Shona MacLEAN - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

‘Are you both asleep up there? Is there no one in this house to do work but me? William, you have two letters to write before the post leaves for Edinburgh tonight, and I told Bella Watson you would be in her parlour ready to sup by six. William, are you there?’

My friend called to his wife that he would be down in a minute. ‘Alexander, I must go and see to these letters. But we must talk more this evening. Elizabeth has arranged for us, just you and I, to go out for our dinner. She worries that I am too much at my work or by her side, and that I see nothing of my friends. You do not mind going to Bella Watson’s?’

‘Not at all,’ I smiled. ‘She always kept a good table.’

Little over an hour later we were seated by a fine fire, supping Bella Watson’s ale, which William declared to be the best to be had in Aberdeen, and waiting for the girl to bring us our dinners from the kitchen. It would be a good meal, for Bella cooked as well as she brewed. I had little stomach for eating or drinking, though. We were fortunate that no one else had yet come into the small back parlour, and we had peace to talk, without prying eyes or sharp ears. Bella’s daughter brought in a platter of two perfect, full-grown crabs, fresh from the pot, where they had so recently died their scalding death. There was no dressing, no adornment, just the two conquered beasts of the seabed, ferocious-looking still in all their armour. William leaned over towards the one nearest him and broke off a large claw. ‘Have you thought more on what we were talking about this afternoon?’

I took a claw myself. ‘I have thought of nothing else.’

‘And can you think of any reason yet why they have not turned an accusing finger on you?’

‘I can think of nothing. And it is all the stranger because I have few friends in Banff and am not well trusted.’

‘And yet you walk free, unaccused. Is Charles misliked in the burgh? Does he have enemies?’

‘Who could be an enemy to Charles? You know him well, William; what is there to mislike in him? He is a loyal friend and would, I imagine, be a foe of little consequence, so little effort would he make. He shields his contempt for the session and the burgh fathers well. He offends no man, trespasses on no man’s rights, is not a greedy or harsh schoolmaster and calls little attention to himself. He does not seek out much company, is not always looking for friends – those that do him do him well enough. Of course, he is morose and difficult to draw out, and yet, when you can get beyond that, there is a warmth and humour in him that draws your heart to him. He has more friends than enemies, if he would but lift his head to look.’

William smiled sadly. ‘A hard thing to do from his present position.’

I remembered Charles as I had last seen him, chained in the tolbooth, and the plaintive Gaelic air he had sung as I’d left. ‘I saw him only on the first day of his imprisonment. It will be the worse for him now, and I do not know how his spirits can be lifted.’

William drew off another claw from the platter. ‘There can be but one way, I think. With yourself and Jaffray working in his favour, he need not be lost. But, Alexander, if Charles has no enemies, I think you must have friends, whether you know it or not.’

This, too, I had wondered about in the last hour. ‘I have no friend in the minister – Robert Guild is a small, self-seeking man, of poor wit and little godliness.’

‘A dangerous enemy.’

‘Enemy or friend, he is not a man to put trust in. And then the baillie – I think the baillie and all his retainers would gladly see me hounded from the town, if not hanging from the Gallow Hill. I sometimes fear he might be playing some game of cat and mouse with me.’

‘How so?’

‘He it was who invited me into the debate about the maps, for he knew I had knowledge of them. He openly admitted he knew of my letters from Archie. At the tolbooth too, when I went to visit Charles Thom, I felt the baillie had been waiting for me. I think he wants something of me. And he watches me.’

‘Were you seen, do you think, the night you passed Davidson, the night of his death?’

‘By none but the town whores, if even by them. Certainly not by the baillie or session clerk, if they were abroad at that hour, for they would have had me for it by now.’

‘And are there others you do not trust?’

I laughed. ‘William, how many hours have we got? There is not one man on the kirk session, save Gilbert Grant himself, who would not forget themselves and dance a devilish jig to see me fall further in the eyes of God and man. My mother’s alien ways and airs, my friendship with one so far above me as Archie Hay, and the enmity, at his death, of my own father have all seen to that, to say nothing of what I once had the pretension to aspire to.’

‘And for friends – I mean amongst those in power?’

‘I believe I have a friend in Thomas Stewart, our burgh advocate.’

William nodded, pleased. ‘Then you are fortunate – I know him well. He is a just man. But go on.’

‘I think it may be that Walter Watt, the provost, at least wishes me no ill. He has spoken up for me before the baillie and the minister, though he has few illusions about me, as he took pains to make clear. He it is who has entrusted me with this commission.’ I took the map from my pocket and passed it over the table to him. He wiped his hands on the cloth the girl had brought us, and opened the package. He carefully unfolded the paper and smoothed out the map. He studied it silently for a few moments and then looked up. ‘Whose work is this?’

‘It is the work of Patrick Davidson.’

His brow furrowed. ‘But you tell me he was an apothecary – indeed an apprentice.’

‘He was. But he also, it would appear, had an interest in the drawing of maps. This is but one of several – the rest are under lock and key in the tolbooth of Banff.’

William’s thoughts moved quickly to the point. ‘And the magistrates suspect espionage?’ I nodded, and he passed the map back to me, not liking the feel of it now. I folded it back into its package and returned it to my pocket. ‘What is your commission?’ asked William.

‘I am to take it to Robert Gordon of Straloch and ask for his assessment of it. It may well be that it is simply the fruit of an innocent pastime.’

‘Let us hope so. But Alexander, you have shown this to no one else in Aberdeen?’

I snorted. ‘If it were known that I had shown it even to you I would be rotting in irons in Banff by morning.’

‘Aye, but in truth, Alexander, when you were at Jamesone’s today, you told him nothing of this?’

I could not comprehend the direction of his anxiety. ‘Nothing. Nothing of any connection with it. But why Jamesone?’

He swallowed a draught of his wine and poured himself and me some more. ‘What do you know of George Jamesone?’

I shrugged. ‘About as much as I do of any painter – no, that is not right; I know a little more of him from today. I had been aware that he painted many of our foremost countrymen hereabouts. Many of the nobility and some of the more middling sort. I would not wager against him painting yourself and Elizabeth and your brood one day.’

‘May God grant that it might be.’ He waited then for me to say more.

‘I know also that he is married to Isabel Tosh, whom I am astonished to find grown up and out of the habit of hurling missiles at young men of good quality, and that she has borne him a son. He lives in a fine house and is an interesting companion and a student of the nature of men.’

William pushed the platter away from him and leant forward, his elbows on the table. ‘You know that he studied mainly in Edinburgh, but spent some time also at Antwerp?’