Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘Aye, he’s about ready for the priest, I fear,’ agreed the old woman. She bent and patted Fleming’s face. ‘Davy! Davy Fleming! Can you hear me?’

There was a pause; then the man’s eyes opened.

‘Who — ?’ he croaked.

‘That’s me, Davy. Arbella Weir. I’m sorry to find you like this, Davy. Death unshriven’s no what I’d ha’ wished on your father’s son.’

‘I am shriven,’ he croaked.

‘Where does it hurt?’ Alys asked, taking his hand. His eyes rolled towards her, and in the light of the two candles he knew her. A wisp of his ingratiating smile crossed his face, and he drew a harsh breath.

‘Mistress,’ he whispered. ‘Doesny hurt. Thanks be — Our Lady. Did you read — ?’

‘I read it,’ she said. And keep quiet, man, she thought. ‘Save your strength, Sir David. We’ll get you out of here and made comfortable as soon as maybe.’

‘I willny — last so long.’

‘Aye, well, you meddled in things that wereny your concern,’ said Arbella, her face in shadow, ‘and it’s brought you to this end, the same as your father. I’m right sorry, man.’

‘I’ve learned,’ Fleming whispered. ‘I know. I know what you’ve been — ’

Arbella sat back, and knocked the bucket which supported the candles. They fell over, rolling across the flat wooden base, sending shadows leaping wildly round the three of them, then on to the floor of the tunnel. One went out. Arbella twisted awkwardly in pursuit of the other, and put her hand on it.

Alys exclaimed as darkness complete enveloped them.

‘Never fear, lassie,’ said Arbella’s voice. Alys could hear movement close to her, the rustle of clothing, a creak from the thick leather of the collier’s sark Arbella wore. Fleming drew another harsh breath, and breathed out, and made a short choking noise. In sudden alarm she crouched there in the dark, waiting for his next breath.

It never came.

Gil gazed in exasperation at Beatrice Lithgo.

‘I’ll not believe you,’ he said. ‘I don’t accept this confession.’

She shrugged, suddenly looking very like her older daughter. ‘I’ll not retract it.’

‘Who are you protecting?’

‘Protecting?’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘Then what about the other deaths?’

‘The forester?’ She crossed herself. ‘I’m right sorry he died, Our Lady bring him to grace. I never intended that.’

‘I meant,’ said Gil, and counted them off, ‘Matt Crombie, Will Brownlie, your own man, your good-father. Did you kill them too?’

‘No,’ she said blankly. ‘Why would I kill any of them?’ There was a pause in which she seemed to be thinking over the list. ‘No, I’d no reason to poison them. They wereny poisoned,’ she added hastily.

‘You’re certain?’ said Gil. She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ve just come back from Walston.’

‘From where? Oh, aye. The parish where Auld Adam died. And what did you find there, maister?’ she asked in conversational tones. ‘I was never there myself.’

‘You’ve not missed much,’ Gil admitted, ‘it’s two villages and a high hill, but I’d a read of the parish records, kept by Sir Billy Crichton in very good order, and this morning at first light I got a word with the folk that took Adam Crombie in when he fell from his horse.’ She watched him, still giving nothing away. ‘It seems he ate his dinner in the High House at Elsrickle, along with his two men, and drank a toast to Arbella’s birthday from a silver flask he had with him, which he didn’t share. He set out to ride on to the next house on his round.’ She nodded. ‘A mile or so down the road he seemed dazed, as if he was unsure of where he was, and fell from his horse in a swoon, and struck his head. He was carried into the nearest house, and there he died without speaking again.’

‘Was his belly afflicted?’ she asked, frowning.

‘No. I asked about that particularly, after what you said the other day, and he had neither vomited nor purged. I spoke with the woman of the house,’ he added, ‘she’d be like to know.’

She nodded again, accepting this. He waited, but when there was no further reaction said, ‘It seems very like whatever slew Murray and the forester. But of course you’d know that, wouldn’t you?’

Another long look, but no words. This was hard work.

‘My mother has suggested it was orpiment slew your good-brother and Will Brownlie. Does that sound right?’

She nodded again, very slowly, and closed her eyes. ‘Orpiment. Arsenical salts. Of course, it fits, of course. And the collier’s bairns and all, that were took ill the same summer. But why? Who would want to kill Matt, the bonnie lad? And what had the man Brownlie done, save father Joanna?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ he said patiently. ‘You could help me, if you weren’t wasting my time trying to confess to all sorts of wickedness. The falshede of the woman is wonder merveyllous.’

Her eyes flew open, and she gave him another long look. But he had lost her again, he could see that. He would get no further co-operation.

He paused on the stairs down from the steward’s room, looking from one of the slit windows out over the grazing-land towards the peat-digging and the track which led to the coaltown. He had dreamed again before dawn, and it was still with him; this time he had stood on a bare hillside, looking across this same landscape. Someone stood beside him; when he turned to see, it was a man, a stranger, naked but for a leather cap and a russet fox-skin belt. Smiling at Gil, he had held out in one hand a dull black stone with a little fish drawn on it, in the other a sprig of yew, the green needles and waxy red berries vividly identifiable. Thank you , the stranger said. You need these. Then Sir Billy had roused him for the ride over to Elsrickle.

It felt important, but it seemed to mean nothing.

His mother, restored to her working clothes, was in the stable-yard inspecting her horses, and looked round as he came down from the house.

‘Are you for the Pow Burn, dear? Here’s Patey just come in — Alys has your message.’

‘Is all well up there?’ he asked the man.

‘Oh, aye. Well, they’re all to sixes and sevens, but apart from that. And the auld wife away, and Davy Fleming playing merry-ma-tanzie about the yard, and — ’

‘Fleming?’ said Gil sharply.

‘Michael said he left the man abed,’ said Lady Egidia in surprise, ‘and dying, he thought.’

‘He was dying,’ said Gil.

‘Well, he was up at the Pow Burn the now,’ said Patey sulkily, ‘and making Simmie Wilson and me hunt all about the place for proofs of some sort, whatever he meant by that. No candles in the chapel, and Jamesie Meikle shouting, I went back to their kitchen, you can believe it. Only but Henry sent me home, and I’ve had no dinner yet.’

‘We left Michael and Mistress Weir at the road-end, how long since?’ said Gil to his mother. ‘She must be home by now. Alys will need help.’

‘Take the bay with the white blaze,’ said Lady Egidia, ‘he’s fresh and he’s fast.’

The coaltown was in greater disarray even than Patey had said. Gil could see this as soon as he came over the shoulder of the hill. There was no work going on, and many of the colliers were standing about in the yard in twos and threes, staring grimly up the hillside. The women had come down from the row of dwellings and were also waiting in silence near the topmost ingo, plaids drawn round them, the children in their midst. Nothing seemed to be happening, but as he neared the house, two men emerged from the black entry of the mine, supporting a third one; a woman screamed, and hurried forward, and another fell to her knees wailing.