spoiled the dye. But a presumptuous colour nonetheless.

It was Will, the dyer’s son, who found the body. On his way home he stopped by the burn. His mother looked weary and hot, and he offered to fetch her a cup of fresh milk. Janet was heavy with child. He skimmed a stone or two with Jennie across the surface of the water and tickled the baby, dangling her legs in the stream. His brother James was still in Strachan’s shop, but Will had left early to test out the strength of his dye. He had been working on the violet shade for several days. He hoped that it might please the king. Returning to the house, he found the door wide open. Beside it, on the ground by the great stinking pot, as if caught short and overtaken by the fumes, lay the figure of a man. Will dropped down beside him, lifting the hair that shrouded the face. The features were narrow and pale below a light shadow of beard. He’d met the man before in Strachan’s house, where he had tutored the dead boy. His name was Nicholas Colp. He could not take him into the house, where the air was even fouler, so he dragged him clear onto the grass and called to his father for help. When the dyer did not come he returned to the burn to send his sister Jennie running into town. His mother brought cold water from the well. They waited for some time, until the college servants grumbled down the bank and made a cot to carry him. The children watched wide-eyed. It was only then that Will remembered to tend to his pots. He frowned to see the colour splashed around the sides. And in the bramble-coloured dye he found his father drowned, his face grotesque and swollen, bobbing like a plum. He was mauve to the roots of his hair and the whites of his eyes.

The hue and cry came slowly, distant as the weeping of the gulls as word began to whisper in the street. It began to grow dark in the town. On the Mercatgait, the weaver dimmed the lamps and closed the shutters of his shop. He settled in a chair to count his
coins. Business had been brisk. Women came to stare but left with handkerchiefs and scarves. A woollen shawl was worth a glimpse, a mantle cloth a banquet with the corpse. He had even had enquiries for that shade of bluish-grey and had sold off half a length to make a dress. He could market it as Alexander Blue. He slipped the purse into his sleeve and hugged it close, alone among his profits and his thoughts.

In the darkness of the gaol a little further down the street, Tom Begbie wept. Nicholas had not returned. Outside he heard the bailies turn the locks, debtors calling down through open windows, footsteps running through the court. He did not see the small procession passing through the town. There was not enough light to look out through the grating. By night the streets were almost still. A woman’s voice came coarse across the passage, then the sound of laughter dying back; a man said ‘shush!’ He crouched down in the straw and waited for the dawn.

In St Leonard’s College too the light began to fail as Nicholas came home. They brought him dreamless from the west towards the abbey, through the gardens to the chapel where they laid him in the shade. His roommate Robert Black heard the proctors raise the cry but did not go to look. He was acting on the orders of his principal. Gilchrist had instructed him to read the play that Colp was writing. Robert had found the play and read the opening act. Tomorrow he would show it to Gilchrist. It seemed to him harmless enough. But at the bottom of the box where Nicholas had left his papers he had discovered something else. They looked like private letters and he had not meant to read them, but a brown encrusted leaf had caught his eye. They were wrapped in a torn college gown, blackened with blood. The ink on the pages was smeared. There were several letters and a poem. The poem was written in Latin, in the neat, open hand of a child. The Latin was crude and filled with mistakes, but the meaning behind it was clear. It was written to the master from the boy.

Robert let the paper fall as he heard footsteps on the stair.

Released from his fetters, Dun Scottis took to the road with a will and alacrity that pleased his owner greatly, and for a mile or more he handled well. But two miles down the track, where the path curved to the left with a slight incline, the horse ground its hooves in the dust and came to a halt so abrupt that it was all that Hew could do to keep his seat. He righted himself and shook the reins crossly, and in no uncertain language urged it to go on. The animal ignored him. It stared impassively ahead, as though it confronted an invisible wall, or heard a distant voice of immutable command, of more authority and influence than Hew’s. Hew struck it with his rod between the shoulder blades, just smartly enough to point out his frustration. Dun Scottis still did not walk on, but turned his head to gaze at him with such a look of sad reproach he did not have the heart to strike again. Puzzled, he dismounted. There was nothing on the ground or in the air to fright the horse; the birds were singing still, and Hew sensed nothing of that change of wind to which the nervous horse is tuned. Nor did Dun Scottis seem to be afraid. He showed no agitation, for he did not move at all, but stood placid and implacable as stone. Patiently, he waited still while Hew examined him. He was not overheated, and his hooves were free from nails. Hew took him by the halter and tried to lead him on. Dun Scottis failed to budge. Hew broached him from the other side, rapping at his rear end with a sharp tap of conviction; Dun Scottis merely flicked his tail against the hum of flies. Then, shoulder to rump, Hew tried to force the horse on from behind, while a passing farmhand gaped in frank astonishment. Dun Scottis stood his ground. Alone on the track, Hew’s options were few. He walked on a little, whistling carelessly, and hoped the horse would follow him. Dun Scottis watched unmoved.
Hew had resolved to abandon him, full saddled in the middle of the track, when he recalled the horsebread in the ostler’s saddlebag. He broke off a corner and wafted it just out of reach. Dun Scottis considered the offer. At length he shuffled forward in a spirit of concession. Hew took a small step backwards and by degrees, by this sole means, he coaxed the dun horse home to Kenly Green.

In the woodlands surrounding her father’s house some four miles south-east of the town a young woman gathered watercress, trailing her arms through the stream. She laid the dark green tresses streaming on a square of linen, wrapped them carefully and placed the whole in a shallow rush basket, taking pains not to crush them. Then, wiping her hands on the front of her dress, she set off through the woods to the house. Her father’s lands spilled outwards in the lee of Kenly Water through fields of oats and bere and straggled sheep towards the stonewalled gardens of a country tower-house. They had lived here for almost twelve years, since her father Matthew Cullan had given up the law to return to the land. His pale young wife had died in childbirth, and he liked his daughter to keep close to the house. She rarely strayed beyond these woods, planted many years before when the rowan, the holly, the elder and ash had protective and magical powers. Now winter threatened, the trees were beginning to fruit. Hard little apples and cobs freckled the leaves of the hazel and crab. The holly leaf curled on the branch, the elder and ash fell bruised by the wind, and close to the house the rowan trees bowed, veins bleeding darkly to crimson, small crops of berries blistering red. Below the trees the last of the late summer harebells drooped, dropping their flowers. The young woman passed on through the gate. From the hedgerow she chose a posy of pungent wild garlic to add to the basket. Among the thorns were brambles blackening, yellow rosehips flecked with pink. She picked a few and placed them gently on top of the herbs. Already the muslin dripped green. Then, from her garden by the house, she gathered tender nettles, sorrel and sweet cicely, wild leek and the roots of the white carrot flower.

Hew saw her pass through the gate and followed her at some distance through the woods, for he did not wish to be seen. He set loose his horse in the field by the stream. While it drank he rinsed the dust from his own eyes and mouth and waited, watching her disappear within the garden walls. Then he walked the path she made among the trees, the holly, the rowan, the elder and the ash. The pattern of the land remained the same. He recognised the scent of smoke and garlic flowers, the honeysuckle dying back, the distant chanter of the gulls. And by the garden wall he leant awhile to watch her through the gate as she gathered the herbs, a girl of eighteen, dressed in moss green with ragged black hair. From time to time she paused to push the strands out of her eyes. Gradually she became aware of him, though for a long moment she seemed to gaze into the distance, pale-lipped, and he wondered if she saw him after all, until he called out to her, ‘Margret? Meg? Is it you?’ and she smiled. She was running towards him, shaking the leaves from her dress, laughing as she took his hand.

‘Here you are at last, Hew, and after all these years. You must be the grand scholar now.’

She was not as he remembered her. He recalled her trundling through the fields behind him, singing aloud to her doll. He realised he had half expected he would find her still a child, placid and trusting, or a country lass at least whose eyes would open bright to see his fine French clothes. He felt suddenly clouded and drab from the dust of the road.

‘You’ve changed, Meg. Quite the woman. Eighteen years old and still at home? And you so fair,’ he teased.

She tossed her dark head to look into his face, considering. ‘While you’ve a lass or two in France no doubt. It’s not so easy for me, Hew. I’ll not leave Father while he lives. He needs someone here to take care of him. He’s grown quite frail of late – it’s as if he went to bed one night himself and woke up the next day an old man. He’ll be glad to see you, right enough; he’s been looking out for you for days, since first we had your letter. But you’ll see a difference in him. We live alone here now. We have
the house and the lands are let out in feu; the steward takes care of the farm. We’re done with the town and the court. But Father still finds solace in the old faith, and more and more he will not hold his peace in company. He dwells on Mother’s death.’

‘He doesn’t hold mass here, does he, Meg?’

‘Och, no.’ She did not look at him. ‘But he never goes to kirk. And he’ll set the dogs on the session if they come by the house.’

‘Has he really become such a fool?’

‘No, Hew, he has not. Which is why he needs me here to tell the world that’s all he is.’ She laughed at his concern. ‘I do it well enough. I’m off to kirk with my gossips every Sunday like the best of them, bonnet and plaid: “My faither’s o’er frail to come today. He sends his steward and a dollar for the plate to help to feed the poor.”’

He felt uncomfortable with this sharp young woman, not quite a stranger, and looked round for a safer subject. ‘Is this your garden, then? I never saw such herbs. How do you grow them in this barren place? Are you a witch?’

‘Hush!’ she shushed him fearfully. ‘Not even in jest. I spend my days out here. There’s little else to do. I grow enough for our needs, a few roots and salads, potherbs for waters and simples. There’s not much ails us here that can’t be cured, except,’ she sighed, ‘for Father’s age. But help me gather in the carrots and we’ll go indoors – no, not that,’ she brushed his hand away from a feathery fern, ‘it’s this one here, they’re very like, you see.’ She scooped up the wild roots with her hand.

They ate the leaves boiled in a salad with plump pigeon dumplings simmered in broth. It was as good, Hew protested, as anything he had eaten in France. The liquor was heady and fragrant. He wiped out the bowl with his bread.

‘I brought you chanterelles from Paris, Meg – they’re mushrooms, Father, good with meat and broth.’