Crucible (31 page)

‘How can you know, Alexander? How can you be so certain?’

I turned away from him and looked again down onto the courtyard. ‘Because the name of the man who murdered the librarian of this college and the weaver Bernard Cummins is Nicholas Black, and say what you will, I am determined to find him.’

The bell of Grayfriars’ Kirk began to toll, calling the principal down to the college gates where he would welcome the Bishop, our chancellor, and the Earl Marischal, son of our founder and benefactor. Goblets were reluctantly set down, gowns and shoes checked one last time for cleanliness, and we filed out after Dr Dun into the light of the July sun.

The kirk was packed, and the crowd hushed only as Bishop Patrick, aged now and infirm in body, was helped to his feet. The well-beloved tones rang through chancel and nave as they had done for so many years now, and I prayed fervently with the bishop for the young men ranged before us, about to make their inaugural disputation and, God willing, take their place in the world. When the bishop regained his seat, the principal rose to give due and accustomed thanks to our patron and benefactor, and to the massed ranks of the Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council
of Aberdeen arrayed before us. From my place facing them on the podium, my eyes wandered over the assembled audience, scanning, hopelessly, I knew, for the face of a man I had never seen.

Those for whom there were no seats stood, and at the very back, where the relatives of the poorest scholars jostled for space, I saw Patrick Urquhart. It gave me a jolt to see him there. In all the business of Matthew Jack, and the revelations about Richard Middleton, I had all but forgotten him, but of course he would be here, to see his brother undergo his final examination and, if found worthy, graduate. He was standing, his face like stone, as far apart from the crush as he could, almost in the shadow of the porch of the church. Not many years had passed since he had himself been laureated,
summa cum laude
, the foremost in his class, a glittering career overseas predicted for him. And now, here he stood, ready to watch his brother, so much less deserving than he, take his place amongst the ranks of the learned and walk on into a world that should have been his. He did not seem to notice me, but something further back in the far recesses of the nave took his attention. A brief, uncertain smile flickered across his face. I lifted my hand to shield my eyes from the sunlight that at that moment streamed through the window above me, blanking out the features of the people before me, and then I saw that, walking slowly and leaning on the arm of Andrew Carmichael, John Innes had entered the kirk.

So taken up was I with my search among the faces of
the crowd that the conventional ceremonies and speeches preceding the inaugural disputations were lost to me. I straightened myself in my seat and forced myself to listen. The scholars were obliged to publicly thank their benefactors on this unique occasion, and they did so with fulsome praise in panegyrics of some exaggeration. Jaffray’s eyes shone as Paul Ogston, a poor candlemaker’s son from my home burgh, thanked the good doctor for all he had done for him over so many years. As the poorest and youngest of the twelve boys called to the podium by their regent, it fell to him to read the memorial to two companions of their class whom God had not spared to see this joyful day. One had succumbed to the damp and cold that clung like ivy to our college walls and the other had been drowned at the Links when a boast and an unexpected wave had carried him too far. Candles, snuffed out before the world could see their light.

Later, whether the scholars had acquitted themselves honourably, displaying the requisite learning, intellect and eloquence in defending and opposing the theses of their
praeses
, I could not have told, for my attention drifted time and again over faces in the crowd. Several could have accorded with the description of Nicholas Black that Matthew Jack had given me from the one time he had seen him, in the factor’s office in Rotterdam, but none looked to be the face of a man who had done murder within these very precincts.

The theses on Logic passed me by and the propositions
on Ethics made little impression on me either until, ranging my eyes for the fifth or sixth time across the back of the church, I noticed that someone was standing alongside John Innes and Andrew Carmichael, someone who had not been there before – Richard Middleton. I could scarcely believe he had dared to come to so public a place while the threat of exposure by Matthew Jack hung over him. The principal, too, I noted, had seen him, and was struggling not to betray his unease. But Richard Middleton did not have the look of a man trying to hide himself from the sight of others. His eyes were fixed on the boy on the stage, and his every sense seemed to be locked on what he was saying. I scrambled in my head to listen, to dredge from my mind some recollection of what had already been said. The boy spoke of friendship and the longings of love and, earnestly, of the necessity of bridling our desires. It was written on Richard Middleton’s face that those words were lost to him, for they had come too late.

Patrick Urquhart looked at his most alert and animated, naturally enough, when his brother was opposing the
praeses
’ mathematical propositions. Malcolm clearly had his brother’s gifts and his display of skill was not lost on the audience. Many watched and listened to him with increasing approval, none more so than Sir Thomas Burnett of Leys, whose pride in the erstwhile errant youth was written on his face.

The ceremony of graduation, bound by formality, proceeded without mishap, and the newly capped masters
walked proudly out of Grayfriars’ Kirk and into the sunshine of the street, the acclamation of friends, family, teachers and ministers in their ears.

My ceremonial duties done with for the day, I sought out my own friends in the crowd that had spilled from the kirk into the Broadgate. Jaffray was not difficult to find. I joined him in applauding the group of newly capped masters whom I had come to know well over the last four years. ‘It does my heart good to see this every year, Alexander. It does the town good.’

I looked over at the labourers, servants, craftsmen and merchants who had paused in their work to acclaim the graduands. ‘It is something that never ceases to astonish me,’ I said, ‘that they show no bitterness towards those upon whom Fate has looked more kindly than themselves. These boys have access now to a life of privilege and status, while many of those who applaud them are consigned to endless drudgery and toil.’

‘Does it truly, Alexander? Does it not show you that the human heart is capable of a generosity of spirit that our unbecoming form often serves to mask? You see the washerwoman over there for instance?’ He indicated a woman who might have been anything between thirty and fifty years of age, with red-chapped hands and a huge bundle of linen on her back, who had stopped a moment with her son to watch the parade.

‘What of her?’ I said.

‘Did you not see how brightly she smiled as our proud
peacocks swung past? In them she sees what her child might be, if God has gifted him a mind and a spirit for study, and put charity into the hearts of those who see it. Look there at Paul Ogston, son of a Banff chandler, and he walks alongside the heir of Pitsligo – equal today, by virtue of their learning. What happened today will see Paul accepted at the table and in the company of any laird in the land. You yourself would have led quite another life had not the master’s cap been placed upon your head, not so many years ago.’

I held up a hand in defeat. ‘How is it that you are so often right, old friend?’

‘I have had long experience in the study of my fellow man. And that experience tells me that four hours in the Grayfriars’ Kirk are as many as a decent man may stomach without food and drink. Thank the good lord for the
convivium
– to mark young Paul’s triumph we shall feast like gods.’

And indeed, when we entered Bella Watson’s yard a quarter of an hour later, it had been transformed from being the typical dreary backland of a burgh tavern into the nearest the good widow could approximate to an Elysian grove. Garlands of ivy and honeysuckle hung from the walls, a roast of lamb turned in a corner nearest to the kitchen, and in another a well-known burgh fiddler was readying his bow. Casks of Bella’s best ale stood ready by the back door and flasks of wine alternated with jars of roses, marigolds and daisies to fill the centre of the table that ran the length of the yard.

‘You have outdone yourself this year,’ I said to Jaffray as we surveyed the scene before us.

‘Ach, it is little enough, and the boy deserves it.’

I wondered if Sir Thomas Burnett of Leys would have provided a similar
convivium
for Malcolm Urquhart, or if he would have judged that a little humility would do the boy no harm.

Alongside Paul Ogston’s parents, and those of his friend and fellow poor scholar, Jaffray had, in his usual expansive way, invited a wide range of his acquaintances from the two burghs of Aberdeen. As well as myself, Dr Dun had, of course, also been invited to attend, and would do so, when protocol allowed, for he must sup first with the foremost families. From the King’s College in the Old Town Andrew Carmichael was there, along with John Innes, still weak in body, but with something of the old serenity of spirit about him. Despite his boldness at appearing in the kirk, Richard Middleton, at his wife’s behest I did not wonder, had judged it better not to come to the celebration. It was only for Jaffray’s sake, and the boy’s, that I myself had been persuaded to leave my wife in the care of Elizabeth Cargill an hour or so longer, for although I knew Matthew Jack was secure in the tolbooth, I could not feel for certain that Sarah was safe unless I was watching over her myself.

William greeted me across the table. ‘I am relieved to see you here, Alexander. You will only annoy Sarah, you know, if you are hovering over her every minute. She would not
wish you to be miserable – you looked so distracted throughout the disputation and graduation that I half-expected you to have wandered off somewhere else at the end of them.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You are still looking for him, aren’t you?’

William knew me too well.

‘I cannot shake from my mind the certainty that he is still amongst us, that there may still be some danger … and for Robert’s sake.’

‘For Robert’s sake I think it as well that this matter is laid to rest with him. Would it not be better that it should die on the gallows with Matthew Jack?’

I could scarcely believe what he was saying to me. ‘You, of all people, should advocate that?’

‘You have matters to attend to at home, Alexander. And if you persist in this investigation you may find yourself with fewer friends than you began with. Many good men have things they would wish to be kept private.’ He left me and went to join John Innes and Andrew Carmichael who were seating themselves at a bench at the other end of the table.

Jaffray, who had not overheard our conversation, turned to me after William passed him. ‘What is the matter with our young lawyer friend?’

‘I do not know,’ I said quietly. ‘I think perhaps he is hungry.’

‘And indeed, he has my sympathy. Come,’ he called to the company in general, ‘let us set to this board before good Mistress Watson takes offence.’

The landlady laughed and began to shear slices of lamb off the roasting carcass to be set on platters on the table. I said the grace, and after the chorus of murmured ‘amens’ dishes of bread, beans and vegetables began to be passed from hand to hand and slabs of the roasted meat, its juices collected in a pan with Bella’s own famed concoction of herbs, were speared on to plates. After the initial general pangs of hunger had been satisfied, the doctor banged a knife against his pewter goblet.

And then Jaffray stood up and spoke, as I had heard him do so many times before, in other years, for other boys, of his pride in the new graduate’s achievements, the worthiness of the boy’s family, the wonders of the grammar school of Banff, of his affection for the young man before him and of his great hopes for his future. He finished, as ever, with the admonition, ‘and never forget your friends.’

When the doctor had finished, John Ogston, candlemaker of Banff, stood to give as eloquent a speech of thanks to James Jaffray as I had ever heard a man of little learning give. When it was over, Jaffray, who had been looking at his plate throughout, smiled and said a quiet ‘Thank you, John,’ before asking if the fiddler had fallen asleep that we were so forced to entertain ourselves.

‘He is right, you know,’ I said.

‘Who is right?’

‘John Ogston. Were it not for you, his son, however bright and gifted he might be, would be spending his days amongst the stench and grease of a tallow shed in Banff.’

‘I know it,’ Jaffray conceded eventually, ‘and it is wrong, it is very wrong. Poverty has bound so many young men of great gifts hand and foot, and the commonwealth is the poorer because of it.’

Andrew Carmichael overheard our conversation. ‘I saw an emblem once, painted on the ceiling of Sir George Bruce’s house at Culross. It showed a man with one hand that was winged and reaching for the heavens, while the other was bound to a stone. The stone that bound him to the ground was poverty. It was written underneath that poverty hindered the advancement of the most able minds.’ His voice dropped. ‘It affected me greatly.’

I looked around the table; few amongst my companions, regardless of their gifts, would have attained to their present position in life had it not been for the goodness of others. I would myself never have progressed from the grammar school of Banff, or indeed my father’s smiddy, to the King’s College had it not been for the munificence of the laird of Delgatie; William Cargill and John Innes had both won bursaries to see them through studies they could otherwise never have aspired to. I thought of Richard Middleton, who owed his education to the foresight and determination of a kirk minister in Lanarkshire. In fact, only Andrew Carmichael had had the cushion of family wealth to give comfort to his years of study. His father might have been a stonemason, as he had told me, but I knew from examples all around me that gifted craftsmen could become wealthy men.