‘He brought her home in May, two year ago,’ said Beatrice sadly, ‘and fell ill within the week, a wasting illness where his skin was dry and cracked on the hands and feet, his hair fell, the flesh melted off him. He couldny stomach a thing. Nothing helped. His breath smelled of garlic, and I couldny balance it out.’
‘I never heard of such an ailment!’ said Alys in dismay. ‘Could it have been poison?’
‘I thought that myself, but who would have poisoned him? We were all fond of Matt, he was a bonnie lad and a good maister, better than his brother, though I say it. No, I think it was some sickness, or maybe bad food or some wild plant got into the kailyard, for two of the colliers’ bairns had died of something similar no a week afore he brought Joanna home. Their mother did say they’d been drinking at one of the wells on the hillside, but there was a great smell of wild garlic about them.’
‘What a strange thing,’ said Alys.
‘Aye, strange it was. I tried all the remedies I could think of, and so did Arbella, but he was shriven and shrouded afore Lammas. Joanna, poor lass, truly mourned him, for all he’d courted her no more than a day or two and wed her out of hand.’
‘And then she took Murray.’
‘And then she took Murray,’ agreed Beatrice.
Alys watched her face carefully, but it gave nothing away. After a moment she said, ‘Does he beat her?’
The other woman’s gaze snapped to meet hers, and she smiled bitterly.
‘My, but you’re quick, lassie. No, not with his fists, but he uses his tongue. Sharp, sarcastic, making her out to be a fool. She’ll not complain, nor tell Arbella, but I’ve heard him.’
‘And no sign of that when he courted her, I suppose.’
‘Deed, no.’ Again the bitter smile. ‘Near a year she mourned Matthew, and the men were round her like wasps round a windfall, as bonnie as she is. I thought myself she favoured the lad Meikle, and it aye seemed to me Murray had eyes elsewhere, though that would never have — ’ She broke off. ‘But in the end she took Murray, and wed him a year since in July, wi’ Arbella’s blessing, and by Martinmas he was treating her like a scullery-lass.’
‘And was he coal-grieve already when they married?’
‘Oh, yes. It was Matthew raised him to grieve under him, then when he died Arbella put Murray in Matt’s place. He was a sinker afore that, and worked as a bearer the way some of them do when they areny cutting a shaft. Matt called him a natural pitman, said he had a great understanding of the coal and where it goes under the ground. As Matt himself did, I think.’
‘A bearer — that is the man who carries the coals away,’ Alys prompted. Beatrice nodded. ‘The hewer is a craftsman, and the bearer is his labourer, am I right? I should like to see more of this — without offending Mistress Weir,’ she added hastily, before Beatrice could speak. ‘Maybe someone could show me how it all happens.’
‘I’ll get Phemie to walk you up the hill,’ Beatrice offered.
‘I should like that, if she has the time,’ Alys said ingenuously. ‘Tell me, mistress, what do you think has come to Murray?’
Beatrice shrugged, and rearranged two yellow-glazed pipkins on the bench at her side.
‘I’ve no notion. The day they left he mounted up at the door and bade farewell, just as he aye does, never said aught to us about where he was going or who he would meet, nor about when to expect him back, but that’s nothing unusual. The two lads wi’ him were cheery enough, but Jamesie Meikle tells me both had tellt the folk they lodge wi’ that they’d no idea how long they’d be away. Whether Murray said aught to Joanna in private I don’t know, but I’d ha’ thought she’d ha’ brought it out by now if he did.’
Alys nodded in agreement. ‘If he had decided to run off,’ she said, ‘for whatever cause, where would he go, do you think? Where is he from originally?’
‘Fife, somewhere,’ said Beatrice, with a vagueness to which Alys gave no credence. ‘He’s a trick of calling folk neebor the way they do over that way. He’d likely cross the Forth if he’d no cause to come back here. That’s never him in the peat-digging.’
‘No, I agree.’
‘What’s come to him — the man from the digging? Will he get a decent burial?’
‘He will,’ Alys assured her. ‘The Belstane carpenter was to make a coffin for him today. My — my husband would like to give him a name before he’s buried, if we can. And maybe find who killed him.’
‘No easy task. I’d say he’s been there a while.’
‘And the man Fleming.’ Beatrice looked away at the words, and shivered. Yes, thought Alys, you were more afraid yesterday than you showed us. ‘Why would he have such a spite for you?’ she said aloud. ‘There was venom there.’
‘I’ve never a notion,’ said Beatrice firmly.
‘Oh, he’d consulted my mother,’ said Phemie. She peered into the furthest of the shaft-houses, a squat structure walled with hurdles and thatched with heather, merely intended to keep the worst of the weather off man and pony working it. The winding-gear was silent astride the dark maw of the shaft, the long beam with its dangling harness propped on the heading-bar. ‘I noticed him slinking into the stillroom by twilight, when we thought he’d gone home. It’s no so easy to get out here to the coaltown unseen,’ she added.
‘Maister Fleming had consulted your mother?’ Alys repeated, standing cautiously in the doorway with a tight grasp of Socrates’ collar. ‘When was that?’
Phemie walked forward and kicked the timber frame of the winding-gear. Her wooden sole made a loud thump which resonated in the hollow of the shaft, vanished downward and returned to them mixed with the tap and clatter of metal tools. Were there voices too? Alys wondered. I am being fanciful, she told herself firmly. In the shadows over her head something made a ruffling sound, like feathers. She drew the dog closer to her knee, and he put his head up to look at her.
‘A month ago, maybe,’ Phemie said. ‘Aye, that would be right, about Lady Day. I don’t know what it was about,’ she admitted, ‘I stayed within sight, and made sure he kent I was there, but I never got close enough to hear. He went away wi’ a wee jar of ointment, and a paper of pills, I could tell that by what was lying to be washed when I went into the stillroom.’
‘You assist your mother?’ Alys realized.
The girl nodded. ‘I’ve helped her mix simples since I could walk,’ she said, with some pride.
‘And Bel? Does she help too, or is she always at her spinning?’
Phemie looked curiously at Alys, but answered civilly enough. ‘Bel’s aye wi’ our grandam. Times she sits and spins while the old — old lady rests, times she helps her wi’ the accounts, times she fetches greenstuff for her off the hillside.’
‘Off the hillside?’ Alys repeated in surprise.
‘Aye. Water from this or that spring, herbs from some burnside for Arbella or my mother. The old woman’s none so spry on her feet now, but time was she could find any plant you could name in the parish, so my mother says, and she can still tell my sister where to seek them.’ She peered into the cavity beside her, then lifted a piece of dull black stone from the floor, and dropped it down the shaft. There was a long silence, then a distant rattle and thud, and an angry shout. Phemie grinned. ‘That’ll learn somebody no to stand under the shaft.’
‘How deep is it?’ So there were voices, thought Alys.
‘Fifteen fathom.’
‘Fifteen — that is seven-and-twenty ells,’ Alys calculated, and opened her eyes wide. ‘I had no idea you could go so deep.’
‘There’s deeper.’
‘But does the roof not fall down?’
‘No if the stoops are wide enough.’ Phemie stepped out of the hut, and Alys followed her with relief, away from the winding-gear and the black gaping maw of the shaft. ‘Look.’ She bent, lifted another flake of stone, and drew a square in the gritty mud underfoot. ‘That’s a pillar. We call it a stoop.’ She drew another square a little distance from the first. ‘That’s another. And another. And between the stoops are what we call the rooms. Each hewer works in a room by his lone, wi’ a bearer to carry the coal away as he howks it out. The deeper the coal gets, the bigger the stoops and the narrower the rooms has to be.’