She gazed at the writing, suddenly aware of two layers of thought in her head. One was competently assessing this news and concluding that it only added to their suppositions rather than confirming anything. The other was studying the salutation, over and over, while her heart sang. My dearest, he had written. Ma plus chère. She knew well that she was loved, but here it was in writing.
‘Is it a billy-doo from your man?’ asked Phemie in envy, and she realized that yes, indeed, it was a billet-doux, the first he had ever sent her.
‘In a sense,’ she said, and put the tablets away, stowing the brocade pouch in her purse and straightening her skirt over it. ‘Where did you leave Maister Gil, Patey?’
‘He went straight down to Lanark for the quest,’ said Patey resentfully, ‘which I wanted to hear and all, and I’d ha’ thought you’d be down there yourself, mistress. And the mistress has went,’ he added, ‘all in her good gown to take him the word of the woman Lithgo and her — ’
‘What about my mother?’ said Phemie sharply.
Alys, suppressing annoyance, said, ‘She is at Belstane, and perfectly well. Patey, go see your horse attended to, and find out if Mistress Weir’s kitchen can give you some refreshment.’
‘Why is she at Belstane?’ demanded Phemie, as the man took himself reluctantly out of the house door. ‘When did she go there? I’ve not seen her since yestreen.’
‘She fetched up at my good-mother’s yett last night just before dark,’ said Alys guardedly.
Phemie stared at her. ‘So why’s she no come home this morning? Is she still there?’ Then, her suspicions growing, ‘It’s no a call on her healing, is it, Alys. What are you no telling us?’
‘She’s locked in the steward’s chamber at Belstane, that’s where she is,’ said Patey, still standing just outside the door.
‘Patey!’ said Alys, furious.
‘What?’ said Phemie.
‘And chained and all, they’re saying, seeing she’s confessed to slaying the man Murray wi’ strong poison.’
‘Patey!’ exclaimed Alys again, but her voice was drowned by Bel’s sudden sharp cry, and that by a heartbroken wailing from the doorway to Joanna’s chamber.
‘She’s done what?’ demanded Phemie, as Joanna herself tottered out into the hall, arms outstretched, her bedgown falling away from her slender kirtled figure, and collapsed on the swept stone floor at Bel’s feet. ‘Alys, what has my mother done?’
She kept repeating this while the three of them contrived to get Joanna on to her feet and supported back to her own bed. Alys, chafing at one of the widow’s limp hands, finally had no option but to reply.
‘She has confessed, as Patey said, to poisoning Thomas Murray.’ The hand she clasped tightened convulsively. ‘I do not think she did it.’
‘Then why has she — ? And why did you no tell us when you came up here? What are you at here? Whose side are you on, anyway?’
‘My husband’s,’ said Alys, as the first answer that came to her.
‘Aye, I suppose,’ said Phemie sourly. ‘And here I thought you were my friend.’
‘I hope I am,’ said Alys, flinching from this blow. ‘And Joanna’s, and Bel’s.’
‘Then why — ?’ She stopped, and stared at Alys from the foot of Joanna’s bed. ‘You’re saying you don’t believe her? Why not? Why’s she still locked in chains if you don’t think it was her doing?’
‘She isn’t in chains, believe me. Do you think it?’ Alys countered.
‘No, but …’ Phemie stopped to consider this. Alys watched with interest, despite the awkwardness of the situation, recognizing that the other girl was putting her undoubted intelligence to work perhaps for the first time. ‘She’s my mother. I ken her mind, her way o’ working. I could never see her using her craft for that kind of purpose. You’re no family, you must have a reason for no thinking it.’
Bel crossed the chamber with a small cup in her hand, and offered it to Alys for Joanna. It held the familiar brown sticky cordial, with its scent of cough-syrup. Alys glanced across at the cupboard, to see the yellow-glazed pipkin she had encountered before sitting there with its cover askew. She sniffed the cordial again, trying to compare the smell with that on the flask Gil had brought home.
‘It’s her own store of the stuff,’ said Phemie roughly. ‘You’ve no need of suspecting Bel of trying to poison her.’
‘I know that.’ Alys raised Joanna’s head, and gave her a few sips of the stuff. ‘It was a good thought. Joanna, do you feel better now? Can you talk?’
Joanna pulled herself to a sitting position, but shook her head, putting one hand to her brow. Phemie watched her, frowning, and then said, ‘Why would my mother confess to something she’d no done?’
Bel turned to look at her sister, but made no sign. Alys waited for a moment, and said, ‘For a good reason, I’d assume.’
‘She was asking at me yestreen,’ said Joanna faintly. ‘After the others left for Lanark.’ She put her hand over her mouth, staring wide-eyed at the coverlet. ‘She asked me how the poison might ha’ got into Thomas’s flask, and I said I had no notion. Oh, say she never did it!’
‘Had you talked about it at all before that?’ Alys asked.
‘The old witch wouldny have it discussed,’ said Phemie. Bel tossed her head in disagreement, and Phemie added, ‘No that that stopped Raffie, o’ course, but Joanna was in here most of the time, so she never heard him, did you?’
‘No, I never,’ agreed Joanna wearily. ‘I tellt your mother how Bel brought us the flask that morning and how I put it in his scrip and never saw it again. Nor I never want to see it again neither,’ she added, with a flicker of that spirit she had shown before. ‘I’ll sell it and give the money to the poor. He was never an easy man, but he was my man, I never wanted him dead.’
‘Did she believe you?’ demanded Phemie.
‘I’ve no notion.’
This is getting me nowhere, thought Alys. She was about to ask another question when the shouting began outside. Socrates scrambled to his feet and put his paws up on the windowsill.
‘No again!’ said Phemie. ‘Is it another fight? They shouldny be up on the surface the now anyway.’ She strode across to the window as she spoke, and drew an indignant breath. ‘Would you believe it? There’s that fool Fleming in the place again, after Arbella told him no to come back here!’
‘Fleming?’ said Joanna apprehensively. ‘What’s he here for? Don’t let him — ’
‘Fleming?’ repeated Alys, hurrying to look. ‘I had thought him dead by now!’
‘Never you worry,’ said Phemie. ‘Jamesie has him in hand. That’s what the shouting’s all about.’ She looked at her sister, and then at Joanna. ‘I’ll get a word wi’ Jamesie. You stay here,’ she instructed, and left the room, without glancing at Alys.
There was a knot of men by the small building Phemie had identified as the office. Several were colliers or surfacemen, caked with silvery mud and brandishing their tools. In their midst, Jamesie Meikle and David Fleming stood face to face, the man Simmie nodding at the priest’s back while Fleming shouted incoherently at the collier, pointing wildly at the office, at the little chapel, up at the house. As Alys watched through the window Phemie came into sight, clumping purposefully over the cobbles on her wooden soles, but the men seemed not to notice her.
There was a tugging at her sleeve, and Alys turned to find Bel at her elbow, gesturing urgently towards the door.
‘You want me to go too?’ she asked. The girl nodded, and indicated by more gestures that she would stay with Joanna.
‘You’ll likely can stop them getting to blows,’ said Joanna, with a confidence which Alys found touching, and craned unsteadily to see out of the window. ‘Oh, my, what’s Jamesie — oh, what will he do? Please, will you go and stop them?’
Jamesie Meikle was still trying to be reasonable. As Alys approached, he was saying, ‘Our mistress forbade you these policies last time you were here. You shouldny be on her land at all, let alone trying to search the office where the tallies and the accounts are kept. We’d be well within our duties to fling you in the burn and leave you — ’