Free Fate and Fortune by Shirley McKay Page A

with a plum coloured coat beneath a matching gown. Clean linen shirts and nether hose were packed into his saddle bag, and a smaller backpack slung across one shoulder held his father’s manuscript, folded in its wrappers and sealed with sealing-wax. In a pocket was a letter to the Edinburgh goldsmith, proving his claim to Matthew Cullan’s estate.
    It was Hew’s intention to keep to the line of the shore, where the paths were well worn and less hazardous, and he was less likely to fall prey to beggars or thieves. He planned to come to Largo Bay by dusk, and to stay a night there at Strathairlie, the house of an old friend, setting out for the ferry at Kinghorn the following day. The small towns and villages along the Fife coast were safe and sheltered landing places, where he meant to rest his horse. Against all odds, and the predictions of the groom, he had chosen once again to ride Dun Scottis, a sad-coloured ambler of uncertain temperament. The dun horse had mellowed in his master’s absence, or perhaps was growing old, for a sweet bed of straw and persistent gentle exercise had calmed his wild recalcitrance into a placid stubbornness. Hew remained attached to him. Since his business held no urgency, he was content to amble on across the countryside. Therefore he allowed the horse to set the pace, and explored the cool awakening of the land and sea. The farmers pulled the plough across the fallow fields, and the crows began to gather at the turning of the earth, in anticipation of seedtime. Winter oat and barley crops, lately deep in snow, were blown like sheets of water in the wind. Some of the farmers were Matthew’s old tenants; the fields that they furrowed were Hew’s. The slow and heavy dragging of the oxen through the soil felt deeply satisfying, as the earth renewed its natural cycle, and Hew arrived in Crail contented and fulfilled, as though he had himself been labouring on the land. He paused on the Marketgate, to traffic with the blacksmith and to hear the news, while the smith hammered out a new shoe for Dun Scottis. But among the gossip and report, he heard nothing untoward. In the harbour the boats had put out to sea, and the bairns scrambled barefoot over the rocks. No one had known the dead girl.
    In Anstruther and Pittenweem, the story was the same. The horse trotted on while Hew kept his eye on the track and followed the line of the shore. They made good progress, passing by the ruined kirk of St Monan’s, so close upon the water’s brim that Hew felt certain he would trace the fisher lass, where the world came tumbling to the edges of the sea, but the minister received him with a puzzled kindness : no lass was missing from here.
    Hew hurried on through Elie and Earlsferry, and turned the corner into Largo Bay. By now, he had almost lost hope of placing the dead girl. Nonetheless, he did not take the track towards Strathairlie House but rode down to the harbour, in Seatown of Largo. Women and girls sat outside the cottages, tying hooks to lengths of cord, long lines for the white fish that lay flat on the bed of the sea. They formed a fierce and jagged group, and Hew felt shy of approaching them. He led Dun Scottis further to the shore, where two boys came by with a barrel of mussels, collected as bait from the outcrop of rocks that lined the shallow bay. He guessed they were brothers, for both had a crop of muddled red hair. Once again, he asked the question, ‘Is there a lass gone missing from here?’ and was startled by its effect. The older boy glowered and glared, while his brother hopped excitedly from foot to foot.
    ‘Aye, sir, there is, Jess Reekie.’
    ‘Haud yer tongue,’ his brother cautioned, ineffectually. The excitement of a stranger, with fine clothes and a horse and a full fat purse, was too tempting to persuade the boy of danger, and he babbled on, ‘Big Rab Reekie’s daughter, that was sweet on Davey here.’
    The boy Davey blushed. ‘Away and piss,’ he suggested,