The Merchant's Mark

Chapter Seven

Seated once more in the cooper’s best chamber, with an offended dog at his feet, Gil repeated the question.

‘Who emptied the barrel, maister?’

‘I’ve no a notion,’ said Riddoch firmly. He had found a new confidence; Gil, eyeing him, regretted reassuring the man about his son. And yet, in conscience, he thought, could I have left him in anxiety any longer?

‘Where has your son gone?’ he asked. ‘Was he alone?’

‘He went into Stirlingshire,’ said Riddoch cautiously. ‘He’s done the journey afore, he kens the road. For withies,’ he added.

‘Where do you get them?’ asked the mason curiously. ‘I should have thought there was a supply closer to hand.’

‘We get them at a good price from his lordship,’ said Riddoch.

‘Sinclair, you mean?’ said Gil casually. Riddoch froze a moment, then nodded. ‘Has the boy been away long?’

‘Aye.’ This appeared to be surer ground. ‘We’ve kin there, he was to visit his uncle.’

‘And you looked for him back before now,’ Gil stated. Riddoch nodded with reluctance. ‘When? How long overdue is he?’

‘A few days now.’

‘How would he carry the withies?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘He’d pack them on the old horse. Or if he got a double load,’ qualified Riddoch, ‘they might hire him a cart. And that’s another thing. We’ll need the beast shortly, to take our turn at the carts when we win the hay off the burgh muir. The laddie kens that.’

Gil turned a little to face Riddoch directly. ‘The barrel which should have reached Glasgow,’ he said, ‘the one we found empty in your barn the now, would have held books.’

‘Books?’ Riddoch laughed, with little humour. ‘I’d like to ha seen that!’

‘Seen what?’

‘When it was opened. A right laugh that would be.’ He looked at Gil. ‘And the one you did get? What was in it, maister?’

‘Brine.’

‘Brine?’ repeated Riddoch. He licked his lips. ‘Just brine? I mean — was there aught in the brine? Fish, maybe, or salt meat? Or — ’

‘Not salt meat, no,’ said Gil, grimacing. ‘We found a man’s head. And a few shavings of wood, very like what’s blowing about your yard.’

The cooper gaped at him.

‘A man’s head, in one of our barrels?’ said Mistress Riddoch from the door. She came into the room to stand beside her husband’s chair. ‘What like man, maister?’ she asked, her voice high and tense.

‘It’s no the boy, Jess,’ said her husband. They crossed themselves simultaneously.

How long had she been there, Gil wondered. Long enough to govern her countenance, though not her voice.

‘Past twenty but not thirty years, short dark hair, one ear pierced,’ said Maistre Pierre concisely, ‘and odd-coloured eyes. One blue eye, one brown.’

‘Nobody we ken,’ said Riddoch quickly. His wife looked down at him, opened her mouth, closed it again.

‘You’re sure of that?’ said Gil. ‘Mistress? Would you ken anyone like that?’

‘N-no,’ she said. ‘No. Nobody like that.’

‘Nobody we ken,’ repeated Riddoch. ‘Was there aught else with the head?’

‘What should there be?’ asked Gil, and the cooper looked wary.

‘Nothing, maybe. Just I wondered if there was, well, any more of him, or any of his gear perhaps, that might tell you who he was, Christ assoil him.’ He crossed himself again, and his wife and Maistre Pierre did likewise.

‘Maister,’ said Gil, ‘consider what we have found. The barrel that was missing off Maister Morison’s cart has appeared in your barn, empty.’

‘And has been there for no more than a few days, it is obvious,’ put in Maistre Pierre.

‘There is a great patch of dried blood on the cobbles in the yard.’

‘Blood?’ repeated Mistress Riddoch. ‘Where? What — ’ She looked down at her husband again, and bit her lip.

‘Under the pile of shavings, at the end of the barn,’ said Gil. ‘Socrates, here, found it when Simmie swept it clear.’ Socrates’ ears twitched at the mention of his name, but he kept his head pointedly averted from his master. ‘And I’d like another word with Simmie, maister,’ he added to the cooper.

‘He’s away an errand,’ said Riddoch. ‘He’ll be an hour or so, if ye can wait.’ His wife turned her head sharply to look at him. ‘Himself wanted a word carried out-bye,’ he muttered, in response to the question in her eyes. She pursed her mouth, and turned to Gil again.

‘A pile of shavings by the barn? But Riddoch never lets the men keep it there, for fear of fire. It’s only sense.’

‘Quite so,’ agreed Gil. ‘So who first moved the heap from its usual place?’

‘It doesny have a usual place,’ she said. Her husband sat silent. ‘The men just sweep up where there are the most scraps.’

‘And the barrel that reached Glasgow,’ pursued Gil, ‘contained a man’s head.’ He studied Mistress Riddoch for a moment. ‘When did you last put up salt fish, mistress?’

She jumped as if he had struck her, and one hand rose to cover her mouth.

‘Tuesday,’ she said. ‘It was late for the quarter-day, but himself had never sent for the rent. I had two baskets of herring off Lizzie Cowan on Tuesday morn, and just in time.’ She lowered the hand, and her husband put up his own to grasp it. ‘I made the brine on Monday, sirs. It stood in the vat in the storehouse overnight, to let the sand settle, and the barrels washed and waiting beside it.’ She looked down at Riddoch. ‘I said I was one short in the morning, Riddoch, didn’t I? I kent we’d washed six.’

‘You did, lass,’ agreed her husband heavily.

‘Was the storehouse locked?’ asked the mason.

‘No, no.’ She laughed nervously. ‘Who’d steal an empty barrel?’

‘Quite so,’ said Gil. ‘And it was Monday night there was the disturbance in the yard.’

‘But Morison’s own man said the thief got away!’ said Riddoch.

‘He did, didn’t he,’ said Gil. ‘I think I need to talk to Morison’s man.’

‘This is not the way we came,’ said Maistre Pierre. He looked out over the low hills towards the Forth and waved an arm. ‘We are going east.’

‘That’s right, it’s the way to Roslin,’ said Gil. Behind them rode the three men, deep in an argument about football. Socrates was ranging round the party, inspecting the scents of the neighbourhood and carefully ignoring his master.

‘And why are we going to Roslin? I thought you wanted to speak to Maister Morison’s carter, whatever his name is.’

‘Billy He’ll keep, I hope, though we do need to question him. We’re going to Roslin because Riddoch paid his rent this morning, in barrels of salt herring.’

The mason eyed him resentfully for a few strides, then continued, ‘And where are your books, do you suppose?’

‘They’ll be at Roslin too, I hope. With Oliver li proz e li gentil.’ Gil turned in the saddle to interrupt the discussion behind them. ‘Did you learn any more in the Black Bitch, Rob?’

‘No a lot, Maister Gil,’ admitted Rob.

‘The ale’s good,’ said Tam, grinning.

‘It’s been quiet since the court left,’ volunteered Luke, ‘but there’s been a wheen strangers in the place just the same.’

‘Would they notice strangers?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘A busy place like this?’

‘Aye, but I just said it’s been quiet, maister,’ Luke pointed out.

‘They noticed us,’ said Tam. ‘Brought out all the long tales. The serjeant’s boar run wild and slain two chickens, three geese and a dog, they said. Show me it, I said, and they said, No, it hasny been seen for days. A likely tale. And the burgh muir’s haunted, there’s been a gathering of corbies over the hill behind the Whitefriars this week past, there’s a black ship on the Forth if you see it you’ll be deid within the year — ’

‘Aye, Andro Wood’s Flower,’ said Rob, to general laughter.

‘The corbies,’ said Gil. He shaded his eyes in his turn to peer into the light. ‘I had noticed them. A week, you said? And nobody took thought to look at what they’ve found?’

‘This close to harvest and all?’ said Rob. ‘Naw.’

‘Surely a week is too long,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘What is it, Maister Gil?’ asked Tam. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking we can take that track we passed a quarter-mile back,’ said Gil. ‘It seems to go the right way.’

‘Where is Socrates?’ wondered the mason.

‘He went off after a rabbit. He’ll find us when he’s forgiven me,’ said Gil confidently.

He turned his horse and rode back the way they had come, whistling now and then for the dog. Behind him the men grew silent; at his side the mason appeared deep in thought.

The crows were clearly to be seen from the road, circling and dropping, spiralling up again, centred always round one particular patch on the hillside. Gil, following the track up through the farmlands and past the stone buildings of the Carmelite friary, was reminded of the pillar of cloud.

‘So what have we learned?’ demanded Maistre Pierre, giving up the contest. Gil turned to look at him. ‘They denied all, the tonnellier and his wife, indeed he was an example of how to be hospitable but taciturn. But did they in fact know all?’

‘Not all,’ said Gil, ‘but more than they admitted. They looked for the boy back sooner than this, they feared it might have been him in the barrel — they must be beside themselves with worry, though they concealed it.’

‘But if Sinclair is involved, had he not told them what is afoot?’

‘I don’t think so. Or not all of it.’

‘Do you think Riddoch has guessed? Could he have told us his suspicions?’

‘In his place, I’d ask questions and keep my own counsel. He truly feared for his son, you noticed. And he asked what else was in the barrel, as if he expected there to be something.’

‘And where has the boy been? His wife said, when I asked her, they had expected him on Monday. Where is he now? And who were the thieves?’

‘We need to find that out.’

‘I had a word with Maister Riddoch,’ divulged Maistre Pierre, ‘while you were writing down what his wife had seen.’

‘And they were very reluctant to talk to me separately. What did he say to you?’

‘He told me that one had arrived at his yard on Wednesday, asking about the carts that had lain there on Monday.’

‘What kind of a one? And only one? What prompted him to tell you this?’

‘I asked that also. He said, The Axeman, as if he expected me to know who that was. I said, What axeman, did he mean his man who was shaping staves, and he laughed as if I had uttered some piece of bravado. So I asked what this axeman looked like, and he described a big ugly man, wearing black, and carrying a poleaxe maybe,’ he measured with both hands, ‘five foot long. Which I suppose might mean it was four foot.’

‘A Lochaber axe? That’s a fighting man’s weapon — a mercenary, or someone’s man-at-arms. And this man was asking about the carts from Monday night,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘Did Riddoch say what he told him?’

‘I understood,’ said Maistre Pierre, retrieving his reins, ‘that he told him what he has told us. One for Leith, one for Irvine and one for Glasgow, and the names of the owners.’

They rode on, past a small farm-town whose barley was ripening in the field.

‘They’ll be shearing that soon, now they have the hay in,’ said Gil. He leaned down to listen to the grain, then went on in silence for a few minutes, reviewing the conversation they had had with the cooper and his wife. ‘Provided Mistress Riddoch was not dreaming,’ he said at length, ‘we can assume that at least one man arrived at the yard and was attacked by two or three others.’

‘Unless they fought among themselves.’

‘I suppose so. Anyway, I think it’s clear enough that one man was killed in that yard, probably by beheading, possibly by a Lochaber axe and probably not by Riddoch himself, and his head put in a barrel of brine out of Mistress Riddoch’s brine-vat. I wonder who knew she had made brine that day?’

‘All the household, I suppose.’

‘Aye, but who else?’

‘And who sealed the barrel so expertly?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘That was done by a cooper — by a craftsman. Moreover, it is a noisy process. Riddoch showed me just now, and I have seen it before. It should have woken Mistress Riddoch, if not her man.’

‘She dreamed about the men working.’

‘You mean she may have heard the noise, but not woken?’

‘Aye. And when she did wake, she saw someone in black carrying something long and heavy towards the gate.’

‘And you think that is what we seek just now.’ Maistre Pierre gestured towards the spiralling crows.

‘It could be.’

‘Or it could be a dead sheep.’

‘We still have no name for him.’

‘Oh — and another thing I learned while you were making your notes. I remarked, as by chance you understand, that we were seeking the musician. I gave both his names, and Mistress Riddoch said, Oh, no, she had not seen Barty in the town for a week or two.’

‘So they did know a man with odd-coloured eyes. I rather thought so.’

‘She might not have been close enough to see his eyes,’ admitted the mason fairly, ‘but it is a very noticeable feature.’

‘If she knew him well enough to use his right name,’ said Gil, ‘she knew him enough to see the colour of his eyes. They are not good liars, either of them.’

‘Which makes it the more likely that they did not kill our man.’

‘True.’ Gil stopped talking while he persuaded his horse past a boulder which it seemed to find alarming. Once past, he continued, ‘I hope Andy has not carried out his threat to dismiss Billy.’

‘The carter, you mean? Indeed, yes. What did Riddoch say of him just now? He offered to keep watch so the other carters might go drinking,’ Maistre Pierre recalled, itemizing the points on one large hand, ‘he claimed to have seen only one man, improbably dressed for an evening’s thieving, running towards the gate, and he said nobody went near the carts.’

‘I wonder how much we can believe?’

‘You said yourself, Riddoch is a poor liar.’

‘I have no doubt he reported truthfully,’ agreed Gil, ‘but were the words he reported the truth?’

‘They corbies is fair noisy,’ commented Rob from behind them. Gil looked up, and checked his horse.

‘They are,’ he agreed. ‘There’s no doubt they’ve found something. Can you work out where it’s lying?’

The crows were circling above a stand of trees, off the track and up to their right, with much cawing and croaking, but after they had all studied the movement of the birds for a time Maistre Pierre said, ‘I think they come and go from behind that dyke yonder.’

‘And nane do ken that he lies there,’ said Gil. ‘I agree. If we stay a-horseback the birds won’t take fright, and we can keep the spot marked. Come on.’

‘Must we?’ muttered someone behind him.

Gil looked over his shoulder. ‘We’ll circle round,’ he said, ‘come down on it from upwind.’

This proved to be a necessary precaution. Even from upwind, the smell of death reached them several yards away.

‘Sweet St Giles,’ said Gil.

Luke gagged, and Rob said uneasily, ‘Likely it’s just a sheep, maister. Can we go now?’

‘Then sall erth of erth raise a foul stink. You can get back out of range,’ said Gil, wadding his handkerchief over his nose. The mason said nothing, but dismounted and gave his reins to Tam, who immediately led the animal away upwind. Two crows perched on the drystone wall watched with identical bright glares, and another flew up with something dangling from its long vicious beak as the two men approached across the rough grass of the field.

There was a ditch below the dyke, over which the grass grew long. The crows and other creatures had trampled a narrow path through it into the ditch; something pale could just be seen in the shadows, and the grasses themselves were spotted and specked with fragments, of flesh, of bristly skin. Gil pressed his handkerchief tighter against his nose, stepped forward and parted the grasses with his boot.

They looked in silence at what lay there.

‘Poor devil,’ said Gil after a moment.

‘How long, would you say?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

‘There’s been a fox at his legs, would you say, as well as the crows. Four or five days would be about right.’

‘He is well blown,’ agreed his companion, considering the bloated belly. ‘I think so too. That would account for the time the crows are said to have been here. Well, there is no more to be done.’ He backed away, and called over his shoulder, ‘We are both wrong, Rob. Neither a sheep nor a dead man, but a pig. A great boar, overturned in the ditch.’

They turned to tramp back across the rough grass to join the men. Rob said, ‘The burgh serjeant’s boar — ’

‘Maister Gil!’ said Tam urgently. ‘Look yonder!’ He gestured at the stand of trees where the crows were still circling and cawing.

Gil looked, and exclaimed sharply. He lunged forward to leap into his saddle, drawing his whinger as he found the stirrups, wheeling the horse about with his knees. His mount danced sideways, snorting, as the first of the men on foot reached them, and Gil was just in time to hack at the hand attempting to snatch his rein. The man fell back, shouting, but two more sprang past him, one armed with a sword, one with a cudgel, and joined in the fight.

Clashing metal behind him told Gil there were more attackers, but his attention was fully occupied. His horse, which was certainly not battle-trained, flattened its ears and plunged away from the swords. He collected it with seat and heels, managed to turn it, and charged down on the mêlée round Tam, who was already bleeding from a cut to the head. As Gil arrived he took another blow from the cudgel which made him cry out. Beyond him someone had fallen, and Luke and Rob were holding off another swordsman, who was leaping about their plunging horses slashing wildly with his blade.

‘Pierre! Over here!’ Gil shouted.

‘That’s them right enough!’ gasped one of the assailants. ‘Go for the packs, Willie.’ He ducked as Gil’s whinger whirred past his face, and two things happened almost simultaneously. Up the hillside from the direction they had come hurtled a low grey silent form which sprang at the man with the cudgel, knocked him over, and seized him by the throat; and as Gil struck away a blow aimed at the dog’s back a horn blew further up the hill, and four horsemen appeared round the curve of the track, approaching fast, light catching on their drawn swords.

‘Get the packs!’ shouted someone. ‘Cut the straps, Willie!’

‘No time!’ answered the man who was fending off Gil’s attack. ‘Get away! Save yersels!’

As the newcomers swept down towards them the attackers broke and ran in all directions, leaving three men lying in the grass. One was Tam, who had fallen off but had somehow kept hold of both sets of reins, one was the man who had gone down first and still lay unmoving, and the third was pinned down by a triumphant Socrates. The dog had a large paw planted firmly on the high leather collar of his captive’s jack. His entire set of white teeth was on display, and he was growling, very quietly, every time the man stirred.

‘Good dog!’ said Gil. ‘Leave. Leave it.’

Beyond them, Luke and Rob were grinning at each other, and Maistre Pierre, still afoot, was sheathing his weapon in a businesslike manner.

‘I apologize that I did not come to your aid, Gilbert,’ he said, ‘but I was somewhat distracted. How many were there? We had certainly four at this side.’

‘And these two, and two more who ran,’ said Gil. He looked at the approaching horsemen, who had turned off the track and were now moving purposefully towards them over the grazing-land, and did not sheath his whinger. ‘Eight all told, I suppose. Tam, can you rise, man?’

‘Aye, maybe,’ replied Tam, making no attempt to do so. ‘My head’s broke, and I think I got kicked in the knee. They were after the packs, Maister Gil. What’s in them, that they were so eager to get them? What did you fetch from Stirling?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Gil absently, still watching the riders.

The newcomers slowed as they reached them; they wore black mantles over well-worn, well-maintained armour, and the fishtailed Cross of St John showed white on each man’s left shoulder. Two of them separated and moved past the scene of the attack, one to each side in a practised way. They turned, and all four halted.

‘Maister Gil,’ said Rob uneasily, ‘what’ll we do?’

‘Good day, messieurs,’ said a tall man with a dark, neat beard like Maistre Pierre’s. He bowed slightly over his horse’s neck and his sharp eyes scanned them all, missing nothing ‘Raoul de Brinay, at your service. I regret that I must ask you not to move. Except,’ he added with a gleam of humour, ‘perhaps to call the hound off his kill.’

Gil looked round at de Brinay’s men, each with sword drawn and ready, each as relaxed and watchful as their leader. He exchanged a look with Maistre Pierre, and sheathed his whinger.

‘Keep still, Rob. We are peaceful travellers, sir,’ he went on in French. ‘We have done no wrong. Even if we are on St Johns land, I do not think you have the right to hold us like this.’

‘Probably not,’ agreed the Hospitaller amiably, ‘but I feel compelled to ask you what are you carrying, to attract such a band of thieves?’

‘I wish I knew,’ said Gil.

‘We are seeking a shipment of books,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘and have travelled from the west in pursuit of them, but we have not found them so far. We have nothing of value in our packs.’ His right hand moved on his knee.

‘Let us make sure,’ suggested Sir Raoul, unbending slightly. He nodded to one of the men beyond Gil. ‘Johan? And you may as well leash your dog, monsieur, and tend to your servant if you wish it.’

Gil dismounted, gave his reins to Rob, and dragged Socrates away from his prisoner, praising him lavishly. The man scrambled to his feet, despite the dog’s threatening snarls, and would have made off, but a small movement of the bare sword of the nearest rider appeared to change his mind for him, and at a word from Sir Raoul the same rider lighted down and bound the thief’s wrists.

‘De Brinay,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Are you from Brinay itself, sir?’

The Hospitaller glanced curiously at him, and nodded. ‘I am. You know it?’

‘I have built there, before I was a master. Repairs to two columns in the church nave. You must be the brother of the present lord.’

‘His cousin.’

The man addressed as Johan had removed his mailed gauntlets and was searching their packs quickly and economically, feeling each of the saddlebags and moving on to the next. The horses fidgeted, and both Luke and Rob watched him warily as he felt expertly at their scrips, but neither dared to say anything. The two purses in Gil’s pack caused him some interest, but when he had ascertained their size through the heavy leather saddlebag he went on. Finally he met his leader’s eye again and shook his head, the light glinting on his grey steel helm.

‘Nicht hier,’ he said. ‘Nur Kleingelt.’

There was a short exchange in a language which Gil took to be High Dutch, though he only caught one or two words. The other two St Johns men watched, bare swords unwavering, and Gil wondered what Robert Blacader would say to hear his quite generous contribution to expenses described as small change. He bent over Tam, but decided there was little wrong with him besides a sore head, and bruising on shoulder and knee. The remaining man had a lump the size of a duck egg on his skull and was just beginning to stir; Socrates eyed him suspiciously but made no comment.

‘Sir Raoul,’ Gil said at last. The Hospitaller turned to look at him. ‘If I tell you our story, you will see that you have no reason to hold us.’

‘Who said I was holding you?’ said Sir Raoul very politely. ‘I should be enchanted to hear this history, sir. Is it long?’

‘Not long.’ Gil recounted, as briefly as he might, how the wrong barrel had come home and what had happened to its contents, and how they were still searching for the books and the missing musician.

‘A head and one saddlebag,’ said the Hospitaller when he had finished. ‘Is there any reason why I should believe you, sir?’

‘Not in the immediate term,’ Gil admitted, wondering if he had imagined the slight emphasis on the one. ‘I have the papers for the barrel we’re searching for, giving the contents as books, but as to the rest, you would have to send to Glasgow to catch up with my lord St Johns, assuming he travels with the King, and to get word from the Provost.’

Sir Raoul smiled, showing white teeth with one missing.

‘It is an advantage of dealing with a lawyer,’ he proclaimed. ‘They always have a clear idea of what is proof. I think I may not trouble our noble Preceptor in this matter. Is there any more, sir? Did nothing appear along with the empty barrel?’

‘One thing more,’ said Maistre Pierre, who had been silent for some time. ‘One told me, as to a fellow craftsman, you understand, that someone else enquired for the carts which had lain in Linlithgow on Monday night.’

‘Did he give a name?’

‘No name. He called him the Axeman.’

‘Was ist?’ said Johan. ‘Was heisst das?’

‘The Axeman,’ said Sir Raoul in Scots.

The standing prisoner let out an exclamation. ‘What did ye say? The Axeman? Is he in this? Oh, man! Oh, man!’ he moaned, and dropped to his knees. ‘Just kill me now, maisters, for I canny bear to wait till he catches up wi me! Oh, man!’

‘Ma foi,’ said the Hospitaller, gazing down at the man. ‘What is the matter? What is he saying?’

‘It seems he fears this axeman,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘And so would you, if you’d heard the half o what I’ve heard,’ groaned the prisoner. ‘He never tellt us the Axeman was in this.’

‘We must hear more,’ said Sir Raoul, and looked at the sky. ‘Messieurs, it is late in the day to be setting out for Glasgow, and one man injured at that. Will you come with me to the Preceptory, where we may question these two in more comfort?’

‘We are still travelling,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We have come from the west, as I told you, and now I think we must go south, till we find what we seek.’

‘We weren’t making for Glasgow,’ said Gil with reluctance. ‘But I admit I would like to hear them questioned. After all,’ he grinned suddenly, and switched to Scots, ‘this one was taken in fang — caught by the dog in the very act of robbery.’

Sir Raoul grinned back at him, sharing his enjoyment of the legal play on words. ‘Ah. Then we may at least be seated while we talk to them.’ He looked about. ‘And if we are to dispense justice, simple tact suggests we should do it off the Carmelites’ land. Let us repair to the track, which is ours.’

Tam was heaved back on to his horse, and the groaning thief slung over someone’s saddlebow, and they moved off the grazing-land. The conscious prisoner complained bitterly as he was herded along, on the theme of the ill-treatment of a condemned man.

‘Nobody’s condemned you yet,’ said Gil in some amusement.

‘Oh, I’m doomed. He’ll get me,’ sniffed the man. ‘He’ll catch up wi me. I need a priest, I have to make my confession. Ave Mary grassy plena,’ he mumbled. ‘And I canny sign myself wi my hands bound like this.’

Questioned, he admitted that his name was Andrew Gray, their other captive was Jemmie Forrest, and they were both from Linlithgow. Sir Raoul seated himself on a convenient earthen dyke, inspected him sternly and asked, ‘Who else was in your band?’

‘I never kenned all their names, maister,’ said Gray, and sniffed again. ‘It was a man I met in the Green Lion, he was looking for help to get back something of his maister’s so he said, and he hired four or five of us there in the tavern.’ He glowered at Tam, who was being anointed and bandaged by Johan and Maistre Pierre in committee. ‘He showed us him yonder, walking along the street, said he’d laid him information so you’d be sure to come up here, so we came out to wait for you, and never had any dinner, and he never tellt us the Spital was in it neither, and if the Axeman wants the same thing he’ll get me, he will.’

‘What was he wanting back?’ Gil asked. Socrates, lying at his feet, raised his head and looked from one face to another.

‘He never said.’ Gray flinched away from the dog’s intent gaze. ‘We had to get a pack o some sort,’ he added, apparently trying to be helpful.

‘He ordered someone to get the packs,’ Gil recalled, and the man nodded.

‘And who was his master?’ asked Sir Raoul.

‘He never let on, maister. Never said nothing about him, nor what his own name was, nor his friend’s.’

‘What did his friend call him? Did he have a name for him?’

Gray looked warily at Gil while this idea penetrated his skull.

‘Baldy,’ he said at length. ‘He cried him Baldy He wasny bald, just the same,’ he elaborated kindly, ‘for ye could see his hair sticking out at the back of his coif. Likely it was short for Archibald, ye ken.’

‘I ken,’ said Gil. He looked at Sir Raoul. ‘Does that mean anything to you, sir?’

‘How should it?’ parried the Hospitaller.

‘Did either of them say anything else?’ Gil asked Gray hopefully. ‘Where they had come from, maybe, or who had sent them? Who told them we had this thing of their master’s?’

Gray stared at him, and shook his head. Too many questions, thought Gil, annoyed with himself. He tried again.

‘Were they from hereabouts?’

‘No.’ The man shook his head again. ‘They wereny anybody we ever saw afore. Willie said,’ he added, ‘he thocht they were from Stirling, or there. Just by the way they talked, ye ken.’

‘Can you describe them?’ asked Sir Raoul. Gray looked blankly at him. ‘What did they look like?’

‘Just ordinary,’ said Gray. ‘One of them had a hat on,’ he recalled. ‘No Baldy, the other one.’

‘A hat?’ repeated Sir Raoul.

‘Instead of a blue bonnet,’ explained Gil, gesturing at the decrepit knitted object on Gray’s head. ‘What kind of a hat? A felt one? Did it have a brim?’

‘Just ordinary,’ said Gray again. ‘It had a feather in it,’ he added.

Further questioning produced no more details. At length the Hospitaller said, ‘I ought to fine you for attempted robbery, Andrew Gray.’

‘I’ve nothing to pay a fine wi,’ muttered Gray. ‘Nor I’ll have no time to earn it afore he gets me.’

‘Then leave Linlithgow,’ said Sir Raoul impatiently. ‘Go now, without returning to your home, and this man you fear will never find you.’

‘Go? Where would I go, maister? Set out on a journey unshriven?’

‘How would I know? Stirling, maybe, or Leith.’

‘No Leith,’ said Gray, shivering. ‘One o them said he’d been to Leith and no found it, whatever it was they socht. Or maybe someone else had been to Leith. Any road, I canny go there.’

‘Then go to Edinburgh,’ Gil said. ‘It’s big enough to get lost in.’

By the time the augmented party stopped, an hour or so later on the other side of the hills, to get a bite of food and rest the horses a little at a tavern in Bathgate, Gil was no clearer in his mind about the afternoon’s events.

‘What’s going on, anyway, Maister Gil?’ asked Rob, pushing Tam down on to the bench between them. ‘Are the Spitallers on our side or no? We drove off the thieves, and then the Spital held us and searched us. I was feart that fellow Johan would be away wi my St Peter medal out my blanket. And now he’s to ride along wi us, whether you will or no.’

‘He was after bigger game than your medal,’ said Maistre Pierre, sitting down opposite.

‘He was, wasn’t he,’ agreed Gil. ‘Though Sir Raoul wouldny admit it. Here he comes,’ he added, as their new companion followed them into the tavern.

When the interrogation on the hillside was ended, the man Gray had been supplied with a few coins and a loaf from someone’s saddlebag, and offered a sight of Tam’s St Christopher medal to ward off sudden death.

‘Look on St Christopher’s face and you willny die unshriven,’ Rob had said, borrowing the medal from his still-dazed colleague.

The man had been genuinely grateful. Gil had watched him trudge away along the track to make for Edinburgh, and then remarked to the Hospitaller, ‘Now why should the Preceptory be interested in this?’

‘Have I said it is?’ asked Sir Raoul lightly. ‘Our concern is for justice and the King’s Peace on our lands.’

‘So what did you hope to find in our baggage?’

‘Nothing,’ said Sir Raoul. ‘And nothing was what we found.’

‘Nothing,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘in a small heavy bundle.’

The Hospitaller turned and looked directly at him. ‘You cannot expect me,’ he observed, ‘to discuss the Preceptory’s business with chance-met travellers.’

‘It was no chance,’ said Maistre Pierre at Gil’s shoulder.

‘And we are involved in the business already,’ Gil added, ‘if half Linlithgow can be raised to steal our baggage. It would surely benefit both parties if we were to share information.’

‘I cannot discuss the Preceptory’s business,’ said Sir Raoul again, on a faint note of apology. ‘Excuse me.’ He strode away from them towards Johan, who was inspecting the still-dazed second prisoner a little way away. Gil and the mason looked at one another, and Rob spoke up from where he and Luke were sharing a flask of something.

‘Can we no get on the road, Maister Gil? We’ll no be where we’re going afore Prime at this rate.’ He rose, and came over to his master. ‘And another thing,’ he said quietly. ‘This lot were after us right enough.’ Gil looked enquiringly at him. ‘Him they cry Johan, he said something to their leader in High Dutch. I canny speak it that well, but I can understand it, from when Matt and me was away at the wars, and he was saying we was the band some laddie had tellt them was on the road.’

‘Simmie,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll wager that was his errand. But why should St Johns be interested in our barrel?’

‘You said Treasurer Knollys was eager for you to ask questions in Ayrshire rather than the Lothians,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Maybe it was one of theirs that was in the barrel,’ suggested Rob. ‘You thocht he was a fighting man, maister.’

‘Maybe,’ said Gil thoughtfully. He turned as Sir Raoul approached. ‘We must be on our way, sir. The day wears on.’

‘True,’ agreed the other. ‘And you do not wish to be held up again. For that reason,’ he said politely, ‘I have commanded Johan to ride with you, as protection.’

Gil had attempted, civilly, to decline the man’s company, but Maistre Pierre had said suddenly, ‘Let him join us, Gil. Our friend is right. Another sword may be of assistance.’

Now, in Bathgate, on one of the major routes between Edinburgh and Glasgow, they had paused for food. Johan slid along the bench to sit by Maistre Pierre, and nodded at the group.

‘Ve go far?’ he asked, in horribly accented Scots.

‘We go to Roslin,’ said Gil.

‘Roslin? Ver dwells Sinclair?’

‘Aye,’ agreed Gil. The inn-servant slapped a platter of boiled salt fish and bread in front of them, and stood with his hand out for the money. Gil opened his purse and counted out the coins, while the others helped themselves to the food. Johan, when invited, took a portion and ate moderately, casting thoughtful looks at Gil from time to time. He had removed helm and coif, revealing short fair hair and a strip of pale skin between the hairline and the weatherbeaten tan of his bony face.

‘The man Gray,’ said Maistre Pierre through a large mouthful, ‘told us little of value.’

‘You heard it, did you?’

‘I did. We know, I suppose, that he was hired by this Archibald — Baldy — and another with a feathered hat, to steal from us something in a pack which had belonged to their master, and which had been sought and not found, by Baldy or another, at Leith.’

‘We’d a horse we cried Baldy once,’ said Tam vaguely, ‘for the white spot on his broo. A good goer he was an all.’

‘A fair summary,’ agreed Gil, ignoring this, and took a bite of bread and fish. ‘And we heard of a man with a feathered hat,’ he added, switching to French. Johan frowned, watching them.

‘The same, you think?’

‘Or a coincidence.’

‘Mm.’ Maistre Pierre took another wedge of bread. ‘And what have we got, or not got, that they are after? The load that went to Stirling, or something else?’

‘And why is the Spital interested? They had obviously heard a lot about us,’ observed Gil in Scots.

‘How so?’ asked the mason, annexing the last pickled onion. ‘Shall we have more food?’ He waved to the man at the tap of the big barrel without waiting for an answer.

‘De Brinay knew I was a lawyer,’ Gil said, and looked down at his dark clothing. ‘I may be soberly dressed, but my inkhorn and pen-case are out of sight in my baggage. I never said to Riddoch what my calling might be, though I know you named your own, and we left these three out in the street. So the Spital never got the information from him.’ He glanced at Johan, who looked enigmatically back at him. ‘Either Simmie brought that word as well as the rest from Sinclair this afternoon, or they knew about us already.’

‘Out in the street,’ muttered Tam. ‘There was something …’

‘What is it, man?’ asked Rob, looking at him in concern.

‘Something I’ve forgot, when we were out in the street. Did someone speak to us?’

‘Half the lassies o Linlithgow,’ said Rob, grinning. ‘You were cawin’ the pump handle to them for kisses.’

‘I never!’ said Tam in alarm.

‘No, you never,’ said Luke, despite Rob’s grimaces. ‘He’s having you on.’

‘If you kick me again,’ said Maistre Pierre to Rob, ‘I will eat your share of the food.’

‘Someone did speak to us,’ said Tam, and rubbed his forehead. ‘Who was it?’

The second platter of bread and fish disappeared more slowly. Gil shared a great hunk of bread with Socrates, and tore a portion of stockfish into shreds for the dog, relishing as always the contrast between the strong, sharp teeth set in the narrow, powerful jaw and the delicate, well-bred manners the animal displayed.

‘Well,’ he said, licking onion sauce off his fingers when the platter was empty, ‘shall we ride on? Tam, are you fit, man? Maybe I should have taken you to your kin at the Wheetflett.’

‘Kin,’ muttered Tam, edging along the bench after Rob. ‘Kin. That’s it. He said kin.’

‘What are you on about?’ demanded Rob.

‘Is it what you’d forgot?’ Luke asked.

‘Aye,’ said Tam, and lurched to his feet. ‘Aye, Maister Gil, I’ll manage, never you worry. But that’s it, right enough. That’s what I’d forgot. When we were at the well, the three of us, waiting for you and Maister Mason,’ he said earnestly, hobbling after Gil to the door, ‘a man cam down the vennel from the place you were in first. The lute-maker’s, was it? Well clad, he was. Might ha been the lute-maker hisself.’

‘So?’ said Gil, helping his servant over the doorsill.

‘He said to me, Was I with those two men that were there just now. I said, Aye I was, since there wereny two other men thegither, saving us, in the street at the time,’ he added, grinning. ‘And he said, Tell your maister, he said, that Barty Fletcher, would that be the right name?’

‘It would,’ said Gil. ‘Go on.’

‘That Barty Fletcher has kin in Roslin.’ He looked uncertainly at Gil’s expression. ‘That was all he said, Maister Gil. And then he turned and went back up the vennel.’