Lammas by Shirley McKay

The juglar sounded sad, and Marie wondered if he was feeling sorry for the boy. But when she asked him, he telt her he was not. He believed that the show would outshine his own, which he was hoping to perform in the inn that night.
    â€˜The one with the egg and the bat?’ Marie asked.
    He telt her that he thought the bat had died. That was no matter, for he had another trick. But he could not do it without help.
    Marie said, ‘What help?’
    â€˜The help of a lass who has the kind of face to keep a man transfixed. A sonsie face like yours.’
    Marie was flattered then. ‘What is the trick?’ she asked.
    â€˜A disappearing one.’
    Her eyes opened wide. ‘What will you disappear?’
    â€˜Anything you like. Any kind of thing can be made to disappear. The trick is distraction,’ he replied. Elspet stepped back. She could no longer bear to look at the boy’s face, caught in concentration, in a clasp so powerful that it frightened her. The boy’s face turned to stone, still and sculpted, strange. He listened to the wind. He did not hear the crowd.
    Elspet had drifted to the far side of the pier, where the water rose and broke upon the rocks, showering her with spray. She looked on a sun that was sultry and dark, heavy with heat, in an indigo sky. The rush of the water had drowned out the crowd; the rush of the crowd had drowned out the drum; the beat of the drum had drowned out the sea, lulled to a hush as the rattle came quick, tight on its surface like sweet Lammas rain. Elspet looking back to hear the drumroll’s rush saw the boy step out, taut above a pool so dark and smooth and still it seemed to hold its breath. Elspet turned again, and Sliddershanks was there. His face was grained and grey, desolate with grief. The rushing of the water took away his words, and cast them to the wind.

    (7)
    Andrew Wood, the crownar and sheriff for Fife, held no jurisdiction at the fair. He had come to town to collect the rents for his brother’s mill, and was at the tolbooth on that day by chance. So when a witness came to report a crime he referred the matter to the powder court. The bailies, when they heard the case, referred it back to him. According to the witness’s account, a woman had been thrown from the pier, in full view of her friends, a slaughter with intent, which was his concern, and no concern of theirs.
    A death at a fair was a rare and grave thing, and unlawful killing counted with the worst. Fairs took place on ancient soil, on what had once been sacred days, and blood spilled there could tarnish and corrupt the spirit of the fair itself. Such superstitions, never now expressed, none the less were felt, and the bailies did their best to distance these events. The woman had been taken by the sea, therefore her destruction had not happened in the town.
    Sir Andrew gave the order for the building of a gallows in the market place, before the sun went down. The penalty for slaughter was plain and unequivocal. But when he came to the harbour to make his arrest, he found that the report did not reflect the facts. The case was far from clear.
    In the first place, there was no sign of a corpse. The person in question had gone missing from the fair. Sir Andrew made a last attempt to refer the matter back to the powder court, but with no success: the witnesses were certain that the lass was dead. The witnesses, he found, were nothing of the sort. The girl had fallen from the pier, they said, but none of them could swear they saw her fall. Her body had been taken by the tide, but none of them had seen it swept away; the tide had turned before they thought to search. They showed a plaid, found on the rocks. No one could confirm it was the missing girl’s.
    â€˜There is nothing, then, to prove that she was pushed, or even that she fell,’ he pointed out.
    As witness to the fact, they brought to him a slattern, racked with sighs and sobs, and a student so drunk that