Shona MacLEAN - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

‘No, it was not.’ It was the baillie’s voice. ‘The notary could not be spared, and I feared you were getting too close, that the danger was too great. It was I who tracked your path to Darkwater. To the crone. She saw me, of course. But I knew she would not tell you. She has long been of my mind.’

The baillie and the witch? This was beyond my comprehension. But indeed she had seen him: the tonic she had given me that I had forgotten to give him, of Rosa Solis, Sun Dew, for his ravished lungs: how else could she have known? I looked at him. ‘You could not have survived the night,’ I said.

‘The Lord watched over me,’ he countered. ‘I have often had cause to be at Findlater on business. Once I had seen you safely taken in by the woman, I sought out shelter with the keeper of the castle. At first light, when the worst of the haar had lifted, I was granted the trustiest of horses from their stable, and it brought me safe back to Banff well before you. I could not have left the burgh while Charles Thom was still in the tolbooth, for fear that he might have been killed before I returned, and so I sent the notary here to shadow and watch you. But with the music master free and in the safe protection of the doctor, I was able to watch over you for myself.’ He was again taken by a convulsion of coughing, and this time he consented to take the seat pressed on him. He accepted a drink of water and, waving away a second, turned to the notary. ‘The doctor?’

‘He has been alerted. He should be here within the hour.’

‘Where are we?’ I still had no notion of where I was, but was certain I was not in Banff.

‘Inchdrewer. We are at Inchdrewer.’ The majestic keep of the Ogilvies, perhaps four miles from Banff, surveying the countryside all around. The mere knowledge of it had terrified me as a boy, and in my childhood imaginings it had been home to the ogres of my mother’s tales. The notary continued, ‘The baillie and I agreed that it was safer to have you here, out of the town altogether, until at least the sheriff gets here. The doctor was hard put to permit it, but the burgh was not safe. Jaffray would have been here with you, but there are still fears for the music master, and so he agreed to stay in the town.’

‘And Ishbel?’

‘The girl is safe, and unsullied,’ answered the baillie. ‘And George Burnett will never lay his hand on a maiden of this burgh again. The new council and the new provost will not tolerate such a man in the bounds of Banff.’

‘New council?’ The council elections were not to be held until Martinmas, as they were every year.

The baillie was strengthened by the challenge. ‘Half the present council are in the tolbooth or the laird of Banff’s dungeon. The provost is fled. As soon as the sheriff is returned, a new council and provost will be elected. A godly magistrate will have the governance of our town, and the days of Babylon will be over.’ But this was no crowing triumph of one man over an old enemy, of William Buchan over Walter Watt, for the baillie was looking over at Thomas Stewart. And the notary – soon, I realised, to be provost of Banff – simply looked at his feet and said, ‘God’s will be done.’

Into the silence came a rumble, then a thunder of hooves. Thomas Stewart ran to block the door and there was a shouting of guards through the castle. The baillie did not flinch at the commotion, but my mind, racing in a head that was pounding with every heartbeat, went straight to Walter Watt. Who was to say he had not gone for reinforcements? Who would take the word of a disgraced schoolmaster and an embittered baillie, known to have been set against him for years, against the upright, forthright, wealthy provost of Banff? The horses came closer, the shouting grew more urgent, and my mind coursed down avenues it had never before seen. Was Walter Watt Huntly’s man? The maps of Patrick Davidson – might not his uncle have been the agency that called him to Banff? What had truly been in the letters to Gordon of Straloch? To Jamesone? But no; George Jamesone called me back to what I knew to be true: that this was not a matter of spies and maps and papist plots. This was a matter of a husband, his wife, a young man and some flowers, and by the mouths of the whores of Banff who thought they had heard ‘James and the flowers’, Patrick Davidson had told me it was at the very beginning. My apprehension faded as I heard the voice of James Jaffray corralling off the castle walls. Thomas Stewart had gone down to meet him.

‘And he lives yet? He lives?’

The notary sought to calm the doctor. ‘He is well, doctor; he speaks and understands and has taken a little water. He lives.’

‘God be praised! I should never have permitted the journey.’

The baillie rose from his chair, dredging his chest for breath. ‘There was little choice, Jaffray. In the confusion of the night, we had to get him to a place of surety.’

The doctor passed the baillie with never a look and arrived at my bedside. The strain on the kind face subsided. ‘And so, Alexander Seaton. You have taken a bump on the head. Stealing apples from the manse garden at your age!’

Laughter hurt my head. ‘There are no apples to be got in April, doctor. Did they teach you nothing of use in your medical studies?’

‘Very little,’ he smiled, ‘very little.’ He gently lifted some of the hair back from my forehead. Some strands had stuck in the drying blood of the wound and I winced as he tugged them free. He uttered a soft curse at himself. ‘That should have been cut before I cleaned and stitched it. It is time this town had a new doctor; an old man in his cups working with a needle by candlelight! You could have lost your eye. What were you about, William Buchan? You should have had me thrown in the tolbooth long ago, and a decent sober young physician set in my place.’

The baillie laughed again through his wheezing. ‘There is none can fill your place, James Jaffray, none. May the God that sent you back to us preserve you long for us.’

‘Amen,’ I said.

The doctor’s eyes were filling and he looked away briskly from me. ‘Aye, well, you will live. And I dare say a clout on the head may knock some sense into you, for nothing else will.’

I winced. ‘I have had many a clout on the head before,’ I said, ‘but none has had such an aftermath as this. It is worse than the worst morning after a night’s drinking. And I know it is not that, for I drank very little last night.’

Jaffray surveyed me gravely. ‘You drank enough. A few mouthfuls more and you would have been dead.’

I laughed out loud, despite the pain it gave me. ‘Doctor, I had but two cups of wine, the one of them spilt on the ground for the most part. I have drunk more with you at the inn while waiting on our dinner.’

‘You should thank God for whoever knocked that second cup from your hand, Alexander, for the dregs of the poison were still in it when the notary picked it up from the ground.’

I looked at Thomas Stewart. ‘I was behind you; I saw nothing but the hand that passed you the cup and then I saw you drop it. I would have been straight after you, had it not been for the fight that broke out on the dance floor. Whoever thought Charles Thom incapable of murder did not see him last night: it took four of us to pull him from George Burnett’s throat. By the time the commotion was over you were gone from sight. The baillie bade me stay at the lykewake while he went to look for you. When I found the cup lying on the ground I gave it to the doctor. We had had fears that your life might have been in danger.’

‘And they were right,’ said the doctor. ‘The dregs of the belladonna were there in plenty.’

‘Belladonna?’ I asked stupidly.

‘Aye, belladonna. It is still to be seen in your eyes. Your pupils are like plates. He wanted to make sure you were robbed of the power of speech before it killed you. Have you a thirst, Alexander?’