Pat McIntosh: The Rough Collier

‘I may be some time,’ he warned her.

‘All the more reason.’ She was tugging on the leather breeches which went under the garment. ‘I’ve never seen a peat-digging,’ she added, tying the waistband. Gil kicked off his shoes and pulled the boot on.

‘It’s just a hole in the ground.’ He tramped down on the heel, wriggling his toes in place, and accepted the second boot from Socrates, who stood waving his stringy tail, ears pricked in anticipation of an outing.

‘With a dead man in it.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed thoughtfully. ‘Something I have not heard of before.’

‘It’s a strange place to dispose of a dead person. After all, if people dig the peat, a body must be found sooner or later, no?’

‘You would think so.’

‘And if this woman is to be taken as a witch,’ she added, her voice muffled by the folds of the skirt. Emerging from the swathes of pale brown wool and smoothing it down over her kirtle she went on, ‘someone should be there to support her. Another woman, I mean.’

‘It could be nasty.’

‘I know.’ Her face sobered. ‘I once saw a witch taken up. We were in Paris, and I was too young to do anything.’

Gil, digesting this, exchanged the loose short gown he wore in the house for a closer garment with a budge lining. Alys, having laced her bodice, craned to see into the mirror, settled her hat carefully over the linen cap that hid her long honey-coloured hair, and lifted the gloves to match the blue leather trimmings on the riding-dress.

‘You’re very bien tenue , sweetheart. You could be riding out on the King’s hunt, not crossing our own lands to the peat-cutting.’

‘It’s all I have.’ She gathered up her skirts to precede him down the stairs. ‘Besides,’ she added, and glanced over her shoulder at him with her quick smile as Socrates slithered behind them, ‘now while I am a bride, I must dress as befits your station. Once I’m known as your lady I may wear what I please.’

One of the Belstane menservants rode out with them across the moorland, a scrawny dark-browed fellow called Henry who had been a stable-boy when Gil was a child and was now one of Lady Egidia’s upper stud-grooms. Following him, they could hear the disturbance by the peat-cutting before they saw it, a confusion of the lapwings’ plaintive cries blown on the wind with a loud, nasal tenor carrying the lower line on its own.

‘That’ll be Sir David,’ said Paton confidently. ‘A good clear voice he’s got.’

‘That is your priest?’ asked Alys, turning in the saddle to look at him where he bobbed along in their wake on the old pony. He grinned at her and nodded.

‘That’s him right enough, Maister Gil,’ pronounced Henry as they rounded the shoulder of the bleak hillside. ‘David Fleming. He’s a strong man for Sir James’s rights,’ he added in neutral tones.

‘Aye, he is that,’ agreed Paton. ‘He’s chaplain to Sir James, see, and priests for us all when we canny get down to the kirk in Carluke, and takes to do wi’ the estate when Jock Douglas the steward’s away. That’s him in the grey plaid, talking to Rab Simson.’

There were two men in the sharp-edged hollow, one in homespun leaning on a peat-spade, the other stouter and grey-clad, gesticulating at something which lay shrouded by a felt cloak on a hurdle at their feet. A small cart was tilted on end nearby. A hare skipped across the hillside higher up, and the lapwings wheeled and called across the empty sky beyond. Henry halted his horse by the cart, which it inspected suspiciously, and Gil reined in beside him and whistled for his dog. At this the tubby priest looked round, broke off what he was saying and made haste to climb out on to the rough, wind-shaken grass, raising his round felt cap. His wrinkled, mended hose were smudged with peat as if he had been kneeling.

‘Maister Cunningham,’ he said eagerly, coming to Gil’s stirrup. ‘So Wat bore his message. My thanks to you for coming out, maister, and you’ll ha’ Sir James’s gratitude for it and all. And madam your wife honours us!’ He bowed to Alys, gave her an appraising grin and raised the cap again, exposing a fluffy tonsure surrounded by limp mousy hair. ‘I’m David Fleming, maister, madam, chaplain to Sir James and depute to his steward, and they’re both away, you ken, which is why — ’

‘No trouble,’ said Gil politely. ‘What have you to show us, Sir David?’

‘It’s this corp we’ve found in the peat,’ explained the priest, ‘or I’d never have inconvenienced you, for we’ve sent to take up the woman that done it, and it all needs to be dealt wi’ in due process. Will you dismount, maister, and take a look at him? Henry, take Maister Cunningham’s reins,’ he ordered sharply as Gil handed his reins to the man. ‘It’s certain enow who it is, maister,’ he went on, ‘but it needs an authority to call the quest on him, and carry the charge agin the witch.’

‘You’ve proof, have you?’ Gil lifted his wife down from her saddle. ‘Some evidence?’

‘Oh, she’s well kent to ha’ quarrelled with the man.’ Fleming bowed again to Alys. ‘Now you bide here, Mistress Cunningham,’ he went on, in a condescending tone which Gil felt was ill advised, ‘and Henry can have a care to you, while I show your goodman this — ’

‘Thank you,’ said Alys, smiling sweetly at him, ‘but I can get down into the digging.’ Fleming looked askance at this, and his expression turned to indignation as she gathered her skirts together and jumped, without waiting for Gil’s supporting hand. She looked about her with interest, prodding with her booted toe at the dark surface of last year’s cut. Gil followed her.

‘It’s no a fit sight for a young lassie,’ Fleming protested. ‘Maister, I think you should bid her stay here. His face is no — ’

‘My wife makes up her own mind,’ said Gil mildly. Socrates appeared at the gallop over the curve of the hill and leapt down beside his master, tongue lolling. ‘Get on, Sir David.’

‘Aye, but — ’ Fleming bit his lip, and gave up. ‘If you’ll come over here, maister, you can get a look at him, and here’s Rab Simson that found him, all buried in the peat, and — ’

The man by the hurdle touched his blue bonnet as they approached across the springy surface, then bent to draw back the patched felt cloak which covered the corpse. Socrates pricked his ears intently, his nose twitching, but Gil put out a hand.

‘Bide a moment. Before I see him,’ he said, ‘tell me how you found him. Was it you saw him first? What are you doing up here anyway?’ he added. ‘It’s early to be casting peats. Were you setting out this year’s portions?’

Simson looked sidelong at Paton, and nodded, muttering agreement.

‘We was cleaning up a bit,’ volunteered Paton. ‘And looking how wet the peat is and clearing the grass off the cut, and the like. It’s a good day for it, seeing it’s been dry for a week.’

‘How many of you? Was it all seven of you from Thorn? Did you all come up here together?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Paton. ‘We came up here wi’ the cart, an hour after Prime, since the oats is sown and the land’s no ready for the bere yet. We came all together from Thorn town, Geordie Meikle and his brother Jock, Rab here, William Douglas,’ he counted on his fingers, ‘Eck Shaw, Adam Livingstone and me. And it’s Jock and Geordie’s cart,’ he added. ‘All the rest’s gone up to the coal-heugh to take the witch.’

‘And then we saw this man staring out of the peat-wall like the Judgement Day,’ said Fleming in his nasal tenor.

‘What did you do first?’ asked Gil, ignoring this.

‘Walked the ground,’ said Paton promptly.

‘Paced off the portions,’ agreed Simson, with growing confidence, ‘and put the first of the markers down.’ He pointed at a bundle of wooden stobs which lay on the grass nearby.