We wasted not our dawn
Praised heaven all our days.
The names are chipped but legible. McKinnon. Maitland. Two dates in the 1590s. There are no forenames to reveal that this grave contains women. Araminta flicks her fingers across the stone, removing dust and debris lodged in the carving. ‘Where’s the clue?’ she thinks, beginning to fret. She steps backwards, examining it from different angles, but there’s nothing obvious. She reads the inscription half a dozen times. Momentarily, she feels sick, wondering if Berenice intended this grave to be dug up, like the edge of the plague pit, but that seems unlikely in what must have been a functioning church, in her day, with everything carved of stone. This plaque must have been costly, she thinks. The detail is intricate, the crown especially. Araminta puts her head to one side, realising that the shape resembles the tower of St Giles’. It’s a distinctive design with an ornate finial. She steps closer. ‘It’s not a crown, it’s the lantern tower,’ she says under her breath and runs her fingers across it again. All the stones in the abbey are pock-marked by the weather but there’s a hole here that looks different; drilled, not worn away. She blows on the crown to remove the last of the dust. It’s only a pinprick but Berenice McKenzie must have stood exactly where she’s standing and drilled the stone to mark a spot on the roofof St Giles’. ‘Follow her to the grave,’ Araminta says and smiles. ‘Clever.’ The mark is on the inside of the base of one of the buttresses.
She feels elated and lays a hand on the stone for here there’s a direct connection to her great grandmother. She wants to sense something on the air, but nothing comes. Still, she has the clue. She’s about to turn back to her carriage when she hears shouting through the abbey’s open doorway. It’s Davey. He’s speaking too loudly. She steps back, feeling in her pocket for the little muff gun. ‘Mr Thom,’ Davey shouts, ‘I’d not thought to meet you here.’ He’s warning her. Her heart pounds. She can’t make out Thom’s reply. The nearest exit is the door in the direction of the palace and she knows she should take it without delay, but if Thom’s outside, he must know what he’s looking for and she doesn’t want to leave him the clue.
Drawing the muff gun she takes careful aim and fires at the stone, smashing the corner of the crown. Then she reloads and fires again. It’s still vaguely recognisable, though the clue, the tiny hole, is gone. She’s taking aim for the third time when Thom bursts into the nave, making straight for her. Davey isn’t far behind. She gets out another shot, satisfied for only a second that the carving is ruined before Thom huckles her against the stone column that fringes the aisle.
‘Unhand me!’ she shouts, turning the gun on him, but it’s out of bullets and there’s no time to reload. Quickly, he snatches the weapon and flings it to the ground.
‘Sir!’ Davey tries to pull Thom off his mistress, but he’s not as strong as the older man who unhands Araminta only a moment to punch the boy hard, jabbing left and right to put him down. While Davey stumbles, dazed, Araminta makes for the closest door. In her panic, she trips on the uneven stone floor and Thom has her again, pushing her against the abbey wall this time; a plaque along from the one she has just desecrated. Heshoves her closer to the Maitland McKinnon stone and reads the inscription. ‘What was here?’ he snarls, indicating the shattered crown. ‘What was it?’
‘You broke my great aunt’s rib,’ Araminta gets out.
‘Your great aunt is dead,’ Thom spits.
Araminta’s blood is up. ‘I’ve more than one great aunt,’ she snaps in anger.
This information sinks in. ‘Of course. A nunnery is a cesspit of female weakness,’ Thom spits. ‘She hid herself.’
Araminta tries to raise her knee but her boned underskirt makes it impossible to kick him hard enough to get him off. He laughs, tightening his grip.
‘I’ll do more than break your bones, Mrs Moore. What was here? Tell me.’
She squirms but he has hold of her too tightly. He takes a few seconds to memorise the verse. Then, realising she’s not going to tell him what she’s destroyed, he drags her outside like a petulant infant.
‘Help!’ Araminta shouts, but there’s nobody here. Davey is still laid out on the floor of the abbey. Two men from the debtors’ prison, wearing fine but worn damask jackets, stare from the far side of the palace courtyard. They move off, perhaps to alert their jailers, for the debtors cannot leave the precincts. Thom bundles her into the carriage, slamming the door. He turns to tether his horse to the rear mudguard, but Araminta hasn’t given up. She unlatches the door and makes to descend. With a roar, Thom thrusts her back. ‘You’ll bend to my will,’ he snarls and hits her. It’s in this moment that she realises that Mr Winter had already spoken to Harry Thom when she met him earlier; the careful way he made his promise about further enquiries. The look on his face as he made off into the library with her money. ‘Snake,’ she gets out under her breath and curses that Agnes did not secure her hat with a pin today as Eleanor usually does. Shehas nothing to use as a weapon and her fury is insufficient. Then Thom hits her again and the world disappears.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Davey gets back to Glenfinlas Street a full hour later. He has no idea for how long he lost consciousness, but when he wakes, he stumbles out of the empty Chapel Royal to find the carriage gone. There’s no transport for hire along the Canongate – it’s too poor for that. He runs up the hill, dodging the beer carts and children playing hopscotch and cuts across the bridge where he picks up a driver at Waterloo Place. The cab returns him to Glenfinlas Street at a pace fired by the extra shilling Davey has the sense to promise the man. ‘Wait for me,’ he orders and wheels down the basement stairs straight into Cook.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ she berates him.
‘The mistress,’ he pants.
Cook puts her hands on the boy’s shoulders and makes him sit. She pours a cup of milk. ‘Dinnae fash,’ she says. ‘It cannae be as bad as that.’
‘Is she here?’
Cook doesn’t keep note of the mistress’s comings and goings. She rarely ventures upstairs and the mistress so far has never ventured down. ‘Is she no with you, son?’
‘Mr Brodie,’ Davey says. ‘Where is he?’
Brodie is in his sitting room copying a tidy pile of receipts into the household ledger.
‘I’ve given him milk but he hasnae touched it,’ Cook reports.
‘The mistress is gone!’ Davey exclaims. ‘He took her!’
Cook glances sideways as if the boy has gone mad. Brodie, however, swings immediately into action. ‘Where?’ he asks. ‘Was it the same man who hurt Mistress McKenzie?’
Davey nods to confirm it. ‘Holyrood. In the Chapel Royal,’ he says. ‘He stole the carriage anaw. Knocked me flat.’
‘You took Mrs Moore to Holyrood? Unaccompanied?’ Brodie sounds furious.
‘She insisted. She had a gun, sir.’
