Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘Is that a coney running on the plough-land?’ said Alys. ‘Surely it’s too big. Oh, and there is another. What are they doing? Do look, they are dancing!’

‘That’s hares,’ said Michael, peering under his hand at the brown creatures skipping across the near field. ‘You can tell by the black tips to the ears.’ He smiled, watching the animals’ antics. ‘They do that all the spring. Some folk says they’re gone mad, but it’s just how they choose their mates, so our huntsman tellt me.’

‘Good eating, a bawd is, if they wereny such unchancy beasts,’ commented the man riding behind them, a fair-haired leather-visaged fellow in his thirties called Steenie, a name Alys knew to be the Scots pet-name for Stephen. ‘You get them up on the grazing land and all.’

‘I saw them when we went to the peat-cutting,’ Alys recalled. ‘When Sir David was so sure they had dug up Thomas Murray. Do you think we will find the man today?’

‘I’m past caring,’ admitted Michael, ‘save for the need to silence Davy Fleming. He was on at me again this morning before I’d broke my fast, about all the misdeeds witches gets up to, according to his wee book. If I ever learn who lent it to him, I’ll cram it down his throat.’

‘I never thought to hear Gil abuse a book the way he did that one,’ said Alys.

‘I’ve not looked in it myself, but the things Fleming was telling me made my gorge rise.’ Michael rode in silence for a short space. Alys was looking about her despite the rain, admiring the blossom on the fruit trees for which Gil had told her the neighbourhood was famous, when he suddenly said, ‘Mistress Mason!’

She opened her mouth to tell him to use her first name, but he hurried on.

‘Have you — did you see my Tib? Before she was sent to Haddington, I mean?’

She was aware of a great rush of sympathy. No need of birthmarks or stolen children, here was a tale out of the romances, riding beside her under the wet blossom.

‘No, but I assure you she went to Haddington voluntarily — is that the right word?’ He stared at her. ‘I had a letter two weeks since. She said she was bored with her imprisonment, and weary for you, and her sister — Sister Dorothea — had invited her to visit.’

‘Weary for me,’ he repeated, his sharp features softening. Were those tears? ‘And I for her, mistress. Was — were they ill-treating her? My godmother, and the rest?’

‘Only by keeping her close, I think, and watching her.’

‘She’d take that ill out,’ he said, with a loving smile.

‘She did.’ He had turned in the saddle to look at her more closely, one hand on the cantle, and she met his eye. ‘I think, by what she said just now, my good-mother is less angry than she was. What of your father?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve heard little enough from him since Yule, till I had this letter about Fleming. I suppose, if he’s trusting me to see to this business, he’s calmed down a bit and all. Would you say there’s any hope for us?’

‘I do not know,’ she admitted. ‘I will do what I can for you.’

He dropped his gaze, going scarlet, and muttered something genuinely grateful. Alys was about to answer him when the groom behind them exclaimed in warning, and another big brown hare zigzagged across the path, immediately under the horses’ muzzles.

The next few moments seemed to pass very slowly. Michael, riding slack-reined, was taken by surprise as his beast shied, half-reared, plunged backwards into Alys’s dapple grey. The grey, also startled, kicked out, lurched aside and pecked on something. Alys, with a better grip on her reins, was just gaining control when the dappled shoulders in front of her vanished and she found herself, with a slow and dreadful inevitability, soaring over her horse’s head.

The ground hit her with a thump. For a moment things went far away. Then she heard Michael’s voice, exclaiming in alarm.

‘Alys — Mistress Mason! Are you hurt? Steenie, get that horse. Willie, come back, man, give me a hand here!’ His face appeared close to hers, staring anxiously. ‘Are you hurt, mistress?’ he asked again. ‘Can you move? Are you — ?’

‘I fell off,’ she said foolishly. The world righted itself, and she realized she was lying sprawled on the wet grass, petticoats everywhere, hat askew, one hand trapped under her.

‘Can you move?’ repeated Michael. ‘Does aught pain you? Say you’re no hurt, mistress!’

‘It was a great jill-bawd,’ declared Steenie, appearing beyond his shoulder. ‘Sprung out the dyke under their feet, it did, no wonder they was startled.’

She contrived to sit up, and straightened her skirts.

‘I am unhurt, I think,’ she said cautiously, experimenting with hands and arms. ‘Is my horse — ?’

‘He’s right enough,’ Steenie assured her. ‘I’ve got him here, mistress. He’s took no harm, the great gowk.’ He patted the animal’s neck.

‘Our Lady be thanked!’ said Alys. ‘What my good-mother would say if I harmed one of her beasts I do not know.’

‘No, and you don’t want to hear it neither,’ said Steenie forthrightly ‘But yourself, mistress? Can she rise, Maister Michael?’

‘Should you sit here on the bank a wee while?’ Michael asked anxiously. ‘Can you rise? Do you want to rest somewhere?’ He looked about him. ‘Cauld-hope’s nearer than Belstane from here, you could come back to our place and sit for a bit.’

‘There’s a house yonder,’ said the other groom. ‘Stinking Dod’s, no half a mile away. Him that’s married on Wat Paton’s sister. They might give her a seat there, and maybe a drink of well-water or the like. Mind you, it’s maybe no suitable.’

She rose, with Michael’s assistance, and stood for a moment, feeling quite strange and unsteady. Shock, she thought. What did Mère Isabelle order for shock? She tested her limbs again. Hip and shoulder hurt where they had made contact with the ground, and would be bruised black by the morning, but everything seemed to be working.

‘I am embarrassed,’ she confessed. ‘I have not fallen off since I was a child. Are you certain the horse is safe, Steenie?’

‘Never mind the horse,’ said Michael, ‘what madam my godmother would say if I’d let you come to harm I never want to hear. And it was my fault,’ he added, though she had not tried to argue. ‘If I’d been looking where we were going I’d ha’ seen that coming.’

‘No, no,’ she said, ‘the creature startled the horses. Perhaps I would like to sit down for a little while. Could we see if there is anyone at home in that house?’

The dapple-grey horse seemed slightly puzzled by her sudden descent and all the fuss, but when Steenie put her expertly back in the saddle it moved forward willingly with an even stride. Michael’s relief was almost comical, despite his claim to be more concerned for Alys than the horse. One of the men rode ahead, and by the time they reached the house had roused out a thin flustered woman in homespun, with a baby on her hip. An older child peeped round the corner of the house at them and vanished.

‘Oh, the Bad Man fly away wi’ all bawds, the evil things. A wee seat?’ the woman was saying. ‘For certain, aye, and no trouble. Will I bring a plaid out to soften the bench a bit maybe, and keep the wet off your bonnie gown, mistress? Or would ye step inside? Only it’s a bit smoky, and there’s the grandam and all — ’

A shrill, unintelligible voice from within the dark little dwelling confirmed this.

‘And were ye here for the clerk?’ she continued, as Alys dismounted stiffly. ‘I was going to send one of the men to Cauldhope about it as soon as they all come back from Lanark at the market, only I’m here my lone — ’ Another screech from inside the house. ‘- wi’ the grandam and the bairns, and I canny — aye, that’s right, mem, you sit there and get your breath. Would ye take a drop of ale, maybe?’ There was another shrill comment. ‘Or a wee tait spirits? I’ve a drop o’ cordial put by where Dod canny find it. Just let me see the wee one safe, and I’ll — ’