The Stolen Voice

Chapter Seven

The Blackfriars’ accommodation for guests was spacious and well appointed. It was hardly surprising, Gil reflected, admiring the brocade cushions and rich hangings of the chamber where he had been asked to wait for Brother Cellarer. The court had not used the place for fifty-odd years, not since James First was assassinated here, but it had certainly been founded, long before that, to provide somewhere suitable for the King and his entourage to lie when they came to Perth. Alys would like the detail of the stonework, he thought, studying the carved foliage on the capital of the pillar between two window-openings.

‘Can I help you, Maister Cunningham?’ asked a soft voice in the doorway. He turned, to find a small fair-haired Dominican watching him with faint amusement.

‘It’s a fine building,’ he said.

‘We are blessed,’ agreed the friar. He came forward into the chamber. ‘They were craftsmen that built it to God’s glory. Did you see this?’ He stepped into the window-space beside Gil and pointed upwards. Gil followed his gaze and found a tiny head carved in the angle of wall and roof, grimacing at him. He laughed, and Brother Cellarer smiled, then raised his hand and delivered the friars’ conventional blessing.

‘I am Edward Gilchrist. I oversee the smooth running of this guesthouse. And how can I help you?’ he asked.

‘I’m looking into this matter of James Stirling,’ Gil explained. ‘Secretary to Bishop Brown,’ he prompted, as the other man frowned.

‘Yes, of course.’ Gilchrist’s face cleared. ‘The Bishop sent this morning, and the lay brothers are out just now, searching the Ditchlands.’ He nodded at the window, through which several black-habited men were visible on the open ground, peering under gorse bushes. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, maister, but I — ’

‘Almost the last action of Stirling’s we know of,’ Gil pursued, ‘was to speak to Andrew Drummond, Canon of Dunblane, who was lodged here at the time. I’ll have to go back to Dunblane and speak to the Canon, but in the meantime I hoped, if you can tell me anything about his movements that day, it might shed some light on what Stirling did next.’

‘Ah.’ Gilchrist studied Gil for a moment, then nodded. ‘I’ll fetch the record book. Take a seat, sir. I’ll no be long.’

In fact he was nearly a quarter of an hour, slipping back into the chamber with a big leather-bound volume clasped against his white scapular.

‘Forgive me, maister,’ he said, drawing another stool up to the small table by the window. ‘I’d to deal wi another matter. The laundry seems to have lost three of the good linen sheets. Now, when was Canon Drummond here? About two week since, am I right?’ He leafed backward through the book. Its pages were filled with columns of neat tiny writing and figures, a total at the foot of each in red ink. ‘Aye, here we are. Andrew Drummond from Dunblane, stayed three nights with four, no, five men, and what’s this? Oh, I mind. He’d a woman wi his company, which was awkward as the women’s guest-hall was empty at the time. It’s unusual, but it happens.’

‘A woman?’ said Gil blankly. ‘Oh — he was bringing his bairns to their grandmother. Maybe he brought one of the maidservants along to see to them on the journey.’

‘I’d say she was more than a serving-lass,’ demurred Gilchrist. ‘She was maybe his — some woman’s companion. I set eyes on her myself, Mistress Ross she was cried, a decent enough woman past forty I’d say, but we’d to put her in a lodging out-by, and Maister Canon insisted we send her food out to her. So hardly a maidservant.’

‘That must have been inconvenient. Was she far away?’

‘No, no, just at Duncan Niven’s house by the dyer’s yard. He’s kin to one of our lay brothers, we’ve lodged other folk there afore now, though we don’t usually carry their food. The kitchen-folk swears we never got all the dishes back.’

‘Irritating,’ said Gil. ‘So what have you recorded here?’

‘It’s a note of all the dole offered,’ Gilchrist turned the book so that Gil could see the pages, ‘the provisions made use of, who ate what and where it was served up. Here’s Canon Drummond, see, two messes of food, one manchet loaf and two of maslin, ale and clean water, brought here to the guest hall from the kitchens, and the woman’s portion carried forth on a platter from here.’

‘You’re meticulous.’ Gil studied the orderly columns. ‘You even record the amount of the broken meats?’

‘We’re the stewards of what’s given over to us for charity,’ Gilchrist pointed out. ‘It’s no more than our duty to make certain it’s used well. The broken meats goes for feeding the poor at the gates the next day, and since the poor never get any less in number, Brother Almoner needs to have an idea how much broth he’ll need to make up the amount.’

Gil nodded, a finger on the date he wanted.

‘Did Drummond’s company leave in ones and twos?’

‘No that I recall,’ said Gilchrist, staring. ‘Why d’you ask?’

‘They’ve eaten well, though not inordinately.’ Gil paused, calculating. ‘Two messes of food served to six people, there would be enough left most days to feed another two mouths at least. Yes, here on the twenty-fourth you’ve noted exactly that. But on the twenty-fifth, you served up one mess of food only, and there was still some left over.’

‘I see what you’re saying,’ said Gilchrist, tilting his head. ‘Salmon in wine with onions and mustard, and they’ve barely picked at it.’ He lifted the corner of the page and peered at the verso. ‘Ah — here we are. Drummond left the next day. I recall that one of his men went ahead to order up the fresh horses and that, so he’d have been away before supper on the twenty-fifth.’

‘That’s only one down.’

‘Aye, but Canon Drummond ate his supper at the Bishop’s table that day.’

It was Gil’s turn to stare.

‘Did he so? The Bishop never told me that.’

‘Well, so Drummond’s man told my sub-Cellarer,’ qualified Gilchrist. ‘I know he came back late, for he’d to make quite a noise to waken Brother Porter and we all heard him as we came from Compline.’

‘Was he alone? When did he go out?’

The Cellarer shook his head.

‘Sometime after Nones. It would have been when we were all at our studies, I suppose. Brother Porter might remember — or James my Sub-Cellarer. Certainly he was on his own when he returned, for his man had to be woken to see him to bed.’

Gil looked at the columns of neat writing. If Drummond had eaten with Bishop Brown, it altered matters a lot, but if he had, why had he not taken his man with him? If he had not, then why had he said he was doing so? Was it the delusion of a man in the grip of melancholy? No, surely, his servant had said it was after they returned to Dunblane, after the second letter came from Balquhidder, that the melancholy settled on him. But could it have been starting already?

‘How was Canon Drummond in himself?’ he asked. ‘Did you have any words with him while he was here?’ Gilchrist raised his eyebrows. ‘The man had just lost his mistress,’ Gil expanded. ‘I wondered how he seemed to be taking it.’

‘So his servants told us,’ agreed the Cellarer. ‘I wondered at it, a bittie, for you’d never have thought it from his demeanour. Serious, yes, as befits a clerk, but not inordinately so, and not — not irrational, I’d have said.’

‘He did not,’ said Wat Currie. ‘We’d ha tellt you if he had done, Maister Cunningham. My lord’s reputation’s well known — he would never invite a churchman to his table who’d openly kept a mistress, particularly when it was a Perth lassie. Different if he’d already set her aside, or if we’d had to deal wi him on Holy Kirk’s business, a course.’

‘Yes, I see that,’ said Gil. ‘I wonder where he went? The Blackfriars’ sub-Cellarer said he went out about five of the clock, and his servant came back later saying the Canon would dine with Bishop Brown. He returned after Compline. Where has he been? And unattended at that.’ He glanced at the steward. ‘That reminds me, Peter thought Maister Stirling was unattended the day he vanished away. Is that right?’

‘Well, there’s none under this roof admitted to being wi him,’ said Wat. ‘More to the point, we’ve not found where he went. No sign of him on the Ditchlands by the Black-friars, no sign in the Ditch, and the households opposite saw nothing.’

‘He was seen,’ said Gil, suddenly recalling Mistress Doig’s statement. ‘In the last of the sunlight, making for the Red Brig as if he was coming back into Perth.’

‘Was he, now?’ said Wat, frowning. ‘After nine that would be. He’d a been gey late for his supper by then.’ He smacked a fist into the other palm. ‘Where has he got to? St Peter’s bones, how can a man just disappear like that, unattended or no?’

Easier than you’d believe, thought Gil. Aloud he said, ‘Did he go drinking? Did he have friends in the town? Maybe the alehouses along the Skinnergate could tell us something. And where do you suppose Canon Drummond ate his dinner, if it wasn’t here?’

‘No a notion.’ Wat pulled at his lower lip, scowling. ‘I’d say it wasny on the Skinnergate, for the Blackfriars likes to drink there when they’re in the town, they’re aye in one alehouse or another.’ He thought a little further. ‘If he went to a friend, we’ve little chance of finding out, but I suppose he could ha been wi a woman. Why d’you want to know?’

‘He’s still the last person we know of that spoke to James Stirling,’ Gil said. ‘If I know where he was, I might find where Stirling was.’

‘Aye.’ Wat reached for his tablets. ‘I’ll send the men out again after they’ve had their noon bite. They can ask at the taverns, and maybe at the various kirks in the place, supposing he was wi a colleague after all. And maybe we could get the crier to it and all. For the both of them. He’s already crying those two badges off Jaikie’s hat, and Rob Chaplain and I’ve been turning away folk wi lead St Jameses all morning.’

Fortified by a slab of bread and cold meat and a handful of raisins, Gil went back out across the Red Brig. Some enquiry took him to Duncan Niven’s house by the dyer’s yard; it proved to be a neat timber cottage down a vennel, where hens picked around the midden and a stout woman in a crisp white headdress and huge dye-splashed linen apron was sweeping the flagstones before the door. She glanced up at him curiously and bobbed a curtsy as he came down the vennel.

‘Good day, mistress,’ he said, raising his hat. ‘I’m seeking Duncan Niven’s house.’

‘And you’ve found it, sir,’ she said civilly, taking a closer look at him under well-groomed eyebrows. ‘What can we do for you, then? Was it a lodging you was wanting?’

‘No, I’m suited, thanks, but I’m hoping to find someone that did lodge here. A Mistress Ross, from Dunblane.’

Her intent look persisted. ‘What might you be wanting wi her?’ she asked, propping the broom against the house wall.

‘I’ve some questions for her, about Canon Drummond that brought her here.’

He waited, while a sequence of expressions chased across her face: surprise, interest, irritation at the mention of the Canon. Finally, confirming his growing suspicions, she said, ‘Well, ask away, maister. I’m Kate Ross, that was waiting-woman to Nan Chalmers, Christ assoil her. You’re lucky to find me — I’ve stayed on here, where I’m suited and Mistress Niven too, to lend a wee hand wi the house for a while, but I’ll go the morn’s morn to a new situation.’ She lifted the besom, and turned to the house door. ‘Will you come within, sir, and take a seat, and we can talk in comfort.’

Seated by the house door, her apron discarded to reveal a good gown of checked wool, she served him Mistress Niven’s ale and answered his questions. It quickly became clear that she needed to talk, as several years’ observation of Drummond’s treatment of her mistress spilled over and swamped him in a wash of rising resentment. He listened carefully, trying to retain as much as possible to share with Alys later; he was aware that she was much better at this sort of conversation than he was. Nevertheless, with two married sisters and five years’ practice at law, he had some grasp of the reality of human relationships. That shared by Andrew Drummond and his mistress had not been uniformly sweet, but he suspected it had not been as sour as Mistress Ross conveyed.

‘He would have no singing in the house,’ she was saying. ‘Not even a servant lassie singing at her work. It’s a strange thing, maister, how you never notice them singing until you’ve to prevent them doing it.’

‘No music at all?’ said Gil.

‘Oh, he’d to hear my mistress harping whenever he visited. Right fond of listening to the harp, he was. I’ve no notion where it went, either, that harp,’ she added, frowning. ‘By rights it should ha gone to wee Annie. But he’d have never a note of singing. She aye said it was the cost o her good life, but I’m no so certain it was a good life.’

‘Tell me more about Canon Drummond,’ he invited.

She snorted. ‘Canon, he calls himsel! No much of a priest, that one. Forbye his having my mistress in his keeping, and getting three bairns on her, may Our Lady receive her into grace,’ she paused to dab her eyes with the long ends of the fine linen kerchief on her head, ‘he was well acquaint wi the rest o the seven sins.’ Gil cocked an eyebrow at her across his empty beaker, and she wiped her eyes again and elaborated. ‘I never kent such a man for envying his fellow mortals. All his conversation was how this or that one about the Cathedral had been honoured above him, or the vote had gone against him at Chapter, or Bishop Chisholm had snubbed him. My poor mistress had her work to do keeping him sweet-tempered, and times it defeated even her to turn his thoughts to a Christian frame of mind.’

‘Lust, envy, pride,’ said Gil, counting off the sins she had identified.

‘Anger,’ she agreed, nodding so that the damp ends of her kerchief swung. ‘If he disliked aught you’d done or thought he’d been disobeyed he’d go all quiet, wi a voice like ice down your back, and nothing for it but to undo what had angered him and apologize.’

‘That’s four out of the seven,’ said Gil.

‘Aye, and him a priest.’ She shook her head. ‘And the way he treats those bairns — see, wee James would make a bonnie singer if he’s ever taught right, and the lassie, Annie, would aye sing at her play the way a bairn will, and if he heard them he’d call them afore him in a rage and though he’d never lay a finger on them, just talk at them wi that same voice like ice, they were both feart of his temper. I saw the laddie wet himsel one time his father was chastising him.’

Gil frowned, trying to reconcile this image of Andrew Drummond with the others he had received. It did not seem to fit.

‘When I saw him in Dunblane the other day — ’ he began.

‘And that’s another thing,’ Mistress Ross pursued. ‘He brought the bairns here, would have me accompany them, then paid me off, and he’s away back to Dunblane and left me here. He never asked if it would suit me to be set down in Perth wi no employment, nor gave me the gown and velvet headdress my mistress left me in her will.’

Could this be the crux of her resentment? Gil wondered.

‘He seems to have slipped into a great melancholy since he was here in Perth,’ he continued. ‘Is that like him, would you say?’

She gazed at him, arrested for a moment, then leaned forward and poured more ale for both of them while she thought about this.

‘I’d never ha said so,’ she pronounced. ‘I’d ha thought it more like him to fly in one of those quiet rages and take it out on those round him. But there’s no saying how a man will react to a great loss, and when all’s said he was right fond o my mistress, however ill he treated her. None of your great romantic passions like in the ballads,’ she qualified, ‘but you’d only to see him smile at her, and the way he wept the night she — ’ She broke off, and turned her head away. It was clear she had loved her mistress too.

‘Did he speak to you before he left the Blackfriars?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, he was here that evening. He came to let me know he’d be away and leaving me here, and that they’d cease to carry my food here after that night’s supper.’ She faced him again, a sour smile on her lips. ‘We’d plainer fare to eat after that, I can tell you, maister. The friars keep a high diet, poverty or no poverty. And Jennet — Mistress Niven — swears they went off wi two of her good dishes instead of their own when they collected the last ones.’

‘What time would that be, that the Canon was here that evening?’

‘About the time Niven came home from the dyer’s yard,’ she said promptly, ‘for he passed him in the vennel there.’

‘And what time would that be?’ he persisted. She paused to consider.

‘Niven was late that evening,’ she said at length. ‘Jennet was home afore him, on account of wishing to see to his supper and her tasks was finished. She works at the dyeyard and all,’ she explained. ‘She was in at maybe her usual time, and she’d got the stewpot on the fire and simmering, for the Canon made mention of how good the smell was. She was right gratified, till he turned round and gave me my place wi no notice.’

‘So that was an hour or so after she got home?’ Gil hazarded, with a glance at the peat fire in the centre of the room.

‘Aye, likely,’ she agreed, in a tone which left him disinclined to rely on the fact. ‘What’s your interest in Drummond, maister? What’s it to you when I last set eyes on him?’

‘I’m tracking this man that’s missing,’ he explained, ‘the Bishop’s secretary, and it seems as if Canon Drummond was the last to speak wi him. He was alone when he came here?’

‘Oh, aye.’ She hesitated, then went on, ‘Maybe that would account for his mood, if he spoke to a man that’s disappeared.’ Gil made an encouraging noise, and she gave him a reluctant glance. ‘I’ve no liking for clypes, maister, but — ’ She closed her mouth tightly, stared at the two pewter dishes on the plate-cupboard for a moment, then began again. ‘There was one of the songmen at Dunblane that just up and vanished one day a month or so back, they’ve never got to the bottom of it and folk were saying it was the Deil flew off wi him, though why — I’d spoken wi the man mysel a time or two, and one of my cousins is in Bishop Chisholm’s household and knew him to be a decent body, you’d never take him for a man the Deil would — though they tell us any of us is wicked sinner enough — ’ She broke off this muddled utterance and drew a breath. ‘The Canon was right satisfied about it.’

‘Satisfied?’ Gil repeated, puzzled.

‘Oh, aye. As if he’d had a nice wee gift. All lit up and gratified he was, out at our house the next day, telling my mistress all the tale, which she’d heard already for I’d spoke to the soutar’s wife that cooked his food to the songman, the very day it happened. Vanished, he said to her, and none kens where he’s gone, and that’s one singer the less in Dunblane. A judgement on him, he said, but when my mistress wished to hear more he would have her harp for him instead.’

‘A judgement on him?’

‘That’s what he said. And why I’m minded o this, maister, is he was in much the same mood when he cam here to turn me off. Lit up, as if he’d been gied some great benefit, or seen someone else cast down, I thought, but if another man had vanished — was he a singer?’

‘No, he was the Bishop’s secretary, though he was a singer when he was young, and knew Canon Drummond then as well. But this was before the man vanished away, for he was seen down by the Ditch later that evening,’ said Gil. ‘I suppose it might have been something they said when they were speaking together.’

‘Maybe the Canon got the better of an argument wi him,’ she agreed, accepting this. ‘That would please him and all.’

‘And that was the last time you saw Canon Drummond?’

‘Well, it’s the last I spoke wi him,’ she qualified, ‘and no loss to me that is, save for my mistress’s gown and velvet headdress.’

‘Do you mean you saw him again?’

‘We all three saw him.’ She gestured round the quiet house. ‘We’d gone in across the Red Brig after our supper, Jennet and her man and me, for a stoup or two at the Horn tavern on the Skinnergate, seeing I was kind of cast down about losing my place at no notice, and we set eye on the Canon both coming and going. It was Jennet pointed him out to me, and — ’

‘Where was he?’ Gil asked hopefully. ‘Was anyone with him?’

‘Just in the Skinnergate, away at the far end. He’d be going into the town to his supper, likely. If you’ve met him, sir, you’ll ken he’s a big man, easy to be seen in a crowd. I just caught a glimp of him among all the heads, but I thought maybe he’d wee James wi him, the way he was looking down and talking as he went, though it was ower late for the laddie to be out. And then when we cam out the tavern and across the brig again, there he was ahead of us on the path his lone. I mind it well for Jennet said, You’ll not get away from the man! and we all laughed.’

It had been a good evening in the tavern, Gil decided.

‘Was he coming or going on the path?’ he asked.

‘He was just taking the road back to Blackfriars. I suppose he’d new come from the town, or maybe been a walk along by the waterside. It’s a pleasant walk of an evening, there’s aye one or two folk on the path.’

‘And that was late on?’

‘Oh, aye. The sun was not long down — we was near the last out through the gate afore they barred it. There was light enough in the sky to go by, it was a clear night, and no mistaking the man given I’d been ten year in my mis-tress’s household. The way his hair looks when he needs barbered, you’d ken him a mile off.’

Gil looked reflectively into his beaker. Misreading his intent, Mistress Ross leaned forward to pour more ale.

‘Did you see any others on the path?’ he asked. ‘Or coming into the town across the Red Brig?’

She thought briefly, but shook her head. ‘There’s aye one or two folks stirring, it’s no like Dunblane. I wouldny mind one evening better than another, sir.’

‘The man I’m looking for had a hat like no other,’ he said, and described Stirling’s collection of badges. This got a more definite shake of the head.

‘No, no, sir, I’ve not seen sic a thing.’ She laughed tolerantly. ‘There’s aye something folk likes to collect, but I’ll wager that cost him plenty in shoe leather and candles, to win that mony badges.’

The boy Malky had said much the same thing, Gil reflected.

‘Did you take the bairns direct to their grandam?’ he asked.

She snorted. ‘You’re right to ask me, sir, for I did not. He bore them off while Niven’s brother that’s a lay-brother walked me out here, and I’d never a chance to say farewell, poor wee souls.’

‘Have you seen them since? Spoken to Mistress Cornton?’

‘I have not,’ she admitted. ‘I never liked — I was feart she’d think I was after a place, and it would never suit. I’ve a good prospect now, and — ’

‘I’d think Mistress Cornton would be glad to see you,’ he said. ‘Your mistress was her only daughter, she’d likely welcome hearing of her life in Dunblane.’

‘That’s a true word,’ she said. ‘And I’d like fine to see the bairns. It’s a good thought, maister.’

He walked back towards the Red Brig, thinking hard, then turned aside along the path by the Ditch and sat down with his back against an alder tree to consider this information. It was now certain that he should return to Dunblane and interview Canon Drummond; at the very least the man must have been the last to see James Stirling alive but also, he thought grimly, he might have been the first to see him dead as well. Did that add up? What do I know? he asked himself, and took out his tablets.

Stirling had left the tanyard about four of the clock, by Cornton’s account. He had fetched up at the dog-breeder’s yard, where he had encountered Drummond. That tallied with what the Blackfriars had said of Drummond’s movements. By six of the clock Stirling and Drummond together were walking out here on the Ditchlands, talking about Judas and forgiveness. The next few hours held several sightings of Drummond alone, but none of Stirling until Mistress Doig recognized him at sunset on the track going into Perth. Going towards the town, he corrected himself. Where was he all that time? Where did he find his supper? Meanwhile Drummond had not eaten with the Bishop, and was finally seen on this path by the Ditch, no more than half an hour after sunset, alone.

He looked at the list he had made. That space between sunset and darkness seemed to be the important slot. Was it long enough for two men to meet and quarrel somewhere along here, for one to be slain and hidden so securely that he had not yet been found, his hat left by the path where the boy found it in the morning? I suppose it is, he answered himself, if the quarrel was carried over from their earlier talk together. Would the path be deserted? Perhaps not, but it would hardly be busy. No more than three persons had passed while he sat here thinking, in late afternoon. And where would the body go? The Ditch was the obvious place, and with a current like that, and the depth of water it contained, it would take some dragging to find a corpse, even one two weeks old which should have floated by now.

But what was their quarrel about? What did the reference to Judas imply? Judas the traitor hanged himself, not another. Whose death had one of these men brought about? Or had Drummond accused Stirling of treason? Questions, questions, he thought impatiently, but that one might lead me on a sound trail. Doig had been trafficking in information when he lived in Glasgow, he might well be doing the same here, and James Stirling was at the Bishop’s elbow when he negotiated the last truce with England. There were princes overseas who would pay to learn the precise terms of the truce, not to mention Margaret of Burgundy. Suppose either Doig or Stirling was involved in that, could Drummond have learned of it? And how did Drummond know Doig anyway?

And then there was the matter of the badges missing from the hat. Did it have any bearing on Stirling’s disappearance, or not? I need to speak to Andrew Drummond, and that soon, he told himself. How early can we be off in the morning?

He got to his feet, tucking his tablets back into their pouch. As he stepped on to the path a small figure twenty or thirty yards off waved wildly and shouted his name. He paused, and Maister Cornton’s boy Malky ran up, saying in excited tones:

‘I kent I’d seen you gang this way, maister. My maister’s begging a word wi you. He’s found a strange thing at the back o the yard, he’d like you to take a look at.’

‘What kind of a strange thing?’ Gil asked. The boy shook his head.

‘I never seen it,’ he said regretfully. ‘Just my maister and Rob and Simon, that’s the journeymen,’ he explained, ‘was up that end the yard and came down and sent me and Martin and Ally out to find you. And they’ve both went into the town, but I thought I’d seen you gang along here by the Ditch.’ He turned hopefully, obviously expecting Gil to follow him, and looking exactly like a puppy waiting for a stick to be thrown. Gil grinned, gave him a penny, and obligingly set off towards the tanyard.

Maister Cornton was in his counting-house, seated by his desk and gazing thoughtfully at a small bright object on the green baize. He looked up as Gil tapped at the open door, and nodded.

‘They found you,’ he said. ‘What d’you make of this?’

Gil stepped over beside him and discovered the object of his contemplation to be a pilgrim badge, probably of silver, in the shape of a horse. On its saddle were an anvil and hammer big enough to have brought the creature to its knees. Tiny letters incised on the anvil read S ELIGIVS.

‘St Eloi’s horse from Noyon,’ he said.

‘So it would seem,’ agreed Cornton, ‘though it’s far better quality than other Eloi badges I’ve seen. Is it familiar to you, maister?’

‘It could be one of the two we’re looking for,’ he admitted. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘Put it safe, and I’ll show you.’ Cornton set off out through the drying-loft and into the yard, saying over his shoulder, ‘The bellman was crying two missing pilgrim badges, as well as the question of where my landlord ate his supper the day I saw him last, and who saw some fellow of Dunblane, so when my man Rob found this I reckoned I’d best send for you.’

He picked his way into the further reaches of his domain, past open sheds containing trestles and racks of skins, vats of strong-smelling liquors, reeking stacks of raw skins, the two small carts Gil had seen earlier. Beyond the sheds were a series of pits like the one near the gate, but these were covered by weighted planks. It was easier to breathe out here, Gil found.

‘That’s the tanpits,’ said Cornton, waving at them. ‘See, we do the first soaking and bating down the front of the yard, where it’s under my eye, because the skins needs turned or shifted daily. Right?’ Gil nodded. ‘But once they’re in the tanpits they lie for months — up to a year for your stoutest leathers — and we shift the bark maybe every couple of months, no oftener. So the tanpits is all up here out the road and though I take a look round afore I lock up in the evening, we’re not working in this bit that often. Which means the Deil alone kens how long that badge has been lying here, though I suppose it canny be more than two weeks. Right?’ Gil nodded again, and Cornton led him to the far end of the yard, where one of his journeymen stood by a pit morosely watching the bubbles rise and burst in the scum between the wet planks. ‘Show him where you found it, Robin.’

At the sound of his voice, several dogs broke out in a fanfare of barking, quite near. Gil looked round, startled to realize how close they were to the Doigs’ yard.

‘Is there a reward?’ asked the man, ignoring this. Cornton raised his arm to him, but he said hardily, ‘The bellman said there was a reward. I found it, I should get the reward for it.’

‘We’ll ask at the Bishop’s steward,’ Gil said. ‘Now show me where it was lying.’

‘Just by that stick there.’ Rob nodded at a stick driven into the earth nearby. ‘I marked it, like the maister tellt me.’

They were near the boundary with the dye yard next door; it was marked by a fence perhaps four feet high, of tightly woven wattle hurdles rather than planks like that at the front of the yard. The ground was well trampled here, with small likelihood of picking out any footprints. The marker stake was midway between the fence and the tanpit where the bubbles were rising.

‘It might have been thrown over the fence from the dye yard,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But if so, why not cast further, and aim for the pit itself? It would never be found if it went in there.’

‘Maybe no,’ agreed Rob, ‘but maybe aye. I’m thinking one o these oxhides is on the turn, maister, there’s ower many bubbles and they stink something rotten. We’ll ha to fetch them up, and yir badge might ha come up along wi them. Maybe the ither’s in there yet,’ he added, brightening slightly.

‘They do stink,’ agreed Cornton, sniffing. ‘I don’t like the smell of that. We ought to fetch them up afore the whole lot turns.’

‘No reason why you shouldn’t get on and deal with it,’ said Gil, pacing along the fence. ‘I’ll keep out of your way.’ He bent to peer behind some stained planks which were propped against the fence, but found nothing significant. ‘Is there a gate this end of the yard, maister?’

‘Fetch Simon and the laddies,’ said Cornton to his man, ‘bid them bring the long poles and all. A gate, Maister Cunningham?’ He turned to fix Gil with a sharp stare. ‘No, there’s only the one way in unless you sclim the fence. Which I’m aware bad laddies do from time to time,’ he added, ‘though I’d say we’ve had no damage or mischief in the yard since Hunt-the-Gowk time. Are you thinking someone’s been in here? I took it, like you, the badge had been thrown from over the fence.’

‘It could have been,’ agreed Gil cautiously. ‘Does your neighbour lock up at night too?’

‘He does.’

Gil looked about them. The yard was perhaps twenty good paces across, although much longer, and from where he stood the fencing appeared sound all round; the structure of woven hurdles lashed to hazelwood stakes beside him turned the corner to extend across the narrow end of the property, then changed to sturdy planks at the opposite side. The path to the Blackfriars must be on the other side of the planks, but his view of it was cut off by a small open shed containing another tall rack of skins. Just over the fence beside him a complex system of cords and poles in the dyer’s yard supported bright webs of cloth and hanks of thread. The dyer’s plot was shorter than the tan-yard, and in the angle of the two — yes, that was Doig’s yard, just next to him though it was near ten minutes’ walk by the track. As he stood frowning, working out the twists and turns, Mistress Doig emerged from the house and shouted at the dogs. Silence fell, she glared over the fence at them, and Cornton said:

‘They’re neighbours I could do without, you’ll see.’ Gil grunted, and leaned over the stakes nearest him to look into the dyer’s property. The ground there was as well trampled as that in the tanyard, and the grass and dandelions at the base of the fence showed nothing untoward.

‘If it was two weeks since,’ said Cornton, echoing his thoughts, ‘there’ll be little trace left by now.’

‘How would bad laddies get in here without someone seeing and hunting them out?’

‘Same as I said, over the fence. There’s plenty hideyholes once you’re in the yard. I’m aye feart one will get hissel drowned,’ Cornton confessed, ‘that’s why we’ve as many planks on the tanpits, it doesny need that many to hold it all down.’

Looking along the fence, scanning the woven withies and the vegetation at their feet, Gil was half aware of the men returning, carrying the poles Cornton had ordered and rolling two rumbling half-barrels. The apprentices set to work with buckets, baling out the liquid in the pit and slopping it into the tubs with much splashing, despite the remonstrations of their seniors, who meanwhile dragged the netted stones off the planks and began to raise them. More bubbles rose and broke at this, and the other journeyman, downwind, fell back with an exclamation of disgust.

‘Maister, that’s foul! What’s come to they hides? I never smelled anything like it at this stage!’

‘Eeugh!’ agreed the middle-sized apprentice dramatically. A lively youngster, Gil thought, bending to look at a black mark on the fence. It sprouted legs and hurried off into the hollow of the weaving as he approached: one of those finger-long beetles that only seemed to appear at this time of year.

‘Call yoursels tanners?’ said their master jeeringly. ‘My, you’re delicate the day, the lot of you — ’ He broke off and coughed, and then said with more sympathy, ‘Aye, well, I’ll admit that’s strong. Away and fetch a cloth to your nose, any of you, if you wish.’

Nobody took up this permission. Gil crossed the short end of the yard, scanning the hurdles, which were firmly laced to the upright stobs from the other side, none of them sagging as he would have expected if they had been recently climbed. The fence was obviously the neighbour’s responsibility here; the plot was a small one, with a sagging house surrounded by a quantity of short lengths of wood and little heaps of shavings, but there was no sign of the occupier or of anything which might be related to the St Eloi badge. He moved on to the corner by the track where wattle gave way to planks, finding some surprising things in the tufts of grass and willow-herb but still no trace of any recent illicit entry to the tanner’s policies. Wondering how a single horn spoon came to be wedged under one plank, the leg of a wooden horse under another, he looked back round his shoulder and found he could see only the apprentices moving to and fro with their buckets, his view cut off by the same drying-shed. Judging by the directions Cornton was issuing, the journeymen had begun the task of raising the stacked hides one at a time, brushing the oak-bark chips between them off into the surrounding liquor as they went.

He leaned over the fence, but found the track as uninformative as the dyer’s yard had been. At least, he corrected himself, it tells me nobody entered the yard this way. No marks on the fencing, no trampled patch at the foot of the planks, no sign of any recent attempt to climb in. Could he be sure recent included the whole of the last two weeks? he wondered.

There was a horrified yell from the tanpit. The dogs began to bark in answer as he jerked upright and round, staring. There was another yell, but he was already running.

‘What is it, man?’ demanded Cornton’s voice as he rounded the shed. ‘What gart ye skirl like that? Simon?’

Simon was clinging to his long pole as if he was drowning, his face a mask of horror as he stared into the pit. Rob and the older journeyman were gaping at him, but the boy Ally was on his knees by one of the half-barrels, trawling through its contents with his bucket.

‘I seen it,’ he said in excitement, ‘I seen something go in here.’

‘It was a ratton drowned in the pit,’ said the older man. ‘No need for — ’

‘It was a hand,’ said Simon, his voice shrill. ‘It — a hand, I tell you!’

‘Aye, and there’s the other one,’ said his master grimly, hauling another layer of partly cured hide towards their feet. ‘Look yonder, under the surface. Hand, arm — ’

‘You mean it’s a whole corp?’ said Ally, round-eyed.

‘Is he all in there? Watch, or he’ll come apart!’ said Rob. ‘Who is it, anyway? St Peter’s bones, how he stinks. How long’s he been down there?’

‘I think we can guess who,’ said Gil. Cornton caught his eye across the pit, and nodded. ‘And if so, then we know how long. Is that the head?’

‘Aye, it is.’ Rob reached in with his long pole and prodded the floating mat of hair. It swirled and clung to the hook on the end of the pole, and the head rolled slackly in the water and fell back again. ‘He’s face down, I’d say.’

‘Andro?’ said a voice from among the forest of bright hangings over the fence. ‘Is all well? What was that great skelloch about?’ A lanky fair-haired man emerged between two strips of indigo linen, and set multicoloured hands on the fence. ‘St Nicholas’ balls, man, what a stink! What have you found there?’

‘Aye, we’re all sound, William, and glad of your concern,’ said Cornton. ‘It’s naught but something unlookedfor in this pit of cowhides.’

‘What would that be, then?’ asked William hopefully. ‘Is it a drowned pig, or what?’

‘It’s a deid man!’ burst out Ally. ‘He’s all drowned in the tanpit and turned to leather!’

‘I’m no certain yet,’ said Cornton, and clapped a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘William, would you do me a kindness?’

‘Anything, anything!’ said William avidly, stretching his neck. ‘Can we help you lift him, whatever you’ve found?’

‘No, no, we’ve enough hands here. If you’d send one of your lads for the constable, we can get on wi this task.’

‘For the constable? What need of him, for a drowned pig? Is the laddie right, and it’s a man, then? Who could it be?’

‘We’ll maybe ken what it is,’ said Cornton firmly, ‘by the time he gets here. I’d be right glad of the favour, William.’

The dyer retreated, with reluctance. Cornton glared at his back as it vanished between the linen webs, but said only, ‘There’s no saying he drowned here, Ally, you ill-schooled laddie, and no saying who it is yet.’

‘But it’s a man rather than a woman,’ Gil said, ‘by the length of the hair. Now we have to work out how to get him out.’

‘A bonny task for a hot August day,’ said the elder journeyman, ‘wi all his fingers dropping off him.’

‘Will he no be half-tanned?’ suggested Ally. The other two apprentices seemed to have vanished. ‘I’d a thought he’d hold together, no fall apart.’

‘Aye, but the bark’s only lying one side o his hide,’ said his master. ‘There’s still all the flesh and the fat within — ’ He stopped, and aimed an angry cuff at the boy, who ducked expertly. ‘What am I saying? You don’t tan a Christian soul, you heathen laddie. Maister Cunningham, what do we do here? This is beyond my experience.’

Beyond mine, too, thought Gil. Aloud he said, ‘You’ll need to get all the hides off him, for a start. Then maybe we can get him on to a hurdle or the like, and lift him out of there.’

‘Or send to Archie McNab the joiner and see if he’s a coffin by him,’ suggested Rob. ‘Simon, man, are you well?’

Simon shook his head. He was still clinging to the pole, and had turned an unpleasant green colour.

‘It was the way it beckoned,’ he said faintly, ‘like it was calling me. The hand. When it went into the tub, ye ken. It seemed like it was calling me.’

‘It’s here,’ said Ally with some pride. ‘I fished it back out.’ He peered into his bucket and swirled the dark brown liquid it held. ‘See, it’s in here under the tan.’

Even with Gil lending a hand under Cornton’s decisive directions, it was a good hour before they got the corpse out of the pit. There had been only two cowhides remaining on top of it, but the need to remove these with care slowed matters down, and the state of the corpse itself made getting it on to a hurdle a ticklish business, even though the woollen garments held the thing together to a great extent. In the end they lifted it complete with the part-cured hide beneath it, and transferred the lot to the waiting hurdle, with the interested advice of most of the workers in the dyer’s yard, who hung over the fence slightly to one side to avoid the direct breeze.

‘And where’s wee Malky?’ asked his master in quiet concern. ‘He’ll ha bad dreams if he sets an eye on this.’

‘I left him in the counting-house, maister,’ said the oldest apprentice, who had rejoined the working party in time to help with the final move. ‘He’d had a sair fright.’

‘I think we’ll all ha bad dreams,’ muttered Rob. ‘I’ll never get the stink of him out my nostrils, I can tell you.’

‘Och, no, it’s worse a burning,’ said the elder man, whose name seemed to be Bartol. ‘The stink o that lasts you for weeks.’

‘Where’s your respect?’ demanded Cornton. ‘We’ll ha less of that talk in the presence of Death.’ He crossed himself, said formally to the corpse, ‘May Christ Jesus and all His saints receive you into Paradise, Maister Stirling,’ then turned to Gil and said, ‘I’m near certain it’s him, the clothes is right, but I’ll need a look at his face afore I swear to it.’

‘What I’m wondering,’ said Rob, staring gloomily at the hurdle, ‘is how he got into that pit o cowhides. He never tucked hissel up like that, let alone putting the stones back on the planks, I’d say.’

‘No, he never.’ Cornton looked at his stricken journeyman, who had refused to leave but was still leaning greenly against the fence, unable to help with the grisly work. ‘Simon, lad, away down the yard and bring me back a bucket of clean water and a cloth, if you will.’

‘I’ll go!’ Ally sprang to his feet.

‘Simon will go. You break me a stalk off that grass. No, one of the stout ones.’ Cornton watched his man out of sight. ‘Maister Cunningham, see this.’ He took the grass-stem from Ally, bent and and used it to part the corpse’s wet hair, lifting the locks aside until the nape of the neck was exposed. ‘Look here. He never died by accident.’

‘Is he hunting wee louses?’ enquired one of the watchers at the fence.

‘There’ll be nothing running by now, surely,’ offered another. ‘They’ll all be drowned in the tan for certain.’

‘I never thought it,’ said Gil slowly, staring at the crossbow bolt lodged in the base of James Stirling’s skull. ‘But that makes it certain. And he wasny drowned in the tan,’ he added, ‘for he’d be dead when he went in. That would slay him on the instant.’ And what of the hat he was wearing? he wondered. Were the two badges removed because they were damaged? Not by the shot, surely, the bolt would have struck below the brim. But why not throw the hat in with him? Why take it away at all?

‘Let’s hope it did,’ said Cornton. ‘But why? What was he doing to be shot in my yard? Why’s he in my tanpit anyway? Did he — ’ He paused, open-mouthed, and Gil saw him realize for the first time that he might be under suspicion himself. ‘No. I never. I swear I never.’

‘Do you have a bow?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, I do. A’body does, crossbow or longbow, to take to the butts on a Sunday. You’ve one yoursel, maister, I dare say.’

‘Did you leave here at the usual time that day?’ Gil went on, nodding to this.

‘So far’s I mind, aye, we all left as usual, and I was last wi the keys and locked the padlock on the gate as I aye do.’

‘And where were you the rest of the evening?’ Gil asked.

‘Home wi my wife and household, helping her decide on where Drummond’s bairns would sleep and who would nurse them.’ He laughed sourly. ‘After two nights wi the wee lass pissing our bed, if I was to slay any man in secret murder it would ha been Andrew Drummond, no my good landlord.’

Gil nodded again, accepting the force of the argument, and looked down at the flaccid corpse. This made less sense than ever, he thought, but it also made it less urgent to find Andrew Drummond. There was simply not time after they had both been seen last for him to have killed this man, got the corpse back here and into the tanpit, and then reached Blackfriars at the end of Compline.

‘Here’s Willie Reid now,’ announced Ally importantly. The journeyman Simon appeared from further down the yard, carrying a bucket and cloth and followed by a tall lean-faced fellow in the burgh livery, his official staff over his shoulder.

‘Well, now,’ said the constable, and grimaced as he caught the first waft from the corpse. ‘What have we here, then?’