‘Yes,’ said Alys, trying to keep the doubts she felt from her voice.
‘He’d no ha’ lasted much longer, even without the fall,’ continued Arbella. ‘You saw it too, lassie, didn’t you? Beatrice tellt me what ailed him. It’s better this way.’
‘What, dying underground, filthy and in pain?’
‘Better men than him has died underground!’ said Arbella sharply. ‘Coal comes out the earth, but it aye takes blood in exchange.’
‘How much blood?’ asked Alys softly.
‘More than you’d think. But men come and go, lassie. Mind that. Never grieve for one, for you’ll aye get another.’
Impossible, thought Alys. There is no other like Gil.
‘Like Joanna,’ she suggested aloud. ‘I think she might take the man Meikle, when she has done mourning Murray.’
‘She could do worse,’ admitted the other voice.
‘She has no notion to your grandson?’
‘No,’ said Arbella curtly. Then, after a moment, ‘They’re too close kin. Raffie is her nephew. She was married on his uncle, after all.’
‘I forgot that.’ Alys was groping about her. ‘Did one of the candles fall this way?’ She could feel more lengths of wood, smaller timbers than the ones Fleming had landed on, and some flat pieces of metal whose purpose was not clear, and lumps of stone of every size, but not the candle. The top of the shaft showed faintly less dark in the blackness, but no light came down it.
‘No, they went to my other side.’
The conversation at the top of the shaft continued, and in its silences the sounds of the mine grew. Water dripped, there was a distant tapping, stone creaked again. Alys began to be aware of just how much stone lay above her head.
‘What led your man to find Thomas Murray?’ asked Arbella suddenly.
‘He found the place in Lanark where the man went drinking,’ said Alys, ‘and they told him who his friend was. When he knew also that the friend had not been seen for as long as Murray, he went to his house to see what could be learned, and so found them.’
‘Aye.’ Another pause. ‘Mind, I never knew that about Thomas. If I’d ha’ known — ’
‘There was an owl in the trees by the cottage,’ said Alys, as if it was to the point.
‘It wasny within the place,’ said Arbella, as if that answered her.
‘Will you not search for the candles, madam?’ asked Alys. But my flint and tinder are in my purse, she realized.
‘Feart for the dark, are you, lassie?’
‘It doesn’t trouble you, does it — being in the dark, I mean?’
‘It’s never troubled me. You sit here quiet, you’ll hear the voice of the coal. And your man thinks Thomas was poisoned. What makes him so certain?’
‘We tested the dregs of the flask,’ said Alys cautiously. Was that a movement she could hear, along the tunnel they had climbed to reach this place?
‘Oh, aye? The flask. Had they both drunk from the one source, then?’
‘Both are dead,’ Alys said.
‘And they died how? It wasny right clear at the quest.’
I have heard Gil give evidence before, thought Alys, he would have made it very clear. Aloud she said, ‘It seems as if they felt no signs until they were abed, and then perhaps they were dizzy and became unconscious, and so died. There was no other sign to be found, as he told Mistress Lithgo two days since, no effect on their bellies.’
‘Aye,’ said the other voice in the darkness. ‘That would be right. And has your wisdom discerned yet what it was they took?’
‘Not yet.’ Well, she thought, I am not certain yet. She turned her head to listen; there was definitely movement, stones shifting under a footfall. What was the voice of the coal, anyway? Closer at hand Arbella’s leather sark creaked.
‘You’re slow, for one that claims to be herb-wise. And what will your man do next to find who is to blame?’
‘He will ask more questions.’
‘Aye, he’s good at that,’ said Arbella. It was clearly not a compliment. ‘Did my good-daughter talk to you yestreen?’
‘Mistress Lithgo?’ There was a thumping overhead, as if someone was hammering timbers, but there was also certainly movement close to her, on both sides. Arbella was stirring, the little sounds of leather and stone suggesting that she was indeed searching for the candle, and from down the sloping tunnel came the footfalls again. Something was approaching slowly through the dark. She stretched her ears, trying to hear the tiny noises. Not booted feet, surely? ‘Yes, I spoke to her. She said she poisoned Thomas Murray, because he was annoying her daughters and Joanna.’
‘She never did such a thing.’
‘No, I think not,’ agreed Alys.
‘You said that afore. Why d’you think not?’
‘I think she is protecting her daughters.’
‘You think one of my lassies poisoned Thomas?’
‘I think Mistress Lithgo fears it, or fears my husband might think it.’
Close beside her, something large moved, a waft of hot fishy breath reached her. She recognized it just as the cold wet touch came on her cheek.
Socrates.
Stifling laughter, she put an arm across his reassuring narrow back, and he licked her face as Arbella said, ‘But not you. Why not?’
Where are Jamesie and his men? she wondered. What is happening overhead? I do not know how long I can hold off this inquisition, and what if she becomes angry?
‘Why not?’ repeated Arbella. ‘What does your man think?’
‘We haven’t spoken of it since yesterday,’ she parried.
The scrape of flint and steel alerted her. Almost automatically she turned her head away and closed her eyes, and light flared beyond her eyelids. Beside her the dog tensed, and she felt him growl. Her free hand closed on one of the lengths of wood which lay beside her, and she opened her eyes, to find the space where she sat lit by one candle, in brilliant contrast to the total darkness. David Fleming lay on the heap of timbers staring blankly at the stone roof, and Arbella was on her feet, lunging towards her, knife in one hand and a lump of rock in the other.
Scrambling up and swinging the balk of wood she struck the knife, and it flew glittering into the tunnel and rattled down the slope. She hefted the stave, twisted it, swung it back, realized she had grasped it in the hold which Gil had shown her — how many days ago? — and struck Arbella’s wrist. The woman cried out, and recoiled. The dog bounded snarling round them, threatening to upset the candle again, and wonder of wonders Gil’s voice echoed down the shaft, booming and resounding but heart-warmingly familiar.
‘Gil!’ she shrieked. Wood creaked high up, and stones rattled down the shaft and fell on her leather hood. Her opponent hissed, and lunged again, and Socrates leapt to seize the old woman’s arm. Arbella struck at the soft of his nose with the stone, breaking his grip, and flung herself forward. Alys swung her wooden stave again, across, and twist the blade, and back, stepped backwards to avoid the reaching hands, and went down as her foot turned on a stone, writhing round to land on one knee. Using the stave to hold off her attacker, she scrambled to her feet, and the dog leapt past her, snarling hideously, struck Arbella at shoulder height with his forepaws, and brought her down.
More stones rattled down the shaft, and Gil shouted urgently to her, but she was panting too hard to answer him. The dog was standing over Arbella, his teeth at her throat. Blood dripped on her from his muzzle. Rope creaked and twanged, and suddenly Gil arrived beside her with a rush and a clatter of wood, blinking in the light, whinger in hand.
One breath, and he took in the situation.
‘You picked a strange place to practise,’ he said. ‘I told you to keep the point up.’
‘I was distracted,’ she said. ‘Gil, she killed Fleming, before he could tell me what he knew.’
‘He was next thing to dead already,’ said the woman on the ground. Socrates growled. ‘I gave him his quietus, no more. Call your dog off me, Maister Cunningham, if you would, and you’ll need to have a care to your wife, for I think her mind’s turned wi’ the dark. It does that to folks.’