‘I take it right kind in you,’ the old woman continued, ‘to agree to come below ground with me. If she’d been here I’d ha’ brought my good-daughter, you understand, but you’re near as herb-wise so she tells me, and by what Jamesie said the man still lives.’
He could be heard groaning, Jamesie Meikle had said, the shaft being no more than five fathom deep. This had earned a sharp response from Arbella, along the lines that she had watched them sink it before he was born or thought of. Ignoring this, he had declared that he would not risk sending a man down by the shaft, because the winding-gear was old and needed to be repaired. He would need to get someone to go in with him from the mid ingo. Alys understood this to mean the middle of the three entries, the one not in current use. At this his mistress had announced that she would go, commandeered Alys’s help, and ordered Jamesie to assemble what was needful to get the man out, alive or dead, and follow them in.
So now, her riding-dress and hat left in the office, the skirts of her kirtle belted up, and one of the miners’ hooded leather sarks over all to protect her from falling stones, Alys was groping her way up the surprisingly steep slope behind a similarly clad Arbella, wondering how wise this had been, errand of mercy or no. Whatever Gil resolved about the death of Thomas Murray, it seemed likely to inconvenience the Pow Burn household, and she was uncertain how much Arbella knew she had discovered. Quite apart from Bel’s message on the slate, she reflected. Her purse, with the gruesome find from the upper shaft-house, was in the office with her riding-dress, and though she might feel as if it was outlined in red ink nobody else had reason to notice it, which was a small comfort.
‘I’ll not have Will Fleming’s son fall to his death in my coal-heugh,’ said Arbella suddenly, as if there had been an argument, ‘and let folk say I did nothing about it. If this one is no more than half the man the father was.’
Alys made some mechanical answer. She was staring about her, moving cautiously. The candle flame leaped and flickered in surprising draughts, but showed gaping dark places to right and left, perhaps the rooms Phemie had described, which meant that the massive pillars of living rock between them were the stoops. The roof was uneven, but seemed to be the lower surface of a bed of sandstone, the flame striking tiny sparks in the grains of sand in its matrix. The tunnel walls were black, but only a section at knee height was coal. There were sounds — dripping water, the rattle of an occasional falling stone, a faint creaking now and then. A shout, presumably from the surface, which resounded eerily in the tunnels and spaces. And it was dark, darker than she would have believed possible, outside the patches of candlelight.
At least, she reflected, there were likely to be no owls underground.
There was a groan which echoed along the tunnel, and faint voices, sounding oddly flat. Of course, if we are close, she thought, we must hear the men at the top of the shaft even when they don’t shout.
‘Here he is,’ said Arbella. She had halted, and was holding the candle over a sprawled shape on the tunnel floor. ‘Bring your light, lassie, and we’ll see what ails him.’
The tunnel was wider here, and there were various items strewn about, a broken basket full of spare tools, a couple of coils of rope, two wooden buckets big enough to hold a ten-year-old child. A bundle of timbers lay just to one side of the patch of stones and earth which had come down the shaft, and on it, back ominously reflexed, lay Fleming. Alys came forward, turned up one of the buckets and fixed both candles on its base by dripping wax to secure them.
‘It does not look good,’ she said.
‘Aye, he’s about ready for the priest, I fear,’ agreed the old woman. She bent and patted Fleming’s face. ‘Davy! Davy Fleming! Can you hear me?’
There was a pause; then the man’s eyes opened.
‘Who — ?’ he croaked.
‘That’s me, Davy. Arbella Weir. I’m sorry to find you like this, Davy. Death unshriven’s no what I’d ha’ wished on your father’s son.’
‘I am shriven,’ he croaked.
‘Where does it hurt?’ Alys asked, taking his hand. His eyes rolled towards her, and in the light of the two candles he knew her. A wisp of his ingratiating smile crossed his face, and he drew a harsh breath.
‘Mistress,’ he whispered. ‘Doesny hurt. Thanks be — Our Lady. Did you read — ?’
‘I read it,’ she said. And keep quiet, man, she thought. ‘Save your strength, Sir David. We’ll get you out of here and made comfortable as soon as maybe.’
‘I willny — last so long.’
‘Aye, well, you meddled in things that wereny your concern,’ said Arbella, her face in shadow, ‘and it’s brought you to this end, the same as your father. I’m right sorry, man.’
‘I’ve learned,’ Fleming whispered. ‘I know. I know what you’ve been — ’
Arbella sat back, and knocked the bucket which supported the candles. They fell over, rolling across the flat wooden base, sending shadows leaping wildly round the three of them, then on to the floor of the tunnel. One went out. Arbella twisted awkwardly in pursuit of the other, and put her hand on it.
Alys exclaimed as darkness complete enveloped them.
‘Never fear, lassie,’ said Arbella’s voice. Alys could hear movement close to her, the rustle of clothing, a creak from the thick leather of the collier’s sark Arbella wore. Fleming drew another harsh breath, and breathed out, and made a short choking noise. In sudden alarm she crouched there in the dark, waiting for his next breath.
It never came.
Chapter Fourteen
Gil gazed in exasperation at Beatrice Lithgo.
‘I’ll not believe you,’ he said. ‘I don’t accept this confession.’
She shrugged, suddenly looking very like her older daughter. ‘I’ll not retract it.’
‘Who are you protecting?’
‘Protecting?’ She raised her eyebrows.
‘Then what about the other deaths?’
‘The forester?’ She crossed herself. ‘I’m right sorry he died, Our Lady bring him to grace. I never intended that.’
‘I meant,’ said Gil, and counted them off, ‘Matt Crombie, Will Brownlie, your own man, your good-father. Did you kill them too?’
‘No,’ she said blankly. ‘Why would I kill any of them?’ There was a pause in which she seemed to be thinking over the list. ‘No, I’d no reason to poison them. They wereny poisoned,’ she added hastily.
‘You’re certain?’ said Gil. She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ve just come back from Walston.’
‘From where? Oh, aye. The parish where Auld Adam died. And what did you find there, maister?’ she asked in conversational tones. ‘I was never there myself.’
‘You’ve not missed much,’ Gil admitted, ‘it’s two villages and a high hill, but I’d a read of the parish records, kept by Sir Billy Crichton in very good order, and this morning at first light I got a word with the folk that took Adam Crombie in when he fell from his horse.’ She watched him, still giving nothing away. ‘It seems he ate his dinner in the High House at Elsrickle, along with his two men, and drank a toast to Arbella’s birthday from a silver flask he had with him, which he didn’t share. He set out to ride on to the next house on his round.’ She nodded. ‘A mile or so down the road he seemed dazed, as if he was unsure of where he was, and fell from his horse in a swoon, and struck his head. He was carried into the nearest house, and there he died without speaking again.’
‘Was his belly afflicted?’ she asked, frowning.
‘No. I asked about that particularly, after what you said the other day, and he had neither vomited nor purged. I spoke with the woman of the house,’ he added, ‘she’d be like to know.’