Pat McIntosh: The Rough Collier

‘And if you hadny lifted me from my stillroom,’ she declared as they came closer, ‘I’d have completed the oil for your mother’s joint-ill, Geordie Meikle, and you could have taken it to her this evening. She tellt me when she asked for more that she was just about out of it — ’

‘You said that a’ready,’ said one of the men round her, shoving her roughly towards Gil. She stumbled forward, and fell over the edge of the peat-cutting, landing awkwardly on hip and elbow. Alys exclaimed indignantly, and sprang to her assistance, while Fleming pronounced:

‘Well may you grovel, witch, afore the evidence of your ill deeds! This is the witch, Maister Cunningham, well kent for miles about as a cunning woman wi’ herbs and ointments, and seen by me to ha’ quarrelled wi’ Thomas Murray that lies here slain by witchcraft.’

‘Thomas?’ the woman said as she stood upright. She gave Alys a shaky word of thanks, looked at Gil, and bowed awkwardly over her bound hands. ‘Sir, what’s to do here? The men would tell me nothing but that I’m accused of witchcraft and evil-doing, and now — are you saying Thomas is dead?’

‘You ken well he’s dead, woman,’ trumpeted Fleming, ‘you that set him here in secret!’ Gil turned and fixed the tubby priest with his eye. ‘But by God’s help and these innocent instruments of justice — ’ He became aware of Gil’s gaze and faltered in his oration. ‘Your crime’s been uncovered,’ he ended lamely, and became silent.

‘Aye,’ said Gil drily, and turned to the woman. ‘What’s your name, mistress?’

‘That’s Beattie Lithgo,’ supplied one of the men around her. Gil eyed him, and he too fell silent.

‘Beatrice Lithgo,’ confirmed the woman, ‘relict of Adam Crombie the collier.’ Her accent was not local, but came from further east, Gil thought, the Lothians perhaps.

‘Mistress Lithgo,’ he said. ‘There’s a corp found here, that’s been identified as Thomas Murray.’ He stepped aside, watching her face. She looked from him to the bundle of bones on the hurdle, and frowned, obviously trying to make it out as a body.

‘Is that a man?’ she questioned. ‘From here it could as well be a calf drowned in the mire.’

Fleming opened his mouth, but Gil caught his eye again and he subsided.

‘It’s a man,’ Gil confirmed. ‘Look closer, mistress.’

She gave him a doubtful look, and stepped forward to bend awkwardly over the corpse, flinching as she located its battered countenance.

‘Oh, the poor soul. His mother wouldny ken him,’ she said. ‘Has he been beaten, or did this happen while he lay here, do you suppose, sir?’

‘You tell us, woman — ’ began Fleming.

‘Do you recognize the man?’ Gil asked without expression. Beatrice Lithgo straightened up and turned to him. She was tall for a woman, taller than Alys though shorter than Gil himself, and behind the blowing wisps of reddish-fair hair her face was plain and bony, with a sharp nose and angular jaw. Light eyes between grey and blue considered him, equally without expression.

‘I do not,’ she said, ‘no being his mother. It could be Thomas, it could just as well be some other poor soul. The hair’s lighter than his, but — ’

‘His hair’s bleached wi’ lying out in the peat,’ pronounced Fleming, unable to contain himself longer, ‘and if you beat him past knowing afore you hid him here, small wonder we canny tell him by his face.’ The men around them nodded, and one or two muttered agreement.

‘Maister Gil!’ called Henry from among the horses.

‘I think it’s no him,’ went on Mistress Lithgo, ‘but I’d sooner you got Thomas’s wife to see him, or one of the men that works by his side.’

‘To look for marks on his flesh, you mean?’ said Alys, coming forward.

‘Maister Gil, look up yonder!’

‘Any collier has scars,’ agreed Mistress Lithgo, ‘and Thomas has a few that I treated, but I’d as soon have some other word for it, and I’ve no doubt you would and all, sir,’ she added, with faint humour.

‘Maister Gil!’

The dog rose, hackles up, from his position at Gil’s feet, and stared up the hillside. Gil looked over his shoulder, and saw another ragged company appearing over the curve of windswept grass. This was a bigger group, grotesque in pointed hoods and long-tailed sarks of leather, and somehow much more threatening even at first sight, before he took in the style of implements the men carried or the tone of the shouting which broke out as they caught sight of Mistress Lithgo.

‘It’s the colliers,’ said one of the men beside Fleming, ‘come to fetch the witch home, maybe.’ He took an apprehensive grip of his peat-spade, and looked at the priest, who seized hold of Mistress Lithgo’s arm.

‘Gather round, lads,’ he ordered, gesturing with his free hand. ‘They’ll no get a hold of her for aught we can do!’

‘No just the colliers and their mells,’ said another man, making no move to obey Fleming. ‘There’s lassies wi’ them. Two lassies.’

‘The whole of the day shift, wi’ my older daughter,’ said Mistress Lithgo in resigned tones, ‘and my good-sister Joanna. Joanna Brownlie, Thomas’s wife,’ she added to Gil.

‘Ah,’ said Gil. He caught Alys’s eye, and held out his arm. She came forward with one of her flickering smiles, laid her gloved hand on his wrist, and allowed him to lead her across the hollow towards the approaching mob of miners with their heavy short-hafted hammers. There were eight or ten of them, with two very pretty young women in their midst whose white linen and well-dyed red and blue wool contrasted sharply with the blackened faces and muddy leathers of the men.

‘Give us back our Beattie!’ shouted the man at the front as the group halted on the edge of the peat-cutting, and others echoed him. ‘Set her free, or we’ll — ’

‘Mistress Brownlie?’ asked Gil formally, raising his felt hat.

The older of the two girls stiffened warily, and a wiry man beside her said, ‘Who’s asking for her?’

‘I’m Gil Cunningham, the Archbishop’s Quaestor, and this is my wife Alys Mason.’

Gil bowed, and Alys curtsied. The miners fell silent, staring down at them, except for the one who had asked their names, who said, mell at the ready, ‘And what’s Blacader’s questioner to do wi’ Joanna Brown-lie? Why can you no free Beattie to us and be done?’

‘She’s no witch,’ put in another voice from the back of the group. ‘Our Beattie’s a good woman. Who’s to physic our hurts if she’s ta’en up for a witch?’

‘There’s a corp been found,’ said Gil, still speaking formally to the whole group, ‘and some thought that it might be Mistress Brownlie’s man, who I understand is missing.’ There was a small sound of distress from the girl who had reacted earlier, sweet-faced and graceful in dark red with a married woman’s headdress of folded white linen. One hand rose to her mouth. ‘We need her to look at the corp if she’s willing,’ Gil went on, ‘to tell us if it is or it isny him.’

‘What’s that to do wi’ my mother?’ demanded the other girl, a small slender creature just maturing, her long fair hair well set off by a blue woollen gown and red-and-blue checked plaid. She jerked her head at Mistress Brownlie. ‘If it’s the wonderful Thomas then she’s the one to put a name to him and wash him, there was no need to lift my mother wi’ such a tirravee about it. And will you set her free now, or do we make you?’

‘Speak civilly to Maister Cunningham, Phemie,’ directed Fleming from behind Gil. The girl opened her mouth on what was obviously to be a sharp answer.

‘Mind your tongue, Phemie,’ said her mother. Phemie blushed unbecomingly but fell silent.