Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘Will you come away ben now, maisters?’ said Arbella decisively, preparing to get to her feet. ‘My dear lassie has learned enough for this present, we should leave her alone for a wee space and I need to hear what’s to do next.’

‘No, Mother, that’s my part,’ said Joanna, with another flash of that independence. ‘I’m his wife. His widow, Our Lady protect him,’ she corrected herself, her pretty mouth twisting, and crossed herself. ‘It’s my place to see to his burial.’ She drew a deep breath, and said to Gil, ‘Is there a joiner in Lanark town would coffin him, maister?’

‘Never forget,’ said Jamesie Meikle, breaking a long silence, ‘never forget you’ve friends who’ll support you in that.’

She turned her head to meet his gaze. Gil could not see her expression, for the disordered folds of her headdress, but he saw Jamesie’s face, and thought that for the span of two breaths or three there might as well have been nobody else in the chamber.

‘Someone’s coming,’ said Phemie, staring out of the window. ‘There’s three — no, four horses coming down the track.’

‘This is no hour for visitors,’ said Beatrice decisively. She rose and made for the door. ‘I’ll take them aside, will I, madam?’

‘It’s no visitors,’ reported Phemie, still staring. They could all hear the hoofbeats now. ‘It’s that fool Fleming and three more of your men, Maister Michael.’

‘Fleming?’ repeated Michael in disbelief. He twisted to peer through the wriggling glass panes. Sweet St Giles, thought Gil, and I had the trap near laid. ‘It is, too. St Peter’s bones, what brings him here? He was lying sick, the last I saw of him.’

There was a sudden movement, and a door banged. Gil looked round, to find that Jamesie Meikle had vanished, and the door at the far side of the chamber, its latch not caught, was swinging open again.

‘He must have gone to call out the men,’ said Alys softly in French. ‘I think it wise.’

Gil nodded, and rose to his feet, saying to Arbella, ‘Madam, I think you should receive Fleming in the other chamber, if you receive him at all.’

‘Surely he’s come here as our priest?’ said Joanna. She was recovering rapidly from her swooning-fit, and now got cautiously off the bed and began fumbling at the laces of her gown which Beatrice had loosened to revive her. Bel, still at the bedside, turned to help her. ‘That’s kind in him. I’d be right glad to speak wi’ a priest.’

‘I’m no so certain,’ said Michael, who had risen when Gil did. He bowed briefly to Arbella. ‘I’ll go out and forestall him, madam, if you’ll permit it.’

‘You’re all full of directions to me,’ said Arbella in a caustic tone she had not used before. ‘I’ll order matters in my own house, maisters, and if Sir David has come here wi’ spiritual comfort for us, I’ll receive him in here if I — ’

There were raised voices, out on the cobbled area before the door. Michael turned on his heel with an apologetic glance at Arbella, and slipped out of the room. Looking through the glass, Gil saw him emerge from the house to confront Jamesie Meikle and a group of muddy men armed with mells and other implements. He appeared to be reasoning with them.

‘Stay with Joanna,’ he said to Alys in French, and went out to join the argument, passing Beatrice Lithgo who stood quietly in the hall. She smiled thinly at him, but did not speak. As he reached the outer doorway, Michael was saying:

‘I’ll speak to Fleming first, Meikle. He’s my man, he must answer to me.’

‘Then you’d best go up and meet him, for he’ll no get near this door, maister,’ said a brawny man in a smith’s leather apron.

‘What do you fear, Jamesie?’ Gil asked, over a loud chorus of agreement. Meikle glanced at him, and indicated the approaching horsemen. Grey light gleamed on helm and breastplate of all four.

‘He comes up here on foot most times. Why’s he on horseback now, wi’ three of Douglas’s men at his back? And going armed like this?’

‘I agree, but what do you fear? What do you think he wants?’

‘They’re after our Beattie again,’ said the smith.

‘And they’ll no get her,’ said another man, brandishing a reeking stable-fork.

‘It isn’t Mistress Lithgo they’re after, is it?’ said Gil as the horsemen came to a halt at the edge of the cobbled area.

Meikle shot him another glance, and shook his head. ‘No this time.’ He took a tighter grip of the mell in his hand. ‘Maister Michael, if you’re wishing to try and reason wi’ the priest, now’s your chance.’

‘Then who — ?’ said Michael. He met Gil’s eye as understanding dawned. ‘St Peter’s bones, the man’s a fool!’

He squared his shoulders and strode forward, slight and commanding. His men looked at him guiltily, still in their saddles, but Sir David dismounted to meet him and ducked in a clumsy bow, touching his helm with a gloved hand.

‘I’m right glad to see you here, Maister Michael. If you’ll lead me to where this wicked woman is, we’ll take her up now — ’

Uproar broke out again among the colliers, and several moved threateningly towards the priest. He straightened up, and raised a peremptory hand.

‘Peace!’ he shouted, and was ignored. Jamesie Meikle shouted something, but it was Michael, turning to face the group, who stilled them briefly.

‘I’ll hear what Fleming has to say,’ he announced. ‘There’s no man can say he went unheard on Douglas lands. So be silent and let me hear him, and then I’ll hear you.’ He turned to Fleming again. ‘What woman is it you want, Sir David?’

‘Why the woman Brownlie. That’s four men she’s poisoned, clear as day, and — ’

‘Joanna?’ repeated one of the colliers incredulously. ‘What’s he saying?’

‘Mistress Brownlie?’ said Michael, as the rumbling discontent spread again. Within the house Gil heard quick footsteps, and a sudden short scream. ‘How do you make that out, man?’

‘That’s her two husbands,’ the priest ticked them off on his fingers, ‘her own father, and the forester of Bonnington, all slain by poison. I discerned that as soon as Wat Currie brought the word home to Cauldhope. She’ll be found guilty of their deaths, that’s for certain, so we need to take her up now and bring her before the Sheriff, to be held in Lanark jail till the justice-ayre.’

‘We need nothing of the sort,’ said Michael. ‘If you’d keep to the tasks afore you, Sir David, namely stewarding my father’s estate and acting as his chaplain, and leave the law and its business to those that’s called to it, we’d all get on a sight better.’

‘Ah, Maister Michael,’ protested Fleming, with an ingratiating smile. ‘You’re young yet, you can take the advice of wiser folk — ’

‘Wiser, aye,’ said Michael. ‘I’ve yet to see that that includes you, man! Now get back on that horse and get back to Cauldhope.’

‘No without the poisoner — ’

‘David Fleming,’ said Arbella Weir from the house door. ‘Sir David, I’m right disappointed in you, and so would your mother be. As for you men,’ she went on, with that crackle of ice in her voice again, ‘you may get back to your work, or I’ll dock a day’s wages off the whole crowd of you.’

‘They’re wanting to lift Beattie again,’ someone told her loudly.

‘No, man, it’s Joanna they’re after!’ said another voice.

‘They’re saying it was pyson,’ said the smith. ‘That she used pyson on her man and all those others. They’ll no say that about a collier’s wife, even if she is a farm-lassie.’

‘I thank you for your support, George Russell,’ said Arbella, in a tone that made the man quail, ‘but I can deal wi’ Davy Fleming myself, I think, seeing I kent his father and his grandsire and they’re both of them, dead and buried though they are, better men now than he’ll ever be.’ She leaned on her stick and stared between the muddy shoulders and upheld hammers and pickaxes at Fleming. ‘Come here, man, where I can see you properly. I’m sure Maister Michael will give you leave to obey my direction afore you follow his,’ she added, raising her delicate eyebrows at Michael. Gil watched, fascinated, as Fleming approached. He was impressed to see that the colliers had withdrawn, though only to the next corner of the building, out of Mistress Weir’s sight and very convenient for the side door into Joanna’s lodging which Jamesie Meikle must have used earlier.