It was only a short walk to Mistress Callender’s house, where I was lucky to find her in, as she answered my knock in her outdoor cap and shawl and with a basket on one arm. She looked astonished to see me.
‘Oh, my dear sir! What a surprise. But please come in. Come in!’ Her features sharpened with curiosity. ‘Has something happened?’
No word, then, of Master Buchanan’s arrest had yet reached her. I decided to leave her in ignorance: she would no doubt find out soon enough and I had no wish to be drawn into sharing my doubts and suspicions with her.
‘Mistress Callender,’ I said, giving her my best smile (the one that always makes my dear wife ask if I have indigestion), ‘I’ve come to beg a favour of you.’ She flushed with pleasure and fluttered her eyelids. ‘May I see one of the recipes given to you by your neighbour, Mistress Beton?’
She looked astonished, as I suppose was only natural. Whatever reason she had anticipated for my visit, it certainly wasn’t this.
‘A-A recipe?’ she fluttered. ‘Why … why yes, of course. Which particular one d-did you want?’
Ah! Now which one did I want? I had to think quickly, but nothing came immediately to mind. Then I remembered the bunch of herbs held out by the saint in my dream.
‘Herb broth?’ I suggested tentatively. ‘I’m sure Mistress Beton mentioned something about herb broth.’ I hoped I sounded convincing. I’ve never been an especially good liar.
‘Herb broth … Herb broth … Now, let me see …’ The widow put down her basket. ‘Yes, I believe there is a recipe for herb broth. It’s a favourite of yours, sir?’
‘Of my wife’s. And Mistress Beton assured me it was a particularly good one.’
‘Yes, I think it is. I’ll have to go down to my kitchen behind the — er — front parlour,’ she murmured, obviously hoping that I had somehow failed to notice her animals in the lower room. ‘I shan’t be a moment or two.’
She was as good as her word, and was breathing heavily when she returned as though she had been hurrying. ‘And now, sir,’ she pleaded as she handed me a piece of paper, ‘do please tell me what has been happening since your visit yesterday. I went to the Grassmarket very early this morning, and there seemed to me to be a lot of activity around Master Buchanan’s house.’
But I was listening to her with only half an ear and was not really aware of what she had been saying until I was almost back at the castle. Instead, I was staring at the piece of paper I held in my hand — the cheap, flimsy stuff that is made from old bits of rag — on which was written a recipe for herb broth. At least, I suppose that’s what it was because the sense of the words eluded me. My eyes were fixed on the looped ‘g’s and ‘j’s and the oddly formed letter ‘h’s. Whoever had written the recipe had also written the diary.
‘Mistress Callender,’ I interrupted without even realizing that I was doing so, ‘are you certain that Mistress Beton wrote this recipe?’
She broke off, startled, staring at me wide-eyed, rather like her own sheep. ‘Of course. Who else could have written it?’
‘Mistress Sinclair?’ I suggested.
She gave a high-pitched, tittering laugh. ‘Oh my goodness, no! Aline was hopeless at cooking. I’m not even sure she knew how to. Recipes meant nothing to her. And if she had, she wouldn’t have used a cheap scrap of paper like that. There was always plenty of the finest parchment in the house. Master Sinclair wouldn’t have used anything else, and he was always writing letters.’
‘Do you know who to?’ It was, on reflection, a stupid question, but it got a far better answer than it deserved.
‘Well, I did hear a rumour once-’ Mistress Callender lowered her voice to a confidential whisper — ‘that he belongs to some ancient cult or another. Don’t ask me what! And I must stress that it was only the most insubstantial of rumours. Although it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Men,’ she added scornfully, ‘never grow up. They always want to be little boys and have secrets from their mothers and sisters and daughters and wives. Especially their wives.’ Her contempt was beautiful to behold and made me wonder about the doings of the late carpet-maker.
‘And you think Master Sinclair was a person of some importance in this … this society? Or whatever it was. He wrote letters to …’
‘I think nothing!’ The widow flushed with indignation. ‘I mind my own business. I told you, what I heard was the barest of rumours. I can’t even recall who mentioned it. But I know I didn’t give it much credence. And now, perhaps, you’ll have the kindness to answer a few of my questions …’
I waved the paper at her, unheeding. ‘So this is definitely Maria Beton’s writing? I was told she couldn’t read.’
‘What nonsense! Who told you that? Of course she can read. And write as well, as you can see. And now maybe you’ll …’
I leaned forward and planted a resounding kiss on one thin cheek, and while she was still gawping at me in amazement, I asked, ‘Can I keep this?’ I held up the recipe.
She made no reply, merely blushing fierily, so I took this as an affirmative and made my escape, clutching the piece of paper tightly in my hand.
In the lower ward of the castle, passed by the sentries with a nod of recognition, I slowed my pace, trying to determine what next I should do. It was obvious now that the diary was a forgery written, perhaps overnight, by Maria Beton. It had to be brought to somebody’s attention, but to whose? Albany’s would seem to be the answer except for the what now amounted to conviction that he was a party to the plot. I saw no way in which I could exonerate him. His actions of the previous evening and this morning, his determination to pin the blame on John Buchanan, all pointed to his complicity. I should have to find someone else to whom to present my case. The Duke of Gloucester again suggested himself as the obvious choice, but once more I hesitated to bother him over a matter that was beyond his brief as an Englishman and an outsider. I needed a Scot, someone of standing; Atholl or Buchan perhaps, one of Albany’s and King James’s half-uncles. But how to come at them was the difficulty. I should have to find somebody willing to introduce me.
Who? That was the question. I thought it unlikely that anyone in the Scottish camp would be willing to worry them at this critical juncture in the negotiations with what they would undoubtedly see as the triviality of an unknown man wrongly accused of concealing evidence. No one below a certain rank would contemplate it for a second; and who did I know, apart from Albany himself, of any standing at the Scottish court? With a sigh of frustration, I folded the recipe and put it into the pouch at my belt. If no alternative occurred to me before we left Scotland, I must enlist the support of my lord of Gloucester whose dislike of injustice, as I have just said, equalled mine. He might be able to do something.
I had by this time reached the summit of the rock. The smell of fish was stronger than ever and activity had increased as the dinner hour approached. I was suddenly gripped by both my arms, and there were Donald and Murdo, one on either side of me, rather, I could not help reflecting, like two gaolers escorting a prisoner. The thought made me uneasy.
‘Dinnertime,’ Murdo announced jovially (not a word I normally associated with the dour MacGregor).
‘Look out for Davey,’ Donald reminded him. ‘We might as well sit together. My lord wants us all assembled in the lower ward as soon as the meal is over. Horses will be waiting for us. He wants to set forward for Roslin before noon.’
‘Why the hurry?’ Murdo grumbled, reverting to his customary sullen tone. ‘It’s no more than seven or eight miles, if that.’
‘I’m not questioning my lord’s decisions,’ his friend chuckled good-humouredly. ‘You’re welcome to if you like.’
There was the usual jostling and shoving to get into the common hall, accompanied by the even more usual exchange of insults between the different liveries, and between English and Scots. But eventually everyone found a seat, however cramped, and the servers began bringing round the food. Davey had arrived before us and had managed, against all the odds, to save places for the rest of us, including not only James Petrie, but also John Tullo, of whom I had seen comparatively little during our recent odyssey. Not that I had missed him. He smelled strongly of horses and his protuberant brown eyes seemed to bore right through me in the most disconcerting fashion. A taciturn man, he said almost nothing and in any case, responded only to remarks in the Scots tongue. His English, like James Petrie’s, was confined to a few words merely. (I couldn’t help wondering now and then how these two had survived in France.)