‘Oh!’ said Alys in distress. ‘Is that Joanna? Oh, poor soul!’
‘Beatrice mentioned something of the sort,’ said Gil.
‘I mind that too,’ said Michael surprisingly. ‘The old man mentioned it in his letters. He’d found her somewhere by Ashgill, the other side of the Clyde.’
‘That isn’t on the list, is it?’ Gil asked Alys.
She shook her head. ‘They said their round stayed on this side of the river. How far is Elsrickle? Is it near there?’
‘No. Ashgill’s to the west, just across the river in Cadzow parish, Elsrickle is fourteen or fifteen miles east of here. The High House beyond Elsrickle,’ said Gil, helping Alys to some of the cold pie, ‘which I mind is one of the places on the list, must be the furthest away from the coal-heugh. There are ten names altogether, and they told us Murray would stop a night and a day at each, to gather the fees from the surrounding customers, and then ride on to the next.’
‘Maybe two weeks’ travelling, then,’ said Michael, ‘allowing for delays.’
Gil nodded. ‘And he’s been gone more than five weeks.’
‘You think he’s run off?’ asked Michael.
Gil looked at him across the table. ‘That or something else. He might have stayed somewhere to draw up some extra business agreement, as Mistress Weir suggested,’ he counted off, tapping his fingers on the linen cloth, ‘he might have fallen ill or died suddenly, like the grandsire, though I would have thought word would have got back to the coal-heugh by now. He might have gone to the salt-pans at Blackness and been held up there, or he might have decided to take the money he had collected and run to England or the Low Countries. Or I suppose it might be another reason altogether. Whither trow this man ha’ the way take? He could be anywhere.’
‘Surely not England!’ said Lady Egidia.
‘But what about the two other men?’ Alys reminded him.
‘That’s one of the puzzling things,’ agreed Gil.
‘One?’ said his mother.
‘His wife is young and lovely,’ said Alys.
Gil pulled a face. ‘Too sweet a mouthful for me. But yes, you’d think he’d be drawn home to a bed with Joanna in it. And there’s the way all those women see him differently. The old woman seems disappointed with him, Joanna’s his wife and speaks accordingly, but I think Beatrice dislikes him and the daughter who spoke to us was venomous.’
‘Maybe the daughter thought he should ha’ wed her,’ suggested Michael sourly.
‘Aye, that might be it. And what about you?’ Gil raised his eyebrows at the younger man. ‘What did you get from Fleming when you rode him over to Cauldhope? Has he any true information against Mistress Lithgo?’
Michael shrugged. ‘None that I can make out,’ he admitted. ‘He croaked on about having evidence, and how she’s infamous as a witch, and how many folk resort to the coal-heugh to get healing from her, and he wouldny hear of this corp being any other than the man Murray. I asked him what was this evidence, what he’d seen or heard for himself that was proof of witchcraft, but he never answered me other than to say she’d quarrelled wi’ the man. He’s a fool, I wish my father had never set him in place.’
‘So how will you begin, dear?’ asked Lady Egidia, before Gil could speak. He looked at Alys, and she smiled back and squeezed his hand briefly under the table.
‘Someone has to go out and ask each household when they last saw Thomas Murray,’ he said. ‘And while they’re about it, ask each one if there has ever been anything. .’ He paused. ‘Unusual. Aye. Anything unusual about the man or his dealings.’
‘An easy enough task,’ said Lady Egidia. ‘Michael, you may as well do that since you’re here.’
‘Me?’ said Michael, his voice rising to a squeak. ‘I mean — why me? Why should — ?’
‘I’m sure you’d like to be a help,’ Lady Egidia informed him.
‘But I–I mean, I have to get back to the college. There’s my — I’ve to deal wi’ Davy Fleming. I canny go riding all over Lanarkshire,’ Michael protested, looking round him in faint panic. Gil caught his eye, aware of a degree of sympathy which surprised him.
‘It would speed your matter, in fact,’ he pointed out, ‘since the sooner we find the man the sooner we’ll convince that fool Fleming, and it would come better from you as your father’s son, riding round asking other folk’s stewards when they paid the bill to his coal-grieve, than from me. Then I can send to the salt-pan, and take the time to ask about here and all, see if there are any old tales of someone going missing, try to find another name for our corp. He must have a name, after all, poor devil.’
‘You’ll get more than you bargain for,’ his mother observed, ‘if you’re going to encourage all the old gossips and their tales. So that’s settled, Michael. Get a note of what questions Gil wants you to ask, and the list of the houses you must call at, before you go home the night, and you can make an early start in the morning.’ Michael nodded, and mumbled something ungracious which might have been assent, and she turned to Alys. ‘And what about you, my dear?’
‘I am bidden back to the coal-heugh,’ Alys admitted.
Lady Egidia’s gaze sharpened, but all she said was, ‘Then you’d best borrow Henry again.’
‘Double-distilled is better for burns,’ said Beatrice Lithgo, ‘and triple is better yet.’
Alys nodded. ‘I keep a small flask of the triple-distilled beside the kitchen salt,’ she agreed. She put the stoneware jar of lavender-water back in its place, and gazed round the crowded stillroom shelves. The sight appealed deeply to her; she would have liked to open and look into every one of the jars and bottles and leather sacks. ‘You are well stocked, mistress. And well informed. Socrates, heel!’ she added.
‘I learned a lot from Arbella,’ admitted Beatrice as the dog reluctantly left the barrel which had attracted him. ‘She was good in her day. You need someone handy wi’ the simples about a coal-heugh.’
‘My father is a stonemason,’ said Alys, ‘and I know stone-cutting and quarry-work, a little. I should like to learn about hewing coal, how it differs.’
‘You want Arbella for that,’ said Beatrice. ‘Or Joanna. She’s got it all at her finger-ends already. My man never liked to have much to do wi’ the pit, Our Lady succour him, and my father was a salt-boiler. I can tell you all about that, but no so much about coal.’
‘I have never seen a salt-pan. I should like to learn about that too,’ said Alys, with truth. ‘Your man was the elder son, mistress? When did he die?’
Beatrice’s face softened, and she gazed through a glass jar of preserved berries into some distant scene.
‘He was the elder son,’ she agreed. ‘His father’s heir, and no so like either Arbella or Auld Adam, either in looks or in temper, though he’d his father’s grey eyes. My Bel, poor lassie, will have a look of him when she loses her fat.’
‘You are saying he was less interested in the business?’ Alys prompted. ‘That must have been difficult.’
‘Oh, it was. You saw Arbella, when you rode in here the day, down in the tally-house inspecting the records and making up the note of what each man had sent up to the hill yesterday?’ Alys nodded. ‘Adam never cared for that. A great burden he found it, and even more he disliked directing the men at their work. He hated going into the pit. Music, he liked, and books, and talking learning with old Sir Arnold. He’d planned to sell the heugh, or at least his share in it, and move down to Linlithgow. He quarrelled wi’ Arbella over that. But then he died. In the pit, in a roof-fall, nine year since. It was his day-mind in March, just after Thomas rode off on the round,’ she added. Both women crossed themselves, and Beatrice turned resolutely to the shelf beside her. ‘Do you ever use this? I find it good for skin troubles.’
‘And Joanna’s man was the younger son,’ said Alys, taking the little jar and sniffing the contents. The dog looked up at her, his nose twitching. ‘Yes, indeed, I use this often.’ She sniffed again. ‘Is that rosemary in it as well? A good thought, I must try that. He died not long after they married, I think?’