Hue and Cry (8 page)

‘We don’t eat mushrooms here,’ protested Matthew Cullan. ‘Your sister already throws all manner of things into the pot; I
never know quite what I’ll find, barley, berry or plum. Though by the bitterness of the broth I doubt she gives me physic on the sly.’

‘Father’s teasing,’ Meg replied. ‘He likes my cooking well enough. And I’ll be glad to try the mushrooms, Hew. I’ve cooked them once or twice before,’ her father pulled a face, ‘with pottage or a pullet, but I don’t feel safe enough to pick them from the woods. If I’d a mind to poison you, sir,’ she told her father tartly, ‘I’d have done so long before now.’

‘You see how she treats me!’ Matthew complained.

They talked into the evening hours, when someone lit the fire, and Matthew’s eyes began to close. A servant entered with a jug of wine.

‘If you please, sir, it appears your horse has broke loose, and has made free in Mistress Meg’s garden,’ she whispered to Hew as she passed. ‘We thought it right to let you know.’

With a cry of alarm, Meg leapt from the fireside and fled from the room. As Hew began to follow her he was intercepted by his father’s groom.

‘Peace, we have secured him, sir. He’s safe and well. But,’ the man appeared to hesitate, ‘you will not mind me asking, did ye buy him from the ostler in the marketplace?’

Hew answered grimly, ‘Aye, and if I did?’

‘I kent as much!’ the groom exclaimed. ‘Tis nothing, sir,’ he grinned. ‘A wee bit wager in the stable. Is yon horse Dun Scottis?’

Hew cast a nervous glance back at his father, who sat dozing by the fire. He had a notion he would not like what was coming, and did not care to have it overheard. He nodded, dropping low his voice. ‘Aye, go on then, tell the worst,’ he groaned.

The groom’s expression mingled pity and amusement. ‘Dun Scottis is well known here in the town. The bairns call him
Dung
Scottis, because . . .’

‘Aye,’ Hew interrupted quickly, ‘I can guess the cause.’

‘Well, sir, yon’s a limmar. And a limmar too that sold him. Aye, sir, he’s a rogue. And since you are a stranger here . . .’

‘He must have seen you coming,’ his expression said, too clearly. In deference, or compassion, he did not go on.

‘I thank you,’ Hew said firmly, ‘For this intelligence. You may tell your friends you won the bet. Now tend him well.’

‘You do not mean to keep him, sir?’ The servant looked incredulous.

‘Indeed I do. So give him food and water. Keep him well secured.’

‘That’s easier said than done,’ the servant grinned.

Meg returned, a little flushed but smiling. ‘All is well.’

‘I fear your herbs are ruined, I’m sorry for it, Meg,’ her brother told her earnestly.

‘He only had the carrot tops. I think you mistake me, Hew, for it was not the garden I was feared for. Never mind, let’s drink some wine.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Matthew murmured. ‘Did I hear the door?’

‘Hew’s horse was in my garden. But there is no harm.’

Matthew looked vexed. ‘How careless of the groom.’

‘In truth,’ Hew confessed, ‘it wasn’t his fault.’

His father gave him a long look, and he felt himself grow hot.

‘I have a dozen horses,’ Matthew observed, ‘that grow dull from want of riding. You are welcome, of course, to take any one.’

‘Thank you, but I have a horse,’ Hew insisted. His father smiled indulgently.

‘Well then, home at last!’ Matthew let the subject drop. ‘And now that you are here we must make plans for your future. I have found you a place as an advocate’s clerk. Tomorrow I will write to my old pupil Richard Cunningham, to tell him to expect you. He will be your master at the bar.’

‘I wish you would not,’ Hew blurted out. His father stared at him.

‘Well,’ he said after a moment, ‘if you want a holiday then we can wait a little. I’ll be glad to have you here. But we must not put it off too long. You want to be in Edinburgh by Martinmas.’

‘I do not want it, there’s the point.’ Hew took a gulp of wine. ‘Sir, I am resolved. I cannot proceed to the bar. I do not want to be an advocate.’

‘I see.’ Matthew raised his eyebrows. He looked at Hew for a long time without comment, and then enquired pleasantly, ‘Have you thought what you might do instead? I know you well enough to think you will not be content without some occupation.’

‘I might teach, perhaps,’ Hew replied, grasping at straws. ‘Or go into the church.’

His father gave a small dry smile. ‘My son, a minister of the reformed kirk.’

‘You had me schooled too well,’ the son said somewhat grimly.

‘Somehow, you know, I do not see it,’ Matthew answered lightly. ‘No matter, we will let it rest. I will not quarrel with you on your first night home. Peace, now!’ He waved his hand as Hew began to argue. ‘We shall speak of it another time. You are vexed, my child. Let me pour another cup of wine.’

They fell into an uncomfortable silence. For six years, Hew had been abroad, and Matthew had not seen him grow into a man. Now he observed the change in his son. Hew was a little more assertive and assured, though he had kept his boyish looks, for like his father he was fair, and struggled to maintain a beard. He had an open manner that would serve him well in court. It was Matthew’s dearest wish to see his son become an advocate. And yet he had misgivings. Though he did not doubt the sharpness of Hew’s mind, he sensed an underlying softness that appeared to be at odds with it. Hew gave his heart too easily, which threatened to distract him from the rigours of the law. He was too compassionate, too easily drawn in. When advocates were painting black as white, Hew would be distracted by the grey. And always, from a child, he recognised the
pity
of the thing, the human side. He was wary and fanciful, given to nightmares, dismayed by the cruelties of everyday life. The thoroughness of his schooling, where he had excelled, had not subdued or satisfied him. Always he had seemed to search for something else. Now the boy sat brooding, in a dark
place. Matthew did not like to see him there. He cleared his throat. ‘I notice that your things were here before you,’ he remarked. ‘Where did you sleep last night?’

Miserably, Hew downed his cup. ‘With my friend, Giles Locke.’

‘
Giles Locke
,’ Matthew tried it like a claret on his tongue. ‘Do I know the name?’

‘He was my friend in Paris,’ Hew explained. ‘He’s a physician, an anatomist of sorts, who lectures in philosophy. We shared rooms at the College d’Ecossais. The new foundation requires the university to elect a mediciner as principal of the Auld College, though physic is not taught there in the schools. Giles came hoping to persuade them to reform, but both were disappointed, for the college is dismayed by his keenness and his youth.’

‘How old is he?’ asked Meg.

‘No more than eight and twenty. You would like him, I think,’ Hew looked across at Matthew. ‘He’s a closet papist like yourself.’

His father feigned astonishment. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘He came a month or two ago to St Salvator’s,’ continued Hew. ‘But he’s unhappy there.’

‘And he a closet papist?’ Matthew teased.

Hew sighed. ‘There have been problems at the university. And I don’t know if you heard, there has been trouble in the town. A boy was killed.’

In Giles Locke’s north street tower a sleeping figure stirred. Nicholas felt something tighten its grip round his forearm as another sharp blade sank deep in his flesh. He thought that he could fight it, but the grip was too strong. His lips moved soundlessly as the blood began to flow. Someone was whispering ‘
Nicholas
’, watching his life slip away. He knew he was in Hell, and that his blood would ebb and flow forever, constant as the tides. But God had allowed him the solace of quietness. God was kind; he allowed him to sleep. He could hear only a far muffled drum, growing fainter, feeling it echoing slow in his heart.

The doctor stemmed the flow and sniffed the contents of
the bowl, rich as a thick Gascon wine. Satisfied, he set the cup aside and tied the linen strip more tightly round the vein. He touched a little water to his sleeping patient’s lips, wiping away a strand of green bile. The stomach was empty, the waters ran clear and he had drawn off a quart of steaming black blood. He hoped the patient’s humours were restored. Though privately he doubted it, for the limb below the sheet stank putrid and hot. He laced the room with a wreath of sweet herbs to counter the smell. He ate his dinner by the patient’s bedside, a bad piece of mutton floating in broth, and longed for the cookshops of France. There was blood on his sleeve. It spotted the page of his book as he settled to read in the light of the lamp. When the patient lay quiet at last, he set down his book and took his pulse. He sat through the night while Nicholas slept, composing a letter to Hew. At daybreak he sent Paul upon a fat grey mare to deliver it to Kenly Green. Hew set off at once, leaving Paul behind to eat his breakfast. He waited only to collect and saddle up his horse.

‘Will you take him back, then?’ asked the groom.

‘Thank you, no, I mean to keep him.’

‘Sir,’ the groom lowered his voice, ‘that horse has had a hard life, though he’s sleek and healthy now. Sometimes, when a horse has been ill used it makes him stupid. Yon’s a useless horse. It can’t be helped.’

‘Might not kindness mend him?’ Hew said softly.

‘No, sir. Take him back.’

‘Nonetheless . . .’ Hew slipped the halter over his arm and led the horse out of the yard. He did not wish to mount in front of the groom. The stable lad stared after him.

‘Why’d he buy the shit horse?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Whisht,’ the groom told him sternly. ‘He’s your master’s son.’

‘But why would he keep it?’ persisted the boy.

The groom shrugged. ‘Soft in the head,’ he conceded, ‘doubtless due to being schooled in France.’

* * *

‘Nicholas is charged with sodomie and slaughter,’ Doctor Locke said tersely. He splashed his face with a jug of cold water and spat out the dregs. Hew stared at him in disbelief. ‘It’s madness, Giles. I lived with him for four years at St Leonard’s. We shared a bed. If he lusted after boys, I would have known.’

They were standing in the turret, where they were not overlooked. Still Giles had fastened and bolted the door. Hew had left Dun Scottis in the street below. He found a boy to hold him, for payment of two shillings and another kept on promise. The first lad he approached had refused. ‘Shit Scottis? Not likely!’ did not augur well. But the next boy, though small, had proved willing, and Hew had accepted his offer, with more pressing things on his mind.

Giles was explaining: ‘I only report what I heard. The coroner was here this morning to set out the case against him, though he is still too sick to be disturbed. He is supposed to have been in love with Alexander Strachan, and to have killed him in the throes of their unnatural converse.’

‘
That
is very likely,’ Hew said dryly. ‘What about the dyer?

‘He had wind of their love and was blackmailing Colp. Don’t scowl at me so. I only report what I heard.’

‘Is there evidence of this?’ demanded Hew.

Giles inclined his head. ‘A regent, Robert Black, found incriminating letters in the room he shared with Nicholas.’

‘I saw Nicholas take letters,’ Hew admitted reluctantly, ‘from the boy’s room in the Strachan house. He hid them in his clothes.’

The doctor sighed. ‘It’s possible that they will drop the charge of sodomie, since neither Gilchrist nor the boy’s father is anxious to have it come out. The murders are a different matter.’

‘It was Nicholas who found Alexander’s body. But what about the dyer?’ Hew persisted.

‘He was drowned in a vat of his own dye. An unpleasant death,’ Giles observed. ‘The lye had stripped away his lungs, like vitriol. Nicholas was found beside him, overcome by fumes. And that is all I know.’

‘I should never have left him,’ Hew whispered. ‘This is my fault.’

Giles regarded him curiously. ‘I cannot see how it was
your
fault,’ he reasoned. ‘But come in and see him. He may be awake.’

He opened a door on the straight side of the tower room. Hew had not noticed it before.

‘It’s really just a closet,’ Giles explained. ‘You may find the air a little stale. Cover your mouth, if you will.’

On a low pallet mattress Nicholas stirred, wrapped in a damp linen sheet. It smelled like a shroud. He seemed to dream in conversations, shifting and endless, for as he slept he grumbled, frowned and sighed. Hew watched the doctor place a cooling hand upon his pulse.

‘He’s coming round. It’s time to draw a little more blood. If you wouldn’t mind holding him up?’

He flicked open the case of the lancet and wiped the blade on his sleeve. Hew shuddered:

‘Giles, must you?’

‘It seems that I must, for the college won’t pay for a surgeon. I grant you it’s hardly my place.’

‘That’s not what I meant. He looks so pale and lifeless.’

In his years as a student Hew had been routinely bled and purged as prophylactic against the plague. He did not think it ever did him good.

‘Hew, do I tell you how to practick in the courts? The cup now, quickly. If he spews it’s a good sign. Dammit, man, you’ve got blood on my hands.’

Suddenly faint, Hew had let the bowl slip, splashing the physician with blood. He turned away from the bed. Giles began to mop up. ‘You may be right, though,’ he conceded, ‘we could blister him instead. There now, that’s enough. He’s out of it.’

Hew was standing with his back to them, looking out into the tower room, breathing heavily. His shoulders were hunched. Giles set down the cup and came to his side.

‘Is he dead?’ Hew asked, trembling.

‘He’s unconscious. It’s a blessing, you know. It won’t be for long. Don’t take it amiss, Hew. Many men sicken at blood. You should have said.’

Hew excused himself quickly. ‘No, it’s the smell. What is it, Giles? It stinks like rotting kale.’

‘Putrefaction. It could be his leg or my dinner; they both have been equally foul. Oh, my dear friend,’ the doctor caught sight of Hew’s stricken face, ‘forgive me, I forget myself. Come in and look at him now. You’ll find him at peace.’