Beggars Banquet

I supped the last of the juice and put down the platter. ‘Remember I told you about the serpent, master?’

His eyes were red-rimmed, face puffy with excess. He nodded.

‘Well,’ I continued thoughtfully, ‘perhaps it’s not so far beneath the surface as I thought. You need only scratch and you’ll see it. Remember that, even in your cups.’

He looked puzzled, but nodded again. Then he seemed to remember something and reached into his leather bag. He handed me a wrapped parcel.

‘Cully, can you keep this somewhere safe?’

‘What is it?’

‘Just hold it for me a day or so. Will you do that?’

I nodded and placed the parcel at my feet. Gisborne looked mightily relieved. Then the howff door swung inwards and Urquhart and others appeared, taking Gisborne off with them. I finished my wine and made my way back to my room.

Halfway there, I met the tailor whose family lived two floors below me.

‘Cully,’ he said, ‘men are looking for you.’

‘What sort of men?’

‘The sort you wouldn’t have find you. They’re standing guard on the stairwell and won’t shift.’

‘Thanks for the warning.’

He held my arm. ‘Cully, business is slow. If you could persuade some of your clients of the quality of my cloth…?’

‘Depend on it.’ I went back up the brae to The Cross and found Mr Mack.

‘Here,’ I said, handing him the parcel. ‘Keep this for me.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m not sure. I think I may have stepped in something even less savoury than I thought. Any news of the List?’

Mack shook his head. He looked worried when I left him; not for himself, but for me.

I kept heading uphill, towards the Castle itself. Beneath Castle Hill lay the catacombs where the town’s denizens used to hide when the place was being sacked. And where the lowest of Edinburgh’s wretches still dwelt. I would be safe there, so I made my way into the tu

The man I sought sat slouched against one of the curving walls, hands on his knees. He could sit like that for hours, brooding. He was a giant, and there were stories to equal his size. It was said he’d been a seditionary, a rabble-rouser, both pirate and smuggler. He had almost certainly killed men, but these days he lay low. His name was Ormond.

He watched me sit opposite him, his gaze unblinking.

‘You’re in trouble,’ he said at last.

‘Would I be here otherwise? I need somewhere to sleep for tonight.’

He nodded slowly. ‘That’s all any of us needs. You’ll be safe here, Cullender.’

And I was.

But next morning I was roused early by Ormond shaking me.

‘Men outside,’ he hissed. ‘Looking for you.’

I rubbed my eyes. ‘Is there another exit?’

Ormond shook his head. ‘If you went any deeper into this maze, you could lose yourself for ever. These burrows run as far as the Canongate.’

‘How many men?’ I was standing up now, fully awake.

‘Four.’

I held out my hand. ‘Give me a dagger, I’ll deal with them.’ I meant it too. I was aching and irritable and tired of ru

‘I’ve a better plan,’ he said.

He led me back through the tu

‘The price of corn’s to be raised!’ he bellowed. ‘New taxes! New laws! Everyone to The Cross!’

Voices were raised in anger, and people clambered to their feet. Ormond was raising a mob. The Edinburgh mob was a wondrous thing. It could run riot through the streets, and then melt back into the shadows. There’d been the Porteous riots, anti-Catholic riots, price-rise riots, and pro-Revolution riots. Each time, the vast majority escaped arrest. A mob could be raised in a minute, and could disperse in another. Even Braxfield feared the mob.

Ormond was bellowing in front of me. As for me, I was merely another of the wretches. I passed the men who’d been seeking me. They stood dumbfounded in the midst of the spectacle. As soon as the crowd reached the Lawn-market, I peeled off with a wave of thanks to Ormond, slipped into an alley and was alone again.

But not for long. Down past the Luckenbooths I saw the servant again, and this time he would not evade me. Down towards Princes Street he went, down Geordie Boyd’s footpath, a footpath that would soon be wide enough for carriages. He crossed Princes Street and headed up to George Street. There at last I saw him descend some steps and enter a house by its servants’ door. I stopped a sedan chair. Both chairmen knew me through Mr Mack.

‘That house there?’ one of them said in answer to my question. ‘It used to belong to Lord Thorpe before he left for London. A bookseller bought it from him.’

‘A Mr Whitewood?’ I asked blithely. The chairman nodded. ‘I admit I don’t know that gentleman well. Is he married?’

‘Married aye, but you wouldn’t know it. She’s seldom seen, is she, Donald?’

‘Rarely, very rarely,’ the second chairman agreed.

‘Why’s that? Has she the pox or something?’

They laughed at the imputation. ‘How would we know a thing like that?’

I laughed too, and bid them thanks and farewell. Then I approached the front door of the house and knocked a good solid knock.

The servant, when he opened the door, was liveried. He looked at me in astonishment.

‘Tell your mistress I wish to speak with her,’ I said sharply.

He appeared in two minds at least, but I sidestepped him and found myself in a fine entrance hall.

‘Wait in here,’ the servant growled, closing the front door and opening another. ‘I’ll ask my lady if she’ll deign to see you.’

I toured the drawing-room. It was like walking around an exhibition, though in truth the only exhibition I’d ever toured was of Bedlam on a Sunday afternoon, and then only to look for a friend of mine.

The door opened and the lady of the house swept in. She had powdered her cheeks heavily to disguise the redness there – either embarrassment or anger. Her eyes avoided mine, which gave me opportunity to study her. She was in her mid twenties, not short, and with a pleasing figure. Her lips were full and red, her eyes hard but to my mind seductive. She was a catch, but when she spoke her voice was rough-hewn, and I wondered at her history.

‘What do you want?’

‘What do you think I want?’

She picked up a pretty statuette. ‘Are we acquainted?’

‘I believe so. We met outside the Tolbooth.’

She attempted a disbelieving laugh. ‘Indeed? It’s a place I’ve never been.’

‘You would not care to see its i

No amount of powder could have hidden her colouring. ‘How dare you come here!’

‘My life is in danger, lady.’

This quieted her. ‘Why? What have you done?’

‘Nothing save what you asked of me.’

‘Have you found the book?’

‘Not yet, and I’ve a mind to hand you back your money.’

She saw what I was getting at, and looked aghast. ‘But if you’re in danger… I swear it ca

‘No? A man has died already.’

‘Mr Cullender, it’s only a book! It’s nothing anyone would kill for.’

I almost believed her. ‘Why do you want it?’

She turned away. ‘That is not your concern.’

‘My chief concern is my neck, lady. I’ll save it at any cost.’

‘I repeat, you are in no danger from seeking that book. If you think your life in peril, there must needs be some other cause.’ She stared at me as she spoke, and the damnation of it was that I believed her. I believed that Dryden’s death, Braxfield’s threat, the men chasing me, that none of it had anything to do with her. She saw the change in me, and smiled a radiant smile, a smile that took me with it.