Crown in Darkness

concealed by darkness, despite regulations that lantern horns were to be displayed outside each house. A curfew had been imposed, explained Selkirk, because of the situation following the King's death. Most law-abiding citizens obeyed it but not so the denizens of the slums, stinking alleys and runnels of Edinburgh. Time and again Corbett saw shadows flit across their path, heard movement in the darkness which fell quiet as they approached. In the main, they were alone, their boots ringing hollow on the hard enclosed tracks except for the scavenging cat and threatening rustle of rats gnawing in the heaps of refuse which littered every street. They entered the Lawnmarket and Corbett shivered when he saw the gibbet and its rotten, swaying human fruit, black figures against the moonlit, summer night sky. The huge mass of St. Giles rose above them. They entered the enclosure and walked down the side of the church into the dark, tree-filled cemetery beyond. Here, they stopped, the soldiers trying to hide their fear and Corbett sensed that even Sir James Selkirk was frightened to be there. The dead, Corbett thought, do not worry me, it is the living who plot and kill.
    'You can take us to the graves, Sir James?' Selkirk nodded. 'It is strange,' continued Corbett, 'that Erceldoun is buried in the very church in which he was murdered!' Sir James disagreed. 'Both Erceldoun and Seton died in early summer,' he pointed out. 'Both men came from humble backgrounds, their kin could not afford to transport the bodies home, so they were brought here. Which grave do you wish to see first?' 'Erceldoun's,' snapped Corbett. Sir James led his group through a small wicket-gate and across the long, soft grass. The silence was oppressive as they made their way past mounds of earth, some with battered wooden crosses, others just forlorn heaps of clay. The rich could afford stone memorials, exquisitely carved, but the graves of the poor were not even properly dug, shallow holes which scarcely concealed their dead, left open to scavenging dogs and other creatures. Time and again, they came upon heaps of white shard-like bones or tripped cursing over a trailing white, skeletal arm or leg protruding from its thin veil of soil.
    An owl-hoot startled them all and a soldier cursed as the bird sailed low over their heads, plunging in the grass to seize some little creature which squirmed in its death agonies. 'Come!' said Selkirk impatiently. They walked a little further. Selkirk looked round and pointed to fresh-cut grass which surrounded a mound of newly-dug soil. 'Erceldoun's grave,' he remarked and after lighting a cresset-torch with a tinder flint ordered the soldiers to start digging. It was an easy task, the grave was shallow and soon they had scraped the dirt off the still-white coffin lid. 'Open it!' ordered Corbett but the soldier simply shook his head, threw his spade down and walked away. Corbett dug out his long Welsh dagger, knelt down beside the grave and prised open the lid. It scraped and creaked but eventually broke free. Corbett gagged at the bitter-sweet smell of corruption and covered his mouth and nose with his cloak to prevent himself choking. In the light of Selkirk's flickering torch the corpse lay face up, the head slightly askew, the eyes half-open. Putrefaction had set in around the nose and mouth, the skin felt cold and soggy as Corbett gently turned the head to look at the fatal weal round the neck, a broad, purple black gash with little round indentations which made it look like some ghostly parody of a necklace.
    Corbett looked down at the fearful remains of a young man who, the last time they had met, had been a vigorous young soldier interested in clearing his own name. Now he was dead, brutally murdered, and Corbett knew his only crime was that someone had watched them talk. He wiped his hands on the wet grass beside the grave and ordered the reluctant soldier back to secure the lid of the coffin and cover it with soil. Corbett noticed that the escort was no longer round him. Ranulf was sitting yards away and the soldiers were crowded together muttering and cursing to each other whilst Selkirk had already moved across the cemetery to a nearby grave. 'If you have finished there,' Sir James called out softly. 'This is Seton's grave.' Again the soldiers scraped away the dirt and Corbett prised open the wooden lid. He rolled back the leather covering and heard Selkirk's gasp of surprise. The young man lying there was