Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘He’d take it with him,’ said Joanna in her soft voice.

‘What about the last time he went out?’ Alys prompted. ‘Is there a record from that? Or in the accounts?’ She turned to Arbella Weir. ‘Perhaps in the order the accounts were paid?’

Arbella nodded gracefully, the velvet fall of her French hood sliding over her grey silk shoulder.

‘Aye, for certain,’ she agreed. ‘Bel, my pet, would you be so good?’ The girl came shyly forward from her post at her mother’s shoulder. ‘The great account book that’s lying on my kist. Fetch it here for your granny.’

The great account book was bound in worn buff leather, and bristling with slips of paper tucked between the leaves. Bel bore it in cradled in her arms as if it was a child; her mother set up a small folding table for the volume, and Arbella turned back first the upper board and then half the heavy pages, using both hands, to find the entry she wanted.

‘The Martinmas reckoning,’ she said, and ran her finger down the page. ‘Aye, this would likely be the road he would take. It’s the same road my dear Adam aye took, I ken that.’ Alys rose and came to look over her shoulder. Arbella looked up at her, the velvet headdress framing her sweet smile. ‘You understand accounts, lassie?’

‘My father is a master mason.’ Alys drew her tablets from her purse. ‘May I make a note of these names? What a fine hand — is it your writing, madam?’

‘I was well taught,’ said Arbella. ‘I’ve had David Fleming teach my granddaughters the same, though he’s been a disappointment to me and all, and after today’s work I think I’ll not allow him to come back. It was his uncle Sir Arnold Douglas, that was chaplain to Sir James’s grandsire, taught me to read and write and reckon. Wi’ her letters and a good man, what more does a woman need in this life?’

It was apparent to Gil that several of the younger women in the room could think of answers to that, but none of them spoke.

‘We must away, afore the light goes,’ he said after a pause. ‘I think I’ve gathered enough to go on with. If you can furnish me wi’ a description of the man Murray, and the two others, I can send after him, to see if we can track him down. Then we’ll know for certain the corp in the peat is some other fellow.’

They mounted before the door, and were given a ceremonious farewell by Arbella, leaning on her granddaughter’s arm on the threshold.

‘We’ll see you again, I hope,’ she said in that gentle voice.

Joanna nodded, and Gil saw that her hands were clasped at her waist, the knuckles showing white. Behind her good-mother Beatrice studied them, and said suddenly, her eyes on Alys, ‘Aye, we’ll see you again, won’t we no?’

‘We must return,’ Alys answered, ‘if only to report what we have learned about your missing man.’

‘You’ll be back afore that,’ said Beatrice. ‘I’ll be here, lassie.’

‘You’ve no need to concern yourselves wi’ Murray,’ said Arbella. ‘It’s only for putting the lie to Davy Fleming that I’d pay any mind to the matter at all.’

‘I think we can do that,’ said Gil, and hitched his cloak closer. He gathered up his reins in one hand, bent his head and crossed himself with the other in response to Arbella’s offered blessing for the journey, and heeled his horse forward. Alys followed him, and the two grooms fell in behind as they set off up the track, past the bleak garden and over the shoulder of the hill.

Half a mile further on, out of sight of the house and the coal-workings, Gil was unsurprised to see a solitary figure standing by the side of the track waiting for them, red-and-blue plaid over her head against the pervasive wind.

‘That’s the lass from the coal-heugh,’ observed Henry.

‘It is,’ agreed Alys. ‘Good evening to you, Phemie.’

‘I must talk wi’ you,’ said Phemie, without preamble.

‘No the now, lass,’ objected Henry. ‘We want to be back on our own land afore the light goes.’

‘Aye, and I’ve to be back for my supper,’ she said scornfully. ‘I never meant the now, the owls will be flying afore long. Can one of you come back the morn’s morn?’ She looked closely at Alys, much as her mother had done. ‘You’ll be back, won’t you, mistress?’

‘I could come back in the morning,’ Alys admitted, with a glance at Gil.

‘Do that,’ said Phemie, ‘and I’ll find a way to get a word wi’ you. There’s plenty Arbella wouldny tell you, and a few things she doesny ken.’

‘That seems unlikely,’ Gil observed.

Phemie shook her head. ‘She canny be everywhere. I’ll see you the morn’s morn, mistress.’ She stepped back from the edge of the track to let them pass, and set off across the rough grass of the hillside, without looking back.

‘Well, that’s an ill-schooled lassie,’ commented the second groom as they rode on.

‘She has a lot to trouble her,’ said Alys.

‘What were they hiding, I wonder,’ said Gil.

‘I don’t know that they were hiding anything,’ said Alys. ‘They were simply reluctant to talk to a stranger. Mistress Weir is very certain there is no need to search for this man Murray.’

Gil considered this. He and Alys were in their chamber, halfway through changing their muddy riding-clothes for something fit to go down to supper in, and now he sat on the edge of the box bed and patted the counterpane beside him.

‘I want to find him, as I told her. We have a description,’ he said, putting his arm round his wife as she came to join him. ‘Of the man and the two fellows with him.’

Alys tilted her head back, gazing at the ceiling, and the soft light from the horn window edged the high narrow bridge of her nose.

‘A bare description,’ she observed. ‘Jock and Tam Paterson, who are brothers. One is taller than the other and both have all their fingers yet. I suppose they are young men.’

‘And we have the list of the houses where Murray was to call, and the name of the salt-boiler beyond Blackness.’

‘So someone must work his way down the list,’ prompted Alys, ‘asking if he was there, and when, and if all was well. Gil, if you do that, I am distracted.’ She put her hand over his, stilling his fingers. ‘Blackness is a port, is it not? I wonder if he has simply taken all the money and gone to the Low Countries or England or somewhere.’

‘You had a look at the accounts.’

‘Yes, but the old lady was watching me, so I could not look too close. I thought they appeared sound enough. The income I saw would support the size of household they have there, and pay the colliers in coin and kind. If the man was taking anything out before he left on this collecting-round he was doing it very circumspectly.’

‘And if he ran, why would he take the other two men with him? Sharing the money?’

‘I agree. And also Beatrice said they have kin at the coal-heugh, they might not wish to run off with him. We must speak to the kin.’ She turned her head to look up at him. ‘Will you go out to the houses on the list?’

‘I thought we might persuade Michael to do that. My mother ordered him back here for supper, he should have arrived by now.’

‘Gil, it was an invitation!’ she protested, giggling. ‘And very civil.’

‘I heard her issue it. He’ll not disobey.’

‘He may not be willing to help us,’ she warned him. ‘He is quite afflicted, I think, not to find your sister Tib here.’

‘My heart bleeds at that.’

‘So does mine, to tell truth,’ she said seriously. ‘They have been parted for months, with only a couple of meetings in public, he must wonder whether she still — ’

‘Hah!’ said Gil.