Pat McIntosh - The Rough Collier

‘Tib’s at the convent in Haddington, Michael,’ Alys said. Ale splashed down the front of the blue gown. ‘As a guest of Sister Dorothea,’ she added hastily.

‘But you could make yourself very useful here,’ said Gil, ‘if you can spare the time.’

Michael swallowed, handed the beaker back to the maidservant, and patted drops from his chest and shoulders.

‘I don’t know that I can,’ he said ungraciously, wiping his chin. ‘I’ve only a few days’ leave, and I need to see to this matter of the old man’s. What’s to do, anyway? Is that no half the men from Thorn hiding by the cart-shed?’

‘It’s good of you to call by, godson,’ said Lady Egidia, with faint malice, ‘to brighten an old woman’s day.’

‘What old woman would that be, Mother?’ asked Gil politely, pouring wine in the little glasses set in a sparkling row on the plate-cupboard.

Her mouth twitched, but she went on: ‘And what brings you out here away from your studies? I hope you’ve permission to be out of the college.’

‘Oh, aye.’ Michael felt at the breast of his gown. ‘I’d a letter from my father, that when I showed it to the Principal he agreed I must have leave. I’ve no notion what’s worrying him, but he writes that he canny leave the court, and Jock Douglas is away at Edinburgh, and my brothers both about other business, and he’s concerned about that fool Fleming and something up at the coal-heugh.’

‘The coal-heugh again,’ said Alys, accepting wine in her turn from Gil. ‘Is that the same one where a man called Thomas Murray dwells, Michael?’

‘Aye, it is,’ he said, startled, ‘and it’s the man Murray my father wants me to speak to. It seems the winter fee’s long overdue, and he’s had a daft word from David Fleming all about witches or some such, and I’ve to sort it out.’

‘Witches,’ repeated Alys. ‘His mind seems to run on witches.’

‘Of course, the Pow Burn crosses your ground,’ said Gil, sitting down beside Alys, across the hall hearth from his mother. ‘The coal-heugh is your father’s then?’

‘Well, it’s on our land, we have the mineral rights. He gets a good fee for it.’

‘What is this about?’ demanded his mother. ‘I’d a long tale from Alan and from Nan the now about you cutting up this corp in our cart-shed, Gil — ’

‘I did no such thing!’ said Gil indignantly.

‘We simply examined the body, madame,’ Alys assured Lady Egidia, ‘to see if we could tell how he died, and how long ago it was. We cut nothing open. It would be interesting to do that,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘I wish Holy Kirk was not so set against it.’

‘What corp is this?’ asked Michael, looking at her in alarm.

‘I can say who it isn’t,’ said Gil firmly, ‘and that’s the man Murray. He seems to be missing, Michael, but it’s clear enough that’s not him in the cart-shed.’

He summarized the events at the peat-digging, while his mother and Michael listened critically, and Alys nodded agreement.

‘This is a bad business,’ said Lady Egidia when he had finished.

‘Do you know them, Mother?’ he asked.

‘I’ve had no dealings wi’ the Crombie women, save for Beattie,’ admitted Lady Egidia. ‘We get coals fetched every quarter, and I sell them ponies from time to time, but I’ve aye dealt wi’ the men for that. Beattie sells me simples for the horses when I run out. Formidable she is, but she has a reputation for a good woman, and a good healer.’

‘What, charms and spells and love-potions?’ Gil asked. ‘Half the lassies in the parish trailing up across the moor?’

‘No, dear,’ said his mother firmly. ‘I said she’s a healer. She doesn’t use charms, except the kind you say over the mortar to make the ointment more effective.’ Alys nodded at this. ‘She can heal wounds, she has a receipt for a bottle that mends broken bones once they’re set, I believe she has a wash for falling hair that sells well. No spells that I ever heard of.’

‘Dangerous, just the same,’ said Gil.

‘So it seems. Gil, you must do something about it. If that fool Fleming has taken it into his head Beattie’s a witch, there’s no knowing where it will end.’

‘This must be what’s reached my father,’ said Michael. He extracted a small wad of paper from the breast of his gown, and opened it up, fold after fold, into a single sheet. ‘He writes that he was already concerned about the winter’s fee, so he’d directed Fleming to see about it, and the man’s writ him a letter he canny understand. Why he tolerates him I canny tell, what wi’ his other habits.’ He peered at the page. ‘Mind you, I canny — ’ He stopped short, and handed the letter to Lady Egidia. ‘Can you do better than me, madam?’

‘How must an accusation of witchcraft proceed in Scotland?’ Alys asked.

‘The same as anywhere else,’ Gil answered, watching his mother’s face as she held the letter at arm’s length. ‘First, if Fleming can show that Mistress Lithgo set that body into the peat, whoever it is, or did some other ill deed by witchcraft, second if he can show that she intended to do harm by it, or third …’ He paused, trawling his memory.

‘He has to show she’s made an alliance with the Devil,’ supplied Michael, more recently taught by the same master, ‘or some other ill spirit.’ He grimaced. ‘Tommy Forsyth makes all clear, doesn’t he?’

‘Very,’ agreed Gil. ‘Any of these is enough for the charge to proceed, and whatever court it comes to must investigate. Likely the Sheriff will try it first.’

‘But can he do any of that?’ Alys said dubiously. ‘The priest, I mean.’

‘It’s easy enough,’ said Gil wryly. ‘He was hinting about evidence, and once one accusation’s made, others will surface. All it needs is one of the colliers’ wives with a grudge at the family, and the wise-woman will find herself with her skirts over her head being pricked for a witch-mark. Then it all goes before the Sheriff, with an assize, and if it’s found proven, she’ll be hanged.’

‘Hanged. I thought Sir David seemed very …’ Alys paused, reflecting on the word she wanted. ‘Vindictive. There may be some reason for his accusation. Beyond the belief that she might be a witch, I mean.’

‘James doesny make it clear,’ said Lady Egidia disapprovingly. ‘ Fleming has writ me a rigmarole of witches at the Pow Burn. Go you and prevent him. Prevent him from what?’

Michael shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dear knows. Making a fool of hisself? Making a nuisance of hisself?’

‘Too late to prevent either, I should say,’ said Gil. ‘But I agree, something must be done to prevent a miscarriage of justice.’

‘If Murray’s missing,’ said Michael slowly, ‘it would account for the fee being late, and it might account for the daft message about witches. Seems to me,’ he looked at Gil, ‘the first thing to be done is find Thomas Murray.’

‘The very first thing, surely,’ Alys corrected him, ‘is go out to the Pow Burn to talk to the people there.’

‘You’ll have never seen a coal-heugh before,’ said Phemie Crombie.

‘I have not,’ said Alys. ‘It is not at all the same as a stone-quarry.’

‘Nor I,’ Gil admitted. ‘I’ve ridden past, but I’ve never looked closely.’

‘A new experience, then,’ said Phemie, and waved a disparaging hand at the view through the small, writhing panes of glass. The coalmasters’ house, a handsome structure of hall and two wings, was set back at a fastidious distance from the muddle of smaller buildings which sprawled away down the slope to the burn, embedded in dark grey mud and busy as a wasps’ nest. ‘That’s the nether coal-hill in the midst, you see. There’s three separate ingoes — ’