Fate and Fortune (8 page)

‘Since Hew does not care to play cards, and the night is clear, we shall take a turn around the gardens.’ He placed a hand upon Hew’s shoulder, with a firmness that allowed no room for compromise, and directed him briskly to the door, where he removed the lantern from its hook.

‘Now, sir,’ he commanded, holding it aloft to light their passage through the garden, ‘Tell your tale.’

Hew explained about the fisher lass. John Lundie stared into the blackened trees, and in the glimmer of the lamplight Hew saw him frown.

‘Does this crime spell danger to my family?’ he inquired at last.

‘No, sir, I am sure of it,’ Hew assured him. ‘Though she came from Largo, the dead girl was a fisher lass, and her killer doubtless known to her. There can be no threat to your daughter or your wife.’

‘That is as I thought,’ Lundie answered bluntly. ‘Then I wonder why you thought it fitting to alarm them.’

‘To speak truth, sir, I did not think, and I am sorry for it,’ Hew excused himself. ‘These sad events affected me, so that perhaps I lost my sense of decorum.’

‘You lost your sense,’ John Lundie qualified. ‘In these lawless times, our womenfolk are fearful. It is our place to reassure them, not to cause alarm. This rape is no business of ours, and, for certain, no
business
of yours.’

‘I hoped, sir, you might think it
was
your business, sufficient to inform the coroner,’ insisted Hew. ‘Tell him he must question the fishermen, and, in particular, a lad called Davey.’

‘Do you not
listen
? This is no affair of ours. If harm has come to Jessie Reekie, as you say, her father will amend it. There’s no need for us to be involved.’

‘But surely, sir, we have a duty to the Crown, to inform the coroner and uphold the law,’ protested Hew.

‘You begin to vex me,’ Lundie frowned. ‘I would not hear this from my son, and I will not accept it from you. But, since you have lost your father, and are a guest in this house, I shall excuse it this once. You were always a hot-headed boy, I do believe, a headstrong boy; your father did indulge you somewhat. Nonetheless, you will permit that in the absence of your father I dispense some fatherly advice.’

Hew felt cornered and enclosed. He stared into the garden, set out like a counterpane. They were walking through the physic beds, planted in neat, knotted squares, where the pansy and primrose in close little buds bowed their shy heads to the light of the moon. The clumps of bay and parsley, sorrel and sweet sage, were measured and constrained. These tight-nipped borders bore stark contrast to the mossy walls and wild untrammelled herbs at Kenly Green. Meg allowed her flowers to grow to glossy fullness, nature nurtured softly by her secret
cultivation
, a wilful, wild cacophony of colour, shape and scent. Though Hew had not responded, John Lundie took his silence for contrition.

‘Well and good,’ he nodded. ‘You should know that I have presently … but
presently
, mind, been witness at the assize, and a most tedious and irksome business it was. And yet I did this willingly, as my duty to the Crown, that I refused to shirk.’

‘But surely,’ Hew countered stubbornly, ‘you were sent a summons, and you had no choice.’

John Lundie fixed him with a glare. ‘If you believe that, then you really are green, and not at all ripe for the law. You think there is no choice? Most of those called paid bribes to the court clerk to scratch out their names, or sent others masquerading in their place. Thirteen were unlettered, three or four were deaf, one was a natural idiot, and several more excused themselves, by claiming to have died. But I, sir, did turn out, to serve the Crown, and a more flagrant piece of foolishness I have never heard. So do not speak of duty, nor of my responsibilities. If I have a duty to these folk, it is to let them go about their business as they will; as long as they do not impede my family or my property. We do not want these scandals on our doorstep and, for sure, we do not need them brought to us by strangers. This is not what Matthew meant, when he wanted you to follow in the law. If you persist in this, you will bring shame on us, and shame on your dead father.’

This cut deep, and Hew exclaimed, ‘How can it be shameful to seek justice for a poor dead girl?’

‘Look, boy …’ John looked at him helplessly, truly perplexed, and went on a little more kindly. ‘You have been at school too long, and you have lost the proper sense of things. And since you have no father, then I will explain it to you. Each of us must have his place, and if we step outside that place, a line is crossed. And if we cross that line … well, we
cannot
cross that line. It is not done. Look at my house here. It is a fine one, is it not? And the gardens are quite grand? And our lands’ – he held out the lantern – ‘as far as the burn, and eastwards …’ he frowned, for a moment distracted. ‘When you came up past the burn did you see it flooded?’

‘Aye, it was,’ Hew confirmed, ‘but I do not see …’

‘That is the dam for the mill, and a thorn in our side, we are
damned
by that mill that saturates our lands … Nonetheless, now, let that rest. Do you understand what it is that I am saying?’

‘Not at all,’ scowled Hew.

John Lundie gave a sigh. ‘This is where we stand, and our
place
in things,’ he iterated patiently. ‘Our place is to keep these lands, and the farmers in the fields and the miller in his mill that is their place, and if they do not cross us then we do not interfere with them. And the fisherfolk that fish the seas, that also is their place, and what they do besides is no concern of ours.’

‘That is a closed and narrow view,’ Hew answered hotly. ‘Surely, it must be your place to help to keep the peace.’

‘That is what I am trying to explain to you. To keep the peace, for sure, then let us
keep
the peace. But you would cause a hue and cry, and so disturb the peace. Tell me then, who’s hurt by this?’

‘A young girl, that lies dead on a beach, and her mother, that has none to speak for her.’

Lundie snorted. ‘Ah, brave fool! Then answer
this
. When you told the mother, that her girl had died, did she seek your help, or bid you speak for her? Did she say, “Good sir, prithee, find my daughter’s killer out?”’ he mimicked, mocking Hew.

Hew hesitated, ‘Well, in truth …’

‘In
truth
, then, she did not. So leave it well alone. Make no mistake, you are not the king’s officer, to seek out and answer for crimes. Your place, surely, is to be your father’s son, and to live upon his lands and produce an heir, or else your place must be to be an advocate and
practise
at the bar, as your father wished, and if you will do neither, then I do protest, that I am at a loss as to
what
your purpose is. Enough now. Let’s to bed. And since you are your father’s son, and are most welcome here, we’ll speak no more of this.’

The household was prepared for bed, and Hew was shown to a small chamber in the loft, at the top of a spiral of stairs. The room was furnished very like his own, with light oak kist and mantelpiece, pewter jug and candlesticks, and a posy of sweet pansies, with their cheerful painted faces, scattered to bring freshness to the sheets. The bed was feathered, soft and warm. Yet Hew could not sleep. He allowed the candle to burn almost to the quick, before he threw aside the sheets and padded to the window, looking out towards the wood and far down to the bay. He heard a fretful cry, the yipping of a fox cub calling for its mother, fleeting through the trees. He saw the moonlight cast its shadow on the distant harbour, where the fisher lass had spent her days, and felt remote and lost, as though he had no purpose and no place. His cream embroidered doublet, laid across the kist, looked yellow, soiled and tawdry in the stump of candlelight, its artifice and glitter worthless in the gloom.

Hew took his leave early the next morning, yanking at Dun Scottis with unnecessary force. The horse, as always sensitive to mood, did not take quite so lightly to the track, and they both appeared sullen and fretful before the sun began to lift. At Leven’s mouth, they left the coastal path, following the river inland to Cameron Brig, where having made their crossing they turned back towards the estuary. And presently they came upon Muir Edge, a settlement that seemed to edge the world itself, by the smoking wasteland that was Dysart Muir. Dun Scottis pricked his ears and shied away. Hew nudged him, little by little, cautiously around the outer reaches of the moor. Beneath, the Dysart coal beds scorched and kindled, sparking fires that hissed from cracks and chasms in the rock and wrenched the sky at night with sudden bursts of flame. In daylight now, the moor was choked with heavy cloud that stifled and made mute the birds. Clumps of
blistered
heather smouldered in the scrub. Even at its edge, Dun Scottis kicked his heels against the fierce heat of the earth, tossed his head and snorted, his own breath hot and furious. Beneath its tar-clogged cloud of blackness, Dysart Muir lay hidden from the sun, and from the bright sea breeze, and circling of the gulls, and from the shrieking winds and winter frosts; no snow had ever fallen there. Dun Scottis knew, quite clearly, here was hell.

Hew, who understood the meaning of the place, was equally unnerved, and as they approached Dysart itself, and the cleaner pungency of sea and salt pans, he was scarcely reassured. For at the entrance to the coal pit by the shore, a little group of devils had appeared, streaming forth and scattering like flies. They were small as children, those devils; or perhaps they were children, lads and lasses burned to black, their faces blank with weariness, imps of Satan spilling from the lapping flames of hell. They were all but naked in the heat, the strips of rags around their waists grimy as the writhing bodies
wriggling
from the seam. They trundled with them truckle carts of coal, and baskets filled with fish heads, casting green and ghostly light.

From Dysart, they came next to Ravenscraig, named for the corbies gathered on the rocks, and looked across the water from the castle cliff, where they saw Edinburgh smoking high upon its rock, the backbone of the capital squat between its hills. The skies were beginning to dim, and Dun Scottis, unnerved by the coalfields and the blackening clouds, became fickle and fey at the first gust of wind. At Kinghorn and Pettycur harbours, the ferry boats lurched into blackness, and Hew decided to continue overland, upon the coastal path. Duns Scottis was flaring his nostrils, afraid of the wind and the water, and his master had no stomach for the fierceness of the estuary. They rode on as far as Burntisland, where they declined the crossing once again, and Hew spent a restless night at the ferry inn, in damp and soiled bedding, miserable and cold.

On the third day, which was Saturday, they came at last to Inverkeithing, and from there to North Ferrie, where Hew hoped to make their crossing in the narrow part. There was no jetty as such, but in one or two places rough wooden planks were set into the mud, as precipitous launching pads into the water. All were deserted but one, where a solitary boatman lowered sacks of grain into a coble moored below.

‘How long till the next ferry boat sails?’ inquired Hew.

At first, the boatman seemed not to have heard. But presently he looked up from his work and scratched his head, considering Hew’s question as a rare and deep imponderable. Finally he found his answer. ‘Other morn, I doubt.’

‘The day after tomorrow?’ Hew interpreted, incredulously. He looked across the water, where the tail end of the ferry drifted, barely half a mile out from the shore. ‘Surely, it will sail again today.’

‘Aye, mebbe,’ said the boatman, in tones thick with misgiving and doubt, ‘But the schippar had a mind to keep her at the south side, for calfatting, for she was letting in a deal of wattir, he did say.’

‘She’s taking in water?’ Hew glanced again at the departing ferry, with a feeling of alarm.

The boatman bared a toothless grin. ‘She aye taks on some wattir, no enough to sink her. But the morn’s morn being the Sabbath, schippar thought it would be well enough to hae her caulked the day. He didna think her fit to mak another trip.’

‘Is there no other ferry boat?’ Hew asked, perplexed.

‘Oh aye, there’s another, richt enough, doon wattir here,’ the man said reassuringly.

‘Then surely, that will sail?’

‘But the crew, you ken, are on the other side.’ The boatman gazed across the estuary and screwed up his eyes to follow the trail of the boat. ‘Or will be soon enough, if she can hold.’

‘But this is madness! Why did the crew not take the other boat, and leave that one here to be caulked?’ exclaimed Hew.

The boatman stared at him, as though affronted by the question. Finally he answered. ‘In truth sir, tis the best boat they have taken. The other has a wee bit damage to the hull. A
hole
, ye might best call it.’

‘Dear God,’ Hew muttered to himself. He was not the best of sailors, at the best of times.

‘The ferry inn is clean,’ the man said helpfully. ‘Though, if you are in a hurry I could take you across myself.’

Hew looked with renewed hope at the man’s boat. Though small, it looked at least seaworthy, a flat-bottomed coble unlikely to capsize.

‘If you don’t mind to stop off at Inchgarvie on the way,’ the boatman qualified. ‘These sacks of flour are for the garrison there. It will not take a moment to offload them. You need not land. In truth,’ the boatman smiled his toothless smile again, ‘I think you would not wish to land. But, sir, I will take you and your horse across to the south side for twelve shillings.’

‘Twelve shillings?’ Hew shook his head. ‘That is extortion. I will pay you five.’ It was far more than the ferry fare.

The boatman shrugged and began to untie his craft. ‘That is the price,’ he said simply. ‘You are a rich man, and I am a poor one. You would have the whole boat to yourself. You bid me go out of my way, the wind is wild today, and I can feel the coming of a storm. I will not cross for less.’

‘Aye, very well,’ Hew sighed. It was petty, after all, to quibble over cost; no doubt the poor wretch had little enough. And it would cost him two nights’ lodging at the inn, for himself and Dun Scottis, and the unremitting dullness of an Inverkeithing Sabbath, if he chose to stay and wait upon the ferry. The horse was still fresh, and could easily complete the ten or so miles from the south side to the capital before the close of day. Twelve shillings would purchase two days’ grace, and an entertaining sermon in the great kirk of St Giles. Besides, he took the boatman’s point about the weather; the disappearing ferry boat began to dip and lurch amid the rising waves.

‘Very well, twelve shillings,’ he agreed.

‘Up front.’ The man looked on cannily as Hew took out his purse. ‘Have you a merk, sir? If you had I merk, then I might spare your change.’

‘I have twelve shillings,’ Hew answered firmly, counting them out. ‘How do I board my horse?’

The boatman pursed his lips. ‘Is he skeich?’

‘Not in general.’ Hew eyed Dun Scottis uneasily. ‘In general, he is stubborn, dull, and constant. I only knew him once to rear, and that was when a friend of mine put spurs to him. He did not take it kindly.’

The boatman chuckled. ‘Well, no spurs. With horses, it is the loading and the landing of them gives the trouble; that is not so much trouble, for if they are skeich, and jump into the water, the waters there are shallow, and they will not upset the boat. In truth, on the south side it were better to urge him out of the coble and into the shallows, that he may swim in while we find our landing place. In general, once the animal is on the boat, he will be calm. I only once did see a horse was feart of crossing wattir, that a witch had put a spell on him.’

Fervently, Hew prayed Dun Scottis would not prove such a horse.

‘Well, sir, ye maun dismount him, and tak off his saddle and bags, and place them at this end with the sacks of grain, then lead him down the plank where he must jump a little; that’s the tricky part, then hold him steady at the head and talk to him, aye, soothe him, he will know your voice. For safeness, pray take off your sword, and lay it flat upon the bottom of the boat. Have no fear of pirates, sir; these waters are well guarded by the garrison.’

Dun Scottis made the leap into the boat with little more than a stumble, and soon stood steady at its broadest point, where Hew stood beside him, holding his reins. The boatman faced them at the narrow end – ‘I will sit, sir, and row, the better to balance,’ – and pushed off from the shore.

Facing back towards North Ferrie, Hew did not see the direction of travel, and as they pulled out of the shallows and the boat began to sway he felt a little queasy. The man remarked impassively. ‘Aye, tis turning rough.’

The wind brought with it sheets of rain, and in its shower they soon were soaked, the dull sky ever darkening. Dun Scottis smelled damp, like autumn moulds. Restlessly, he snorted and shuffled his feet. It was cold on the water, made colder by the penetrating wind and
dampness
of the drizzle and the spray.

‘Not far to Inchgarvie, sir,’ the boatman said reassuringly. ‘A dreich enough place, even when the sun shines.’

Hew turned his head, searching for the narrow strip of land, and found the ghostly outline of its fortress, barely visible behind the driving rain. Far across the other side, flickering and pale, he saw the beacons lit to help the boatmen make their passage. Not for the first time, he wondered what mysterious watchman kept them from the rocks.

‘The poor wretches there will be glad of the rain,’ remarked the boatman.

‘Why?’ wondered Hew.

‘No fresh water, sir. There are barrels shipped in for the soldiers, and they have their brewery there, but for the prisoners on the island there is nothing fit to drink, save what gathers in the rain vats or the rock pools. Tis not a place a man would want to be stranded.’

‘It must be bleak indeed, to be so close to the land, and yet so far from it.’

‘Aye. We will drop off the grain at the landing place. The soldiers will wade out to meet the boat. For that, I do thank God. I do not care to land. They say there is a most prodigious kind of rat that’s native to the island, that chews its way through iron, and gnaws the prisoners’ faces as they sleep; and all have lost their noses,’ the man said seriously.

Hew laughed at this. ‘An old wives’ tale, I doubt.’

‘Perhaps. Though old wives tales are apt to have a grain of truth in them,’ the boatman replied, with unexpected shrewdness. ‘There is upon the island too an ancient leper house, where they put the sick in times of plague. Tis likely the tale comes from that.’

‘Aye, likely,’ Hew agreed. He shivered. ‘Is there far to go? I do not like the colour of the sky.’

‘No more do I. It is not far, sir, to Inchgarvie. Here is the landing place. And here’s the constable himself.’

The soldiers waded through the water to the little boat, and took the grain ashore, balancing the sacks upon their shoulders, to the keeper of the castle who kept watch upon the tower, the scarlet of his coat a poppy head against the drizzle darkness of the sky. Hew could not conceive of a more bleak and dreary place. His business concluded, the boatman struck out again and turned the boat eastwards clear of the rocks.

In the darkness and the rain, Hew had lost his bearings. Presently, though, he glimpsed the faint light of the beacons far receding straight ahead. ‘Surely,’ he said suddenly, ‘we’re heading north?’

‘Aye, sir, back to land.’

‘There must be some mistake. I paid you for the passage to the south side.’

Slyly, the boatman shook his head. ‘Tis as I did explain to you; I had business at Inchgarvie. The business fulfilled, I return home again.’

‘This is trickery!’ exclaimed Hew. ‘You understood full well, the bargain was that you would take me to the south side.’

The boatman looked pained. ‘Aye, mebbe,’ he conceded. ‘But the weather has turned. And it were not worth my while, to continue to the south side now, but for a mere twelve shillings, for like as not I would find myself stranded there until the other morn, with such a loss of business that would not repay my time. I have a family to support, sir, and I must consider them.’

‘How much?’ Hew demanded shortly, understanding he had been trumped.

‘Thirteen shillings, sir. Let’s say, a merk,’ the man said quickly. ‘Up front.’

‘Turn the boat around. I will pay it at the other side,’ Hew said curtly.

‘Pardon me, how do I know it, sir?’

‘How do I know you will take me to the other side, and not turn back half way, or maroon me on Inchgarvie?’ Hew retorted.

The boatman laughed. ‘A bleak enough fate. I would not do that, sir. I am an honest man, in truth, and yet a man has to live. You have money. I have a boat. Surely, we can come to an arrangement.’

‘You are an honest rogue. And that you are a poor one I sincerely doubt,’ Hew said severely.

‘Very well. Show me the merk, and you shall have the keeping of it till we reach the other side,’ the man said generously. ‘I trust you, as a gentleman. Besides, I have your sword and saddle bag,’ he added pointedly.

Hew swore softly, dropped the rein and reached into his pocket for his purse. This lurching movement proved a mistake. Dun Scottis, his ears set back against the wind and his dank coat sleek and swollen with the rain, had grown impatient with the motion of the boat. He had not liked the rising menace in the boatman’s voice, nor the muted anger he could sense in Hew’s. As Hew released the reins, he took his chance and bolted, caring little for the boundaries that distinguished boat and waves, and leaping full into the darkness that gave way to water he undid them all, unbalancing the boat. As the rushing waters hit, Hew heard the boatman curse, before his own breath gasping drowned all other sound.

The stuffing in his trunk hose brought a certain buoyancy, and as Hew floated with the tide he had time to catch his breath and consider his predicament. He did not see the boat, or the horse, or the boatman, and no answer came to his cries. At first he kept his head, and reasonably afloat. But as his clothes became sodden the padding grew swollen and heavy, in danger of dragging him down. In panic, he struck out. Floundering beneath the surface of the waves, he found himself caught in the path of a fierce and churning engine, coursing through the water like a mill. And there, gripped in a
relentless
chug and grinding, his eyes and lungs began to bulge and stream. When he could fight no more, the force of a great blow dislodged him from the depths and sent him spinning back against the upper flank of the machine. Grasping wildly, his fingers found their purchase, and entwined him clear of the strange winding gear that churned the estuary below. And gradually, as he regained his breath and made sense of his surroundings, his sobbing gasps kept pace with a strange pneumatic snorting, and he understood at last that he was clinging to the damp mane of the horse. Dun Scottis rolled forward through the great expanse of tide, steadfast and relentless as a man of war. Hew tightened his grip on the mane, twisting his wrists as well as he could into the rope of the halter, and allowed himself to trail, floating alongside the horse, out of the treacherous churn of its hooves. Beyond his own hands tangled in the rope, and the dark forbidding outline of the water, he saw nothing. He heard nothing but the slow mechanic rasping of the horse. And gradually he found he lost all feeling in his hands, and the hot seat of pain in his thigh, where Dun Scottis had kicked him, dulled to an ominous thud. The rush of water in his ears drowned out the steady wheezing of the horse, he felt his fingers lose their grip and the lapping waters slacken, slipping into blackness as his eyes began to close.