Shona MacLEAN - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

‘I had expected you before now, Mr Seaton.’ There was a seriousness to the baillie’s voice; it was without its usual air of suspicion and accusation.

‘I have been … occupied,’ I said, looking at Charles while I spoke to the baillie. I do not know what kind of picture I presented to these two who seemed so much less surprised by my arrival than I was at what I found.

‘As you see, the music master is here now.’ The baillie indicated a bench by the small deal table against the side wall of the room. ‘Will you not also sit, Mr Seaton?’ I sat down and waited, still looking at Charles, who ventured a small smile and then looked down at his feet again. He was thinner; the circles beneath his hazel eyes larger and darker than when I had last seen him a week ago, and there were blemishes, the beginnings of sores, on his skin. Yet his hair was clean and brushed and hung unmatted on his shoulders. He had shaved and was in a clean white shirt and coarse but warm woollen overclothes that I did not recognise as his. They could not have been the baillie’s, for he was a more sparely built man than Charles. I guessed they belonged to the son of the house.

Gaunt though Charles was, he looked, in truth, in better health than the baillie, who appeared truly ill. His sallow skin, usually taut, seemed to hang from his bones. His eyes were dark shadowed sockets, and his body was hunched and racked with a wrenching cough. I recalled his virtual collapse from his horse last night and what Jaffray had said of his ceaseless activity since the discovery of Patrick Davidson’s body. I remembered, too, the provost’s assertion that he had been up half the night with the baillie in setting the business of the burgh in some sort of order. The man who had been carried to the doctor’s last night should have gone home to his bed and slept. It was plain that the baillie had done neither. Unlike Charles, he had evidently not yet washed or shaved – the first time I had seen him in such a condition – and the reek of smoke hung about him yet, as it had done the provost.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but was taken by a coughing fit. When he had recovered himself, he reached for a wooden beaker of water at his elbow and took a long draught. I did not like this. I did not like the voice that began to whisper to me that I should pity this man, this sick man, this gaoler, inquisitor, spy. ‘I am glad to see you returned to the burgh, Mr Seaton. I had wondered, afterwards, if we had been wise to send you away to Aberdeen at such a time.’

‘Did you fear I would abscond? Baillie, I have nowhere to go.’

‘The town of Aberdeen has dangers enough of its own, but with all that has passed in this burgh these last few days, there is cause to fear for all men.’ He leaned slightly towards me and was taken by another, briefer, coughing fit. ‘You met with no trouble in Aberdeen?’ I remembered Mary Dawson and her fear of being pursued by men sent from Banff, her terror that I was one of them. Perhaps I, too, had been watched in Aberdeen.

‘I met with no trouble there,’ I said.

‘And for the other business, your commission?’

‘To Straloch, you mean?’

He glanced briefly at Charles, but evidently adjudged that Charles would have little interest, and perhaps less opportunity, than any man in Banff of spreading rumours about foreign invasions and papist plots. ‘Aye, to Straloch. What other commission did you have?’ I decided to tell him nothing of my visit to George Jamesone on the provost’s behalf.

‘None.’

He was satisfied. ‘What said the laird to our business?’ He was watching me eagerly, as if there was a particular answer he was anxious I should give.

‘He said he knew of no such plot, no commission of cartography. He thought the work well executed. The provost has his letter.’ It was evident this answer did not please him, but I intended to spend no more time on the matter of the maps. My friend, under accusation of murder, sat before me, clean-shaven in the baillie’s own house in a suit of another man’s clothes. I cared little now for plots and maps. ‘How do you come to be here, Charles?’ I asked.

He looked at the baillie, who watched him steadily. ‘I was taken last night, about the hour of ten, from the tolbooth to this house under guard by Baillie Buchan and the notary, Thomas Stewart. I am told it was for fear of my life that I was brought here, fear that I would meet the same fate as Marion.’ His voice was flat, and fell on the last word.

I looked to the baillie, but he was talking directly to Charles. ‘Wicked and barbarous deeds were done in this town last night. Many of the guilty were brought to the tolbooth. They held her for a witch, and you had consorted with her. They held you answerable for the death of a strange visitor to our town. They wanted less, much less, to feed their frenzy. They would have torn your limbs from your body by morning.’

I had seen the mob last night. I did not dispute the baillie’s point. ‘And why here?’

The baillie stood up and was again taken by a fit of coughing. He steadied himself on the arm of his chair and then straightened himself to his usual dignity. ‘Because there is nowhere else, Mr Seaton. Every prison in Banff is full, full to the brim, and in each one of them there are those who would gladly have the music master for their next victim. Nowhere else was safe, and there remained no guards to be spared, so I have become the guard. My landlady’s son, who through the night watched over Charles Thom, must go about his lawful work today. I am but one man, and I must rest, and make my devotions. And so I prayed you would come and you have come. I ask of you one hour and a half, that I may cleanse myself of the stench of last night, and rest, and pray God for his guidance. One hour and a half I ask you to guard your friend well, Mr Seaton. Do I have your word that you will?’

I was astonished, and could think of no other response than to say yes. A very brief flicker of relief passed over the baillie’s face and he moved towards the small door to the left of the room, to the chamber I supposed he must sleep in, in those few hours when he consented to sleep. Before the door he stopped and turned. ‘Counsel your friend to pay heed to all that I have said to him, Mr Seaton. He can do nothing now for the dead, but for the living he must tell the truth; he must tell me what he knows.’ He took a well-worn Bible from the shelf by the door, and without further word he went to his chamber, leaving me with my prisoner.

So here we were, Charles and I, at William Buchan’s hearth. How often, how many nights, had we entertained ourselves with tales of the baillie, of his omnipresence and omniscience? How many times had we felt ourselves under the baillie’s disapproving eye on his nightly check of the inns and taverns of Banff that no apprentice or servant or infamous drunkard should be served with wine or ale? Yet here we were at his fireside while he washed, and prayed, and slept next door. It was Charles who broke the silence first, his eyes crinkling in the familiar smile. ‘We have surely come up in the world, Alexander, that we are guests in this house.’

I got up and took the seat opposite him, so lately vacated by the baillie. I leaned forward a little, my voice low. ‘Are we guests, do you think, Charles, or are we both prisoners? I think the baillie would be pleased to have me, also, where he can keep an eye on me.’

He laughed. ‘You might well be right. He was much agitated at your absence in Aberdeen. Not just myself, but Gilbert Grant also was plied for information about your plans there – what your business was, where you would lodge, who you were like to visit – I had all this from Jaffray.’

‘He told me he had been allowed in to see you.’